ENG 272: Survey of English Literature II Course Packet Zatlin

2. Arnold, Matthew Dover Beach

Paired reading: Hecht, The Dover Bitch

4. Lord Byron Canto the First, Don Juan

57. Carlyle, Thomas Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question

67. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Kubla Khan

88. Darwin, Charles Chapter 14, On the Origin of Species

101. Eliot, George Silly Novels by Lady Novelists

116. Eliot, T.S. The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

120. Forster, E.M. What I Believe from Two Cheers for Democracy

128. Gaskell, Elizabeth Lizzie Leigh

151. Keats, John The Odes
The Eve of St. Agnes
On First Looking into Chapmans Homer

168. Lawrence, D.H. Tortoise Shout

171. Mill, John Stuart Chapter II, Utilitarianism
Chapter I, Essay on Liberty

192. Ruskin, John Sesame and Lilies: Lecture III

214. Shelley, Mary Chapters 4 and 5, Frankenstein

224. Lord Tennyson The Kraken
The Lady of Shalott
Tithonus

232. Wilde, Oscar De Profundis

258. Wollstonecraft, Mary A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapters 4&6

281. Wordsworth, William Tintern Abbey
Daffodils
We are Seven
Simon Lee
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

305. Yeats, W.B. Sailing to Byzantium
The Second Coming
The Circus Animals Desertion

309. Zangwill, Israel Chapter 16, Children of the Ghetto

2

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold (182288)


THE SEA is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
5
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanchd sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
10
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
15
Heard it on the gan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
20

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earths shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furld.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
25
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-winds, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
30
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
3
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
35
Swept with confusd alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The Dover Bitch

by Anthony Hecht

A Criticism of Life: for Andrews Wanning
So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.'
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come.
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.


4
Don Juan: CANTO THE FIRST
I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan --
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.
II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow[1]:
France, too, had Buonapart and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.
III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.
IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.
5
V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon[2]
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten: -- I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.
VI
Most epic poets plunge "in medias res"[3]
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,
What went before -- by way of episode,
While seated after dinner at his ease,
Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.
VII
That is the usual method, but not mine --
My way is to begin with the beginning;
The regularity of my design
Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
And therefore I shall open with a line
(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,
And also of his mother, if you'd rather.
VIII
In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,
Famous for oranges and women -- he
Who has not seen it will be much to pity,
So says the proverb -- and I quite agree;
Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,
Cadiz perhaps -- but that you soon may see;
Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,
A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir.
IX
6
His father's name was Jse -- Don, of course, --
A true Hidalgo, free from every stain
Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;
A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse,
Or, being mounted, e'er got down again,
Than Jse, who begot our hero, who
Begot -- but that's to come -- Well, to renew:
X
His mother[4] was a learnd lady, famed
For every branch of every science known
In every Christian language ever named,
With virtues equall'd by her wit alone,
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
And even the good with inward envy groan,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded
In their own way by all the things that she did.
XI
Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart
All Calderon and greater part of Lop,
So that if any actor miss'd his part
She could have served him for the prompter's copy;
For her Feinagle's[5] were an useless art,
And he himself obliged to shut up shop -- he
Could never make a memory so fine as
That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez.
XII
Her favourite science was the mathematical,
Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,
Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,
Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity;
In short, in all things she was fairly what I call
A prodigy -- her morning dress was dimity,
Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzzling.
XIII
She knew the Latin -- that is, "the Lord's prayer,"
And Greek -- the alphabet -- I'm nearly sure;
7
She read some French romances here and there,
Although her mode of speaking was not pure;
For native Spanish she had no great care,
At least her conversation was obscure;
Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem,
As if she deem'd that mystery would ennoble 'em.
XIV
She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,
And said there was analogy between 'em;
She proved it somehow out of sacred song,
But I must leave the proofs to those who've seen 'em;
But this I heard her say, and can't be wrong
And all may think which way their judgments lean 'em,
"'T is strange -- the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,'
The English always used to govern d--n."
XV
Some women use their tongues -- she look'd a lecture,
Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily,
An all-in-all sufficient self-director,
Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,
The Law's expounder, and the State's corrector,
Whose suicide was almost an anomaly --
One sad example more, that "All is vanity"
(The jury brought their verdict in "Insanity").
XVI
In short, she was a walking calculation,
Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers,
Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education,
Or "Coelebs' Wife" set out in quest of lovers,
Morality's prim personification,
In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers;
To others' share let "female errors fall,"[6]
For she had not even one -- the worst of all.
XVII
Oh! she was perfect past all parallel --
Of any modern female saint's comparison;
So far above the cunning powers of hell,
Her guardian angel had given up his garrison;
8
Even her minutest motions went as well
As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison:
In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,
Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar! [*] [7]
XVIII
Perfect she was, but as perfection is
Insipid in this naughty world of ours,
Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss
Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers,
Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss
(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours),
Don Jse, like a lineal son of Eve,
Went plucking various fruit without her leave.
XIX
He was a mortal of the careless kind,
With no great love for learning, or the learn'd,
Who chose to go where'er he had a mind,
And never dream'd his lady was concern'd;
The world, as usual, wickedly inclined
To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd,
Whisper'd he had a mistress, some said two --
But for domestic quarrels one will do.
XX
Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit,
A great opinion of her own good qualities;
Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it,
And such, indeed, she was in her moralities;
But then she had a devil of a spirit,
And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities,
And let few opportunities escape
Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.
XXI
This was an easy matter with a man
Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard;
And even the wisest, do the best they can,
Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared,
That you might "brain them with their lady's fan;"[8]
And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,
9
And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,
And why and wherefore no one understands.
XXII
'T is pity learnd virgins ever wed
With persons of no sort of education,
Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred,
Grow tired of scientific conversation:
I don't choose to say much upon this head,
I'm a plain man, and in a single station,
But -- Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
XXIII
Don Jse and his lady quarrell'd -- why,
Not any of the many could divine,
Though several thousand people chose to try,
'T was surely no concern of theirs nor mine;
I loathe that low vice -- curiosity;
But if there's anything in which I shine,
'T is in arranging all my friends' affairs,
Not having of my own domestic cares.
XXIV
And so I interfered, and with the best
Intentions, but their treatment was not kind;
I think the foolish people were possess'd,
For neither of them could I ever find,
Although their porter afterwards confess'd --
But that's no matter, and the worst's behind,
For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs,
A pail of housemaid's water unawares.
XXV
A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
And mischief-making monkey from his birth;
His parents ne'er agreed except in doting
Upon the most unquiet imp on earth;
Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in
Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth
To school, or had him soundly whipp'd at home,
To teach him manners for the time to come.
10
XXVI
Don Jse and the Donna Inez led
For some time an unhappy sort of life,
Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;
They lived respectably as man and wife,
Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred,
And gave no outward signs of inward strife,
Until at length the smother'd fire broke out,
And put the business past all kind of doubt.
XXVII
For Inez call'd some druggists and physicians,
And tried to prove her loving lord was mad;
But as he had some lucid intermissions,
She next decided he was only bad;
Yet when they ask'd her for her depositions,
No sort of explanation could be had,
Save that her duty both to man and God
Required this conduct -- which seem'd very odd.
XXVIII
She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,
And open'd certain trunks of books and letters,
All which might, if occasion served, be quoted;
And then she had all Seville for abettors,
Besides her good old grandmother (who doted);
The hearers of her case became repeaters,
Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,
Some for amusement, others for old grudges.
XXIX
And then this best and weakest woman bore
With such serenity her husband's woes,
Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,
Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose
Never to say a word about them more --
Calmly she heard each calumny that rose,
And saw his agonies with such sublimity,
That all the world exclaim'd, "What magnanimity!"
XXX
11
No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us,
Is philosophic in our former friends;
'T is also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous,
The more so in obtaining our own ends;
And what the lawyers call a "malus animus"
Conduct like this by no means comprehends;
Revenge in person's certainly no virtue,
But then 't is not my fault, if others hurt you.
XXXI
And if your quarrels should rip up old stories,
And help them with a lie or two additional,
I'm not to blame, as you well know -- no more is
Any one else -- they were become traditional;
Besides, their resurrection aids our glories
By contrast, which is what we just were wishing all:
And science profits by this resurrection --
Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.
XXXII
Their friends had tried at reconciliation,
Then their relations, who made matters worse.
('T were hard to tell upon a like occasion
To whom it may be best to have recourse --
I can't say much for friend or yet relation):
The lawyers did their utmost for divorce,
But scarce a fee was paid on either side
Before, unluckily, Don Jse died.
XXXIII
He died: and most unluckily, because,
According to all hints I could collect
From counsel learnd in those kinds of laws
(Although their talk's obscure and circumspect),
His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;
A thousand pities also with respect
To public feeling, which on this occasion
Was manifested in a great sensation.
XXXIV
But, ah! he died; and buried with him lay
The public feeling and the lawyers' fees:
12
His house was sold, his servants sent away,
A Jew took one of his two mistresses,
A priest the other -- at least so they say:
I ask'd the doctors after his disease --
He died of the slow fever call'd the tertian,
And left his widow to her own aversion.
XXXV
Yet Jse was an honourable man,
That I must say who knew him very well;
Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan
Indeed there were not many more to tell;
And if his passions now and then outran
Discretion, and were not so peaceable
As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius),[*] [9]
He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.
XXXVI
Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth,
Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him.
Let's own -- since it can do no good on earth --
It was a trying moment that which found him
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,
Where all his household gods lay shiver'd round him:
No choice was left his feelings or his pride,
Save death or Doctors' Commons- so he died.
XXXVII
Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir
To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands,
Which, with a long minority and care,
Promised to turn out well in proper hands:
Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,
And answer'd but to nature's just demands;
An only son left with an only mother[11]
Is brought up much more wisely than another.
XXXVIII
Sagest of women, even of widows, she
Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon,
And worthy of the noblest pedigree
(His sire was of Castile, his dam from Aragon):
13
Then for accomplishments of chivalry,
In case our lord the king should go to war again,
He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress -- or a nunnery.
XXXIX
But that which Donna Inez most desired,
And saw into herself each day before all
The learnd tutors whom for him she hired,
Was, that his breeding should be strictly moral;
Much into all his studies she inquired,
And so they were submitted first to her, all,
Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery
To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history.
XL
The languages, especially the dead,
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use,
In all these he was much and deeply read;
But not a page of any thing that's loose,
Or hints continuation of the species,
Was ever suffer'd, lest he should grow vicious.
XLI
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their AEneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.
XLII
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample:
14
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one
Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."[12]
XLIII
Lucretius' irreligion is too strong,
For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food;
I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong,
Although no doubt his real intent was good,
For speaking out so plainly in his song,
So much indeed as to be downright rude;
And then what proper person can be partial
To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?
XLIV
Juan was taught from out the best edition,
Expurgated by learnd men, who place
Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision,
The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface
Too much their modest bard by this omission,
And pitying sore his mutilated case,
They only add them all in an appendix,[*]
Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;
XLV
For there we have them all "at one fell swoop,"
Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages;
They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop,
To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
To call them back into their separate cages,
Instead of standing staring all together,
Like garden gods -- and not so decent either.
XLVI
The Missal too (it was the family Missal)
Was ornamented in a sort of way
Which ancient mass-books often are, and this all
Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they,
Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all,
Could turn their optics to the text and pray,
Is more than I know -- But Don Juan's mother
Kept this herself, and gave her son another.
15
XLVII
Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,
And homilies, and lives of all the saints;
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,
He did not take such studies for restraints;
But how faith is acquired, and then ensured,
So well not one of the aforesaid paints
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,
Which make the reader envy his transgressions.[*]
XLVIII
This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan --
I can't but say that his mamma was right,
If such an education was the true one.
She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;
Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,
You might be sure she was a perfect fright;
She did this during even her husband's life --
I recommend as much to every wife.
XLIX
Young Juan wax'd in goodliness and grace;
At six a charming child, and at eleven
With all the promise of as fine a face
As e'er to man's maturer growth was given:
He studied steadily, and grew apace,
And seem'd, at least, in the right road to heaven,
For half his days were pass'd at church, the other
Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.
L
At six, I said, he was a charming child,
At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;
Although in infancy a little wild,
They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy
His natural spirit not in vain they toil'd,
At least it seem'd so; and his mother's joy
Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady,
Her young philosopher was grown already.
LI
16
I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still,
But what I say is neither here nor there:
I knew his father well, and have some skill
In character -- but it would not be fair
From sire to son to augur good or ill:
He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair --
But scandal's my aversion -- I protest
Against all evil speaking, even in jest.
LII
For my part I say nothing -- nothing -- but
This I will say -- my reasons are my own --
That if I had an only son to put
To school (as God be praised that I have none),
'T is not with Donna Inez I would shut
Him up to learn his catechism alone,
No -- no -- I'd send him out betimes to college,
For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.
LIII
For there one learns -- 't is not for me to boast,
Though I acquired -- but I pass over that,
As well as all the Greek I since have lost:
I say that there's the place -- but Verbum sat.''[13]
I think I pick'd up too, as well as most,
Knowledge of matters -- but no matter what --
I never married -- but, I think, I know
That sons should not be educated so.
LIV
Young Juan now was sixteen years of age,
Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he seem'd
Active, though not so sprightly, as a page;
And everybody but his mother deem'd
Him almost man; but she flew in a rage
And bit her lips (for else she might have scream'd)
If any said so, for to be precocious
Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.
LV
Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all
Selected for discretion and devotion,
17
There was the Donna Julia, whom to call
Pretty were but to give a feeble notion
Of many charms in her as natural
As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean,
Her zone[14] to Venus, or his bow to Cupid
(But this last simile is trite and stupid).
LVI
The darkness of her Oriental eye
Accorded with her Moorish origin
(Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by;
In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin);
When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,
Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin
Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain,
Her great-great-grandmamma chose to remain.
LVII
She married (I forget the pedigree)
With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down
His blood less noble than such blood should be;
At such alliances his sires would frown,
In that point so precise in each degree
That they bred in and in, as might be shown,
Marrying their cousins -- nay, their aunts, and nieces,
Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.
LVIII
This heathenish cross restored the breed again,
Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh;
For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain
Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;
The sons no more were short, the daughters plain:
But there's a rumour which I fain would hush,
'T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma
Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.
LIX
However this might be, the race went on
Improving still through every generation,
Until it centred in an only son,
Who left an only daughter; my narration
18
May have suggested that this single one
Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion
I shall have much to speak about), and she
Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.
LX
Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes)
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.
LXI
Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like th' aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting at times to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,
Possess'd an air and grace by no means common:
Her stature tall -- I hate a dumpy woman.
LXII
Wedded she was some years, and to a man
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
And yet, I think, instead of such a one
'T were better to have two of five-and-twenty,
Especially in countries near the sun:
And now I think on 't, "mi vien in mente",[15]
Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.
LXIII
'T is a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,
And all the fault of that indecent sun,
Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,
But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,
That howsoever people fast and pray,
The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:
19
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate's sultry.
LXIV
Happy the nations of the moral North!
Where all is virtue, and the winter season
Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth
('T was snow that brought St. Anthony[16] to reason);[*]
Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,
By laying whate'er sum in mulct they please on
The lover, who must pay a handsome price,
Because it is a marketable vice.
LXV
Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,
A man well looking for his years, and who
Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr'd:
They lived together, as most people do,
Suffering each other's foibles by accord,
And not exactly either one or two;
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.
LXVI
Julia was -- yet I never could see why --
With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;
Between their tastes there was small sympathy,
For not a line had Julia ever penn'd:
Some people whisper but no doubt they lie,
For malice still imputes some private end)
That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage,
Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;
LXVII
And that still keeping up the old connection,
Which time had lately render'd much more chaste,
She took his lady also in affection,
And certainly this course was much the best:
She flatter'd Julia with her sage protection,
And complimented Don Alfonso's taste;
And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal,
At least she left it a more slender handle.
20
LXVIII
I can't tell whether Julia saw the affair
With other people's eyes, or if her own
Discoveries made, but none could be aware
Of this, at least no symptom e'er was shown;
Perhaps she did not know, or did not care,
Indifferent from the first or callous grown:
I'm really puzzled what to think or say,
She kept her counsel in so close a way.
LXIX
Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child,
Caress'd him often -- such a thing might be
Quite innocently done, and harmless styled,
When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;
But I am not so sure I should have smiled
When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three;
These few short years make wondrous alterations,
Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.
LXX
Whate'er the cause might be, they had become
Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy,
Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb,
And much embarrassment in either eye;
There surely will be little doubt with some
That Donna Julia knew the reason why,
But as for Juan, he had no more notion
Than he who never saw the sea of ocean.
LXXI
Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,
And tremulously gentle her small hand
Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland
And slight, so very slight, that to the mind
'T was but a doubt; but ne'er magician's wand
Wrought change with all Armida's fairy art[17]
Like what this light touch left on Juan's heart.
LXXII
21
And if she met him, though she smiled no more,
She look'd a sadness sweeter than her smile,
As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store
She must not own, but cherish'd more the while
For that compression in its burning core;
Even innocence itself has many a wile,
And will not dare to trust itself with truth,
And love is taught hypocrisy from youth.
LXXIII
But passion most dissembles, yet betrays
Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky
Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays
Its workings through the vainly guarded eye,
And in whatever aspect it arrays
Itself, 't is still the same hypocrisy;
Coldness or anger, even disdain or hate,
Are masks it often wears, and still too late.
LXXIV
Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
And burning blushes, though for no transgression,
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left;
All these are little preludes to possession,
Of which young passion cannot be bereft,
And merely tend to show how greatly love is
Embarrass'd at first starting with a novice.
LXXV
Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state;
She felt it going, and resolved to make
The noblest efforts for herself and mate,
For honour's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sake;
Her resolutions were most truly great,
And almost might have made a Tarquin quake:
She pray'd the Virgin Mary for her grace,
As being the best judge of a lady's case.
LXXVI
She vow'd she never would see Juan more,
And next day paid a visit to his mother,
22
And look'd extremely at the opening door,
Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in another;
Grateful she was, and yet a little sore --
Again it opens, it can be no other,
'T is surely Juan now -- No! I'm afraid
That night the Virgin was no further pray'd.
LXXVII
She now determined that a virtuous woman
Should rather face and overcome temptation,
That flight was base and dastardly, and no man
Should ever give her heart the least sensation;
That is to say, a thought beyond the common
Preference, that we must feel upon occasion
For people who are pleasanter than others,
But then they only seem so many brothers.
LXXVIII
And even if by chance -- and who can tell?
The devil's so very sly -- she should discover
That all within was not so very well,
And, if still free, that such or such a lover
Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell
Such thoughts, and be the better when they're over;
And if the man should ask, 't is but denial:
I recommend young ladies to make trial.
LXXIX
And then there are such things as love divine,
Bright and immaculate, unmix'd and pure,
Such as the angels think so very fine,
And matrons who would be no less secure,
Platonic, perfect, "just such love as mine;"
Thus Julia said -- and thought so, to be sure;
And so I'd have her think, were I the man
On whom her reveries celestial ran.
LXXX
Such love is innocent, and may exist
Between young persons without any danger.
A hand may first, and then a lip be kist;
For my part, to such doings I'm a stranger,
23
But hear these freedoms form the utmost list
Of all o'er which such love may be a ranger:
If people go beyond, 't is quite a crime,
But not my fault -- I tell them all in time.
LXXXI
Love, then, but love within its proper limits,
Was Julia's innocent determination
In young Don Juan's favour, and to him its
Exertion might be useful on occasion;
And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its
Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion
He might be taught, by love and her together --
I really don't know what, nor Julia either.
LXXXII
Fraught with this fine intention, and well fenced
In mail of proof -- her purity of soul --
She, for the future of her strength convinced.
And that her honour was a rock, or mole,
Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed
With any kind of troublesome control;
But whether Julia to the task was equal
Is that which must be mention'd in the sequel.
LXXXIII
Her plan she deem'd both innocent and feasible,
And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen
Not scandal's fangs could fix on much that's seizable,
Or if they did so, satisfied to mean
Nothing but what was good, her breast was peaceable --
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
LXXXIV
And if in the mean time her husband died,
But Heaven forbid that such a thought should cross
Her brain, though in a dream! (and then she sigh'd)
Never could she survive that common loss;
But just suppose that moment should betide,
I only say suppose it -- inter nos.
24
(This should be entre nous, for Julia thought
In French, but then the rhyme would go for naught.)
LXXXV
I only say suppose this supposition:
Juan being then grown up to man's estate
Would fully suit a widow of condition,
Even seven years hence it would not be too late;
And in the interim (to pursue this vision)
The mischief, after all, could not be great,
For he would learn the rudiments of love,
I mean the seraph way of those above.
LXXXVI
So much for Julia. Now we'll turn to Juan.
Poor little fellow! he had no idea
Of his own case, and never hit the true one;
In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss Medea,[*]
He puzzled over what he found a new one,
But not as yet imagined it could be
Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming,
Which, with a little patience, might grow charming.
LXXXVII
Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,
His home deserted for the lonely wood,
Tormented with a wound he could not know,
His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude:
I'm fond myself of solitude or so,
But then, I beg it may be understood,
By solitude I mean a sultan's, not
A hermit's, with a haram for a grot.
LXXXVIII
"Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this,
Where transport and security entwine,
Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
And here thou art a god indeed divine."[18]
The bard I quote from does not sing amiss,[*]
With the exception of the second line,
For that same twining "transport and security"
Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity.
25
LXXXIX
The poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals
To the good sense and senses of mankind,
The very thing which every body feels,
As all have found on trial, or may find,
That no one likes to be disturb'd at meals
Or love. -- I won't say more about "entwined"
Or "transport," as we knew all that before,
But beg'security' will bolt the door.
XC
Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks,
Thinking unutterable things; he threw
Himself at length within the leafy nooks
Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew;
There poets find materials for their books,
And every now and then we read them through,
So that their plan and prosody are eligible,
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.
XCI
He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued
His self-communion with his own high soul,
Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,
Had mitigated part, though not the whole
Of its disease; he did the best he could
With things not very subject to control,
And turn'd, without perceiving his condition,
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.
XCII
He thought about himself, and the whole earth
Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,
And how the deuce they ever could have birth;
And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars,
How many miles the moon might have in girth,
Of air-balloons, and of the many bars
To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies; --
And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.
XCIII
26
In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern
Longings sublime, and aspirations high,
Which some are born with, but the most part learn
To plague themselves withal, they know not why:
'T was strange that one so young should thus concern
His brain about the action of the sky;
If you think 't was philosophy that this did,
I can't help thinking puberty assisted.
XCIV
He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
And heard a voice in all the winds; and then
He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers,
And how the goddesses came down to men:
He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours,
And when he look'd upon his watch again,
He found how much old Time had been a winner --
He also found that he had lost his dinner.
XCV
Sometimes he turn'd to gaze upon his book,
Boscan, or Garcilasso; -- by the wind
Even as the page is rustled while we look,
So by the poesy of his own mind
Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,
As if 't were one whereon magicians bind
Their spells, and give them to the passing gale,
According to some good old woman's tale.
XCVI
Thus would he while his lonely hours away
Dissatisfied, nor knowing what he wanted;
Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay,
Could yield his spirit that for which it panted,
A bosom whereon he his head might lay,
And hear the heart beat with the love it granted,
With -- several other things, which I forget,
Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.
XCVII
Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries,
Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes;
27
She saw that Juan was not at his ease;
But that which chiefly may, and must surprise,
Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease
Her only son with question or surmise:
Whether it was she did not see, or would not,
Or, like all very clever people, could not.
XCVIII
This may seem strange, but yet 't is very common;
For instance -- gentlemen, whose ladies take
Leave to o'erstep the written rights of woman,
And break the -- Which commandment is 't they break?
(I have forgot the number, and think no man
Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.)
I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous,
They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.
XCIX
A real husband always is suspicious,
But still no less suspects in the wrong place,
Jealous of some one who had no such wishes,
Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace,
By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicious;
The last indeed's infallibly the case:
And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly,
He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.
C
Thus parents also are at times short-sighted;
Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discover,
The while the wicked world beholds delighted,
Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's lover,
Till some confounded escapade has blighted
The plan of twenty years, and all is over;
And then the mother cries, the father swears,
And wonders why the devil he got heirs.
CI
But Inez was so anxious, and so clear
Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion,
She had some other motive much more near
For leaving Juan to this new temptation;
28
But what that motive was, I sha'n't say here;
Perhaps to finish Juan's education,
Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes,
In case he thought his wife too great a prize.
CII
It was upon a day, a summer's day; --
Summer's indeed a very dangerous season,
And so is spring about the end of May;
The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason;
But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say,
And stand convicted of more truth than treason,
That there are months which nature grows more merry in, --
March has its hares, and May must have its heroine.
CIII
'T was on a summer's day -- the sixth of June: --
I like to be particular in dates,
Not only of the age, and year, but moon;
They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.
CIV
'T was on the sixth of June, about the hour
Of half-past six -- perhaps still nearer seven --
When Julia sate within as pretty a bower
As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven
Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,
To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,
With all the trophies of triumphant song --
He won them well, and may he wear them long!
CV
She sate, but not alone; I know not well
How this same interview had taken place,
And even if I knew, I should not tell --
People should hold their tongues in any case;
No matter how or why the thing befell,
But there were she and Juan, face to face --
29
When two such faces are so, 't would be wise,
But very difficult, to shut their eyes.
CVI
How beautiful she look'd! her conscious heart
Glow'd in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong.
Oh Love! how perfect is thy mystic art,
Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong,
How self-deceitful is the sagest part
Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along-
The precipice she stood on was immense,
So was her creed in her own innocence.
CVII
She thought of her own strength, and Juan's youth,
And of the folly of all prudish fears,
Victorious virtue, and domestic truth,
And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years:
I wish these last had not occurr'd, in sooth,
Because that number rarely much endears,
And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny,
Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money.
CVIII
When people say, "I've told you fifty times,"
They mean to scold, and very often do;
When poets say, "I've written fifty rhymes,"
They make you dread that they'll recite them too;
In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes;
At fifty love for love is rare, 't is true,
But then, no doubt, it equally as true is,
A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.
CIX
Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love,
For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore,
By all the vows below to powers above,
She never would disgrace the ring she wore,
Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove;
And while she ponder'd this, besides much more,
One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown,
Quite by mistake -- she thought it was her own;
30
CX
Unconsciously she lean'd upon the other,
Which play'd within the tangles of her hair:
And to contend with thoughts she could not smother
She seem'd by the distraction of her air.
'T was surely very wrong in Juan's mother
To leave together this imprudent pair,
She who for many years had watch'd her son so --
I'm very certain mine would not have done so.
CXI
The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees
Gently, but palpably confirm'd its grasp,
As if it said, "Detain me, if you please;"
Yet there's no doubt she only meant to clasp
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze:
She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp,
Had she imagined such a thing could rouse
A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.
CXII
I cannot know what Juan thought of this,
But what he did, is much what you would do;
His young lip thank'd it with a grateful kiss,
And then, abash'd at its own joy, withdrew
In deep despair, lest he had done amiss, --
Love is so very timid when 't is new:
She blush'd, and frown'd not, but she strove to speak,
And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.
CXIII
The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon:
The devil's in the moon for mischief; they
Who call'd her CHASTE, methinks, began too soon
Their nomenclature; there is not a day,
The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way
On which three single hours of moonshine smile --
And then she looks so modest all the while.
CXIV
31
There is a dangerous silence in that hour,
A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul
To open all itself, without the power
Of calling wholly back its self-control;
The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor, which is not repose.
CXV
And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced
And half retiring from the glowing arm,
Which trembled like the bosom where 't was placed;
Yet still she must have thought there was no harm,
Or else 't were easy to withdraw her waist;
But then the situation had its charm,
And then -- -- God knows what next -- I can't go on;
I'm almost sorry that I e'er begun.
CXVI
Oh Plato! Plato! you have paved the way,
With your confounded fantasies, to more
Immoral conduct by the fancied sway
Your system feigns o'er the controulless core
Of human hearts, than all the long array
Of poets and romancers: -- You're a bore,
A charlatan, a coxcomb -- and have been,
At best, no better than a go-between.
CXVII
And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,
I wish indeed they had not had occasion,
But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
A little still she strove, and much repented
And whispering "I will ne'er consent" -- consented.
CXVIII
'T is said that Xerxes offer'd a reward
To those who could invent him a new pleasure:
32
Methinks the requisition's rather hard,
And must have cost his majesty a treasure:
For my part, I'm a moderate-minded bard,
Fond of a little love (which I call leisure);
I care not for new pleasures, as the old
Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.
CXIX
Oh Pleasure! you are indeed a pleasant thing,
Although one must be damn'd for you, no doubt:
I make a resolution every spring
Of reformation, ere the year run out,
But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing,
Yet still, I trust it may be kept throughout:
I'm very sorry, very much ashamed,
And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim'd.
CXX
Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take --
Start not! still chaster reader -- she'll be nice hence --
Forward, and there is no great cause to quake;
This liberty is a poetic licence,
Which some irregularity may make
In the design, and as I have a high sense
Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit
To beg his pardon when I err a bit.
CXXI
This licence is to hope the reader will
Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day,
Without whose epoch my poetic skill
For want of facts would all be thrown away),
But keeping Julia and Don Juan still
In sight, that several months have pass'd; we'll say
'T was in November, but I'm not so sure
About the day -- the era's more obscure.
CXXII
We'll talk of that anon. -- 'T is sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep
The song and oar of Adria's[19] gondolier,
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
33
'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;
'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep
From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.
CXXIII
'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
'T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,
Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.
CXXIV
Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes
From civic revelry to rural mirth;
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth,
Sweet is revenge -- especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.
CXXV
Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet
The unexpected death of some old lady
Or gentleman of seventy years complete,
Who've made "us youth" wait too -- too long already
For an estate, or cash, or country seat,
Still breaking, but with stamina so steady
That all the Israelites are fit to mob its
Next owner for their double-damn'd post-obits.
CXXVI
'T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,
By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,
Particularly with a tiresome friend:
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;
Dear is the helpless creature we defend
34
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.
CXXVII
But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
Is first and passionate love -- it stands alone,
Like Adam's recollection of his fall;
The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd -- all's known --
And life yields nothing further to recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven.
CXXVIII
Man's a strange animal, and makes strange use
Of his own nature, and the various arts,
And likes particularly to produce
Some new experiment to show his parts;
This is the age of oddities let loose,
Where different talents find their different marts;
You'd best begin with truth, and when you've lost your
Labour, there's a sure market for imposture.
CXXIX
What opposite discoveries we have seen!
(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)
One makes new noses[20], one a guillotine,
One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;
But vaccination certainly has been
A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets[21],
With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,
By borrowing a new one from an ox.
CXXX
Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes;
And galvanism has set some corpses grinning,
But has not answer'd like the apparatus
Of the Humane Society's[22] beginning
By which men are unsuffocated gratis:
What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!
I said the small-pox has gone out of late;
Perhaps it may be follow'd by the great[23].
35
CXXXI
'T is said the great came from America;
Perhaps it may set out on its return, --
The population there so spreads, they say
'T is grown high time to thin it in its turn,
With war, or plague, or famine, any way,
So that civilisation they may learn;
And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is --
Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?
CXXXII
This is the patent-age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions;
Sir Humphry Davy's lantern[24], by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.
CXXXIII
Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what,
And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;
'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure;
Few mortals know what end they would be at,
But whether glory, power, or love, or treasure,
The path is through perplexing ways, and when
The goal is gain'd, we die, you know -- and then --
CXXXIV
What then? -- I do not know, no more do you --
And so good night. -- Return we to our story:
'T was in November, when fine days are few,
And the far mountains wax a little hoary,
And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;
And the sea dashes round the promontory,
And the loud breaker boils against the rock,
And sober suns must set at five o'clock.
CXXXV
36
'T was, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;
No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud
By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright
With the piled wood, round which the family crowd;
There's something cheerful in that sort of light,
Even as a summer sky's without a cloud:
I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,
A lobster salad, and champagne, and chat.
CXXXVI
'T was midnight -- Donna Julia was in bed,
Sleeping, most probably, -- when at her door
Arose a clatter might awake the dead,
If they had never been awoke before,
And that they have been so we all have read,
And are to be so, at the least, once more; --
The door was fasten'd, but with voice and fist
First knocks were heard, then "Madam -- Madam -- hist!
CXXXVII
"For God's sake, Madam -- Madam -- here's my master,
With more than half the city at his back --
Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!
'T is not my fault -- I kept good watch -- Alack!
Do pray undo the bolt a little faster --
They're on the stair just now, and in a crack
Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly --
Surely the window's not so very high!"
CXXXVIII
By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,
With torches, friends, and servants in great number;
The major part of them had long been wived,
And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber
Of any wicked woman, who contrived
By stealth her husband's temples to encumber:
Examples of this kind are so contagious,
Were one not punish'd, all would be outrageous.
CXXXIX
I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion
Could enter into Don Alfonso's head;
37
But for a cavalier of his condition
It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,
Without a word of previous admonition,
To hold a levee round his lady's bed,
And summon lackeys, arm'd with fire and sword,
To prove himself the thing he most abhorr'd.
CXL
Poor Donna Julia, starting as from sleep
(Mind -- that I do not say -- she had not slept),
Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep;
Her maid Antonia, who was an adept,
Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,
As if she had just now from out them crept:
I can't tell why she should take all this trouble
To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.
CXLI
But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,
Appear'd like two poor harmless women, who
Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,
Had thought one man might be deterr'd by two,
And therefore side by side were gently laid,
Until the hours of absence should run through,
And truant husband should return, and say,
"My dear, I was the first who came away."
CXLII
Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,
"In heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d' ye mean?
Has madness seized you? would that I had died
Ere such a monster's victim I had been!
What may this midnight violence betide,
A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?
Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?
Search, then, the room!" -- Alfonso said, "I will."
CXLIII
He search'd, they search'd, and rummaged everywhere,
Closet and clothes' press, chest and window-seat,
And found much linen, lace, and several pair
Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete,
38
With other articles of ladies fair,
To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:
Arras they prick'd and curtains with their swords,
And wounded several shutters, and some boards.
CXLIV
Under the bed they search'd, and there they found --
No matter what -- it was not that they sought;
They open'd windows, gazing if the ground
Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;
And then they stared each other's faces round:
'T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought,
And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,
Of looking in the bed as well as under.
CXLV
During this inquisition, Julia's tongue
Was not asleep -- "Yes, search and search," she cried,
"Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!
It was for this that I became a bride!
For this in silence I have suffer'd long
A husband like Alfonso at my side;
But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain,
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.
CXLVI
"Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more,
If ever you indeed deserved the name,
Is 't worthy of your years? -- you have threescore --
Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same --
Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore
For facts against a virtuous woman's fame?
Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,
How dare you think your lady would go on so?
CXLVII
"Is it for this I have disdain'd to hold
The common privileges of my sex?
That I have chosen a confessor so old
And deaf, that any other it would vex,
And never once he has had cause to scold,
But found my very innocence perplex
39
So much, he always doubted I was married --
How sorry you will be when I've miscarried!
CXLVIII
"Was it for this that no Cortejo[25] e'er [*]
I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville?
Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,
Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel?
Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were,
I favor'd none -- nay, was almost uncivil?
Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly[26],
Who took Algiers, declares I used him vilely? [*]
CXLIX
"Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani
Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?
Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,
Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?
Were there not also Russians, English, many?
The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,
And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,
Who kill'd himself for love (with wine) last year.
CL
"Have I not had two bishops at my feet,
The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez?
And is it thus a faithful wife you treat?
I wonder in what quarter now the moon is:
I praise your vast forbearance not to beat
Me also, since the time so opportune is --
Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cock'd trigger,
Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?
CLI
"Was it for this you took your sudden journey.
Under pretence of business indispensable
With that sublime of rascals your attorney,
Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible
Of having play'd the fool? though both I spurn, he
Deserves the worst, his conduct's less defensible,
Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee,
And not from any love to you nor me.
40
CLII
"If he comes here to take a deposition,
By all means let the gentleman proceed;
You've made the apartment in a fit condition:
There's pen and ink for you, sir, when you need --
Let every thing be noted with precision,
I would not you for nothing should be fee'd --
But, as my maid's undrest, pray turn your spies out."
"Oh!" sobb'd Antonia, "I could tear their eyes out."
CLIII
"There is the closet, there the toilet, there
The antechamber -- search them under, over;
There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair,
The chimney -- which would really hold a lover.
I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care
And make no further noise, till you discover
The secret cavern of this lurking treasure --
And when 't is found, let me, too, have that pleasure.
CLIV
"And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown
Doubt upon me, confusion over all,
Pray have the courtesy to make it known
Who is the man you search for? how d' ye call
Him? what's his lineage? let him but be shown --
I hope he's young and handsome -- is he tall?
Tell me -- and be assured, that since you stain
My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.
CLV
"At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years,
At that age he would be too old for slaughter,
Or for so young a husband's jealous fears
(Antonia! let me have a glass of water).
I am ashamed of having shed these tears,
They are unworthy of my father's daughter;
My mother dream'd not in my natal hour
That I should fall into a monster's power.
CLVI
41
"Perhaps 't is of Antonia you are jealous,
You saw that she was sleeping by my side
When you broke in upon us with your fellows:
Look where you please -- we've nothing, sir, to hide;
Only another time, I trust, you'll tell us,
Or for the sake of decency abide
A moment at the door, that we may be
Drest to receive so much good company.
CLVII
"And now, sir, I have done, and say no more;
The little I have said may serve to show
The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er
The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:
I leave you to your conscience as before,
'T will one day ask you why you used me so?
God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief! --
Antonia! where's my pocket-handkerchief?"
CLVIII
She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow; pale
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears
Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail,
To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
Its snow through all; -- her soft lips lie apart,
And louder than her breathing beats her heart.
CLIX
The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;
Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room,
And, turning up her nose, with looks abused
Her master and his myrmidons, of whom
Not one, except the attorney, was amused;
He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,
So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,
Knowing they must be settled by the laws.
CLX
With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,
Following Antonia's motions here and there,
42
With much suspicion in his attitude;
For reputations he had little care;
So that a suit or action were made good,
Small pity had he for the young and fair,
And ne'er believed in negatives, till these
Were proved by competent false witnesses.
CLXI
But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,
And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;
When, after searching in five hundred nooks,
And treating a young wife with so much rigour,
He gain'd no point, except some self-rebukes,
Added to those his lady with such vigour
Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour,
Quick, thick, and heavy -- as a thunder-shower.
CLXII
At first he tried to hammer an excuse,
To which the sole reply was tears and sobs,
And indications of hysterics, whose
Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,
Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:
Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's[27];
He saw too, in perspective, her relations,
And then he tried to muster all his patience.
CLXIII
He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,
But sage Antonia cut him short before
The anvil of his speech received the hammer,
With "Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more,
Or madam dies." -- Alfonso mutter'd, "D--n her,"
But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;
He cast a rueful look or two, and did,
He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.
CLXIV
With him retired his "posse comitatus,"
The attorney last, who linger'd near the door
Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as
Antonia let him -- not a little sore
43
At this most strange and unexplain'd "hiatus"
In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore
An awkward look; as he revolved the case,
The door was fasten'd in his legal face.
CLXV
No sooner was it bolted, than -- Oh shame!
Oh sin! Oh sorrow! and oh womankind!
How can you do such things and keep your fame,
Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind?
Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name!
But to proceed -- for there is more behind:
With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,
Young Juan slipp'd half-smother'd, from the bed.
CLXVI
He had been hid -- I don't pretend to say
How, nor can I indeed describe the where --
Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay,
No doubt, in little compass, round or square;
But pity him I neither must nor may
His suffocation by that pretty pair;
'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut
With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.
CLXVII
And, secondly, I pity not, because
He had no business to commit a sin,
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws,
At least 't was rather early to begin;
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.
CLXVIII
Of his position I can give no notion:
'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle,
How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,
Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,
When old King David's blood grew dull in motion,
And that the medicine answer'd very well;
44
Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,
For David lived, but Juan nearly died.
CLXIX
What's to be done? Alfonso will be back
The moment he has sent his fools away.
Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,
But no device could be brought into play --
And how to parry the renew'd attack?
Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:
Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,
But press'd her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.
CLXX
He turn'd his lip to hers, and with his hand
Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair;
Even then their love they could not all command,
And half forgot their danger and despair:
Antonia's patience now was at a stand --
"Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling there,"
She whisper'd, in great wrath -- "I must deposit
This pretty gentleman within the closet:
CLXXI
"Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night --
Who can have put my master in this mood?
What will become on 't -- I'm in such a fright,
The devil's in the urchin, and no good --
Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?
Why, don't you know that it may end in blood?
You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,
My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.
CLXXII
"Had it but been for a stout cavalier
Of twenty-five or thirty (come, make haste) --
But for a child, what piece of work is here!
I really, madam, wonder at your taste
(Come, sir, get in) -- my master must be near:
There, for the present, at the least, he's fast,
And if we can but till the morning keep
Our counsel -- (Juan, mind, you must not sleep)."
45
CLXXIII
Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,
Closed the oration of the trusty maid:
She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone,
An order somewhat sullenly obey'd;
However, present remedy was none,
And no great good seem'd answer'd if she stay'd:
Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,
She snuff'd the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.
CLXXIV
Alfonso paused a minute -- then begun
Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;
He would not justify what he had done,
To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;
But there were ample reasons for it, none
Of which he specified in this his pleading:
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call "rigmarole."
CLXXV
Julia said nought; though all the while there rose
A ready answer, which at once enables
A matron, who her husband's foible knows,
By a few timely words to turn the tables,
Which, if it does not silence, still must pose, --
Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;
'T is to retort with firmness, and when he
Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.
CLXXVI
Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds, --
Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known,
But whether 't was that one's own guilt confounds --
But that can't be, as has been often shown,
A lady with apologies abounds; --
It might be that her silence sprang alone
From delicacy to Don Juan's ear,
To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear.
CLXXVII
46
There might be one more motive, which makes two;
Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded, --
Mention'd his jealousy but never who
Had been the happy lover, he concluded,
Conceal'd amongst his premises; 't is true,
His mind the more o'er this its mystery brooded;
To speak of Inez now were, one may say,
Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way.
CLXXVIII
A hint, in tender cases, is enough;
Silence is best, besides there is a tact --
(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,
But it will serve to keep my verse compact) --
Which keeps, when push'd by questions rather rough,
A lady always distant from the fact:
The charming creatures lie with such a grace,
There's nothing so becoming to the face.
CLXXIX
They blush, and we believe them; at least I
Have always done so; 't is of no great use,
In any case, attempting a reply,
For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;
And when at length they 're out of breath, they sigh,
And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose
A tear or two, and then we make it up;
And then -- and then -- and then -- sit down and sup.
CLXXX
Alfonso closed his speech, and begg'd her pardon,
Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted,
And laid conditions he thought very hard on,
Denying several little things he wanted:
He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,
With useless penitence perplex'd and haunted,
Beseeching she no further would refuse,
When, lo! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes.
CLXXXI
A pair of shoes! -- what then? not much, if they
Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these
47
(No one can tell how much I grieve to say)
Were masculine; to see them, and to seize,
Was but a moment's act. -- Ah! well-a-day!
My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze --
Alfonso first examined well their fashion,
And then flew out into another passion.
CLXXXII
He left the room for his relinquish'd sword,
And Julia instant to the closet flew.
"Fly, Juan, fly! for heaven's sake -- not a word --
The door is open -- you may yet slip through
The passage you so often have explored --
Here is the garden-key -- Fly -- fly -- Adieu!
Haste -- haste! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet --
Day has not broke -- there's no one in the street:"
CLXXXIII
None can say that this was not good advice,
The only mischief was, it came too late;
Of all experience 't is the usual price,
A sort of income-tax[28] laid on by fate:
Juan had reach'd the room-door in a trice,
And might have done so by the garden-gate,
But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown,
Who threaten'd death -- so Juan knock'd him down.
CLXXXIV
Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;
Antonia cried out "Rape!" and Julia "Fire!"
But not a servant stirr'd to aid the fight.
Alfonso, pommell'd to his heart's desire,
Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night;
And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;
His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar,
And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.
CLXXXV
Alfonso's sword had dropp'd ere he could draw it,
And they continued battling hand to hand,
For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it;
His temper not being under great command,
48
If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,
Alfonso's days had not been in the land
Much longer. -- Think of husbands', lovers' lives!
And how ye may be doubly widows -- wives!
CLXXXVI
Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,
And Juan throttled him to get away,
And blood ('t was from the nose) began to flow;
At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,
Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,
And then his only garment quite gave way;
He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,
I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.
CLXXXVII
Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who found
An awkward spectacle their eyes before;
Antonia in hysterics, Julia swoon'd,
Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;
Some half-torn drapery scatter'd on the ground,
Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more:
Juan the gate gain'd, turn'd the key about,
And liking not the inside, lock'd the out.
CLXXXVIII
Here ends this canto. -- Need I sing, or say,
How Juan naked, favour'd by the night,
Who favours what she should not, found his way,
And reach'd his home in an unseemly plight?
The pleasant scandal which arose next day,
The nine days' wonder which was brought to light,
And how Alfonso sued for a divorce,
Were in the English newspapers, of course.
CLXXXIX
If you would like to see the whole proceedings,
The depositions, and the cause at full,
The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings
Of counsel to nonsuit, or to annul,
There's more than one edition, and the readings
Are various, but they none of them are dull;
49
The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,
Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.
CXC
But Donna Inez, to divert the train
Of one of the most circulating scandals
That had for centuries been known in Spain,
At least since the retirement of the Vandals,
First vow'd (and never had she vow'd in vain)
To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles;
And then, by the advice of some old ladies,
She sent her son to be shipp'd off from Cadiz.
CXCI
She had resolved that he should travel through
All European climes, by land or sea,
To mend his former morals, and get new,
Especially in France and Italy
(At least this is the thing most people do).
Julia was sent into a convent: she
Grieved, but, perhaps, her feelings may be better
Shown in the following copy of her Letter: --
CXCII
"They tell me 't is decided; you depart:
'T is wise -- 't is well, but not the less a pain;
I have no further claim on your young heart,
Mine is the victim, and would be again;
To love too much has been the only art
I used; -- I write in haste, and if a stain
Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears;
My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.
CXCIII
"I loved, I love you, for this love have lost
State, station, heaven, mankind's, my own esteem,
And yet can not regret what it hath cost,
So dear is still the memory of that dream;
Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast,
None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:
I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest --
I've nothing to reproach, or to request.
50
CXCIV
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'T is woman's whole existence[29]; man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart;
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone.
CXCV
"You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,
Beloved and loving many; all is o'er
For me on earth, except some years to hide
My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core;
These I could bear, but cannot cast aside
The passion which still rages as before --
And so farewell -- forgive me, love me -- No,
That word is idle now -- but let it go.
CXCVI
"My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;
But still I think I can collect my mind;
My blood still rushes where my spirit's set,
As roll the waves before the settled wind;
My heart is feminine, nor can forget --
To all, except one image, madly blind;
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul.
CXCVII
"I have no more to say, but linger still,
And dare not set my seal upon this sheet,
And yet I may as well the task fulfil,
My misery can scarce be more complete:
I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill;
Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet,
And I must even survive this last adieu,
And bear with life, to love and pray for you!"
CXCVIII
51
This note was written upon gilt-edged paper
With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new:
Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper,
It trembled as magnetic needles do,
And yet she did not let one tear escape her;
The seal a sun-flower; "Elle vous suit partout,"[30]
The motto cut upon a white cornelian;
The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.
CXCIX
This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; but whether
I shall proceed with his adventures is
Dependent on the public altogether;
We'll see, however, what they say to this:
Their favour in an author's cap's a feather,
And no great mischief's done by their caprice;
And if their approbation we experience,
Perhaps they'll have some more about a year hence.
CC
My poem's epic, and is meant to be
Divided in twelve books; each book containing,
With love, and war, a heavy gale at sea,
A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning,
New characters; the episodes are three:
A panoramic view of hell's in training,
After the style of Virgil and of Homer,
So that my name of Epic's no misnomer.
CCI
All these things will be specified in time,
With strict regard to Aristotle's rules,
The Vade Mecum of the true sublime,
Which makes so many poets, and some fools:
Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond of rhyme,
Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
I've got new mythological machinery,
And very handsome supernatural scenery.
CCII
There's only one slight difference between
Me and my epic brethren gone before,
52
And here the advantage is my own, I ween
(Not that I have not several merits more,
But this will more peculiarly be seen);
They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore
Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,
Whereas this story's actually true.[31]
CCIII
If any person doubt it, I appeal
To history, tradition, and to facts,
To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,
To plays in five, and operas in three acts;
All these confirm my statement a good deal,
But that which more completely faith exacts
Is that myself, and several now in Seville,
Saw Juan's last elopement with the devil.
CCIV
If ever I should condescend to prose,
I'll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I'll call the work "Longinus o'er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle."
CCV
Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy:
With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,
And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:
Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor
Commit -- flirtation with the muse of Moore.
CCVI
Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,
His Pegasus, nor anything that's his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues"
(There's one, at least, is very fond of this);
53
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:
This is true criticism, and you may kiss --
Exactly as you please, or not, -- the rod;
But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G-d!
CCVII
If any person should presume to assert
This story is not moral, first, I pray,
That they will not cry out before they're hurt,
Then that they'll read it o'er again, and say
(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert)
That this is not a moral tale, though gay;
Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show
The very place where wicked people go.
CCVIII
If, after all, there should be some so blind
To their own good this warning to despise,
Led by some tortuosity of mind,
Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
And cry that they "the moral cannot find,"
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
Should captains the remark, or critics, make,
They also lie too -- under a mistake.
CCIX
The public approbation I expect,
And beg they'll take my word about the moral,
Which I with their amusement will connect
(So children cutting teeth receive a coral);
Meantime, they'll doubtless please to recollect
My epical pretensions to the laurel:
For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,
I've bribed my grandmother's review -- the British.
CCX
I sent it in a letter to the Editor,
Who thank'd me duly by return of post --
I'm for a handsome article his creditor;
Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
Denying the receipt of what it cost,
54
And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is -- that he had the money.
CCXI
I think that with this holy new alliance
I may ensure the public, and defy
All other magazines of art or science,
Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I
Have not essay'd to multiply their clients,
Because they tell me 't were in vain to try,
And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly
Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.
CCXII
"Non ego hoc ferrem calida juvent
Consule Planco,[32]" Horace said, and so
Say I; by which quotation there is meant a
Hint that some six or seven good years ago
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)
I was most ready to return a blow,
And would not brook at all this sort of thing
In my hot youth -- when George the Third was King.
CCXIII
But now at thirty years my hair is grey
(I wonder what it will be like at forty?
I thought of a peruke the other day) --
My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I
Have squander'd my whole summer while 't was May,
And feel no more the spirit to retort; I
Have spent my life, both interest and principal,
And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincible.
CCXIV
No more -- no more -- Oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee:
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?
Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.
55
CCXV
No more -- no more -- Oh! never more, my heart,
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
Once all in all, but now a thing apart,
Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:
The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,
And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment,
Though heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.
CCXVI
My days of love are over; me no more [*]
The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,
Can make the fool of which they made before, --
In short, I must not lead the life I did do;
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.
CCXVII
Ambition was my idol, which was broken
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;
And the two last have left me many a token
O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:
Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken,
"Time is, Time was, Time's past:" -- a chymic treasure
Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes --
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
CCXVIII
What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
CCXIX
56
What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.
CCXX
But I being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, "Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again -- 't would pass --
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse."
CCXXI
But for the present, gentle reader! and
Still gentler purchaser! the bard -- that's I --
Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,
And so "Your humble servant, and good-b'ye!"
We meet again, if we should understand
Each other; and if not, I shall not try
Your patience further than by this short sample --
'T were well if others follow'd my example.
CCXXII
"Go, little book, from this my solitude!
I cast thee on the waters -- go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
The world will find thee after many days."[33]
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood,
I can't help putting in my claim to praise --
The four first rhymes are Southey's every line:
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.

57
Carlyle, Thomas
Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question

THE following occasional discourse, delivered by we know not whom, and of date seemingly
above a year back, may, perhaps, be welcome to here and there a speculative reader. It comes to
us -- no speaker named, no time or place assigned, no commentary of any sort given in the hand-
writing of the so-called "Doctor," properly "Absconded Reporter," Dr. Phelin M'Quirk, whose
singular powers of reporting, and also whose debts, extravagances, and sorrowful insidious
finance-operations, now winded up by a sudden disappearance, to the grief of many poor trades-
people, are making too much noise in the police offices at present! Of M'Quirk's composition, we
by no means suppose it to be; but from M'Quirk, as the last traceable source, it comes to us;
offered, in fact, by his respectable, unfortunate landlady, desirous to make up part of her losses in
this way.
To absconded reporters, who bilk their lodgings, we have, of course, no account to give; but if
the speaker be of any eminence or substantiality, and feel himself aggrieved by the transaction,
let him understand that such, and such only, is our connection with him or his affairs. As the
colonial and negro question is still alive, and likely to grow livelier for some time, we have
accepted the article, at a cheap market rate; and give it publicity, without, in the least,
committing ourselves to the strange doctrines and notions shadowed forth in it. Doctrines and
notions which, we rather suspect, are pretty much in a minority of one, in the present era of the
world. Here, sure enough, are peculiar views of the rights of negroes; involving, it is probable,
peculiar ditto of innumerable other rights, duties, expectations, wrongs and disappointments,
much argued of, by logic and by grape-shot, in these emancipated epochs of the human mind.
Silence now, however, and let the speaker himself enter:
[p.528]
My Philanthropic Friends: It is my painful duty to address some words to you, this evening, upon
the rights of negroes. Taking, as we hope we do, an extensive survey of social affairs, which we
find all in a state of the frightfullest embroilment, and, as it were, of inextricable final
bankruptcy, just at present, and being desirous to adjust ourselves in that huge up-break, and
unutterable welter of tumbling ruins, and to see well that our grand proposed Association of
Associations, the UNIVERSAL ABOLITION-OF-PAIN-ASSOCIATION, which is meant to be
the consummate golden flower, and summary of modern philanthropisms, all in one, do not issue
as a universal "Sluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Society" -- we have judged that, before
constituting ourselves, it would be very proper to commune earnestly with one another, and
discourse together on the leading elements of our great problem, which surely is one of the
greatest. With this view, the council has decided, both that the negro question, as lying at the
bottom, was to be the first handled, and, if possible, the first settled; and then, also, what was of
much more questionable wisdom, that -- that, in short, I was to be speaker on the occasion. An
honorable duty! yet, as I said, a painful one! Well, you shall hear what I have to say on the
matter; and you will not, in the least, like it.
58
West Indian affairs, as we all know, and some of us know to our cost, are in a rather troublous
condition this good while. In regard to West Indian affairs, however, Lord John Russell is able to
comfort us with one fact, indisputable where so many are dubious, that the negroes are all very
happy and doing well. A fact very comfortable indeed. West Indian whites, it is admitted, are far
enough from happy; West Indian colonies not unlike sinking wholly into ruin; at home, too, the
British whites are rather badly off-several millions of them hanging on the verge of continual
famine -- and, in single towns, many thousands of them very sore put to it, at this time, not to
live "well," or as a man should, in any sense, temporal or spiritual, but to live at all-these, again,
are uncomfortable facts; and they are extremely extensive and important ones. But, thank
heaven, our interesting black population equaling, almost, in number of heads, one of the ridings
of Yorkshire, and in worth (in quantity of intellect, faculty, docility, energy, and available human
valor and value), perhaps one of the streets of seven dials --are all doing remarkably well. "Sweet
blighted lilies "'-- as the American epitaph on the niggar child has it -- sweet blighted lilies, they
are holding up their heads again! How pleasant, in the universal bankruptcy abroad, and dim,
dreary stagnancy at home, as if, for England too, there remained nothing but to suppress Chartist
riots, banish united Irishmen, vote the supplies, and wait, with arms crossed, till black anarchy
and social death devoured us also, as it has done the others; how pleasant to have always this fact
to fall back upon; our beautiful black darlings are at last happy; with little labor except to the
teeth, which, surely, in those excellent horse-jaws of theirs, will not fail!
Exeter Hall, my philanthropic friends, has had its way in this matter. The twenty millions, a mere
trifle, despatched with a single dash of the pen, are paid; and, far over the sea, we have a few
black persons rendered extremely "free" indeed. Sitting yonder, with their beautiful muzzles up
to the ears in pumpkins, imbibing sweet pulps and juices; [p.529] the grinder and incisor teeth
ready for every new work, and the pumpkins cheap as grass in those rich climates; while the
sugar crops rot round them, uncut, because labor cannot be hired, so cheap are the pumpkins; and
at home, we are but required to rasp from the breakfast loaves of our own English laborers, some
slight "differential sugar duties." and lend a poor half million, or a few more millions, now and
then, to keep that beautiful state of matters going on. A state of matters lovely to contemplate, in
these emancipated epochs of the human mind, which has earned us, not only the praises of
Exeter Hall, and loud, long-eared halleluiahs of laudatory psalmody from the friends of freedom
everywhere, but lasting favor (it is hoped) from the heavenly powers themselves; which may, at
least, justly appeal to the heavenly powers, and ask them, if ever, in terrestrial procedure, they
saw the match of it! Certainly, in the past history of the human species, it has no parallel; nor,
one hopes, will it have in the future.
Sunk in deep froth-oceans of "Benevolence," "Fraternity," "Emancipation-principle," "Christian
Philanthropy," and other most amiable-looking, but most baseless, and, in the end, baleful and
all-bewildering jargon -- sad product of a skeptical eighteenth century, and of poor human hearts,
left destitute of any earnest guidance, and disbelieving that there ever was any, christian or
heathen, and reduced to believe, in rosepink sentimentalism alone, and to cultivate the same
under its christian, anti-christian, broad-brimmed, Brutus-headed, and other forms -- has not the
human species gone strange roads during that period? and poor Exeter Hall, cultivating the
broad-brimmed form of christian sentimentalism, and long talking, and bleating, and braying, in
that strain -- has it not worked out results? Our West India legislatings, with their spoutings. anti-
spoutings, and interminable jangle and babble-our twenty millions, down on the nail for blacks
59
of our own-thirty gradual millions more, and many brave British lives to boot, in watching
blacks of other people's-and now, at last, our ruined sugar estates, differential sugar duties,
"immigration loan," and beautiful blacks, sitting there, up to the ears in pumpkins, and doleful
whites, sitting here, without potatoes to eat; never, till now, I think, did the sun look down on
such a jumble of human nonsenses, of which, with the two hot nights of the Missing-Despatch
Debate,* God grant that the measure might now, at last, be full! But no, it is not yet full; we
have a long way to travel back, and terrible flounderings to make, and, in fact, an immense load
of nonsense to dislodge from our poor heads, and manifold cobwebs to rend from our poor eyes,
before we get into the road again, and can begin to act as serious men that have work to do in this
universe, and no longer as windy sentimentalists, that merely have speeches to deliver, and
despatches to write. O Heaven! in West Indian matters, and in all manner of matters, it is so with
us-the more is the sorrow! The West Indies, it appears, are short of labor, as, indeed, is very
conceivable in those circumstances. Where a black man, by working half an hour a day (such is
the calculation), can supply himself, by aid of sun and soil, with as much pumpkin as will
suffice, he is likely to be [p.530] a little stiff to raise into hard work! Supply and demand, which,
science says, should be brought to bear on him, have an up-hill task-of it with such a man. Strong
sun supplies itself gratis -- rich soil, in those unpeopled or half-peopled regions, almost gratis:
these are his supply; and half an hour a day, directed upon these, will produce pumpkin, which is
his "demand." The fortunate black man! very swiftly does he settle his account with supply and
demand; not so swiftly the less fortunate white man of these tropical localities. He, himself,
cannot work; and his black neighbor, rich in pumpkin, is in no haste to help him. Sunk to the ears
in pumpkin, imbibing saccharine juices, and much at his ease in the creation, he can listen to the
less fortunate white man's "demand," and take his own time in supplying it. Higher wages,
massa; higher, for your cane crop cannot wait; still higher -- till no conceivable opulence of cane
crop will cover such wages! In Demerara, as I read in the blue book of last year, the cane crop,
far and wide, stands rotting; the fortunate black gentlemen: strong in their pumpkins, having all
struck till the "demand" rise a little. Sweet, blighted lilies, now getting up their heads again!
Science, however, has a remedy still. Since the demand is so pressing, and the supply so
inadequate (equal, in fact, to nothing in some places, as appears), increase the supply; bring more
blacks into the labor market, then will the rate fall, says science. Not the least surprising part of
our West Indian policy, is this recipe of "immigration;" of keeping down the labor-market in
those islands, by importing new Africans to labor and live there. If the Africans that are already
there could be made to lay down their pumpkins and labor for a living, there are already Africans
enough. If the new Africans, after laboring a little, take to pumpkins like the others, what remedy
is there? To bring in new and ever new Africans, say you, till pumpkins themselves grow dear --
till the country is crowded with Africans, and black men there, like white men here, are forced,
by hunger, to labor for their living? That will be a consummation. To have "emancipated" the
West Indies into a black Ireland -- " free,"' indeed, but an Ireland, and black! The world may yet
see prodigies, and reality be stranger than a nightmare dream.
Our own white or sallow Ireland, sluttishly starving, from age to age, on its act-of-parliament
"freedom," was hitherto the flower of mismanagement among the nations; but what will this be
to a negro Ireland, with pumpkins themselves fallen scarce like potatoes? Imagination cannot
fathom such an object; the belly of chaos never held the like. The human mind, in its wide
wanderings, has not dreamt, yet, of such a "freedom" as that will be. Toward that, if Exeter Hall,
60
and science of supply and demand, are to continue our guides in the matter, we are daily
traveling, and even struggling, with loans of half a million, and such like, to accelerate ourselves.
Truly, my philanthropic friends, Exeter Hall philanthropy is wonderful; and the social science --
not a "gay science," but a rueful --which finds the secret of this universe in "supply and demand,"
and reduces the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone, is also wonderful. Not a
"gay science," I should say, like some we have heard of; no, a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite
abject and distressing one; [p.531] what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.
These two, Exeter Hall philanthropy and the Dismal Science, led by any sacred cause of black
emancipation, or the like, to fall in love and make a wedding of it -- will give birth to progenies
and prodigies: dark extensive moon-calves, unnameable abortions, wide-coiled monstrosities,
such as the world has not seen hitherto!
In fact, it will behoove us of this English nation, to overhaul our West Indian procedure from top
to bottom; and to ascertain a little better what it is that fact and nature demand of us, and what
only Exeter Hall, wedded to the Dismal Science, demands. To the former set of demands we will
endeavor, at our peril -- and worse peril than our purse's, at our soul's peril -- to give all
obedience. To the latter we will very frequently demur, and try if we cannot stop short where
they contradict the former, and, especially, before arriving at the black throat of ruin, whither
they appear to be leading us. Alas, in many other provinces, beside the West Indian, that
unhappy wedlock of philanthropic liberalism and the Dismal Science, has engendered such all-
enveloping delusions, of the moon-calf sort -- and wrought huge woe for us, and for the poor,
civilized world, in these days! And sore will be the battle with said moon-calves; and terrible the
struggle to return out of our delusions, floating rapidly on which, not the West Indies alone, but
Europe generally, is nearing the Niagara Falls. [Here various persons, in an agitated manner,
with an air of indignation, left the room; especially one very tall gentleman, in white trousers,
whose boots creaked much. The President, in a resolved voice, with a look of official rigor,
whatever his own private feelings might be, enjoined, " Silence! Silence!" The meeting again sat
motionless.]
My philanthropic friends, can you discern no fixed headlands in this wide-weltering deluge of
benevolent twaddle and revolutionary grapeshot that has burst forth on us -- no sure bearings at
all? Fact and nature, it seems to me, say a few words to us, if, happily, we have still an ear for
fact and nature. Let us listen a little, and try. And first, with regard to the West Indies, it may be
laid down as a principle, which no eloquence in Exeter Hall, or Westminster Hall, or elsewhere,
can invalidate or hide, except for a short time only, that no black man, who will not work
according to what ability the gods have given him for working, has the smallest right to eat
pumpkin, or to any fraction of land that will grow pumpkin, however plentiful such land may be,
but has an indisputable and perpetual right to be compelled, by the real proprietors of said land,
to do competent work for his living. This is the everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who
are born into this world. To do competent work, to labor honestly according to the ability given
them; for that, and for no other purpose, was each one of us sent into this world; and woe is to
every man who by friend or by foe, is prevented from fulfilling this, the end of his being. That is
the'" unhappy" lot -- lot equally unhappy cannot otherwise be provided for man. Whatsoever
prohibits or prevents a man from this, his sacred appointment, to labor while he lives on earth --
that, I say, is the man's deadliest enemy; and all men are called upon to do what is in their power,
61
or opportunity, toward delivering him from it. If it be his own indolence that prevents and
prohibits him, then his own indolence is the [p.532] enemy he must be delivered from; and the
first "right" he has -- poor indolent blockhead, black or white -- is, that every unprohibited man,
whatsoever wiser, more industrious person may be passing that way, shall endeavor to
"emancipate" him from his indolence, and, by some wise means, as I said, compel him to do the
work he is fit for. This is the eternal law of nature for a man, my beneficient Exeter Hall friends;
this, that he shall be permitted, encouraged, and, if need be, compelled, to do what work the
Maker of him has intended, by the making of him for this world. Not that he should eat pumpkin
with never such felicity in the West India islands is, or can be, the blessedness of our black friend
-- but that he should do useful work there, according as the gifts have been bestowed on him for
that. And his own happiness, and that of others around him, will alone be possible, by his and
their getting into such a relation that this can be permitted him, and, in case of need, that this can
be compelled him. I beg you to understand this, for you seem to have a little forgotten it, and
there lie a thousand inferences in it, not quite useless for Exeter Hall, at present. The idle black
man in the West Indies, had, not long since, the right, and will again, under better form, if it
please Heaven, have the right (actually the first "right of man" for an indolent person) to be
compelled to work as he was fit, and to do the Maker's will, who had constructed him with such
and such prefigurements of capability. And I incessantly pray Heaven, all men, the whitest alike,
and the blackest, the richest and the poorest, in other regions of the world, had attained precisely
the same right, the divine right of being compelled (if "permitted" will not answer) to do what
work they are appointed for, and not to go idle another minute, in a life so short! Alas, we had
then a perfect world! and the millennium and true "organization of labor," and reign of complete
blessedness, for all workers and men, had then arrived, which, in these, our own poor districts of
the planet, as we all lament to know, it is very far from having yet done.
Let me suggest another consideration withal; West India islands, still full of waste fertility,
produce abundant pumpkins; pumpkins, however, you will please to observe, are not the sole
requisite for human well-being. No! for a pig they are the one thing needful -- but for a man, they
are only the first of several things needful. And now, as to the right of chief management in
cultivating those West India lands -- as to the "right of property" so called, and of doing what
you like with your own. The question is abstruse enough. Who it may be that has a right to raise
pumpkins and other produce on those islands, perhaps none can, except temporarily, decide. The
islands are good withal for pepper, for sugar, for sago, arrowroot, for coffee, perhaps for
cinnamon and precious spices-things far nobler than pumpkins, and leading toward commerces,
arts, politics, and social developments, which, alone, are the noble product, where men (and not
pigs with pumpkins) are the parties concerned! Well, all this fruit, too, fruit spicy and
commercial, fruit spiritual and celestial, so far beyond the merely pumpkinish and grossly
terrene, lies in the West India lands; and the ultimate "proprietorship" of them -- why, I suppose,
it will vest in him who can the best educe from them, whatever of noble produce they were
created fit for yielding. He, I compute, is the real [p.533] "Vicegerent of the Maker" there; in
him, better and better chosen, and not in another, is the "property" vested by decree of Heaven's
chancery itself!
Up to this time, it is the Saxon British mainly; they hitherto have cultivated with some
manfulness; and when a manfuller class of cultivators, stronger, worthier to have such land, abler
to bring fruit from it, shall make their appearance, they, doubt it not, by fortune of war, and
62
other confused negotiation and vicissitude, will be declared by nature and fact to be the worthier,
and will become proprietors, perhaps, also, only for a time. That is the law, I take it, ultimate
supreme, for all lands, in all countries, under this sky. The one perfect, Eternal Proprietor, is the
Maker who created them; the temporary, better or worse proprietor, is he whom the Maker has
sent on that mission; he who the best hitherto can educe from said lands the beneficent gifts the
Maker endowed them with -- or, which is but another definition of the same person, he who
leads hitherto the manfullest life on that bit of soil, doing better than another yet found can do,
the Eternal Purpose and Supreme Will there. And now observe, my friends. it was not Black
Quashee, or those he represents, that made those West India islands what they are, or can, by any
hypothesis, be considered to have the right of growing pumpkins there. For countless ages, since
they first mounted oozy on the back of earthquakes, from their dark bed in the ocean deeps, and
reeking, saluted the tropical sun, and ever onward, till the European white man first saw them,
some three short centuries ago, those islands had produced mere jungle, savagery, poison reptiles
and swamp malaria till the white European first saw them, they were, as if not yet created; their
noble elements of cinnamon -- sugar, coffee, pepper, black and gray, lying all asleep, waiting the
white Enchanter, who should say to them, awake! Till the end of human history, and the
sounding of the trump of doom, they might have lain so, had Quashee, and the like of him, been
the only artists in the game. Swamps, fever-jungles, maneating caribs, rattle-snakes, and reeking
waste and putrefaction: this had been the produce of them under the incompetent caribal (what
we call cannibal) possessors till that time; and Quashee knows, himself, whether ever he could
have introduced an improvement. Him, had he, by a miraculous chance, been wafted thither, the
caribals would have eaten, rolling him as a fat morsel under their tongue-for him, till the
sounding of the trump of doom, the rattlesnakes and savageries would have held on their way. It
was not he, then -- it was another than he! Never, by art of his, could one pumpkin have grown
there, to solace any human throat; nothing but savagery, and reeking putrefaction could have
grown there! These plentiful pumpkins, I say, therefore, are not his; no, they are another's; they
are only his under conditions -- conditions which Exeter Hall, for the present, has forgotten; but
which nature, and the Eternal Powers, have, by no manner of means, forgotten, but do, at all
moments, keep in mind; and, at the right moment, will, with the due impressiveness, perhaps in
rather a terrible manner, bring again to our mind also! If Quashee will not honestly aid in
bringing out those sugars, cinnamons, and nobler products of the West India islands, for the
benefit [p.534] of all mankind, then, I say, neither will the powers permit Quashee to continue
growing pumpkins there for his own lazy benefit, but will sheer him out, by and by, like a lazy
gourd overshadowing rich ground -- him, and all that partake with him -- perhaps in a very
terrible manner. For, under favor of Exeter Hall, the "terrible manner" is not yet quite extinct
with the destinies in this universe; nor will it quite cease, I apprehend, for soft-sawder or
philanthropic stump-oratory, now, or henceforth. No! the gods wish, besides pumpkins, that
spices and valuable products be grown in their West Indies; thus much they have declared in so
making the West Indies; infinitely more they wish -- that manful, industrious men occupy their
West Indies, not indolent, two-legged cattle, however "happy" over their abundant pumpkins!
Both these things, we may be assured, the immortal gods have decided upon -- passed their
eternal act of parliament for; and both of them, though all terrestial parliaments and entities
oppose it to the death, shall be done. Quashee, if he will not help in bringing out the spices, will
get himself made a slave again (which state will be a little less ugly than his present one), and
with beneficient whip, since other methods avail not, will be compelled to work. Or, alas, let him
look across to Hayti, and trace a far sterner prophecy! Let him, by his ugliness, idleness,
63
rebellion, banish all white men from the West Indies, and make it all one Hayti, with little or no
sugar-growing, black Peter exterminating black Paul, and, where a garden of the Hesperides
might be, nothing but a tropical dog-kennel and pestiferous jungle -- does he think that will
forever continue pleasant to gods and men? I see men, the rose-pink cant all peeled away from
them, land one day on those black coasts; men sent by the laws of this universe, and the
inexorable course of things; men hungry for gold, remorseless, fierce as old buccaneers were --
and a doom for Quashee, which I had rather not contemplate! The gods are long-suffering; but
the law, from the beginning, was, He that will not work shall perish from the earth -- and the
patience of the gods has limits!
Before the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any negro, how much European heroism had
to spend itself in obscure battle; to sink, in mortal agony, before the jungles, the putrescences and
waste savageries could become arable, and the devils be, in some measure, chained there! The
West Indies grow pineapples, and sweet fruits, and spices; we hope they will, one day, grow
beautiful, heroic human lives too, which is surely the ultimate object they were made for;
beautiful souls and brave; sages, poets, what not -- making the earth nobler round them, as their
kindred from of old have been doing; true "splinters of the old Hartz Rock;" heroic white men,
worthy to be called old Saxons, browned with a mahogany tint in those new climates and
conditions. But under the soil of Jamaica, before it could even produce spices, or any pumpkin,
the bones of many thousand British men had to be laid. Brave Colonel Fortescue, brave Colonel
Sedgwick, brave Colonel Brayne -- the dust of many thousand strong old English hearts lies
there, worn down swiftly in frightful travail, chaining the devils, which were manifold. Heroic
Blake contributed a bit of his life to that Jamaica. A bit of the great Protector's own life lies there
-- beneath those pumpkins lies a bit of the life that was Oliver Cromwell's. How [p.535] the great
Protector would have rejoiced, to think that all this was to issue in growing pumpkins, to keep
Quashee in a comfortably idle condition! No, that is not the ultimate issue, not that!
The West Indian whites, so soon as this bewilderment of philanthropic and other jargon abates
from them, and their poor eyes get to discern a little what the facts are and what the laws are, will
strike into another course, I apprehend! I apprehend they will, as a preliminary, resolutely refuse
to permit the black man any privilege whatever of pumpkins till he agrees for work in return. Not
a square inch of soil in those fruitful isles, purchased by British blood, shall any black man hold
to grow pumpkins for him, except on terms that are fair toward Britain. Fair; see that they be not
unfair, not toward ourselves, and still more, not toward him. For injustice is forever accursed;
and precisely our unfairness toward the enslaved black man has -- by inevitable revulsion and
fated turn of the wheel -- brought about these present confusions. Fair toward Britain it will be,
that Quashee give work for privilege to grow pumpkins. Not a pumpkin, Quashee, not a square
yard of soil, till you agree to do the state so many days of service. Annually that soil will grow
you pumpkins; but annually also without fail, shall you, for the owner thereof, do your appointed
days of labor. The state has plenty of waste soil; but the state will religiously give you none of it
on other terms. The state wants sugar from these islands, and means to have it; wants virtuous
industry in these islands, and must have it. The state demands of you such service as will bring
these results, this latter result which includes all. Not a black Ireland, by immigration, and
boundless black supply for the demand; not that -- may the gods forbid! -- but a regulated West
Indies, with black working population in adequate numbers; all "happy,"' if they find it possible;
and not entirely unbeautifutl to gods and men, which latter result they must find possible! All
64
"happy" enough; that is to say, all working according to the faculty they have got; making a little
more divine this earth which the gods have given them. Is there any other "happiness" -- if it be
not that of pigs fattening daily to the slaughter? So will the state speak by and by.
Any poor, idle black man, any idle white man, rich or poor, is a mere eye-sore to the state; a
perpetual blister on the skin of the state. The state is taking measures. some of them rather
extensive, in Europe at this very time, and already, is in Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere, rather
tremendous measures, to get its rich white then set to work; for, alas. they also have sat, negro-
like, up to the ears in pumpkin, regardless of "work," and of a world all going to waste for their
idleness! Extensive measures, I say; and already (as, in all European lands, this scandalous fear
of street-barricades and fugitive sham-kings exhibits) tremendous measures for the thing is
instant to be done.
The thing must be done everywhere: must is the word. Only it is so terribly difficult to do; and
will take generations yet, this of getting our rich European white men "set to work!'" But yours in
the West Indies, my obscure black friends, your work, and the getting of you set to it, is a simple
affair; and by diligence, the West Indian legislatures, and royal governor, setting their faces
fairly to the problem, will get it done. You are not " slaves" now; nor do I wish, if it can be
[p.536] avoided, to see you slaves again; but decidedly you will have to be servants to those that
are born wiser than you, that are born lords of you -- servants to the whites, if they are (as what
mortal can doubt they are?) born wiser than you. That, you may depend upon it, my obscure
black friends, is and was always the law of the world, for you and for all men; to be servants, the
more foolish of us to the more wise; and only sorrow, futility and disappointment will betide
both, till both, in some approximate degree, get to conform to the same. Heaven's laws are not
repealable by earth, however earth may try and it has been trying hard. in some directions, of
late! I say, no well being, and in the end no being at all, will be possible for you or us, if the law
of heaven is not complied with. And if "slave" mean essentially "servant hired for life," or by a
contract of long continuance, and not easily dissoluble -- I ask, Whether in all human things, the
"contract of long continuance" is not precisely the contract to be desired, were the right terms
once found for it? Servant hired for life, were the right terms once found, which I do not pretend
they are, seems to me much preferable to servants hired for the month, or by contract dissoluble
in a day. An ill-situated servant, that -- servant grown to be nomadic; between whom and his
master a good relation cannot easily spring up!
To state articulately, and put into practical law books, what on all sides is fair from the West
India white to the West India black; what relations the Eternal Maker has established between
these two creatures of His: what he has written down, with intricate but ineffaceable record,
legible to candid human insight, in the respective qualities, strengths, necessities and capabilities
of each of the two; this will be a long problem; only to be solved by continuous human endeavor,
and earnest effort gradually perfecting itself as experience successively yields new light to it.
This will be to "find the right terms" of a contract that will endure, and be sanctioned by Heaven
and obtain prosperity on earth, between the two. A long problem, terribly neglected hitherto;
whence these West Indian sorrows; and Exeter Hall monstrosities. just now! But a problem
which must be entered upon, and by degrees be completed. A problem which, I think, the
English people, if they mean to retain human colonies, and not black Irelands in addition to the
white, cannot begin too soon! What are the true relations between negro and white, their mutual
65
duties under the sight of the Maker of them both; what human laws will assist both to comply
more and more with these? The solution, only to be gained by earnest endeavor and sincere
experience, such as have never yet been bestowed on it, is not yet here; the solution is perhaps
still distant; but some approximation to it, various real approximations, could be made. and must
be made; this of declaring that negro and white are unrelated, loose from one another, on a
footing of perfect equality, and subject to no law but that of supply and demand according to the
Dismal Science; this which contradicts the palpablest facts, is clearly no solution, but a cutting of
the knot assunder; and every hour we persist in this is leading us toward dissolution instead of
solution.
What, then, is practicably to be done? Much, very much, my [p.537] friends, to which it hardly
falls to me to allude at present; but all this of perfect equality, of cutting loose from one another;
all this, with "immigration loan," "happiness of black peasantry," and the other melancholy stuff
that has followed from it, will first of all require to be undone, and have the ground cleared of it,
by way of preliminary to "doing!"
Already one hears of black Adscripti glebae; which seems a promising arrangement, one of the
first to suggest itself in such a complicacy. It appears the Dutch blacks, in Java, are already a
kind of Adscripts, after the manner of the old European serfs; bound by royal authority, to give
so many days of work a year. Is not this something like a real approximation; the first step
toward all manner of such? Wherever, in British territory, there exists a black man, and needful
work to the just extent is not to be got out of him, such a law, in defect of better, should be
brought to bear upon said black man! How many laws of like purport, conceivable some of them,
might be brought to bear upon the black man and the white, with all despatch, by way of solution
instead of dissolution to their complicated case just now! On the whole, it ought to be rendered
possible, ought it not, for white men to live beside black men, and in some just manner to
command black men, and produce West Indian fruitfulness by means of them? West Indian
fruitfulness will need to be produced. If the English cannot find the method for that, they may
rest assured there will another come (brother Jonathan or still another) who can. He it is whom
the gods will bid continue in the West Indies, bidding us ignominiously, Depart, ye quack-
ridden. incompetent!--
One other remark. as to the present trade in slaves, and to our suppression of the same. If buying
of black war-captives in Africa, and bringing them over to the sugar-islands for sale again, be, as
I think it is, a contradiction of the laws of this universe, let us heartily pray to Heaven to end the
practice; let us ourselves help Heaven to end it, wherever the opportunity is given. If it be the
most flagrant and alarming contradiction to the said laws which is now witnessed on this earth;
so flagrant and alarming that a just man cannot exist, and follow his affairs in the same planet
with it; why, then indeed ----. But is it, quite certainly, such? Alas, look at that group of unsold;
unbought, unmarketable Irish "free" citizens, dying there in the ditch, whither my lord of
rackrent and the constitutional sheriffs have evicted them; or at those "divine missionaries," of
the same free country, now traversing, with rags on back and child on each arm, the principal
thoroughfares of London, to tell men what "freedom " really is; -- and admit that there may be
doubts on that point! But if it is, I say, the most alarming contradiction to the said laws which is
now witnessed on this earth; so flagrant a contradiction that a just man cannot exist, and follow
his affairs in the same planet with it, then, sure enough, let us, in God's name, fling aside all our
66
affairs, and hasten out to put an end to it, as the first thing the Heavens want us to do. By all
manner of means; this thing done, the Heavens will prosper all other things with us! Not a doubt
of it -- provided your premise be not doubtful.
But now furthermore give me leave to ask: Whether the way of doing it is this somewhat
surprising one, of trying to blockade the con-[p.538]tinent of Africa itself, and to watch slave-
ships along the extremely extensive and unwholesome coast? The enterprise is very gigantic and
proves hitherto as futile as any enterprise has lately done. Certain wise men once, before this, set
about confining the cuckoo by a big circular wall; but they could not manage it! Watch the coast
of Africa, good part of the coast of the terraqueous globe? And the living centers of this slave
mischief, the live coal that produces all this world-wide smoke, it appears, lie simply in two
points, Cuba and Brazil, are perfectly accessible and manageable. If the laws of Heaven do
authorize you to keep the whole world in a pother about this question -- if you really appeal to
the Almighty God upon it, and set common interests, and terrestrial considerations, and common
sense, at defiance in behalf of it -- why, in Heaven's name, not go to Cuba and Brazil with a
sufficiency of 74-gun ships, and signify to those nefarious countries, that their procedure on the
negro question is too bad; that of all the solicisms now submitted to on earth, it is the most
alarming and transcendent, and, in fact is such that a just man cannot follow his affairs any
longer in the same planet with it; that they clearly will not, the nefarious populations will not, for
love or fear, watching or entreaty, respect the rights of the negro enough; wherefore you here,
with your seventy-fours. are come to be king over them, and will, on the spot, henceforth see for
yourselves that they do it. Why not, if Heaven do send you? The thing can be done; easily. if you
are sure of that proviso. It can be done, it is the way to "suppress the slave-trade;" and so far as
yet appears, the one way.
Most thinking people! -- If hen-stealing prevail to a plainly unendurable extent. will you station
police officers at every henroost; and keep them watching and cruising incessantly to and fro
over the parish in the unwholesome dark, at enormous expense. with almost no effect; or will
you not try rather to discover where the fox's den is,and kill the fox? Most thinking people, you
know the fox and his den; there he is -- kill him, and discharge your cruisers and police-
watchers! Oh. my friends, I feel there is an immense fund of human stupidity circulating among
us, and much clogging our affairs for some time past! A certain man has called us, "of all
peoples the wisest in action;" but, he added, "the stupidest in speech:" and it is a sore thing, in
these constitutional times, times mainly of universal parliamentary and other eloquence, that the
"speakers" have all first to emit, in such tumultuous volumes, their human stupor, as the
indispensable preliminary, and everywhere we must first see that and its results out, before
beginning any business! -- Explicit MS.

67

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 17721834

549. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

PART I
IT is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

'By thy long beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?


The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
5
And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din.'


He holds him with his skinny hand,

'There was a ship,' quoth he.
10
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

An ancient Mariner meeteth
three gallants bidden to a
wedding feast, and detaineth
one.

He holds him with his glittering eye

The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years' child:
15
The Mariner hath his will.


The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.
20

'The ship was cheer'd, the harbour clear'd,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The Wedding-Guest is spell-
bound by the eye of the old
seafaring man, and
constrained to hear his tale.

The Sun came up upon the left,
25
Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

The Mariner tells how the
ship sailed southward with a
good wind and fair weather,
till it reached the Line.
Went down into the sea.

68

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon'
30
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.



The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes
35
The merry minstrelsy.


The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.
40
The Wedding-Guest heareth
the bridal music; but the
Mariner continueth his tale.

'And now the Storm-blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.


With sloping masts and dipping prow,
45
As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast,

The southward aye we fled.
50

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

The ship drawn by a storm
toward the South Pole.
As green as emerald.


And through the drifts the snowy clifts
55
Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken

The ice was all between.


The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:
60
It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd,

The land of ice, and of
fearful sounds, where no
living thing was to be seen.
Like noises in a swound!

69

At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
65
We hail'd it in God's name.


It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steer'd us through!
70
Till a great sea-bird, called
the Albatross, came through
the snow-fog, and was
received with great joy and
hospitality.

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners' hollo!


In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
75
It perch'd for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmer'd the white moonshine.'

And lo! the Albatross
proveth a bird of good
omen, and followeth the
ship as it returned northward
through fog and floating ice.

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!
80
Why look'st thou so?''With my crossbow

I shot the Albatross.


PART II
'The Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left
85
Went down into the sea.


And the good south wind still blew behind,

But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play

Came to the mariners' hollo!
90
The ancient Mariner
inhospitably killeth the
pious bird of good omen.

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

For all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

His shipmates cry out
against the ancient Mariner
for killing the bird of good
luck.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
95
70
That made the breeze to blow!


Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird

That brought the fog and mist.
100
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist.

But when the fog cleared
off, they justify the same,
and thus make themselves
accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow follow'd free;

We were the first that ever burst
105
Into that silent sea.

The fair breeze continues;
the ship enters the Pacific
Ocean, and sails northward,
even till it reaches the Line.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!
110

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the Moon.


Day after day, day after day,
115
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

The ship hath been suddenly
becalmed.

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;
120
Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.


The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
125
Upon the slimy sea.


About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night;

And the Albatross begins to
be avenged.
The water, like a witch's oils,

71
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
130

And some in dreams assurd were

Of the Spirit that plagued us so;

Nine fathom deep he had followed us

From the land of mist and snow.


And every tongue, through utter drought,
135
Was wither'd at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

A Spirit had followed them;
one of the invisible
inhabitants of this planet,
neither departed souls nor
angels; concerning whom
the learned Jew, Josephus,
and the Platonic
Constantinopolitan, Michael
Psellus, may be consulted.
They are very numerous,
and there is no climate or
element without one or
more.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!
140
Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.


PART III
'There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parch'd, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!
145
The shipmates in their sore
distress, would fain throw
the whole guilt on the
ancient Mariner: in sign
whereof they hang the dead
sea-bird round his neck.
How glazed each weary eye!

When looking westward, I beheld

A something in the sky.


At first it seem'd a little speck,

And then it seem'd a mist;
150
It moved and moved, and took at last

A certain shape, I wist.


A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!

And still it near'd and near'd:

As if it dodged a water-sprite,
155
It plunged, and tack'd, and veer'd.

The ancient Mariner
beholdeth a sign in the
element afar off.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood!

I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood,
160
And cried, A sail! a sail!


At its nearer approach, it
seemeth him to be a ship;
and at a dear ransom he
freeth his speech from the
bonds of thirst.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

72
Agape they heard me call:

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
165
As they were drinking all.

A flash of joy;

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!

Hither to work us weal

Without a breeze, without a tide,

She steadies with upright keel!
170

The western wave was all aflame,

The day was wellnigh done!

Almost upon the western wave

Rested the broad, bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
175
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And horror follows. For can
it be a ship that comes
onward without wind or
tide?

And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars

(Heaven's Mother send us grace!),

As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd

With broad and burning face.
180

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,

Like restless gossameres?

It seemeth him but the
skeleton of a ship.

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
185
Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a Death? and are there two?

Is Death that Woman's mate?


Her lips were red, her looks were free,
190
Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold.

And its ribs are seen as bars
on the face of the setting
Sun. The Spectre-Woman
and her Death-mate, and no
other on board the skeleton
ship. Like vessel, like crew!

The naked hulk alongside came,
195
And the twain were casting dice;

Death and Life-in-Death
have diced for the ship's
crew, and she (the latter)
"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"

73
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

winneth the ancient Mariner.

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
200
At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,

Off shot the spectre-bark.


We listen'd and look'd sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
205
My life-blood seem'd to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd white;

No twilight within the courts
of the Sun.
From the sails the dew did drip

Till clomb above the eastern bar
210
The hornd Moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip.

At the rising of the Moon,

One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon,

Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang,
215
And cursed me with his eye.

One after another,

Four times fifty living men

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan),

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,

They dropp'd down one by one.
220
His shipmates drop down
dead.

The souls did from their bodies fly

They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it pass'd me by

Like the whizz of my crossbow!'

But Life-in-Death begins her
work on the ancient
Mariner.

PART IV
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
225
I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,

As is the ribb'd sea-sand.


I fear thee and thy glittering eye,

The Wedding-Guest feareth
that a spirit is talking to him;
And thy skinny hand so brown.'
230
'Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!

But the ancient Mariner
assureth him of his bodily
This body dropt not down.

74

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide, wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on
235
My soul in agony.

life, and proceedeth to relate
his horrible penance.

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.
240
He despiseth the creatures of
the calm.

I look'd upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away;

I look'd upon the rotting deck,

And there the dead men lay.


I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray;
245
But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust.


I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat;
250
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

And envieth that they should
live, and so many lie dead.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

Nor rot nor reek did they:
255
The look with which they look'd on me

Had never pass'd away.


An orphan's curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that
260
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,

And yet I could not die.

But the curse liveth for him
in the eye of the dead men.

The moving Moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide;
265
In his loneliness and
fixedness he yearneth
towards the journeying
Softly she was going up,

75
And a star or two beside


Her beams bemock'd the sultry main,

Like April hoar-frost spread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
270
The charmd water burnt alway

A still and awful red.

Moon, and the stars that still
sojourn, yet still move
onward; and everywhere the
blue sky belongs to them,
and is their appointed rest
and their native country and
their own natural homes,
which they enter
unannounced, as lords that
are certainly expected, and
yet there is a silent joy at
their arrival.

Beyond the shadow of the ship,

I watch'd the water-snakes:

They moved in tracks of shining white,
275
And when they rear'd, the elfish light

Fell off in hoary flakes.


Within the shadow of the ship

I watch'd their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
280
They coil'd and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.

By the light of the Moon he
beholdeth God's creatures of
the great calm.

O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:

Their beauty and their
happiness.
A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
285
And I bless'd them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I bless'd them unaware.

He blesseth them in his
heart.

The selfsame moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free
290
The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.


PART V
'O sleep! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
295
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,

That slid into my soul.

The spell begins to break.

The silly buckets on the deck,

By grace of the holy
Mother, the ancient Mariner
That had so long remain'd,

76
I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew;
300
And when I awoke, it rain'd.


My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.
305

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:

I was so lightalmost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessd ghost.

is refreshed with rain.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
310
It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,

That were so thin and sere.


The upper air burst into life;

And a hundred fire-flags sheen;
315
To and fro they were hurried about!

And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.


And the coming wind did roar more loud,

And the sails did sigh like sedge;
320
And the rain pour'd down from one black cloud;

The Moon was at its edge.


The thick black cloud was cleft, and still

The Moon was at its side;

Like waters shot from some high crag,
325
The lightning fell with never a jag,

A river steep and wide.

He heareth sounds and seeth
strange sights and
commotions in the sky and
the element.

The loud wind never reach'd the ship,

Yet now the ship moved on!

Beneath the lightning and the Moon
330
The dead men gave a groan.


They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,

The bodies of the ship's
crew are inspired, and the
ship moves on;
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;

77
It had been strange, even in a dream,

To have seen those dead men rise.
335

The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved on;

Yet never a breeze up-blew;

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,

Where they were wont to do;

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools
340
We were a ghastly crew.


The body of my brother's son

Stood by me, knee to knee:

The body and I pull'd at one rope,

But he said naught to me.'
345


'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'

Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest:

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,

Which to their corses came again,

But a troop of spirits blest:
350

For when it dawn'dthey dropp'd their arms,

And cluster'd round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,

And from their bodies pass'd.


Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
355
Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,

Now mix'd, now one by one.


Sometimes a-dropping from the sky

I heard the skylark sing;
360
Sometimes all little birds that are,

How they seem'd to fill the sea and air

With their sweet jargoning!


And now 'twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute;
365
And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the Heavens be mute.

But not by the souls of the
men, nor by demons of earth
or middle air, but by a
blessed troop of angelic
spirits, sent down by the
invocation of the guardian
saint.

78
It ceased; yet still the sails made on

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook
370
In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune.


Till noon we quietly sail'd on,

Yet never a breeze did breathe:
375
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,

Moved onward from beneath.



Under the keel nine fathom deep,

From the land of mist and snow,

The Spirit slid: and it was he
380
That made the ship to go.

The sails at noon left off their tune,

And the ship stood still also.


The Sun, right up above the mast,

Had fix'd her to the ocean:
385
But in a minute she 'gan stir,

With a short uneasy motion

Backwards and forwards half her length

With a short uneasy motion.


Then like a pawing horse let go,
390
She made a sudden bound:

It flung the blood into my head,

And I fell down in a swound.

The lonesome Spirit from
the South Pole carries on the
ship as far as the Line, in
obedience to the angelic
troop, but still requireth
vengeance.

How long in that same fit I lay,

I have not to declare;
395
But ere my living life return'd,

I heard, and in my soul discern'd

Two voices in the air.


"Is it he?" quoth one, "is this the man?

By Him who died on cross,
400
With his cruel bow he laid full low

The harmless Albatross.

The Polar Spirit's fellow-
demons, the invisible
inhabitants of the element,
take part in his wrong; and
two of them relate, one to
the other, that penance long
and heavy for the ancient
Mariner hath been accorded
to the Polar Spirit, who
returneth southward.

79
The Spirit who bideth by himself

In the land of mist and snow,

He loved the bird that loved the man
405
Who shot him with his bow."


The other was a softer voice,

As soft as honey-dew:

Quoth he, "The man hath penance done,

And penance more will do."
410

PART VI
First Voice: '"But tell me, tell me! speak again,

Thy soft response renewing

What makes that ship drive on so fast?

What is the Ocean doing?"


Second Voice: "Still as a slave before his lord,
415
The Ocean hath no blast;

His great bright eye most silently

Up to the Moon is cast


If he may know which way to go;

For she guides him smooth or grim.
420
See, brother, see! how graciously

She looketh down on him."



First Voice: "But why drives on that ship so fast,

Without or wave or wind?"


Second Voice: "The air is cut away before,
425
And closes from behind.


Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!

Or we shall be belated:

For slow and slow that ship will go,

When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
430
The Mariner hath been cast
into a trance; for the angelic
power causeth the vessel to
drive northward faster than
human life could endure.

I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather:

'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;

The dead men stood together.

The supernatural motion is
retarded; the Mariner
awakes, and his penance
begins anew.

80
All stood together on the deck,
435
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:

All fix'd on me their stony eyes,

That in the Moon did glitter.


The pang, the curse, with which they died,

Had never pass'd away:
440
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,

Nor turn them up to pray.



And now this spell was snapt: once more

I viewed the ocean green,

And look'd far forth, yet little saw
445
Of what had else been seen


Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turn'd round, walks on,

And turns no more his head;
450
Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.


But soon there breathed a wind on me,

Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea,
455
In ripple or in shade.


It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek

Like a meadow-gale of spring

It mingled strangely with my fears,

Yet it felt like a welcoming.
460

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sail'd softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze

On me alone it blew.

The curse is finally expiated.

O dream of joy! is this indeed
465
The lighthouse top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?

Is this mine own countree?

And the ancient Mariner
beholdeth his native
country.

81
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,

And I with sobs did pray
470
O let me be awake, my God!

Or let me sleep alway.


The harbour-bay was clear as glass,

So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,
475
And the shadow of the Moon.


The rock shone bright, the kirk no less

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steep'd in silentness

The steady weathercock.
480


And the bay was white with silent light

Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,

In crimson colours came.

The angelic spirits leave the
dead bodies,

A little distance from the prow
485
Those crimson shadows were:

I turn'd my eyes upon the deck

O Christ! what saw I there!


Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,

And, by the holy rood!
490
A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.


This seraph-band, each waved his hand:

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,
495
Each one a lovely light;


This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart

No voice; but O, the silence sank

Like music on my heart.
500

But soon I heard the dash of oars,

And appear in their own
forms of light.
I heard the Pilot's cheer;

82
My head was turn'd perforce away,

And I saw a boat appear.


The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
505
I heard them coming fast:

Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy

The dead men could not blast.


I saw a thirdI heard his voice:

It is the Hermit good!
510
He singeth loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood.

He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away

The Albatross's blood.



PART VII
'This Hermit good lives in that wood
515
Which slopes down to the sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!

He loves to talk with marineres

That come from a far countree.


He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve
520
He hath a cushion plump:

It is the moss that wholly hides

The rotted old oak-stump.


The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk,

"Why, this is strange, I trow!
525
Where are those lights so many and fair,

That signal made but now?"

The Hermit of the Wood.

"Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said

"And they answer'd not our cheer!

The planks looked warp'd! and see those sails,
530
How thin they are and sere!

I never saw aught like to them,

Unless perchance it were


Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest-brook along;
535
Approacheth the ship with
wonder.
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

83
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,

That eats the she-wolf's young."


"Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look

(The Pilot made reply)
540
I am a-fear'd""Push on, push on!"

Said the Hermit cheerily.


The boat came closer to the ship,

But I nor spake nor stirr'd;

The boat came close beneath the ship,
545
And straight a sound was heard.



Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread:

It reach'd the ship, it split the bay;

The ship went down like lead.
550
The ship suddenly sinketh.

Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound,

Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drown'd

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found
555
Within the Pilot's boat.


Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,

The boat spun round and round;

And all was still, save that the hill

Was telling of the sound.
560

I moved my lipsthe Pilot shriek'd

And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes,

And pray'd where he did sit.


I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
565
Who now doth crazy go,

Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

"Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see

The Devil knows how to row."
570
The ancient Mariner is
saved in the Pilot's boat.

84
And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,

And scarcely he could stand.



"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"
575
The Hermit cross'd his brow.

"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say

What manner of man art thou?"


Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd

With a woful agony,
580
Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

The ancient Mariner
earnestly entreateth the
Hermit to shrieve him; and
the penance of life falls on
him.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns:

And till my ghastly tale is told,
585
This heart within me burns.


I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:
590
To him my tale I teach.


What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are:
595
And hark the little vesper bell,

Which biddeth me to prayer!


O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide, wide sea:

So lonely 'twas, that God Himself
600
Scarce seemd there to be.


O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

And ever and anon
throughout his future life an
agony constraineth him to
travel from land to land;
With a goodly company!
605
85

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,

Old men, and babes, and loving friends,

And youths and maidens gay!
610


Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.


He prayeth best, who loveth best
615
All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.'


The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Whose beard with age is hoar,
620
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest

Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.


He went like one that hath been stunn'd,

And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man
625
And to teach, by his own
example, love and reverence
to all things that God made
and loveth.
He rose the morrow morn.

86

550. Kubla Khan

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.
5
So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,
10
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.


But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
15
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced;

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
20
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
25
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!
30

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
35
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

87

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she play'd,
40
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me,

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
45
I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
50
Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

88
CHAPTER 14. RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.
from Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

Recapitulation of the difficulties on the theory of Natural Selection.
Recapitulation of the general and special circumstances in its favour.
Causes of the general belief in the immutability of species.
How far the theory of natural selection may be extended.
Effects of its adoption on the study of Natural history.
Concluding remarks.

As this whole volume is one long argument, it may be convenient to the
reader to have the leading facts and inferences briefly recapitulated.

That many and grave objections may be advanced against the theory of
descent with modification through natural selection, I do not deny. I
have endeavoured to give to them their full force. Nothing at first
can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs
and instincts should have been perfected, not by means superior to,
though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of
innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor.
Nevertheless, this difficulty, though appearing to our imagination
insuperably great, cannot be considered real if we admit the following
propositions, namely,--that gradations in the perfection of any organ
or instinct, which we may consider, either do now exist or could have
existed, each good of its kind,--that all organs and instincts are, in
ever so slight a degree, variable,--and, lastly, that there is a
struggle for existence leading to the preservation of each profitable
deviation of structure or instinct. The truth of these propositions
cannot, I think, be disputed.

It is, no doubt, extremely difficult even to conjecture by what
gradations many structures have been perfected, more especially
amongst broken and failing groups of organic beings; but we see so
many strange gradations in nature, as is proclaimed by the canon,
"Natura non facit saltum," that we ought to be extremely cautious in
saying that any organ or instinct, or any whole being, could not have
arrived at its present state by many graduated steps. There are, it
must be admitted, cases of special difficulty on the theory of natural
selection; and one of the most curious of these is the existence of
two or three defined castes of workers or sterile females in the same
community of ants; but I have attempted to show how this difficulty
can be mastered.

With respect to the almost universal sterility of species when first
crossed, which forms so remarkable a contrast with the almost
universal fertility of varieties when crossed, I must refer the reader
to the recapitulation of the facts given at the end of the eighth
chapter, which seem to me conclusively to show that this sterility is
no more a special endowment than is the incapacity of two trees to be
grafted together, but that it is incidental on constitutional
differences in the reproductive systems of the intercrossed species.
We see the truth of this conclusion in the vast difference in the
result, when the same two species are crossed reciprocally; that is,
when one species is first used as the father and then as the mother.

The fertility of varieties when intercrossed and of their mongrel
offspring cannot be considered as universal; nor is their very general
fertility surprising when we remember that it is not likely that
either their constitutions or their reproductive systems should have
been profoundly modified. Moreover, most of the varieties which have
been experimentised on have been produced under domestication; and as
domestication apparently tends to eliminate sterility, we ought not to
expect it also to produce sterility.

The sterility of hybrids is a very different case from that of first
crosses, for their reproductive organs are more or less functionally
impotent; whereas in first crosses the organs on both sides are in a
perfect condition. As we continually see that organisms of all kinds
are rendered in some degree sterile from their constitutions having
been disturbed by slightly different and new conditions of life, we
need not feel surprise at hybrids being in some degree sterile, for
89
their constitutions can hardly fail to have been disturbed from being
compounded of two distinct organisations. This parallelism is
supported by another parallel, but directly opposite, class of facts;
namely, that the vigour and fertility of all organic beings are
increased by slight changes in their conditions of life, and that the
offspring of slightly modified forms or varieties acquire from being
crossed increased vigour and fertility. So that, on the one hand,
considerable changes in the conditions of life and crosses between
greatly modified forms, lessen fertility; and on the other hand,
lesser changes in the conditions of life and crosses between less
modified forms, increase fertility.

Turning to geographical distribution, the difficulties encountered on
the theory of descent with modification are grave enough. All the
individuals of the same species, and all the species of the same
genus, or even higher group, must have descended from common parents;
and therefore, in however distant and isolated parts of the world they
are now found, they must in the course of successive generations have
passed from some one part to the others. We are often wholly unable
even to conjecture how this could have been effected. Yet, as we have
reason to believe that some species have retained the same specific
form for very long periods, enormously long as measured by years, too
much stress ought not to be laid on the occasional wide diffusion of
the same species; for during very long periods of time there will
always be a good chance for wide migration by many means. A broken or
interrupted range may often be accounted for by the extinction of the
species in the intermediate regions. It cannot be denied that we are
as yet very ignorant of the full extent of the various climatal and
geographical changes which have affected the earth during modern
periods; and such changes will obviously have greatly facilitated
migration. As an example, I have attempted to show how potent has been
the influence of the Glacial period on the distribution both of the
same and of representative species throughout the world. We are as yet
profoundly ignorant of the many occasional means of transport. With
respect to distinct species of the same genus inhabiting very distant
and isolated regions, as the process of modification has necessarily
been slow, all the means of migration will have been possible during a
very long period; and consequently the difficulty of the wide
diffusion of species of the same genus is in some degree lessened.

As on the theory of natural selection an interminable number of
intermediate forms must have existed, linking together all the species
in each group by gradations as fine as our present varieties, it may
be asked, Why do we not see these linking forms all around us? Why are
not all organic beings blended together in an inextricable chaos? With
respect to existing forms, we should remember that we have no right to
expect (excepting in rare cases) to discover DIRECTLY connecting links
between them, but only between each and some extinct and supplanted
form. Even on a wide area, which has during a long period remained
continuous, and of which the climate and other conditions of life
change insensibly in going from a district occupied by one species
into another district occupied by a closely allied species, we have no
just right to expect often to find intermediate varieties in the
intermediate zone. For we have reason to believe that only a few
species are undergoing change at any one period; and all changes are
slowly effected. I have also shown that the intermediate varieties
which will at first probably exist in the intermediate zones, will be
liable to be supplanted by the allied forms on either hand; and the
latter, from existing in greater numbers, will generally be modified
and improved at a quicker rate than the intermediate varieties, which
exist in lesser numbers; so that the intermediate varieties will, in
the long run, be supplanted and exterminated.

On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting
links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at
each successive period between the extinct and still older species,
why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why
does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of
the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no such
evidence, and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many
objections which may be urged against my theory. Why, again, do whole
90
groups of allied species appear, though certainly they often falsely
appear, to have come in suddenly on the several geological stages? Why
do we not find great piles of strata beneath the Silurian system,
stored with the remains of the progenitors of the Silurian groups of
fossils? For certainly on my theory such strata must somewhere have
been deposited at these ancient and utterly unknown epochs in the
world's history.

I can answer these questions and grave objections only on the
supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most
geologists believe. It cannot be objected that there has not been time
sufficient for any amount of organic change; for the lapse of time has
been so great as to be utterly inappreciable by the human intellect.
The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing
compared with the countless generations of countless species which
certainly have existed. We should not be able to recognise a species
as the parent of any one or more species if we were to examine them
ever so closely, unless we likewise possessed many of the intermediate
links between their past or parent and present states; and these many
links we could hardly ever expect to discover, owing to the
imperfection of the geological record. Numerous existing doubtful
forms could be named which are probably varieties; but who will
pretend that in future ages so many fossil links will be discovered,
that naturalists will be able to decide, on the common view, whether
or not these doubtful forms are varieties? As long as most of the
links between any two species are unknown, if any one link or
intermediate variety be discovered, it will simply be classed as
another and distinct species. Only a small portion of the world has
been geologically explored. Only organic beings of certain classes can
be preserved in a fossil condition, at least in any great number.
Widely ranging species vary most, and varieties are often at first
local,--both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links less
likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions
until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they do
spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as
if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new species.
Most formations have been intermittent in their accumulation; and
their duration, I am inclined to believe, has been shorter than the
average duration of specific forms. Successive formations are
separated from each other by enormous blank intervals of time; for
fossiliferous formations, thick enough to resist future degradation,
can be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the
subsiding bed of the sea. During the alternate periods of elevation
and of stationary level the record will be blank. During these latter
periods there will probably be more variability in the forms of life;
during periods of subsidence, more extinction.

With respect to the absence of fossiliferous formations beneath the
lowest Silurian strata, I can only recur to the hypothesis given in
the ninth chapter. That the geological record is imperfect all will
admit; but that it is imperfect to the degree which I require, few
will be inclined to admit. If we look to long enough intervals of
time, geology plainly declares that all species have changed; and they
have changed in the manner which my theory requires, for they have
changed slowly and in a graduated manner. We clearly see this in the
fossil remains from consecutive formations invariably being much more
closely related to each other, than are the fossils from formations
distant from each other in time.

Such is the sum of the several chief objections and difficulties which
may justly be urged against my theory; and I have now briefly
recapitulated the answers and explanations which can be given to them.
I have felt these difficulties far too heavily during many years to
doubt their weight. But it deserves especial notice that the more
important objections relate to questions on which we are confessedly
ignorant; nor do we know how ignorant we are. We do not know all the
possible transitional gradations between the simplest and the most
perfect organs; it cannot be pretended that we know all the varied
means of Distribution during the long lapse of years, or that we know
how imperfect the Geological Record is. Grave as these several
difficulties are, in my judgment they do not overthrow the theory of
91
descent with modification.

Now let us turn to the other side of the argument. Under domestication
we see much variability. This seems to be mainly due to the
reproductive system being eminently susceptible to changes in the
conditions of life; so that this system, when not rendered impotent,
fails to reproduce offspring exactly like the parent-form. Variability
is governed by many complex laws,--by correlation of growth, by use
and disuse, and by the direct action of the physical conditions of
life. There is much difficulty in ascertaining how much modification
our domestic productions have undergone; but we may safely infer that
the amount has been large, and that modifications can be inherited for
long periods. As long as the conditions of life remain the same, we
have reason to believe that a modification, which has already been
inherited for many generations, may continue to be inherited for an
almost infinite number of generations. On the other hand we have
evidence that variability, when it has once come into play, does not
wholly cease; for new varieties are still occasionally produced by our
most anciently domesticated productions.

Man does not actually produce variability; he only unintentionally
exposes organic beings to new conditions of life, and then nature acts
on the organisation, and causes variability. But man can and does
select the variations given to him by nature, and thus accumulate them
in any desired manner. He thus adapts animals and plants for his own
benefit or pleasure. He may do this methodically, or he may do it
unconsciously by preserving the individuals most useful to him at the
time, without any thought of altering the breed. It is certain that he
can largely influence the character of a breed by selecting, in each
successive generation, individual differences so slight as to be quite
inappreciable by an uneducated eye. This process of selection has been
the great agency in the production of the most distinct and useful
domestic breeds. That many of the breeds produced by man have to a
large extent the character of natural species, is shown by the
inextricable doubts whether very many of them are varieties or
aboriginal species.

There is no obvious reason why the principles which have acted so
efficiently under domestication should not have acted under nature. In
the preservation of favoured individuals and races, during the
constantly-recurrent Struggle for Existence, we see the most powerful
and ever-acting means of selection. The struggle for existence
inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of increase which
is common to all organic beings. This high rate of increase is proved
by calculation, by the effects of a succession of peculiar seasons,
and by the results of naturalisation, as explained in the third
chapter. More individuals are born than can possibly survive. A grain
in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which
shall die,--which variety or species shall increase in number, and
which shall decrease, or finally become extinct. As the individuals of
the same species come in all respects into the closest competition
with each other, the struggle will generally be most severe between
them; it will be almost equally severe between the varieties of the
same species, and next in severity between the species of the same
genus. But the struggle will often be very severe between beings most
remote in the scale of nature. The slightest advantage in one being,
at any age or during any season, over those with which it comes into
competition, or better adaptation in however slight a degree to the
surrounding physical conditions, will turn the balance.

With animals having separated sexes there will in most cases be a
struggle between the males for possession of the females. The most
vigorous individuals, or those which have most successfully struggled
with their conditions of life, will generally leave most progeny. But
success will often depend on having special weapons or means of
defence, or on the charms of the males; and the slightest advantage
will lead to victory.

As geology plainly proclaims that each land has undergone great
physical changes, we might have expected that organic beings would
have varied under nature, in the same way as they generally have
92
varied under the changed conditions of domestication. And if there be
any variability under nature, it would be an unaccountable fact if
natural selection had not come into play. It has often been asserted,
but the assertion is quite incapable of proof, that the amount of
variation under nature is a strictly limited quantity. Man, though
acting on external characters alone and often capriciously, can
produce within a short period a great result by adding up mere
individual differences in his domestic productions; and every one
admits that there are at least individual differences in species under
nature. But, besides such differences, all naturalists have admitted
the existence of varieties, which they think sufficiently distinct to
be worthy of record in systematic works. No one can draw any clear
distinction between individual differences and slight varieties; or
between more plainly marked varieties and sub-species, and species.
Let it be observed how naturalists differ in the rank which they
assign to the many representative forms in Europe and North America.

If then we have under nature variability and a powerful agent always
ready to act and select, why should we doubt that variations in any
way useful to beings, under their excessively complex relations of
life, would be preserved, accumulated, and inherited? Why, if man can
by patience select variations most useful to himself, should nature
fail in selecting variations useful, under changing conditions of
life, to her living products? What limit can be put to this power,
acting during long ages and rigidly scrutinising the whole
constitution, structure, and habits of each creature,--favouring the
good and rejecting the bad? I can see no limit to this power, in
slowly and beautifully adapting each form to the most complex
relations of life. The theory of natural selection, even if we looked
no further than this, seems to me to be in itself probable. I have
already recapitulated, as fairly as I could, the opposed difficulties
and objections: now let us turn to the special facts and arguments in
favour of the theory.

On the view that species are only strongly marked and permanent
varieties, and that each species first existed as a variety, we can
see why it is that no line of demarcation can be drawn between
species, commonly supposed to have been produced by special acts of
creation, and varieties which are acknowledged to have been produced
by secondary laws. On this same view we can understand how it is that
in each region where many species of a genus have been produced, and
where they now flourish, these same species should present many
varieties; for where the manufactory of species has been active, we
might expect, as a general rule, to find it still in action; and this
is the case if varieties be incipient species. Moreover, the species
of the larger genera, which afford the greater number of varieties or
incipient species, retain to a certain degree the character of
varieties; for they differ from each other by a less amount of
difference than do the species of smaller genera. The closely allied
species also of the larger genera apparently have restricted ranges,
and they are clustered in little groups round other species--in which
respects they resemble varieties. These are strange relations on the
view of each species having been independently created, but are
intelligible if all species first existed as varieties.

As each species tends by its geometrical ratio of reproduction to
increase inordinately in number; and as the modified descendants of
each species will be enabled to increase by so much the more as they
become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be enabled
to seize on many and widely different places in the economy of nature,
there will be a constant tendency in natural selection to preserve the
most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence during a
long-continued course of modification, the slight differences,
characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented
into the greater differences characteristic of species of the same
genus. New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and
exterminate the older, less improved and intermediate varieties; and
thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct
objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups tend to give
birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to
become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character.
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But as all groups cannot thus succeed in increasing in size, for the
world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less
dominant. This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in
size and diverging in character, together with the almost inevitable
contingency of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the
forms of life, in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great
classes, which we now see everywhere around us, and which has
prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all
organic beings seems to me utterly inexplicable on the theory of
creation.

As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive,
favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification;
it can act only by very short and slow steps. Hence the canon of
"Natura non facit saltum," which every fresh addition to our knowledge
tends to make more strictly correct, is on this theory simply
intelligible. We can plainly see why nature is prodigal in variety,
though niggard in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature
if each species has been independently created, no man can explain.

Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory.
How strange it is that a bird, under the form of woodpecker, should
have been created to prey on insects on the ground; that upland geese,
which never or rarely swim, should have been created with webbed feet;
that a thrush should have been created to dive and feed on sub-aquatic
insects; and that a petrel should have been created with habits and
structure fitting it for the life of an auk or grebe! and so on in
endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying
to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt
the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or
ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or
perhaps might even have been anticipated.

As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of
each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their
associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any
one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been
specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and
supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land. Nor ought
we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as far as we
can judge, absolutely perfect; and if some of them be abhorrent to our
ideas of fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of the bee causing
the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such vast numbers for
one single act, and being then slaughtered by their sterile sisters;
at the astonishing waste of pollen by our fir-trees; at the
instinctive hatred of the queen bee for her own fertile daughters; at
ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars; and at
other such cases. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural
selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not
been observed.

The complex and little known laws governing variation are the same, as
far as we can see, with the laws which have governed the production of
so-called specific forms. In both cases physical conditions seem to
have produced but little direct effect; yet when varieties enter any
zone, they occasionally assume some of the characters of the species
proper to that zone. In both varieties and species, use and disuse
seem to have produced some effect; for it is difficult to resist this
conclusion when we look, for instance, at the logger-headed duck,
which has wings incapable of flight, in nearly the same condition as
in the domestic duck; or when we look at the burrowing tucutucu, which
is occasionally blind, and then at certain moles, which are habitually
blind and have their eyes covered with skin; or when we look at the
blind animals inhabiting the dark caves of America and Europe. In both
varieties and species correlation of growth seems to have played a
most important part, so that when one part has been modified other
parts are necessarily modified. In both varieties and species
reversions to long-lost characters occur. How inexplicable on the
theory of creation is the occasional appearance of stripes on the
shoulder and legs of the several species of the horse-genus and in
their hybrids! How simply is this fact explained if we believe that
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these species have descended from a striped progenitor, in the same
manner as the several domestic breeds of pigeon have descended from
the blue and barred rock-pigeon!

On the ordinary view of each species having been independently
created, why should the specific characters, or those by which the
species of the same genus differ from each other, be more variable
than the generic characters in which they all agree? Why, for
instance, should the colour of a flower be more likely to vary in any
one species of a genus, if the other species, supposed to have been
created independently, have differently coloured flowers, than if all
the species of the genus have the same coloured flowers? If species
are only well-marked varieties, of which the characters have become in
a high degree permanent, we can understand this fact; for they have
already varied since they branched off from a common progenitor in
certain characters, by which they have come to be specifically
distinct from each other; and therefore these same characters would be
more likely still to be variable than the generic characters which
have been inherited without change for an enormous period. It is
inexplicable on the theory of creation why a part developed in a very
unusual manner in any one species of a genus, and therefore, as we may
naturally infer, of great importance to the species, should be
eminently liable to variation; but, on my view, this part has
undergone, since the several species branched off from a common
progenitor, an unusual amount of variability and modification, and
therefore we might expect this part generally to be still variable.
But a part may be developed in the most unusual manner, like the wing
of a bat, and yet not be more variable than any other structure, if
the part be common to many subordinate forms, that is, if it has been
inherited for a very long period; for in this case it will have been
rendered constant by long-continued natural selection.

Glancing at instincts, marvellous as some are, they offer no greater
difficulty than does corporeal structure on the theory of the natural
selection of successive, slight, but profitable modifications. We can
thus understand why nature moves by graduated steps in endowing
different animals of the same class with their several instincts. I
have attempted to show how much light the principle of gradation
throws on the admirable architectural powers of the hive-bee. Habit no
doubt sometimes comes into play in modifying instincts; but it
certainly is not indispensable, as we see, in the case of neuter
insects, which leave no progeny to inherit the effects of
long-continued habit. On the view of all the species of the same genus
having descended from a common parent, and having inherited much in
common, we can understand how it is that allied species, when placed
under considerably different conditions of life, yet should follow
nearly the same instincts; why the thrush of South America, for
instance, lines her nest with mud like our British species. On the
view of instincts having been slowly acquired through natural
selection we need not marvel at some instincts being apparently not
perfect and liable to mistakes, and at many instincts causing other
animals to suffer.

If species be only well-marked and permanent varieties, we can at once
see why their crossed offspring should follow the same complex laws in
their degrees and kinds of resemblance to their parents,--in being
absorbed into each other by successive crosses, and in other such
points,--as do the crossed offspring of acknowledged varieties. On the
other hand, these would be strange facts if species have been
independently created, and varieties have been produced by secondary
laws.

If we admit that the geological record is imperfect in an extreme
degree, then such facts as the record gives, support the theory of
descent with modification. New species have come on the stage slowly
and at successive intervals; and the amount of change, after equal
intervals of time, is widely different in different groups. The
extinction of species and of whole groups of species, which has played
so conspicuous a part in the history of the organic world, almost
inevitably follows on the principle of natural selection; for old
forms will be supplanted by new and improved forms. Neither single
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species nor groups of species reappear when the chain of ordinary
generation has once been broken. The gradual diffusion of dominant
forms, with the slow modification of their descendants, causes the
forms of life, after long intervals of time, to appear as if they had
changed simultaneously throughout the world. The fact of the fossil
remains of each formation being in some degree intermediate in
character between the fossils in the formations above and below, is
simply explained by their intermediate position in the chain of
descent. The grand fact that all extinct organic beings belong to the
same system with recent beings, falling either into the same or into
intermediate groups, follows from the living and the extinct being the
offspring of common parents. As the groups which have descended from
an ancient progenitor have generally diverged in character, the
progenitor with its early descendants will often be intermediate in
character in comparison with its later descendants; and thus we can
see why the more ancient a fossil is, the oftener it stands in some
degree intermediate between existing and allied groups. Recent forms
are generally looked at as being, in some vague sense, higher than
ancient and extinct forms; and they are in so far higher as the later
and more improved forms have conquered the older and less improved
organic beings in the struggle for life. Lastly, the law of the long
endurance of allied forms on the same continent,--of marsupials in
Australia, of edentata in America, and other such cases,--is
intelligible, for within a confined country, the recent and the
extinct will naturally be allied by descent.

Looking to geographical distribution, if we admit that there has been
during the long course of ages much migration from one part of the
world to another, owing to former climatal and geographical changes
and to the many occasional and unknown means of dispersal, then we can
understand, on the theory of descent with modification, most of the
great leading facts in Distribution. We can see why there should be so
striking a parallelism in the distribution of organic beings
throughout space, and in their geological succession throughout time;
for in both cases the beings have been connected by the bond of
ordinary generation, and the means of modification have been the same.
We see the full meaning of the wonderful fact, which must have struck
every traveller, namely, that on the same continent, under the most
diverse conditions, under heat and cold, on mountain and lowland, on
deserts and marshes, most of the inhabitants within each great class
are plainly related; for they will generally be descendants of the
same progenitors and early colonists. On this same principle of former
migration, combined in most cases with modification, we can
understand, by the aid of the Glacial period, the identity of some few
plants, and the close alliance of many others, on the most distant
mountains, under the most different climates; and likewise the close
alliance of some of the inhabitants of the sea in the northern and
southern temperate zones, though separated by the whole intertropical
ocean. Although two areas may present the same physical conditions of
life, we need feel no surprise at their inhabitants being widely
different, if they have been for a long period completely separated
from each other; for as the relation of organism to organism is the
most important of all relations, and as the two areas will have
received colonists from some third source or from each other, at
various periods and in different proportions, the course of
modification in the two areas will inevitably be different.

On this view of migration, with subsequent modification, we can see
why oceanic islands should be inhabited by few species, but of these,
that many should be peculiar. We can clearly see why those animals
which cannot cross wide spaces of ocean, as frogs and terrestrial
mammals, should not inhabit oceanic islands; and why, on the other
hand, new and peculiar species of bats, which can traverse the ocean,
should so often be found on islands far distant from any continent.
Such facts as the presence of peculiar species of bats, and the
absence of all other mammals, on oceanic islands, are utterly
inexplicable on the theory of independent acts of creation.

The existence of closely allied or representative species in any two
areas, implies, on the theory of descent with modification, that the
same parents formerly inhabited both areas; and we almost invariably
96
find that wherever many closely allied species inhabit two areas, some
identical species common to both still exist. Wherever many closely
allied yet distinct species occur, many doubtful forms and varieties
of the same species likewise occur. It is a rule of high generality
that the inhabitants of each area are related to the inhabitants of
the nearest source whence immigrants might have been derived. We see
this in nearly all the plants and animals of the Galapagos
archipelago, of Juan Fernandez, and of the other American islands
being related in the most striking manner to the plants and animals of
the neighbouring American mainland; and those of the Cape de Verde
archipelago and other African islands to the African mainland. It must
be admitted that these facts receive no explanation on the theory of
creation.

The fact, as we have seen, that all past and present organic beings
constitute one grand natural system, with group subordinate to group,
and with extinct groups often falling in between recent groups, is
intelligible on the theory of natural selection with its contingencies
of extinction and divergence of character. On these same principles we
see how it is, that the mutual affinities of the species and genera
within each class are so complex and circuitous. We see why certain
characters are far more serviceable than others for
classification;--why adaptive characters, though of paramount
importance to the being, are of hardly any importance in
classification; why characters derived from rudimentary parts, though
of no service to the being, are often of high classificatory value;
and why embryological characters are the most valuable of all. The
real affinities of all organic beings are due to inheritance or
community of descent. The natural system is a genealogical
arrangement, in which we have to discover the lines of descent by the
most permanent characters, however slight their vital importance may
be.

The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a
bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse,--the same number of
vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant,--and
innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory
of descent with slow and slight successive modifications. The
similarity of pattern in the wing and leg of a bat, though used for
such different purpose,--in the jaws and legs of a crab,--in the
petals, stamens, and pistils of a flower, is likewise intelligible on
the view of the gradual modification of parts or organs, which were
alike in the early progenitor of each class. On the principle of
successive variations not always supervening at an early age, and
being inherited at a corresponding not early period of life, we can
clearly see why the embryos of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes
should be so closely alike, and should be so unlike the adult forms.
We may cease marvelling at the embryo of an air-breathing mammal or
bird having branchial slits and arteries running in loops, like those
in a fish which has to breathe the air dissolved in water, by the aid
of well-developed branchiae.

Disuse, aided sometimes by natural selection, will often tend to
reduce an organ, when it has become useless by changed habits or under
changed conditions of life; and we can clearly understand on this view
the meaning of rudimentary organs. But disuse and selection will
generally act on each creature, when it has come to maturity and has
to play its full part in the struggle for existence, and will thus
have little power of acting on an organ during early life; hence the
organ will not be much reduced or rendered rudimentary at this early
age. The calf, for instance, has inherited teeth, which never cut
through the gums of the upper jaw, from an early progenitor having
well-developed teeth; and we may believe, that the teeth in the mature
animal were reduced, during successive generations, by disuse or by
the tongue and palate having been fitted by natural selection to
browse without their aid; whereas in the calf, the teeth have been
left untouched by selection or disuse, and on the principle of
inheritance at corresponding ages have been inherited from a remote
period to the present day. On the view of each organic being and each
separate organ having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable
it is that parts, like the teeth in the embryonic calf or like the
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shrivelled wings under the soldered wing-covers of some beetles,
should thus so frequently bear the plain stamp of inutility! Nature
may be said to have taken pains to reveal, by rudimentary organs and
by homologous structures, her scheme of modification, which it seems
that we wilfully will not understand.

I have now recapitulated the chief facts and considerations which have
thoroughly convinced me that species have changed, and are still
slowly changing by the preservation and accumulation of successive
slight favourable variations. Why, it may be asked, have all the most
eminent living naturalists and geologists rejected this view of the
mutability of species? It cannot be asserted that organic beings in a
state of nature are subject to no variation; it cannot be proved that
the amount of variation in the course of long ages is a limited
quantity; no clear distinction has been, or can be, drawn between
species and well-marked varieties. It cannot be maintained that
species when intercrossed are invariably sterile, and varieties
invariably fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and sign
of creation. The belief that species were immutable productions was
almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to
be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the
lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the
geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain
evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one
species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are
always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the
intermediate steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many
geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs
had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of
the coast-waves. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of
the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the
full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost
infinite number of generations.

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this
volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince
experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of
facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view
directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under
such expressions as the "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc.,
and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.
Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to
unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number
of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed
with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on
the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I
look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists,
who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality.
Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good
service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus
can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be
removed.

Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a
multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but
that other species are real, that is, have been independently created.
This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a
multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were
special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority
of naturalists, and which consequently have every external
characteristic feature of true species,--they admit that these have
been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to
other and very slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not
pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the
created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws.
They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily
reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two
cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious
illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion. These authors
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seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an
ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods
in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded
suddenly to flash into living tissues? Do they believe that at each
supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced? Were
all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as
eggs or seed, or as full grown? and in the case of mammals, were they
created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb?
Although naturalists very properly demand a full explanation of every
difficulty from those who believe in the mutability of species, on
their own side they ignore the whole subject of the first appearance
of species in what they consider reverent silence.

It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of
species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more
distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the arguments
fall away in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend
very far. All the members of whole classes can be connected together
by chains of affinities, and all can be classified on the same
principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes
tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders. Organs in
a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the
organ in a fully developed state; and this in some instances
necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in the
descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on
the same pattern, and at an embryonic age the species closely resemble
each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with
modification embraces all the members of the same class. I believe
that animals have descended from at most only four or five
progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all
animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy
may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in
common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their
cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see
this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often
similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by
the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree.
Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic
beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some
one primordial form, into which life was first breathed. When the
views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when
analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that
there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.
Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but
they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this
or that form be in essence a species. This I feel sure, and I speak
after experience, will be no slight relief. The endless disputes
whether or not some fifty species of British brambles are true species
will cease. Systematists will have only to decide (not that this will
be easy) whether any form be sufficiently constant and distinct from
other forms, to be capable of definition; and if definable, whether
the differences be sufficiently important to deserve a specific name.
This latter point will become a far more essential consideration than
it is at present; for differences, however slight, between any two
forms, if not blended by intermediate gradations, are looked at by
most naturalists as sufficient to raise both forms to the rank of
species. Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only
distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the
latter are known, or believed, to be connected at the present day by
intermediate gradations, whereas species were formerly thus connected.
Hence, without quite rejecting the consideration of the present
existence of intermediate gradations between any two forms, we shall
be led to weigh more carefully and to value higher the actual amount
of difference between them. It is quite possible that forms now
generally acknowledged to be merely varieties may hereafter be thought
worthy of specific names, as with the primrose and cowslip; and in
this case scientific and common language will come into accordance. In
short, we shall have to treat species in the same manner as those
naturalists treat genera, who admit that genera are merely artificial
99
combinations made for convenience. This may not be a cheering
prospect; but we shall at least be freed from the vain search for the
undiscovered and undiscoverable essence of the term species.

The other and more general departments of natural history will rise
greatly in interest. The terms used by naturalists of affinity,
relationship, community of type, paternity, morphology, adaptive
characters, rudimentary and aborted organs, etc., will cease to be
metaphorical, and will have a plain signification. When we no longer
look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something
wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of
nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every
complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances,
each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look
at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labour, the
experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen;
when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I
speak from experience, will the study of natural history become!

A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the
causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects
of use and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions, and so
forth. The study of domestic productions will rise immensely in value.
A new variety raised by man will be a far more important and
interesting subject for study than one more species added to the
infinitude of already recorded species. Our classifications will come
to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies; and will then truly
give what may be called the plan of creation. The rules for
classifying will no doubt become simpler when we have a definite
object in view. We possess no pedigrees or armorial bearings; and we
have to discover and trace the many diverging lines of descent in our
natural genealogies, by characters of any kind which have long been
inherited. Rudimentary organs will speak infallibly with respect to
the nature of long-lost structures. Species and groups of species,
which are called aberrant, and which may fancifully be called living
fossils, will aid us in forming a picture of the ancient forms of
life. Embryology will reveal to us the structure, in some degree
obscured, of the prototypes of each great class.

When we can feel assured that all the individuals of the same species,
and all the closely allied species of most genera, have within a not
very remote period descended from one parent, and have migrated from
some one birthplace; and when we better know the many means of
migration, then, by the light which geology now throws, and will
continue to throw, on former changes of climate and of the level of
the land, we shall surely be enabled to trace in an admirable manner
the former migrations of the inhabitants of the whole world. Even at
present, by comparing the differences of the inhabitants of the sea on
the opposite sides of a continent, and the nature of the various
inhabitants of that continent in relation to their apparent means of
immigration, some light can be thrown on ancient geography.

The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection
of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must
not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection
made at hazard and at rare intervals. The accumulation of each great
fossiliferous formation will be recognised as having depended on an
unusual concurrence of circumstances, and the blank intervals between
the successive stages as having been of vast duration. But we shall be
able to gauge with some security the duration of these intervals by a
comparison of the preceding and succeeding organic forms. We must be
cautious in attempting to correlate as strictly contemporaneous two
formations, which include few identical species, by the general
succession of their forms of life. As species are produced and
exterminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by
miraculous acts of creation and by catastrophes; and as the most
important of all causes of organic change is one which is almost
independent of altered and perhaps suddenly altered physical
conditions, namely, the mutual relation of organism to organism,--the
improvement of one being entailing the improvement or the
extermination of others; it follows, that the amount of organic change
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in the fossils of consecutive formations probably serves as a fair
measure of the lapse of actual time. A number of species, however,
keeping in a body might remain for a long period unchanged, whilst
within this same period, several of these species, by migrating into
new countries and coming into competition with foreign associates,
might become modified; so that we must not overrate the accuracy of
organic change as a measure of time. During early periods of the
earth's history, when the forms of life were probably fewer and
simpler, the rate of change was probably slower; and at the first dawn
of life, when very few forms of the simplest structure existed, the
rate of change may have been slow in an extreme degree. The whole
history of the world, as at present known, although of a length quite
incomprehensible by us, will hereafter be recognised as a mere
fragment of time, compared with the ages which have elapsed since the
first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living
descendants, was created.

In the distant future I see open fields for far more important
researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the
necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.
Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the
view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it
accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by
the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and
present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary
causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.
When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal
descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed
of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become
ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one
living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant
futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny
of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all
organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species
of each genus, and all the species of many genera, have left no
descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a
prophetic glance into futurity as to foretel that it will be the
common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant
groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant
species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of
those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain
that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken,
and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look
with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable
length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of
each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress
towards perfection.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many
plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various
insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp
earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so
different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a
manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws,
taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction;
Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from
the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and
from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a
Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection,
entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved
forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most
exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the
production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur
in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally
breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet
has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so
simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
have been, and are being, evolved.
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'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists'
by George Eliot

Westminster Review, 66 (October 1856): 442-61.
SILLY Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species, determined by the particular
quality of silliness that predominates in them - the frothy, the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic.
But it is a mixture of all these - a composite order of feminine fatuity, that produces the largest
class of such novels, which we shall distinguish as the mind-and-millinery species. The heroine
is usually an heiress, probably a peeress in her own right, with perhaps a vicious baronet, an
amiable duke, and an irresistible younger son of a marquis as lovers in the foreground, a
clergyman and a poet sighing for her in the middle distance, and a crowd of undefined adorers
dimly indicated beyond. Her eyes and her wit are both dazzling; her nose and her morals are
alike free from any tendency to irregularity; she has a superb contralto and a superb intellect; she
is perfectly well-dressed and perfectly religious; she dances like a sylph, and reads the Bible in
the original tongues. Or it may be that the heroine is not an heiress -- that rank and wealth are the
only things in which she is deficient; but she infallibly gets into high society, she has the triumph
of refusing many matches and securing the best, and she wears some family jewels or other as a
sort of crown of righteousness at the end. Rakish men either bite their lips in impotent confusion
at her repartees, or are touched to penitence by her reproofs, which, on appropriate occasions,
rise to a lofty strain of rhetoric; indeed, there is a general propensity in her to make speeches, and
to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom. In her recorded conversations she
is amazingly eloquent, and in her unrecorded conversations, amazingly witty. She is under stood
to have a depth of insight that looks through and through the shallow theories of philosophers,
and her superior instincts are a sort of dial by which men have only to set their clocks and
watches, and all will go well. The men play a very subordinate part by her side. You are
consoled now and then by a hint that they have affairs, which keeps you in mind that the
working-day business of the world is somehow being carried on, but ostensibly the final cause of
their existence is that they may accompany the heroine on her "starring" expedition through life.
They see her at a ball, and are dazzled; at a flower-show, and they are fascinated; on a riding
excursion, and they are witched by her noble horsemanship; at church, and they are awed by the
sweet solemnity of her demeanour. She is the ideal woman in feelings, faculties, and flounces.
For all this, she as often as not marries the wrong person to begin with, and she suffers terribly
from the plots and intrigues of the vicious baronet; but even death has a soft place in his heart for
such a paragon, and remedies all mistakes for her just at the right moment. The vicious baronet is
sure to be killed in a duel, and the tedious husband dies in his bed requesting his wife, as a
particular favour to him, to marry the man she loves best, and having already dispatched a note
to the lover informing him of the comfort able arrangement. Before matters arrive at this
desirable issue our feelings are tried by seeing the noble, lovely, and gifted heroine pass through
many mauvais moments, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that her sorrows are wept into
embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs, that her fainting form reclines on the very best upholstery,
and that whatever vicissitudes she may undergo, from being dashed out of her carriage to having
her head shaved in a fever, she comes out of them all with a complexion more blooming and
looks more redundant than ever.
We may remark, by the way, that we have been relieved from a serious scruple by discovering
that silly novels by lady novelists rarely introduce us into any other than very lofty and
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fashionable society. We had imagined that destitute women turned novelists, as they turned
governesses, because they had no other "lady-like" means of getting their bread. On this
supposition, vacillating syntax and improbable incident had a certain pathos for us, like the
extremely supererogatory pincushions and ill-devised nightcaps that are offered for sale by a
blind man. We felt the commodity to be a nuisance, but we were glad to think that the money
went to relieve the necessitous, and we pictured to ourselves lonely women struggling for a
maintenance, or wives and daughters devoting themselves to the production of "copy" out of
pure heroism -- perhaps to pay their husband's debts, or to purchase luxuries for a sick father.
Under these impressions we shrank from criticising a lady's novel: her English might be faulty,
but, we said to ourselves, her motives are irreproachable; her imagination may be uninventive,
but her patience is untiring. Empty writing was excused by an empty stomach, and twaddle was
consecrated by tears. But no! This theory of ours, like many other pretty theories, has had to give
way before observation.
Women's silly novels, we are now convinced, are written under totally different circumstances.
The fair writers have evidently never talked to a tradesman except from a carriage window; they
have no notion of the working-classes except as "dependents;" they think five hundred a-year a
miserable pittance; Belgravia and "baronial halls" are their primary truths; and they have no idea
of feeling interest in any man who is not at least a great landed proprietor, if not a prime
minister. It is clear that they write in elegant boudoirs, with violet-coloured ink and a ruby pen;
that they must be entirely indifferent to publishers' accounts, and inexperienced in every form of
poverty except poverty of brains. It is true that we are constantly struck with the want of
verisimilitude in their representations of the high society in which they seem to live; but then
they betray no closer acquaintance with any other form of life. If their peers and peeresses are
improbable, their literary men, tradespeople, and cottagers are impossible; and their intellect
seems to have the peculiar impartiality of reproducing both what they have seen and heard, and
what they have not seen and heard, with equal unfaithfulness.
There are few women, we suppose, who have not seen something of children under five years of
age, yet in "Compensation," a recent novel of the mind-and-millinery species, which calls itself a
"story of real life," we have a child of four and a half years old talking in this Ossianic fashions -
"Oh, I am so happy, dear gran'mamma; -- I have seen, -- I have seen such a delightful person: he
is like everything beautiful, -- like the smell of sweet flowers and the view from Ben Lomond; -
or no, better than that -- he is like what I think of and see when I am very very happy; and he is
really like mamma, too when she sings; and his forehead is like that distant sea," she continued,
pointing to the blue Mediterranean; "there seems no end -- no end; or like the clusters of stars I
like best to look at on a warm fine night . . . Don't look so . . . your forehead is like Loch
Lomond, when the wind is blowing and the sun is gone; I like the sunshine best when the lake is
smooth . . . So now -- I like it better than ever . . . it is more beautiful still from the dark cloud
that has gone over it, when the sun suddenly lights up all the colours of the forests and shining
purple rocks, and it a all reflected in the maters below."
We are not surprised to learn that the mother of this infant phenomenon, who exhibits symptoms
so alarmingly like those of adolescence repressed by gin, is herself a phoenix.2 We are assured,
again and again, that she had a remarkably original mind, that she was a genius, and "conscious
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of her originality," and she was fortunate enough to have a lover who was also a genius, and a
man of "most original mind."
This lover, we read, though "wonderfully similar" to her "in powers and capacity," was
"infinitely superior to her in faith and development," and she saw in him the " `Agape' -- so rare
to find - of which she had read and admired the meaning in her Greek Testament; having, from
her great facility in learning languages, read the Scriptures in their original tongues." Of course!
Greek and Hebrew are mere play to a heroine; Sanscrit is no more than a b c to her; and she can
talk with perfect correctness in any language except English. She is a polking polyglott, a
Creuzer in crinoline. Poor men! There are so few of you who know even Hebrew; you think it
something to boast of if, like Bolingbroke, you only "understand that sort of learning, and what is
writ about it;" and you are perhaps adoring women who can think slightingly of you in all the
Semitic languages successively. But, then, as we are almost invariably told, that a heroine has a
"beautifully small head," and as her intellect has probably been early invigorated by an attention
to costume and deportment, we may conclude that she can pick up the Oriental tongues, to say
nothing of their dialects, with the same aerial facility that the butterfly sips nectar. Besides, there
can be no difficulty in conceiving the depth of the heroine's erudition, when that of the authoress
is so evident.
In "Laura Gay," another novel of the same school, the heroine seems less at home in Greek and
Hebrew, but she makes up for the deficiency by a quite playful familiarity with the Latin classics
- with the "dear old Virgil," "the graceful Horace, the humane Cicero, and the pleasant Livy;"
indeed, it is such a matter of course with her to quote Latin, that she does it at a pic-nic in a very
mixed company of ladies and gentlemen, having, we are told, "no conception that the nobler sex
were capable of jealousy on this subject. And if, indeed," continues the biographer of Laura Gay,
"the wisest and noblest portion of that sex were in the majority, no such sentiment would exist;
but while Miss Wyndhams and Mr. Redfords abound, great sacrifices must be made to their
existence." Such sacrifices, we presume, as abstaining from Latin quotations, of extremely
moderate interest and applicability, which the wise and noble minority of the other sex would be
quite as willing to dispense with as the foolish and ignoble majority. It is as little the custom of
well-bred men as of well-bred women to quote Latin in mixed parties; they can contain their
familiarity with "the humane Cicero" without allowing it to boil over in ordinary conversation,
and even references to "the pleasant Livy" are not absolutely irrepressible. But Ciceronian Latin
is the mildest form of Miss Gay's conversation power. Being on the Palatinea with a party of
sightseers, she falls into the following vein of well-rounded remark: -- "Truth can only be pure
objectively, for even in the creeds where it predominates, being subjective, and parcelled out into
portions, each of these necessarily receives a hue of idiosyncrasy, that is, a taint of superstition
more or less strong; while in such creeds as the Roman Catholic, ignorance, interest, the bias of
ancient idolatries, and the force of authority, have gradually accumulated on the pure truth, and
transformed it, at last, into a mass of superstition for the majority of its votaries; and how few are
there, alas! whose zeal, courage, and intellectual energy are equal to the analysis of this
accumulation, and to the discovery of the pearl of great price which lies hidden beneath this heap
of rubbish." We have often met with women much more novel and profound in their
observations than Laura Gay, but rarely with any so inopportunely long winded. A clerical lord,
who is half in love with her, is alarmed by the daring remarks just quoted, and begins to suspect
that she is inclined to free-thinking. But he is mistaken; when in a moment of sorrow he
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delicately begs leave to "recal to her memory a dep6t of strength and consolation under
affliction, which, until we are hard pressed by the trials of life, we are too apt to forget," we learn
that she really has "recurrence to that sacred depot," together with the tea-pot. There is a certain
flavour of orthodoxy mixed with the parade of fortunes and fine carriages in "Laura Gay," but it
is an orthodoxy mitigated by study of "the humane Cicero," and by an "intellectual disposition to
analyse."
"Compensation" is much more heavily dosed with doctrine, but then it has a treble amount of
snobbish worldliness and absurd incident to tickle the palate of pious frivolity. Linda, the
heroine, is still more speculative and spiritual than Laura Gay, but she has been "presented," and
has more, and far grander, lovers; very wicked and fascinating women are introduced -- even a
French lionne; and no expense is spared to get up as exciting a story as you will find in the most
immoral novels. In fact, it is a wonderful potpourri of Alinack's, Scotch second-sight, Mr.
Rogers's breakfasts, Italian brigands, death-bed conversions, superior authoresses, Italian
mistresses, and attempts at poisoning old ladies, the whole served up with a garnish of talk about
"faith and development," and "most original minds." Even Miss Susan Barton, the superior
authoress, whose pen moves in a "quick decided manner when she is composing," declines the
finest opportunities of marriage; and though old enough to be Linda's mother (since we are told
that she refused Linda's father), has her hand sought by a young earl, the heroine's rejected lover.
Of course, genius and morality must be backed by eligible offers, or they would seem rather a
dull affair; and piety, like other things, in order to be comme il faut, must be in "society," and
have admittance to the best circles.
"Rank and Beauty" is a more frothy and less religious variety of the mind-and-millinery species.
The heroine, we are told, "if she inherited her father's pride of birth and her mother's beauty of
person, had in herself a tone of enthusiastic feeling that perhaps belongs to her age even in the
lowly born, but which is refined into the high spirit of wild romance only in the far descended,
who feel that it is their best inheritance." This enthusiastic young lady, by dint of reading the
newspaper to her father, falls in love with the prime minister, who, through the medium of
leading articles and "the resumi of the debates," shines upon her imagination as a bright
particular star, which has no parallax for her, living in the country as simple Miss Wyndham. But
she forthwith becomes Baroness Umfraville in her own right, astonishes the world with her
beauty and accomplishments when she bursts upon it from her mansion in Spring Gardens, and,
as you foresee, will presently come into contact with the unseen objet aimi. Perhaps the words
"prime minister" suggest to you a wrinkled or obese sexagenarian; but pray dismiss the image.
Lord Rupert Conway has been "called while still almost a youth to the first situation which a
subject can hold in the universe," and even leading articles and a resume of the debates have not
conjured up a dream that surpasses the fact.
The door opened again, and Lord Rupert Conway entered. Evelyn gave one glance. It was
enough; she was not disappointed. It seemed as if a picture on which she had long gazed was
suddenly instinct with life, and had stepped from its frame before her. His tall figure, the
distinguished simplicity of his air- it was a living Vandyke, a cavalier, one of his noble cavalier
ancestors, or one to whom her fancy had always likened him, who long of yore had, with an
Umfraville, fought the Paynim far beyond sea. Was this reality?
Very little like it, certainly.
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By-and-by, it becomes evident that the ministerial heart is touched. Lady Umfraville is on a visit
to the Queen at Windsor, and, --
The last evening of her stay, when they returned from riding, Mr. Wyndham took her and a large
party to the top of the Keep, to see the view. She was leaning on the battlements, gazing from
that "stately height" at the prospect beneath her, when Lord Rupert was by her side. "What an
unrivalled view!" exclaimed she.
"Yes, it would have been wrong to go without having been up here. You are pleased with your
visit?"
"Enchanted! `A Queen to live and die under', to live and die for!"
"Ha!" cried he, with sudden emotion, and with a eureka expression of countenance, as if he had
indeed found a beart in unison witb his own.
The "eureka expression of countenance," you see at once to be prophetic of marriage at the end
of the third volume; but before that desirable consummation, there are very complicated
misunderstandings, arising chiefly from the vindictive plotting of Sir Luttrell Wycherley, who is
a genius, a poet, and in every way a most remarkable character indeed. He is not only a romantic
poet, but a hardened rake and a cynical wit; yet his deep passion for Lady Umfraville has so
impoverished his epigrammatic talent, that he cuts an extremely poor figure in conversation.
When she rejects him, he rushes into the shrubbery, and rolls himself in the dirt; and on
recovering, devotes himself to the most diabolical and laborious schemes of vengeance, in the
course of which he disguises himself as a quack physician, and enters into general practice,
foreseeing that Evelyn will fall ill, and that he shall be called in to attend her. At last, when all
his schemes are frustrated, he takes leave of her in a long letter, written, as you will perceive
from the following passage, entirely in the style of an eminent literary man: --
Oh, lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, will you ever cast one thought upon the miserable being
who addresses you? Will you ever, as your gilded galley is floating down the unruffled stream of
prosperity, will you ever, while lulled by the sweetest music -thine own praises, - hear the far-off
sigh from that world to which I am going?
On the whole, however, frothy as it is, we rather prefer "Rank and Beauty" to the two other
novels we have mentioned. The dialogue is more natural and spirited; there is some frank
ignorance, and no pedantry; and you are allowed to take the heroine's astounding intellect upon
trust, without being called on to read her conversational refutations of sceptics and philosophers,
or her rhetorical solutions of the mysteries of the universe.
Writers of the mind-and-millinery school are remarkably unanimous in their choice of diction. In
their novels, there is usually a lady or gentleman who is more or less of a upas tree: the lover has
a manly breast; minds are redolent of various things; hearts are hollow; events are utilized;
friends are consigned to the tomb; infancy is an engaging period; the sun is a luminary that goes
to his western couch, or gathers the rain-drops into his refulgent bosom; life is a melancholy
boon; Albion and Scotia are conversational epithets. There is a striking resemblance, too, in the
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character of their moral comments, such, for instance, as that "It is a fact, no less true than
melancholy, that all people, more or less, richer or poorer, are swayed by bad example;" that
"Books, however trivial, contain some subjects from which useful information may be drawn;"
that "Vice can too often borrow the language of virtue;" that "Merit and nobility of nature must
exist, to be accepted, for clamour and pretension cannot impose upon those too well read in
human nature to be easily deceived;" and that, "In order to forgive, we must have been injured."
There is, doubtless, a class of readers to whom these remarks appear peculiarly pointed and
pungent; for we often find them doubly and trebly scored with the pencil, and delicate hands
giving in their determined adhesion to these hardy novelties by a distinct tris vrai, emphasized by
many notes of exclamation. The colloquial style of these novels is often marked by much
ingenious inversion, and a careful avoidance of such cheap phraseology as can be heard every
day. Angry young gentlemen exclaim -- "'Tis ever thus, methinks;" and in the half-hour before
dinner a young lady informs her next neighbour that the first day she read Shakspeare she "stole
away into the park, and beneath the shadow of the greenwood tree, devoured with rapture the
inspired page of the great magician." But the most remarkable efforts of the mind-and-millinery
writers lie in their philosophic reflections. The authoress of "Laura Gay," for example, having
married her hero and heroine, improves the event by observing that "if those sceptics, whose
eyes have so long gazed on matter that they can no longer see aught else in man, could once
enter with heart and soul into such bliss as this, they would come to say that the soul of man and
the polypus are not of common origin, or of the same texture." Lady novelists, it appears, can see
something else besides matter; they are not limited to phenomena, but can relieve their eyesight
by occasional glimpses of the noumenon, and are, therefore, naturally better able than any one
else to confound sceptics, even of that remarkable, but to us unknown school, which maintains
that the soul of man is of the same texture as the polypus.
The most pitiable of all silly novels by lady novelists are what we may call the oracular species -
- novels intended to expound the writer's religious, philosophical, or moral theories. There seems
to be a notion abroad among women, rather akin to the superstition that the speech and actions of
idiots are inspired, and that the human being most entirely exhausted of common sense is the
fittest vehicle of revelation. To judge from their writings, there are certain ladies who think that
an amazing ignorance, both of science and of fife, is the best possible qualification for forming
an opinion on the knottiest moral and speculative questions. Apparently, their recipe for solving
all such difficulties is something like this: -Take a woman's head, stuff it with a smattering of
philosophy and literature chopped small, and with false notions of society baked hard, let it hang
over a desk a few hours every day, and serve up hot in feeble English, when not required. You
will rarely meet with a lady novelist of the oracular class who is diffident of her ability to decide
on theological questions, - who has any suspicion that she is not capable of discriminating with
the nicest accuracy between the good and evil in all church parties, -- who does not see precisely
how it is that men have gone wrong hitherto, -- and pity philosophers in general that they have
not had the opportunity of consulting her. Great writers, who have modestly contented
themselves with putting their experience into fiction, and have thought it quite a sufficient task to
exhibit men and things as they are, she sighs over as deplorably deficient in the application of
their powers. "They have solved no great questions" -- and she is ready to remedy their omission
by setting before you a complete theory of life and manual of divinity, in a love story, where
ladies and gentlemen of good family go through genteel vicissitudes, to the utter confusion of
Deists, Puseyites, and ultra-Protestants, and to the perfect establishment of that particular view of
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Christianity which either condenses itself into a sentence of small caps, or explodes into a cluster
of stars on the three hundred and thirtieth page. It is true, the ladies and gentlemen will probably
seem to you remarkably little like any you have had the fortune or misfortune to meet with, for,
as a general rule, the ability of a lady novelist to describe actual life and her fellow-men, is in
inverse proportion to her confident eloquence about God and the other world, and the means by
which she usually chooses to conduct you to true ideas of the invisible is a totally false picture of
the visible.
As typical a novel of the oracular kind as we can hope to meet with, is "The Engima: a Leaf from
the Chronicles of the Wolchorley House." The "enigma" which this novel is to solve, is certainly
one that demands powers no less gigantic than those of a lady novelist, being neither more nor
less than the existence of evil. The problem is stated, and the answer dimly foreshadowed on the
very first page. The spirited young lady, with raven hair, says, "All life is an inextricable
confusion;" and the meek young lady, with auburn hair, looks at the picture of the Madonna
which she is copying, and -- "There seemed the solution of that mighty enigma." The style of this
novel is quite as lofty as its purpose; indeed, some passages on which we have spent much
patient study are quite beyond our reach, in spite of the illustrative aid of italics and small caps;
and we must await further "development" in order to understand them. Of Ernest, the model
young clergyman, who sets every one right on all occasions, we read, that "he held not of
marriage in the marketable kind, after a social desecration;" that, on one eventful night, "sleep
had not visited his divided heart, where tumultuated, in varied type and combination, the
aggregate feelings of grief and joy;" and that, "for the marketable human article he had no
toleration, be it of what sort, or set for what value it might, whether for worship or class, his
upright soul abhorred it, whose ultimatum, the self-deceiver, was to him THE great spiritual lie,
'living in a vain show, deceiving and being deceived;' since he did not suppose the phylactery
and enlarged border on the garment to be merely a social trick." (The italics and small caps are
the author's, and we hope they assist the reader's comprehension.) Of Sir Lionel, the model old
gentleman, we are told that "the simple ideal of the middle age, apart from its anarchy and
decadence, in him most truly seemed to live again, when the ties which knit men together were
of heroic cast. The first-born colours of pristine faith and truth engraven on the common soul of
man, and blent into the wide arch of brotherhood, where the primxval law of order grew and
multiplied, each perfect after his kind, and mutually inter-dependent." You see clearly, of course,
how colours are first engraven on a soul, and then blent into a wide arch, on which arch of
colours -- apparently a rainbow -- the law of order grew and multiplied, each -- apparently the
arch and the law - perfect after his kind? If, after this, you can possibly want any further aid
towards knowing what Sir Lionel was, we can tell you, that in his soul "the scientific
combinations of thought could educe no fuller harmonies of the good and the true, than lay in the
primxval pulses which floated as an atmosphere around it!" and that, when he was sealing a
letter, "Lo! the responsive throb in that good man's bosom echoed back in simple truth the honest
witness of a heart that condemned him not, as his eye, bedewed with love, rested, too, with
something of ancestral pride, on the undimmed motto of the family -- 'LOIAUTI.'"
The slightest matters have their vulgarity fumigated out of them by the same elevated style.
Commonplace people would say that a copy of Shakspeare lay on a drawing-room table, but the
authoress of "The Enigma," bent on edifying periphrasis, tells you that there lay on the table,
"that fund of human thought and feeling, which teaches the heart through the little name,
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'Shakspeare.'" A watchman sees a light burning in an upper window rather longer than usual, and
thinks that people are foolish to sit up late when they have an opportunity of going to bed; but,
lest this fact should seem too low and common, it is presented to us in the following striking and
metaphysical manner: "He marvelled -- as man will think for others in a necessarily separate
personality, consequently (though disallowing it) in false mental premise, -- how differently he
should act, how gladly he should prize the rest so lightly held of within." A footman -- an
ordinary Jeames,a with large calves and aspirated vowels - answers the door-bell, and the
opportunity is seized to tell you that he was a "type of the large class of pampered menials, who
follow the curse of Cain -- `vagabonds' on the face of the earth, and whose estimate of the human
class varies in the graduate scale of money and expenditure . . . . These, and such as these, O
England, be the false lights of thy morbid civilization!" We have heard of various "false lights,"
from Dr. Cumming to Robert Owen, from Dr. Pusey to the Spirit-rappers,1 but we never before
heard of the false light that emanates from plush and powder.
In the same way very ordinary events of civilized life are exalted into the most awful crises, and
ladies in full skirts and manches ` la Chinoise, conduct themselves not unlike the heroines of
sanguinary melodramas. Mrs. Percy, a shallow woman of the world, wishes her son Horace to
marry the auburn-haired Grace, she being an heiress; but he, after the manner of sons, falls in
love with the raven-haired Kate, the heiress's portionless cousin; and moreover, Grace herself
shows every symptom of perfect indifference to Horace. In such cases, sons are often sulky or
fiery, mothers are alternately manceuvring and waspish, and the portionless young lady often lies
awake at night and cries a good deal. We are getting used to these things now, just as we are'
used to eclipses of the moon, which no longer set us howling and beating tin kettles. We never
heard of a lady in a fashionable "front" behaving like Mrs. Percy under these circumstances.
Happening one day to see Horace talking to Grace at a window, without in the least knowing
what they are talking about, or having the least reason to believe that Grace, who is mistress of
the house and a person of dignity, would accept her son if he were to offer himself, she suddenly
rushes up to them and clasps them both, saying, "with a flushed countenance and in an excited
manner" -- "This is indeed happiness; for, may I not call you so, Grace? -- my Grace -- my
Horace's Grace! -- my dear children!" Her son tells her she is mistaken, and that he is engaged to
Kate, whereupon we have the following scene and tableau: --
Gathering herself up to an unprecedented height, (!) her eyes lightning forth the fire of her
anger:-
"Wretched boy!" she said, hoarsely and scornfully, and clenching her hand "Fake then the doom
of your own choice! Bow down your miserable head and let a mother's-"
"Curse not!" spake a deep low voice from behind, and Mrs. Percy started, scared, as though she
had seen a heavenly visitant appear, to break upon her in the midst of her sin.
Meantime, Horace had fallen on his knees at her feet, and hid his face in his hands.
Who then, is she -- who! Truly his "guardian spirit" hath stepped between him and the fearful
words, which, however unmerited, must have hung as a pall over his future existence; - a spell
which could not be unbound - which could not be unsaid.
109
Of an earthly paleness, but calm with the still, iron-bound calmness of death - the only calm one
there, - Katherine stood; and her words smote on the ear in tones whose appallingly slow and
separate intonation rung on the heart like the chill, isolated tolling of some fatal knell.
"He would have plighted me his faith, but I did not accept it; you cannot, therefore - you dare not
curse him. And here", she continued, raising her hand to heaven, whither her large dark eyes also
rose with a chastened glow, which, for the first time, suffering had lighted in those passionate
orbs, - "here I promise, come weal, come woe, that Horace Wolchorley and I do never
interchange vows without his mother's sanction -- without his mother's blessing!"
Here, and throughout the story, we see that confusion of purpose which is so characteristic of
silly novels written by women. It is a story of quite modern drawing-room society - a society in
which polkas are played and Puseyism discussed; yet we have characters, and incidents, and
traits of manner introduced, which are mere shreds from the most heterogeneous romances. We
have a blind Irish harper "relic of the picturesque bards of yore," startling us at a Sunday-school
festival of tea and cake in an English village; we have a crazy gipsy, in a scarlet cloak singing
snatches of romantic song, and revealing a secret on her deathbed which, with the testimony of a
dwarfish miserly merchant, who salutes strangers with a curse and a devilish laugh, goes to
prove that Ernest, the model young clergyman, is Kate's brother; and we have an ultra-virtuous
Irish Barney, discovering that a document is forged, by comparing the date of the paper with the
date of the alleged signature, although the same document has passed through a court of law, and
occasioned a fatal decision. The "Hall" in which Sir Lionel lives is the venerable country-seat of
an old family, and this, we suppose, sets the imagination of the authoress flying to donjons and
battlements, where "lo! the warder blows his horn;" for, as the inhabitants are in their bedrooms
on a night certainly within the recollection of Pleaceman X.,and a breeze springs up, which we
are at first told was faint, and then that it made the old cedars bow their branches to the
greensward, she falls into this medixval vein of description (the italics are ours): "The banner
unfurled it at the sound, and shook its guardian wing above, while the startled owl flapped her in
the ivy; the firmament looking down through her 'argus eyes,'--
Ministers of heaven's mute melodies.
And lo! two strokes tolled from out the warder tower, and `Two o'clock' re-echoed its interpreter
below."
Such stories as this of "The Enigma" remind us of the pictures clever children sometimes draw
"out of their own head," where you will see a modern villa on the right, two knights in helmets
fighting in the foreground, and a tiger grinning in a jungle on the left, and several objects being
brought together because the artist thinks each pretty, and perhaps still more because he
remembers seeing them in other pictures.
But we like the authoress much better on her medixval stilts than on her oracular ones, -- when
she talks of the Ich and of "subjective" and "objective," and lays down the exact line of Christian
verity, between "right-hand excesses and left-hand declensions." Persons who deviate from this
line are introduced with a patronizing air of charity. Of a certain Miss Inshquine she informs us,
with all the lucidity of italics and small caps, that "function, not form, AS the inevitable outer
110
expression of the spirit in this tabernacled age, weakly engrossed her." And d propos of Miss
Mayjar, an evangelical lady who is a little too apt to talk of her visits to sick women and the state
of their souls, we are told that the model clergyman is "not one to disallow, through the super
crust, the undercurrent towards good in the subject, or the positive benefits, nevertheless, to the
object." We imagine the double-refined accent and protrusion of chin which are feebly
represented by the italics in this lady's sentences! We abstain from quoting any of her oracular
doctrinal passages, because they refer to matters too serious for our pages just now.
The epithet "silly" may seem impertinent, applied to a novel which indicates so much reading
and intellectual activity as "The Enigma;" but we use this epithet advisedly. If, as the world has
long agreed, a very great amount of instruction will not make a wise man, still less will a very
mediocre amount of instruction make a wise woman. And the most mischievous form of
feminine silliness is the literary form, because it tends to confirm the popular prejudice against
the more solid education of woman. When men see girls wasting their time in consultations
about bonnets and ball dresses, and in giggling or sentimental love-confidences, or middle-aged
women mismanaging their children, and solacing themselves with acrid gossip, they can hardly
help saying, "For Heaven's sake, let girls be better educated; let them have some better objects of
thought -- some more solid occupations." But after a few hours' conversation with an oracular
literary woman, or a few hours' reading of her books, they are likely enough to say, "After all,
when a woman gets some knowledge, see what use she makes of it! Her knowledge remains
acquisition, instead of passing into culture; instead of being subdued into modesty and simplicity
by a larger acquaintance with thought and fact, she has a feverish consciousness of her
attainments; she keeps a sort of mental pocketmirror, and is continually looking in it at her own
`intellectuality;' she spoils the taste of one's muffin by questions of metaphysics; `puts down'
men at a dinner table with her superior information; and seizes the opportunity of a soiree to
catechise us on the vital question of the relation between mind and matter. And then, look at her
writings! She mistakes vagueness for depth, bombast for eloquence, and affectation for
originality; she struts on one page, rolls her eyes on another, grimaces in a third, and is hysterical
in a fourth. She may have read many writings of great men, and a few writings of great women;
but she is as unable to discern the difference between her own style and theirs as a Yorkshireman
is to discern the difference between his own English and a Londoner's: rhodomontade is the
native accent of her intellect. No -- the average nature of women is too shallow and feeble a soil
to bear much tillage; it is only fit for the very lightest crops."
It is true that the men who come to such a decision on such very superficial and imperfect
observation may not be among the wisest in the world; but we have not now to contest their
opinion -- we are only pointing out how it is unconsciously encouraged by many women who
have volunteered themselves as representatives of the feminine intellect. We do not believe that a
man was ever strengthened in such an opinion by associating with a woman of true culture,
whose mind had absorbed her knowledge instead of being absorbed by it. A really cultured
woman, like a really cultured man, is all the simpler and the less obtrusive for her knowledge; it
has made her see herself and her opinions in something like just proportions; she does not make
it a pedestal from which she flatters herself that she commands a complete view of men and
things, but makes it a point of observation from which to form a right estimate of herself. She
neither spouts poetry nor quotes Cicero on slight provocation; not because she thinks that a
sacrifice must be made to the prejudices of men, but because that mode of exhibiting her
111
memory and Latinity does not present itself to her as edifying or graceful. She does not write
books to confound philosophers, perhaps because she is able to write books that delight them. In
conversation she is the least formidable of women, because she understands you, without
wanting to make you aware that you can't understand her. She does not give you information,
which is the raw material of culture, -- she gives you sympathy, which is its subtlest essence.
A more numerous class of silly novels than the oracular, (which are generally inspired by some
form of High Church, or transcendental Christianity,) is what we may call the white neck-cloth
species, which represent the tone of thought and feeling in the Evangelical party. This species is
a kind of genteel tract on a large scale, intended as a sort of medicinal sweetmeat of Low Church
young ladies; an Evangelical substitute for the fashionable novel, as the May Meetings are a
substitute for the Opera. Even Quaker children, one would think, can hardly have been denied
the indulgence of a doll; but it must be a doll dressed in a drab gown and a coal-scuttle bonnet-
not a worldly doll, in gauze and spangles. And there are no young ladies, we imagine, - unless
they belong to the Church of the United Brethren, in which people are married without any love-
making -- who can dispense with love stories. Thus, for Evangelical young ladies there are
Evangelical love stories, in which the vicissitudes of the tender passion are sanctified by saving
views of Regeneration and the Atonement. These novels differ from the oracular ones, as a Low
Churchwoman often differs from a High Churchwoman: they are a little less supercilious, and a
great deal more ignorant, a little less correct in their syntax, and a great deal more vulgar.
The Orlando of Evangelical literature is the young curate looked at from the point ofview ofthe
middle class, where cambric bandsa are understood to have as thrilling an effect on the hearts of
young ladies as epaulettes have in the classes above and below it. In the ordinary type of these
novels, the hero is almost sure to be a young curate, frowned upon, perhaps, by worldly
mammas, but carrying captive the hearts of their daughters, who can "never forget that sermon;"
tender glances are seized from the pulpit stairs instead of the opera-box; tete-a-tetes are seasoned
with quotations from Scripture, instead of quotations from the poets; and questions as to the state
of the heroine's affections are mingled with anxieties as to the state of her soul. The young curate
always has a background of well-dressed and wealthy, if not fashionable society; -- for
Evangelical silliness is as snobbish as any other kind of silliness; and the Evangelical lady
novelist, while she explains to you the type of the scapegoat on one page, is ambitious on another
to represent the manners and conversation of aristocratic people. Her pictures of fashionable
society are often curious studies considered as efforts of the Evangelical imagination; but in one
particular the novels of the White Neck-cloth School are meritoriously realistic, -- their favourite
hero, the Evangelical young curate is always rather an insipid personage.
The most recent novel of this species that we happen to have before us, is "The Old Grey
Church." It is utterly tame and feeble; there is no one set of objects on which the writer seems to
have a stronger grasp than on any other; and we should be entirely at a loss to conjecture among
what phases of life her experience has been gained, but for certain vulgarisms of style which
sufficiently indicate that she has had the advantage, though she has been unable to use it, of
mingling chiefly with men and women whose manners and characters have not had all their
bosses and angles rubbed down by refined conventionalism. It is less excusable in an Evangelical
novelist, than in any other, gratuitously to seek her subjects among titles and carriages. The real
drama of Evangelicalism - and it has abundance of fine drama for any one who has genius
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enough to discern and reproduce it -- lies among the middle and lower classes; and are not
Evangelical opinions understood to give an especial interest in the weak things of the earth,
rather than in the mighty? Why then, cannot our Evangelical lady novelists show us the operation
of their religious views among people (there really are many such in the world) who keep no
carriage, "not so much as a brassbound gig," who even manage to eat their dinner without a
silver fork, and in whose mouths the authoress's questionable English would be strictly
consistent? Why can we not have pictures of religious life among the industrial classes in
England, as interesting as Mrs. Stowe's pictures of religious life among the negroes? Instead of
this, pious ladies nauseate us with novels which remind us of what we sometimes see in a
worldly woman recently "converted;" -- she is as fond of a fine dinner table as before, but she
invites clergymen instead of beaux; she thinks as much of her dress as before, but she adopts a
more sober choice of colours and patterns; her conversation is as trivial as before, but the
triviality is flavoured with gospel instead of gossip. In "The Old Grey Church," we have the
same sort of Evangelical travesty of the fashionable novel, and of course the vicious, intriguing
baronet is not wanting. It is worth while to give a sample of the style of conversation attributed
to this high-born rake -- a style that in its profuse italics and palpable innuendoes, is worthy of
Miss Squeers.ls In an evening visit to the ruins of the Colosseum, Eustace, the young clergyman,
has been withdrawing the heroine, Miss Lushington, from the rest of the party, for the sake of a
tete-a-tete. The baronet is jealous, and vents his pique in this way: --
There they are, and Miss Lushington, no doubt, quite safe; for she is under the holy guidance of
Pope Eustace the First, who has, of course, been delivering to her an edifying homily on the
wickedness of the heathens of yore, who~ as tradition tells us, in this very place let loose the
wild beastises on poor St. Paul! -- Oh, no! by-the-bye, I believe I am wrong, and betraying my
want of clergy, and that it was not at all St. Paul, nor was it here. But no matter, it would equally
serve as a text to preach from, and from which to diverge to the degenerate beathen Christians of
the present day, and all their naughty practices, and so end with an exhortation to `come out from
among them, and be separate;'- and I am sure, Miss Lushington, you have most scrupulously
conformed to that injunction this evening, for we have seen nothing of you since our arrival. But
every one seems agreed it has been a cbarming party of pleasure, and I am sure we all feel much
indebted to Mr. Grey for having suggested it; and as he seems so capital a cicerone, I hope he
will think of something else equally agreeable to all.
This drivelling kind of dialogue, and equally drivelling narrative, which, like a bad drawing,
represents nothing, and barely indicates what is meant to be represented, runs through the book;
and we have no doubt is considered by the amiable authoress to constitute an improving novel,
which Christian mothers will do well to put into the hands of their daughters. But everything is
relative; we have met with American vegetarians whose normal diet was dry meal, and who,
when their appetite wanted stimulating, tickled it with wet meal; and so we can imagine that
there are Evangelical circles in which "The Old Grey Church" is devoured as a powerful and
interesting fiction.
But, perhaps, the least readable of silly women's novels, are the modern-antique species, which
unfold to us the domestic life of Jannes and Jambres, the private love affairs of Sennacherib, or
the mental struggles and ultimate conversion of Demetrius the silversmith. From most silly
novels we can at least extract a laugh; but those of the modern antique school have a ponderous,
a leaden kind of fatuity, under which we groan. What can be more demonstrative of the inability
113
of literary women to measure their own powers, than their frequent assumption of a task which
can only be justified by the rarest concurrence of acquirement with genius? The finest effort to
reanimate the past is of course only approximative -- is always more or less an infusion of the
modern spirit into the ancient form, --
Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst, Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist, In dem die Zeiten
sich bespiegeln.
Admitting that genius which has familiarized itselfwith all the relics of an ancient period can
sometimes, by the force of its sympathetic divination, restore the missing notes in the "music of
humanity,"17 and reconstruct the fragments into a whole which will really bring the remote past
nearer to us, and interpret it to our duller apprehension, - this form of imaginative power must
always be among the very rarest, because it demands as much accurate and minute knowledge as
creative vigour. Yet we find ladies constantly choosing to make their mental mediocrity more
conspicuous, by clothing it in a masquerade of ancient names; by putting their feeble
sentimentality into the mouths of Roman vestals or Egyptian princesses, and attributing their
rhetorical arguments to Jewish high-priests and Greek philosophers. A recent example of this
heavy imbecility is, "Adonijah, a Tale of the Jewish Dispersion," which forms part of a series,
"uniting," we are told, "taste, humour, and sound principles." "Adonij ah," we presume,
What you the spirit of the ages call Is nothing but the spirit of you all, Wherein the ages are
reflected.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I (1808), II, 577-9]
exemplifies the tale of "sound principles;" the taste and humour are to be found in other members
of the series. We are told on the cover, that the incidents of this tale are "fraught with unusual
interest," and the preface winds up thus: "To those who feel interested in the dispersed of Israel
and Judea, these pages may afford, perhaps, information on an important subject, as well as
amusement." Since the "important subject" on which this book is to afford information is not
specified, it may possibly lie in some esoteric meaning to which we have no key; but if it has
relation to the dispersed of Israel and Judea at any period of their history, we believe a tolerably
well-informed school-girl already knows much more of it than she will find in this "Tale of the
Jewish Dispersion." "Adonijah" is simply the feeblest kind of love story, supposed to be
instructive, we presume, because the hero is a Jewish captive, and the heroine a Roman vestal;
because they and their friends are converted to Christianity after the shortest and easiest method
approved by the "Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Jews;" and because, instead of
being written in plain language, it is adorned with that peculiar style of grandiloquence which is
held by some lady novelists to give an antique colouring, and which we recognise at once in such
phrases as these: - "the splendid regnal talents undoubtedly possessed by the Emperor Nero" --
"the expiring scion of a lofty stem" -- "the virtuous partner of his couch" -- "ah, by Vesta!" -- and
"I tell thee, Roman." Among the quotations which serve at once for instruction and ornament on
the cover of this volume, there is one from Miss Smclair, which informs us that "Works of
imagination are avowedly read by men of science, wisdom, and piety;" from which we suppose
the reader is to gather the cheering inference that Dr. Daubeny, Mr. Mill, or Mr. Maurice, may
openly indulge himself with the perusal of "Adonijah," without being obliged to secrete it among
the sofa cushions, or read it by snatches under the dinner table.
114
"Be not a baker if your head be made of butter," says a homely proverb, which, being interpreted,
may mean, let no woman rush into print who is not prepared for the consequences. We are aware
that our remarks are in a very different tone from that of the reviewers who, with a perennial
recurrence of precisely similar emotions, only paralleled, we imagine, in the experience of
monthly nurses, tell one lady novelist after another that they "hail" her productions "with
delight." We are aware that the ladies at whom our criticism is pointed are accustomed to be told,
in the choicest phraseology of puffery, that their pictures of life are brilliant, their characters well
drawn, their style fascinating, and their sentiments lofty. But if they are inclined to resent our
plainness of speech, we ask them to reflect for a moment on the chary praise, and often captious
blame, which their panegyrists give to writers whose works are on the way to become classics.
No sooner does a woman show that she has genius or effective talent, than she receives the
tribute of being moderately praised and severely criticised. By a peculiar thermometric
adjustment, when a woman's talent is at zero, journalistic approbation is at the boiling pitch;
when she attains mediocrity, it is already at no more than summer heat; and if ever she reaches
excellence, critical enthusiasm drops to the freezing point. Harriet Martineau, Currer Bell, and
Mrs. Gaskell have been treated as cavalierly as if they had been men. And every critic who forms
a high estimate of the share women may ultimately take in literature, will, on principle, abstain
from any exceptional indulgence towards the productions of literary women. For it must be plain
to every one who looks impartially and extensively into feminine literature, that its greatest
deficiencies are due hardly more to the want of intellectual power than to the want of those moral
qualities that contribute to literary excellence -- patient diligence, a sense of the responsibility
involved in publication, and an appreciation of the sacredness of the writer's art. In the majority
of women's books you see that kind of facility which springs from the absence of any high
standard; that fertility in imbecile combination or feeble imitation which a little self-criticism
would check and reduce to barrenness; just as with a total want of musical ear people will sing
out of tune, while a degree more melodic sensibility would suffice to render them silent. The
foolish vanity of wishing to appear in print, instead of being counterbalanced by any
consciousness of the intellectual or moral derogation implied in futile authorship, seems to be
encouraged by the extremely false impression that to write at all is a proof of superiority in a
woman. On this ground, we believe that the average intellect of women is unfairly represented
by the mass of feminine literature, and that while the few women who write well are very far
above the ordinary intellectual level of their sex, the many women who write ill are very far
below it. So that, after all, the severer critics are fulfilling a chivalrous duty in depriving the mere
fact of feminine authorship of any false prestige which may give it a delusive attraction, and in
recommending women of mediocre faculties - as at least a negative service they can render their
sex - to abstain from writing.
The standing apology for women who become writers without any special qualification is, that
society shuts them out from other spheres of occupation. Society is a very culpable entity, and
has to answer for the manufacture of many unwholesome commodities, from bad pickles to bad
poetry. But society, like "matter," and Her Majesty's Government, and other lofty abstractions,
has its share of excessive blame as well as excessive praise. Where there is one woman who
writes from necessity, we believe there are three women who write from vanity; and, besides,
there is something so antiseptic in the mere healthy fact of working for one's bread, that the most
trashy and rotten kind of feminine literature is not likely to have been produced under such
115
circumstances. "In all labour there is profit;" but ladies' silly novels, we imagine, are less the
result of labour than of busy idleness.
Happily, we are not dependent on argument to prove that Fiction is a department of literature in
which women can, after their kind, fully equal men. A cluster of great names, both living and
dead, rush to our memories in evidence that women can produce novels not only fine, but among
the very finest; -- novels, too, that have a precious speciality, lying quite apart from masculine
aptitudes and experience. No educational restrictions can shut women out from the materials of
fiction, and there is no species of art which is so free from rigid requirements. Like crystalline
masses, it may take any form, and yet be beautiful; we have only to pour in the right elements --
genuine observation, humour, and passion. But it is precisely this absence of rigid requirement
which constitutes the fatal seduction of novelwriting to incompetent women. Ladies are not wont
to be very grossly deceived as to their power of playing on the piano; here certain positive
difficulties of execution have to be conquered, and incompetence inevitably breaks down. Every
art which has its absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere
left-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble
against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery. And
so we have again and again the old story of La Fontaine's ass, who puts his nose to the flute, and,
finding that he elicits some sound, exclaims, `Moi, aussi, je joue de la flute;' -- a fable which we
commend, at parting, to the consideration of any feminine reader who is in danger of adding to
the number of "silly novels by lady novelists."

116
T.S. Eliot (18881965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


Sio credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, siodo il vero,
Senza tema dinfamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question 10
Oh, do not ask, What is it?
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
117
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, Do I dare? and, Do I dare?
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair 40
[They will say: How his hair is growing thin!]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin
[They will say: But how his arms and legs are thin!]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
118
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep tired or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophetand heres no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor
And this, and so much more?
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.
. . . . . 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
119
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old I grow old 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me. 125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
120
What I Believe, from Two Cheers for Democracy
E.M. Forster

I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith, and there
are so many militant creeds that, in self-defence, one has to
formulate a creed of one's own. Tolerance, good temper and
sympathy are no longer enough in a world which is rent by
religious and racial persecution, in a world where ignorance rules,
and Science, who ought to have ruled, plays the subservient pimp.
Tolerance, good temper and sympathy - they are what matter
really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come
to the front before long. But for the moment they are not
enough, their action is no stronger than a flower, battered be-
neath a military jackboot. They want stiffening, even if the
process coarsens them. Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process,
a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as
possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake,
at all. Herein I probably differ from most people, who believe in
Belief, and are only sorry they cannot swallow even more than
they do. My law-givers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses
and St Paul. My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in
that Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My
motto is : "Lord, I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.
I have, however, to live in an Age of Faith - the sort of epoch
I used to hear praised when I was a boy. It is extremely un-
pleasant really. It is bloody in every sense of the word. And I
have to keep my end up in it. Where do I start ?
With personal relationships. Here is something comparatively
solid in a world full of violence and cruelty. Not absolutely solid,
for Psychology has split and shattered the idea of a " Person", and
has shown that there is something incalculable in each of us,
which may at any moment rise to the surface and destroy our
normal balance. We don't know what we are like. We can't
know what other people are like. How, then, can we put any
trust in personal relationships, or cling to them in the gathering
political storm ? In theory we cannot. But in practice we can and
do. Though A is not unchangeably A, or B unchangeably B, there
can still be love and loyalty between the two. For the purpose of
living one has to assume that the personality is solid, and the
"self" is an entity, and to ignore all contrary evidence. And since
to ignore evidence is one of the characteristics of faith, I certainly
can proclaim that I believe in personal relationships.
Starting from them, I get a little order into the contemporary
chaos. One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not
to make a mess of life, and it is therefore essential that they should
not let one down. They often do. The moral of which is that I
121
must, myself, be as reliable as possible, and this I try to be. But
reliability is not a matter of contract - that is the main difference
between the world of personal relationships and the world of
business relationships. It is a matter for the heart, which signs no
documents. In other words, reliability is impossible unless there
is a natural warmth. Most men possess this warmth, though
they often have bad luck and get chilled. Most of them, even
when they are politicians, want to keep faith. And one can, at all
events, show one's own little light here, one's own poor little trem-
bling flame, with the knowledge that it is not the only light that is
shining in the darkness, and not the only one which the darkness
does not comprehend. Personal relations are despised today. They
are regarded as bourgeois luxuries, as products of a time of fair
weather which is now past, and we are urged to get rid of them,
and to dedicate ourselves to some movement or cause instead. I
hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying
my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the
guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalize the
modern reader, and he may stretch out his patriotic hand to the
telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have
shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the
lowest circle of Hell because they had chosen to betray their
friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome. Probably
one will not be asked to make such an agonizing choice. Still,
there lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard
for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer, and
there is even a terror and a hardness in this creed of personal
relationships, urbane and mild though it sounds. Love and
loyalty to an individual can run counter to the claims of the State.
When they do - down with the State, say I, which means that the
State would down me.
This brings me along to Democracy, "Even love, the beloved
Republic, That feeds upon freedom and lives". Democracy is not
a beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful
than other contemporary forms of government, and to that
extent it deserves our support. It does start from the assump-
tion that the individual is important, and that all types are needed
to make a civilization. It does not divide its citizens into the
bossers and the bossed - as an efficiency-regime tends to do. The
people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want to
create something or discover something, and do not see life in
terms of power, and such people get more of a chance under a
democracy than elsewhere. They found religions, great or small,
or they produce literature and art, or they do disinterested
scientific research, or they may be what is called "ordinary
people", who are creative in their pricate lives, bring up their
122
children decently, for instance, or help their neighbours. All
these people need to express themselves; they cannot do so unless
society allows them liberty to do so, and the society which allows
them most liberty is a democracy.
Democracy has another merit. It allows criticism, and if there
is not public criticism there are bound to be hushed-up scandals.
That is why I believe in the press, despite all its lies and vulgarity,
and why I believe in Parliament. Parliament is often sneered a
because it is a Talking Shop. I believe in it because it is a talking
shop. I believe in the Private Member who makes himself a
nuisance. He gets snubbed and is told that he is cranky or ill-
informed, but he does expose abuses which would otherwise
never have been mentioned, and very often an abuse gets put
right just by being mentioned. Occasionally, too, a well-meaning
public official starts losing his head in the cause of efficiency, and
thinks himself God Almighty. Such officials are particularly
frequent in the Home Office. Well, there will be questions about
them in Parliament sooner or later, and then they will have to
mind their steps. Whether Parliament is either a representative
body or an efficient one is questionable, but I value it because it
criticizes and talks, and because its chatter gets widely reported.
So two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety
and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite
enough: there is no occasion to give three. Only Love the
Beloved Republic deserves that.
What about Force, though? While we are trying to be sensitive
and advanced and affectionate and tolerant, an unpleasant ques-
tion pops up: does not all society rest upon force ? If a govern-
ment cannot count upon the police and the army, how
can it hope to rule ? And if an individual gets knocked on
the head or sent to a labour camp, of what significance are
his opinions ?
This dilemma does not worry me as much as it does some. I
realize that all society rests upon force. But all the great creative
actions, all the decent human relations, occur during the inter-
vals when force has not managed to come to the front. These
intervals are what matter. I want them to be as frequent and as
lengthy as possible, and I call them " civilization ". Some people
idealize force and pull it into the foreground and worship it,
instead of keeping it in the background as long as possible. I
think they make a mistake, and I think that their opposites, the
mystics, err even more when they declare that force does not
exist. I believe that it exists, and that one of our jobs is to prevent
it from getting out of its box. It gets out sooner or later, and then
it destroys us and all the lovely things which we have made. But
it is not out all the time, for the fortunate reason that the strong
123
are so stupid. Consider their conduct for a moment in The
Nibelung's Ring. The giants there have the guns, or in other words
the gold; but they do nothing with it, they do not realize that
they are all-powerful, with the result that the catastrophe is de-
layed and the castle of Valhalla, insecure but glorious, fronts
the storms. Fafnir, coiled round his hoard, grumbles and grunts;
we can hear him under Europe today; the leaves of the wood
already tremble, and the Bird calls its warnings uselessly. Fafnir
will destroy us, but by a blessed dispensation he is stupid and slow,
and creation goes on just outside the poisonous blast of his breath.
The Nietzschean would hurry the monster up, the mystic would
say he did not exist, but Wotan, wiser than either, hastens to
create warriors before doom declares itself. The Valkyries are
symbols not only of courage but of intelligence; they represent the
human spirit snatching its opportunity while the going is good,
and one of them even finds time to love. Bruennhilde's last song
hymns the recurrence of love, and since it is the privilege of art to
exaggerate she goes even further, and proclaims the love which is
eternally triumphant, and feeds upon freedom and lives.
So that is what I feel about force and violence. It is, alas !
the ultimate reality on this earth, but it does not always get to
the front. Some people call its absences "decadence"; I call
them "civilization" and find in such interludes the chief justifica-
tion for the human experiment. I look the other way until fate
strikes me. Whether this is due to courage or to cowardice in my
own case I cannot be sure. But I know that, if men had not
looked the other way in the past, nothing of any value would sur-
vive. The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal
and as if society was eternal. Both assumptions are false: both of
them must be accepted as true if we are to go on eating and working
and loving, and are to keep open a few breathing-holes for the
human spirit. No millennium seems likely to descend upon
humanity; no better and stronger Ieague of Nations will be
instituted; no form of Christianity and no alternative to Christi-
anity will bring peace to the world or integrity to the individual;
no "change of heart" will occur. And yet we need not despair,
indeed, we cannot despair; the evidence of history shows us that
men have always insisted on behaving creatively under the
shadow of the sword; that they have done their artistic and scien-
tific and domestic stuff for the sake of doing it, and that we had
better follow their example under the shadow of the aeroplanes.
Others, with more vision or courage than myself, see the salva-
tion of humanity ahead, and will dismiss my conception of civil-
ization as paltry, a sort of tip-and-run game. Certainly it is pre-
sumptuous to say that we cannot improve, and that Man, who
has only been in power for a few thousand years, will never learn
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to make use of his power. All I mean is that, if people continue to
kill one another as they do, the world cannot get better than it is,
and that, since there are more people than formerly, and their
means for destroying one another superior, the world may well
get worse. What is good in people - and consequently in the
world - is their insistence on creation, their belief in friendship
and loyalty for their own sakes; and, though Violence remains and
is, indeed, the major partner in this muddled establishment, I
believe that creativeness remains too, and will always assume di-
rection when violence sleeps. So, though I am not an optimist, I
cannot agree with Sophocles that it were better never to have
been born. And although, like Horace, I see no evidence that
each batch of births is superior to the last, I leave the field open
for the more complacent view. This is such a difficult moment to
live in, one cannot help getting gloomy and also a bit rattled, and
perhaps short-sighted.
In search of a refuge, we may perhaps turn to hero-worship.
But here we shall get no help, in my opinion. Hero-worship is a
dangerous vice, and one of the minor merits of a democracy is
that it does not encourage it, or produce that unmanageable type
of citizen known as the Great Man. It produces instead different
kinds of small men - a much finer achievement. But people who
cannot get interested in the variety of life, and cannot make up
their own minds, get discontented over this, and they long for a
hero to bow down before and to follow blindly. It is significant
that a hero is an integral part of the authoritarian stock-in-trade
today. An efficiency-regime cannot be run without a few heroes
stuck about it to carry off the dullness - much as plums have to
be put into a bad pudding to make it palatable. One hero at the
top and a smaller one each side of him is a favourite arrangement,
and the timid and the bored are comforted by the trinity, and,
bowing down, feel exalted and strengthened.
No, I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity
around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a
little man's pleasure when they come a cropper. Every now and
then one reads in the newspapers some such statement as: "The
coup d'etat appears to have failed, and Admiral Toma's where-
abouts is at present unknown." Admiral Toma had probably
every qualification for being a Great Man - an iron will, personal
magnetism, dash, flair, sexlessness - but fate was against him, so
he retires to unknown whereabouts instead of parading history
with his peers. He fails with a completeness which no artist and
no lover can experience, because with them the process of crea-
tion is itself an achievement, whereas with him the only possible
achievement is success.
125
I believe in aristocracy, though - if that is the right word, and
if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon
rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the con-
siderate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all
nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret
understanding between them when they meet. They represent
the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer
race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in
obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others
as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being
fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and
they can take a joke. I give no examples - it is risky to do that -
but the reader may as well consider whether this is the type of
person he would like to meet and to be, and whether (going
further with me) he would prefer that this type should not be an
ascetic one. I am against asceticism myself. I am with the old
Scotsman who wanted less chastity and more delicacy. I do not
feel that my aristocrats are a real aristocracy if they thwart their
bodies, since bodies are the instruments through which we
register and enjoy the world. Still, I do not insist. This is not a
major point. It is clearly possible to be sensitive, considerate and
plucky and yet be an ascetic too, and if anyone possesses the first
three qualities I will let him in! On they go - an invincible army,
yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen,
the Best People - all the words that describe them are false, and
all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority,
seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the
Egyptian Priesthood or theChristian Church or the Chinese
Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy
stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door
is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of
them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart's affections, and their
kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
With this type of person knocking about, and constantly cros-
sing one's path if one has eyes to see or hands to feel, the experi-
ment of earthly life cannot be dismissed as a failure. But it may
well be hailed as a tragedy, the tragedy being that no device has
been found by which these private decencies can be transrnitted
to public affairs. As soon as people have power they go crooked
and sometimes dotty as well, because the possession of power
lifts them into a region where normal honesty never pays. For
instance, the man who is selling newspapers ourtside the Houses
of Parliament can safely leave his papers to go for a drink, and
his cap beside them: anyone who takes a paper is sure to drop a
copper into the cap. But the men who are inside the Houses of
Parliament - they cannot trust one another like that, still less can
126
the Government they compose trust other governments. No
caps upon the pavement here, but suspicion, treachery and
armaments. The more highly public life is organized the lower
does its morality sink ; the nations of today behave to each other
worse than they ever did in the past, they cheat, rob, bully and
bluff, make war without notice, and kill as many women and
children as possible; whereas primitive tribes were at all events
restrained by taboos. It is a humiliating outlook - though the
greater the darkness, the brighter shine the little lights, reassuring
one another, signalling: "Well, at all events, I 'm still here. I
don' t like it very much, but how are you ?" Unquenchable lights
of my aristocracy! Signals of the invincible army ! "Come along
- anyway, let's have a good time while we can. "I think they
signal that too.
The Saviour of the future - if ever he comes - will not preach
a new Gospel. He will merely utilize my aristocracy, he will make
effective the goodwill and the good temper which are already
existing. In other words, he will introduce a new technique. In
economics, we are told that if there was a new technique of
distribution there need be no poverty, and people would not
starve in one place while crops were being ploughed under in
another. A similar change is needed in the sphere of morals and
politics. The desire for it is by no means new; it was expressed,
for example, in theological terms by Jacopone da Todi over six
hundred years ago. "Ordena questo amore, tu che m'ami, "
he said ; "O thou who lovest me set this love in order." His
prayer was not granted, and I do not myself believe that it ever
will be, but here, and not through a change of heart, is our
probable route. Not by becoming better, but by ordering and
distributing his native goodness, will Man shut up Force into its
box, and so gain time to explore the universe and to set his mark
upon it worthily. At present he only explores it at odd moments,
when Force is looking the other way, and his divine creativeness
appears as a trivial by-product, to be scrapped as soon as the
drums beat and the bombers hum.
Such a change, claim the orthodox, can only be made by
Christianity, and will be made by it in God's good time: man
always has failed and always will fail to organize his own good-
ness, and it is presumptuous of him to try. This claim - solemn
as it is - leaves me cold. I cannot believe that Christianity will
ever cope with the present world-wide mess, and I think that such
influence as it retains in modern society is due to the money
behind it, rather than to its spiritual appeal. It was a spiritual
force once, but the indwelling spirit will have to be restated if
it is to calm the waters again, and probably restated in a non-
Christian form. Naturally a lot of people, and people who are
127
not only good but able and intelligent, will disagree here; they
will vehemently deny that Christianity has failed, or they will
argue that its failure proceeds from the wickedness of men, and
really proves its ultimate success. They have Faith, with a large
F. My faith has a very small one, and I only intrude it because
these are strenuous and serious days, and one likes to say what
one thinks while speech is comparatively free; it may not be free
much longer.
The above are the reflections of an individualist and a liberal
who has found liberalism crumbling beneath him and at first felt
ashamed. Then, looking around, he decided there was no special
reason for shame, since other people, whatever they felt, were
equally insecure. And as for individualism - there seems no way
of getting off this, even if one wanted to. The dictator-hero can
grind down his citizens till they are all alike, but he cannot melt
them into a single man. That is beyond his power. He can order
them to merge, he can incite them to mass-antics, but they are
obliged to be born separately, and to die separately, and, owing
to these unavoidable termini, will always be running off the
totalitarian rails. The merrory of birth and the expectation of
death always lurk within the human being, making him separate
from his fellows and consequently capable of intercourse with
them. Naked I came into the world, naked I shall go out of it!
And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked
under my shirt, whatever its colour.
128
Lizzie Leigh, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Chapter I
When Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the very contrast between the time as
it now is, and the day as it has often been, gives a poignancy to sorrow, -- a more utter blankness
to the desolation. James Leigh died just as the far away bells of Rochdale Church were ringing
for morning service on Christmas Day, 1836. A few minutes before his death, he opened his
already glazing eyes, and made a sign to his wife, by the faint motion of his lips, that he had yet
something to say. She stooped close down, and caught the broken whisper, 'I forgive her, Anne!
May God forgive me!'
'Oh my love, my dear! only get well, and I will never cease showing my thanks for those words.
May God in heaven bless thee for saying them. Thou'rt not so restless, my lad! may be -- Oh
God!'
For even while she spoke, he died.
They had been two-and-twenty years man and wife; for nineteen of those years their life had
been as calm and happy, as the most perfect uprightness on the one side, and the most complete
confidence and loving submission on the other, could make it. Milton's famous line might have
been framed and hung up as the rule of their married life, for he was truly the interpreter, who
stood between God and her; she would have considered herself wicked if she had ever dared
even to think him austere, though as certainly as he was an upright man, so surely was he hard,
stern, and inflexible. But for three years the moan and the murmur had never been out of her
heart; she had rebelled against her husband as against a tyrant, with a bidden, sullen rebellion,
which tore up the old land-marks of wifely duty and affection, and poisoned the fountains
whence gentlest love and reverence had once been for ever springing.
But those last blessed words replaced him on his throne in her heart, and called out penitent
anguish for all the bitter estrangement of later years. It was this which made her refuse all the
entreaties of her sons, that she would see the kind-hearted neighbours, who called on their way
from church to sympathise and condole. No! she would stay with the dead husband that had
spoken tenderly at last, if for three years he had kept silence; who knew but what, if she had only
been more gentle and less angrily reserved, he might have relented earlier -- and in time!
She sate rocking herself to and fro by the side of the bed, while the footsteps below went in and
out; she had been in sorrow too long to have any violent burst of deep grief now; the furrows
were well worn in her cheeks, and the tears flowed quietly, if incessantly, all the day long. But
when the winter's night drew on, and the neighbours had gone away to their homes, she stole to
the window, and gazed out, long and wistfully, over the dark grey moors. She did not hear her
son's voice, as he spoke to her from the door, nor his footstep as he drew nearer. She started
when he touched her.
129
'Mother! come down to us. There's no one but Will and me. Dearest mother, we do so want you.'
The poor lad's voice trembled, and he began to cry. It appeared to require an effort on Mrs
Leigh's part to tear herself away from the window, but with a sigh she complied with his request.
The two boys (for though Will was nearly twenty-one, she still thought of him as a lad) had done
everything in their power to make the house-place comfortable for her. She herself, in the old
days before her sorrow, had never made a brighter fire or a cleaner hearth, ready for her
husband's return home, than now awaited her. The tea-things were all put out, and the kettle was
boiling; and the boys had calmed their grief down into a kind of sober cheerfulness. They paid
her every attention they could think of, but received little notice on her part; she did not resist --
she rather submitted to all their arrangements; but they did not seem to touch her heart.
When tea was ended, -- it was merely the form of tea that had been gone through, -- Will moved
the things away to the dresser. His mother leant back languidly in her chair.
'Mother, shall Tom read you a chapter? He's a better scholar than I.'
'Aye, lad!' said she, almost eagerly. 'That's it. Read me the Prodigal Son. Aye, aye, lad. Thank
thee.'
Tom found the chapter, and read it in the high-pitched voice which is customary in village-
schools. His mother bent forward, her lips parted, her eyes dilated; her whole body instinct with
eager attention. Will sate with his head depressed, and hung down. He knew why that chapter
had been chosen; and to him it recalled the family's disgrace. When the reading was ended, he
still hung down his head in gloomy silence. But her face was brighter than it had been before for
the day. Her eyes looked dreamy, as if she saw a vision; and by and by she pulled the bible
towards her, and putting her finger underneath each word, began to read them aloud in a low
voice to herself; she read again the words of bitter sorrow and deep humiliation; but most of all
she paused and brightened over the father's tender reception of the repentant prodigal.
So passed the Christmas evening in the Upclose Farm.
The snow had fallen heavily over the dark, waving moor land, before the day of the funeral. The
black storm-laden dome of heaven lay very still and close upon the white earth, as they carried
the body forth out of the house which had known his presence so long as its ruling power. Two
and two the mourners followed, making a black procession, in their winding march over the
unbeaten snow, to Milne-Row Church -- now lost in some hollow of the bleak moors, now
slowly climbing the heaving ascents. There was no long tarrying after the funeral, for many of
the neighbours who accompanied the body to the grave had far to go, and the great white flakes
which came slowly down, were the boding forerunners of a heavy storm. One old friend alone
accompanied the widow and her sons to their home.
The Upclose Farm had belonged for generations to the Leighs; and yet its possession hardly
raised them above the rank of labourers. There was the house and outbuildings, all of an old-
fashioned kind, and about seven acres of barren unproductive land, which they had never
possessed capital enough to improve; indeed they could hardly rely upon it for subsistence; and it
130
had been customary to bring up the sons to some trade -- such as a wheelwright's, or
blacksmith's.
James Leigh had left a will, in the possession of the old man who accompanied them home. He
read it aloud. James had bequeathed the farm to his faithful wife, Anne Leigh, for her lifetime;
and afterwards, to his son William. The hundred and odd pounds in the savings'-bank was to
accumulate for Thomas.
After the reading was ended, Anne Leigh sate silent for a time; and then she asked to speak to
Samuel Orme alone. The sons went into the back-kitchen, and thence strolled out into the fields
regardless of the driving snow. The brothers were dearly fond of each other, although they were
very different in character. Will, the elder, was like his father, stern, reserved, and scrupulously
upright. Tom (who was ten years younger) was gentle and delicate as a girl, both in appearance
and character. He had always clung to his mother, and dreaded his father. They did not speak as
they walked, for they were only in the habit of talking about facts, and hardly knew the more
sophisticated language applied to the description of feelings.
Meanwhile their mother had taken hold of Samuel Orme's arm with her trembling hand.
'Samuel, I must let the farm -- I must.'
'Let the farm! What's come o'er the woman?'
'Oh, Samuel!' said she, her eyes swimming in tears, 'I'm just fain to go and live in Manchester. I
must let the farm.'
Samuel looked, and pondered, but did not speak for some time. At last he said, --
'If thou hast made up thy mind, there's no speaking again it; and thou must e'en go. Thou'lt be
sadly pottered wi' Manchester ways; but that's not my look out. Why, thou'lt have to buy
potatoes, a thing thou hast never done afore in all thy born life. Well! it's not my look out. It's
rather for me than again me. Our Jenny is going to be married to Tom Higginbotham, and he was
speaking of wanting a bit of land to begin upon. His father will be dying sometime, I reckon, and
then step into the Croft Farm. But meanwhile --'
'Then, thou'lt let the farm,' said she, still as eagerly as ever.
'Aye, aye, he'll take it fast enough, I've a notion. But I'll not drive a bargain with thee just now; it
would not be right; we'll wait a bit.'
'No; I cannot wait, settle it out at once.'
'Well, well; I'll speak to Will about it. I see him out yonder. I'll step to him and talk it over.'
Accordingly he went and joined the two lads, and without more ado, began the subject to them.
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'Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the farm. Now, I'm willing to
take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun
chaffering with thy mother just now. Let thee and me buckle to, my lad! and try and cheat each
other; it will warm us this cold day.'
'Let the farm!' said both the lads at once, with infinite surprise. 'Go live in Manchester!'
When Samuel Orme found that the plan had never before been named to either Will or Tom, he
would have nothing to do with it, he said, until they had spoken to their mother; likely she was
'dazed' by her husband's death; he would wait a day or two, and not name it to any one; not to
Tom Higginbotham himself, or may be he would set his heart upon it. The lads had better go in
and talk it over with their mother. He bade them good day, and left them.
Will looked very gloomy, but he did not speak till they got near the house. Then he said, --
'Tom, go to th' shippon, and supper the cows. I want to speak to mother alone.'
When he entered the house-place, she was sitting before the fire, looking into its embers. She did
not hear him come in: for some time she had lost her quick perception of outward things.
'Mother! what's this about going to Manchester?' asked he.
'Oh, lad!' said she, turning round, and speaking in a beseeching tone, 'I must go and seek our
Lizzie. I cannot rest here for thinking on her. Many's the time I've left thy father sleeping in bed,
and stole to th' window, and looked and looked my heart out towards Manchester, till I thought I
must just set out and tramp over moor and moss straight away till I got there, and then lift up
every downcast face till I came to our Lizzie. And often, when the south wind was blowing soft
among the hollows, I've fancied (it could but be fancy, thou knowest) I heard her crying upon
me; and I've thought the voice came closer and closer, till at last it was sobbing out "Mother"
close to the door; and I've stolen down, and undone the latch before now, and looked out into the
still black night, thinking to see her, -- and turned sick and sorrowful when I heard no living
sound but the sough of the wind dying away. Oh! speak not to me of stopping here, when she
may be perishing for hunger, like the poor lad in the parable.' And now she lifted up her voice,
and wept aloud.
Will was deeply grieved. He had been old enough to be told the family shame when, more than
two years before, his father had had his letter to his daughter returned by her mistress in
Manchester, telling him that Lizzie had left her service some time -- and why. He had
sympathised with his father's stern anger; though he had thought him something hard, it is true,
when he had forbidden his weeping, heart-broken wife to go and try to find her poor, sinning
child, and declared that henceforth they would have no daughter; that she should be as one dead,
and her name never more be named at market or at meal time, in blessing or in prayer. He had
held his peace, with compressed lips and contracted brow, when the neighbours had noticed to
him how poor Lizzie's death had aged both his father and his mother; and how they thought the
bereaved couple would never hold up their heads again. He himself had felt as if that one event
had made him old before his time; and had envied Tom the tears he had shed over poor, pretty,
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innocent, dead Lizzie. He thought about her sometimes, till he ground his teeth together, and
could have struck her down in her shame. His mother had never named her to him until now.
'Mother!' said he at last. 'She may be dead. Most likely she is.'
'No, Will; she is not dead,' said Mrs Leigh. 'God will not let her die till I've seen her once again.
Thou dost not know how I've prayed and prayed just once again to see her sweet face, and tell
her I've forgiven her, though she's broken my heart -- she has, Will.' She could not go on for a
minute or two for the choking sobs. 'Thou dost not know that, or thou wouldst not say she could
be dead, -- for God is very merciful, Will; He is, -- He is much more pitiful than man, -- I could
never ha' spoken to thy father as I did to Him, -- and yet thy father forgave her at last. The last
words he said were that he forgave her. Thou'lt not be harder than thy father, Will? Do not try
and hinder me going to seek her, for it's no use.'
Will sate very still for a long time before he spoke. At last he said, 'I'll not hinder you. I think
she's dead, but that' s no matter.'
'She is not dead,' said her mother, with low earnestness. Will took no notice of the interruption.
'We will all go to Manchester for a twelvemonth, and let the farm to Tom Higginbotham. I'll get
blacksmith's work; and Tom can have good schooling for a while, which he's always craving for.
At the end of the year you'll come back, mother, and give over fretting for Lizzie, and think with
me that she is dead, -- and, to my mind, that would be more comfort than to think of her living;'
he dropped his voice as he spoke these last words. She shook her head, but made no answer. He
asked again, --
'Will you, mother, agree to this?'
'I'll agree to it a-this-ns,' said she. 'If I hear and see nought of her for a twelvemonth, me being in
Manchester looking out, I'll just ha' broken my heart fairly before the year's ended, and then I
shall know neither love nor sorrow for her any more, when I'm at rest in the grave -- I'll agree to
that, Will.'
'Well, I suppose it must be so. I shall not tell Tom, mother, why we're flitting to Manchester.
Best spare him.'
'As thou wilt,' said she, sadly, 'so that we go, that's all'
Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round Upclose Farm, the Leighs
were settled in their Manchester home; if they could ever grow to consider that place as a home,
where there was no garden, or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view, over
moor and hollow, -- no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than all they missed, no old
haunting memories, even though those remembrances told of sorrow, and the dead and gone.
Mrs Leigh heeded the loss of all these things less than her sons. She had more spirit in her
countenance than she had had for months, because now she had hope; of a sad enough kind, to be
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sure, but still it was hope. She performed all her household duties, strange and complicated as
they were, and bewildered as she was with all the town necessities of her new manner of life; but
when her house was 'sided,' and the boys come home from their work, in the evening, she would
put on her things and steal out, unnoticed, as she thought, but not without many a heavy sign
from Will, after she had closed the house-door and departed. It was often past midnight before
she came back, pale and weary, with almost a guilty look upon her face; but that face so full of
disappointment and hope deferred, that Will had never the heart to say what he thought of the
folly and hopelessness of the search. Night after night it was renewed, till days grew to weeks,
and weeks to months. All this time Will did his duty towards her as well as he could, without
having sympathy with her. He stayed at home in the evenings for Tom's sake, and often wished
he had Tom's pleasure in reading, for the time hung heavily on his hands as he sate up for his
mother.
I need not tell you how the mother spent the weary hours. And yet I will tell you something. She
used to wander out, at first as if without a purpose, till she rallied her thoughts, and brought all
her energies to bear on the one point; then she went with earnest patience along the least-known
ways to some new part of the town, looking wistfully with dumb entreaty into people's faces;
sometimes catching a glimpse of a figure which had a kind of momentary likeness to her child's,
and following that figure with never-wearying perseverance, till some light from shop or lamp
showed the cold, strange face which was not her daughter's. Once or twice a kind-hearted passer-
by, struck by her look of yearning woe, turned back and offered help, or asked her what she
wanted. When so spoken to, she answered only, 'You don't know a poor girl they call Lizzie
Leigh, do you?' and when they denied all knowledge, she shook her head, and went on again. I
think they believed her to be crazy. But she never spoke first to any one. She sometimes took a
few minutes' rest on the door-steps, and sometimes (very seldom) covered her face and cried; but
she could not afford to lose time and chances in this way; while her eyes were blinded with tears,
the lost one might pass by unseen.
One evening, in the rich time of shortening autumn-days, Will saw an old man, who, without
being absolutely drunk, could not guide himself rightly along the foot-path, and was mocked for
his unsteadiness of gait by the idle boys of the neighbourhood. For his father's sake Will
regarded old age with tenderness, even when most degraded and removed from the stern virtues
which dignified that father; so he took the old man home, and seemed to believe his often-
repeated assertions, that he drank nothing but water. The stranger tried to stiffen himself up into
steadiness as he drew nearer home, as if there were some one there for whose respect he cared
even in his half-intoxicated state, or whose feelings he feared to grieve. His home was
exquisitely clean and neat, even in outside appearance; threshold, window, and window-sill,
were outward signs of some spirit of purity within. Will was rewarded for his attention by a
bright glance of thanks, succeeded by a blush of shame, from a young woman of twenty, or
thereabouts. She did not speak or second her father's hospitable invitations to him to be seated.
She seemed unwilling that a stranger should witness her father's attempts at stately sobriety, and
Will could not bear to stay and see her distress. But when the old man, with many a flabby shake
of the hand, kept asking him to come again some other evening and see them, Will sought her
down-cast eyes, and, though he could not read their veiled meaning, he answered timidly, 'If it's
agreeable to everybody, I'll come, and thank ye.' But there was no answer from the girl, to whom
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this speech was in reality addressed; and Will left the house, liking her all the better for never
speaking.
He thought about her a great deal for the next day or two; he scolded himself for being so foolish
as to think of her, and then fell to with fresh vigour, and thought of her more than ever. He tried
to depreciate her: he told himself she was not pretty, and then made indignant answer that he
liked her looks much better than any beauty of them all. He wished he was not so country-
looking, so red-faced, so broad-shouldered; while she was like a lady, with her smooth,
colourless complexion, her bright, dark hair and her spotless dress. Pretty, or not pretty, she drew
his footsteps towards her; he could not resist the impulse that made him wish to see her once
more, and find out some fault which should unloose his heart from her unconscious keeping. But
there she was, pure and maidenly as before. He sate and looked, answering her father at cross-
purposes, while she drew more and more into the shadow of the chimney-corner out of sight.
Then the spirit that possessed him (it was not he himself, sure, that did so impudent a thing!)
made him get up and carry the candle to a different place, under the pretence of giving her more
light at her sewing, but, in reality, to be able to see her better; she could not stand this much
longer, but jumped up, and said she must put her little niece to bed; and surely, there never was,
before or since, so troublesome a child of two years old; for though Will stayed an hour and a
half longer, she never came down again. He won the father's heart, though, by his capacity as a
listener, for some people are not at all particular, and, so that they themselves may talk on
undisturbed, are not so unreasonable as to expect attention to what they say.
Will did gather this much, however, from the old man's talk. He had once been quite in a genteel
line of business, but had failed for more money than any greengrocer he had heard of; at least,
any who did not mix up fish and game with greengrocery proper. This grand failure seemed to
have been the event of his life, and one on which he dwelt with a strange kind of pride. It
appeared as if at present he rested from his past exertions (in the bankrupt line), and depended on
his daughter, who kept a small school for very young children. But all these particulars Will only
remembered and understood when he had left the house; at the time he heard them, he was
thinking of Susan. After he had made good his footing at Mr Palmer's, he was not long, you may
be sure, without finding some reason for returning again and again. He listened to her father, he
talked to the little niece, but he looked at Susan, both while he listened and while he talked. Her
father kept on insisting upon his former gentility, the details of which would have appeared very
questionable to Will's mind, if the sweet, delicate, modest Susan had not thrown an inexplicable
air of refinement over all she came near. She never spoke much; she was generally diligently at
work; but when she moved, it was so noiselessly, and when she did speak, it was in so low and
soft a voice, that silence, speech, motion, and stillness, alike seemed to remove her high above
Will's reach into some saintly and inaccessible air of glory -- high above his reach, even as she
knew him! And, if she were made acquainted with the dark secret behind, of his sister's shame,
which was kept ever present to his mind by his mother's nightly search among the outcast and
forsaken, would not Susan shrink away from him with loathing, as if he were tainted by the
involuntary relationship? This was his dread; and thereupon followed a resolution that he would
withdraw from her sweet company before it was too late. So he resisted internal temptation, and
stayed at home, and suffered and sighed. He became angry with his mother for her untiring
patience in seeking for one who, he could not help hoping, was dead rather than alive. He spoke
sharply to her, and received only such sad deprecatory answers as made him reproach himself,
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and still more lose sight of peace of mind. This struggle could not last long without affecting his
health; and Tom, his sole companion through the long evenings, noticed his increasing languor,
his restless irritability, with perplexed anxiety, and at last resolved to call his mother's attention
to his brother's haggard, care-worn looks. She listened with a startled recollection of Will's
claims upon her love. She noticed his decreasing appetite, and half-checked sighs.
'Will, lad! what's come o'er thee?' said she to him, as he sate listlessly gazing into the fire.
'There's nought the matter with me,' said he, as if annoyed at her remark.
'Nay, lad, but there is.' He did not speak again to contradict her; indeed she did not know if he
had heard her, so unmoved did he look.
'Would'st like to go back to Upclose Farm?' asked she, sorrowfully.
'It's just blackberrying time,' said Tom.
Will shook his head. She looked at him awhile, as if trying to read that expression of
despondency and trace it back to its source.
'You and Tom could go,' said she; 'I must stay here till I've found her, thou know'st,' continued
she, dropping her voice.
He turned quickly round, and with the authority he at all times exercised over Tom, bade him
begone to bed.
When Tom had left the room, he prepared to speak.
Chapter II
'Mother,' then said Will, 'why will you keep on thinking she's alive? If she were but dead, we
need never name her name again. We've never heard nought on her, since father wrote her that
letter; we never knew whether she got it or not. She'd left her place before then. Many a one dies
in -- '
'Oh my lad! dunnot speak so to me, or my heart will break outright,' said his mother, with a sort
of cry. Then she calmed herself, for she yearned to persuade him to her own belief. 'Thou never
asked, and thou'rt too like thy father for me to tell without asking -- but it were all to be near
Lizzie's old place that I settled down on this side o' Manchester; and the very day at after we
came, I went to her old missus, and asked to speak a word wi' her. I had a strong mind to cast it
up to her, that she should ha' sent my poor lass away, without telling on it to us first; but she
were in black and looked so sad I could na find in my heart to threep it up. But I did ask her a bit
about our Lizzie. The master would have her turned away at a day's warning (he's gone to t'other
place; I hope he'll meet wi' more mercy there than he showed our Lizzie, -- I do, -- ), and when
the missus asked her should she write to us, she says Lizzie shook her head; and when she
speered at her again, the poor lass went down on her knees, and begged her not, for she said it
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would break my heart (as it has done, Will -- God knows it has),' said the poor mother, choking
with her struggle to keep down her hard, overmastering grief, 'and her father would curse her --
Oh, God, teach me to be patient.' She could not speak for a few minutes, -- 'and the lass
threatened, and said she'd go drown herself in the canal, if the missus wrote home, -- and so --
'Well! I'd got a trace of my child, -- the missus thought she'd gone to th' workhouse to be nursed;
and there I went, -- and there, sure enough, she had been, -- and they'd turned her out as soon as
she were strong, and told her she were young enough to work, -- but whatten kind o' work would
be open to her, lad, and her baby to keep?'
Will listened to his mother's tale with deep sympathy, not unmixed with the old bitter shame. But
the opening of her heart had unlocked his, and after a while he spoke.
'Mother! I think I'd e'en better go home. Tom can stay wi' thee. I know I should stay too, but I
cannot stay in peace so near -- her, -- without craving to see her, -- Susan Palmer, I mean.'
'Has the old Mr Palmer thou telled me on a daughter?' asked Mrs Leigh.
'Aye, he has. And I love her above a bit. And it's because I love her I want to leave Manchester.
That's all.'
Mrs Leigh tried to understand this speech for some time, but found it difficult of interpretation.
'Why shouldst thou not tell her thou lov'st her? Thou'rt a likely lad, and sure o' work. Thou'lt
have Upclose at my death; and as for that I could let thee have it now, and keep mysel by doing a
bit of charring. It seems to me a very backwards sort o' way of winning her to think of leaving
Manchester.'
'Oh mother, she's so gentle and so good, -- she's downright holy. She's never known a touch of
sin; and can I ask her to marry me, knowing what we do about Lizzie, and fearing worse? I doubt
if one like her could ever care for me; but if she knew about my sister, it would put a gulf
between us, and she'd shudder up at the thought of crossing it. You don't know how good she is,
mother!'
'Will, Will! if she's so good as thou say'st, she'll have pity on such as my Lizzie. If she has no
pity for such, she's a cruel Pharisee, and thou'rt best without her.'
But he only shook his head, and sighed; and for the time the conversation dropped.
But a new idea sprang up in Mrs Leigh's head. She thought that she would go and see Susan
Palmer, and speak up for Will, and tell her the truth about Lizzie; and according to her pity for
the poor sinner, would she be worthy or unworthy of him. She resolved to go the very next
afternoon, but without telling any one of her plan. Accordingly she looked out the Sunday
clothes she had never before had the heart to unpack since she came to Manchester, but which
she now desired to appear in, in order to do credit to Will. She put on her old-fashioned black
mode bonnet, trimmed with real lace; her scarlet cloth cloak, which she had had ever since she
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was married; and always spotlessly clean, she set forth on her unauthorised embassy. She knew
the Palmers lived in Crown Street, though where she had heard it she could not tell; and
modestly asking her way, she arrived in the street about a quarter to four o'clock. She stopped to
inquire the exact number, and the woman whom she addressed told her that Susan Palmer's
school would not be loosed till four, and asked her to step in and wait until then at her house.
'For,' said she, smiling, 'them that wants Susan Palmer wants a kind friend of ours; so we, in a
manner, call cousins. Sit down, missus, sit down. I'll wipe the chair, so that it shanna dirty your
cloak. My mother used to wear them bright cloaks, and they're right gradely things again a green
field.'
'Han ye known Susan Palmer long?' asked Mrs Leigh, pleased with the admiration of her cloak.
'Ever since they comed to live in our street. Our Sally goes to her school.'
'Whatten sort of a lass is she, for I ha' never seen her?'
'Well, -- as for looks, I cannot say. It's so long since I first knowed her, that I've clean forgotten
what I thought of her then. My master says he never saw such a smile for gladdening the heart.
But may be it's not looks you're asking about. The best thing I can say of her looks is, that she's
just one a stranger would stop in the street to ask help from if he needed it. All the little childer
creeps as close as they can to her; she'll have as many as three or four hanging to her apron all at
once.'
'Is she cocket at all?'
'Cocket, bless you! you never saw a creature less set up in all your life. Her father's cocket
enough. No! she's not cocket anyway. You've not heard much of Susan Palmer, I reckon, if you
think she's cocket. She's just one to come quietly in, and do the very thing most wanted; little
things, maybe, that any one could do, but that few would think on, for another. She'll bring her
thimble wi' her, and mend up after the childer o'nights, -- and she writes all Betty Harker's letters
to her grandchild out at service, -- and she's in nobody's way, and that's a great matter, I take it.
Here's the childer running past! School is loosed. You'll find her now, missus, ready to hear and
to help. But we none on us frab her by going near her in school-time.'
Poor Mrs Leigh's heart began to beat, and she could almost have turned round and gone home
again. Her country breeding had made her shy of strangers, and this Susan Palmer appeared to
her like a real born lady by all accounts. So she knocked with a timid feeling at the indicated
door, and when it was opened, dropped a simple curtsey without speaking. Susan had her little
niece in her arms, curled up with fond endearment against her breast, but she put her gently
down to the ground, and instantly placed a chair in the best corner of the room for Mrs Leigh,
when she told her who she was. 'It's not Will as has asked me to come,' said the mother,
apologetically, 'I'd a wish just to speak to you myself!'
Susan coloured up to her temples, and stooped to pick up the little toddling girl. In a minute or
two Mrs Leigh began again.
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'Will thinks you would na respect us if you knew all; but I think you could na help feeling for us
in the sorrow God has put upon us; so I just put on my bonnet, and came off unknownst to the
lads. Every one says you're very good, and that the Lord has keeped you from falling from his
ways; but maybe you've never yet been tried and tempted as some is. I'm perhaps speaking too
plain, but my heart's welly broken, and I can't be choice in my words as them who are happy can.
Well now! I'll tell you the truth. Will dreads you to hear it, but I'll just tell it you. You mun
know,' -- but here the poor woman's words failed her, and she could do nothing but sit rocking
herself backwards and forwards, with sad eyes, straight-gazing into Susan's face, as if they tried
to tell the tale of agony which the quivering lips refused to utter. Those wretched, stony eyes
forced the tears down Susan's cheeks, and, as if this sympathy gave the mother strength, she went
on in a low voice, 'I had a daughter once, my heart's darling. Her father thought I made too much
on her, and that she'd grow marred staying at home; so he said she mun go among strangers, and
learn to rough it. She were young, and liked the thought of seeing a bit of the world; and her
father heard on a place in Manchester. Well! I'll not weary you. That poor girl were led astray;
and first thing we heard on it, was when a letter of her father's was sent back by her missus,
saying she'd left her place, or, to speak right, the master had turned her into the street soon as he
had heard of her condition -- and she not seventeen!'
She now cried aloud; and Susan wept too. The little child looked up into their faces, and,
catching their sorrow, began to whimper and wail. Susan took it softly up, and hiding her face in
its little neck, tried to restrain her tears, and think of comfort for the mother. At last she said, --
'Where is she now?'
'Lass! I dunnot know,' said Mrs Leigh, checking her sobs to communicate this addition to her
distress. 'Mrs Lomax telled me she went --'
'Mrs Lomax -- what Mrs Lomax?'
'Her as lives in Brabazon-street. She telled me my poor wench went to the workhouse fra there.
I'll not speak again the dead; but if her father would but ha' letten me, -- but he were one who had
no notion -- no, I'll not say that; best say nought. He forgave her on his death-bed. I dare say I
did na go th' right way to work.'
'Will you hold the child for me one instant?' said Susan.
'Aye, if it will come to me. Childer used to be fond on me till I got the sad look on my face that
scares them, I think.'
But the little girl clung to Susan; so she carried it upstairs with her. Mrs Leigh sate by herself --
how long she did not know.
Susan came down with a bundle of far-worn baby-clothes.
'You must listen to me a bit, and not think too much about what I'm going to tell you. Nanny is
not my niece, nor any kin to me, that I know of. I used to go out working by the day. One night,
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as I came home, I thought some woman was following me; I turned to look. The woman, before I
could see her face (for she turned it to one side), offered me something. I held out my arms by
instinct; she dropped a bundle into them, with a bursting sob that went straight to my heart. It
was a baby. I looked round again; but the woman was gone. She had run away as quick as
lightning. There was a little packet of clothes -- very few -- and as if they were made out of its
mother's gowns, for they were large patterns to buy for a baby. I was always fond of babies; and
I had not my wits about me, father says: for it was very cold, and when I'd seen as well as I could
(for it was past ten) that there was no one in the street, I brought it in and warmed it. Father was
very angry when he came, and said he'd take it to the workhouse the next morning, and flyted me
sadly about it. But when morning came I could not bear to part with it; it had slept in my arms all
night; and I've heard what workhouse bringing-up is. So I told father I'd give up going out
working, and stay at home and keep school, if I might only keep the baby; and after awhile, he
said if I earned enough for him to have his comforts, he'd let me; but he's never taken to her.
Now, don't tremble so, -- I've but a little more to tell, -- and maybe I'm wrong in telling it; but I
used to work next door to Mrs Lomax's, in Brabazon-street, and the servants were all thick
together; and I heard about Bessy (they called her) being sent away. I don't know that ever I saw
her; but the time would be about fitting to this child's age, and I've sometimes fancied it was
hers. And now, will you look at the little clothes that came with her -- bless her!'
But Mrs Leigh had fainted. The strange joy and shame, and gushing love for the little child had
overpowered her; it was some time before Susan could bring her round. Then she was all
trembling, sick impatience to look at the little frocks. Among them was a slip of paper which
Susan had forgotten to name, that had been pinned to the bundle. On it was scrawled in a round,
stiff hand, --
'Call her Anne. She does not cry much, and takes a deal of notice. God bless you and forgive me.'
The writing was no clue at all; the name 'Anne,' common though it was, seemed something to
build upon. But Mrs Leigh recognised one of the frocks instantly, as being made out of a gown
that she and her daughter had bought together in Rochdale.
She stood up, and stretched out her hands in the attitude of blessing over Susan's bent head.
'God bless you, and show you His mercy in your need, as you have shown it to this little child.'
She took the little creature in her arms, and smoothed away her sad looks to a smile, and kissed it
fondly, saying over and over again, 'Nanny, Nanny, my little Nanny.' At last the child was
soothed, and looked in her face and smiled back again.
'It has her eyes,' said she to Susan.
'I never saw her to the best of my knowledge. I think it must be hers by the frock. But where can
she be?'
'God knows,' said Mrs Leigh; 'I dare not think she's dead. I'm sure she isn't.'
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'No! she's not dead. Every now and then a little packet is thrust in under our door, with may be
two half-crowns in it; once it was half-a-sovereign. Altogether I've got seven-and-thirty shillings
wrapped up for Nanny. I never touch it, but I've often thought the poor mother feels near to God
when she brings this money. Father wanted to set the policeman to watch, but I said No, for I
was afraid if she was watched she might not come, and it seemed such a holy thing to be
checking her in, I could not find in my heart to do it.'
'Oh, if we could but find her! I'd take her in my arms, and we'd just lie down and die together.'
'Nay, don't speak so!' said Susan gently, 'for all that's come and gone, she may turn right at last.
Mary Magdalen did, you know.'
'Eh! but I were nearer right about thee than Will. He thought you would never look on him again
if you knew about Lizzie. But thou'rt not a Pharisee.'
'I'm sorry he thought I could be so hard,' said Susan in a low voice, and colouring up. Then Mrs
Leigh was alarmed, and in her motherly anxiety she began to fear lest she had injured Will in
Susan's estimation.
'You see Will thinks so much of you -- gold would not be good enough for you to walk on, in his
eye. He said you'd never look at him as he was, let alone his being brother to my poor wench. He
loves you so, it makes him think meanly on everything belonging to himself, as not fit to come
near ye, -- but he's a good lad, and a good son, -- thou'lt be a happy woman if thou'lt have him, --
so don't let my words go against him; don't!'
But Susan hung her head, and made no answer. She had not known until now, that Will thought
so earnestly and seriously about her; and even now she felt afraid that Mrs Leigh's words
promised her too much happiness, and that they could not be true. At any rate the instinct of
modesty made her shrink from saying anything which might seem like a confession of her own
feelings to a third person. Accordingly she turned the conversation on the child.
'I'm sure he could not help loving Nanny,' said she. 'There never was such a good little darling;
don't you think she'd win his heart if he knew she was his niece, and perhaps bring him to think
kindly on his sister?'
'I dunnot know,' said Mrs Leigh, shaking her head. 'He has a turn in his eye like his father, that
makes me -- . He's right down good though. But you see I've never been a good one at managing
folk; one severe look turns me sick, and then I say just the wrong thing, I'm so fluttered. Now I
should like nothing better than to take Nanny home with me, but Tom knows nothing but that his
sister is dead, and I've not the knack of speaking rightly to Will. I dare not do it, and that's the
truth. But you mun not think badly of Will. He's so good hissel, that he can't understand how any
one can do wrong; and, above all, I'm sure he loves you dearly.'
'I don't think I could part with Nanny,' said Susan, anxious to stop this revelation of Will's
attachment to herself. 'He'll come round to her soon; he can't fail; and I'll keep a sharp look-out
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after the poor mother, and try and catch her the next time she comes with her little parcels of
money.'
'Aye, lass; we mun get hold of her; my Lizzie. I love thee dearly for thy kindness to her child:
but, if thou canst catch her for me, I'll pray for thee when I'm too near my death to speak words;
and, while I live, I'll serve thee next to her, -- she mun come first, thou know'st. God bless thee,
lass. My heart is lighter by a deal than it was when I comed in. Them lads will be looking for me
home, and I mun go, and leave this little sweet one,' kissing it. 'If I can take courage, I'll tell Will
all that has come and gone between us two. He may come and see thee, mayn't he?'
'Father will be very glad to see him, I'm sure,' replied Susan. The way in which this was spoken
satisfied Mrs Leigh's anxious heart that she had done Will no harm by what she had said; and
with many a kiss to the little one, and one more fervent, tearful blessing on Susan, she went
homewards.
Chapter III
That night Mrs Leigh stopped at home; that only night for many months. Even Tom, the scholar,
looked up from his books in amazement; but then he remembered that Will had not been well,
and that his mother's attention having been called to the circumstance, it was only natural she
should stay to watch him. And no watching could be more tender, or more complete. Her loving
eyes seemed never averted from his face; his grave, sad, careworn face. When Tom went to bed
the mother left her seat, and going up to Will, where he sate looking at the fire, but not seeing it,
she kissed his forehead, and said, --
'Will! lad, I've been to see Susan Palmer!'
She felt the start under her hand which was placed on his shoulder, but he was silent for a minute
or two. Then he said, --
'What took you there, mother?'
'Why, my lad, it was likely I should wish to see one you cared for; I did not put myself forward. I
put on my Sunday clothes, and tried to behave as yo'd ha' liked me. At least I remember trying at
first; but after, I forgot all.'
She rather wished that he would question her as to what made her forget all. But he only said, --
'How was she looking, mother?'
'Will, thou seest I never set eyes on her before; but she's a good, gentle-looking creature; and I
love her dearly, as I've reason to.'
Will looked up with momentary surprise; for his mother was too shy to be usually taken with
strangers. But after all it was natural in this case, for who could look at Susan without loving
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her? So still he did not ask any questions, and his poor mother had to take courage, and try again
to introduce the subject near to her heart. But how?
'Will!' said she (jerking it out, in sudden despair of her own powers to lead to what she wanted to
say), 'I telled her all.'
'Mother! you've ruined me,' said he, standing up, and standing opposite to her with a stern white
look of affright on his face.
'No! my own dear lad; dunnot look so scared, I have not ruined you!' she exclaimed, placing her
two hands on his shoulders, and looking fondly into his face. 'She's not one to harden her heart
against a mother's sorrow. My own lad, she's too good for that. She's not one to judge and scorn
the sinner. She's too deep read in her New Testament for that. Take courage, Will; and thou
mayst, for I watched her well, though it is not for one woman to let out another's secret. Sit thee
down, lad, for thou look'st very white.'
He sate down. His mother drew a stool towards him, and sate at his feet.
'Did you tell her about Lizzie, then?' asked he, hoarse and low.
'I did, I telled her all; and she fell a-crying over my deep sorrow, and the poor wench's sin. And
then a light comed into her face, trembling and quivering with some new glad thought; and what
dost thou think it was, Will, lad? Nay, I'll not misdoubt but that thy heart will give thanks as
mine did, afore God and His angels, for her great goodness. That little Nanny is not her niece,
she's our Lizzie's own child, my little grandchild.' She could no longer restrain her tears, and they
fell hot and fast, but still she looked into his face.
'Did she know it was Lizzie's child? I do not comprehend,' said he, flushing red.
'She knows now: she did not at first, but took the little helpless creature in, out of her own pitiful,
loving heart, guessing only that it was the child of shame, and she's worked for it, and kept it,
and tended it ever sin' it were a mere baby, and loves it fondly. Will! won't you love it'? asked
she beseechingly.
He was silent for an instant; then he said, 'Mother, I'll try. Give me time, for all these things
startle me. To think of Susan having to do with such a child!'
'Aye, Will! and to think (as may be yet) of Susan having to do with the child's mother! For she is
tender and pitiful, and speaks hopefully of my lost one, and will try and find her for me, when
she comes as she does sometimes, to thrust money under the door, for her baby. Think of that,
Will. Here's Susan, good and pure as the angels in heaven, yet, like them, full of hope and mercy,
and one who, like them, will rejoice over her as repents. Will, my lad, I'm not afeard of you now,
and I must speak, and you must listen. I am your mother, and I dare to command you, because I
know I am in the right and that God is on my side. If He should lead the poor wandering lassie to
Susan's door, and she comes back crying and sorrowful, led by that good angel to us once more,
thou shalt never say a casting-up word to her about her sin, but be tender and helpful towards one
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"who was lost and is found," so may God's blessing rest on thee, and so mayst thou lead Susan
home as thy wife.'
She stood, no longer, as the meek, imploring, gentle mother, but firm and dignified, as if the
interpreter of God's will. Her manner was so unusual and solemn, that it overcame all Will's
pride and stubbornness. He rose softly while she was speaking, and bent his head as if in
reverence at her words, and the solemn injunction which they conveyed. When she had spoken,
he said in so subdued a voice that she was almost surprised at the sound, 'Mother, I will.'
'I may be dead and gone, -- but all the same, -- thou wilt take home the wandering sinner, and
heal up her sorrows, and lead her to her Father's house. My lad! I can speak no more; I'm turned
very faint.'
He placed her in a chair; he ran for water. She opened her eyes and smiled.
'God bless you, Will. Oh! I am so happy. It seems as if she were found; my heart is so filled with
gladness.'
That night Mr Palmer stayed out late and long. Susan was afraid that he was at his old haunts and
habits, -- getting tipsy at some public-house: and this thought oppressed her, even though she had
so much to make her happy in the consciousness that Will loved her. She sate up long, and then
she went to bed, leaving all arranged as well as she could for her father's return. She looked at
the little, rosy, sleeping girl who was her bed-fellow, with redoubled tenderness, and with many
a prayerful thought. The little arms entwined her neck as she lay down, for Nanny was a light
sleeper, and was conscious that she, who was loved with all the power of that sweet, childish
heart, was near her, and by her, although she was too sleepy to utter any of her half-formed
words.
And by-and-by she heard her father come home, stumbling uncertain, trying first the windows,
and next the door-fastenings, with many a loud, incoherent murmur. The little innocent twined
around her seemed all the sweeter and more lovely, when she thought sadly of her erring father.
And presently he called aloud for a light; she had left matches and all arranged as usual on the
dresser, but fearful of some accident from fire, in his unusually intoxicated state, she now got up
softly, and putting on a cloak, went down to his assistance.
Alas! the little arms that were unclosed from her soft neck belonged to a light, easily awakened
sleeper. Nanny missed her darling Susy, and terrified at being left alone in the vast, mysterious
darkness, which had no bounds, and seemed infinite, she slipped out of bed, and tottered in her
little nightgown towards the door. There was a light below, and there was Susy and safety! So
she went onwards two steps towards the steep, abrupt stairs; and then dazzled with sleepiness,
she stood, she wavered, she fell! Down on her head on the stone floor she fell! Susan flew to her,
and spoke all soft, entreating, loving words; but her white lids covered up the blue violets of
eyes, and there was no murmur came out of the pale lips. The warm tears that rained down did
not awaken her; she lay stiff, and weary with her short life, on Susan's knee. Susan went sick
with terror. She carried her upstairs, and laid her tenderly in bed; she dressed herself most
hastily, with her trembling fingers. Her father was asleep on the settle down stairs; and useless,
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and worse than useless if awake. But Susan flew out of the door, and down the quiet, resounding
street, towards the nearest doctor's house. Quickly she went: but as quickly a shadow followed,
as if impelled by some sudden terror. Susan rung wildly at the night-bell, -- the shadow crouched
near. The doctor looked out from an upstairs window.
'A little child has fallen down stairs at No. 9, Crown-street, and is very ill, -- dying, I'm afraid.
Please, for God's sake, sir, come directly. No. 9, Crown-street.'
'I'll be there directly,' said he, and shut the window.
'For that God you have just spoken about, -- for His sake -- tell me are you Susan Palmer? Is it
my child that lies a-dying?' said the shadow springing forwards, and clutching poor Susan's arm.
'It is a little child of two years old, -- I do not know whose it is; I love it as my own. Come with
me, whoever you are; come with me.'
The two sped along the silent streets, -- as silent as the night were they. They entered the house;
Susan snatched up the light, and carried it upstairs. The other followed.
She stood with wild, glaring eyes by the bedside, never looking at Susan, but hungrily gazing at
the little, white, still child. She stooped down, and put her hand tight on her own heart, as if to
still its beating, and bent her ear to the pale lips. Whatever the result was, she did not speak; but
threw off the bed-clothes wherewith Susan had tenderly covered up the little creature, and felt its
left side.
Then she threw up her arms with a cry of wild despair.
'She is dead! she is dead!'
She looked so fierce, so mad, so haggard, that for an instant Susan was terrified -- the next, the
holy God had put courage into her heart, and her pure arms were round that guilty, wretched
creature, and her tears were falling fast and warm upon her breast. But she was thrown off with
violence.
'You killed her -- you slighted her -- you let her fall down those stairs! you killed her!'
Susan cleared off the thick mist before her, and gazing at the mother with her clear, sweet, angel-
eyes, said mournfully, --
'I would have laid down my own life for her.'
'Oh, the murder is on my soul!' exclaimed the wild, bereaved mother, with the fierce impetuosity
of one who has none to love her and to be beloved, regard to whom might teach self-restraint.
'Hush!' said Susan, her finger on her lips. 'Here is the doctor. God may suffer her to live.'
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The poor mother turned sharp round. The doctor mounted the stair. Ah! that mother was right;
the little child was really dead and gone.
And when he confirmed her judgment, the mother fell down in a fit. Susan, with her deep grief,
had to forget herself, and forget her darling (her charge for years), and question the doctor what
she must do with the poor wretch, who lay on the floor in such extreme of misery.
'She is the mother!' said she.
'Why did not she take better care of her child?' asked he, almost angrily.
But Susan only said, 'The little child slept with me; and it was I that left her.'
'I will go back and make up a composing draught; and while I am away you must get her to bed.'
Susan took out some of her own clothes, and softly undressed the stiff, powerless form. There
was no other bed in the house but the one in which her father slept. So she tenderly lifted the
body of her darling; and was going to take it down stairs, but the mother opened her eyes, and
seeing what she was about, she said, --
'I am not worthy to touch her, I am so wicked; I have spoken to you as I never should have
spoken; but I think you are very good; may I have my own child to be in my arms for a little
while?'
Her voice was so strange a contrast to what it had been before she had gone into the fit, that
Susan hardly recognised it; it was now so unspeakably soft, so irresistibly pleading, the features
too had lost their fierce expression, and were almost as placid as death. Susan could not speak,
but she carried the little child, and laid it in its mother's arms; then as she looked at them,
something overpowered her, and she knelt down, crying aloud, --
'Oh, my God, my God, have mercy on her, and forgive, and comfort her.'
But the mother kept smiling, and stroking the little face, murmuring soft, tender words, as if it
were alive; she was going mad, Susan thought; but she prayed on, and on, and ever still she
prayed with streaming eyes.
The doctor came with the draught. The mother took it, with docile unconsciousness of its nature
as medicine. The doctor sate by her; and soon she fell asleep. Then he rose softly, and beckoning
Susan to the door, he spoke to her there.
'You must take the corpse out of her arms. She will not awake. That draught will make her sleep
for many hours. I will call before noon again. It is now daylight. Good-bye.'
Susan shut him out; and then gently extricating the dead child from its mother's arms, she could
not resist making her own quiet moan over her darling. She tried to learn off its little, placid face,
dumb and pale before her.
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'Not all the scalding tears of care
Shall wash away that vision fair;
Not all the thousand thoughts that rise,
Not all the sights that dim her eyes,
Shall e'er usurp the place
Of that little angel-face.'
And then she remembered what remained to be done. She saw that all was right in the house; her
father was still dead asleep on the settle, in spite of all the noise of the night. She went out
through the quiet streets, deserted still although it was broad daylight, and to where the Leighs
lived. Mrs Leigh who kept her country hours, was opening her window shutters. Susan took her
by the arm, and, without speaking went into the house-place. There she knelt down before the
astonished Mrs Leigh, and cried as she had never done before; but the miserable night had
overpowered her, and she who had gone through so much calmly, now that the pressure seemed
removed could not find the power to speak.
'My poor dear! What has made thy heart so sore as to come and cry a-this-ons? Speak and tell
me. Nay, cry on, poor wench, if thou canst not speak yet. It will ease the heart, and then thou
canst tell me.'
'Nanny is dead!' said Susan. 'I left her to go to father, an she fell down stairs, and never breathed
again. Oh, that's my sorrow! but I've more to tell. Her mother is come -- is in our house! Come
and see if it's your Lizzie.' Mrs Leigh could not speak, but, trembling, put on her things and went
with Susan in dizzy haste back to Crown-street.
Chapter IV
As they entered the house in Crown-street, they perceiveed that the door would not open freely
on its hinges, and Susan instinctively looked behind to see the cause of the obstruction. She
immediately recognised the appearance of a little parcel wrapped in a scrap of newspaper, and
evidently containing money. She stooped and picked it up. 'Look!' said she, sorrowfully, 'the
mother was bringing this for her child last night.'
But Mrs Leigh did not answer. So near to the ascertaining if it were her lost child or no, she
could not be arrested, but pressed onwards with trembling steps and a beating, fluttering heart.
She entered the bed-room, dark and still. She took no heed of the little corpse, over which Susan
paused, but she went straight to the bed, and withdrawing the curtain, saw Lizzie, -- but not the
former Lizzie, bright, gay, buoyant, and undimmed. This Lizzie was old before her time; her
beauty was gone; deep lines of care, and alas! of want (or thus the mother imagined) were
printed on the cheek, so round, and fair, and smooth, when last she gladdened her mother's eyes.
Even in her sleep she bore the look of woe and despair which was the prevalent expression of her
face by day; even in her sleep she had forgotten how to smile. But all these marks of the sin and
sorrow she had passed through only made her mother love her the more. She stood looking at her
with greedy eyes, which seemed as though no gazing could satisfy their longing; and at last she
stooped down and kissed the pale, worn hand that lay outside the bed-clothes. No touch
disturbed the sleeper; the mother need not have laid the hand so gently down upon the
counterpane. There was no sign of life, save only now and then a deep sob-like sigh. Mrs Leigh
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sate down beside the bed, and, still holding back the curtain, looked on and on, as if she could
never be satisfied.
Susan would fain have stayed by her darling one; but she had many calls upon her time and
thoughts, and her will had now, as ever, to be given up to that of others. All seemed to devolve
the burden of their cares on her. Her father ill-humoured from his last night's intemperance, did
not scruple to reproach her with being the cause of little Nanny's death; and when, after bearing
his upbraiding meekly for some time, she could no longer restrain herself, but began to cry, he
wounded her even more by his injudicious attempts at comfort: for he said it was as well the
child was dead; it was none of theirs, and why should they be troubled with it? Susan wrung her
hands at this, and came and stood before her father, and implored him to forbear. Then she had to
take all requisite steps for the coroner's inquest; she had to arrange for the dismissal of her
school; she had to summon a little neighbour, and send his willing feet on a message to William
Leigh, who, she felt, ought to be informed of his mother's whereabouts, and of the whole state of
affairs. She asked her messenger to tell him to come and speak to her, -- that his mother was at
her house. She was thankful that her father sauntered out to have a gossip at the nearest coach-
stand, and to relate as many of the night's adventures as he knew; for as yet he was in ignorance
of the watcher and the watched, who silently passed away the hours upstairs.
At dinner-time Will came. He looked red, glad, impatient, excited. Susan stood calm and white
before him, her soft, loving eyes gazing straight into his.
'Will,' said she, in a low, quiet voice, 'your sister is upstairs.'
'My sister!' said he, as if affrighted at the idea, and losing his glad look in one of gloom. Susan
saw it, and her heart sank a little, but she went on as calm to all appearance as ever.
'She was little Nanny's mother, as perhaps you know. Poor little Nanny was killed last night by a
fall down stairs.' All the calmness was gone; all the suppressed feeling was displayed in spite of
every effort. She sate down, and hid her face from him, and cried bitterly. He forgot everything
but the wish, the longing to comfort her. He put his arm round her waist, and bent over her. But
all he could say, was, 'Oh, Susan, how can I comfort you! Don't take on so, -- pray don't!' He
never changed the words, but the tone varied every time he spoke. At last she seemed to regain
her power over herself; and she wiped her eyes, and once more looked upon him with her own
quiet, earnest, unfearing gaze.
'Your sister was near the house. She came in on hearing my words to the doctor. She is asleep
now, and your mother is watching her. I wanted to tell you all myself. Would you like to see
your mother?'
'No!' said he. 'I would rather see none but thee. Mother told me thou know'st all.' His eyes were
downcast in their shame.
But the holy and pure did not lower or veil her eyes.
She said, 'Yes, I know all -- all but her sufferings. Think what they must have been!'
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He made answer low and stern, 'She deserved them all; every jot.'
'In the eye of God, perhaps she does. He is the judge; we are not.'
'Oh!' she said with a sudden burst, 'Will Leigh! I have thought so well of you; don't go and make
me think you cruel and hard. Goodness is not goodness unless there is mercy and tenderness with
it. There is your mother who has been nearly heart-broken, now full of rejoicing over her child --
think of your mother.'
'I do think of her,' said he. 'I remember the promise I gave her last night. Thou shouldst give me
time. I would do right in time. I never think it o'er in quiet. But I will do what is right and fitting,
never fear. Thou hast spoken out very plain to me; and misdoubted me, Susan; I love thee so,
that thy words cut me. If I did hang back a bit from making sudden promises, it was because not
even for love of thee, would I say what I was not feeling; and at first I could not feel all at once
as thou wouldst have me. But I'm not cruel and hard; for if I had been, I should na' have grieved
as I have done.'
He made as if he were going away; and indeed he did feel he would rather think it over in quiet.
But Susan, grieved at her incautious words, which had all the appearance of harshness, went a
step or two nearer -- paused -- and then, all over blushes, said in a low soft whisper, --
'Oh, Will! I beg your pardon. I am very sorry -- won't you forgive me?'
She who had always drawn back, and been so reserved, said this in the very softest manner; with
eyes now uplifted beseechingly, now dropped to the ground. Her sweet confusion told more than
words could do; and Will turned back, all joyous in his certainty of being beloved, and took her
in his arms and kissed her.
'My own Susan!' he said.
Meanwhile the mother watched her child in the room above.
It was late in the afternoon before she awoke; for the sleeping draught had been very powerful.
The instant she awoke, her eyes were fixed on her mother's face with a gaze as unflinching as if
she were fascinated. Mrs Leigh did not turn away; nor move. For it seemed as if motion would
unlock the stony command over herself which, while so perfectly still, she was enabled to
preserve. But by-and-by Lizzie cried out in a piercing voice of agony, --
'Mother, don't look at me! I have been so wicked!' and instantly she hid her face, and grovelled
among the bedclothes, and lay like one dead -- so motionless was she.
Mrs Leigh knelt down by the bed, and spoke in the most soothing tones.
'Lizzie, dear, don't speak so. I'm thy mother, darling; don't be afeard of me. I never left off loving
thee, Lizzie. I was always a-thinking of thee. Thy father forgave thee afore he died.' (There was a
little start here, but no sound was heard.) 'Lizzie, lass, I'll do aught for thee; I'll live for thee; only
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don't be afeard of me. Whate'er thou art or hast been, we'll ne'er speak on't. We'll leave th' oud
times behind us, and go back to the Upclose Farm. I but left it to find thee, my lass; and God has
led me to thee. Blessed be His name. And God is good too, Lizzie. Thou hast not forgot thy
Bible, I'll be bound, for thou wert always a scholar. I'm no reader, but I learnt off them texts to
comfort me a bit, and I've said them many a time a day to myself. Lizzie, lass, don't hide thy
head so, it's thy mother as is speaking to thee. Thy little child clung to me only yesterday; and if
it's gone to be an angel, it will speak to God for thee. Nay, don't sob a-that-as; thou shalt have it
again in Heaven; I know thou'lt strive to get there, for thy little Nanny's sake -- and listen! I'll tell
thee God's promises to them that are penitent -- only doan't be afeard.'
Mrs Leigh folded her hands, and strove to speak very clearly, while she repeated every tender
and merciful text she could remember. She could tell from the breathing that her daughter was
listening; but she was so dizzy and sick herself when she had ended, that she could not go on
speaking. It was all she could do to keep from crying aloud.
At last she heard her daughter' s voice.
'Where have they taken her to?' she asked.
'She is down stairs. So quiet and peaceful, and happy she looks.'
'Could she speak? Oh, if God -- if I might but have heard her little voice! Mother, I used to
dream of it. May I see her once again -- Oh mother, if I strive very hard, and God is very
merciful, and I go to heaven, I shall not know her -- I shall not know my own again -- she will
shun me as a stranger and cling to Susan Palmer and to you. Oh woe! Oh woe!' She shook with
exceeding sorrow.
In her earnestness of speech she had uncovered her face, and tried to read Mrs Leigh's thoughts
through her looks. And when she saw those aged eyes brimming full of tears, and marked the
quivering lips, she threw her arms round the faithful mother's neck, and wept there as she had
done in many a childish sorrow; but with a deeper, a more wretched grief.
Her mother hushed her on her breast; and lulled her as if she were a baby; and she grew still and
quiet.
They sate thus for a long, long time. At last Susan Palmer came up with some tea and bread and
butter for Mrs Leigh. She watched the mother feed her sick, unwilling child, with every fond
inducement to eat which she could devise; they neither of them took notice of Susan's presence.
That night they lay in each other's arms; but Susan slept on the ground beside them.
They took the little corpse (the little, unconscious sacrifice, whose early calling-home had
reclaimed her poor, wandering mother) to the hills, which in her life-time she had never seen.
They dared not lay her by the stern grandfather in Milne-Row churchyard, but they bore her to a
lone moorland graveyard, where long ago the Quakers used to bury their dead. They laid her
there on the sunny slope, where the earliest spring-flowers blow.
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Will and Susan live at the Upclose Farm. Mrs Leigh and Lizzie dwell in a cottage so secluded
that, until you drop into the very hollow where it is placed, you do not see it. Tom is a school-
master in Rochdale, and he and Will help to support their mother. I only know that, if the cottage
be hidden in a green hollow of the hills, every sound of sorrow in the whole upland is heard there
-- every call of suffering or of sickness for help is listened to by a sad, gentle-looking woman,
who rarely smiles (and when she does, her smile is more sad than other people's tears), but who
comes out of her seclusion whenever there's a shadow in any household. Many hearts bless
Lizzie Leigh, but she -- she prays always and ever for forgiveness -- such forgiveness as may
enable her to see her child once more. Mrs Leigh is quiet and happy. Lizzie is to her eyes
something precious, -- as the lost piece of silver -- found once more. Susan is the bright one who
brings sunshine to all. Children grow around her and call her blessed. One is called Nanny. Her,
Lizzie often takes to the sunny graveyard in the uplands, and while the little creature gathers the
daisies, and makes chains, Lizzie sits by a little grave and weeps bitterly.


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John Keats (17951821).

24. On first looking into Chapmans Homer


MUCH have I travelld in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
5
That deep-browd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
10
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stard at the Pacificand all his men
Lookd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

152


624. Ode to a Nightingale

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
5
But being too happy in thine happiness,

That thou, light-wingd Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
10

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvd earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country-green,

Dance, and Provenal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South!
15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-staind mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
20

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
30

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

153
Already with thee! tender is the night,
35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
40

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmd darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
50

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a musd rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain

To thy high requiem become a sod.
60

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that ofttimes hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
70

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

154
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:do I wake or sleep?
80



625. Ode on a Grecian Urn

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
10

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goalyet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
20

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearid,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!
25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

155
For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
30

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea-shore,
35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
40

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
45
When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
50

156

39. The Eve of St. Agnes


I.

ST. AGNES EveAh, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limpd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsmans fingers, while he told
5
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seemd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgins picture, while his prayer he saith.

II.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
10
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculpturd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprisond in black, purgatorial rails:
15
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb oratries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

III.

Northward he turneth through a little door,

And scarce three steps, ere Musics golden tongue
20
Flatterd to tears this aged man and poor;
But noalready had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
25
Rough ashes sat he for his souls reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners sake to grieve.

IV.

That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;

157
And so it chancd, for many a door was wide,
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
30
The silver, snarling trumpets gan to chide:
The level chambers, ready with their pride,
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
Stard, where upon their heads the cornice rests,
35
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.

V.

At length burst in the argent revelry,

With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting fairily
The brain, new stuff d, in youth, with triumphs gay
40
Of old romance. These let us wish away,
And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
On love, and wingd St. Agnes saintly care,
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.
45

VI.

They told her how, upon St. Agnes Eve,

Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honeyd middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
50
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

VII.

Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
55
The music, yearning like a God in pain,
She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
Fixd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
Pass byshe heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
60
And back retird; not coold by high disdain,
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
158
She sighd for Agnes dreams, the sweetest of the year.

VIII.

She dancd along with vague, regardless eyes,

Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
65
The hallowd hour was near at hand: she sighs
Amid the timbrels, and the throngd resort
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,
Hoodwinkd with faery fancy; all amort,
70
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

IX.

So, purposing each moment to retire,

She lingerd still. Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
75
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Buttressd from moonlight, stands he, and implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
80
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kissin sooth such things have been.

X.

He ventures in: let no buzzd whisper tell:

All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Loves fevrous citadel:
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
85
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.
90

XI.

Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,

Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torchs flame,
159
Behind a broad hail-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
95
He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
And graspd his fingers in her palsied hand,
Saying, Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!

XII.

Get hence! get hence! theres dwarfish Hildebrand;
100
He had a fever late, and in the fit
He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:
Then there s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
More tame for his gray hairsAlas me! flit!
Flit like a ghost away.Ah, Gossip dear,
105
Were safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
And tell me howGood Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.

XIII.

He followd through a lowly arched way,

Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume;
110
And as she mutterd Well-awell-a-day!
He found him in a little moonlight room,
Pale, latticd, chill, and silent as a tomb.
Now tell me where is Madeline, said he,
O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
115
Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes wool are weaving piously.

XIV.

St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes Eve

Yet men will murder upon holy days:
Thou must hold water in a witchs sieve,
120
And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
To venture so: it fills me with amaze
To see thee, Porphyro!St. Agnes Eve!
Gods help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
This very night: good angels her deceive!
125
But let me laugh awhile, Ive mickle time to grieve.

160
XV.

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,

While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
Who keepeth closd a wondrous riddle-book,
130
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
His ladys purpose; and he scarce could brook
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.
135

XVI.

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,

Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
A cruel man and impious thou art:
140
Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
Alone with her good angels, far apart
From wicked men like thee. Go, go!I deem
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.

XVII.

I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,
145
Quoth Porphyro: O may I neer find grace
When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
Good Angela, believe me by these tears;
150
Or I will, even in a moments space,
Awake, with horrid shout, my foemens ears,
And beard them, though they be more fangd than wolves and bears.

XVIII.

Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?

A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
155
Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
Were never missd.Thus plaining, doth she bring
161
A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
160
That Angela gives promise she will do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.

XIX.

Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,

Even to Madelines chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy
165
That he might see her beauty unespied,
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
While legiond fairies pacd the coverlet,
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.
Never on such a night have lovers met,
170
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

XX.

It shall be as thou wishest, said the Dame:

All cates and dainties shall be stored there
Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,
175
For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.
180

XXI.

So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.

The lovers endless minutes slowly passd;
The dame returnd, and whisperd in his ear
To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
185
Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
The maidens chamber, silken, hushd, and chaste;
Where Porphyro took covert, pleasd amain.
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

XXII.

Her faltring hand upon the balustrade,
190
162
Her faltring hand upon the balustrade,
Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
When Madeline, St. Agnes charmed maid,
Rose, like a missiond spirit, unaware:
With silver tapers light, and pious care,
She turnd, and down the aged gossip led
195
To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayd and fled.

XXIII.

Out went the taper as she hurried in;

Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
200
She closd the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
205
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

XXIV.

A casement high and triple-archd there was,

All garlanded with carven imagries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
210
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moths deep-damaskd wings;
And in the midst, mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
215
A shielded scutcheon blushd with blood of queens and kings.

XXV.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madelines fair breast,
As down she knelt for heavens grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
220
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemd a splendid angel, newly drest,
163
Save wings, for heaven:Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
225

XXVI.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,

Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
230
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

XXVII.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
235
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplexd she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressd
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully havend both from joy and pain;
240
Claspd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

XXVIII.

Stoln to this paradise, and so entranced,

Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
245
And listend to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
And breathd himself: then from the closet crept,
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
250
And over the hushd carpet, silent, stept,
And tween the curtains peepd, where, lo!how fast she slept.

XXIX.

Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon

Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
164
A table, and, half anguishd, threw thereon
255
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet,
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:
260
The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.

XXX.

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

In blanched linen, smooth, and lavenderd,
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
265
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferrd
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedard Lebanon.
270

XXXI.

These delicates he heapd with glowing hand

On golden dishes and in baskets bright
Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand
In the retired quiet of the night,
Filling the chilly room with perfume light.
275
And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:
Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes sake,
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.

XXXII.

Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm
280
Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream
By the dusk curtains:twas a midnight charm
Impossible to melt as iced stream:
The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:
285
It seemd he never, never could redeem
From such a stedfast spell his ladys eyes;
So musd awhile, entoild in woofed phantasies.
165

XXXIII.

Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,

Tumultuous,and, in chords that tenderest be,
290
He playd an ancient ditty, long since mute,
In Provence calld, La belle dame sans mercy:
Close to her ear touching the melody;
Wherewith disturbd, she utterd a soft moan:
He ceasedshe panted quickand suddenly
295
Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone:
Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.

XXXIV.

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,

Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:
There was a painful change, that nigh expelld
300
The blisses of her dream so pure and deep
At which fair Madeline began to weep,
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,
305
Fearing to move or speak, she lookd so dreamingly.

XXXV.

Ah, Porphyro! said she, but even now

Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:
310
How changd thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!
Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.
315

XXXVI.

Beyond a mortal man impassiond far

At these voluptuous accents, he arose,
Ethereal, flushd, and like a throbbing star
Seen mid the sapphire heavens deep repose;
166
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
320
Blendeth its odour with the violet,
Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows
Like Loves alarum pattering the sharp sleet
Against the window-panes; St. Agnes moon hath set.

XXXVII.

Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:
325
This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!
Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:
No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.
Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?
330
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,
Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;
A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing.

XXXVIII.

My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!

Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?
335
Thy beautys shield, heart-shapd and vermeil dyed?
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest
After so many hours of toil and quest,
A famishd pilgrim,saved by miracle.
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest
340
Saving of thy sweet self; if thou thinkst well
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.

XXXIX.

Hark! tis an elfin-storm from faery land,

Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:
Arisearise! the morning is at hand;
345
The bloated wassaillers will never heed:
Let us away, my love, with happy speed;
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,
Drownd all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:
Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,
350
For oer the southern moors I have a home for thee.

XL.

She hurried at his words, beset with fears,

167

She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.
355
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-droopd lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,
Flutterd in the besieging winds uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.
360

XLI.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;

Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flaggon by his side;
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
365
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:
The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groan.

XLII.

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago
370
These lovers fled away into the storm.
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be-nightmard. Angela the old
375
Died palsy-twitchd, with meagre face deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

168
TORTOISE SHOUT
D.H. Lawrence

I thought he was dumb,
I said he was dumb,
Yet I've heard him cry.

First faint scream,
Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,
Far, far off, far scream.

Tortoise in extremis.

Why were we crucified into sex?
Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
As we began,
As he certainly began, so perfectly alone?

A far, was-it-audible scream,
Or did it sound on the plasm direct?

Worse than the cry of the new-born,
A scream,
A yell,
A shout,
A pan,
A death-agony,
A birth-cry,
A submission,
All tiny, tiny, far away, reptile under the first dawn.

War-cry, triumph, acute-delight, death-scream reptilian,
Why was the veil torn?
The silken shriek of the soul's torn membrane?
The male soul's membrane
Torn with a shriek half music, half horror.

Crucifixion.
Male tortoise, cleaving behind the hovel-wall of that dense female,
Mounted and tense, spread-eagle, out-reaching out of the shell
In tortoise-nakedness,
Long neck, and long vulnerable limbs extruded, spread-eagle over her house-roof,
And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved beneath her walls,
Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching anguish in uttermost tension
169
Till suddenly, in the spasm of coition, tupping like a jerking leap, and oh!
Opening its clenched face from his outstretched neck
And giving that fragile yell, that scream,
Super-audible,
From his pink, cleft, old-man's mouth,
Giving up the ghost,
Or screaming in Pentecost, receiving the ghost.

His scream, and his moment's subsidence,
The moment of eternal silence,
Yet unreleased, and after the moment, the sudden, startling jerk of coition, and at once
The inexpressible faint yell
And so on, till the last plasm of my body was melted back
To the primeval rudiments of life, and the secret.

So he tups, and screams
Time after time that frail, torn scream
After each jerk, the longish interval,
The tortoise eternity,
Agelong, reptilian persistence,
Heart-throb, slow heart-throb, persistent for the next spasm.

I remember, when I was a boy,
I heard the scream of a frog, which was caught with his foot in the mouth of an up-starting
snake;
I remember when I first heard bull-frogs break into sound in the spring;
I remember hearing a wild goose out of the throat of night
Cry loudly, beyond the lake of waters;
I remember the first time, out of a bush in the darkness, a nightingale's piercing cries and gurgles
startled the depths of my soul;
I remember the scream of a rabbit as I went through a wood at midnight;
I remember the heifer in her heat, blorting and blorting through the hours, persistent and
irrepressible;
I remember my first terror hearing the howl of weird, amorous cats;
I remember the scream of a terrified, injured horse, the sheet-lightning
And running away from the sound of a woman in labor, something like an owl whooing,
And listening inwardly to the first bleat of a lamb,
The first wail of an infant,
And my mother singing to herself,
And the first tenor singing of the passionate throat of a young collier, who has long since drunk
himself to death,
The first elements of foreign speech
On wild dark lips.

And more than all these,
And less than all these,
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This last,
Strange, faint coition yell
Of the male tortoise at extremity,
Tiny from under the very edge of the farthest far-off horizon of life.

The cross,
The wheel on which our silence first is broken,
Sex, which breaks up our integrity, our single inviolability, our deep silence
Tearing a cry from us.

Sex, which breaks us into voice, sets us calling across the deeps, calling, calling for the
complement,
Singing, and calling, and singing again, being answered, having found.

Torn, to become whole again, after long seeking for what is lost,
The same cry from the tortoise as from Christ, the Osiris-cry of abandonment,
That which is whole, torn asunder,
That which is in part, finding its whole again throughout the universe.
D. H. Lawrence
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UTILITARIANISM
by
John Stuart Mill
(1863)
Chapter 2
What Utilitarianism Is.
A PASSING remark is all that needs be given to the ignorant blunder of supposing that
those who stand up for utility as the test of right and wrong, use the term in that restricted
and merely colloquial sense in which utility is opposed to pleasure. An apology is due to the
philosophical opponents of utilitarianism, for even the momentary appearance of
confounding them with any one capable of so absurd a misconception; which is the more
extraordinary, inasmuch as the contrary accusation, of referring everything to pleasure, and
that too in its grossest form, is another of the common charges against utilitarianism: and,
as has been pointedly remarked by an able writer, the same sort of persons, and often the
very same persons, denounce the theory "as impracticably dry when the word utility
precedes the word pleasure, and as too practicably voluptuous when the word pleasure
precedes the word utility." Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every
writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not
something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with
exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the
ornamental, have always declared that the useful means these, among other things. Yet the
common herd, including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals, but in
books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into this shallow mistake. Having
caught up the word utilitarian, while knowing nothing whatever about it but its sound, they
habitually express by it the rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in some of its forms; of
beauty, of ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the term thus ignorantly misapplied solely in
disparagement, but occasionally in compliment; as though it implied superiority to frivolity
and the mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use is the only one in which the
word is popularly known, and the one from which the new generation are acquiring their
sole notion of its meaning. Those who introduced the word, but who had for many years
discontinued it as a distinctive appellation, may well feel themselves called upon to resume
it, if by doing so they can hope to contribute anything towards rescuing it from this utter
degradation.*
[* The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use.
He did not invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's Annals of the Parish. After using it as a
designation for several years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything resembling a badge or
watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions- to denote the recognition of
utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it- the term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in many
cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution.]
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness
Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,
and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a
clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in
particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this
is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of
life on which this theory of morality is grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from
pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as
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numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure
inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of
pain.
Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some of the most
estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they
express it) no higher end than pleasure- no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit-
they designate as utterly mean and grovelling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom
the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern
holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by
its German, French, and English assailants.
When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their
accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes
human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this
supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an
imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to
swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other.
The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because
a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness. Human beings
have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of
them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do
not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out
their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient
manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no
known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the
feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures
than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in
general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater
permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former- that is, in their circumstantial
advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have
fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called,
higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to
recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than
others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as
well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity
alone.
If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one
pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in
amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or
almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any
feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two
is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that
they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent,
and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable
of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far
outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.
Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally
capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the
manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would
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consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance
of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed
person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and
base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better
satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess
more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in
common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so
extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however
undesirable in their own eyes. A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy,
is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points,
than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink
into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give what explanation we
please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given
indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which
mankind are capable: we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an
appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of
it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and
contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human
beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion
to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom
it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an
object of desire to them.
Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness- that the
superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior-
confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the
being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully
satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look
for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if
they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed
unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those
imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;
better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a
different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other
party to the comparison knows both sides.
It may be objected, that many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally, under
the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower. But this is quite compatible with a
full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men often, from infirmity of
character, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less
valuable; and this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than when it is
between bodily and mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of health, though
perfectly aware that health is the greater good.
It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything
noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that
those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of
pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote themselves
exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for the
nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile
influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it
speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and
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the society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher
capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes,
because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves
to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either
the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer
capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally
susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower;
though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both.
From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a
question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of
existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its
consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they
differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And there needs be the
less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no
other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of quantity. What means are there of
determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable
sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither pains
nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure. What is
there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular
pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings
and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in
kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined
from the higher faculties, is suspectible, they are entitled on this subject to the same
regard.
I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly just conception of Utility
or Happiness, considered as the directive rule of human conduct. But it is by no means an
indispensable condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that standard is not
the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if
it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its
nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in
general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the
general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by
the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer
deduction from the benefit. But the bare enunciation of such an absurdity as this last,
renders refutation superfluous.
According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained, the ultimate end, with
reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are
considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible
from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the
test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by
those who in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of self-
consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison. This,
being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the
standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human
conduct, by the observance of which an existence such as has been described might be, to
the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as
the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation.
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Against this doctrine, however, arises another class of objectors, who say that happiness, in
any form, cannot be the rational purpose of human life and action; because, in the first
place, it is unattainable: and they contemptuously ask, what right hast thou to be happy? a
question which Mr. Carlyle clenches by the addition, What right, a short time ago, hadst
thou even to be? Next, they say, that men can do without happiness; that all noble human
beings have felt this, and could not have become noble but by learning the lesson of
Entsagen, or renunciation; which lesson, thoroughly learnt and submitted to, they affirm to
be the beginning and necessary condition of all virtue.
The first of these objections would go to the root of the matter were it well founded; for if
no happiness is to be had at all by human beings, the attainment of it cannot be the end of
morality, or of any rational conduct. Though, even in that case, something might still be
said for the utilitarian theory; since utility includes not solely the pursuit of happiness, but
the prevention or mitigation of unhappiness; and if the former aim be chimerical, there will
be all the greater scope and more imperative need for the latter, so long at least as
mankind think fit to live, and do not take refuge in the simultaneous act of suicide
recommended under certain conditions by Novalis. When, however, it is thus positively
asserted to be impossible that human life should be happy, the assertion, if not something
like a verbal quibble, is at least an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of
highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted
pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days,
and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of
this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware
as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture; but
moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various
pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the
foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life
thus composed, to those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared
worthy of the name of happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many,
during some considerable portion of their lives. The present wretched education, and
wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance to its being attainable by almost
all.
The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to consider happiness as
the end of life, would be satisfied with such a moderate share of it. But great numbers of
mankind have been satisfied with much less. The main constituents of a satisfied life appear
to be two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquillity, and
excitement. With much tranquillity, many find that they can be content with very little
pleasure: with much excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a considerable quantity
of pain. There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the mass of mankind
to unite both; since the two are so far from being incompatible that they are in natural
alliance, the prolongation of either being a preparation for, and exciting a wish for, the
other. It is only those in whom indolence amounts to a vice, that do not desire excitement
after an interval of repose: it is only those in whom the need of excitement is a disease,
that feel the tranquillity which follows excitement dull and insipid, instead of pleasurable in
direct proportion to the excitement which preceded it. When people who are tolerably
fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to
them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves. To those who have neither
public nor private affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any case
dwindle in value as the time approaches when all selfish interests must be terminated by
death: while those who leave after them objects of personal affection, and especially those
who have also cultivated a fellow-feeling with the collective interests of mankind, retain as
lively an interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigour of youth and health. Next to
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selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.
A cultivated mind - I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the
fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable
degree, to exercise its faculties- finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds
it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the
incidents of history, the ways of mankind, past and present, and their prospects in the
future. It is possible, indeed, to become indifferent to all this, and that too without having
exhausted a thousandth part of it; but only when one has had from the beginning no moral
or human interest in these things, and has sought in them only the gratification of curiosity.
Now there is absolutely no reason in the nature of things why an amount of mental culture
sufficient to give an intelligent interest in these objects of contemplation, should not be the
inheritance of every one born in a civilised country. As little is there an inherent necessity
that any human being should be a selfish egotist, devoid of every feeling or care but those
which centre in his own miserable individuality. Something far superior to this is sufficiently
common even now, to give ample earnest of what the human species may be made.
Genuine private affections and a sincere interest in the public good, are possible, though in
unequal degrees, to every rightly brought up human being. In a world in which there is so
much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one
who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence
which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to
the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he
will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great
sources of physical and mental suffering- such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness,
worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem
lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune
entirely to escape; which, as things now are, cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in
any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment's
consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves
removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within
narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by
the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even
that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by
good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influences; while the
progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this
detestable foe. And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of the
chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of
those in whom our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other
disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect
either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions.
All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them
almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort; and though their removal is
grievously slow- though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the
conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not
wanting, it might easily be made- yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to
bear a part, however small and unconspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble
enjoyment from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the form of selfish
indulgence consent to be without.
And this leads to the true estimation of what is said by the objectors concerning the
possibility, and the obligation, of learning to do without happiness. Unquestionably it is
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possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind,
even in those parts of our present world which are least deep in barbarism; and it often has
to be done voluntarily by the hero or the martyr, for the sake of something which he prizes
more than his individual happiness. But this something, what is it, unless the happiness of
others or some of the requisites of happiness? It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely
one's own portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all, this self-sacrifice must be for
some end; it is not its own end; and if we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue,
which is better than happiness, I ask, would the sacrifice be made if the hero or martyr did
not believe that it would earn for others immunity from similar sacrifices? Would it be made
if he thought that his renunciation of happiness for himself would produce no fruit for any of
his fellow creatures, but to make their lot like his, and place them also in the condition of
persons who have renounced happiness? All honour to those who can abnegate for
themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such renunciation they contribute
worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but he who does it, or professes
to do it, for any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic
mounted on his pillar. He may be an inspiriting proof of what men can do, but assuredly not
an example of what they should.
Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that any one can
best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet so long as the
world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to make such a
sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in man. I will add, that in this condition
the world, paradoxical as the assertion may be, the conscious ability to do without
happiness gives the best prospect of realising, such happiness as is attainable. For nothing
except that consciousness can raise a person above the chances of life, by making him feel
that, let fate and fortune do their worst, they have not power to subdue him: which, once
felt, frees him from excess of anxiety concerning the evils of life, and enables him, like
many a Stoic in the worst times of the Roman Empire, to cultivate in tranquillity the sources
of satisfaction accessible to him, without concerning himself about the uncertainty of their
duration, any more than about their inevitable end.
Meanwhile, let utilitarians never cease to claim the morality of self devotion as a possession
which belongs by as good a right to them, as either to the Stoic or to the Transcendentalist.
The utilitarian morality does recognise in human beings the power of sacrificing their own
greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a
good. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it
considers as wasted. The only self-renunciation which it applauds, is devotion to the
happiness, or to some of the means of happiness, of others; either of mankind collectively,
or of individuals within the limits imposed by the collective interests of mankind.
I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to
acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in
conduct, is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own
happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a
disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the
complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your
neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of
making the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social
arrangements should place the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the
interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole;
and secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human
character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an
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indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole; especially
between his own happiness and the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and
positive, as regard for the universal happiness prescribes; so that not only he may be
unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with conduct opposed
to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in
every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments connected
therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being's sentient existence. If
the, impugners of the utilitarian morality represented it to their own minds in this its, true
character, I know not what recommendation possessed by any other morality they could
possibly affirm to be wanting to it; what more beautiful or more exalted developments of
human nature any other ethical system can be supposed to foster, or what springs of
action, not accessible to the utilitarian, such systems rely on for giving effect to their
mandates.
The objectors to utilitarianism cannot always be charged with representing it in a
discreditable light. On the contrary, those among them who entertain anything like a just
idea of its disinterested character, sometimes find fault with its standard as being too high
for humanity. They say it is exacting too much to require that people shall always act from
the inducement of promoting the general interests of society. But this is to mistake the very
meaning of a standard of morals, and confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is
the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them;
but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty;
on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and
rightly so done, if the rule of duty does not condemn them. It is the more unjust to
utilitarianism that this particular misapprehension should be made a ground of objection to
it, inasmuch as utilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the
motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the
agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether
his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble; he who betrays the friend that
trusts him, is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is
under greater obligations.
But to speak only of actions done from the motive of duty, and in direct obedience to
principle: it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought, to conceive it as
implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or
society at large. The great majority of good actions are intended not for the benefit of the
world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the
thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular
persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them
he is not violating the rights, that is, the legitimate and authorised expectations, of any one
else. The multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object of
virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a thousand) has it in his power to
do this on an extended scale, in other words to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional;
and on these occasions alone is he called on to consider public utility; in every other case,
private utility, the interest or happiness of some few persons, is all he has to attend to.
Those alone the influence of whose actions extends to society in general, need concern
themselves habitually about large an object. In the case of abstinences indeed- of things
which people forbear to do from moral considerations, though the consequences in the
particular case might be beneficial- it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be
consciously aware that the action is of a class which, if practised generally, would be
generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it. The
amount of regard for the public interest implied in this recognition, is no greater than is
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demanded by every system of morals, for they all enjoin to abstain from whatever is
manifestly pernicious to society.
The same considerations dispose of another reproach against the doctrine of utility, founded
on a still grosser misconception of the purpose of a standard of morality, and of the very
meaning of the words right and wrong. It is often affirmed that utilitarianism renders men
cold and unsympathising; that it chills their moral feelings towards individuals; that it
makes them regard only the dry and hard consideration of the consequences of actions, not
taking into their moral estimate the qualities from which those actions emanate. If the
assertion means that they do not allow their judgment respecting the rightness or
wrongness of an action to be influenced by their opinion of the qualities of the person who
does it, this is a complaint not against utilitarianism, but against having any standard of
morality at all; for certainly no known ethical standard decides an action to be good or bad
because it is done by a good or a bad man, still less because done by an amiable, a brave,
or a benevolent man, or the contrary. These considerations are relevant, not to the
estimation of actions, but of persons; and there is nothing in the utilitarian theory
inconsistent with the fact that there are other things which interest us in persons besides
the rightness and wrongness of their actions. The Stoics, indeed, with the paradoxical
misuse of language which was part of their system, and by which they strove to raise
themselves above all concern about anything but virtue, were fond of saying that he who
has that has everything; that he, and only he, is rich, is beautiful, is a king. But no claim of
this description is made for the virtuous man by the utilitarian doctrine. Utilitarians are quite
aware that there are other desirable possessions and qualities besides virtue, and are
perfectly willing to allow to all of them their full worth. They are also aware that a right
action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character, and that actions which are
blamable, often proceed from qualities entitled to praise. When this is apparent in any
particular case, it modifies their estimation, not certainly of the act, but of the agent. I grant
that they are, notwithstanding, of opinion, that in the long run the best proof of a good
character is good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider any mental disposition as good,
of which the predominant tendency is to produce bad conduct. This makes them unpopular
with many people; but it is an unpopularity which they must share with every one who
regards the distinction between right and wrong in a serious light; and the reproach is not
one which a conscientious utilitarian need be anxious to repel.
If no more be meant by the objection than that many utilitarians look on the morality of
actions, as measured by the utilitarian standard, with too exclusive a regard, and do not lay
sufficient stress upon the other beauties of character which go towards making a human
being lovable or admirable, this may be admitted. Utilitarians who have cultivated their
moral feelings, but not their sympathies nor their artistic perceptions, do fall into this
mistake; and so do all other moralists under the same conditions. What can be said in
excuse for other moralists is equally available for them, namely, that, if there is to be any
error, it is better that it should be on that side. As a matter of fact, we may affirm that
among utilitarians as among adherents of other systems, there is every imaginable degree
of rigidity and of laxity in the application of their standard: some are even puritanically
rigorous, while others are as indulgent as can possibly be desired by sinner or by
sentimentalist. But on the whole, a doctrine which brings prominently forward the interest
that mankind have in the repression and prevention of conduct which violates the moral
law, is likely to be inferior to no other in turning the sanctions of opinion again such
violations. It is true, the question, What does violate the moral law? is one on which those
who recognise different standards of morality are likely now and then to differ. But
difference of opinion on moral questions was not first introduced into the world by
utilitarianism, while that doctrine does supply, if not always an easy, at all events a tangible
and intelligible mode of deciding such differences.
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It may not be superfluous to notice a few more of the common misapprehensions of
utilitarian ethics, even those which are so obvious and gross that it might appear impossible
for any person of candour and intelligence to fall into them; since persons, even of
considerable mental endowments, often give themselves so little trouble to understand the
bearings of any opinion against which they entertain a prejudice, and men are in general so
little conscious of this voluntary ignorance as a defect, that the vulgarest misunderstandings
of ethical doctrines are continually met with in the deliberate writings of persons of the
greatest pretensions both to high principle and to philosophy. We not uncommonly hear the
doctrine of utility inveighed against as a godless doctrine. If it be necessary to say anything
at all against so mere an assumption, we may say that the question depends upon what
idea we have formed of the moral character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that God
desires, above all things, the happiness of his creatures, and that this was his purpose in
their creation, utility is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than
any other. If it be meant that utilitarianism does not recognise the revealed will of God as
the supreme law of morals, I answer, that a utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness
and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the
subject of morals, must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree. But others
besides utilitarians have been of opinion that the Christian revelation was intended, and is
fitted, to inform the hearts and minds of mankind with a spirit which should enable them to
find for themselves what is right, and incline them to do it when found, rather than to tell
them, except in a very general way, what it is; and that we need a doctrine of ethics,
carefully followed out, to interpret to us the will God. Whether this opinion is correct or not,
it is superfluous here to discuss; since whatever aid religion, either natural or revealed, can
afford to ethical investigation, is as open to the utilitarian moralist as to any other. He can
use it as the testimony of God to the usefulness or hurtfulness of any given course of action,
by as good a right as others can use it for the indication of a transcendental law, having no
connection with usefulness or with happiness.
Again, Utility is often summarily stigmatised as an immoral doctrine by giving it the name of
Expediency, and taking advantage of the popular use of that term to contrast it with
Principle. But the Expedient, in the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally
means that which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself; as when a
minister sacrifices the interests of his country to keep himself in place. When it means
anything better than this, it means that which is expedient for some immediate object,
some temporary purpose, but which violates a rule whose observance is expedient in a
much higher degree. The Expedient, in this sense, instead of being the same thing with the
useful, is a branch of the hurtful. Thus, it would often be expedient, for the purpose of
getting over some momentary embarrassment, or attaining some object immediately useful
to ourselves or others, to tell a lie. But inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves of a
sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity, is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement
of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and
inasmuch as any, even unintentional, deviation from truth, does that much towards
weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of
all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one thing
that can be named to keep back civilisation, virtue, everything on which human happiness
on the largest scale depends; we feel that the violation, for a present advantage, of a rule of
such transcendant expediency, is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a
convenience to himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to deprive
mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance
which they can place in each other's word, acts the part of one of their worst enemies. Yet
that even this rule, sacred as it is, admits of possible exceptions, is acknowledged by all
moralists; the chief of which is when the withholding of some fact (as of information from a
malefactor, or of bad news from a person dangerously ill) would save an individual
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(especially an individual other than oneself) from great and unmerited evil, and when the
withholding can only be effected by denial. But in order that the exception may not extend
itself beyond the need, and may have the least possible effect in weakening reliance on
veracity, it ought to be recognised, and, if possible, its limits defined; and if the principle of
utility is good for anything, it must be good for weighing these conflicting utilities against
one another, and marking out the region within which one or the other preponderates.
Again, defenders of utility often find themselves called upon to reply to such objections as
this- that there is not time, previous to action, for calculating and weighing the effects of
any line of conduct on the general happiness. This is exactly as if any one were to say that
it is impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not time, on every
occasion on which anything has to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments.
The answer to the objection is, that there has been ample time, namely, the whole past
duration of the human species. During all that time, mankind have been learning by
experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all
the morality of life, are dependent. People talk as if the commencement of this course of
experience had hitherto been put off, and as if, at the moment when some man feels
tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had to begin considering for the
first time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness. Even then I do not
think that he would find the question very puzzling; but, at all events, the matter is now
done to his hand.
It is truly a whimsical supposition that, if mankind were agreed in considering utility to be
the test of morality, they would remain without any agreement as to what is useful, and
would take no measures for having their notions on the subject taught to the young, and
enforced by law and opinion. There is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever
to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined with it; but on any hypothesis
short of that, mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of
some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules
of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding
better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the
received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind have still much to
learn as to the effects of actions on the general happiness, I admit, or rather, earnestly
maintain. The corollaries from the principle of utility, like the precepts of every practical art,
admit of indefinite improvement, and, in a progressive state of the human mind, their
improvement is perpetually going on.
But to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing; to pass over the
intermediate generalisations entirely, and endeavour to test each individual action directly
by the first principle, is another. It is a strange notion that the acknowledgment of a first
principle is inconsistent with the admission of secondary ones. To inform a traveller
respecting the place of his. ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of landmarks and
direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality,
does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither
should not be advised to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave
off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on
other matters of practical concernment. Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not
founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack.
Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures
go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and
wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish. And this,
as long as foresight is a human quality, it is to be presumed they will continue to do.
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Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality, we require subordinate
principles to apply it by; the impossibility of doing without them, being common to all
systems, can afford no argument against any one in particular; but gravely to argue as if no
such secondary principles could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now, and
always must remain, without drawing any general conclusions from the experience of
human life, is as high a pitch, I think, as absurdity has ever reached in philosophical
controversy.
The remainder of the stock arguments against utilitarianism mostly consist in laying to its
charge the common infirmities of human nature, and the general difficulties which
embarrass conscientious persons in shaping their course through life. We are told that a
utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception to moral rules, and,
when under temptation, will see a utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in
its observance. But is utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses for evil
doing, and means of cheating our own conscience? They are afforded in abundance by all
doctrines which recognise as a fact in morals the existence of conflicting considerations;
which all doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is not the fault of any
creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so
framed as to require no exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid
down as either always obligatory or always condemnable. There is no ethical creed which
does not temper the rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain latitude, under the moral
responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances; and under
every creed, at the opening thus made, self-deception and dishonest casuistry get in. There
exists no moral system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting
obligation. These are the real difficulties, the knotty points both in the theory of ethics, and
in the conscientious guidance of personal conduct. They are overcome practically, with
greater or with less success, according to the intellect and virtue of the individual; but it can
hardly be pretended that any one will be the less qualified for dealing with them, from
possessing an ultimate standard to which conflicting rights and duties can be referred. If
utility is the ultimate source of moral obligations, utility may be invoked to decide between
them when their demands are incompatible. Though the application of the standard may be
difficult, it is better than none at all: while in other systems, the moral laws all claiming
independent authority, there is no common umpire entitled to interfere between them; their
claims to precedence one over another rest on little better than sophistry, and unless
determined, as they generally are, by the unacknowledged influence of considerations of
utility, afford a free scope for the action of personal desires and partialities. We must
remember that only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it requisite
that first principles should be appealed to. There is no case of moral obligation in which
some secondary principle is not involved; and if only one, there can seldom be any real
doubt which one it is, in the mind of any person by whom the principle itself is recognised.
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ON LIBERTY
by
JOHN STUART MILL
1860
Harvard Classics Volume 25
Copyright 1909 P.F. Collier & Son

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the
misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits
of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question
seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the
practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself
recognized as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense,
it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the stage of progress into which the
more civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions,
and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of
history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England.
But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the
government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The
rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily
antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a
governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest; who, at all
events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did not
venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its
oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a
weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less than against external
enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by
innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest,
commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon
preying upon the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual
attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to
the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation
was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition
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of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach
of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general
rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was the
establishment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the community, or of a body of
some sort supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the
more important acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation, the ruling
power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It was not so with
the second; and to attain this, or when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more
completely, became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as
mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, on
condition of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry
their aspirations beyond this point.
A time, however, came in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity
of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves.
It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants
or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete
security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees,
this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions
of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent,
the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling
power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too
much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem)
was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people.
What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest
and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected
against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually
responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which
it could itself dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power,
concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of
feeling, was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in the Continental
section of which, it still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to what a
government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think ought not to exist,
stand out as brilliant exceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of
sentiment might by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if the circumstances which
for a time encouraged it had continued unaltered.
But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons, success discloses faults and
infirmities which failure might have concealed from observation. The notion, that the people
have no need to limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular
government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed at some distant period
of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those
of the French Revolution, the worst of which were the work of an usurping few, and which, in
any case, belonged, not to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a sudden and
convulsive outbreak against monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a
democratic republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's surface, and made itself felt as
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one of the most powerful members of the community of nations; and elective and responsible
government became subject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing
fact. It was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and "the power of the people
over themselves," do not express the true state of the case. The "people" who exercise the power,
are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised, and the "self-government"
spoken of, is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The will of the
people, moreover, practically means, the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the
people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; the
people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much
needed against this, as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power
of government over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power are
regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This view of
things, recommending itself equally to the intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those
important classes in European society to whose real or supposed interests democracy is adverse,
has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and in political speculations "the tyranny of the
majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its
guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread,
chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived
that when society is itself the tyrant society collectively, over the separate individuals who
compose it its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands
of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues
wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to
meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression,
since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape,
penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection,
therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against
the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by
other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who
dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any
individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon
the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with
individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as
indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms, the practical question,
where to place the limit how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence
and social control is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes
existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other
people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by
opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules
should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most obvious
cases, it is one of those which least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and
scarcely any two countries, have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or country is a
wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in
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it, than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain
among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but universal illusion
is one of the examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says
a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing any
misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind impose on one another, is all the more
complete because the subJect is one on which it is not generally considered necessary that
reasons should be given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are
accustomed to believe and have been encouraged in the belief by some who aspire to the
character of philosophers, that their feelings, on subjects of this nature, are better than reasons,
and render reasons unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions on
the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind that everybody should be
required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to act. No one,
indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion
on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one person's preference; and if
the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still
only many people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own preference, thus
supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory reason, but the only one he generally has for any of
his notions of morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his religious creed;
and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that. Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is
laudable or blamable, are affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in
regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those which determine their
wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason at other times their prejudices or
superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom their anti-social ones, their envy or
jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears for
themselves their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class,
a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of
class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots, between planters and negroes,
between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been
for the most part the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus
generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members of the ascendant class, in their
relations among themselves. Where, on the other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its
ascendency, or where its ascendency is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently
bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determining principle of
the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance which have been enforced by law or opinion,
has been the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions of their
temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it
gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and
heretics. Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious interests of society have of
course had a share, and a large one, in the direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a
matter of reason, and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and
antipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which had little or nothing
to do with the interests of society, have made themselves felt in the establishment of moralities
with quite as great force.
The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it, are thus the main thing
which has practically determined the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties
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of law or opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in thought and
feeling, have left this condition of things unassailed in principle, however they may have come
into conflict with it in some of its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring
what things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings
should be a law to individuals. They preferred endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on
the particular points on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in
defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which the higher ground has been
taken on principle and maintained with consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is
that of religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not least so as forming a most
striking instance of the fallibility of what is called the moral sense: for the odium theologicum, in
a sincere bigot, is one of the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who first broke the
yoke of what called itself the Universal Church, were in general as little willing to permit
difference of religious opinion as that church itself. But when the heat of the conflict was over,
without giving a complete victory to any party, and each church or sect was reduced to limit its
hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already occupied; minorities, seeing that they had
no chance of becoming majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they
could not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this battle-field, almost solely,
that the rights of the individual against society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle,
and the claim of society to exercise authority over dissentients openly controverted. The great
writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted
freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is
accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in
whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically
realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by
theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious
persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is admitted with tacit reserves.
One person will bear with dissent in matters of church government, but not of dogma; another
can tolerate everybody, short of a Papist or an Unitarian; another, every one who believes in
revealed religion; a few extend their charity a little further, but stop at the belief in a God and in
a future state. Wherever the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to
have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.
In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history, though the yoke of opinion
is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter, than in most other countries of Europe; and there is
considerable jealousy of direct interference, by the legislative or the executive power with
private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the independence of the individual, as
from the still subsisting habit of looking on the government as representing an opposite interest
to the public. The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the government their power,
or its opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will probably be as much
exposed to invasion from the government, as it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there
is a considerable amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any attempt of the law to
control individuals in things in which they have not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by
it; and this with very little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within the
legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the feeling, highly salutary on the whole, is
perhaps quite as often misplaced as well grounded in the particular instances of its application.
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There is, in fact, no recognized principle by which the propriety or impropriety of government
interference is customarily tested. People decide according to their personal preferences. Some,
whenever they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the
government to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount of social
evil, rather than add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental
control. And men range themselves on one or the other side in any particular case, according to
this general direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest which they feel in
the particular thing which it is proposed that the government should do; or according to the belief
they entertain that the government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but very
rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere, as to what things are fit to be
done by a government. And it seems to me that, in consequence of this absence of rule or
principle, one side is at present as often wrong as the other; the interference of government is,
with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly condemned.
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the
dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means
used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion.
That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively
in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only
purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a
sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for
him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so
would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning
with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with
any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter
him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one,
for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely
concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and
mind, the individual is sovereign.
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in
the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the
age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to
require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as
against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward
states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties
in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for
overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any
expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate
mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the
means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any
state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by
free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an
Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as mankind have
attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a
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period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves),
compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no
longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.
It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the
idea of abstract right as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all
ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests
of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I contend, authorize the subjection of individual
spontaneity to external control, only in respect to those actions of each, which concern the
interest of other people. If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for
punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely applicable, by general
disapprobation. There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may
rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair
share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society
of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as
saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things
which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to
society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his
inaction, and in neither case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The latter case, it is
true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one
answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil,
is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave
enough to justify that exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the
individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and if need be, to
society as their protector. There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility;
but these reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either because it is a kind
of case in which he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion, than
when controlled in any way in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the
attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent.
When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the
agent himself should step into the vacant judgment-seat, and protect those interests of others
which have no external protection; judging himself all the more rigidly, because the case does
not admit of his being made accountable to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.
But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any,
only an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which
affects only himself, or, if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived
consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for
whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be
grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the
appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness;
demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and
feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative,
scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to
fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which
concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself,
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and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the
principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own
character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment
from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them even though they should
think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual,
follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite,
for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full
age, and not forced or deceived.
No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its
form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and
unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our
own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to
obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual.
Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by
compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have the air of a truism,
there is no doctrine which stands more directly opposed to the general tendency of existing
opinion and practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its
lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as of social excellence. The
ancient commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers
countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground
that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its
citizens, a mode of thinking which may have been admissible in small republics surrounded by
powerful enemies, in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal commotion,
and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and self-command might so easily be fatal,
that they could not afford to wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern
world, the greater size of political communities, and above all, the separation between the
spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of men's consciences in other hands
than those which controlled their worldly affairs), prevented so great an interference by law in
the details of private life; but the engines of moral repression have been wielded more
strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in self-regarding, than even in social
matters; religion, the most powerful of the elements which have entered into the formation of
moral feeling, having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy,
seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by the spirit of Puritanism. And
some of those modern reformers who have placed themselves in strongest opposition to the
religions of the past, have been noway behind either churches or sects in their assertion of the
right of spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social system, as unfolded in his
Traite de Politique Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more than by legal
appliances) a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the
political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.
Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in the world at large an
increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the
force of opinion and even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes taking
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place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this
encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary,
to grow more and more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-
citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so
energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human
nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as the power
is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against
the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.
It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at once entering upon the general thesis, we
confine ourselves in the first instance to a single branch of it, on which the principle here stated
is, if not fully, yet to a certain point, recognized by the current opinions. This one branch is the
Liberty of Thought: from which it is impossible to separate the cognate liberty of speaking and
of writing. Although these liberties, to some considerable amount, form part of the political
morality of all countries which profess religious toleration and free institutions, the grounds, both
philosophical and practical, on which they rest, are perhaps not so familiar to the general mind,
nor so thoroughly appreciated by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might have been
expected. Those grounds, when rightly understood, are of much wider application than to only
one division of the subject, and a thorough consideration of this part of the question will be
found the best introduction to the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am about to say
will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on a subject which for now three centuries has
been so often discussed, I venture on one discussion more.

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Sesame And Lilies
LECTURE III--THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS
Lecture delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, 1868.
When I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, I was not aware of a restriction with
respect to the topics of discussion which may be brought before this Society {29}--a restriction
which, though entirely wise and right under the circumstances contemplated in its introduction,
would necessarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing any lecture for you on
the subject of art in a form which might be permanently useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as
I must transgress such limitation; for indeed my infringement will be of the letter--not of the
spirit--of your commands. In whatever I may say touching the religion which has been the
foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed to its power, if I offend one, I shall offend
all; for I shall take no note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do I
fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving--or at least stating as capable of positive proof-
-the connection of all that is best in the crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and
the sincerity of his patriotism.
But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in frankness of utterance,
not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am never fully aware how far my audiences are
disposed to give me credit for real knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention
only because I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist upon it. For I have
had what, in many respects, I boldly call the misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily
together; not without a foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was heavily
punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of the words only, and cared
nothing for their meaning. Happily, therefore, the power of using such pleasant language--if
indeed it ever were mine--is passing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I
find myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts have changed also, as my words
have; and whereas in earlier life, what little influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the
enthusiasm with which I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their
colours in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be due to the earnestness with
which I am endeavouring to trace the form and beauty of another kind of cloud than those; the
bright cloud of which it is written--"What is your life? It is even as a vapour that appeareth for a
little time, and then vanisheth away."
I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age, without having, at some
moment of change or disappointment, felt the truth of those bitter words; and been startled by the
fading of the sunshine from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the knowledge that
the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as transient as the dew. But it is
not always that, even at such times of melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true perception
that this human life shares in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery of the
cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than
spectral and obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow
which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that "man walketh in a vain shadow,
and disquieteth himself in vain."
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And least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness of our passions, or the height of our
pride, are we able to understand in its depth the third and most solemn character in which our life
is like those clouds of heaven; that to it belongs not only their transcience, not only their
mystery, but also their power; that in the cloud of the human soul there is a fire stronger than the
lightning, and a grace more precious than the rain; and that though of the good and evil it shall
one day be said alike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an infinite
separation between those whose brief presence had there been a blessing, like the mist of Eden
that went up from the earth to water the garden, and those whose place knew them only as a
drifting and changeful shade, of whom the heavenly sentence is, that they are "wells without
water; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever."
To those among us, however, who have lived long enough to form some just estimate of the rate
of the changes which are, hour by hour in accelerating catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the
laws, the arts, and the creeds of men, it seems to me, that now at least, if never at any former
time, the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its powers and responsibilities, should
present themselves with absolute sadness and sternness. And although I know that this feeling is
much deepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by chance, has attended the greater
number of my cherished purposes, I do not for that reason distrust the feeling itself, though I am
on my guard against an exaggerated degree of it: nay, I rather believe that in periods of new
effort and violent change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine; and that in the secret of it,
as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may see the colours of things with deeper truth than in
the most dazzling sunshine. And because these truths about the works of men, which I want to
bring to-day before you, are most of them sad ones, though at the same time helpful; and because
also I believe that your kind Irish hearts will answer more gladly to the truthful expression of a
personal feeling, than to the exposition of an abstract principle, I will permit myself so much
unreserved speaking of my own causes of regret, as may enable you to make just allowance for
what, according to your sympathies, you will call either the bitterness, or the insight, of a mind
which has surrendered its best hopes, and been foiled in its favourite aims.
I spent the ten strongest years of my life, (from twenty to thirty,) in endeavouring to show the
excellence of the work of the man whom I believed, and rightly believed, to be the greatest
painter of the schools of England since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in the power of every
great truth of beauty to prevail ultimately, and take its right place in usefulness and honour; and I
strove to bring the painter's work into this due place, while the painter was yet alive. But he
knew, better than I, the uselessness of talking about what people could not see for themselves.
He always discouraged me scornfully, even when he thanked me--and he died before even the
superficial effect of my work was visible. I went on, however, thinking I could at least be of use
to the public, if not to him, in proving his power. My books got talked about a little. The prices
of modern pictures, generally, rose, and I was beginning to take some pleasure in a sense of
gradual victory, when, fortunately or unfortunately, an opportunity of perfect trial undeceived me
at once, and for ever. The Trustees of the National Gallery commissioned me to arrange the
Turner drawings there, and permitted me to prepare three hundred examples of his studies from
nature, for exhibition at Kensington. At Kensington they were, and are, placed for exhibition; but
they are not exhibited, for the room in which they hang is always empty.
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Well--this showed me at once, that those ten years of my life had been, in their chief purpose,
lost. For that, I did not so much care; I had, at least, learned my own business thoroughly, and
should be able, as I fondly supposed, after such a lesson, now to use my knowledge with better
effect. But what I did care for was the--to me frightful--discovery, that the most splendid genius
in the arts might be permitted by Providence to labour and perish uselessly; that in the very
fineness of it there might be something rendering it invisible to ordinary eyes; but that, with this
strange excellence, faults might be mingled which would be as deadly as its virtues were vain;
that the glory of it was perishable, as well as invisible, and the gift and grace of it might be to us
as snow in summer and as rain in harvest.
That was the first mystery of life to me. But, while my best energy was given to the study of
painting, I had put collateral effort, more prudent if less enthusiastic, into that of architecture;
and in this I could not complain of meeting with no sympathy. Among several personal reasons
which caused me to desire that I might give this, my closing lecture on the subject of art here, in
Ireland, one of the chief was, that in reading it, I should stand near the beautiful building,--the
engineer's school of your college,--which was the first realization I had the joy to see, of the
principles I had, until then, been endeavouring to teach! but which, alas, is now, to me, no more
than the richly canopied monument of one of the most earnest souls that ever gave itself to the
arts, and one of my truest and most loving friends, Benjamin Woodward. Nor was it here in
Ireland only that I received the help of Irish sympathy and genius. When to another friend, Sir
Thomas Deane, with Mr. Woodward, was entrusted the building of the museum at Oxford, the
best details of the work were executed by sculptors who had been born and trained here; and the
first window of the facade of the building, in which was inaugurated the study of natural science
in England, in true fellowship with literature, was carved from my design by an Irish sculptor.
You may perhaps think that no man ought to speak of disappointment, to whom, even in one
branch of labour, so much success was granted. Had Mr. Woodward now been beside me, I had
not so spoken; but his gentle and passionate spirit was cut off from the fulfilment of its purposes,
and the work we did together is now become vain. It may not be so in future; but the architecture
we endeavoured to introduce is inconsistent alike with the reckless luxury, the deforming
mechanism, and the squalid misery of modern cities; among the formative fashions of the day,
aided, especially in England, by ecclesiastical sentiment, it indeed obtained notoriety; and
sometimes behind an engine furnace, or a railroad bank, you may detect the pathetic discord of
its momentary grace, and, with toil, decipher its floral carvings choked with soot. I felt
answerable to the schools I loved, only for their injury. I perceived that this new portion of my
strength had also been spent in vain; and from amidst streets of iron, and palaces of crystal,
shrank back at last to the carving of the mountain and colour of the flower.
And still I could tell of failure, and failure repeated, as years went on; but I have trespassed
enough on your patience to show you, in part, the causes of my discouragement. Now let me
more deliberately tell you its results. You know there is a tendency in the minds of many men,
when they are heavily disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to feel, and perhaps in
warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself is a vanity. Because it has disappointed
them, they think its nature is of disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be grasped
by imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor fire within; but is a painted cloud
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only, to be delighted in, yet despised. You know how beautifully Pope has expressed this
particular phase of thought:-
"Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays, These painted clouds that beautify our days; Each
want of happiness by hope supplied, And each vacuity of sense, by pride. Hope builds as fast as
Knowledge can destroy; In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy. One pleasure past, another
still we gain, And not a vanity is given in vain."
But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the reverse of this. The more that my
life disappointed me, the more solemn and wonderful it became to me. It seemed, contrarily to
Pope's saying, that the vanity of it WAS indeed given in vain; but that there was something
behind the veil of it, which was not vanity. It became to me not a painted cloud, but a terrible and
impenetrable one: not a mirage, which vanished as I drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which
I was forbidden to draw near. For I saw that both my own failure, and such success in petty
things as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than failure, came from the want of sufficiently
earnest effort to understand the whole law and meaning of existence, and to bring it to noble and
due end; as, on the other hand, I saw more and more clearly that all enduring success in the arts,
or in any other occupation, had come from the ruling of lower purposes, not by a conviction of
their nothingness, but by a solemn faith in the advancing power of human nature, or in the
promise, however dimly apprehended, that the mortal part of it would one day be swallowed up
in immortality; and that, indeed, the arts themselves never had reached any vital strength or
honour, but in the effort to proclaim this immortality, and in the service either of great and just
religion, or of some unselfish patriotism, and law of such national life as must be the foundation
of religion.
Nothing that I have ever said is more true or necessary--nothing has been more misunderstood or
misapplied--than my strong assertion that the arts can never be right themselves, unless their
motive is right. It is misunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never learned their
business, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, crying out--"Look at this picture of
mine; it MUST be good, I had such a lovely motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken
years to think over its treatment." Well, the only answer for these people is--if one had the
cruelty to make it--"Sir, you cannot think over ANYthing in any number of years,--you haven't
the head to do it; and though you had fine motives, strong enough to make you burn yourself in a
slow fire, if only first you could paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an inch of one; you
haven't the hand to do it."
But, far more decisively we have to say to the men who DO know their business, or may know it
if they choose--"Sir, you have this gift, and a mighty one; see that you serve your nation
faithfully with it. It is a greater trust than ships and armies: you might cast THEM away, if you
were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your own glorious power
away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. Ships and armies you may replace if they are
lost, but a great intellect, once abused, is a curse to the earth for ever."
This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive. This also I said respecting
them, that they never had prospered, nor could prosper, but when they had such true purpose, and
were devoted to the proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had always
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failed in this proclamation--that poetry, and sculpture, and painting, though only great when they
strove to teach us something about the gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the
gods, but had always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their powers at the full
reach, became ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also, with increasing amazement, the
unconquerable apathy in ourselves and hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that while
the wisdom and rightness of every act and art of life could only be consistent with a right
understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged as in a languid dream--our hearts fat, and
our eyes heavy, and our ears closed, lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us--lest we
should see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed.
This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it stands in the way of every
perception, every virtue. There is no making ourselves feel enough astonishment at it. That the
occupations or pastimes of life should have no motive, is understandable; but--That life itself
should have no motive--that we neither care to find out what it may lead to, nor to guard against
its being for ever taken away from us--here is a mystery indeed. For just suppose I were able to
call at this moment to any one in this audience by name, and to tell him positively that I knew a
large estate had been lately left to him on some curious conditions; but that though I knew it was
large, I did not know how large, nor even where it was--whether in the East Indies or the West,
or in England, or at the Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and that there was a chance
of his losing it altogether if he did not soon find out on what terms it had been left to him.
Suppose I were able to say this positively to any single man in this audience, and he knew that I
did not speak without warrant, do you think that he would rest content with that vague
knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more? Would he not give every energy to find
some trace of the facts, and never rest till he had ascertained where this place was, and what it
was like? And suppose he were a young man, and all he could discover by his best endeavour
was that the estate was never to be his at all, unless he persevered, during certain years of
probation, in an orderly and industrious life; but that, according to the rightness of his conduct,
the portion of the estate assigned to him would be greater or less, so that it literally depended on
his behaviour from day to day whether he got ten thousand a year, or thirty thousand a year, or
nothing whatever- -would you not think it strange if the youth never troubled himself to satisfy
the conditions in any way, nor even to know what was required of him, but lived exactly as he
chose, and never inquired whether his chances of the estate were increasing or passing away?
Well, you know that this is actually and literally so with the greater number of the educated
persons now living in Christian countries. Nearly every man and woman in any company such as
this, outwardly professes to believe--and a large number unquestionably think they believe--
much more than this; not only that a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them if they please
the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a possession--an estate of perpetual misery-
-is in store for them if they displease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. And yet
there is not one in a thousand of these human souls that cares to think, for ten minutes of the day,
where this estate is or how beautiful it is, or what kind of life they are to lead in it, or what kind
of life they must lead to obtain it.
You fancy that you care to know this: so little do you care that, probably, at this moment many
of you are displeased with me for talking of the matter! You came to hear about the Art of this
world, not about the Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talking of what you can
hear any Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will tell you something before you go about
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pictures, and carvings, and pottery, and what else you would like better to hear of than the other
world. Nay, perhaps you say, "We want you to talk of pictures and pottery, because we are sure
that you know something of them, and you know nothing of the other world." Well-- I don't.
That is quite true. But the very strangeness and mystery of which I urge you to take notice, is in
this--that I do not;--nor you either. Can you answer a single bold question unflinchingly about
that other world?--Are you sure there is a heaven? Sure there is a hell? Sure that men are
dropping before your faces through the pavements of these streets into eternal fire, or sure that
they are not? Sure that at your own death you are going to be delivered from all sorrow, to be
endowed with all virtue, to be gifted with all felicity, and raised into perpetual companionship
with a King, compared to whom the kings of the earth are as grass-hoppers, and the nations as
the dust of His feet? Are you sure of this? or, if not sure, do any of us so much as care to make it
sure? and, if not, how can anything that we do be right--how can anything we think be wise?
what honour can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in the possessions that please?
Is not this a mystery of life?
But farther, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent ordinance for the generality of men that they
do not, with earnestness or anxiety, dwell on such questions of the future because the business of
the day could not be done if this kind of thought were taken by all of us for the morrow. Be it so:
but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of us, who were evidently the
appointed teachers of the rest, would set themselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely
known of the future destinies of their race; and to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous
manner, but in the plainest and most severely earnest words.
Now, the highest representatives of men who have thus endeavoured, during the Christian era, to
search out these deep things, and relate them, are Dante and Milton. There are none who for
earnestness of thought, for mastery of word, can be classed with these. I am not at present, mind
you, speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to deliver creeds to us, or
doctrines; but of men who try to discover and set forth, as far as by human intellect is possible,
the facts of the other world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to arrive there, but only these two
poets have in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in any definite words professed to tell,
what we shall see and become there; or how those upper and nether worlds are, and have been,
inhabited.
And what have they told us? Milton's account of the most important event in his whole system of
the universe, the fall of the angels, is evidently unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is
wholly founded on, and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod's account of the
decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem is a picturesque drama, in
which every artifice of invention is visibly and consciously employed; not a single fact being, for
an instant, conceived as tenable by any living faith. Dante's conception is far more intense, and,
by himself, for the time, not to be escaped from; it is indeed a vision, but a vision only, and that
one of the wildest that ever entranced a soul--a dream in which every grotesque type or phantasy
of heathen tradition is renewed, and adorned; and the destinies of the Christian Church, under
their most sacred symbols, become literally subordinate to the praise, and are only to be
understood by the aid, of one dear Florentine maiden.
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I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange lethargy and trance in myself, and awake to
the meaning and power of life, it seems daily more amazing to me that men such as these should
dare to play with the most precious truths, (or the most deadly untruths,) by which the whole
human race listening to them could be informed, or deceived;--all the world their audiences for
ever, with pleased ear, and passionate heart;--and yet, to this submissive infinitude of souls, and
evermore succeeding and succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do but play upon
sweetly modulated pipes; with pompous nomenclature adorn the councils of hell; touch a
troubadour's guitar to the courses of the suns; and fill the openings of eternity, before which
prophets have veiled their faces, and which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of their
scholastic imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic faith in their lost mortal love.
Is not this a mystery of life?
But more. We have to remember that these two great teachers were both of them warped in their
temper, and thwarted in their search for truth. They were men of intellectual war, unable, through
darkness of controversy, or stress of personal grief, to discern where their own ambition
modified their utterances of the moral law; or their own agony mingled with their anger at its
violation. But greater men than these have been--innocent-hearted--too great for contest. Men,
like Homer and Shakespeare, of so unrecognised personality, that it disappears in future ages,
and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of a lost heathen god. Men, therefore, to whose
unoffended, uncondemning sight, the whole of human nature reveals itself in a pathetic
weakness, with which they will not strive; or in mournful and transitory strength, which they
dare not praise. And all Pagan and Christian Civilization thus becomes subject to them. It does
not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read, either of Homer or Shakespeare;
everything round us, in substance, or in thought, has been moulded by them. All Greek
gentlemen were educated under Homer. All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian,
and French, and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its principles. Of the scope of
Shakespeare, I will say only, that the intellectual measure of every man since born, in the
domains of creative thought, may be assigned to him, according to the degree in which he has
been taught by Shakespeare. Well, what do these two men, centres of mortal intelligence, deliver
to us of conviction respecting what it most behoves that intelligence to grasp? What is their
hope--their crown of rejoicing? what manner of exhortation have they for us, or of rebuke? what
lies next their own hearts, and dictates their undying words? Have they any peace to promise to
our unrest--any redemption to our misery?
Take Homer first, and think if there is any sadder image of human fate than the great Homeric
story. The main features in the character of Achilles are its intense desire of justice, and its
tenderness of affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided continually by
the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of justice in his heart, becomes yet, through
ill- governed passion, the most unjust of men: and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart,
becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike in love and in
friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his friend; for the sake of the one, he surrenders
to death the armies of his own land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay
down his life for his friend? Yea--even for his DEAD friend, this Achilles, though goddess-born,
and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country, and his life--casts alike the innocent and
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guilty, with himself, into one gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of his
adversaries.
Is not this a mystery of life?
But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of hearts, after fifteen hundred
years of Christian faith have been numbered over the graves of men? Are his words more
cheerful than the Heathen's--is his hope more near--his trust more sure--his reading of fate more
happy? Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in this--that he recognizes, for
deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that, by petty chance--by momentary folly--by broken
message--by fool's tyranny--or traitor's snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to
their ruin, and perish without word of hope. He indeed, as part of his rendering of character,
ascribes the power and modesty of habitual devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of
Katharine is bright with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by his few dead,
acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike by many or by few. But observe that
from those who with deepest spirit, meditate, and with deepest passion, mourn, there are no such
words as these; nor in their hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the
helpful presence of the Deity, which, through all heathen tradition, is the source of heroic
strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the shadow of death, we find only in the great
Christian poet, the consciousness of a moral law, through which "the gods are just, and of our
pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us;" and of the resolved arbitration of the destinies,
that conclude into precision of doom what we feebly and blindly began; and force us, when our
indiscretion serves us, and our deepest plots do pall, to the confession, that "there's a divinity that
shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will."
Is not this a mystery of life?
Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, or that is, the wise religious men tell us nothing
that we can trust; and the wise contemplative men, nothing that can give us peace. But there is
yet a third class, to whom we may turn--the wise practical men. We have sat at the feet of the
poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their dreams. We have listened to the poets who
sang of earth, and they have chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of
men more:- men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of purpose--practised in
business; learned in all that can be, (by handling,) known. Men, whose hearts and hopes are
wholly in this present world, from whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at
present, conveniently to live in it. What will THEY say to us, or show us by example? These
kings-- these councillors--these statesmen and builders of kingdoms--these capitalists and men of
business, who weigh the earth, and the dust of it, in a balance. They know the world, surely; and
what is the mystery of life to us, is none to them. They can surely show us how to live, while we
live, and to gather out of the present world what is best.
I think I can best tell you their answer, by telling you a dream I had once. For though I am no
poet, I have dreams sometimes:- I dreamed I was at a child's Mayday party, in which every
means of entertainment had been provided for them, by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately
house, with beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free in the rooms and
gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed,
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know much about what was to happen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little
frightened, because there was a chance of their being sent to a new school where there were
examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their heads as well as they could, and
resolved to enjoy themselves. The house, I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden
were all kinds of flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for play; and pleasant
streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the children were happy for a little
while, but presently they separated themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would
have a piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have anything to do
with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which pieces they would have; and at last the
boys took up the thing, as boys should do, "practically," and fought in the flower-beds till there
was hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other's bits of the garden out of
spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no more; and so they all lay down at last breathless in
the ruin, and waited for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening. {30}
Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy also in their manner.
For them, there had been provided every kind of indoor pleasure: there was music for them to
dance to; and the library was open, with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum
full of the most curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a workshop, with lathes and
carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys; and there were pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to
dress in; and there were microscopes, and kaleidoscopes; and whatever toys a child could fancy;
and a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat.
But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more "practical" children, that they
would like some of the brass-headed nails that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull
them out. Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a fancy to do the
like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly, were spraining their fingers, in pulling out
brass-headed nails. With all that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then, everybody
wanted some of somebody else's. And at last, the really practical and sensible ones declared, that
nothing was of any real consequence, that afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails;
and that the books, and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at all in themselves, but
only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads. And at last they began to fight for nail-heads, as
the others fought for the bits of garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a
corner, and tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise; but all the practical
ones thought of nothing else but counting nail-heads all the afternoon--even though they knew
they would not be allowed to carry so much as one brass knob away with them. But no--it was--
"Who has most nails? I have a hundred, and you have fifty; or, I have a thousand, and you have
two. I must have as many as you before I leave the house, or I cannot possibly go home in
peace." At last, they made so much noise that I awoke, and thought to myself, "What a false
dream that is, of CHILDREN!" The child is the father of the man; and wiser. Children never do
such foolish things. Only men do.
But there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated. The wise religious men we have
asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain; the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is
another group yet. In the midst of this vanity of empty religion--of tragic contemplation--of
wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one great group of persons, by
whom all these disputers live--the persons who have determined, or have had it by a beneficent
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Providence determined for them, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be
prepared for them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve the food that God
gives them by winning it honourably: and that, however fallen from the purity, or far from the
peace, of Eden, they will carry out the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its
felicity; and dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the garden.
These,--hewers of wood, and drawers of water,--these, bent under burdens, or torn of scourges--
these, that dig and weave--that plant and build; workers in wood, and in marble, and in iron--by
whom all food, clothing, habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for
themselves, and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may be few;
men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and worthy of honour, be they never so
humble;--from these, surely, at least, we may receive some clear message of teaching; and
pierce, for an instant, into the mystery of life, and of its arts.
Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But I grieve to say, or rather--for that is the
deeper truth of the matter--I rejoice to say--this message of theirs can only be received by joining
them--not by thinking about them.
You sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming. But the main thing I have
to tell you is,--that art must not be talked about. The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies
that it is ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, or ever has spoken, much of his
art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is no exception, for he wrote of all that he could
not himself do, and was utterly silent respecting all that he himself did.
The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. All words become
idle to him--all theories.
Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is
essentially done that way--without hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting; and in the
doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary power which approximates literally to the
instinct of an animal--nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does NOT
supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than that of the lower animals
as the human body is more beautiful than theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct
than the nightingale, but with more--only more various, applicable, and governable; that a great
architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver or the bee, but with more--with an
innate cunning of proportion that embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that
improvises all construction. But be that as it may--be the instinct less or more than that of
inferior animals--like or unlike theirs, still the human art is dependent on that first, and then upon
an amount of practice, of science,--and of imagination disciplined by thought, which the true
possessor of it knows to be incommunicable, and the true critic of it, inexplicable, except through
long process of laborious' years. That journey of life's conquest, in which hills over hills, and
Alps on Alps arose, and sank,--do you think you can make another trace it painlessly, by talking?
Why, you cannot even carry us up an Alp, by talking. You can guide us up it, step by step, no
otherwise--even so, best silently. You girls, who have been among the hills, know how the bad
guide chatters and gesticulates, and it is "Put your foot here;" and "Mind how you balance
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yourself there;" but the good guide walks on quietly, without a word, only with his eyes on you
when need is, and his arm like an iron bar, if need be.
In that slow way, also, art can be taught--if you have faith in your guide, and will let his arm be
to you as an iron bar when need is. But in what teacher of art have you such faith? Certainly not
in me; for, as I told you at first, I know well enough it is only because you think I can talk, not
because you think I know my business, that you let me speak to you at all. If I were to tell you
anything that seemed to you strange you would not believe it, and yet it would only be in telling
you strange things that I could be of use to you. I could be of great use to you--infinite use-- with
brief saying, if you would believe it; but you would not, just because the thing that would be of
real use would displease you. You are all wild, for instance, with admiration of Gustave Dore.
Well, suppose I were to tell you, in the strongest terms I could use, that Gustave Dore's art was
bad--bad, not in weakness,--not in failure,--but bad with dreadful power--the power of the Furies
and the Harpies mingled, enraging, and polluting; that so long as you looked at it, no perception
of pure or beautiful art was possible for you. Suppose I were to tell you that! What would be the
use? Would you look at Gustave Dore less? Rather, more, I fancy. On the other hand, I could
soon put you into good humour with me, if I chose. I know well enough what you like, and how
to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring
flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael--how motherly! and the Sibyls of
Michael Angelo--how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico--how pious! and the Cherubs of
Correggio--how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would
dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the better or wiser; or, if we were, our increased
wisdom could be of no practical effect. For, indeed, the arts, as regards teachableness, differ
from the sciences also in this, that their power is founded not merely on facts which can be
communicated, but on dispositions which require to be created. Art is neither to be achieved by
effort of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking. It is the instinctive and necessary
result of power, which can only be developed through the mind of successive generations, and
which finally burst into life under social conditions as slow of growth as the faculties they
regulate. Whole aeras of mighty history are summed, and the passions of dead myriads are
concentrated, in the existence of a noble art, and if that noble art were among us, we should feel
it and rejoice; not caring in the least to hear lectures on it; and since it is not among us, be
assured we have to go back to the root of it, or, at least, to the place where the stock of it is yet
alive, and the branches began to die.
And now, may I have your pardon for pointing out, partly with reference to matters which are at
this time of greater moment than the arts--that if we undertook such recession to the vital germ of
national arts that have decayed, we should find a more singular arrest of their power in Ireland
than in any other European country? For in the eighth century Ireland possessed a school of art in
her manuscripts and sculpture, which, in many of its qualities-- apparently in all essential
qualities of decorative invention--was quite without rival; seeming as if it might have advanced
to the highest triumphs in architecture and in painting. But there was one fatal flaw in its nature,
by which it was stayed, and stayed with a conspicuousness of pause to which there is no parallel:
so that, long ago, in tracing the progress of European schools from infancy to strength, I chose
for the students of Kensington, in a lecture since published, two characteristic examples of early
art, of equal skill; but in the one case, skill which was progressive--in the other, skill which was
at pause. In the one case, it was work receptive of correction--hungry for correction; and in the
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other, work which inherently rejected correction. I chose for them a corrigible Eve, and an
incorrigible Angel, and I grieve to say that the incorrigible Angel was also an Irish Angel! {31}
And the fatal difference lay wholly in this. In both pieces of art there was an equal falling short
of the needs of fact; but the Lombardic Eve knew she was in the wrong, and the Irish Angel
thought himself all right. The eager Lombardic sculptor, though firmly insisting on his childish
idea, yet showed in the irregular broken touches of the features, and the imperfect struggle for
softer lines in the form, a perception of beauty and law that he could not render; there was the
strain of effort, under conscious imperfection, in every line. But the Irish missal-painter had
drawn his angel with no sense of failure, in happy complacency, and put red dots into the palm of
each hand, and rounded the eyes into perfect circles, and, I regret to say, left the mouth out
altogether, with perfect satisfaction to himself.
May I without offence ask you to consider whether this mode of arrest in ancient Irish art may
not be indicative of points of character which even yet, in some measure, arrest your national
power? I have seen much of Irish character, and have watched it closely, for I have also much
loved it. And I think the form of failure to which it is most liable is this,--that being generous-
hearted, and wholly intending always to do right, it does not attend to the external laws of right,
but thinks it must necessarily do right because it means to do so, and therefore does wrong
without finding it out; and then, when the consequences of its wrong come upon it, or upon
others connected with it, it cannot conceive that the wrong is in anywise of its causing or of its
doing, but flies into wrath, and a strange agony of desire for justice, as feeling itself wholly
innocent, which leads it farther astray, until there is nothing that it is not capable of doing with a
good conscience.
But mind, I do not mean to say that, in past or present relations between Ireland and England,
you have been wrong, and we right. Far from that, I believe that in all great questions of
principle, and in all details of administration of law, you have been usually right, and we wrong;
sometimes in misunderstanding you, sometimes in resolute iniquity to you. Nevertheless, in all
disputes between states, though the stronger is nearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is
often so in a minor degree; and I think we sometimes admit the possibility of our being in error,
and you never do.
And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labours of life have to teach us
of its mystery, this is the first of their lessons--that the more beautiful the art, the more it is
essentially the work of people who FEEL THEMSELVES WRONG;--who are striving for the
fulfilment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not yet attained, which they
feel even farther and farther from attaining the more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper
sense, it is the work of people who know also that they are right. The very sense of inevitable
error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the continued sense of failure
arises from the continued opening of the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth.
This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and greatly precious one: namely--that whenever
the arts and labours of life are fulfilled in this spirit of striving against misrule, and doing
whatever we have to do, honourably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as
seems possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that happiness is pursued there is
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disappointment, or destruction: for ambition and for passion there is no rest--no fruition; the
fairest pleasures of youth perish in a darkness greater than their past light: and the loftiest and
purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire of pain. But, ascending
from lowest to highest, through every scale of human industry, that industry worthily followed,
gives peace. Ask the labourer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient, delicate-
fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery- hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with
the colours of light; and none of these, who are true workmen, will ever tell you, that they have
found the law of heaven an unkind one--that in the sweat of their face they should eat bread, till
they return to the ground; nor that they ever found it an unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was
rendered faithfully to the command--"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do--do it with thy might."
These are the two great and constant lessons which our labourers teach us of the mystery of life.
But there is another, and a sadder one, which they cannot teach us, which we must read on their
tombstones.
"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads upon myriads of human creatures who have
obeyed this law--who have put every breath and nerve of their being into its toil--who have
devoted every hour, and exhausted every faculty--who have bequeathed their unaccomplished
thoughts at death--who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and strength of
example. And, at last, what has all this "Might" of humanity accomplished, in six thousand years
of labour and sorrow? What has it DONE? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one
by one, and count their achievements. Begin with the first--the lord of them all-- Agriculture. Six
thousand years have passed since we were set to till the ground, from which we were taken. How
much of it is tilled? How much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief
garden of Europe--where the two forms of parent Christianity have had their fortresses--where
the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have
maintained, for dateless ages, their faiths and liberties--there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet run
wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could redeem with a year's
labour, still blast their helpless inhabitants into fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of
Europe! While, on the near coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman,
but a few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures of the East at our
feet, we, in our own dominion, could not find a few grains of rice, for a people that asked of us
no more; but stood by, and saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger.
Then, after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human arts--Weaving; the art of
queens, honoured of all noble Heathen women, in the person of their virgin goddess--honoured
of all Hebrew women, by the word of their wisest king--"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and
her hands hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not afraid of the snow
for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of
tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth
girdles to the merchant." What have we done in all these thousands of years with this bright art
of Greek maid and Christian matron? Six thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to
weave? Might not every naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every feeble breast
fenced with sweet colours from the cold? What have we done? Our fingers are too few, it seems,
to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set our streams to work for us, and
choke the air with fire, to turn our spinning-wheels--and,--ARE WE YET CLOTHED? Are not
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the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not the beauty
of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honour, nature clothes
the brood of the bird in its nest, and the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every
winter's snow robe what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every
winter's wind bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against you hereafter, by the voice of
their Christ,--"I was naked, and ye clothed me not"?
Lastly--take the Art of Building--the strongest--proudest--most orderly--most enduring of the arts
of man; that of which the produce is in the surest manner accumulative, and need not perish, or
be replaced; but if once well done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced rocks--more
prevalently than the crumbling hills. The art which is associated with all civic pride and sacred
principle; with which men record their power--satisfy their enthusiasm--make sure their defence-
-define and make dear their habitation. And in six thousand years of building, what have we
done? Of the greater part of all that skill and strength, NO vestige is left, but fallen stones, that
encumber the fields and impede the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of time, and of
rage, what IS left to us? Constructive and progressive creatures, that we are, with ruling brains,
and forming hands, capable of fellowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort,
with the insects of the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea? The white surf rages
in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of scarcely nascent life; but only ridges of
formless ruin mark the places where once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth
have cells for each of their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in homes that
consume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners of our streets, rises up the cry of
the homeless--"I was a stranger, and ye took me not in."
Must it be always thus? Is our life for ever to be without profit-- without possession? Shall the
strength of its generations be as barren as death; or cast away their labour, as the wild fig-tree
casts her untimely figs? Is it all a dream then--the desire of the eyes and the pride of life--or, if it
be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and prophets, the wise men, and the
scribes, though they have told us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the life
that is now. They have had--they also,--their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have
dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and good-will; they have dreamed
of labour undisappointed, and of rest undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and
overflowing in store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of providence in law; of
gladness of parents, and strength of children, and glory of grey hairs. And at these visions of
theirs we have mocked, and held them for idle and vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What
have we accomplished with our realities? Is this what has come of our worldly wisdom, tried
against their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against their impotent ideal? or, have we only
wandered among the spectra of a baser felicity, and chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of
visions of the Almighty; and walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts, instead of after the
counsels of Eternity, until our lives--not in the likeness of the cloud of heaven, but of the smoke
of hell--have become "as a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away"?
DOES it vanish then? Are you sure of that?--sure, that the nothingness of the grave will be a rest
from this troubled nothingness; and that the coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot
change into the smoke of the torment that ascends for ever? Will any answer that they ARE sure
of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labour, whither they go? Be it so: will
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you not, then, make as sure of the Life that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come? Your
hearts are wholly in this world--will you not give them to it wisely, as well as perfectly? And see,
first of all, that you HAVE hearts, and sound hearts, too, to give. Because you have no heaven to
look for, is that any reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite earth,
which is firmly and instantly given you in possession? Although your days are numbered, and
the following darkness sure, is it necessary that you should share the degradation of the brute,
because you are condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the worm,
because you are to companion them in the dust? Not so; we may have but a few thousands of
days to spend, perhaps hundreds only--perhaps tens; nay, the longest of our time and best, looked
back on, will be but as a moment, as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are
living spirits, not passing clouds. "He maketh the winds His messengers; the momentary fire, His
minister;" and shall we do less than THESE? Let us do the work of men while we bear the form
of them; and, as we snatch our narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow
inheritance of passion out of Immortality--even though our lives BE as a vapour, that appeareth
for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
But there are some of you who believe not this--who think this cloud of life has no such close--
that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh
with clouds, and every eye shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or
twenty years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books opened. If that be true,
far more than that must be true. Is there but one day of judgment? Why, for us every day is a day
of judgment--every day is a Dies Irae, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its West.
Think you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It waits at the doors of your
houses--it waits at the corners of your streets; we are in the midst of judgment--the insects that
we crush are our judges--the moments we fret away are our judges--the elements that feed us,
judge, as they minister--and the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as they indulge. Let us, for our
lives, do the work of Men while we bear the form of them, if indeed those lives are NOT as a
vapour, and do NOT vanish away.
"The work of men"--and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very quickly, on the
condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for the most part thinking, not of
what we are to do, but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias,
and it is a mortal one--we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually talk of taking
up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the WEIGHT of it--as if it was only a thing to be
carried, instead of to be--crucified upon. "They that are His have crucified the flesh, with the
affections and lusts." Does that mean, think you, that in time of national distress, of religious
trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of humanity--none of us will cease jesting, none cease
idling, none put themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off their
footmen's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that they are ready to leave houses,
lands, and kindreds--yes, and life, if need be? Life!--some of us are ready enough to throw that
away, joyless as we have made it. But "STATION in Life"--how many of us are ready to quit
THAT? Is it not always the great objection, where there is question of finding something useful
to do--"We cannot leave our stations in Life"?
Those of us who really cannot--that is to say, who can only maintain themselves by continuing in
some business or salaried office, have already something to do; and all that they have to see to is,
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that they do it honestly and with all their might. But with most people who use that apology,
"remaining in the station of life to which Providence has called them" means keeping all the
carriages, and all the footmen and large houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say
that if ever Providence DID put them into stations of that sort--which is not at all a matter of
certainty--Providence is just now very distinctly calling them out again. Levi's station in life was
the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High
Priest,--which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.
And, whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who mean to fulfil our duty
ought first to live on as little as we can; and, secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we
can, and to spend all we can spare in doing all the sure good we can.
And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then in lodging people, and
lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or sciences, or any other subject of thought.
I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be deceived by any of the common
talk of "indiscriminate charity." The order to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the
industrious hungry, nor the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed the hungry.
It is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not work, neither should he eat--think of that,
and every time you sit down to your dinner, ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask
a blessing, "How much work have I done to-day for my dinner?" But the proper way to enforce
that order on those below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave vagabonds and honest
people to starve together, but very distinctly to discern and seize your vagabond; and shut your
vagabond up out of honest people's way, and very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he
does NOT eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the food to give; and, therefore, to
enforce the organization of vast activities in agriculture and in commerce, for the production of
the wholesomest food, and proper storing and distribution of it, so that no famine shall any more
be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in this business alone, and at once,
for any number of people who like to engage in it.
Secondly, dressing people--that is to say, urging every one, within reach of your influence to be
always neat and clean, and giving them means of being so. In so far as they absolutely refuse,
you must give up the effort with respect to them, only taking care that no children within your
sphere of influence shall any more be brought up with such habits; and that every person who is
willing to dress with propriety shall have encouragement to do so. And the first absolutely
necessary step towards this is the gradual adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks of
persons, so that their rank shall be known by their dress; and the restriction of the changes of
fashion within certain limits. All which appears for the present quite impossible; but it is only so
far even difficult as it is difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear what we
are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine, that these mean and shallow vices are
unconquerable by Christian women.
And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have been put first, but I put it
third, because we must feed and clothe people where we find them, and lodge them afterwards.
And providing lodgment for them means a great deal of vigorous legislature, and cutting down of
vested interests that stand in the way, and after that, or before that, so far as we can get it,
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thorough sanitary and remedial action in the houses that we have; and then the building of more,
strongly, beautifully, and in groups of limited extent, kept in proportion to their streams, and
walled round, so that there may be no festering and wretched suburb anywhere, but clean and
busy street within, and the open country without, with a belt of beautiful garden and orchard
round the walls, so that from any part of the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight of far
horizon, might be reachable in a few minutes' walk. This the final aim; but in immediate action
every minor and possible good to be instantly done, when, and as, we can; roofs mended that
have holes in them-- fences patched that have gaps in them--walls' buttressed that totter--and
floors propped that shake; cleanliness and order enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we
are breathless, every day. And all the fine arts will healthily follow. I myself have washed a
flight of stone stairs all down, with bucket and broom, in a Savoy inn, where they hadn't washed
their stairs since they first went up them; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon.
These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the law for every Christian man and
woman is, that they shall be in direct service towards one of these three needs, as far as is
consistent with their own special occupation, and if they have no special business, then wholly in
one of these services. And out of such exertion in plain duty all other good will come; for in this
direct contention with material evil, you will find out the real nature of all evil; you will discern
by the various kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism to good; also you
will find the most unexpected helps and profound lessons given, and truths will come thus down
to us which the speculation of all our lives would never have raised us up to. You will find nearly
every educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do something; everybody will
become of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what is best for them to know in that use.
Competitive examination will then, and not till then, be wholesome, because it will be daily, and
calm, and in practice; and on these familiar arts, and minute, but certain and serviceable
knowledges, will be surely edified and sustained the greater arts and splendid theoretical
sciences.
But much more than this. On such holy and simple practice will be founded, indeed, at last, an
infallible religion. The greatest of all the mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption
of even the sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and
helpful action. Helpful action, observe! for there is just one law, which, obeyed, keeps all
religions pure--forgotten, makes them all false. Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright,
we allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are
wrong, and in the devil's power. That is the essence of the Pharisee's thanksgiving--"Lord, I
thank Thee that I am not as other men are." At every moment of our lives we should be trying to
find out, not in what we differ from other people, but in what we agree with them; and the
moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good, (and who but
fools couldn't?) then do it; push at it together: you can't quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the
moment that even the best men stop pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for
piety, and it's all over. I will not speak of the crimes which in past times have been committed in
the name of Christ, nor of the follies which are at this hour held to be consistent with obedience
to Him; but I WILL speak of the morbid corruption and waste of vital power in religious
sentiment, by which the pure strength of that which should be the guiding soul of every nation,
the splendour of its youthful manhood, and spotless light of its maidenhood, is averted or cast
away. You may see continually girls who have never been taught to do a single useful thing
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thoroughly; who cannot sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast an account, nor prepare a
medicine, whose whole life has been passed either in play or in pride; you will find girls like
these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate passion of religious spirit, which was
meant by God to support them through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain
meditation over the meaning of the great Book, of which no syllable was ever yet to be
understood but through a deed; all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made
vain, and the glory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless agony concerning questions
which the laws of common serviceable life would have either solved for them in an instant, or
kept out of their way. Give such a girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and
weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the better for
her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of
radiant and beneficent peace.
So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin verses, and called them educated; now
we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a bat, and call them educated. Can they
plough, can they sow, can they plant at the right time, or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort
of their lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word and deed? Indeed it
is, with some, nay, with many, and the strength of England is in them, and the hope; but we have
to turn their courage from the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect from dispute of
words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from the errantry of adventure to the state
and fidelity of a kingly power. And then, indeed, shall abide, for them and for us, an
incorruptible felicity, and an infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more to be assailed by
temptation, no more to be defended by wrath and by fear;--shall abide with us Hope, no more to
be quenched by the years that overwhelm, or made ashamed by the shadows that betray:- shall
abide for us, and with us, the greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding name of our Father.
For the greatest of these is Charity.
Footnotes:
{1} The paragraph that begins "I think I can best tell you their answer..."
{2} The paragraph that begins "Does a bird..."
{3} The paragraphs beginning:
79--"I believe, then, with this exception..." 75--"Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy..." 19--
"Now, in order to deal with words rightly,..." 79--"Then, in art, keep the finest models..."
{4} [Greek word which cannot be reproduced]
{5} Note this sentence carefully, and compare the 'Queen of the Air,' paragraph "Nothing that I
ever said is more ..."
{6} 2 Peter iii. 5-7.
{7} Compare the 13th Letter in 'Time and Tide.'
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{8} Modern "Education" for the most part signifies giving people the faculty of thinking wrong
on every conceivable subject of importance to them.
{9} Inf. xxiii. 125, 126; xix. 49. 50.
{10} Compare with paragraph "This, then, is what you have to do..."
{11} See note at end of lecture. I have put it in large type, because the course of matters since it
was written has made it perhaps better worth attention.
{12} Respecting the increase of rent by the deaths of the poor, for evidence of which see the
preface to the Medical Officer's report to the Privy Council, just published, there are suggestions
in its preface which will make some stir among us, I fancy, respecting which let me note these
points following:-
There are two theories on the subject of land now abroad, and in contention; both false.
The first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must continue to exist, a
certain number of hereditarily sacred persons to whom the earth, air, and water of the world
belong, as personal property; of which earth, air, and water, these persons may, at their pleasure,
permit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, to breathe, or to drink. This theory is not for
many years longer tenable. The adverse theory is that a division of the land of the world among
the mob of the world would immediately elevate the said mob into sacred personages; that
houses would then build themselves, and corn grow of itself; and that everybody would be able
to live, without doing any work for his living. This theory would also be found highly untenable
in practice.
It will, however, require some rough experiments and rougher catastrophes, before the generality
of persons will be convinced that no law concerning anything--least of all concerning land, for
either holding or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low--would be of the smallest
ultimate use to the people, so long as the general contest for life, and for the means of life,
remains one of mere brutal competition. That contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one
deadly form or another, whatever laws you make against it. For instance, it would be an entirely
wholesome law for England, if it could be carried, that maximum limits should be assigned to
incomes according to classes; and that every nobleman's income should be paid to him as a fixed
salary or pension by the nation; and not squeezed by him in variable sums, at discretion, out of
the tenants of his land. But if you could get such a law passed to-morrow, and if, which would be
farther necessary, you could fix the value of the assigned incomes by making a given weight of
pure bread for a given sum, a twelvemonth would not pass before another currency would have
been tacitly established, and the power of accumulated wealth would have re-asserted itself in
some other article, or some other imaginary sign. There is only one cure for public distress--and
that is public education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. There are, indeed,
many laws conceivable which would gradually better and strengthen the national temper; but, for
the most part, they are such as the national temper must be much bettered before it would bear. A
nation in its youth may be helped by laws, as a weak child by backboards, but when it is old it
cannot that way strengthen its crooked spine.
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And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the
principal question remains inexorable,--Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the
hard and dirty work for the rest, and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean work, and
for what pay? Who is do no work, and for what pay? And there are curious moral and religious
questions connected with these. How far is it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of a great
many persons, in order to put the abstracted psychical quantities together and make one very
beautiful or ideal soul? If we had to deal with mere blood instead of spirit, (and the thing might
literally be done--as it has been done with infants before now)--so that it were possible, by taking
a certain quantity of blood from the arms of a given number of the mob, and putting it all into
one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentleman of him, the thing would of course be
managed; but secretly, I should conceive. But now, because it is brain and soul that we abstract,
not visible blood, it can be done quite openly, and we live, we gentlemen, on delicatest prey,
after the manner of weasels; that is to say, we keep a certain number of clowns digging and
ditching, and generally stupefied, in order that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and
feeling to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal to be said for this. A highly-bred and trained
English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman (much more a lady), is a great production,--a
better production than most statues; being beautifully coloured as well as shaped, and plus all the
brains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; and you cannot have it, any more
than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice of much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to
build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple--and more delightful to look up
reverently to a creature far above us, than to a wall; only the beautiful human creature will have
some duties to do in return--duties of living belfry and rampart--of which presently.
{13} Since this was written, the answer has become definitely--No; we having surrendered the
field of Arctic discovery to the Continental nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships.
{14} I state this fact without Professor Owen's permission: which of course he could not with
propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I consider it so important that the public should be
aware of the fact, that I do what seems to me right, though rude.
{15} That was our real idea of "Free Trade"--"All the trade to myself." You find now that by
"competition" other people can manage to sell something as well as you--and now we call for
Protection again. Wretches!
{16} I meant that the beautiful places of the world--Switzerland, Italy, South Germany, and so
on--are, indeed, the truest cathedrals- -places to be reverent in, and to worship in; and that we
only care to drive through them: and to eat and drink at their most sacred places.
{17} I was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the river shore at Richmond, in
Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the mere drift of soot-laden air from places many miles away.
{18} One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the good of all classes, in our
future arrangements, must be that they wear no "translated" articles of dress. See the preface.
{19} This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labour is curiously coincident in verbal form
with a certain passage which some of us may remember. It may perhaps be well to preserve
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beside this paragraph another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the 'Morning Post,' of about a
parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:- "The SALONS of Mme. C-, who did the honours with
clever imitative grace and elegance, were crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts--
in fact, with the same MALE company as one meets at the parties of the Princess Metternich and
Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English peers and members of Parliament were present, and
appeared to enjoy the animated and dazzlingly improper scene. On the second floor the supper
tables were loaded with every delicacy of the season. That your readers may form some idea of
the dainty fare of the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper, which was served to
all the guests (about 200) seated at four o'clock. Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Laffitte, Tokay,
and champagne of the finest vintages were served most lavishly throughout the morning. After
supper dancing was resumed with increased animation, and the ball terminated with a CHAINE
DIABOLIQUE and a CANCAN D'ENFER at seven in the morning. (Morning service--'Ere the
fresh lawns appeared, under the opening eyelids of the Morn.-') Here is the menu:- 'Consomme
de volaille e la Bagration: 16 hors-d'oeuvres varies. Bouchees e la Talleyrand. Saumons froids,
sauce Ravigote. Filets de boeuf en Bellevue, timbales milanaises, chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes
truffees. Pates de foies gras, buissons d'ecrevisses, salades venetiennes, gelees blanches aux
fruits, gateaux mancini, parisiens et parisiennes. Fromages glaces. Ananas. Dessert.'"
{20} Please observe this statement, and think of it, and consider how it happens that a poor old
woman will be ashamed to take a shilling a week from the country--but no one is ashamed to
take a pension of a thousand a year.
{21} I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the 'Pall Mall Gazette' established; for the power of
the press in the hands of highly educated men, in independent position, and of honest purpose,
may indeed become all that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor will therefore, I
doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my respect for the journal, I do not let pass
unnoticed an article in its third number, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the
intense wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a false turn of thought
in the outset, and is following it, regardless of consequences. It contained at the end this notable
passage:-
"The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction,--aye, and the bedsteads and blankets of
affliction, are the very utmost that the law ought to give to OUTCASTS MERELY AS
OUTCASTS." I merely put beside this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a
part of the message which Isaiah was ordered to "lift up his voice like a trumpet" in declaring to
the gentlemen of his day: "Ye fast for strife, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this
the fast that I have chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor THAT
ARE CAST OUT (margin, 'afflicted') to THY house?" The falsehood on which the writer had
mentally founded himself, as previously stated by him, was this: "To confound the functions of
the dispensers of the poor-rates with those of the dispensers of a charitable institution is a great
and pernicious error." This sentence is so accurately and exquisitely wrong, that its substance
must be thus reversed in our minds before we can deal with any existing problem of national
distress. "To understand that the dispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and
should distribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as much greater and franker
than that possible to individual charity, as the collective national wisdom and power may be
supposed greater than those of any single person, is the foundation of all law respecting
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pauperism." (Since this was written the 'Pall Mall Gazette' has become a mere party paper--like
the rest; but it writes well, and does more good than mischief on the whole.)
{22} [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]
{23} I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have noted the various
weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great characters of men in the Waverley novels--the
selfishness and narrowness of thought in Redgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in Edward
Glendinning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed that there are several quite perfect
characters sketched sometimes in the backgrounds; three--let us accept joyously this courtesy to
England and her soldiers--are English officers: Colonel Gardiner, Colonel Talbot, and Colonel
Mannering.
{24} Coventry Patmore. You cannot read him too often or too carefully; as far as I know he is
the only living poet who always strengthens and purifies; the others sometimes darken, and
nearly always depress and discourage, the imagination they deeply seize.
{25} Observe, it is "Nature" who is speaking throughout, and who says, "while she and I
together live."
{26} "Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet's 'History of France.'" De Quincey's Works. Vol.
iii. p. 217.
{27} I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our English youth of certain ranks,
in which both boy and girl should receive, at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true
title; attainable only by certain probation and trial both of character and accomplishment; and to
be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any dishonourable act. Such an institution would be
entirely, and with all noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honour. That it would not be
possible among us, is not to the discredit of the scheme.
{28} See note {19}
{29} That no reference should be made to religious questions.
{30} I have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it to set forth the wisdom of men
in war contending for kingdoms, and what follows to set forth their wisdom in peace, contending
for wealth.
{31} See "The Two Paths,"--paragraph beginning "You know I said of that great and pure..."
End

214
From Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
Chapter 4
From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most
comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation. I read with
ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination, which modern inquirers have
written on these subjects. I attended the lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the
men of science of the university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound
sense and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and
manners, but not on that account the less valuable. In M. Waldman I found a true
friend. His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism, and his instructions were given
with an air of frankness and good nature that banished every idea of pedantry. In a
thousand ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse
inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at first fluctuating
and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and eager
that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my
laboratory.
As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress was rapid. My
ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that of the
masters. Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa
went on, whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress.
Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was
engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make.
None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of
science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is
nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery
and wonder. A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must
infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study; and I, who continually sought the
attainment of one object of pursuit and was solely wrapped up in this, improved so
rapidly that at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of
some chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the
university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted with
the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons of any of the
professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there being no longer conducive to my
improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an
incident happened that protracted my stay.
One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure
of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked
215
myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has
ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of
becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I
revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself
more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology.
Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to
this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the causes of
life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of
anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and
corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest
precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not
ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the
apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to
me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of
beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the
cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and
charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to
the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and
wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw
how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and
analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to
death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in
upon mea light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy
with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so
many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I
alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more
certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle
might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable.
After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the
cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing
animation upon lifeless matter.
The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave place
to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at
the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this
discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been
progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been
the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within
my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information
216
I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should
point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already
accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a
passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.
I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend,
that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot
be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am
reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was,
to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at
least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much
happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires
to become greater than his nature will allow.
When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time
concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Although I possessed the capacity
of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its
intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable
difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a
being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much
exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an
animal as complex and wonderful as man. The materials at present within my
command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not
that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my
operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I
considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I
was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of
future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any
argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of
a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I
resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is
to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this
determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging
my materials, I began.
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane,
in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which
I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new
species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures
would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so
completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I
could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I
217
now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to
corruption.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with
unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become
emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet
still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize. One secret
which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon
gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I
pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil
as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to
animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the
remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I
seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a
passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the
unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits. I collected
bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets
of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and
separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop
of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the
details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished
many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my
occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I
brought my work near to a conclusion.
The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit.
It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or
the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of
nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused
me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not
seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them, and I well remembered
the words of my father: "I know that while you are pleased with yourself you will
think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me
if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties
are equally neglected."
I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings, but I could not tear my
thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible
hold of my imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my
feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my
nature, should be completed.
218
I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice or
faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that
I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought always
to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire
to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception
to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your
affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can
possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the
human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit
whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not
been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been
discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been
destroyed.
But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your
looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach in his letters and only took
notice of my silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before.
Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the
blossom or the expanding leavessights which before always yielded me supreme
delightso deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had
withered before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more
plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety,
and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other
unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I
was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the
fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a
crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the
energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed
that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised
myself both of these when my creation should be complete.


Chapter 5
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.
With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life
around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my
feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes,
and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished
219
light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch
whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in
proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His
yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of
a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances
only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the
same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled
complexion and straight black lips.
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I
had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an
inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with
an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the
dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure
the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long
time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length
lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed
in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in
vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw
Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and
surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became
livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held
the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the
grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror;
a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became
convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way
through the window shutters, I beheld the wretchthe miserable monster whom I had
created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called,
were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a
grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was
stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took
refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained
during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening
attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of
the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life.
Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued
with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while
220
unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered
capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.
I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I
felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through
languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of
disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space
were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so
complete!
Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless and aching
eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which indicated the sixth
hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum,
and I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the
wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not
dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although
drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky.
I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring by bodily exercise to
ease the load that weighed upon my mind. I traversed the streets without any clear
conception of where I was or what I was doing. My heart palpitated in the sickness of
fear, and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me:

Like one who, on a lonely road,
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

[Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."]

Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences
and carriages usually stopped. Here I paused, I knew not why; but I remained some
minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming towards me from the other
end of the street. As it drew nearer I observed that it was the Swiss diligence; it
stopped just where I was standing, and on the door being opened, I perceived Henry
Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly sprung out. "My dear Frankenstein," exclaimed
221
he, "how glad I am to see you! How fortunate that you should be here at the very
moment of my alighting!"
Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his presence brought back to my
thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear to my
recollection. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune; I
felt suddenly, and for the first time during many months, calm and serene joy. I
welcomed my friend, therefore, in the most cordial manner, and we walked towards
my college. Clerval continued talking for some time about our mutual friends and his
own good fortune in being permitted to come to Ingolstadt. "You may easily believe,"
said he, "how great was the difficulty to persuade my father that all necessary
knowledge was not comprised in the noble art of book-keeping; and, indeed, I believe
I left him incredulous to the last, for his constant answer to my unwearied entreaties
was the same as that of the Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield: 'I have ten
thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.' But his affection
for me at length overcame his dislike of learning, and he has permitted me to
undertake a voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge."
"It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me how you left my father,
brothers, and Elizabeth."
"Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from you so seldom.
By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their account myself. But, my dear
Frankenstein," continued he, stopping short and gazing full in my face, "I did not
before remark how very ill you appear; so thin and pale; you look as if you had been
watching for several nights."
"You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation that
I have not allowed myself sufficient rest, as you see; but I hope, I sincerely hope, that
all these employments are now at an end and that I am at length free."
I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the
occurrences of the preceding night. I walked with a quick pace, and we soon arrived at
my college. I then reflected, and the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I
had left in my apartment might still be there, alive and walking about. I dreaded to
behold this monster, but I feared still more that Henry should see him. Entreating him,
therefore, to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my
own room. My hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself. I
then paused, and a cold shivering came over me. I threw the door forcibly open, as
children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them
on the other side; but nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully in: the apartment was
empty, and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest. I could hardly believe
222
that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that
my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clerval.
We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; but I was
unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle
with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a
single instant in the same place; I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and
laughed aloud. Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but
when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he
could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter frightened and
astonished him.
"My dear Victor," cried he, "what, for God's sake, is the matter? Do not laugh in that
manner. How ill you are! What is the cause of all this?"
"Do not ask me," cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw the
dreaded spectre glide into the room; "HE can tell. Oh, save me! Save me!" I imagined
that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit.
Poor Clerval! What must have been his feelings? A meeting, which he anticipated
with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness. But I was not the witness of his grief,
for I was lifeless and did not recover my senses for a long, long time.
This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several
months. During all that time Henry was my only nurse. I afterwards learned that,
knowing my father's advanced age and unfitness for so long a journey, and how
wretched my sickness would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing
the extent of my disorder. He knew that I could not have a more kind and attentive
nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt of my recovery, he did not doubt that,
instead of doing harm, he performed the kindest action that he could towards them.
But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting
attentions of my friend could have restored me to life. The form of the monster on
whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly
concerning him. Doubtless my words surprised Henry; he at first believed them to be
the wanderings of my disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity with which I
continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that my disorder indeed owed
its origin to some uncommon and terrible event.
By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and grieved my friend,
I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects
with any kind of pleasure, I perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that
223
the young buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window. It was a
divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence. I felt also
sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a
short time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion.
"Dearest Clerval," exclaimed I, "how kind, how very good you are to me. This whole
winter, instead of being spent in study, as you promised yourself, has been consumed
in my sick room. How shall I ever repay you? I feel the greatest remorse for the
disappointment of which I have been the occasion, but you will forgive me."
"You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get well as fast as
you can; and since you appear in such good spirits, I may speak to you on one subject,
may I not?"
I trembled. One subject! What could it be? Could he allude to an object on whom I
dared not even think? "Compose yourself," said Clerval, who observed my change of
colour, "I will not mention it if it agitates you; but your father and cousin would be
very happy if they received a letter from you in your own handwriting. They hardly
know how ill you have been and are uneasy at your long silence."
"Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first thought would not
fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and who are so deserving of my
love?"
"If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad to see a letter that
has been lying here some days for you; it is from your cousin, I believe."

224
The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
225

700. The Lady of Shalott

PART I


ON either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;
5
And up and down the people go,

Gazing where the lilies blow

Round an island there below,

The island of Shalott.


Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
10
Little breezes dusk and shiver

Thro' the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
15
Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.


By the margin, willow-veil'd,

Slide the heavy barges trail'd
20
By slow horses; and unhail'd

The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd

Skimming down to Camelot:

But who hath seen her wave her hand?

Or at the casement seen her stand?
25
Or is she known in all the land,

The Lady of Shalott?


Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly
30
From the river winding clearly,

Down to tower'd Camelot:

226
And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,

Listening, whispers ''Tis the fairy
35
Lady of Shalott.'


PART II


There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay
40
To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.
45

And moving thro' a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near

Winding down to Camelot:
50
There the river eddy whirls,

And there the surly village-churls,

And the red cloaks of market girls,

Pass onward from Shalott.


Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
55
An abbot on an ambling pad,

Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,

Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,

Goes by to tower'd Camelot;

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
60
The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shalott.


But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,
65
For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights,

227
And music, went to Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed;
70
'I am half sick of shadows,' said

The Lady of Shalott.




PART III


A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
75
And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd

To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,
80
Beside remote Shalott.


The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,

Like to some branch of stars we see

Hung in the golden Galaxy.

The bridle bells rang merrily
85
As he rode down to Camelot:

And from his blazon'd baldric slung

A mighty silver bugle hung,

And as he rode his armour rung,

Beside remote Shalott.
90

All in the blue unclouded weather

Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,

The helmet and the helmet-feather

Burn'd like one burning flame together,

As he rode down to Camelot.
95
As often thro' the purple night,

Below the starry clusters bright,

Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

Moves over still Shalott.


His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
100
228
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river
105
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

'Tirra lirra,' by the river

Sang Sir Lancelot.


She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,
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She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;
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'The curse is come upon me!' cried

The Lady of Shalott.


PART IV


In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,
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Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower'd Camelot;


Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote
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The Lady of Shalott.


And down the river's dim expanse

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Seeing all his own mischance

With a glassy countenance
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Did she look to Camelot.

And at the closing of the day

She loosed the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.
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229

Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right

The leaves upon her falling light

Thro' the noises of the night

She floated down to Camelot:
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And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

The Lady of Shalott.


Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
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Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken'd wholly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot;

For ere she reach'd upon the tide
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The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.


Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,
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A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
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And round the prow they read her name,

The Lady of Shalott.


Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;
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And they cross'd themselves for fear,

All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, 'She has a lovely face;

God in His mercy lend her grace,
170
The Lady of Shalott.'


230
TITHONUS.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapors weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man--
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd
To his great heart none other than a God!
I ask'd thee, `Give me immortality.'
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,
And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,
And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,
Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now,
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:
Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.
Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
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And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
In silence, then before thine answer given
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.
Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?
`The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.'
Ay me! ay me! with what another heart
In days far-off, and with what other eyes
I used to watch--if I be he that watch'd--
The lucid outline forming round thee; saw
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;
Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

Yet hold me not for ever in thine East:
How can my nature longer mix with thine?
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
Of happy men that have the power to die,
And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
Release me, and restore me to the ground;
Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;
I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.
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Oscar Wilde
DE PROFUNDIS
. . . Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its
moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to
circle round one centre of pain. The paralysing immobility of a life every circumstance of which
is regulated after an unchangeable pattern, so that we eat and drink and lie down and pray, or
kneel at least for prayer, according to the inflexible laws of an iron formula: this immobile
quality, that makes each dreadful day in the very minutest detail like its brother, seems to
communicate itself to those external forces the very essence of whose existence is ceaseless
change. Of seed-time or harvest, of the reapers bending over the corn, or the grape gatherers
threading through the vines, of the grass in the orchard made white with broken blossoms or
strewn with fallen fruit: of these we know nothing and can know nothing.
For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from
us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-
muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is
always twilight in ones cell, as it is always twilight in ones heart. And in the sphere of thought,
no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long
ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again to-
morrow. Remember this, and you will be able to understand a little of why I am writing, and in
this manner writing. . . .
A week later, I am transferred here. Three more months go over and my mother dies. No one
knew how deeply I loved and honoured her. Her death was terrible to me; but I, once a lord of
language, have no words in which to express my anguish and my shame. She and my father had
bequeathed me a name they had made noble and honoured, not merely in literature, art,
archaeology, and science, but in the public history of my own country, in its evolution as a
nation. I had disgraced that name eternally. I had made it a low by-word among low people. I
had dragged it through the very mire. I had given it to brutes that they might make it brutal, and
to fools that they might turn it into a synonym for folly. What I suffered then, and still suffer, is
not for pen to write or paper to record. My wife, always kind and gentle to me, rather than that I
should hear the news from indifferent lips, travelled, ill as she was, all the way from Genoa to
England to break to me herself the tidings of so irreparable, so irremediable, a loss. Messages of
sympathy reached me from all who had still affection for me. Even people who had not known
me personally, hearing that a new sorrow had broken into my life, wrote to ask that some
expression of their condolence should be conveyed to me. . . .
Three months go over. The calendar of my daily conduct and labour that hangs on the outside of
my cell door, with my name and sentence written upon it, tells me that it is May. . . .
Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the
most sensitive of all created things. There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to
which sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite pulsation. The thin beaten-out leaf of
tremulous gold that chronicles the direction of forces the eye cannot see is in comparison coarse.
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It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed
again, though not in pain.
Where there is sorrow there in holy ground. Some day people will realise what that means.
They will know nothing of life till they do,and natures like his can realise it. When I was
brought down from my prison to the Court of Bankruptcy, between two policemen,waited in
the long dreary corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and simple
hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as, handcuffed and with bowed head, I
passed him by. Men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and
with this mode of love, that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or stooped to kiss
the leper on the cheek. I have never said one single word to him about what he did. I do not
know to the present moment whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action. It is
not a thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal words. I store it in the treasure-
house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that I am glad to think I can never possibly
repay. It is embalmed and kept sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears. When wisdom has
been profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of those who have sought
to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act
of love has unsealed for me all the wells of pity: made the desert blossom like a rose, and
brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the wounded, broken, and
great heart of the world. When people are able to understand, not merely how beautiful ---s
action was, but why it meant so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they
will realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. . . .
The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we are. In their eyes prison
is a tragedy in a mans life, a misfortune, a casuality, something that calls for sympathy in
others. They speak of one who is in prison as of one who is in trouble simply. It is the phrase
they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love in it. With people of our own
rank it is different. With us, prison makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any
right to air and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome when we
reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our very children are taken away.
Those lovely links with humanity are broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still
live. We are denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring balm to the
bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain. . . .
I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by
his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am trying to say so, though they may not think it at
the present moment. This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was
what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.
I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. I had realised this
for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few
men hold such a position in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually
discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long after both the man and his age
have passed away. With me it was different. I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was
a symbolic figure, but his relations were to the passion of his age and its weariness of passion.
Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital issue, of larger scope.
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The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless
and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded
myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own
genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I
deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in
the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a
malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it
pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or
unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day
to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my
soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace.
There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.
I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an
abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and
scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have
passed through every possible mood of suffering. Better than Wordsworth himself I know what
Wordsworth meant when he said
Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark
And has the nature of infinity.
But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I
could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature
something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all.
That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, is Humility.
It is the last thing left in me, and the best: the ultimate discovery at which I have arrived, the
starting-point for a fresh development. It has come to me right out of myself, so I know that it
has come at the proper time. It could not have come before, nor later. Had any one told me of it,
I would have rejected it. Had it been brought to me, I would have refused it. As I found it, I
want to keep it. I must do so. It is the one thing that has in it the elements of life, of a new life,
Vita Nuova for me. Of all things it is the strangest. One cannot acquire it, except by
surrendering everything that one has. It is only when one has lost all things, that one knows that
one possesses it.
Now I have realised that it is in me, I see quite clearly what I ought to do; in fact, must do. And
when I use such a phrase as that, I need not say that I am not alluding to any external sanction or
command. I admit none. I am far more of an individualist than I ever was. Nothing seems to
me of the smallest value except what one gets out of oneself. My nature is seeking a fresh mode
of self-realisation. That is all I am concerned with. And the first thing that I have got to do is to
free myself from any possible bitterness of feeling against the world.
I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world
than that. I am quite candid when I say that rather than go out from this prison with bitterness in
my heart against the world, I would gladly and readily beg my bread from door to door. If I got
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nothing from the house of the rich I would get something at the house of the poor. Those who
have much are often greedy; those who have little always share. I would not a bit mind sleeping
in the cool grass in summer, and when winter came on sheltering myself by the warm close-
thatched rick, or under the penthouse of a great barn, provided I had love in my heart. The
external things of life seem to me now of no importance at all. You can see to what intensity of
individualism I have arrivedor am arriving rather, for the journey is long, and where I walk
there are thorns.
Of course I know that to ask alms on the highway is not to be my lot, and that if ever I lie in the
cool grass at night-time it will be to write sonnets to the moon. When I go out of prison, R---
will be waiting for me on the other side of the big iron-studded gate, and he is the symbol, not
merely of his own affection, but of the affection of many others besides. I believe I am to have
enough to live on for about eighteen months at any rate, so that if I may not write beautiful
books, I may at least read beautiful books; and what joy can be greater? After that, I hope to be
able to recreate my creative faculty.
But were things different: had I not a friend left in the world; were there not a single house open
to me in pity; had I to accept the wallet and ragged cloak of sheer penury: as long as I am free
from all resentment, hardness and scorn, I would be able to face the life with much more calm
and confidence than I would were my body in purple and fine linen, and the soul within me sick
with hate.
And I really shall have no difficulty. When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.
I need not say that my task does not end there. It would be comparatively easy if it did. There is
much more before me. I have hills far steeper to climb, valleys much darker to pass through.
And I have to get it all out of myself. Neither religion, morality, nor reason can help me at all.
Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian. I am one of those who are made for
exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that
there is something wrong in what one becomes. It is well to have learned that.
Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can
touch, and look at. My gods dwell in temples made with hands; and within the circle of actual
experience is my creed made perfect and complete: too complete, it may be, for like many or all
of those who have placed their heaven in this earth, I have found in it not merely the beauty of
heaven, but the horror of hell also. When I think about religion at all, I feel as if I would like to
found an order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Faithless, one might call it,
where on an altar, on which no taper burned, a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling,
might celebrate with unblessed bread and a chalice empty of wine. Every thing to be true must
become a religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than faith. It has sown its
martyrs, it should reap its saints, and praise God daily for having hidden Himself from man. But
whether it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its symbols must be of my
own creating. Only that is spiritual which makes its own form. If I may not find its secret within
myself, I shall never find it: if I have not got it already, it will never come to me.
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Reason does not help me. It tells me that the laws under which I am convicted are wrong and
unjust laws, and the system under which I have suffered a wrong and unjust system. But,
somehow, I have got to make both of these things just and right to me. And exactly as in Art one
is only concerned with what a particular thing is at a particular moment to oneself, so it is also in
the ethical evolution of ones character. I have got to make everything that has happened to me
good for me. The plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard ropes shredded into oakum till ones
finger-tips grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each day begins and finishes, the
harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, the dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque to
look at, the silence, the solitude, the shameeach and all of these things I have to transform into
a spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation of the body which I must not try and
make into a spiritualising of the soul.
I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say quite simply, and without affectation that the
two great turning-points in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society
sent me to prison. I will not say that prison is the best thing that could have happened to me: for
that phrase would savour of too great bitterness towards myself. I would sooner say, or hear it
said of me, that I was so typical a child of my age, that in my perversity, and for that perversitys
sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good.
What is said, however, by myself or by others, matters little. The important thing, the thing that
lies before me, the thing that I have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed,
marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has been done to me, to make it part
of me, to accept it without complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness.
Whatever is realised is right.
When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was
ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I
am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I
know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an
intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody
elsethe beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the
silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and
making it silverwould all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of
communicating joy. To regret ones own experiences is to arrest ones own development. To
deny ones own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of ones own life. It is no less than a
denial of the soul.
For just as the body absorbs things of all kinds, things common and unclean no less than those
that the priest or a vision has cleansed, and converts them into swiftness or strength, into the play
of beautiful muscles and the moulding of fair flesh, into the curves and colours of the hair, the
lips, the eye; so the soul in its turn has its nutritive functions also, and can transform into noble
moods of thought and passions of high import what in itself is base, cruel and degrading; nay,
more, may find in these its most august modes of assertion, and can often reveal itself most
perfectly through what was intended to desecrate or destroy.
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The fact of my having been the common prisoner of a common gaol I must frankly accept, and,
curious as it may seem, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I
must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, one might just as
well never have been punished at all. Of course there are many things of which I was convicted
that I had not done, but then there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and
a still greater number of things in my life for which I was never indicted at all. And as the gods
are strange, and punish us for what is good and humane in us as much as for what is evil and
perverse, I must accept the fact that one is punished for the good as well as for the evil that one
does. I have no doubt that it is quite right one should be. It helps one, or should help one, to
realise both, and not to be too conceited about either. And if I then am not ashamed of my
punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.
Many men on their release carry their prison about with them into the air, and hide it as a secret
disgrace in their hearts, and at length, like poor poisoned things, creep into some hole and die. It
is wretched that they should have to do so, and it is wrong, terribly wrong, of society that it
should force them to do so. Society takes upon itself the right to inflict appalling punishment on
the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realise what it has
done. When the mans punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons
him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins. It is really ashamed of its
own actions, and shuns those whom it has punished, as people shun a creditor whose debt they
cannot pay, or one on whom they have inflicted an irreparable, an irremediable wrong. I can
claim on my side that if I realise what I have suffered, society should realise what it has inflicted
on me; and that there should be no bitterness or hate on either side.
Of course I know that from one point of view things will be made different for me than for
others; must indeed, by the very nature of the case, be made so. The poor thieves and outcasts
who are imprisoned here with me are in many respects more fortunate than I am. The little way
in grey city or green field that saw their sin is small; to find those who know nothing of what
they have done they need go no further than a bird might fly between the twilight and the dawn;
but for me the world is shrivelled to a handsbreadth, and everywhere I turn my name is written
on the rocks in lead. For I have come, not from obscurity into the momentary notoriety of crime,
but from a sort of eternity of fame to a sort of eternity of infamy, and sometimes seem to myself
to have shown, if indeed it required showing, that between the famous and the infamous there is
but one step, if as much as one.
Still, in the very fact that people will recognise me wherever I go, and know all about my life, as
far as its follies go, I can discern something good for me. It will force on me the necessity of
again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce only one
beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to
pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots.
And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a problem to life. People must adopt
some attitude towards me, and so pass judgment, both on themselves and me. I need not say I
am not talking of particular individuals. The only people I would care to be with now are artists
and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what
sorrow is: nobody else interests me. Nor am I making any demands on life. In all that I have
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said I am simply concerned with my own mental attitude towards life as a whole; and I feel that
not to be ashamed of having been punished is one of the first points I must attain to, for the sake
of my own perfection, and because I am so imperfect.
Then I must learn how to be happy. Once I knew it, or thought I knew it, by instinct. It was
always springtime once in my heart. My temperament was akin to joy. I filled my life to the
very brim with pleasure, as one might fill a cup to the very brim with wine. Now I am
approaching life from a completely new standpoint, and even to conceive happiness is often
extremely difficult for me. I remember during my first term at Oxford reading in Paters
Renaissancethat book which has had such strange influence over my lifehow Dante places
low in the Inferno those who wilfully live in sadness; and going to the college library and turning
to the passage in the Divine Comedy where beneath the dreary marsh lie those who were sullen
in the sweet air, saying for ever and ever through their sighs
Tristi fummo
Nell aer dolce che dal sol sallegra.
I knew the church condemned accidia, but the whole idea seemed to me quite fantastic, just the
sort of sin, I fancied, a priest who knew nothing about real life would invent. Nor could I
understand how Dante, who says that sorrow remarries us to God, could have been so harsh to
those who were enamoured of melancholy, if any such there really were. I had no idea that some
day this would become to me one of the greatest temptations of my life.
While I was in Wandsworth prison I longed to die. It was my one desire. When after two
months in the infirmary I was transferred here, and found myself growing gradually better in
physical health, I was filled with rage. I determined to commit suicide on the very day on which
I left prison. After a time that evil mood passed away, and I made up my mind to live, but to
wear gloom as a king wears purple: never to smile again: to turn whatever house I entered into a
house of mourning: to make my friends walk slowly in sadness with me: to teach them that
melancholy is the true secret of life: to maim them with an alien sorrow: to mar them with my
own pain. Now I feel quite differently. I see it would be both ungrateful and unkind of me to
pull so long a face that when my friends came to see me they would have to make their faces still
longer in order to show their sympathy; or, if I desired to entertain them, to invite them to sit
down silently to bitter herbs and funeral baked meats. I must learn how to be cheerful and
happy.
The last two occasions on which I was allowed to see my friends here, I tried to be as cheerful as
possible, and to show my cheerfulness, in order to make them some slight return for their trouble
in coming all the way from town to see me. It is only a slight return, I know, but it is the one, I
feel certain, that pleases them most. I saw R--- for an hour on Saturday week, and I tried to give
the fullest possible expression of the delight I really felt at our meeting. And that, in the views
and ideas I am here shaping for myself, I am quite right is shown to me by the fact that now for
the first time since my imprisonment I have a real desire for life.
There is before me so much to do, that I would regard it as a terrible tragedy if I died before I
was allowed to complete at any rate a little of it. I see new developments in art and life, each one
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of which is a fresh mode of perfection. I long to live so that I can explore what is no less than a
new world to me. Do you want to know what this new world is? I think you can guess what it
is. It is the world in which I have been living. Sorrow, then, and all that it teaches one, is my
new world.
I used to live entirely for pleasure. I shunned suffering and sorrow of every kind. I hated both. I
resolved to ignore them as far as possible: to treat them, that is to say, as modes of imperfection.
They were not part of my scheme of life. They had no place in my philosophy. My mother, who
knew life as a whole, used often to quote to me Goethes lineswritten by Carlyle in a book he
had given her years ago, and translated by him, I fancy, also:
Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the midnight hours
Weeping and waiting for the morrow,
He knows you not, ye heavenly powers.
They were the lines which that noble Queen of Prussia, whom Napoleon treated with such coarse
brutality, used to quote in her humiliation and exile; they were the lines my mother often quoted
in the troubles of her later life. I absolutely declined to accept or admit the enormous truth
hidden in them. I could not understand it. I remember quite well how I used to tell her that I did
not want to eat my bread in sorrow, or to pass any night weeping and watching for a more bitter
dawn.
I had no idea that it was one of the special things that the Fates had in store for me: that for a
whole year of my life, indeed, I was to do little else. But so has my portion been meted out to
me; and during the last few months I have, after terrible difficulties and struggles, been able to
comprehend some of the lessons hidden in the heart of pain. Clergymen and people who use
phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation. One
discerns things one never discerned before. One approaches the whole of history from a
different standpoint. What one had felt dimly, through instinct, about art, is intellectually and
emotionally realised with perfect clearness of vision and absolute intensity of apprehension.
I now see that sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the type
and test of all great art. What the artist is always looking for is the mode of existence in which
soul and body are one and indivisible: in which the outward is expressive of the inward: in which
form reveals. Of such modes of existence there are not a few: youth and the arts preoccupied
with youth may serve as a model for us at one moment: at another we may like to think that, in
its subtlety and sensitiveness of impression, its suggestion of a spirit dwelling in external things
and making its raiment of earth and air, of mist and city alike, and in its morbid sympathy of its
moods, and tones, and colours, modern landscape art is realising for us pictorially what was
realised in such plastic perfection by the Greeks. Music, in which all subject is absorbed in
expression and cannot be separated from it, is a complex example, and a flower or a child a
simple example, of what I mean; but sorrow is the ultimate type both in life and art.
Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and callous. But behind
sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask. Truth in art is not any
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correspondence between the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the resemblance
of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to the form itself; it is no echo coming
from a hollow hill, any more than it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows the moon to
the moon and Narcissus to Narcissus. Truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward
rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this
reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to be
the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and
cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star
there is pain.
More than this, there is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary reality. I have said of myself
that I was one who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not a
single wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in symbolic
relation to the very secret of life. For the secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind
everything. When we begin to live, what is sweet is so sweet to us, and what is bitter so bitter,
that we inevitably direct all our desires towards pleasures, and seek not merely for a month or
twain to feed on honeycomb, but for all our years to taste no other food, ignorant all the while
that we may really be starving the soul.
I remember talking once on this subject to one of the most beautiful personalities I have ever
known: a woman, whose sympathy and noble kindness to me, both before and since the tragedy
of my imprisonment, have been beyond power and description; one who has really assisted me,
though she does not know it, to bear the burden of my troubles more than any one else in the
whole world has, and all through the mere fact of her existence, through her being what she is
partly an ideal and partly an influence: a suggestion of what one might become as well as a real
help towards becoming it; a soul that renders the common air sweet, and makes what is spiritual
seem as simple and natural as sunlight or the sea: one for whom beauty and sorrow walk hand in
hand, and have the same message. On the occasion of which I am thinking I recall distinctly
how I said to her that there was enough suffering in one narrow London lane to show that God
did not love man, and that wherever there was any sorrow, though but that of a child, in some
little garden weeping over a fault that it had or had not committed, the whole face of creation
was completely marred. I was entirely wrong. She told me so, but I could not believe her. I was
not in the sphere in which such belief was to be attained to. Now it seems to me that love of
some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is
in the world. I cannot conceive of any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other,
and that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the
hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made,
reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful
soul.
When I say that I am convinced of these things I speak with too much pride. Far off, like a
perfect pearl, one can see the city of God. It is so wonderful that it seems as if a child could
reach it in a summers day. And so a child could. But with me and such as me it is different.
One can realise a thing in a single moment, but one loses it in the long hours that follow with
leaden feet. It is so difficult to keep heights that the soul is competent to gain. We think in
eternity, but we move slowly through time; and how slowly time goes with us who lie in prison I
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need not tell again, nor of the weariness and despair that creep back into ones cell, and into the
cell of ones heart, with such strange insistence that one has, as it were, to garnish and sweep
ones house for their coming, as for an unwelcome guest, or a bitter master, or a slave whose
slave it is ones chance or choice to be.
And, though at present my friends may find it a hard thing to believe, it is true none the less, that
for them living in freedom and idleness and comfort it is more easy to learn the lessons of
humility than it is for me, who begin the day by going down on my knees and washing the floor
of my cell. For prison life with its endless privations and restrictions makes one rebellious. The
most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks ones hearthearts are made to be brokenbut
that it turns ones heart to stone. One sometimes feels that it is only with a front of brass and a
lip of scorn that one can get through the day at all. And he who is in a state of rebellion cannot
receive grace, to use the phrase of which the Church is so fondso rightly fond, I dare sayfor
in life as in art the mood of rebellion closes up the channels of the soul, and shuts out the airs of
heaven. Yet I must learn these lessons here, if I am to learn them anywhere, and must be filled
with joy if my feet are on the right road and my face set towards the gate which is called
beautiful, though I may fall many times in the mire and often in the mist go astray.
This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it, is of course no new life at
all, but simply the continuance, by means of development, and evolution, of my former life. I
remember when I was at Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round
Magdalens narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my degree, that I
wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, and that I was going out into
the world with that passion in my soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only
mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit
side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom. Failure, disgrace,
poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from lips in pain,
remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes,
the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses sack-cloth for its raiment and into
its own drink puts gall:all these were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to
know nothing of them, I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to have for a
season, indeed, no other food at all.
I dont regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do
everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my
soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on
honeycomb. But to have continued the same life would have been wrong because it would have
been limiting. I had to pass on. The other half of the garden had its secrets for me also. Of
course all this is foreshadowed and prefigured in my books. Some of it is in The Happy Prince,
some of it in The Young King, notably in the passage where the bishop says to the kneeling boy,
Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art? a phrase which when I wrote it seemed to me
little more than a phrase; a great deal of it is hidden away in the note of doom that like a purple
thread runs through the texture of Dorian Gray; in The Critic as Artist it is set forth in many
colours; in The Soul of Man it is written down, and in letters too easy to read; it is one of the
refrains whose recurring motifs make Salome so like a piece of music and bind it together as a
ballad; in the prose poem of the man who from the bronze of the image of the Pleasure that
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liveth for a moment has to make the image of the Sorrow that abideth for ever it is incarnate.
It could not have been otherwise. At every single moment of ones life one is what one is going
to be no less than what one has been. Art is a symbol, because man is a symbol.
It is, if I can fully attain to it, the ultimate realisation of the artistic life. For the artistic life is
simply self-development. Humility in the artist is his frank acceptance of all experiences, just as
love in the artist is simply the sense of beauty that reveals to the world its body and its soul. In
Marius the Epicurean Pater seeks to reconcile the artistic life with the life of religion, in the
deep, sweet, and austere sense of the word. But Marius is little more than a spectator: an ideal
spectator indeed, and one to whom it is given to contemplate the spectacle of life with
appropriate emotions, which Wordsworth defines as the poets true aim; yet a spectator merely,
and perhaps a little too much occupied with the comeliness of the benches of the sanctuary to
notice that it is the sanctuary of sorrow that he is gazing at.
I see a far more intimate and immediate connection between the true life of Christ and the true
life of the artist; and I take a keen pleasure in the reflection that long before sorrow had made my
days her own and bound me to her wheel I had written in The Soul of Man that he who would
lead a Christ-like life must be entirely and absolutely himself, and had taken as my types not
merely the shepherd on the hillside and the prisoner in his cell, but also the painter to whom the
world is a pageant and the poet for whom the world is a song. I remember saying once to Andr
Gide, as we sat together in some Paris caf, that while meta-physics had but little real interest for
me, and morality absolutely none, there was nothing that either Plato or Christ had said that
could not be transferred immediately into the sphere of Art and there find its complete fulfilment.
Nor is it merely that we can discern in Christ that close union of personality with perfection
which forms the real distinction between the classical and romantic movement in life, but the
very basis of his nature was the same as that of the nature of the artistan intense and flamelike
imagination. He realised in the entire sphere of human relations that imaginative sympathy
which in the sphere of Art is the sole secret of creation. He understood the leprosy of the leper,
the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of
the rich. Some one wrote to me in trouble, When you are not on your pedestal you are not
interesting. How remote was the writer from what Matthew Arnold calls the Secret of Jesus.
Either would have taught him that whatever happens to another happens to oneself, and if you
want an inscription to read at dawn and at night-time, and for pleasure or for pain, write up on
the walls of your house in letters for the sun to gild and the moon to silver, Whatever happens to
oneself happens to another.
Christs place indeed is with the poets. His whole conception of Humanity sprang right out of
the imagination and can only be realised by it. What God was to the pantheist, man was to Him.
He was the first to conceive the divided races as a unity. Before his time there had been gods
and men, and, feeling through the mysticism of sympathy that in himself each had been made
incarnate, he calls himself the Son of the one or the Son of the other, according to his mood.
More than any one else in history he wakes in us that temper of wonder to which romance
always appeals. There is still something to me almost incredible in the idea of a young Galilean
peasant imagining that he could bear on his own shoulders the burden of the entire world; all that
had already been done and suffered, and all that was yet to be done and suffered: the sins of
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Nero, of Caesar Borgia, of Alexander VI., and of him who was Emperor of Rome and Priest of
the Sun: the sufferings of those whose names are legion and whose dwelling is among the tombs:
oppressed nationalities, factory children, thieves, people in prison, outcasts, those who are dumb
under oppression and whose silence is heard only of God; and not merely imagining this but
actually achieving it, so that at the present moment all who come in contact with his personality,
even though they may neither bow to his altar nor kneel before his priest, in some way find that
the ugliness of their sin is taken away and the beauty of their sorrow revealed to them.
I had said of Christ that he ranks with the poets. That is true. Shelley and Sophocles are of his
company. But his entire life also is the most wonderful of poems. For pity and terror there is
nothing in the entire cycle of Greek tragedy to touch it. The absolute purity of the protagonist
raises the entire scheme to a height of romantic art from which the sufferings of Thebes and
Pelops line are by their very horror excluded, and shows how wrong Aristotle was when he said
in his treatise on the drama that it would be impossible to bear the spectacle of one blameless in
pain. Nor in schylus nor Dante, those stern masters of tenderness, in Shakespeare, the most
purely human of all the great artists, in the whole of Celtic myth and legend, where the loveliness
of the world is shown through a mist of tears, and the life of a man is no more than the life of a
flower, is there anything that, for sheer simplicity of pathos wedded and made one with sublimity
of tragic effect, can be said to equal or even approach the last act of Christs passion. The little
supper with his companions, one of whom has already sold him for a price; the anguish in the
quiet moon-lit garden; the false friend coming close to him so as to betray him with a kiss; the
friend who still believed in him, and on whom as on a rock he had hoped to build a house of
refuge for Man, denying him as the bird cried to the dawn; his own utter loneliness, his
submission, his acceptance of everything; and along with it all such scenes as the high priest of
orthodoxy rending his raiment in wrath, and the magistrate of civil justice calling for water in the
vain hope of cleansing himself of that stain of innocent blood that makes him the scarlet figure of
history; the coronation ceremony of sorrow, one of the most wonderful things in the whole of
recorded time; the crucifixion of the Innocent One before the eyes of his mother and of the
disciple whom he loved; the soldiers gambling and throwing dice for his clothes; the terrible
death by which he gave the world its most eternal symbol; and his final burial in the tomb of the
rich man, his body swathed in Egyptian linen with costly spices and perfumes as though he had
been a kings son. When one contemplates all this from the point of view of art alone one cannot
but be grateful that the supreme office of the Church should be the playing of the tragedy without
the shedding of blood: the mystical presentation, by means of dialogue and costume and gesture
even, of the Passion of her Lord; and it is always a source of pleasure and awe to me to
remember that the ultimate survival of the Greek chorus, lost elsewhere to art, is to be found in
the servitor answering the priest at Mass.
Yet the whole life of Christso entirely may sorrow and beauty be made one in their meaning
and manifestationis really an idyll, though it ends with the veil of the temple being rent, and
the darkness coming over the face of the earth, and the stone rolled to the door of the sepulchre.
One always thinks of him as a young bridegroom with his companions, as indeed he somewhere
describes himself; as a shepherd straying through a valley with his sheep in search of green
meadow or cool stream; as a singer trying to build out of the music the walls of the City of God;
or as a lover for whose love the whole world was too small. His miracles seem to me to be as
exquisite as the coming of spring, and quite as natural. I see no difficulty at all in believing that
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such was the charm of his personality that his mere presence could bring peace to souls in
anguish, and that those who touched his garments or his hands forgot their pain; or that as he
passed by on the highway of life people who had seen nothing of lifes mystery, saw it clearly,
and others who had been deaf to every voice but that of pleasure heard for the first time the voice
of love and found it as musical as Apollos lute; or that evil passions fled at his approach, and
men whose dull unimaginative lives had been but a mode of death rose as it were from the grave
when he called them; or that when he taught on the hillside the multitude forgot their hunger and
thirst and the cares of this world, and that to his friends who listened to him as he sat at meat the
coarse food seemed delicate, and the water had the taste of good wine, and the whole house
became full of the odour and sweetness of nard.
Renan in his Vie de Jesusthat gracious fifth gospel, the gospel according to St. Thomas, one
might call itsays somewhere that Christs great achievement was that he made himself as
much loved after his death as he had been during his lifetime. And certainly, if his place is
among the poets, he is the leader of all the lovers. He saw that love was the first secret of the
world for which the wise men had been looking, and that it was only through love that one could
approach either the heart of the leper or the feet of God.
And above all, Christ is the most supreme of individualists. Humility, like the artistic,
acceptance of all experiences, is merely a mode of manifestation. It is mans soul that Christ is
always looking for. He calls it Gods Kingdom, and finds it in every one. He compares it to
little things, to a tiny seed, to a handful of leaven, to a pearl. That is because one realises ones
soul only by getting rid of all alien passions, all acquired culture, and all external possessions, be
they good or evil.
I bore up against everything with some stubbornness of will and much rebellion of nature, till I
had absolutely nothing left in the world but one thing. I had lost my name, my position, my
happiness, my freedom, my wealth. I was a prisoner and a pauper. But I still had my children
left. Suddenly they were taken away from me by the law. It was a blow so appalling that I did
not know what to do, so I flung myself on my knees, and bowed my head, and wept, and said,
The body of a child is as the body of the Lord: I am not worthy of either. That moment seemed
to save me. I saw then that the only thing for me was to accept everything. Since thencurious
as it will no doubt soundI have been happier. It was of course my soul in its ultimate essence
that I had reached. In many ways I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a friend.
When one comes in contact with the soul it makes one simple as a child, as Christ said one
should be.
It is tragic how few people ever possess their souls before they die. Nothing is more rare in
any man, says Emerson, than an act of his own. It is quite true. Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are some one elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Christ was not merely the supreme individualist, but he was the first individualist in history.
People have tried to make him out an ordinary philanthropist, or ranked him as an altruist with
the scientific and sentimental. But he was really neither one nor the other. Pity he has, of
course, for the poor, for those who are shut up in prisons, for the lowly, for the wretched; but he
has far more pity for the rich, for the hard hedonists, for those who waste their freedom in
becoming slaves to things, for those who wear soft raiment and live in kings houses. Riches and
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pleasure seemed to him to be really greater tragedies than poverty or sorrow. And as for
altruism, who knew better than he that it is vocation not volition that determines us, and that one
cannot gather grapes of thorns or figs from thistles?
To live for others as a definite self-conscious aim was not his creed. It was not the basis of his
creed. When he says, Forgive your enemies, it is not for the sake of the enemy, but for ones
own sake that he says so, and because love is more beautiful than hate. In his own entreaty to the
young man, Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, it is not of the state of the poor that he is
thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that wealth was marring. In his view of life
he is one with the artist who knows that by the inevitable law of self-perfection, the poet must
sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make the world a mirror for his moods, as
surely and as certainly as the hawthorn must blossom in spring, and the corn turn to gold at
harvest-time, and the moon in her ordered wanderings change from shield to sickle, and from
sickle to shield.
But while Christ did not say to men, Live for others, he pointed out that there was no difference
at all between the lives of others and ones own life. By this means he gave to man an extended,
a Titan personality. Since his coming the history of each separate individual is, or can be made,
the history of the world. Of course, culture has intensified the personality of man. Art has made
us myriad-minded. Those who have the artistic temperament go into exile with Dante and learn
how salt is the bread of others, and how steep their stairs; they catch for a moment the serenity
and calm of Goethe, and yet know but too well that Baudelaire cried to God
O Seigneur, donnez moi la force et le courage
De contempler mon corps et mon coeur sans dgot.
Out of Shakespeares sonnets they draw, to their own hurt it may be, the secret of his love and
make it their own; they look with new eyes on modern life, because they have listened to one of
Chopins nocturnes, or handled Greek things, or read the story of the passion of some dead man
for some dead woman whose hair was like threads of fine gold, and whose mouth was as a
pomegranate. But the sympathy of the artistic temperament is necessarily with what has found
expression. In words or in colours, in music or in marble, behind the painted masks of an
schylean play, or through some Sicilian shepherds pierced and jointed reeds, the man and his
message must have been revealed.
To the artist, expression is the only mode under which he can conceive life at all. To him what is
dumb is dead. But to Christ it was not so. With a width and wonder of imagination that fills one
almost with awe, he took the entire world of the inarticulate, the voiceless world of pain, as his
kingdom, and made of himself its eternal mouthpiece. Those of whom I have spoken, who are
dumb under oppression, and whose silence is heard only of God, he chose as his brothers. He
sought to become eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, and a cry in the lips of those whose tongues
had been tied. His desire was to be to the myriads who had found no utterance a very trumpet
through which they might call to heaven. And feeling, with the artistic nature of one to whom
suffering and sorrow were modes through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful,
that an idea is of no value till it becomes incarnate and is made an image, he made of himself the
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image of the Man of Sorrows, and as such has fascinated and dominated art as no Greek god ever
succeeded in doing.
For the Greek gods, in spite of the white and red of their fair fleet limbs, were not really what
they appeared to be. The curved brow of Apollo was like the suns disc crescent over a hill at
dawn, and his feet were as the wings of the morning, but he himself had been cruel to Marsyas
and had made Niobe childless. In the steel shields of Athenas eyes there had been no pity for
Arachne; the pomp and peacocks of Hera were all that was really noble about her; and the Father
of the Gods himself had been too fond of the daughters of men. The two most deeply suggestive
figures of Greek Mythology were, for religion, Demeter, an Earth Goddess, not one of the
Olympians, and for art, Dionysus, the son of a mortal woman to whom the moment of his birth
had proved also the moment of her death.
But Life itself from its lowliest and most humble sphere produced one far more marvellous than
the mother of Proserpina or the son of Semele. Out of the Carpenters shop at Nazareth had
come a personality infinitely greater than any made by myth and legend, and one, strangely
enough, destined to reveal to the world the mystical meaning of wine and the real beauties of the
lilies of the field as none, either on Cithaeron or at Enna, had ever done.
The song of Isaiah, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him, had seemed to him to prefigure himself, and in
him the prophecy was fulfilled. We must not be afraid of such a phrase. Every single work of
art is the fulfilment of a prophecy: for every work of art is the conversion of an idea into an
image. Every single human being should be the fulfilment of a prophecy: for every human being
should be the realisation of some ideal, either in the mind of God or in the mind of man. Christ
found the type and fixed it, and the dream of a Virgilian poet, either at Jerusalem or at Babylon,
became in the long progress of the centuries incarnate in him for whom the world was waiting.
To me one of the things in history the most to be regretted is that the Christs own renaissance,
which has produced the Cathedral at Chartres, the Arthurian cycle of legends, the life of St.
Francis of Assisi, the art of Giotto, and Dantes Divine Comedy, was not allowed to develop on
its own lines, but was interrupted and spoiled by the dreary classical Renaissance that gave us
Petrarch, and Raphaels frescoes, and Palladian architecture, and formal French tragedy, and St.
Pauls Cathedral, and Popes poetry, and everything that is made from without and by dead rules,
and does not spring from within through some spirit informing it. But wherever there is a
romantic movement in art there somehow, and under some form, is Christ, or the soul of Christ.
He is in Romeo and Juliet, in the Winters Tale, in Provenal poetry, in the Ancient Mariner, in
La Belle Dame sans merci, and in Chattertons Ballad of Charity.
We owe to him the most diverse things and people. Hugos Les Misrables, Baudelaires Fleurs
du Mal, the note of pity in Russian novels, Verlaine and Verlaines poems, the stained glass and
tapestries and the quattro-cento work of Burne-Jones and Morris, belong to him no less than the
tower of Giotto, Lancelot and Guinevere, Tannhuser, the troubled romantic marbles of Michael
Angelo, pointed architecture, and the love of children and flowersfor both of which, indeed, in
classical art there was but little place, hardly enough for them to grow or play in, but which, from
the twelfth century down to our own day, have been continually making their appearances in art,
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under various modes and at various times, coming fitfully and wilfully, as children, as flowers,
are apt to do: spring always seeming to one as if the flowers had been in hiding, and only came
out into the sun because they were afraid that grown up people would grow tired of looking for
them and give up the search; and the life of a child being no more than an April day on which
there is both rain and sun for the narcissus.
It is the imaginative quality of Christs own nature that makes him this palpitating centre of
romance. The strange figures of poetic drama and ballad are made by the imagination of others,
but out of his own imagination entirely did Jesus of Nazareth create himself. The cry of Isaiah
had really no more to do with his coming than the song of the nightingale has to do with the
rising of the moonno more, though perhaps no less. He was the denial as well as the
affirmation of prophecy. For every expectation that he fulfilled there was another that he
destroyed. In all beauty, says Bacon, there is some strangeness of proportion, and of those
who are born of the spiritof those, that is to say, who like himself are dynamic forcesChrist
says that they are like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and no man can tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth. That is why he is so fascinating to artists. He has all the colour
elements of life: mystery, strangeness, pathos, suggestion, ecstasy, love. He appeals to the
temper of wonder, and creates that mood in which alone he can be understood.
And to me it is a joy to remember that if he is of imagination all compact, the world itself is of
the same substance. I said in Dorian Gray that the great sins of the world take place in the brain:
but it is in the brain that everything takes place. We know now that we do not see with the eyes
or hear with the ears. They are really channels for the transmission, adequate or inadequate, of
sense impressions. It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the
skylark sings.
Of late I have been studying with diligence the four prose poems about Christ. At Christmas I
managed to get hold of a Greek Testament, and every morning, after I had cleaned my cell and
polished my tins, I read a little of the Gospels, a dozen verses taken by chance anywhere. It is a
delightful way of opening the day. Every one, even in a turbulent, ill-disciplined life, should do
the same. Endless repetition, in and out of season, has spoiled for us the freshness, the navet,
the simple romantic charm of the Gospels. We hear them read far too often and far too badly,
and all repetition is anti-spiritual. When one returns to the Greek; it is like going into a garden of
lilies out of some, narrow and dark house.
And to me, the pleasure is doubled by the reflection that it is extremely probable that we have the
actual terms, the ipsissima verba, used by Christ. It was always supposed that Christ talked in
Aramaic. Even Renan thought so. But now we know that the Galilean peasants, like the Irish
peasants of our own day, were bilingual, and that Greek was the ordinary language of intercourse
all over Palestine, as indeed all over the Eastern world. I never liked the idea that we knew of
Christs own words only through a translation of a translation. It is a delight to me to think that
as far as his conversation was concerned, Charmides might have listened to him, and Socrates
reasoned with him, and Plato understood him: that he really said !y" !## $ %$#&' $ ()*$+, that
when he thought of the lilies of the field and how they neither toil nor spin, his absolute
expression was (),)y)-!,! ,) (./') ,$0 )1.$0 ,"+ )02)'!# $0 ($%#0 $03! '&-!#, and that his
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last word when he cried out my life has been completed, has reached its fulfilment, has been
perfected, was exactly as St. John tells us it was: ,!,4*!5,)#no more.
While in reading the Gospelsparticularly that of St. John himself, or whatever early Gnostic
took his name and mantleI see the continual assertion of the imagination as the basis of all
spiritual and material life, I see also that to Christ imagination was simply a form of love, and
that to him love was lord in the fullest meaning of the phrase. Some six weeks ago I was
allowed by the doctor to have white bread to eat instead of the coarse black or brown bread of
ordinary prison fare. It is a great delicacy. It will sound strange that dry bread could possibly be
a delicacy to any one. To me it is so much so that at the close of each meal I carefully eat
whatever crumbs may be left on my tin plate, or have fallen on the rough towel that one uses as a
cloth so as not to soil ones table; and I do so not from hungerI get now quite sufficient food
but simply in order that nothing should be wasted of what is given to me. So one should look on
love.
Christ, like all fascinating personalities, had the power of not merely saying beautiful things
himself, but of making other people say beautiful things to him; and I love the story St. Mark
tells us about the Greek woman, who, when as a trial of her faith he said to her that he could not
give her the bread of the children of Israel, answered him that the little dogs((0').#), little
dogs it should be rendered)who are under the table eat of the crumbs that the children let fall.
Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live.
If any love is shown us we should recognise that we are quite unworthy of it. Nobody is worthy
to be loved. The fact that God loves man shows us that in the divine order of ideal things it is
written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy. Or if that phrase seems to
be a bitter one to bear, let us say that every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he
is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus should be on
the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.
If ever I write again, in the sense of producing artistic work, there are just two subjects on which
and through which I desire to express myself: one is Christ as the precursor of the romantic
movement in life: the other is The artistic life considered in its relation to conduct. The first
is, of course, intensely fascinating, for I see in Christ not merely the essentials of the supreme
romantic type, but all the accidents, the wilfulnesses even, of the romantic temperament also. He
was the first person who ever said to people that they should live flower-like lives. He fixed
the phrase. He took children as the type of what people should try to become. He held them up
as examples to their elders, which I myself have always thought the chief use of children, if what
is perfect should have a use. Dante describes the soul of a man as coming from the hand of God
weeping and laughing like a little child, and Christ also saw that the soul of each one should be
a guisa di fanciulla che piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia. He felt that life was changeful, fluid,
active, and that to allow it to be stereotyped into any form was death. He saw that people should
not be too serious over material, common interests: that to be unpractical was to be a great thing:
that one should not bother too much over affairs. The birds didnt, why should man? He is
charming when he says, Take no thought for the morrow; is not the soul more than meat? is not
the body more than raiment? A Greek might have used the latter phrase. It is full of Greek
feeling. But only Christ could have said both, and so summed up life perfectly for us.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be. If the only thing that he ever said had
been, Her sins are forgiven her because she loved much, it would have been worth while dying
to have said it. His justice is all poetical justice, exactly what justice should be. The beggar goes
to heaven because he has been unhappy. I cannot conceive a better reason for his being sent
there. The people who work for an hour in the vineyard in the cool of the evening receive just as
much reward as those who have toiled there all day long in the hot sun. Why shouldnt they?
Probably no one deserved anything. Or perhaps they were a different kind of people. Christ had
no patience with the dull lifeless mechanical systems that treat people as if they were things, and
so treat everybody alike: for him there were no laws: there were exceptions merely, as if
anybody, or anything, for that matter, was like aught else in the world!
That which is the very keynote of romantic art was to him the proper basis of natural life. He
saw no other basis. And when they brought him one, taken in the very act of sin and showed him
her sentence written in the law, and asked him what was to be done, he wrote with his finger on
the ground as though he did not hear them, and finally, when they pressed him again, looked up
and said, Let him of you who has never sinned be the first to throw the stone at her. It was
worth while living to have said that.
Like all poetical natures he loved ignorant people. He knew that in the soul of one who is
ignorant there is always room for a great idea. But he could not stand stupid people, especially
those who are made stupid by education: people who are full of opinions not one of which they
even understand, a peculiarly modern type, summed up by Christ when he describes it as the type
of one who has the key of knowledge, cannot use it himself, and does not allow other people to
use it, though it may be made to open the gate of Gods Kingdom. His chief war was against the
Philistines. That is the war every child of light has to wage. Philistinism was the note of the age
and community in which he lived. In their heavy inaccessibility to ideas, their dull
respectability, their tedious orthodoxy, their worship of vulgar success, their entire preoccupation
with the gross materialistic side of life, and their ridiculous estimate of themselves and their
importance, the Jews of Jerusalem in Christs day were the exact counterpart of the British
Philistine of our own. Christ mocked at the whited sepulchre of respectability, and fixed that
phrase for ever. He treated worldly success as a thing absolutely to be despised. He saw nothing
in it at all. He looked on wealth as an encumbrance to a man. He would not hear of life being
sacrificed to any system of thought or morals. He pointed out that forms and ceremonies were
made for man, not man for forms and ceremonies. He took sabbatarianism as a type of the things
that should be set at nought. The cold philanthropies, the ostentatious public charities, the
tedious formalisms so dear to the middle-class mind, he exposed with utter and relentless scorn.
To us, what is termed orthodoxy is merely a facile unintelligent acquiescence; but to them, and in
their hands, it was a terrible and paralysing tyranny. Christ swept it aside. He showed that the
spirit alone was of value. He took a keen pleasure in pointing out to them that though they were
always reading the law and the prophets, they had not really the smallest idea of what either of
them meant. In opposition to their tithing of each separate day into the fixed routine of
prescribed duties, as they tithe mint and rue, he preached the enormous importance of living
completely for the moment.
Those whom he saved from their sins are saved simply for beautiful moments in their lives.
Mary Magdalen, when she sees Christ, breaks the rich vase of alabaster that one of her seven
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lovers had given her, and spills the odorous spices over his tired dusty feet, and for that one
moments sake sits for ever with Ruth and Beatrice in the tresses of the snow-white rose of
Paradise. All that Christ says to us by the way of a little warning is that every moment should be
beautiful, that the soul should always be ready for the coming of the bridegroom, always waiting
for the voice of the lover, Philistinism being simply that side of mans nature that is not
illumined by the imagination. He sees all the lovely influences of life as modes of light: the
imagination itself is the world of light. The world is made by it, and yet the world cannot
understand it: that is because the imagination is simply a manifestation of love, and it is love and
the capacity for it that distinguishes one human being from another.
But it is when he deals with a sinner that Christ is most romantic, in the sense of most real. The
world had always loved the saint as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of
God. Christ, through some divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being
the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary desire was not to reform
people, any more than his primary desire was to a relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief
into a tedious honest man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoners Aid
Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a publican into a Pharisee
would not have seemed to him a great achievement. But in a manner not yet understood of the
world he regarded sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful holy things and modes of
perfection.
It seems a very dangerous idea. It isall great ideas are dangerous. That it was Christs creed
admits of no doubt. That it is the true creed I dont doubt myself.
Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to
realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than
that: it is the means by which one alters ones past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They
often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, Even the Gods cannot alter the past. Christ showed that
the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing he could do. Christ, had he been
asked, would have saidI feel quite certain about itthat the moment the prodigal son fell on
his knees and wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-herding and
hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments in his life. It is difficult for most
people to grasp the idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be
worth while going to prison.
There is something so unique about Christ. Of course just as there are false dawns before the
dawn itself, and winter days so full of sudden sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into
squandering its gold before its time, and make some foolish bird call to its mate to build on
barren boughs, so there were Christians before Christ. For that we should be grateful. The
unfortunate thing is that there have been none since. I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi.
But then God had given him at his birth the soul of a poet, as he himself when quite young had in
mystical marriage taken poverty as his bride: and with the soul of a poet and the body of a
beggar he found the way to perfection not difficult. He understood Christ, and so he became like
him. We do not require the Liber Conformitatum to teach us that the life of St. Francis was the
true Imitatio Christi, a poem compared to which the book of that name is merely prose.
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Indeed, that is the charm about Christ, when all is said: he is just like a work of art. He does not
really teach one anything, but by being brought into his presence one becomes something. And
everybody is predestined to his presence. Once at least in his life each man walks with Christ to
Emmaus.
As regards the other subject, the Relation of the Artistic Life to Conduct, it will no doubt seem
strange to you that I should select it. People point to Reading Gaol and say, That is where the
artistic life leads a man. Well, it might lead to worse places. The more mechanical people to
whom life is a shrewd speculation depending on a careful calculation of ways and means, always
know where they are going, and go there. They start with the ideal desire of being the parish
beadle, and in whatever sphere they are placed they succeed in being the parish beadle and no
more. A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of
Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally
tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who
want a mask have to wear it.
But with the dynamic forces of life, and those in whom those dynamic forces become incarnate,
it is different. People whose desire is solely for self-realisation never know where they are
going. They cant know. In one sense of the word it is of course necessary, as the Greek oracle
said, to know oneself: that is the first achievement of knowledge. But to recognise that the soul
of a man is unknowable, is the ultimate achievement of wisdom. The final mystery is oneself.
When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped
out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his
own soul? When the son went out to look for his fathers asses, he did not know that a man of
God was waiting for him with the very chrism of coronation, and that his own soul was already
the soul of a king.
I hope to live long enough and to produce work of such a character that I shall be able at the end
of my days to say, Yes! this is just where the artistic life leads a man! Two of the most perfect
lives I have come across in my own experience are the lives of Verlaine and of Prince Kropotkin:
both of them men who have passed years in prison: the first, the one Christian poet since Dante;
the other, a man with a soul of that beautiful white Christ which seems coming out of Russia.
And for the last seven or eight months, in spite of a succession of great troubles reaching me
from the outside world almost without intermission, I have been placed in direct contact with a
new spirit working in this prison through man and things, that has helped me beyond any
possibility of expression in words: so that while for the first year of my imprisonment I did
nothing else, and can remember doing nothing else, but wring my hands in impotent despair, and
say, What an ending, what an appalling ending! now I try to say to myself, and sometimes
when I am not torturing myself do really and sincerely say, What a beginning, what a wonderful
beginning! It may really be so. It may become so. If it does I shall owe much to this new
personality that has altered every mans life in this place.
You may realise it when I say that had I been released last May, as I tried to be, I would have left
this place loathing it and every official in it with a bitterness of hatred that would have poisoned
my life. I have had a year longer of imprisonment, but humanity has been in the prison along
with us all, and now when I go out I shall always remember great kindnesses that I have received
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here from almost everybody, and on the day of my release I shall give many thanks to many
people, and ask to be remembered by them in turn.
The prison style is absolutely and entirely wrong. I would give anything to be able to alter it
when I go out. I intend to try. But there is nothing in the world so wrong but that the spirit of
humanity, which is the spirit of love, the spirit of the Christ who is not in churches, may make it,
if not right, at least possible to be borne without too much bitterness of heart.
I know also that much is waiting for me outside that is very delightful, from what St. Francis of
Assisi calls my brother the wind, and my sister the rain, lovely things both of them, down to the
shop-windows and sunsets of great cities. If I made a list of all that still remains to me, I dont
know where I should stop: for, indeed, God made the world just as much for me as for any one
else. Perhaps I may go out with something that I had not got before. I need not tell you that to
me reformations in morals are as meaningless and vulgar as Reformations in theology. But
while to propose to be a better man is a piece of unscientific cant, to have become a deeper man
is the privilege of those who have suffered. And such I think I have become.
If after I am free a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a
bit. I can be perfectly happy by myself. With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who
could not be perfectly happy? Besides, feasts are not for me any more. I have given too many to
care about them. That side of life is over for me, very fortunately, I dare say. But if after I am
free a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most
bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me, I would come back again and
again and beg to be admitted, so that I might share in what I was entitled to share in. If he
thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation,
as the most terrible mode in which disgrace could be inflicted on me. But that could not be. I
have a right to share in sorrow, and he who can look at the loveliness of the world and share its
sorrow, and realise something of the wonder of both, is in immediate contact with divine things,
and has got as near to Gods secret as any one can get.
Perhaps there may come into my art also, no less than into my life, a still deeper note, one of
greater unity of passion, and directness of impulse. Not width but intensity is the true aim of
modern art. We are no longer in art concerned with the type. It is with the exception that we
have to do. I cannot put my sufferings into any form they took, I need hardly say. Art only
begins where Imitation ends, but something must come into my work, of fuller memory of words
perhaps, of richer cadences, of more curious effects, of simpler architectural order, of some
aesthetic quality at any rate.
When Marsyas was torn from the scabbard of his limbsdella vagina della membre sue, to use
one of Dantes most terrible Tacitean phraseshe had no more song, the Greek said. Apollo had
been victor. The lyre had vanquished the reed. But perhaps the Greeks were mistaken. I hear in
much modern Art the cry of Marsyas. It is bitter in Baudelaire, sweet and plaintive in Lamartine,
mystic in Verlaine. It is in the deferred resolutions of Chopins music. It is in the discontent that
haunts Burne-Joness women. Even Matthew Arnold, whose song of Callicles tells of the
triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre, and the famous final victory, in such a clear note of
lyrical beauty, has not a little of it; in the troubled undertone of doubt and distress that haunts his
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verses, neither Goethe nor Wordsworth could help him, though he followed each in turn, and
when he seeks to mourn for Thyrsis or to sing of the Scholar Gipsy, it is the reed that he has to
take for the rendering of his strain. But whether or not the Phrygian Faun was silent, I cannot
be. Expression is as necessary to me as leaf and blossoms are to the black branches of the trees
that show themselves above the prison walls and are so restless in the wind. Between my art and
the world there is now a wide gulf, but between art and myself there is none. I hope at least that
there is none.
To each of us different fates are meted out. My lot has been one of public infamy, of long
imprisonment, of misery, of ruin, of disgrace, but I am not worthy of itnot yet, at any rate. I
remember that I used to say that I thought I could bear a real tragedy if it came to me with purple
pall and a mask of noble sorrow, but that the dreadful thing about modernity was that it put
tragedy into the raiment of comedy, so that the great realities seemed commonplace or grotesque
or lacking in style. It is quite true about modernity. It has probably always been true about
actual life. It is said that all martyrdoms seemed mean to the looker on. The nineteenth century
is no exception to the rule.
Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in style; our very dress
makes us grotesque. We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken. We
are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour. On November 13th, 1895, I was
brought down here from London. From two oclock till half-past two on that day I had to stand
on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress, and handcuffed, for the world to
look at. I had been taken out of the hospital ward without a moments notice being given to me.
Of all possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people saw me they laughed. Each train
as it came up swelled the audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement. That was, of
course, before they knew who I was. As soon as they had been informed they laughed still
more. For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob.
For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of
time. That is not such a tragic thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those who are in prison
tears are a part of every days experience. A day in prison on which one does not weep is a day
on which ones heart is hard, not a day on which ones heart is happy.
Well, now I am really beginning to feel more regret for the people who laughed than for myself.
Of course when they saw me I was not on my pedestal, I was in the pillory. But it is a very
unimaginative nature that only cares for people on their pedestals. A pedestal may be a very
unreal thing. A pillory is a terrific reality. They should have known also how to interpret sorrow
better. I have said that behind sorrow there is always sorrow. It were wiser still to say that
behind sorrow there is always a soul. And to mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful thing. In the
strangely simple economy of the world people only get what they give, and to those who have
not enough imagination to penetrate the mere outward of things, and feel pity, what pity can be
given save that of scorn?
I write this account of the mode of my being transferred here simply that it should be realised
how hard it has been for me to get anything out of my punishment but bitterness and despair. I
have, however, to do it, and now and then I have moments of submission and acceptance. All
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the spring may be hidden in the single bud, and the low ground nest of the lark may hold the joy
that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns. So perhaps whatever beauty of life still
remains to me is contained in some moment of surrender, abasement, and humiliation. I can, at
any rate, merely proceed on the lines of my own development, and, accepting all that has
happened to me, make myself worthy of it.
People used to say of me that I was too individualistic. I must be far more of an individualist
than ever I was. I must get far more out of myself than ever I got, and ask far less of the world
than ever I asked. Indeed, my ruin came not from too great individualism of life, but from too
little. The one disgraceful, unpardonable, and to all time contemptible action of my life was to
allow myself to appeal to society for help and protection. To have made such an appeal would
have been from the individualist point of view bad enough, but what excuse can there ever be put
forward for having made it? Of course once I had put into motion the forces of society, society
turned on me and said, Have you been living all this time in defiance of my laws, and do you
now appeal to those laws for protection? You shall have those laws exercised to the full. You
shall abide by what you have appealed to. The result is I am in gaol. Certainly no man ever fell
so ignobly, and by such ignoble instruments, as I did.
The Philistine element in life is not the failure to understand art. Charming people, such as
fishermen, shepherds, ploughboys, peasants and the like, know nothing about art, and are the
very salt of the earth. He is the Philistine who upholds and aids the heavy, cumbrous, blind,
mechanical forces of society, and who does not recognise dynamic force when he meets it either
in a man or a movement.
People thought it dreadful of me to have entertained at dinner the evil things of life, and to have
found pleasure in their company. But then, from the point of view through which I, as an artist
in life, approach them they were delightfully suggestive and stimulating. The danger was half
the excitement. . . . My business as an artist was with Ariel. I set myself to wrestle with Caliban.
. . .
A great friend of minea friend of ten years standingcame to see me some time ago, and told
me that he did not believe a single word of what was said against me, and wished me to know
that he considered me quite innocent, and the victim of a hideous plot. I burst into tears at what
he said, and told him that while there was much amongst the definite charges that was quite
untrue and transferred to me by revolting malice, still that my life had been full of perverse
pleasures, and that unless he accepted that as a fact about me and realised it to the full I could not
possibly be friends with him any more, or ever be in his company. It was a terrible shock to him,
but we are friends, and I have not got his friendship on false pretences.
Emotional forces, as I say somewhere in Intentions, are as limited in extent and duration as the
forces of physical energy. The little cup that is made to hold so much can hold so much and no
more, though all the purple vats of Burgundy be filled with wine to the brim, and the treaders
stand knee-deep in the gathered grapes of the stony vineyards of Spain. There is no error more
common than that of thinking that those who are the causes or occasions of great tragedies share
in the feelings suitable to the tragic mood: no error more fatal than expecting it of them. The
martyr in his shirt of flame may be looking on the face of God, but to him who is piling the
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faggots or loosening the logs for the blast the whole scene is no more than the slaying of an ox is
to the butcher, or the felling of a tree to the charcoal burner in the forest, or the fall of a flower to
one who is mowing down the grass with a scythe. Great passions are for the great of soul, and
great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them.
* * * * *
I know of nothing in all drama more incomparable from the point of view of art, nothing more
suggestive in its subtlety of observation, than Shakespeares drawing of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern. They are Hamlets college friends. They have been his companions. They bring
with them memories of pleasant days together. At the moment when they come across him in
the play he is staggering under the weight of a burden intolerable to one of his temperament.
The dead have come armed out of the grave to impose on him a mission at once too great and too
mean for him. He is a dreamer, and he is called upon to act. He has the nature of the poet, and
he is asked to grapple with the common complexity of cause and effect, with life in its practical
realisation, of which he knows nothing, not with life in its ideal essence, of which he knows so
much. He has no conception of what to do, and his folly is to feign folly. Brutus used madness
as a cloak to conceal the sword of his purpose, the dagger of his will, but the Hamlet madness is
a mere mask for the hiding of weakness. In the making of fancies and jests he sees a chance of
delay. He keeps playing with action as an artist plays with a theory. He makes himself the spy
of his proper actions, and listening to his own words knows them to be but words, words,
words. Instead of trying to be the hero of his own history, he seeks to be the spectator of his
own tragedy. He disbelieves in everything, including himself, and yet his doubt helps him not,
as it comes not from scepticism but from a divided will.
Of all this Guildenstern and Rosencrantz realise nothing. They bow and smirk and smile, and
what the one says the other echoes with sickliest intonation. When, at last, by means of the play
within the play, and the puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet catches the conscience of the King,
and drives the wretched man in terror from his throne, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz see no
more in his conduct than a rather painful breach of Court etiquette. That is as far as they can
attain to in the contemplation of the spectacle of life with appropriate emotions. They are close
to his very secret and know nothing of it. Nor would there be any use in telling them. They are
the little cups that can hold so much and no more. Towards the close it is suggested that, caught
in a cunning spring set for another, they have met, or may meet, with a violent and sudden
death. But a tragic ending of this kind, though touched by Hamlets humour with something of
the surprise and justice of comedy, is really not for such as they. They never die. Horatio, who
in order to report Hamlet and his cause aright to the unsatisfied,
Absents him from felicity a while,
And in this harsh world draws his breath in pain,
dies, but Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are as immortal as Angelo and Tartuffe, and should rank
with them. They are what modern life has contributed to the antique ideal of friendship. He who
writes a new De Amicitia must find a niche for them, and praise them in Tusculan prose. They
are types fixed for all time. To censure them would show a lack of appreciation. They are
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merely out of their sphere: that is all. In sublimity of soul there is no contagion. High thoughts
and high emotions are by their very existence isolated.
* * * * *
I am to be released, if all goes well with me, towards the end of May, and hope to go at once to
some little sea-side village abroad with R--- and M---.
The sea, as Euripides says in one of his plays about Iphigeneia, washes away the stains and
wounds of the world.
I hope to be at least a month with my friends, and to gain peace and balance, and a less troubled
heart, and a sweeter mood. I have a strange longing for the great simple primeval things, such as
the sea, to me no less of a mother than the Earth. It seems to me that we all look at Nature too
much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek attitude. They never
chattered about sunsets, or discussed whether the shadows on the grass were really mauve or
not. But they saw that the sea was for the swimmer, and the sand for the feet of the runner.
They loved the trees for the shadow that they cast, and the forest for its silence at noon. The
vineyard-dresser wreathed his hair with ivy that he might keep off the rays of the sun as he
stooped over the young shoots, and for the artist and the athlete, the two types that Greece gave
us, they plaited with garlands the leaves of the bitter laurel and of the wild parsley, which else
had been of no service to men.
We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have
forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all. As a
consequence our art is of the moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and
deals directly with things. I feel sure that in elemental forces there is purification, and I want to
go back to them and live in their presence.
Of course to one so modern as I am, Enfant de mon sicle, merely to look at the world will be
always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison
both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir
into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its
plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy
when he saw for the first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the
tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to whom flowers are part
of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of some rose. It has always been so with me from
my boyhood. There is not a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of
a shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my nature does not
answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those pour qui le monde visible existe.
Still, I am conscious now that behind all this beauty, satisfying though it may be, there is some
spirit hidden of which the painted forms and shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with
this spirit that I desire to become in harmony. I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of
men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature this is what I
am looking for. It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.
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All trials are trials for ones life, just as all sentences are sentences of death; and three times have
I been tried. The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the
house of detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society, as we have
constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on
unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose
silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in
the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me
to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

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CHAPTER 4.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF DEGRADATION TO WHICH WOMAN IS REDUCED
BY VARIOUS CAUSES.

That woman is naturally weak, or degraded by a concurrence of
circumstances is, I think, clear. But this position I shall simply
contrast with a conclusion, which I have frequently heard fall from
sensible men in favour of an aristocracy: that the mass of mankind
cannot be any thing, or the obsequious slaves, who patiently allow
themselves to be penned up, would feel their own consequence, and
spurn their chains. Men, they further observe, submit every where
to oppression, when they have only to lift up their heads to throw
off the yoke; yet, instead of asserting their birthright, they
quietly lick the dust, and say, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die. Women, I argue from analogy, are degraded by the same
propensity to enjoy the present moment; and, at last, despise the
freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to
attain. But I must be more explicit.

With respect to the culture of the heart, it is unanimously allowed
that sex is out of the question; but the line of subordination in
the mental powers is never to be passed over. Only "absolute in
loveliness," the portion of rationality granted to woman is,
indeed, very scanty; for, denying her genius and judgment, it is
scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect.

The stamina of immortality, if I may be allowed the phrase, is the
perfectibility of human reason; for, was man created perfect, or
did a flood of knowledge break in upon him, when he arrived at
maturity, that precluded error, I should doubt whether his
existence would be continued after the dissolution of the body.
But in the present state of things, every difficulty in morals,
that escapes from human discussion, and equally baffles the
investigation of profound thinking, and the lightning glance of
genius, is an argument on which I build my belief of the
immortality of the soul. Reason is, consequentially, the simple
power of improvement; or, more properly speaking, of discerning
truth. Every individual is in this respect a world in itself.
More or less may be conspicuous in one being than other; but the
nature of reason must be the same in all, if it be an emanation of
divinity, the tie that connects the creature with the Creator; for,
can that soul be stamped with the heavenly image, that is not
perfected by the exercise of its own reason? Yet outwardly
ornamented with elaborate care, and so adorned to delight man,
"that with honour he may love," (Vide Milton) the soul of woman is
not allowed to have this distinction, and man, ever placed between
her and reason, she is always represented as only created to see
through a gross medium, and to take things on trust. But,
dismissing these fanciful theories, and considering woman as a
whole, let it be what it will, instead of a part of man, the
inquiry is, whether she has reason or not. If she has, which, for
a moment, I will take for granted, she was not created merely to be
the solace of man, and the sexual should not destroy the human
character.

Into this error men have, probably, been led by viewing education
in a false light; not considering it as the first step to form a
being advancing gradually toward perfection; (This word is not
strictly just, but I cannot find a better.) but only as a
preparation for life. On this sensual error, for I must call it
so, has the false system of female manners been reared, which robs
the whole sex of its dignity, and classes the brown and fair with
the smiling flowers that only adorn the land. This has ever been
the language of men, and the fear of departing from a supposed
sexual character, has made even women of superior sense adopt the
same sentiments. Thus understanding, strictly speaking, has been
denied to woman; and instinct, sublimated into wit and cunning, for
the purposes of life, has been substituted in its stead.

The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive
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conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement
for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.
Merely to observe, without endeavouring to account for any thing,
may, (in a very incomplete manner) serve as the common sense of
life; but where is the store laid up that is to clothe the soul
when it leaves the body?

This power has not only been denied to women; but writers have
insisted that it is inconsistent, with a few exceptions, with their
sexual character. Let men prove this, and I shall grant that woman
only exists for man. I must, however, previously remark, that the
power of generalizing ideas, to any great extent, is not very
common amongst men or women. But this exercise is the true
cultivation of the understanding; and every thing conspires to
render the cultivation of the understanding more difficult in the
female than the male world.

I am naturally led by this assertion to the main subject of the
present chapter, and shall now attempt to point out some of the
causes that degrade the sex, and prevent women from generalizing
their observations.

I shall not go back to the remote annals of antiquity to trace the
history of woman; it is sufficient to allow, that she has always
been either a slave or a despot, and to remark, that each of these
situations equally retards the progress of reason. The grand
source of female folly and vice has ever appeared to me to arise
from narrowness of mind; and the very constitution of civil
governments has put almost insuperable obstacles in the way to
prevent the cultivation of the female understanding: yet virtue
can be built on no other foundation! The same obstacles are thrown
in the way of the rich, and the same consequences ensue.

Necessity has been proverbially termed the mother of invention; the
aphorism may be extended to virtue. It is an acquirement, and an
acquirement to which pleasure must be sacrificed, and who
sacrifices pleasure when it is within the grasp, whose mind has not
been opened and strengthened by adversity, or the pursuit of
knowledge goaded on by necessity? Happy is it when people have the
cares of life to struggle with; for these struggles prevent their
becoming a prey to enervating vices, merely from idleness! But, if
from their birth men and women are placed in a torrid zone, with
the meridian sun of pleasure darting directly upon them, how can
they sufficiently brace their minds to discharge the duties of
life, or even to relish the affections that carry them out of
themselves?

Pleasure is the business of a woman's life, according to the
present modification of society, and while it continues to be so,
little can be expected from such weak beings. Inheriting, in a
lineal descent from the first fair defect in nature, the
sovereignty of beauty, they have, to maintain their power, resigned
their natural rights, which the exercise of reason, might have
procured them, and chosen rather to be short-lived queens than
labour to attain the sober pleasures that arise from equality.
Exalted by their inferiority (this sounds like a contradiction)
they constantly demand homage as women, though experience should
teach them that the men who pride themselves upon paying this
arbitrary insolent respect to the sex, with the most scrupulous
exactness, are most inclined to tyrannize over, and despise the
very weakness they cherish. Often do they repeat Mr. Hume's
sentiments; when comparing the French and Athenian character, he
alludes to women. "But what is more singular in this whimsical
nation, say I to the Athenians, is, that a frolic of yours during
the Saturnalia, when the slaves are served by their masters, is
seriously continued by them through the whole year, and through the
whole course of their lives; accompanied too with some
circumstances, which still further augment the absurdity and
ridicule. Your sport only elevates for a few days, those whom
fortune has thrown down, and whom she too, in sport, may really
elevate forever above you. But this nation gravely exalts those,
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whom nature has subjected to them, and whose inferiority and
infirmities are absolutely incurable. The women, though without
virtue, are their masters and sovereigns."

Ah! why do women, I write with affectionate solicitude, condescend
to receive a degree of attention and respect from strangers,
different from that reciprocation of civility which the dictates of
humanity, and the politeness of civilization authorise between man
and man? And why do they not discover, when "in the noon of
beauty's power," that they are treated like queens only to be
deluded by hollow respect, till they are led to resign, or not
assume, their natural prerogatives? Confined then in cages, like
the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume
themselves, and stalk with mock-majesty from perch to perch. It is
true, they are provided with food and raiment, for which they
neither toil nor spin; but health, liberty, and virtue are given in
exchange. But, where, amongst mankind has been found sufficient
strength of mind to enable a being to resign these adventitious
prerogatives; one who rising with the calm dignity of reason above
opinion, dared to be proud of the privileges inherent in man? and
it is vain to expect it whilst hereditary power chokes the
affections, and nips reason in the bud.

The passions of men have thus placed women on thrones; and, till
mankind become more reasonable, it is to be feared that women will
avail themselves of the power which they attain with the least
exertion, and which is the most indisputable. They will smile,
yes, they will smile, though told that--

"In beauty's empire is no mean,
And woman either slave or queen,
Is quickly scorn'd when not ador'd."

But the adoration comes first, and the scorn is not anticipated.

Lewis the XIVth, in particular, spread factitious manners, and
caught in a specious way, the whole nation in his toils; for
establishing an artful chain of despotism, he made it the interest
of the people at large, individually to respect his station, and
support his power. And women, whom he flattered by a puerile
attention to the whole sex, obtained in his reign that prince-like
distinction so fatal to reason and virtue.

A king is always a king, and a woman always a woman: (And a wit,
always a wit, might be added; for the vain fooleries of wits and
beauties to obtain attention, and make conquests, are much upon a
par.) his authority and her sex, ever stand between them and
rational converse. With a lover, I grant she should be so, and her
sensibility will naturally lead her to endeavour to excite emotion,
not to gratify her vanity but her heart. This I do not allow to be
coquetry, it is the artless impulse of nature, I only exclaim
against the sexual desire of conquest, when the heart is out of the
question.

This desire is not confined to women; "I have endeavoured," says
Lord Chesterfield, "to gain the hearts of twenty women, whose
persons I would not have given a fig for." The libertine who in a
gust of passion, takes advantage of unsuspecting tenderness, is a
saint when compared with this cold-hearted rascal; for I like to
use significant words. Yet only taught to please, women are always
on the watch to please, and with true heroic ardour endeavour to
gain hearts merely to resign, or spurn them, when the victory is
decided, and conspicuous.

I must descend to the minutiae of the subject.

I lament that women are systematically degraded by receiving the
trivial attentions, which men think it manly to pay to the sex,
when, in fact, they are insultingly supporting their own
superiority. It is not condescension to bow to an inferior. So
ludicrous, in fact, do these ceremonies appear to me, that I
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scarcely am able to govern my muscles, when I see a man start with
eager, and serious solicitude to lift a handkerchief, or shut a
door, when the LADY could have done it herself, had she only moved
a pace or two.

A wild wish has just flown from my heart to my head, and I will not
stifle it though it may excite a horse laugh. I do earnestly wish
to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where
love animates the behaviour. For this distinction is, I am firmly
persuaded, the foundation of the weakness of character ascribed to
woman; is the cause why the understanding is neglected, whilst
accomplishments are acquired with sedulous care: and the same
cause accounts for their preferring the graceful before the heroic
virtues.

Mankind, including every description, wish to be loved and
respected for SOMETHING; and the common herd will always take the
nearest road to the completion of their wishes. The respect paid
to wealth and beauty is the most certain and unequivocal; and of
course, will always attract the vulgar eye of common minds.
Abilities and virtues are absolutely necessary to raise men from
the middle rank of life into notice; and the natural consequence is
notorious, the middle rank contains most virtue and abilities. Men
have thus, in one station, at least, an opportunity of exerting
themselves with dignity, and of rising by the exertions which
really improve a rational creature; but the whole female sex are,
till their character is formed, in the same condition as the rich:
for they are born, I now speak of a state of civilization, with
certain sexual privileges, and whilst they are gratuitously granted
them, few will ever think of works of supererogation, to obtain the
esteem of a small number of superior people.

When do we hear of women, who starting out of obscurity, boldly
claim respect on account of their great abilities or daring
virtues? Where are they to be found? "To be observed, to be
attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and
approbation, are all the advantages which they seek." True! my
male readers will probably exclaim; but let them, before they draw
any conclusion, recollect, that this was not written originally as
descriptive of women, but of the rich. In Dr. Smith's Theory of
Moral Sentiments, I have found a general character of people of
rank and fortune, that in my opinion, might with the greatest
propriety be applied to the female sex. I refer the sagacious
reader to the whole comparison; but must be allowed to quote a
passage to enforce an argument that I mean to insist on, as the one
most conclusive against a sexual character. For if, excepting
warriors, no great men of any denomination, have ever appeared
amongst the nobility, may it not be fairly inferred, that their
local situation swallowed up the man, and produced a character
similar to that of women, who are LOCALIZED, if I may be allowed
the word, by the rank they are placed in, by COURTESY? Women,
commonly called Ladies, are not to be contradicted in company, are
not allowed to exert any manual strength; and from them the
negative virtues only are expected, when any virtues are expected,
patience, docility, good-humour, and flexibility; virtues
incompatible with any vigorous exertion of intellect. Besides by
living more with each other, and to being seldom absolutely alone,
they are more under the influence of sentiments than passions.
Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force
of passions, and enable the imagination to enlarge the object and
make it the most desirable. The same may be said of the rich; they
do not sufficiently deal in general ideas, collected by
impassionate thinking, or calm investigation, to acquire that
strength of character, on which great resolves are built. But hear
what an acute observer says of the great.

"Do the great seem insensible of the easy price at which they may
acquire the public admiration? or do they seem to imagine, that to
them, as to other men, it must be the purchase either of sweat or
of blood? By what important accomplishments is the young nobleman
instructed to support the dignity of his rank, and to render
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himself worthy of that superiority over his fellow citizens, to
which the virtue of his ancestors had raised them? Is it by
knowledge, by industry, by patience, by self-denial, or by virtue
of any kind? As all his words, as all his motions are attended to,
he learns an habitual regard for every circumstance of ordinary
behaviour, and studies to perform all those small duties with the
most exact propriety. As he is conscious how much he is observed,
and how much mankind are disposed to favour all his inclinations,
he acts, upon the most indifferent occasions, with that freedom and
elevation which the thought of this naturally inspires. His air,
his manner, his deportment all mark that elegant and graceful sense
of his own superiority, which those who are born to an inferior
station can hardly ever arrive at. These are the arts by which he
proposes to make mankind more easily submit to his authority, and
to govern their inclinations according to his own pleasure: and in
this he is seldom disappointed. These arts, supported by rank and
pre-eminence, are, upon ordinary occasions, sufficient to govern
the world. Lewis XIV. during the greater part of his reign, was
regarded, not only in France, but over all Europe, as the most
perfect model of a great prince. But what were the talents and
virtues, by which he acquired this great reputation? Was it by the
scrupulous and inflexible justice of all his undertakings, by the
immense dangers and difficulties with which they were attended, or
by the unwearied and unrelenting application with which he pursued
them? Was it by his extensive knowledge, by his exquisite
judgment, or by his heroic valour? It was by none of these
qualities. But he was, first of all, the most powerful prince in
Europe, and consequently held the highest rank among kings; and
then, says his historian, 'he surpassed all his courtiers in the
gracefulness of his shape, and the majestic beauty of his features.
The sound of his voice noble and affecting, gained those hearts
which his presence intimidated. He had a step and a deportment,
which could suit only him and his rank, and which would have been
ridiculous in any other person. The embarrassment which he
occasioned to those who spoke to him, flattered that secret
satisfaction with which he felt his own superiority.' These
frivolous accomplishments, supported by his rank, and, no doubt,
too, by a degree of other talents and virtues, which seems,
however, not to have been much above mediocrity, established this
prince in the esteem of his own age, and have drawn even from
posterity, a good deal of respect for his memory. Compared with
these, in his own times, and in his own presence, no other virtue,
it seems, appeared to have any merit. Knowledge, industry, valour,
and beneficence, trembling, were abashed, and lost all dignity
before them."

Woman, also, thus "in herself complete," by possessing all these
FRIVOLOUS accomplishments, so changes the nature of things,

--"That what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;
All higher knowledge in HER PRESENCE falls
Degraded. Wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanc'd, and like folly shows;
Authority and reason on her wait."--

And all this is built on her loveliness!

In the middle rank of life, to continue the comparison, men, in
their youth, are prepared for professions, and marriage is not
considered as the grand feature in their lives; whilst women, on
the contrary, have no other scheme to sharpen their faculties. It
is not business, extensive plans, or any of the excursive flights
of ambition, that engross their attention; no, their thoughts are
not employed in rearing such noble structures. To rise in the
world, and have the liberty of running from pleasure to pleasure,
they must marry advantageously, and to this object their time is
sacrificed, and their persons often legally prostituted. A man,
when he enters any profession, has his eye steadily fixed on some
future advantage (and the mind gains great strength by having all
its efforts directed to one point) and, full of his business,
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pleasure is considered as mere relaxation; whilst women seek for
pleasure as the main purpose of existence. In fact, from the
education which they receive from society, the love of pleasure may
be said to govern them all; but does this prove that there is a sex
in souls? It would be just as rational to declare, that the
courtiers in France, when a destructive system of despotism had
formed their character, were not men, because liberty, virtue, and
humanity, were sacrificed to pleasure and vanity. Fatal passions,
which have ever domineered over the WHOLE race!

The same love of pleasure, fostered by the whole tendency of their
education, gives a trifling turn to the conduct of women in most
circumstances: for instance, they are ever anxious about secondary
things; and on the watch for adventures, instead of being occupied
by duties.

A man, when he undertakes a journey, has, in general the end in
view; a woman thinks more of the incidental occurrences, the
strange things that may possibly occur on the road; the impression
that she may make on her fellow travellers; and, above all, she is
anxiously intent on the care of the finery that she carries with
her, which is more than ever a part of herself, when going to
figure on a new scene; when, to use an apt French turn of
expression, she is going to produce a sensation. Can dignity of
mind exist with such trivial cares?

In short, women, in general, as well as the rich of both sexes,
have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed
the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise,
that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions
out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their
understandings neglected; consequently they become the prey of
their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by
every momentary gust of feeling. They are, therefore, in a much
worse condition than they would be in, were they in a state nearer
to nature. Ever restless and anxious, their over exercised
sensibility not only renders them uncomfortable themselves, but
troublesome, to use a soft phrase, to others. All their thoughts
turn on things calculated to excite emotion; and, feeling, when
they should reason, their conduct is unstable, and their opinions
are wavering, not the wavering produced by deliberation or
progressive views, but by contradictory emotions. By fits and
starts they are warm in many pursuits; yet this warmth, never
concentrated into perseverance, soon exhausts itself; exhaled by
its own heat, or meeting with some other fleeting passion, to which
reason has never given any specific gravity, neutrality ensues.
Miserable, indeed, must be that being whose cultivation of mind has
only tended to inflame its passions! A distinction should be made
between inflaming and strengthening them. The passions thus
pampered, whilst the judgment is left unformed, what can be
expected to ensue? Undoubtedly, a mixture of madness and folly!

This observation should not be confined to the FAIR sex; however,
at present, I only mean to apply it to them.

Novels, music, poetry and gallantry, all tend to make women the
creatures of sensation, and their character is thus formed during
the time they are acquiring accomplishments, the only improvement
they are excited, by their station in society, to acquire. This
overstretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the
mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that sovereignty which
it ought to attain, to render a rational creature useful to others,
and content with its own station; for the exercise of the
understanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out by
nature to calm the passions.

Satiety has a very different effect, and I have often been forcibly
struck by an emphatical description of damnation, when the spirit
is represented as continually hovering with abortive eagerness
round the defiled body, unable to enjoy any thing without the
organs of sense. Yet, to their senses, are women made slaves,
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because it is by their sensibility that they obtain present power.

And will moralists pretend to assert, that this is the condition in
which one half of the human race should be encouraged to remain
with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence? Kind
instructors! what were we created for? To remain, it may be said,
innocent; they mean in a state of childhood. We might as well
never have been born, unless it were necessary that we should be
created to enable man to acquire the noble privilege of reason, the
power of discerning good from evil, whilst we lie down in the dust
from whence we were taken, never to rise again.

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses,
cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing
opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and
that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms
and weakness;

"Fine by defect, and amiably weak!"

And, made by this amiable weakness entirely dependent, excepting
what they gain by illicit sway, on man, not only for protection,
but advice, is it surprising that, neglecting the duties that
reason alone points out, and shrinking from trials calculated to
strengthen their minds, they only exert themselves to give their
defects a graceful covering, which may serve to heighten their
charms in the eye of the voluptuary, though it sink them below the
scale of moral excellence?

Fragile in every sense of the word, they are obliged to look up to
man for every comfort. In the most trifling dangers they cling to
their support, with parasitical tenacity, piteously demanding
succour; and their NATURAL protector extends his arm, or lifts up
his voice, to guard the lovely trembler--from what? Perhaps the
frown of an old cow, or the jump of a mouse; a rat, would be a
serious danger. In the name of reason, and even common sense, what
can save such beings from contempt; even though they be soft and
fair?

These fears, when not affected, may be very pretty; but they shew a
degree of imbecility, that degrades a rational creature in a way
women are not aware of--for love and esteem are very distinct
things.

I am fully persuaded, that we should hear of none of these
infantine airs, if girls were allowed to take sufficient exercise
and not confined in close rooms till their muscles are relaxed and
their powers of digestion destroyed. To carry the remark still
further, if fear in girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps,
created, were treated in the same manner as cowardice in boys, we
should quickly see women with more dignified aspects. It is true,
they could not then with equal propriety be termed the sweet
flowers that smile in the walk of man; but they would be more
respectable members of society, and discharge the important duties
of life by the light of their own reason. "Educate women like
men," says Rousseau, "and the more they resemble our sex the less
power will they have over us." This is the very point I aim at. I
do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.

In the same strain have I heard men argue against instructing the
poor; for many are the forms that aristocracy assumes. "Teach them
to read and write," say they, "and you take them out of the station
assigned them by nature." An eloquent Frenchman, has answered
them; I will borrow his sentiments. But they know not, when they
make man a brute, that they may expect every instant to see him
transformed into a ferocious beast. Without knowledge there can be
no morality!

Ignorance is a frail base for virtue! Yet, that it is the
condition for which woman was organized, has been insisted upon by
the writers who have most vehemently argued in favour of the
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superiority of man; a superiority not in degree, but essence;
though, to soften the argument, they have laboured to prove, with
chivalrous generosity, that the sexes ought not to be compared; man
was made to reason, woman to feel: and that together, flesh and
spirit, they make the most perfect whole, by blending happily
reason and sensibility into one character.

And what is sensibility? "Quickness of sensation; quickness of
perception; delicacy." Thus is it defined by Dr. Johnson; and the
definition gives me no other idea than of the most exquisitely
polished instinct. I discern not a trace of the image of God in
either sensation or matter. Refined seventy times seven, they are
still material; intellect dwells not there; nor will fire ever make
lead gold!

I come round to my old argument; if woman be allowed to have an
immortal soul, she must have as the employment of life, an
understanding to improve. And when, to render the present state
more complete, though every thing proves it to be but a fraction of
a mighty sum, she is incited by present gratification to forget her
grand destination. Nature is counteracted, or she was born only to
procreate and rot. Or, granting brutes, of every description, a
soul, though not a reasonable one, the exercise of instinct and
sensibility may be the step, which they are to take, in this life,
towards the attainment of reason in the next; so that through all
eternity they will lag behind man, who, why we cannot tell, had the
power given him of attaining reason in his first mode of existence.

When I treat of the peculiar duties of women, as I should treat of
the peculiar duties of a citizen or father, it will be found that I
do not mean to insinuate, that they should be taken out of their
families, speaking of the majority. "He that hath wife and
children," says Lord Bacon, "hath given hostages to fortune; for
they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or
mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the
public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men." I say
the same of women. But, the welfare of society is not built on
extraordinary exertions; and were it more reasonably organized,
there would be still less need of great abilities, or heroic
virtues. In the regulation of a family, in the education of
children, understanding, in an unsophisticated sense, is
particularly required: strength both of body and mind; yet the men
who, by their writings, have most earnestly laboured to domesticate
women, have endeavoured by arguments dictated by a gross appetite,
that satiety had rendered fastidious, to weaken their bodies and
cramp their minds. But, if even by these sinister methods they
really PERSUADED women, by working on their feelings, to stay at
home, and fulfil the duties of a mother and mistress of a family, I
should cautiously oppose opinions that led women to right conduct,
by prevailing on them to make the discharge of a duty the business
of life, though reason were insulted. Yet, and I appeal to
experience, if by neglecting the understanding they are as much,
nay, more attached from these domestic duties, than they could be
by the most serious intellectual pursuit, though it may be
observed, that the mass of mankind will never vigorously pursue an
intellectual object, I may be allowed to infer, that reason is
absolutely necessary to enable a woman to perform any duty
properly, and I must again repeat, that sensibility is not reason.

The comparison with the rich still occurs to me; for, when men
neglect the duties of humanity, women will do the same; a common
stream hurries them both along with thoughtless celerity. Riches
and honours prevent a man from enlarging his understanding, and
enervate all his powers, by reversing the order of nature, which
has ever made true pleasure the reward of labour.
Pleasure--enervating pleasure is, likewise, within woman's reach
without earning it. But, till hereditary possessions are spread
abroad, how can we expect men to be proud of virtue? And, till
they are, women will govern them by the most direct means,
neglecting their dull domestic duties, to catch the pleasure that
is on the wing of time.
266

"The power of women," says some author, "is her sensibility;" and
men not aware of the consequence, do all they can to make this
power swallow up every other. Those who constantly employ their
sensibility will have most: for example; poets, painters, and
composers. Yet, when the sensibility is thus increased at the
expense of reason, and even the imagination, why do philosophical
men complain of their fickleness? The sexual attention of man
particularly acts on female sensibility, and this sympathy has been
exercised from their youth up. A husband cannot long pay those
attentions with the passion necessary to excite lively emotions,
and the heart, accustomed to lively emotions, turns to a new lover,
or pines in secret, the prey of virtue or prudence. I mean when
the heart has really been rendered susceptible, and the taste
formed; for I am apt to conclude, from what I have seen in
fashionable life, that vanity is oftener fostered than sensibility
by the mode of education, and the intercourse between the sexes,
which I have reprobated; and that coquetry more frequently proceeds
from vanity than from that inconstancy, which overstrained
sensibility naturally produces.

Another argument that has had a great weight with me, must, I
think, have some force with every considerate benevolent heart.
Girls, who have been thus weakly educated, are often cruelly left
by their parents without any provision; and, of course, are
dependent on, not only the reason, but the bounty of their
brothers. These brothers are, to view the fairest side of the
question, good sort of men, and give as a favour, what children of
the same parents had an equal right to. In this equivocal
humiliating situation, a docile female may remain some time, with a
tolerable degree of comfort. But, when the brother marries, a
probable circumstance, from being considered as the mistress of the
family, she is viewed with averted looks as an intruder, an
unnecessary burden on the benevolence of the master of the house,
and his new partner.

Who can recount the misery, which many unfortunate beings, whose
minds and bodies are equally weak, suffer in such
situations--unable to work and ashamed to beg? The wife, a
cold-hearted, narrow-minded woman, and this is not an unfair
supposition; for the present mode of education does not tend to
enlarge the heart any more than the understanding, is jealous of
the little kindness which her husband shows to his relations; and
her sensibility not rising to humanity, she is displeased at seeing
the property of HER children lavished on an helpless sister.

These are matters of fact, which have come under my eye again and
again. The consequence is obvious, the wife has recourse to
cunning to undermine the habitual affection, which she is afraid
openly to oppose; and neither tears nor caresses are spared till
the spy is worked out of her home, and thrown on the world,
unprepared for its difficulties; or sent, as a great effort of
generosity, or from some regard to propriety, with a small stipend,
and an uncultivated mind into joyless solitude.

These two women may be much upon a par, with respect to reason and
humanity; and changing situations, might have acted just the same
selfish part; but had they been differently educated, the case
would also have been very different. The wife would not have had
that sensibility, of which self is the centre, and reason might
have taught her not to expect, and not even to be flattered by the
affection of her husband, if it led him to violate prior duties.
She would wish not to love him, merely because he loved her, but on
account of his virtues; and the sister might have been able to
struggle for herself, instead of eating the bitter bread of
dependence.

I am, indeed, persuaded that the heart, as well as the
understanding, is opened by cultivation; and by, which may not
appear so clear, strengthening the organs; I am not now talking of
momentary flashes of sensibility, but of affections. And, perhaps,
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in the education of both sexes, the most difficult task is so to
adjust instruction as not to narrow the understanding, whilst the
heart is warmed by the generous juices of spring, just raised by
the electric fermentation of the season; nor to dry up the feelings
by employing the mind in investigations remote from life.

With respect to women, when they receive a careful education, they
are either made fine ladies, brimful of sensibility, and teeming
with capricious fancies; or mere notable women. The latter are
often friendly, honest creatures, and have a shrewd kind of good
sense joined with worldly prudence, that often render them more
useful members of society than the fine sentimental lady, though
they possess neither greatness of mind nor taste. The intellectual
world is shut against them; take them out of their family or
neighbourhood, and they stand still; the mind finding no
employment, for literature affords a fund of amusement, which they
have never sought to relish, but frequently to despise. The
sentiments and taste of more cultivated minds appear ridiculous,
even in those whom chance and family connexions have led them to
love; but in mere acquaintance they think it all affectation.

A man of sense can only love such a woman on account of her sex,
and respect her, because she is a trusty servant. He lets her, to
preserve his own peace, scold the servants, and go to church in
clothes made of the very best materials. A man of her own size of
understanding would, probably, not agree so well with her; for he
might wish to encroach on her prerogative, and manage some domestic
concerns himself. Yet women, whose minds are not enlarged by
cultivation, or the natural selfishness of sensibility expanded by
reflection, are very unfit to manage a family; for by an undue
stretch of power, they are always tyrannizing to support a
superiority that only rests on the arbitrary distinction of
fortune. The evil is sometimes more serious, and domestics are
deprived of innocent indulgences, and made to work beyond their
strength, in order to enable the notable woman to keep a better
table, and outshine her neighbours in finery and parade. If she
attend to her children, it is, in general, to dress them in a
costly manner--and, whether, this attention arises from vanity or
fondness, it is equally pernicious.

Besides, how many women of this description pass their days, or, at
least their evenings, discontentedly. Their husbands acknowledge
that they are good managers, and chaste wives; but leave home to
seek for more agreeable, may I be allowed to use a significant
French word, piquant society; and the patient drudge, who fulfils
her task, like a blind horse in a mill, is defrauded of her just
reward; for the wages due to her are the caresses of her husband;
and women who have so few resources in themselves, do not very
patiently bear this privation of a natural right.

A fine lady, on the contrary, has been taught to look down with
contempt on the vulgar employments of life; though she has only
been incited to acquire accomplishments that rise a degree above
sense; for even corporeal accomplishments cannot be acquired with
any degree of precision, unless the understanding has been
strengthened by exercise. Without a foundation of principles taste
is superficial; and grace must arise from something deeper than
imitation. The imagination, however, is heated, and the feelings
rendered fastidious, if not sophisticated; or, a counterpoise of
judgment is not acquired, when the heart still remains artless,
though it becomes too tender.

These women are often amiable; and their hearts are really more
sensible to general benevolence, more alive to the sentiments that
civilize life, than the square elbowed family drudge; but, wanting
a due proportion of reflection and self-government, they only
inspire love; and are the mistresses of their husbands, whilst they
have any hold on their affections; and the platonic friends of his
male acquaintance. These are the fair defects in nature; the women
who appear to be created not to enjoy the fellowship of man, but to
save him from sinking into absolute brutality, by rubbing off the
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rough angles of his character; and by playful dalliance to give
some dignity to the appetite that draws him to them. Gracious
Creator of the whole human race! hast thou created such a being as
woman, who can trace thy wisdom in thy works, and feel that thou
alone art by thy nature, exalted above her--for no better purpose?
Can she believe that she was only made to submit to man her equal;
a being, who, like her, was sent into the world to acquire virtue?
Can she consent to be occupied merely to please him; merely to
adorn the earth, when her soul is capable of rising to thee? And
can she rest supinely dependent on man for reason, when she ought
to mount with him the arduous steeps of knowledge?

Yet, if love be the supreme good, let women be only educated to
inspire it, and let every charm be polished to intoxicate the
senses; but, if they are moral beings, let them have a chance to
become intelligent; and let love to man be only a part of that
glowing flame of universal love, which, after encircling humanity,
mounts in grateful incense to God.

To fulfil domestic duties much resolution is necessary, and a
serious kind of perseverance that requires a more firm support than
emotions, however lively and true to nature. To give an example of
order, the soul of virtue, some austerity of behaviour must be
adopted, scarcely to be expected from a being who, from its
infancy, has been made the weathercock of its own sensations.
Whoever rationally means to be useful, must have a plan of conduct;
and, in the discharge of the simplest duty, we are often obliged to
act contrary to the present impulse of tenderness or compassion.
Severity is frequently the most certain, as well as the most
sublime proof of affection; and the want of this power over the
feelings, and of that lofty, dignified affection, which makes a
person prefer the future good of the beloved object to a present
gratification, is the reason why so many fond mothers spoil their
children, and has made it questionable, whether negligence or
indulgence is most hurtful: but I am inclined to think, that the
latter has done most harm.

Mankind seem to agree, that children should be left under the
management of women during their childhood. Now, from all the
observation that I have been able to make, women of sensibility are
the most unfit for this task, because they will infallibly, carried
away by their feelings, spoil a child's temper. The management of
the temper, the first and most important branch of education,
requires the sober steady eye of reason; a plan of conduct equally
distant from tyranny and indulgence; yet these are the extremes
that people of sensibility alternately fall into; always shooting
beyond the mark. I have followed this train of reasoning much
further, till I have concluded, that a person of genius is the most
improper person to be employed in education, public or private.
Minds of this rare species see things too much in masses, and
seldom, if ever, have a good temper. That habitual cheerfulness,
termed good humour, is, perhaps, as seldom united with great mental
powers, as with strong feelings. And those people who follow, with
interest and admiration, the flights of genius; or, with cooler
approbation suck in the instruction, which has been elaborately
prepared for them by the profound thinker, ought not to be
disgusted, if they find the former choleric, and the latter morose;
because liveliness of fancy, and a tenacious comprehension of mind,
are scarcely compatible with that pliant urbanity which leads a
man, at least to bend to the opinions and prejudices of others,
instead of roughly confronting them.

But, treating of education or manners, minds of a superior class
are not to be considered, they may be left to chance; it is the
multitude, with moderate abilities, who call for instruction, and
catch the colour of the atmosphere they breathe. This respectable
concourse, I contend, men and women, should not have their
sensations heightened in the hot-bed of luxurious indolence, at the
expence of their understanding; for, unless there be a ballast of
understanding, they will never become either virtuous or free: an
aristocracy, founded on property, or sterling talents, will ever
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sweep before it, the alternately timid and ferocious slaves of
feeling.

Numberless are the arguments, to take another view of the subject,
brought forward with a show of reason; because supposed to be
deduced from nature, that men have used morally and physically to
degrade the sex. I must notice a few.

The female understanding has often been spoken of with contempt, as
arriving sooner at maturity than the male. I shall not answer this
argument by alluding to the early proofs of reason, as well as
genius, in Cowley, Milton, and Pope, (Many other names might be
added.) but only appeal to experience to decide whether young men,
who are early introduced into company (and examples now abound) do
not acquire the same precocity. So notorious is this fact, that
the bare mentioning of it must bring before people, who at all mix
in the world, the idea of a number of swaggering apes of men whose
understandings are narrowed by being brought into the society of
men when they ought to have been spinning a top or twirling a hoop.

It has also been asserted, by some naturalists, that men do not
attain their full growth and strength till thirty; but that women
arrive at maturity by twenty. I apprehend that they reason on
false ground, led astray by the male prejudice, which deems beauty
the perfection of woman--mere beauty of features and complexion,
the vulgar acceptation of the world, whilst male beauty is allowed
to have some connexion with the mind. Strength of body, and that
character of countenance, which the French term a physionomie,
women do not acquire before thirty, any more than men. The little
artless tricks of children, it is true, are particularly pleasing
and attractive; yet, when the pretty freshness of youth is worn
off, these artless graces become studied airs, and disgust every
person of taste. In the countenance of girls we only look for
vivacity and bashful modesty; but, the springtide of life over, we
look for soberer sense in the face, and for traces of passion,
instead of the dimples of animal spirits; expecting to see
individuality of character, the only fastener of the affections.
We then wish to converse, not to fondle; to give scope to our
imaginations, as well as to the sensations of our hearts.

At twenty the beauty of both sexes is equal; but the libertinism of
man leads him to make the distinction, and superannuated coquettes
are commonly of the same opinion; for when they can no longer
inspire love, they pay for the vigour and vivacity of youth. The
French who admit more of mind into their notions of beauty, give
the preference to women of thirty. I mean to say, that they allow
women to be in their most perfect state, when vivacity gives place
to reason, and to that majestic seriousness of character, which
marks maturity; or, the resting point. In youth, till twenty the
body shoots out; till thirty the solids are attaining a degree of
density; and the flexible muscles, growing daily more rigid, give
character to the countenance; that is, they trace the operations of
the mind with the iron pen of fate, and tell us not only what
powers are within, but how they have been employed.

It is proper to observe, that animals who arrive slowly at
maturity, are the longest lived, and of the noblest species. Men
cannot, however, claim any natural superiority from the grandeur of
longevity; for in this respect nature has not distinguished the
male.

Polygamy is another physical degradation; and a plausible argument
for a custom, that blasts every domestic virtue, is drawn from the
well-attested fact, that in the countries where it is established,
more females are born than males. This appears to be an indication
of nature, and to nature apparently reasonable speculations must
yield. A further conclusion obviously presents itself; if polygamy
be necessary, woman must be inferior to man, and made for him.

With respect to the formation of the foetus in the womb, we are
very ignorant; but it appears to me probable, that an accidental
270
physical cause may account for this phenomenon, and prove it not to
be a law of nature. I have met with some pertinent observations on
the subject in Forster's Account of the Isles of the South Sea,
that will explain my meaning. After observing that of the two
sexes amongst animals, the most vigorous and hottest constitution
always prevails, and produces its kind; he adds,--"If this be
applied to the inhabitants of Africa, it is evident that the men
there, accustomed to polygamy, are enervated by the use of so many
women, and therefore less vigorous; the women on the contrary, are
of a hotter constitution, not only on account of their more
irritable nerves, more sensitive organization, and more lively
fancy; but likewise because they are deprived in their matrimony of
that share of physical love which in a monogamous condition, would
all be theirs; and thus for the above reasons, the generality of
children are born females."

"In the greater part of Europe it has been proved by the most
accurate lists of mortality, that the proportion of men to women is
nearly equal, or, if any difference takes place, the males born are
more numerous, in the proportion of 105 to 100."

The necessity of polygamy, therefore, does not appear; yet when a
man seduces a woman, it should I think, be termed a LEFT-HANDED
marriage, and the man should be LEGALLY obliged to maintain the
woman and her children, unless adultery, a natural divorcement,
abrogated the law. And this law should remain in force as long as
the weakness of women caused the word seduction to be used as an
excuse for their frailty and want of principle; nay, while they
depend on man for a subsistence, instead of earning it by the
exercise of their own hands or heads. But these women should not
in the full meaning of the relationship, be termed wives, or the
very purpose of marriage would be subverted, and all those
endearing charities that flow from personal fidelity, and give a
sanctity to the tie, when neither love nor friendship unites the
hearts, would melt into selfishness. The woman who is faithful to
the father of her children demands respect, and should not be
treated like a prostitute; though I readily grant, that if it be
necessary for a man and woman to live together in order to bring up
their offspring, nature never intended that a man should have more
than one wife.

Still, highly as I respect marriage, as the foundation of almost
every social virtue, I cannot avoid feeling the most lively
compassion for those unfortunate females who are broken off from
society, and by one error torn from all those affections and
relationships that improve the heart and mind. It does not
frequently even deserve the name of error; for many innocent girls
become the dupes of a sincere affectionate heart, and still more
are, as it may emphatically be termed, RUINED before they know the
difference between virtue and vice: and thus prepared by their
education for infamy, they become infamous. Asylums and Magdalens
are not the proper remedies for these abuses. It is justice, not
charity, that is wanting in the world!

A woman who has lost her honour, imagines that she cannot fall
lower, and as for recovering her former station, it is impossible;
no exertion can wash this stain away. Losing thus every spur, and
having no other means of support, prostitution becomes her only
refuge, and the character is quickly depraved by circumstances over
which the poor wretch has little power, unless she possesses an
uncommon portion of sense and loftiness of spirit. Necessity never
makes prostitution the business of men's lives; though numberless
are the women who are thus rendered systematically vicious. This,
however, arises, in a great degree, from the state of idleness in
which women are educated, who are always taught to look up to man
for a maintenance, and to consider their persons as the proper
return for his exertions to support them. Meretricious airs, and
the whole science of wantonness, has then a more powerful stimulus
than either appetite or vanity; and this remark gives force to the
prevailing opinion, that with chastity all is lost that is
respectable in woman. Her character depends on the observance of
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one virtue, though the only passion fostered in her heart--is love.
Nay the honour of a woman is not made even to depend on her will.

When Richardson makes Clarissa tell Lovelace that he had robbed her
of her honour, he must have had strange notions of honour and
virtue. For, miserable beyond all names of misery is the condition
of a being, who could be degraded without its own consent! This
excess of strictness I have heard vindicated as a salutary error.
I shall answer in the words of Leibnitz--"Errors are often useful;
but it is commonly to remedy other errors."

Most of the evils of life arise from a desire of present enjoyment
that outruns itself. The obedience required of women in the
marriage state, comes under this description; the mind, naturally
weakened by depending on authority, never exerts its own powers,
and the obedient wife is thus rendered a weak indolent mother. Or,
supposing that this is not always the consequence, a future state
of existence is scarcely taken into the reckoning when only
negative virtues are cultivated. For in treating of morals,
particularly when women are alluded to, writers have too often
considered virtue in a very limited sense, and made the foundation
of it SOLELY worldly utility; nay, a still more fragile base has
been given to this stupendous fabric, and the wayward fluctuating
feelings of men have been made the standard of virtue. Yes, virtue
as well as religion, has been subjected to the decisions of taste.

It would almost provoke a smile of contempt, if the vain
absurdities of man did not strike us on all sides, to observe, how
eager men are to degrade the sex from whom they pretend to receive
the chief pleasure of life; and I have frequently, with full
conviction, retorted Pope's sarcasm on them; or, to speak
explicitly, it has appeared to me applicable to the whole human
race. A love of pleasure or sway seems to divide mankind, and the
husband who lords it in his little harem, thinks only of his
pleasure or his convenience. To such lengths, indeed, does an
intemperate love of pleasure carry some prudent men, or worn out
libertines, who marry to have a safe companion, that they seduce
their own wives. Hymen banishes modesty, and chaste love takes its
flight.

Love, considered as an animal appetite, cannot long feed on itself
without expiring. And this extinction, in its own flame, may be
termed the violent death of love. But the wife who has thus been
rendered licentious, will probably endeavour to fill the void left
by the loss of her husband's attentions; for she cannot contentedly
become merely an upper servant after having been treated like a
goddess. She is still handsome, and, instead of transferring her
fondness to her children, she only dreams of enjoying the sunshine
of life. Besides, there are many husbands so devoid of sense and
parental affection, that during the first effervescence of
voluptuous fondness, they refuse to let their wives suckle their
children. They are only to dress and live to please them: and
love, even innocent love, soon sinks into lasciviousness when the
exercise of a duty is sacrificed to its indulgence.

Personal attachment is a very happy foundation for friendship; yet,
when even two virtuous young people marry, it would, perhaps, be
happy if some circumstance checked their passion; if the
recollection of some prior attachment, or disappointed affection,
made it on one side, at least, rather a match founded on esteem.
In that case they would look beyond the present moment, and try to
render the whole of life respectable, by forming a plan to regulate
a friendship which only death ought to dissolve.

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all
affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by
time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree,
love and friendship cannot subsist in the same bosom; even when
inspired by different objects they weaken or destroy each other,
and for the same object can only be felt in succession. The vain
fears and fond jealousies, the winds which fan the flame of love,
272
when judiciously or artfully tempered, are both incompatible with
the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship.

Love, such as the glowing pen of genius has traced, exists not on
earth, or only resides in those exalted, fervid imaginations that
have sketched such dangerous pictures. Dangerous, because they not
only afford a plausible excuse to the voluptuary, who disguises
sheer sensuality under a sentimental veil; but as they spread
affectation, and take from the dignity of virtue. Virtue, as the
very word imports, should have an appearance of seriousness, if not
austerity; and to endeavour to trick her out in the garb of
pleasure, because the epithet has been used as another name for
beauty, is to exalt her on a quicksand; a most insidious attempt to
hasten her fall by apparent respect. Virtue, and pleasure are not,
in fact, so nearly allied in this life as some eloquent writers
have laboured to prove. Pleasure prepares the fading wreath, and
mixes the intoxicating cup; but the fruit which virtue gives, is
the recompence of toil: and, gradually seen as it ripens, only
affords calm satisfaction; nay, appearing to be the result of the
natural tendency of things, it is scarcely observed. Bread, the
common food of life, seldom thought of as a blessing, supports the
constitution, and preserves health; still feasts delight the heart
of man, though disease and even death lurk in the cup or dainty
that elevates the spirits or tickles the palate. The lively heated
imagination in the same style, draws the picture of love, as it
draws every other picture, with those glowing colours, which the
daring hand will steal from the rainbow that is directed by a mind,
condemned, in a world like this, to prove its noble origin, by
panting after unattainable perfection; ever pursuing what it
acknowledges to be a fleeting dream. An imagination of this
vigorous cast can give existence to insubstantial forms, and
stability to the shadowy reveries which the mind naturally falls
into when realities are found vapid. It can then depict love with
celestial charms, and dote on the grand ideal object; it can
imagine a degree of mutual affection that shall refine the soul,
and not expire when it has served as a "scale to heavenly;" and,
like devotion, make it absorb every meaner affection and desire.
In each other's arms, as in a temple, with its summit lost in the
clouds, the world is to be shut out, and every thought and wish,
that do not nurture pure affection and permanent virtue. Permanent
virtue! alas! Rousseau, respectable visionary! thy paradise would
soon be violated by the entrance of some unexpected guest. Like
Milton's, it would only contain angels, or men sunk below the
dignity of rational creatures. Happiness is not material, it
cannot be seen or felt! Yet the eager pursuit of the good which
every one shapes to his own fancy, proclaims man the lord of this
lower world, and to be an intelligential creature, who is not to
receive, but acquire happiness. They, therefore, who complain of
the delusions of passion, do not recollect that they are exclaiming
against a strong proof of the immortality of the soul.

But, leaving superior minds to correct themselves, and pay dearly
for their experience, it is necessary to observe, that it is not
against strong, persevering passions; but romantic, wavering
feelings, that I wish to guard the female heart by exercising the
understanding; for these paradisiacal reveries are oftener the
effect of idleness than of a lively fancy.

Women have seldom sufficient serious employment to silence their
feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits, frittering
away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only
objects of sense. In short, the whole tenor of female education
(the education of society) tends to render the best disposed,
romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean. In the
present state of society, this evil can scarcely be remedied, I am
afraid, in the slightest degree; should a more laudable ambition
ever gain ground, they may be brought nearer to nature and reason,
and become more virtuous and useful as they grow more respectable.

But I will venture to assert, that their reason will never acquire
sufficient strength to enable it to regulate their conduct, whilst
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the making an appearance in the world is the first wish of the
majority of mankind. To this weak wish the natural affections and
the most useful virtues are sacrificed. Girls marry merely to
BETTER THEMSELVES, to borrow a significant vulgar phrase, and have
such perfect power over their hearts as not to permit themselves to
FALL IN LOVE till a man with a superior fortune offers. On this
subject I mean to enlarge in a future chapter; it is only necessary
to drop a hint at present, because women are so often degraded by
suffering the selfish prudence of age to chill the ardour of youth.

>From the same source flows an opinion that young girls ought to
dedicate great part of their time to needle work; yet, this
employment contracts their faculties more than any other that could
have been chosen for them, by confining their thoughts to their
persons. Men order their clothes to be made, and have done with
the subject; women make their own clothes, necessary or ornamental,
and are continually talking about them; and their thoughts follow
their hands. It is not indeed the making of necessaries that
weakens the mind; but the frippery of dress. For when a woman in
the lower rank of life makes her husband's and children's clothes,
she does her duty, this is part of her business; but when women
work only to dress better than they could otherwise afford, it is
worse than sheer loss of time. To render the poor virtuous, they
must be employed, and women in the middle rank of life did they not
ape the fashions of the nobility, without catching their ease,
might employ them, whilst they themselves managed their families,
instructed their children, and exercised their own minds.
Gardening, experimental philosophy, and literature, would afford
them subjects to think of, and matter for conversation, that in
some degree would exercise their understandings. The conversation
of French women, who are not so rigidly nailed to their chairs, to
twist lappets, and knot ribbands, is frequently superficial; but, I
contend, that it is not half so insipid as that of those English
women, whose time is spent in making caps, bonnets, and the whole
mischief of trimmings, not to mention shopping, bargain-hunting,
etc. etc.: and it is the decent, prudent women, who are most
degraded by these practices; for their motive is simply vanity.
The wanton, who exercises her taste to render her person alluring,
has something more in view.

These observations all branch out of a general one, which I have
before made, and which cannot be too often insisted upon, for,
speaking of men, women, or professions, it will be found, that the
employment of the thoughts shapes the character both generally and
individually. The thoughts of women ever hover around their
persons, and is it surprising that their persons are reckoned most
valuable? Yet some degree of liberty of mind is necessary even to
form the person; and this may be one reason why some gentle wives
have so few attractions beside that of sex. Add to this, sedentary
employments render the majority of women sickly, and false notions
of female excellence make them proud of this delicacy, though it be
another fetter, that by calling the attention continually to the
body, cramps the activity of the mind.

Women of quality seldom do any of the manual part of their dress,
consequently only their taste is exercised, and they acquire, by
thinking less of the finery, when the business of their toilet is
over, that ease, which seldom appears in the deportment of women,
who dress merely for the sake of dressing. In fact, the
observation with respect to the middle rank, the one in which
talents thrive best, extends not to women; for those of the
superior class, by catching, at least a smattering of literature,
and conversing more with men, on general topics, acquire more
knowledge than the women who ape their fashions and faults without
sharing their advantages. With respect to virtue, to use the word
in a comprehensive sense, I have seen most in low life. Many poor
women maintain their children by the sweat of their brow, and keep
together families that the vices of the fathers would have
scattered abroad; but gentlewomen are too indolent to be actively
virtuous, and are softened rather than refined by civilization.
Indeed the good sense which I have met with among the poor women
274
who have had few advantages of education, and yet have acted
heroically, strongly confirmed me in the opinion, that trifling
employments have rendered women a trifler. Men, taking her ('I
take her body,' says Ranger.) body, the mind is left to rust; so
that while physical love enervates man, as being his favourite
recreation, he will endeavour to enslave woman: and who can tell
how many generations may be necessary to give vigour to the virtue
and talents of the freed posterity of abject slaves? ('Supposing
that women are voluntary slaves--slavery of any kind is
unfavourable to human happiness and improvement.'--'Knox's
Essays'.)

In tracing the causes that in my opinion, have degraded woman, I
have confined my observations to such as universally act upon the
morals and manners of the whole sex, and to me it appears clear,
that they all spring from want of understanding. Whether this
arises from a physical or accidental weakness of faculties, time
alone can determine; for I shall not lay any great stress upon the
example of a few women (Sappho, Eloisa, Mrs. Macaulay, the Empress
of Russia, Madame d'Eon, etc. These, and many more, may be
reckoned exceptions; and, are not all heroes, as well as heroines,
exceptions to general rules? I wish to see women neither heroines
nor brutes; but reasonable creatures.) who, from having received a
masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution; I only
contend that the men who have been placed in similar situations
have acquired a similar character, I speak of bodies of men, and
that men of genius and talents have started out of a class, in
which women have never yet been placed.

CHAPTER 6.

THE EFFECT WHICH AN EARLY ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS HAS UPON THE
CHARACTER.

Educated in the enervating style recommended by the writers on whom
I have been animadverting; and not having a chance, from their
subordinate state in society, to recover their lost ground, is it
surprising that women every where appear a defect in nature? Is it
surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early
association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their
understandings, and turn all their attention to their persons?

The great advantages which naturally result from storing the mind
with knowledge, are obvious from the following considerations. The
association of our ideas is either habitual or instantaneous; and
the latter mode seems rather to depend on the original temperature
of the mind than on the will. When the ideas, and matters of fact,
are once taken in, they lie by for use, till some fortuitous
circumstance makes the information dart into the mind with
illustrative force, that has been received at very different
periods of our lives. Like the lightning's flash are many
recollections; one idea assimilating and explaining another, with
astonishing rapidity. I do not now allude to that quick perception
of truth, which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes
us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or
ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark
275
cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power;
for when the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights, or
profound reflection, the raw materials, will, in some degree,
arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us
from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe
from the imagination the warm sketches of fancy; but the animal
spirits, the individual character give the colouring. Over this
subtile electric fluid,* how little power do we possess, and over
it how little power can reason obtain! These fine intractable
spirits appear to be the essence of genius, and beaming in its
eagle eye, produce in the most eminent degree the happy energy of
associating thoughts that surprise, delight, and instruct. These
are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their
fellow-creatures; forcing them to view with interest the objects
reflected from the impassioned imagination, which they passed over
in nature.

(*Footnote. I have sometimes, when inclined to laugh at
materialists, asked whether, as the most powerful effects in nature
are apparently produced by fluids, the magnetic, etc. the passions
might not be fine volatile fluids that embraced humanity, keeping
the more refractory elementary parts together--or whether they were
simply a liquid fire that pervaded the more sluggish materials
giving them life and heat?)

I must be allowed to explain myself. The generality of people
cannot see or feel poetically, they want fancy, and therefore fly
from solitude in search of sensible objects; but when an author
lends them his eyes, they can see as he saw, and be amused by
images they could not select, though lying before them.

Education thus only supplies the man of genius with knowledge to
give variety and contrast to his associations; but there is an
habitual association of ideas, that grows "with our growth," which
has a great effect on the moral character of mankind; and by which
a turn is given to the mind, that commonly remains throughout life.
So ductile is the understanding, and yet so stubborn, that the
associations which depend on adventitious circumstances, during the
period that the body takes to arrive at maturity, can seldom be
disentangled by reason. One idea calls up another, its old
associate, and memory, faithful to the first impressions,
particularly when the intellectual powers are not employed to cool
our sensations, retraces them with mechanical exactness.

This habitual slavery, to first impressions, has a more baneful
276
effect on the female than the male character, because business and
other dry employments of the understanding, tend to deaden the
feelings and break associations that do violence to reason. But
females, who are made women of when they are mere children, and
brought back to childhood when they ought to leave the go-cart
forever, have not sufficient strength of mind to efface the
superinductions of art that have smothered nature.

Every thing that they see or hear serves to fix impressions, call
forth emotions, and associate ideas, that give a sexual character
to the mind. False notions of beauty and delicacy stop the growth
of their limbs and produce a sickly soreness, rather than delicacy
of organs; and thus weakened by being employed in unfolding instead
of examining the first associations, forced on them by every
surrounding object, how can they attain the vigour necessary to
enable them to throw off their factitious character?--where find
strength to recur to reason and rise superior to a system of
oppression, that blasts the fair promises of spring? This cruel
association of ideas, which every thing conspires to twist into all
their habits of thinking, or, to speak with more precision, of
feeling, receives new force when they begin to act a little for
themselves; for they then perceive, that it is only through their
address to excite emotions in men, that pleasure and power are to
be obtained. Besides, all the books professedly written for their
instruction, which make the first impression on their minds, all
inculcate the same opinions. Educated in worse than Egyptian
bondage, it is unreasonable, as well as cruel, to upbraid them with
faults that can scarcely be avoided, unless a degree of native
vigour be supposed, that falls to the lot of very few amongst
mankind.

For instance, the severest sarcasms have been levelled against the
sex, and they have been ridiculed for repeating "a set of phrases
learnt by rote," when nothing could be more natural, considering
the education they receive, and that their "highest praise is to
obey, unargued"--the will of man. If they are not allowed to have
reason sufficient to govern their own conduct--why, all they
learn--must be learned by rote! And when all their ingenuity is
called forth to adjust their dress, "a passion for a scarlet coat,"
is so natural, that it never surprised me; and, allowing Pope's
summary of their character to be just, "that every woman is at
heart a rake," why should they be bitterly censured for seeking a
congenial mind, and preferring a rake to a man of sense?

Rakes know how to work on their sensibility, whilst the modest
277
merit of reasonable men has, of course, less effect on their
feelings, and they cannot reach the heart by the way of the
understanding, because they have few sentiments in common.

It seems a little absurd to expect women to be more reasonable than
men in their LIKINGS, and still to deny them the uncontroled use of
reason. When do men FALL IN LOVE with sense? When do they, with
their superior powers and advantages, turn from the person to the
mind? And how can they then expect women, who are only taught to
observe behaviour, and acquire manners rather than morals, to
despise what they have been all their lives labouring to attain?
Where are they suddenly to find judgment enough to weigh patiently
the sense of an awkward virtuous man, when his manners, of which
they are made critical judges, are rebuffing, and his conversation
cold and dull, because it does not consist of pretty repartees, or
well-turned compliments? In order to admire or esteem any thing
for a continuance, we must, at least, have our curiosity excited by
knowing, in some degree, what we admire; for we are unable to
estimate the value of qualities and virtues above our
comprehension. Such a respect, when it is felt, may be very
sublime; and the confused consciousness of humility may render the
dependent creature an interesting object, in some points of view;
but human love must have grosser ingredients; and the person very
naturally will come in for its share--and, an ample share it mostly
has!

Love is, in a great degree, an arbitrary passion, and will reign
like some other stalking mischiefs, by its own authority, without
deigning to reason; and it may also be easily distinguished from
esteem, the foundation of friendship, because it is often excited
by evanescent beauties and graces, though to give an energy to the
sentiment something more solid must deepen their impression and set
the imagination to work, to make the most fair-- the first good.

Common passions are excited by common qualities. Men look for
beauty and the simper of good humoured docility: women are
captivated by easy manners: a gentleman-like man seldom fails to
please them, and their thirsty ears eagerly drink the insinuating
nothings of politeness, whilst they turn from the unintelligible
sounds of the charmer--reason, charm he never so wisely. With
respect to superficial accomplishments, the rake certainly has the
advantage; and of these, females can form an opinion, for it is
their own ground. Rendered gay and giddy by the whole tenor of
their lives, the very aspect of wisdom, or the severe graces of
virtue must have a lugubrious appearance to them; and produce a
278
kind of restraint from which they and love, sportive child,
naturally revolt. Without taste, excepting of the lighter kind,
for taste is the offspring of judgment, how can they discover, that
true beauty and grace must arise from the play of the mind? and how
can they be expected to relish in a lover what they do not, or very
imperfectly, possess themselves? The sympathy that unites hearts,
and invites to confidence, in them is so very faint, that it cannot
take fire, and thus mount to passion. No, I repeat it, the love
cherished by such minds, must have grosser fuel!

The inference is obvious; till women are led to exercise their
understandings, they should not be satirized for their attachment
to rakes; nor even for being rakes at heart, when it appears to be
the inevitable consequence of their education. They who live to
please must find their enjoyments, their happiness, in pleasure!
It is a trite, yet true remark, that we never do any thing well,
unless we love it for its own sake.

Supposing, however, for a moment, that women were, in some future
revolution of time, to become, what I sincerely wish them to be,
even love would acquire more serious dignity, and be purified in
its own fires; and virtue giving true delicacy to their affections,
they would turn with disgust from a rake. Reasoning then, as well
as feeling, the only province of woman, at present, they might
easily guard against exterior graces, and quickly learn to despise
the sensibility that had been excited and hackneyed in the ways of
women, whose trade was vice; and allurement's wanton airs. They
would recollect that the flame, (one must use appropriate
expressions,) which they wished to light up, had been exhausted by
lust, and that the sated appetite, losing all relish for pure and
simple pleasures, could only be roused by licentious arts of
variety. What satisfaction could a woman of delicacy promise
herself in a union with such a man, when the very artlessness of
her affection might appear insipid? Thus does Dryden describe the
situation:

"Where love is duty on the female side,
On theirs mere sensual gust, and sought with surly pride."

But one grand truth women have yet to learn, though much it imports
them to act accordingly. In the choice of a husband they should
not be led astray by the qualities of a lover--for a lover the
husband, even supposing him to be wise and virtuous, cannot long
remain.

279
Were women more rationally educated, could they take a more
comprehensive view of things, they would be contented to love but
once in their lives; and after marriage calmly let passion subside
into friendship--into that tender intimacy, which is the best
refuge from care; yet is built on such pure, still affections, that
idle jealousies would not be allowed to disturb the discharge of
the sober duties of life, nor to engross the thoughts that ought to
be otherwise employed. This is a state in which many men live; but
few, very few women. And the difference may easily be accounted
for, without recurring to a sexual character. Men, for whom we are
told women are made, have too much occupied the thoughts of women;
and this association has so entangled love, with all their motives
of action; and, to harp a little on an old string, having been
solely employed either to prepare themselves to excite love, or
actually putting their lessons in practice, they cannot live
without love. But, when a sense of duty, or fear of shame, obliges
them to restrain this pampered desire of pleasing beyond certain
lengths, too far for delicacy, it is true, though far from
criminality, they obstinately determine to love, I speak of their
passion, their husbands to the end of the chapter--and then acting
the part which they foolishly exacted from their lovers, they
become abject wooers, and fond slaves.

Men of wit and fancy are often rakes; and fancy is the food of
love. Such men will inspire passion. Half the sex, in its present
infantine state, would pine for a Lovelace; a man so witty, so
graceful, and so valiant; and can they DESERVE blame for acting
according to principles so constantly inculcated? They want a
lover and protector: and behold him kneeling before them--bravery
prostrate to beauty! The virtues of a husband are thus thrown by
love into the background, and gay hopes, or lively emotions, banish
reflection till the day of reckoning comes; and come it surely
will, to turn the sprightly lover into a surly suspicious tyrant,
who contemptuously insults the very weakness he fostered. Or,
supposing the rake reformed, he cannot quickly get rid of old
habits. When a man of abilities is first carried away by his
passions, it is necessary that sentiment and taste varnish the
enormities of vice, and give a zest to brutal indulgences: but when
the gloss of novelty is worn off, and pleasure palls upon the
sense, lasciviousness becomes barefaced, and enjoyment only the
desperate effort of weakness flying from reflection as from a
legion of devils. Oh! virtue, thou art not an empty name! All
that life can give-- thou givest!

If much comfort cannot be expected from the friendship of a
280
reformed rake of superior abilities, what is the consequence when
he lacketh sense, as well as principles? Verily misery in its most
hideous shape. When the habits of weak people are consolidated by
time, a reformation is barely possible; and actually makes the
beings miserable who have not sufficient mind to be amused by
innocent pleasure; like the tradesman who retires from the hurry of
business, nature presents to them only a universal blank; and the
restless thoughts prey on the damped spirits. Their reformation as
well as his retirement actually makes them wretched, because it
deprives them of all employment, by quenching the hopes and fears
that set in motion their sluggish minds.

If such be the force of habit; if such be the bondage of folly, how
carefully ought we to guard the mind from storing up vicious
associations; and equally careful should we be to cultivate the
understanding, to save the poor wight from the weak dependent state
of even harmless ignorance. For it is the right use of reason
alone which makes us independent of every thing--excepting the
unclouded Reason--"Whose service is perfect freedom."
281

394. We Are Seven

William Wordsworth (17701850)


A SIMPLE Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:
5
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
10
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
Her beauty made me glad.

Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?
How many? Seven in all, she said,
15
And wondering looked at me.

And where are they? I pray you tell.
She answered, Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.
20

Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.

You say that two at Conway dwell,
25
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven!I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.

282
Then did the little Maid reply,
Seven boys and girls are we;
30
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.

You run above, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
35
Then ye are only five.

Their graves are green, they may be seen,
The little Maid replied,
Twelve steps or more from my mothers door,
And they are side by side.
40

My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

And often after sun-set, Sir,
45
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
50
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
55
My brother John and I

And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.
60

How many are you, then, said I,
283
If they two are in heaven?
Quick was the little Maids reply,
O Master! we are seven.

But they are dead; those two are dead!
65
Their spirits are in heaven!
Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, Nay, we are seven!

LINES
COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING
THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798
FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 20
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:--feelings too 30
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
284
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world, 40
Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,--
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft-- 50
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 60
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man 70
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.--I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love, 80
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 90
285
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels 100
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 110
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once, 120
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 130
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 140
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--
286
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream 150
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
1798.
287

CCLIII. The Daffodils

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
5
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
10
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.


The waves beside them danced, but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay
15
In such a jocund company!

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:


For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
20
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

288

CCXIX. Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman

IN the sweet shire of Cardigan,

Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,

An old man dwells, a little man

I've heard he once was tall.

Full five-and-thirty years he lived
5
A running huntsman merry;

And still the centre of his cheek

Is red as a ripe cherry.


No man like him the horn could sound,

And hill and valley rang with glee
10
When Echo bandied, round and round,

The halloo of Simon Lee.

In those proud days he little cared

For husbandry or tillage;

To blither tasks did Simon rouse
15
The sleepers of the village.


He all the country could outrun,

Could leave both man and horse behind;

And often, ere the chase was done,

He reel'd and was stone-blind.
20
And still there's something in the world

At which his heart rejoices;

For when the chiming hounds are out,

He dearly loves their voices.


But oh, the heavy change!bereft
25
Of health, strength, friends and kindred, see!

Old Simon to the world is left

In liveried poverty:

His master's dead, and no one now

Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;
30
Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead

He is the sole survivor.


And he is lean, and he is sick,

His body, dwindled and awry,

289
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
35
His legs are thin and dry.

He has no son, he has no child;

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall,

Upon the village common.
40

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,

Not twenty paces from the door,

A scrap of land they have, but they

Are poorest of the poor.

This scrap of land he from the heath
45
Enclosed when he was stronger;

But what avails the land to them

Which he can till no longer?


Oft, working by her husband's side,

Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
50
For she, with scanty cause for pride,

Is stouter of the two.

And though you with your utmost skill

From labour could not wean them,

'Tis little, very little, all
55
That they can do between them.


Few months of life has he in store

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more

Do his weak ankles swell.
60
My gentle Reader, I perceive

How patiently you've waited,

And now I fear that you expect

Some tale will be related.


O Reader! had you in your mind
65
Such stores as silent thought can bring,

O gentle Reader! you would find

A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,

And you must kindly take it.
70
It is no tale; but, should you think,

Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

290

One summer day I chanced to see

This old man doing all he could

To unearth the root of an old tree,
75
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock totter'd in his hand;

So vain was his endeavour

That at the root of the old tree

He might have work'd for ever.
80

"You're overtask'd, good Simon Lee,

Give me your tool," to him I said;

And at the word right gladly he

Received my proffer'd aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
85
The tangled root I sever'd,

At which the poor old man so long

And vainly had endeavour'd.


The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seem'd to run
90
So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men
95
Has oftener left me mourning.



291
Preface to Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth (1800)


THE FIRST volume of these Poems has already been submitted to general perusal. It was
published, as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by
fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid
sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may
rationally endeavour to impart. 1
I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect of those Poems: I flattered
myself that they who should be pleased with them would read them with more than common
pleasure: and, on the other hand, I was well aware, that by those who should dislike them, they
would be read with more than common dislike. The result has differed from my expectation in
this only, that a greater number have been pleased than I ventured to hope I should please.
2
Several of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems, from a belief, that, if the
views with which they were composed were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be
produced, well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the quality, and
in the multiplicity of its moral relations: and on this account they have advised me to prefix a
systematic defence of the theory upon which the Poems were written. But I was unwilling to
undertake the task, knowing that on this occasion the Reader would look coldly upon my
arguments, since I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by the selfish and
foolish hope of reasoning him into an approbation of these particular Poems: and I was still more
unwilling to undertake the task, because, adequately to display the opinions, and fully to enforce
the arguments, would require a space wholly disproportionate to a preface. For, to treat the
subject with the clearness and coherence of which it is susceptible, it would be necessary to give
a full account of the present state of the public taste in this country, and to determine how far this
taste is healthy or depraved; which, again, could not be determined, without pointing out in what
manner language and the human mind act and re-act on each other, and without retracing the
revolutions, not of literature alone, but likewise of society itself. I have therefore altogether
declined to enter regularly upon this defence; yet I am sensible, that there would be something
like impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a few words of introduction,
Poems so materially different from those upon which general approbation is at present bestowed.
3
It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes a formal engagement that he
will gratify certain known habits of association; that he not only thus apprises the Reader that
certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be
carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held forth by metrical language must in different
eras of literature have excited very different expectations: for example, in the age of Catullus,
Terence, and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian; and in our own country, in the age of
Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher, and that of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. I
will not take upon me to determine the exact import of the promise which, by the act of writing
in verse, an Author in the present day makes to his reader: but it will undoubtedly appear to
many persons that I have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily contracted.
They who have been accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern
292
writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will, no doubt, frequently have to
struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will
be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that
title. I hope therefore the reader will not censure me for attempting to state what I have proposed
to myself to perform; and also (as far as the limits of a preface will permit) to explain some of
the chief reasons which have determined me in the choice of my purpose: that at least he may be
spared any unpleasant feeling of disappointment, and that I myself may be protected from one of
the most dishonourable accusations which can be brought against an Author, namely, that of an
indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to ascertain what is his duty, or, when his duty
is ascertained, prevents him from performing it. 4
The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from
common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of
language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of
imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and,
further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly
though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in
which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen,
because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can
attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language;
because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity,
and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated;
because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the
necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable;
and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and
permanent forms of nature. The language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed
from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust)
because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of
language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and
narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey
their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language,
arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more
philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that
they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate
themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of
expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation. 1
5
I cannot, however, be insensible to the present outcry against the triviality and meanness, both
of thought and language, which some of my contemporaries have occasionally introduced into
their metrical compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect, where it exists, is more
dishonourable to the Writers own character than false refinement or arbitrary innovation, though
I should contend at the same time, that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its consequences.
From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least by one mark of
difference, that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not that I always began to write with a
distinct purpose formerly conceived; but habits of meditation have, I trust, so prompted and
regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will
be found to carry along with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous, I can have little right
293
to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and
though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any
variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had
also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by
our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings; and, as by
contemplating the relation of these general representatives to each other, we discover what is
really important to men, so, by the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be
connected with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally possessed of much
sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by obeying blindly and mechanically the
impulses of those habits, we shall describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a nature, and in
such connexion with each other, that the understanding of the Reader must necessarily be in
some degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified. 6
It has been said that each of these poems has a purpose. Another circumstance must be
mentioned which distinguishes these Poems from the popular Poetry of the day; it is this, that the
feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and
situation to the feeling. 7
A sense of false modesty shall not prevent me from asserting, that the Readers attention is
pointed to this mark of distinction, far less for the sake of these particular Poems than from the
general importance of the subject. The subject is indeed important! For the human mind is
capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must
have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this, and who does not
further know, that one being is elevated above another, in proportion as he possesses this
capability. It has therefore appeared to me, that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability
is one of the best services in which, at any period, a Writer can be engaged; but this service,
excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes, unknown to
former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the
mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.
The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and
the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces
a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly
gratifies. to this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the
country have conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said
the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid
German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.When I think upon this
degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoken of the feeble
endeavour made in these volumes to counteract it; and, reflecting upon the magnitude of the
general evil, I should be oppressed with no dishonourable melancholy, had I not a deep
impression of certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the human mind, and likewise of
certain powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it, which are equally inherent and
indestructible; and were there not added to this impression a belief, that the time is approaching
when the evil will be systematically opposed, by men of greater powers, and with far more
distinguished success. 8
Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these Poems, I shall request the Readers
permission to apprise him of a few circumstances relating to their style, in order, among other
reasons, that he may not censure me for not having performed what I never attempted. The
Reader will find that personifications of abstract ideas rarely occur in these volumes; and are
294
utterly rejected, as an ordinary device to elevate the style, and raise it above prose. My purpose
was to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men; and assuredly such
personifications do not make any natural or regular part of that language. They are, indeed, a
figure of speech occasionally prompted by passion, and I have made use of them as such; but
have endeavoured utterly to reject them as a mechanical device of style, or as a family language
which Writers in metre seem to lay claim to by prescription. I have wished to keep the Reader in
the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him. Others who
pursue a different track will interest him likewise; I do not interfere with their claim, but wish to
prefer a claim of my own. There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually
called poetic diction; as much pains has been taken to avoid it as is ordinarily taken to produce it;
this has been done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of
men; and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart, is of a kind
very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry.
Without being culpably particular, I do not know how to give my Reader a more exact notion of
the style in which it was my wish and intention to write, than by informing him that I have at all
times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject; consequently, there is I hope in these Poems
little falsehood of description, and my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective
importance. Something must have been gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of
all good poetry, namely, good sense: but it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of
phrases and figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded as the common
inheritance of Poets. I have also thought it expedient to restrict myself still further, having
abstained from the use of many expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have
been foolishly repeated by bad Poets, till such feelings of disgust are connected with them as it is
scarcely possible by any art of association to overpower. 9
If in a poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language,
though naturally arranged, and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of
prose, there is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms, as they
call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a
man ignorant of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of criticism which
the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject, if he wishes to be pleased with these volumes.
and it would be a most easy task to prove to him, that not only the language of a large portion of
every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to
the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most
interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose when prose
is well written. The truth of this assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable passages from
almost all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself. to illustrate the subject in a general
manner, I will here adduce a short composition of Gray, who was at the head of those who, by
their reasonings, have attempted to widen the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical
composition, and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of his own
poetic diction.
In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And reddening Phbus lifts his golden fire:
The birds in vain their amorous descant join,
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire.
These ears, alas! for other notes repine;
A different object do these eyes require;
295
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire;
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their little loves the birds complain.
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.
10
It will easily be perceived, that the only part of this Sonnet which is of any value is the lines
printed in Italics; it is equally obvious, that, except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single
word fruitless for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these lines does in no
respect differ from that of prose. 11
By the foregoing quotation it has been shown that the language of Prose may yet be well
adapted to Poetry; and it was previously asserted, that a large portion of the language of every
good poem can in no respect differ from that of good Prose. We will go further. It may be safely
affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose
and metrical composition. We are fond of tracing the resemblance between Poetry and Painting,
and, accordingly, we call them Sisters: but where shall we find bonds of connexion sufficiently
strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and prose composition? They both speak by and to
the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the same
substance, their affections are kindred, and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in
degree; Poetry 2 sheds no tears such as Angels weep, but natural and human tears; she can
boast of no celestial choir that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human
blood circulates through the veins of them both. 12
If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical arrangement of themselves constitute a distinction
which overturns what has just been said on the strict affinity of metrical language with that of
prose, and paves the way for other artificial distinctions which the mind voluntarily admits, I
answer that the language of such Poetry as is here recommended is, as far as is possible, a
selection of the language really spoken by men; that this selection, wherever it is made with true
taste and feeling, will of itself form a distinction far greater than would at first be imagined, and
will entirely separate the composition from the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life; and, if
metre be superadded thereto, I believe that a dissimilitude will be produced altogether sufficient
for the gratification of a rational mind. What other distinction would we have? Whence is it to
come? and where is it to exist? Not, surely, where the Poet speaks through the mouths of his
characters: it cannot be necessary here, either for elevation of style, or any of its supposed
ornaments: for, if the Poets subject be judiciously chosen, it will naturally, and upon fit
occasion, lead him to passions the language of which, if selected truly and judiciously, must
necessarily be dignified and variegated, and alive with metaphors and figures. I forbear to speak
of an incongruity which would shock the intelligent Reader, should the Poet interweave any
foreign splendour of his own with that which the passion naturally suggests: it is sufficient to say
that such addition is unnecessary. and, surely, it is more probable that those passages, which with
propriety abound with metaphors and figures, will have their due effect, if, upon other occasions
where the passions are of a milder character, the style also be subdued and temperate. 13
But, as the pleasure which I hope to give by the Poems now presented to the Reader must
depend entirely on just notions upon this subject, and, as it is in itself of high importance to our
296
taste and moral feelings, I cannot content myself with these detached remarks. and if, in what I
am about to say, it shall appear to some that my labour is unnecessary, and that I am like a man
fighting a battle without enemies, such persons may be reminded, that, whatever be the language
outwardly holden by men, a practical faith in the opinions which I am wishing to establish is
almost unknown. If my conclusions are admitted, and carried as far as they must be carried if
admitted at all, our judgements concerning the works of the greatest Poets both ancient and
modern will be far different from what they are at present, both when we praise, and when we
censure: and our moral feelings influencing and influenced by these judgements will, I believe,
be corrected and purified. 14
Taking up the subject, then, upon general grounds, let me ask, what is meant by the word Poet?
What is a Poet? to whom does he address himself? and what language is to be expected from
him?He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility,
more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more
comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his
own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in
him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of
the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them. to these
qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if
they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from
being the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general
sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by
real events, than anything which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are
accustomed to feel in themselves: whence, and from practice, he has acquired a greater
readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those thoughts and
feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without
immediate external excitement. 15
But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest Poet to possess, there
cannot be a doubt that the language which it will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and
truth, fall short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual pressure of those
passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus produces, or feels to be produced, in himself.
16
However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of a Poet, it is obvious, that
while he describes and imitates passions, his employment is in some degree mechanical,
compared with the freedom and power of real and substantial action and suffering. So that it will
be the wish of the Poet to bring his feelings near to those of the persons whose feelings he
describes, nay, for short spaces of time, perhaps, to let himself slip into an entire delusion, and
even confound and identify his own feelings with theirs; modifying only the language which is
thus suggested to him by a consideration that he describes for a particular purpose, that of giving
pleasure. Here, then, he will apply the principle of selection which has been already insisted
upon. He will depend upon this for removing what would otherwise be painful or disgusting in
the passion; he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or to elevate nature: and, the more
industriously he applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith that no words, which his fancy
or imagination can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are the emanations of
reality and truth. 17
But it may be said by those who do not object to the general spirit of these remarks, that, as it is
impossible for the Poet to produce upon all occasions language as exquisitely fitted for the
297
passion as that which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he should consider himself
as in the situation of a translator, who does not scruple to substitute excellencies of another kind
for those which are unattainable by him; and endeavours occasionally to surpass his original, in
order to make some amends for the general inferiority to which he feels that he must submit. But
this would be to encourage idleness and unmanly despair. Further, it is the language of men who
speak of what they do not understand; who talk of Poetry as of a matter of amusement and idle
pleasure; who will converse with us as gravely about a taste for Poetry, as they express it, as if it
were a thing as indifferent as a taste for rope-dancing, or Frontiniac or Sherry. Aristotle, I have
been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its object is truth,
not individual and local, but general, and operative; not standing upon external testimony, but
carried alive into the heart by passion; truth which is its own testimony, which gives competence
and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal.
Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the
Biographer and Historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those
which are to be encountered by the Poet who comprehends the dignity of his art. The Poet writes
under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being
possessed of that information which may be expected from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a
mariner, an astronomer, or a natural philosopher, but as a Man. Except this one restriction, there
is no object standing between the Poet and the image of things; between this, and the Biographer
and Historian, there are a thousand. 18
Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be considered as a degradation of the
Poets art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe, an
acknowledgement the more sincere, because not formal, but indirect; it is a task light and easy to
him who looks at the world in the spirit of love: further, it is a homage paid to the native and
naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and
feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is propagated by pleasure: I would
not be misunderstood; but wherever we sympathize with pain, it will be found that the sympathy
is produced and carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. We have no knowledge, that is,
no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built
up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The Man of science, the Chemist and
Mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they may have had to struggle with, know and
feel this. However painful may be the objects with which the Anatomists knowledge is
connected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure he has no
knowledge. What then does the Poet? He considers man and the objects that surround him as
acting and re-acting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and
pleasure; he considers man in his own nature and in his ordinary life as contemplating this with a
certain quantity of immediate knowledge, with certain convictions, intuitions, and deductions,
which from habit acquire the quality of intuitions; he considers him as looking upon this
complex scene of ideas and sensations, and finding everywhere objects that immediately excite
in him sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are accompanied by an overbalance
of enjoyment. 19
To this knowledge which all men carry about with them, and to these sympathies in which,
without any other discipline than that of our daily life, we are fitted to take delight, the Poet
principally directs his attention. He considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each
other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of
nature. and thus the Poet, prompted by this feeling of pleasure, which accompanies him through
298
the whole course of his studies, converses with general nature, with affections akin to those,
which, through labour and length of time, the Man of science has raised up in himself, by
conversing with those particular parts of nature which are the objects of his studies. The
knowledge both of the Poet and the Man of science is pleasure; but the knowledge of the one
cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable inheritance; the
other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to come to us, and by no habitual and direct
sympathy connecting us with our fellow-beings. The Man of science seeks truth as a remote and
unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which
all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly
companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned
expression which is in the countenance of all Science. Emphatically may it be said of the Poet, as
Shakespeare hath said of man, that he looks before and after. He is the rock of defence for
human nature; an upholder and preserver, carrying everywhere with him relationship and love. In
spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs: in spite of
things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed; the Poet binds together by
passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth,
and over all time. The objects of the Poets thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses
of man are, it is true, his favourite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an
atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all
knowledgeit is as immortal as the heart of man. If the labours of Men of science should ever
create any material revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which
we habitually receive, the Poet will sleep then no more than at present; he will be ready to follow
the steps of the Man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his
side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The remotest
discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poets
art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall
be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of these
respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering
beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men,
shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit
to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine
inmate of the household of man.It is not, then, to be supposed that any one, who holds that
sublime notion of Poetry which I have attempted to convey, will break in upon the sanctity and
truth of his pictures by transitory and accidental ornaments, and endeavour to excite admiration
of himself by arts, the necessity of which must manifestly depend upon the assumed meanness of
his subject. 20
What has been thus far said applies to Poetry in general; but especially to those parts of
composition where the Poet speaks through the mouths of his characters; and upon this point it
appears to authorize the conclusion that there are few persons of good sense, who would not
allow that the dramatic parts of composition are defective, in proportion as they deviate from the
real language of nature, and are coloured by a diction of the Poets own, either peculiar to him as
an individual Poet or belonging simply to Poets in general; to a body of men who, from the
circumstance of their compositions being in metre, it is expected will employ a particular
language. 21
It is not, then, in the dramatic parts of composition that we look for this distinction of language;
but still it may be proper and necessary where the Poet speaks to us in his own person and
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character. to this I answer by referring the Reader to the description before given of a Poet.
Among the qualities there enumerated as principally conducing to form a Poet, is implied
nothing differing in kind from other men, but only in degree. The sum of what was said is, that
the Poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel
without immediate external excitement, and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and
feelings as are produced in him in that manner. But these passions and thoughts and feelings are
the general passions and thoughts and feelings of men. and with what are they connected?
Undoubtedly with our moral sentiments and animal sensations, and with the causes which excite
these; with the operations of the elements, and the appearances of the visible universe; with
storm and sunshine, with the revolutions of the seasons, with cold and heat, with loss of friends
and kindred, with injuries and resentments, gratitude and hope, with fear and sorrow. These, and
the like, are the sensations and objects which the Poet describes, as they are the sensations of
other men, and the objects which interest them. The Poet thinks and feels in the spirit of human
passions. How, then, can his language differ in any material degree from that of all other men
who feel vividly and see clearly? It might be proved that it is impossible. But supposing that this
were not the case, the Poet might then be allowed to use a peculiar language when expressing his
feelings for his own gratification, or that of men like himself. But Poets do not write for Poets
alone, but for men. Unless therefore we are advocates for that admiration which subsists upon
ignorance, and that pleasure which arises from hearing what we do not understand, the Poet must
descend from this supposed height; and, in order to excite rational sympathy, he must express
himself as other men express themselves. to this it may be added, that while he is only selecting
from the real language of men, or, which amounts to the same thing, composing accurately in the
spirit of such selection, he is treading upon safe ground, and we know what we are to expect
from him. Our feelings are the same with respect to metre; for, as it may be proper to remind the
Reader, the distinction of metre is regular and uniform, and not, like that which is produced by
what is usually called POETIC DICTION, arbitrary, and subject to infinite caprices upon which
no calculation whatever can be made. In the one case, the Reader is utterly at the mercy of the
Poet, respecting what imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion; whereas, in
the other, the metre obeys certain laws, to which the Poet and Reader both willingly submit
because they are certain, and because no interference is made by them with the passion, but such
as the concurring testimony of ages has shown to heighten and improve the pleasure which co-
exists with it. 22
It will now be proper to answer an obvious question, namely, Why, professing these opinions,
have I written in verse? to this, in addition to such answer as is included in what has been already
said, I reply, in the first place, because however I may have restricted myself, there is still left
open to me what confessedly constitutes the most valuable object of all writing, whether in prose
or verse; the great and universal passions of men, the most general and interesting of their
occupations, and the entire world of nature before meto supply endless combinations of forms
and imagery. Now, supposing for a moment that whatever is interesting in these objects may be
as vividly described in prose, why should I be condemned for attempting to superadd to such
description the charm which, by the consent of all nations, is acknowledged to exist in metrical
language? to this, by such as are yet unconvinced, it may be answered that a very small part of
the pleasure given by Poetry depends upon the metre, and that it is injudicious to write in metre,
unless it be accompanied with the other artificial distinctions of style with which metre is usually
accompanied, and that, by such deviation, more will be lost from the shock which will thereby be
given to the Readers associations than will be counterbalanced by any pleasure which he can
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derive from the general power of numbers. In answer to those who still contend for the necessity
of accompanying metre with certain appropriate colours of style in order to the accomplishment
of its appropriate end, and who also, in my opinion, greatly underrate the power of metre in
itself, it might, perhaps, as far as relates to these Volumes, have been almost sufficient to
observe, that poems are extant, written upon more humble subjects, and in a still more naked and
simple style, which have continued to give pleasure from generation to generation. Now, if
nakedness and simplicity be a defect, the fact here mentioned affords a strong presumption that
poems somewhat less naked and simple are capable of affording pleasure at the present day; and,
what I wish chiefly to attempt, at present, was to justify myself for having written under the
impression of this belief. 23
But various causes might be pointed out why, when the style is manly, and the subject of some
importance, words metrically arranged will long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind
as he who proves the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The end of Poetry is to
produce excitement in co-existence with an overbalance of pleasure; but, by the supposition,
excitement is an unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not, in that state,
succeed each other in accustomed order. If the words, however, by which this excitement is
produced be in themselves powerful, or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of
pain connected with them, there is some danger that the excitement may be carried beyond its
proper bounds. Now the co-presence of something regular, something to which the mind has
been accustomed in various moods and in a less excited state, cannot but have great efficacy in
tempering and restraining the passion by an intertexture of ordinary feeling, and of feeling not
strictly and necessarily connected with the passion. This is unquestionably true; and hence,
though the opinion will at first appear paradoxical, from the tendency of metre to divest
language, in a certain degree, of its reality, and thus to throw a sort of half-consciousness of
unsubstantial existence over the whole composition, there can be little doubt but that more
pathetic situations and sentiments, that is, those which have a greater proportion of pain
connected with them, may be endured in metrical composition, especially in rhyme, than in
prose. The metre of the old ballads is very artless; yet they contain many passages which would
illustrate this opinion; and, I hope, if the following Poems be attentively perused, similar
instances will be found in them. This opinion may be further illustrated by appealing to the
Readers own experience of the reluctance with which he comes to the reperusal of the
distressful parts of Clarissa Harlowe, or The Gamester; while Shakespeares writings, in the most
pathetic scenes, never act upon us, as pathetic, beyond the bounds of pleasurean effect which,
in a much greater degree than might at first be imagined, is to be ascribed to small, but continual
and regular impulses of pleasurable surprise from the metrical arrangement.On the other hand
(what it must be allowed will much more frequently happen) if the Poets words should be
incommensurate with the passion, and inadequate to raise the Reader to a height of desirable
excitement, then (unless the Poets choice of his metre has been grossly injudicious), in the
feelings of pleasure which the Reader has been accustomed to connect with metre in general, and
in the feeling, whether cheerful or melancholy, which he has been accustomed to connect with
that particular movement of metre, there will be found something which will greatly contribute
to impart passion to the words, and to effect the complex end which the Poet proposes to himself.
24
If I had undertaken a SYSTEMATIC defence of the theory here maintained, it would have been
my duty to develop the various causes upon which the pleasure received from metrical language
depends. Among the chief of these causes is to be reckoned a principle which must be well
301
known to those who have made any of the Arts the object of accurate reflection; namely, the
pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude. This principle
is the great spring of the activity of our minds, and their chief feeder. From this principle the
direction of the sexual appetite, and all the passions connected with it, take their origin: it is the
life of our ordinary conversation; and upon the accuracy with which similitude in dissimilitude,
and dissimilitude in similitude are perceived, depend our taste and our moral feelings. It would
not be a useless employment to apply this principle to the consideration of metre, and to show
that metre is hence enabled to afford much pleasure, and to point out in what manner that
pleasure is produced. But my limits will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I must
content myself with a general summary. 25
I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the
tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood
successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the
emotion, of whatever kind, and in whatever degree, from various causes, is qualified by various
pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the
mind will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment. If Nature be thus cautious to preserve in a
state of enjoyment a being so employed, the Poet ought to profit by the lesson held forth to him,
and ought especially to take care, that, whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those
passions, if his Readers mind be sound and vigorous, should always be accompanied with an
overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty
overcome, and the blind association of pleasure which has been previously received from works
of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction, an indistinct perception perpetually
renewed of language closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre,
differing from it so widelyall these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which
is of the most important use in tempering the painful feeling always found intermingled with
powerful descriptions of the deeper passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and
impassioned poetry; while, in lighter compositions, the ease and gracefulness with which the
Poet manages his numbers are themselves confessedly a principal source of the gratification of
the Reader. All that it is necessary to say, however, upon this subject, may be effected by
affirming, what few persons will deny, that, of two descriptions, either of passions, manners, or
characters, each of them equally well executed, the one in prose and the other in verse, the verse
will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once. 26
Having thus explained a few of my reasons for writing in verse, and why I have chosen subjects
from common life, and endeavoured to bring my language near to the real language of men, if I
have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same time been treating a subject
of general interest; and for this reason a few words shall be added with reference solely to these
particular poems, and to some defects which will probably be found in them. I am sensible that
my associations must have sometimes been particular instead of general, and that, consequently,
giving to things a false importance, I may have sometimes written upon unworthy subjects; but I
am less apprehensive on this account, than that my language may frequently have suffered from
those arbitrary connexions of feelings and ideas with particular words and phrases, from which
no man can altogether protect himself. Hence I have no doubt, that, in some instances, feelings,
even of the ludicrous, may be given to my Readers by expressions which appeared to me tender
and pathetic. Such faulty expressions, were I convinced they were faulty at present, and that they
302
must necessarily continue to be so, I would willingly take all reasonable pains to correct. But it is
dangerous to make these alterations on the simple authority of a few individuals, or even of
certain classes of men; for where the understanding of an Author is not convinced, or his feelings
altered, this cannot be done without great injury to himself: for his own feelings are his stay and
support; and, if he set them aside in one instance, he may be induced to repeat this act till his
mind shall lose all confidence in itself, and become utterly debilitated. to this it may be added,
that the critic ought never to forget that he is himself exposed to the same errors as the Poet, and,
perhaps, in a much greater degree: for there can be no presumption in saying of most readers,
that it is not probable they will be so well acquainted with the various stages of meaning through
which words have passed, or with the fickleness or stability of the relations of particular ideas to
each other; and, above all, since they are so much less interested in the subject, they may decide
lightly and carelessly. 27
Long as the Reader has been detained, I hope he will permit me to caution him against a mode
of false criticism which has been applied to Poetry, in which the language closely resembles that
of life and nature. Such verses have been triumphed over in parodies, of which Dr. Johnsons
stanza is a fair specimen:
I put my hat upon my head
And walked into the Strand,
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand.
28
Immediately under these lines let us place one of the most justly admired stanzas of the Babes
in the Wood.
These pretty Babes with hand in hand
Went wandering up and down;
But never more they saw the Man
Approaching from the town.
In both these stanzas the words, and the order of the words, in no respect differ from the most
unimpassioned conversation. There are words in both, for example, the Strand, and the town,
connected with none but the most familiar ideas; yet the one stanza we admit as admirable, and
the other as a fair example of the superlatively contemptible. Whence arises this difference? Not
from the metre, not from the language, not from the order of the words; but the matter expressed
in Dr. Johnsons stanza is contemptible. The proper method of treating trivial and simple verses,
to which Dr. Johnsons stanza would be a fair parallelism, is not to say, this is a bad kind of
poetry, or, this is not poetry; but, this wants sense; it is neither interesting in itself nor can lead to
anything interesting; the images neither originate in that sane state of feeling which arises out of
thought, nor can excite thought or feeling in the Reader. This is the only sensible manner of
dealing with such verses. Why trouble yourself about the species till you have previously
decided upon the genus? Why take pains to prove that an ape is not a Newton, when it is self-
evident that he is not a man? 29
One request I must make of my reader, which is, that in judging these Poems he would decide
by his own feelings genuinely, and not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgement
of others. How common is it to hear a person say, I myself do not object to this style of
composition, or this or that expression, but, to such and such classes of people it will appear
mean or ludicrous! This mode of criticism, so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgement,
303
is almost universal: let the Reader then abide, independently, by his own feelings, and, if he finds
himself affected, let him not suffer such conjectures to interfere with his pleasure. 31
If an Author, by any single composition, has impressed us with respect for his talents, it is
useful to consider this as affording a presumption, that on other occasions where we have been
displeased, he, nevertheless, may not have written ill or absurdly; and further, to give him so
much credit for this one composition as may induce us to review what has displeased us, with
more care than we should otherwise have bestowed upon it. This is not only an act of justice, but,
in our decisions upon poetry especially, may conduce, in a high degree, to the improvement of
our own taste; for an accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has
observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be produced by thought and a long continued
intercourse with the best models of composition. This is mentioned, not with so ridiculous a
purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced Reader from judging for himself (I have already
said that I wish him to judge for himself), but merely to temper the rashness of decision, and to
suggest, that, if Poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgement
may be erroneous; and that, in many cases, it necessarily will be so. 32
Nothing would, I know, have so effectually contributed to further the end which I have in view,
as to have shown of what kind the pleasure is, and how that pleasure is produced, which is
confessedly produced by metrical composition essentially different from that which I have here
endeavoured to recommend: for the Reader will say that he has been pleased by such
composition; and what more can be done for him? The power of any art is limited; and he will
suspect, that, if it be proposed to furnish him with new friends, that can be only upon condition
of his abandoning his old friends. Besides, as I have said, the Reader is himself conscious of the
pleasure which he has received from such composition, composition to which he has peculiarly
attached the endearing name of Poetry; and all men feel an habitual gratitude, and something of
an honourable bigotry, for the objects which have long continued to please them: we not only
wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that particular way in which we have been accustomed to
be pleased. There is in these feelings enough to resist a host of arguments; and I should be the
less able to combat them successfully, as I am willing to allow, that, in order entirely to enjoy the
Poetry which I am recommending, it would be necessary to give up much of what is ordinarily
enjoyed. But, would my limits have permitted me to point out how this pleasure is produced,
many obstacles might have been removed, and the Reader assisted in perceiving that the powers
of language are not so limited as he may suppose; and that it is possible for poetry to give other
enjoyments, of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite nature. This part of the subject has not
been altogether neglected, but it has not been so much my present aim to prove, that the interest
excited by some other kinds of poetry is less vivid, and less worthy of the nobler powers of the
mind, as to offer reasons for presuming, that if my purpose were fulfilled, a species of poetry
would be produced, which is genuine poetry; in its nature well adapted to interest mankind
permanently, and likewise important in the multiplicity and quality of its moral relations. 33
From what has been said, and from a perusal of the Poems, the Reader will be able clearly to
perceive the object which I had in view: he will determine how far it has been attained; and, what
is a much more important question, whether it be worth attaining: and upon the decision of these
two questions will rest my claim to the approbation of the Public. 34

Note 1. I here use the word Poetry (though against my own judgement) as opposed to the word
Prose, and synonymous with metrical composition. But much confusion has been introduced into
criticism by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead of the more philosophical one of
304
Poetry and Matter of Fact, or Science. The only strict antithesis to Prose is Metre; nor is this, in
truth, a strict antithesis, because lines and passages of metre so naturally occur in writing prose,
that it would be scarcely possible to avoid them, even were it desirable. [back]
Note 2. As sensibility to harmony of numbers, and the power of producing it, are invariably
attendants upon the faculties above specified, nothing has been said upon those requisites. [back]
305
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Sailing to Byzantium

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
307
The Circus Animals' Desertion
I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.
II
What can I but enumerate old themes,
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride.
And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
'The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it;
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.
And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.
III
Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
308
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

309

Zangwill, Israel
Children of the Ghetto

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COURTSHIP OF SHOSSHI SHMENDRIK.


Meckisch was a _Chasid_, which in the vernacular is a saint, but in the
actual a member of the sect of the _Chasidim_ whose centre is Galicia.
In the eighteenth century Israel Baal Shem, "the Master of the Name,"
retired to the mountains to meditate on philosophical truths. He arrived
at a creed of cheerful and even stoical acceptance of the Cosmos in all
its aspects and a conviction that the incense of an enjoyed pipe was
grateful to the Creator. But it is the inevitable misfortune of
religious founders to work apocryphal miracles and to raise up an army
of disciples who squeeze the teaching of their master into their own
mental moulds and are ready to die for the resultant distortion. It is
only by being misunderstood that a great man can have any influence upon
his kind. Baal Shem was succeeded by an army of thaumaturgists, and the
wonder-working Rabbis of Sadagora who are in touch with all the spirits
of the air enjoy the revenue of princes and the reverence of Popes. To
snatch a morsel of such a Rabbi's Sabbath _Kuggol_, or pudding, is to
insure Paradise, and the scramble is a scene to witness. _Chasidism_ is
the extreme expression of Jewish optimism. The Chasidim are the
Corybantes or Salvationists of Judaism. In England their idiosyncrasies
are limited to noisy jubilant services in their _Chevrah_, the
worshippers dancing or leaning or standing or writhing or beating their
heads against the wall as they will, and frisking like happy children in
the presence of their Father.

Meckisch also danced at home and sang "Tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, toi, toi,
ta," varied by "Rom, pom, pom" and "Bim, bom" in a quaint melody to
express his personal satisfaction with existence. He was a weazened
little widower with a deep yellow complexion, prominent cheek bones, a
hook nose and a scrubby, straggling little beard. Years of professional
practice as a mendicant had stamped his face with an anguished suppliant
conciliatory grin, which he could not now erase even after business
hours. It might perhaps have yielded to soap and water but the
experiment had not been tried. On his head he always wore a fur cap with
lappets for his ears. Across his shoulders was strung a lemon-basket
filled with grimy, gritty bits of sponge which nobody ever bought.
Meckisch's merchandise was quite other. He dealt in sensational
spectacle. As he shambled along with extreme difficulty and by the aid
of a stick, his lower limbs which were crossed in odd contortions
appeared half paralyzed, and, when his strange appearance had attracted
attention, his legs would give way and he would find himself with his
back on the pavement, where he waited to be picked up by sympathetic
spectators shedding silver and copper. After an indefinite number of
performances Meckisch would hurry home in the darkness to dance and sing
"Tiddy, riddy, roi, toi, bim, bom."

Thus Meckisch lived at peace with God and man, till one day the fatal
thought came into his head that he wanted a second wife. There was no
difficulty in getting one--by the aid of his friend, Sugarman the __
soon the little man found his household goods increased by the
possession of a fat, Russian giantess. Meckisch did not call in the
authorities to marry him. He had a "still wedding," which cost nothing.
An artificial canopy made out of a sheet and four broomsticks was
erected in the chimney corner and nine male friends sanctified the
ceremony by their presence. Meckisch and the Russian giantess fasted on
their wedding morn and everything was in honorable order.

But Meckisch's happiness and economies were short-lived. The Russian
giantess turned out a tartar. She got her claws into his savings and
decorated herself with Paisley shawls and gold necklaces. Nay more! She
insisted that Meckisch must give her "Society" and keep open house.
Accordingly the bed-sitting room which they rented was turned into a
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_salon_ of reception, and hither one Friday night came Peleg Shmendrik
and his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Sugarman. Over the Sabbath meal the
current of talk divided itself into masculine and feminine freshets. The
ladies discussed bonnets and the gentlemen Talmud. All the three men
dabbled, pettily enough, in stocks and shares, but nothing in the world
would tempt them to transact any negotiation or discuss the merits of a
prospectus on the Sabbath, though they were all fluttered by the
allurements of the Sapphire Mines, Limited, as set forth in a whole page
of advertisement in the "_Jewish Chronicle_, the organ naturally perused
for its religious news on Friday evenings. The share-list would close at
noon on Monday.

"But when Moses, our teacher, struck the rock," said Peleg Shmendrik, in
the course of the discussion, "he was right the first time but wrong the
second, because as the Talmud points out, a child may be chastised when
it is little, but as it grows up it should be reasoned with."

"Yes," said Sugarman the _Shadchan_, quickly; "but if his rod had not
been made of sapphire he would have split that instead of the rock."

"Was it made of sapphire?" asked Meckisch, who was rather a
Man-of-the-Earth.

"Of course it was--and a very fine thing, too," answered Sugarman.

"Do you think so?" inquired Peleg Shmendrik eagerly.

"The sapphire is a magic stone," answered Sugarman. "It improves the
vision and makes peace between foes. Issachar, the studious son of
Jacob, was represented on the Breast-plate by the sapphire. Do you not
know that the mist-like centre of the sapphire symbolizes the cloud that
enveloped Sinai at the giving of the Law?"

"I did not know that," answered Peleg Shmendrik, "but I know that
Moses's Rod was created in the twilight of the first Sabbath and God did
everything after that with this sceptre."

"Ah, but we are not all strong enough to wield Moses's Rod; it weighed
forty seahs," said Sugarman.

"How many seahs do you think one could safely carry?" said Meckisch.

"Five or six seahs--not more," said Sugarman. "You see one might drop
them if he attempted more and even sapphire may break--the First Tables
of the Law were made of sapphire, and yet from a great height they fell
terribly, and were shattered to pieces."

"Gideon, the M.P., may be said to desire a Rod of Moses, for his
secretary told me he will take forty," said Shmendrik.

"Hush! what are you saying!" said Sugarman, "Gideon is a rich man, and
then he is a director."

"It seems a good lot of directors," said Meckisch.

"Good to look at. But who can tell?" said Sugarman, shaking his head.
"The Queen of Sheba probably brought sapphires to Solomon, but she was
not a virtuous woman."

"Ah, Solomon!" sighed Mrs. Shmendrik, pricking up her ears and
interrupting this talk of stocks and stones, "If he'd had a thousand
daughters instead of a thousand wives, even his treasury couldn't have
held out. I had only two girls, praised be He, and yet it nearly ruined
me to buy them husbands. A dirty _Greener_ comes over, without a shirt
to his skin, and nothing else but he must have two hundred pounds in the
hand. And then you've got to stick to his back to see that he doesn't
take his breeches in his hand and off to America. In Poland he would
have been glad to get a maiden, and would have said thank you."

"Well, but what about your own son?" said Sugarman; "Why haven't you
asked me to find Shosshi a wife? It's a sin against the maidens of
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Israel. He must be long past the Talmudical age."

"He is twenty-four," replied Peleg Shmendrik.

"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" said Sugarman, clacking his tongue in horror,
"have you perhaps an objection to his marrying?"

"Save us and grant us peace!" said the father in deprecatory horror.
"Only Shosshi is so shy. You are aware, too, he is not handsome. Heaven
alone knows whom he takes after."

"Peleg, I blush for you," said Mrs. Shmendrik. "What is the matter with
the boy? Is he deaf, dumb, blind, unprovided with legs? If Shosshi is
backward with the women, it is because he 'learns' so hard when he's not
at work. He earns a good living by his cabinet-making and it is quite
time he set up a Jewish household for himself. How much will you want
for finding him a _Calloh_?"

"Hush!" said Sugarman sternly, "do you forget it is the Sabbath? Be
assured I shall not charge more than last time, unless the bride has an
extra good dowry."

On Saturday night immediately after _Havdalah_, Sugarman went to Mr.
Belcovitch, who was just about to resume work, and informed him he had
the very _Chosan_ for Becky. "I know," he said, "Becky has a lot of
young men after her, but what are they but a pack of bare-backs? How
much will you give for a solid man?"

After much haggling Belcovitch consented to give twenty pounds
immediately before the marriage ceremony and another twenty at the end
of twelve months.

"But no pretending you haven't got it about you, when we're at the
_Shool_, no asking us to wait till we get home," said Sugarman, "or else
I withdraw my man, even from under the _Chuppah_ itself. When shall I
bring him for your inspection?"

"Oh, to-morrow afternoon, Sunday, when Becky will be out in the park
with her young men. It's best I shall see him first!"

Sugarman now regarded Shosshi as a married man! He rubbed his hands and
went to see him. He found him in a little shed in the back yard where
he did extra work at home. Shosshi was busy completing little wooden
articles--stools and wooden spoons and moneyboxes for sale in Petticoat
Lane next day. He supplemented his wages that way.

"Good evening, Shosshi," said Sugarman.

"Good evening," murmured Shosshi, sawing away.

Shosshi was a gawky young man with a blotched sandy face ever ready to
blush deeper with the suspicion that conversations going on at a
distance were all about him. His eyes were shifty and catlike; one
shoulder overbalanced the other, and when he walked, he swayed loosely
to and fro. Sugarman was rarely remiss in the offices of piety and he
was nigh murmuring the prayer at the sight of monstrosities. "Blessed
art Thou who variest the creatures." But resisting the temptation he
said aloud, "I have something to tell you."

Shosshi looked up suspiciously.

"Don't bother: I am busy," he said, and applied his plane to the leg of
a stool.

"But this is more important than stools. How would you like to get
married?"

Shosshi's face became like a peony.

"Don't make laughter," he said.

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"But I mean it. You are twenty-four years old and ought to have a wife
and four children by this time."

"But I don't want a wife and four children," said Shosshi.

"No, of course not. I don't mean a widow. It is a maiden I have in my
eye."

"Nonsense, what maiden would have me?" said Shosshi, a note of eagerness
mingling with the diffidence of the words.

"What maiden? _Gott in Himmel_! A hundred. A fine, strong, healthy young
man like you, who can make a good living!"

Shosshi put down his plane and straightened himself. There was a moment
of silence. Then his frame collapsed again into a limp mass. His head
drooped over his left shoulder. "This is all foolishness you talk, the
maidens make mock."

"Be not a piece of clay! I know a maiden who has you quite in
affection!"

The blush which had waned mantled in a full flood. Shosshi stood
breathless, gazing half suspiciously, half credulously at his strictly
honorable Mephistopheles.

It was about seven o'clock and the moon was a yellow crescent in the
frosty heavens. The sky was punctured with clear-cut constellations. The
back yard looked poetic with its blend of shadow and moonlight.

"A beautiful fine maid," said Sugarman ecstatically, "with pink cheeks
and black eyes and forty pounds dowry."

The moon sailed smilingly along. The water was running into the cistern
with a soothing, peaceful sound. Shosshi consented to go and see Mr.
Belcovitch.

Mr. Belcovitch made no parade. Everything was as usual. On the wooden
table were two halves of squeezed lemons, a piece of chalk, two cracked
cups and some squashed soap. He was not overwhelmed by Shosshi, but
admitted he was solid. His father was known to be pious, and both his
sisters had married reputable men. Above all, he was not a Dutchman.
Shosshi left No. 1 Royal Street, Belcovitch's accepted son-in-law.
Esther met him on the stairs and noted the radiance on his pimply
countenance. He walked with his head almost erect. Shosshi was indeed
very much in love and felt that all that was needed for his happiness
was a sight of his future wife.

But he had no time to go and see her except on Sunday afternoons, and
then she was always out. Mrs. Belcovitch, however, made amends by paying
him considerable attention. The sickly-looking little woman chatted to
him for hours at a time about her ailments and invited him to taste her
medicine, which was a compliment Mrs. Belcovitch passed only to her most
esteemed visitors. By and by she even wore her night-cap in his presence
as a sign that he had become one of the family. Under this encouragement
Shosshi grew confidential and imparted to his future mother-in-law the
details of his mother's disabilities. But he could mention nothing which
Mrs. Belcovitch could not cap, for she was a woman extremely catholic in
her maladies. She was possessed of considerable imagination, and once
when Fanny selected a bonnet for her in a milliner's window, the girl
had much difficulty in persuading her it was not inferior to what turned
out to be the reflection of itself in a side mirror.

"I'm so weak upon my legs," she would boast to Shosshi. "I was born with
ill-matched legs. One is a thick one and one is a thin one, and so one
goes about."

Shosshi expressed his sympathetic admiration and the courtship proceeded
apace. Sometimes Fanny and Pesach Weingott would be at home working, and
they were very affable to him. He began to lose something of his shyness
and his lurching gait, and he quite looked forward to his weekly visit
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to the Belcovitches. It was the story of Cymon and Iphigenia over again.
Love improved even his powers of conversation, for when Belcovitch held
forth at length Shosshi came in several times with "So?" and sometimes
in the right place. Mr. Belcovitch loved his own voice and listened to
it, the arrested press-iron in his hand. Occasionally in the middle of
one of his harangues it would occur to him that some one was talking and
wasting time, and then he would say to the room, "Shah! Make an end,
make an end," and dry up. But to Shosshi he was especially polite,
rarely interrupting himself when his son-in-law elect was hanging on his
words. There was an intimate tender tone about these _causeries_.

"I should like to drop down dead suddenly," he would say with the air of
a philosopher, who had thought it all out. "I shouldn't care to lie up
in bed and mess about with medicine and doctors. To make a long job of
dying is so expensive."

"So?" said Shosshi.

"Don't worry, Bear! I dare say the devil will seize you suddenly,"
interposed Mrs. Belcovitch drily.

"It will not be the devil," said Mr. Belcovitch, confidently and in a
confidential manner. "If I had died as a young man, Shosshi, it might
have been different."

Shosshi pricked up his ears to listen to the tale of Bear's wild
cubhood.

"One morning," said Belcovitch, "in Poland, I got up at four o'clock to
go to Supplications for Forgiveness. The air was raw and there was no
sign of dawn! Suddenly I noticed a black pig trotting behind me. I
quickened my pace and the black pig did likewise. I broke into a run and
I heard the pig's paws patting furiously upon the hard frozen ground. A
cold sweat broke out all over me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the
pig's eyes burning like red-hot coals in the darkness. Then I knew that
the Not Good One was after me. 'Hear, O Israel,' I cried. I looked up to
the heavens but there was a cold mist covering the stars. Faster and
faster I flew and faster and faster flew the demon pig. At last the
_Shool_ came in sight. I made one last wild effort and fell exhausted
upon the holy threshold and the pig vanished."

"So?" said Shosshi, with a long breath.

"Immediately after _Shool_ I spake with the Rabbi and he said 'Bear, are
thy _Tephillin_ in order?' So I said 'Yea, Rabbi, they are very large
and I bought them of the pious scribe, Naphtali, and I look to the knots
weekly.' But he said, 'I will examine them.' So I brought them to him
and he opened the head-phylactery and lo! in place of the holy parchment
he found bread crumbs."

"Hoi, hoi," said Shosshi in horror, his red hands quivering.

"Yes," said Bear mournfully, "I had worn them for ten years and moreover
the leaven had denied all my Passovers."

Belcovitch also entertained the lover with details of the internal
politics of the "Sons of the Covenant."

Shosshi's affection for Becky increased weekly under the stress of these
intimate conversations with her family. At last his passion was
rewarded, and Becky, at the violent instance of her father, consented to
disappoint one of her young men and stay at home to meet her future
husband. She put off her consent till after dinner though, and it began
to rain immediately before she gave it.

The moment Shosshi came into the room he divined that a change had come
over the spirit of the dream. Out of the corners of his eyes he caught a
glimpse of an appalling beauty standing behind a sewing machine. His
face fired up, his legs began to quiver, he wished the ground would open
and swallow him as it did Korah.

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"Becky," said Mr. Belcovitch, "this is Mr. Shosshi Shmendrik."

Shosshi put on a sickly grin and nodded his head affirmatively, as if to
corroborate the statement, and the round felt hat he wore slid back till
the broad rim rested on his ears. Through a sort of mist a terribly fine
maid loomed.

Becky stared at him haughtily and curled her lip. Then she giggled.

Shosshi held out his huge red hand limply. Becky took no notice of it.

"_Nu_, Becky!" breathed Belcovitch, in a whisper that could have been
heard across the way.

"How are you? All right?" said Becky, very loud, as if she thought
deafness was among Shosshi's disadvantages.

Shosshi grinned reassuringly.

There was another silence.

Shosshi wondered whether the _convenances_ would permit him to take his
leave now. He did not feel comfortable at all. Everything had been going
so delightfully, it had been quite a pleasure to him to come to the
house. But now all was changed. The course of true love never does run
smooth, and the advent of this new personage into the courtship was
distinctly embarrassing.

The father came to the rescue.

"A little rum?" he said.

"Yes," said Shosshi.

"Chayah! _nu_. Fetch the bottle!"

Mrs. Belcovitch went to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room
and took from the top of it a large decanter. She then produced two
glasses without feet and filled them with the home-made rum, handing one
to Shosshi and the other to her husband. Shosshi muttered a blessing
over it, then he leered vacuously at the company and cried, "To life!"

"To peace!" replied the older man, gulping down the spirit. Shosshi was
doing the same, when his eye caught Becky's. He choked for five minutes,
Mrs. Belcovitch thumping him maternally on the back. When he was
comparatively recovered the sense of his disgrace rushed upon him and
overwhelmed him afresh. Becky was still giggling behind the sewing
machine. Once more Shosshi felt that the burden of the conversation was
upon him. He looked at his boots and not seeing anything there, looked
up again and grinned encouragingly at the company as if to waive his
rights. But finding the company did not respond, he blew his nose
enthusiastically as a lead off to the conversation.

Mr. Belcovitch saw his embarrassment, and, making a sign to Chayah,
slipped out of the room followed by his wife. Shosshi was left alone
with the terribly fine maid.

Becky stood still, humming a little air and looking up at the ceiling,
as if she had forgotten Shosshi's existence. With her eyes in that
position it was easier for Shosshi to look at her. He stole side-long
glances at her, which, growing bolder and bolder, at length fused into
an uninterrupted steady gaze. How fine and beautiful she was! His eyes
began to glitter, a smile of approbation overspread his face. Suddenly
she looked down and their eyes met. Shosshi's smile hurried off and gave
way to a sickly sheepish look and his legs felt weak. The terribly fine
maid gave a kind of snort and resumed her inspection of the ceiling.
Gradually Shosshi found himself examining her again. Verily Sugarman had
spoken truly of her charms. But--overwhelming thought--had not Sugarman
also said she loved him? Shosshi knew nothing of the ways of girls,
except what he had learned from the Talmud. Quite possibly Becky was now
occupied in expressing ardent affection. He shuffled towards her, his
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heart beating violently. He was near enough to touch her. The air she
was humming throbbed in his ears. He opened his mouth to speak--Becky
becoming suddenly aware of his proximity fixed him with a basilisk
glare--the words were frozen on his lips. For some seconds his mouth
remained open, then the ridiculousness of shutting it again without
speaking spurred him on to make some sound, however meaningless. He made
a violent effort and there burst from his lips in Hebrew:

"Happy are those who dwell in thy house, ever shall they praise thee,
Selah!" It was not a compliment to Becky. Shosshi's face lit up with
joyous relief. By some inspiration he had started the afternoon prayer.
He felt that Becky would understand the pious necessity. With fervent
gratitude to the Almighty he continued the Psalm: "Happy are the people
whose lot is thus, etc." Then he turned his back on Becky, with his face
to the East wall, made three steps forwards and commenced the silent
delivery of the _Amidah_. Usually he gabbled off the "Eighteen
Blessings" in five minutes. To-day they were prolonged till he heard the
footsteps of the returning parents. Then he scurried through the relics
of the service at lightning speed. When Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch
re-entered the room they saw by his happy face that all was well and
made no opposition to his instant departure.

He came again the next Sunday and was rejoiced to find that Becky was
out, though he had hoped to find her in. The courtship made great
strides that afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch being more amiable than
ever to compensate for Becky's private refusal to entertain the
addresses of such a _Schmuck_. There had been sharp domestic discussions
during the week, and Becky had only sniffed at her parents'
commendations of Shosshi as a "very worthy youth." She declared that it
was "remission of sins merely to look at him."

Next Sabbath Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch paid a formal visit to Shosshi's
parents to make their acquaintance, and partook of tea and cake. Becky
was not with them; moreover she defiantly declared she would never be at
home on a Sunday till Shosshi was married. They circumvented her by
getting him up on a weekday. The image of Becky had been so often in his
thoughts now that by the time he saw her the second time he was quite
habituated to her appearance. He had even imagined his arm round her
waist, but in practice he found he could go no further as yet than
ordinary conversation.

Becky was sitting sewing buttonholes when Shosshi arrived. Everybody was
there--Mr. Belcovitch pressing coats with hot irons; Fanny shaking the
room with her heavy machine; Pesach Weingott cutting a piece of
chalk-marked cloth; Mrs. Belcovitch carefully pouring out
tablespoonfuls of medicine. There were even some outside "hands," work
being unusually plentiful, as from the manifestos of Simon Wolf, the
labor-leader, the slop manufacturers anticipated a strike.

Sustained by their presence, Shosshi felt a bold and gallant wooer. He
determined that this time he would not go without having addressed at
least one remark to the object of his affections. Grinning amiably at
the company generally, by way of salutation, he made straight for
Becky's corner. The terribly fine lady snorted at the sight of him,
divining that she had been out-manoeuvred. Belcovitch surveyed the
situation out of the corners of his eyes, not pausing a moment in his
task.

"_Nu_, how goes it, Becky?" Shosshi murmured.

Becky said, "All right, how are you?"

"God be thanked, I have nothing to complain of," said Shosshi,
encouraged by the warmth of his welcome. "My eyes are rather weak,
still, though much better than last year."

Becky made no reply, so Shosshi continued: "But my mother is always a
sick person. She has to swallow bucketsful of cod liver oil. She cannot
be long for this world."

"Nonsense, nonsense," put in Mrs. Belcovitch, appearing suddenly behind
316
the lovers. "My children's children shall never be any worse; it's all
fancy with her, she coddles herself too much."

"Oh, no, she says she's much worse than you," Shosshi blurted out,
turning round to face his future mother-in-law.

"Oh, indeed!" said Chayah angrily. "My enemies shall have my maladies!
If your mother had my health, she would be lying in bed with it. But I
go about in a sick condition. I can hardly crawl around. Look at my
legs--has your mother got such legs? One a thick one and one a thin
one."

Shosshi grew scarlet; he felt he had blundered. It was the first real
shadow on his courtship--perhaps the little rift within the lute. He
turned back to Becky for sympathy. There was no Becky. She had taken
advantage of the conversation to slip away. He found her again in a
moment though, at the other end of the room. She was seated before a
machine. He crossed the room boldly and bent over her.

"Don't you feel cold, working?"

_Br-r-r-r-r-r-h_!

It was the machine turning. Becky had set the treadle going madly and
was pushing a piece of cloth under the needle. When she paused, Shosshi
said:

"Have you heard Reb Shemuel preach? He told a very amusing allegory
last--"

_Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-h_!

Undaunted, Shosshi recounted the amusing allegory at length, and as the
noise of her machine prevented Becky hearing a word she found his
conversation endurable. After several more monologues, accompanied on
the machine by Becky, Shosshi took his departure in high feather,
promising to bring up specimens of his handiwork for her edification.

On his next visit he arrived with his arms laden with choice morsels of
carpentry. He laid them on the table for her admiration.

They were odd knobs and rockers for Polish cradles! The pink of Becky's
cheeks spread all over her face like a blot of red ink on a piece of
porous paper. Shosshi's face reflected the color in even more
ensanguined dyes. Becky rushed from the room and Shosshi heard her
giggling madly on the staircase. It dawned upon him that he had
displayed bad taste in his selection.

"What have you done to my child?" Mrs. Belcovitch inquired.

"N-n-othing," he stammered; "I only brought her some of my work to see."

"And is this what one shows to a young girl?" demanded the mother
indignantly.

"They are only bits of cradles," said Shosshi deprecatingly. "I thought
she would like to see what nice workmanly things I turned out. See how
smoothly these rockers are carved! There is a thick one, and there is a
thin one!"

"Ah! Shameless droll! dost thou make mock of my legs, too?" said Mrs.
Belcovitch. "Out, impudent face, out with thee!"

Shosshi gathered up his specimens in his arms and fled through the
door. Becky was still in hilarious eruption outside. The sight of her
made confusion worse confounded. The knobs and rockers rolled
thunderously down the stairs; Shosshi stumbled after them, picking them
up on his course and wishing himself dead.

All Sugarman's strenuous efforts to patch up the affair failed. Shosshi
went about broken-hearted for several days. To have been so near the
317
goal--and then not to arrive after all! What made failure more bitter
was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially
to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left of him on Sundays
in Petticoat Lane. They made a butt of him as it was; he felt he could
never stand between them for a whole morning now, and have Attic salt
put upon his wounds. He shifted his position, arranging to pay sixpence
a time for the privilege of fixing himself outside Widow Finkelstein's
shop, which stood at the corner of a street, and might be presumed to
intercept two streams of pedestrians. Widow Finkelstein's shop was a
chandler's, and she did a large business in farthing-worths of boiling
water. There was thus no possible rivalry between her ware and
Shosshi's, which consisted of wooden candlesticks, little rocking
chairs, stools, ash-trays, etc., piled up artistically on a barrow.

But Shosshi's luck had gone with the change of _locus_. His _clientle_
went to the old spot but did not find him. He did not even make a
hansel. At two o'clock he tied his articles to the barrow with a
complicated arrangement of cords. Widow Finkelstein waddled out and
demanded her sixpence. Shosshi replied that he had not taken sixpence,
that the coign was not one of vantage. Widow Finkelstein stood up for
her rights, and even hung on to the barrow for them. There was a short,
sharp argument, a simultaneous jabbering, as of a pair of monkeys.
Shosshi Shmendrik's pimply face worked with excited expostulation, Widow
Finkelstein's cushion-like countenance was agitated by waves of
righteous indignation. Suddenly Shosshi darted between the shafts and
made a dash off with the barrow down the side street. But Widow
Finkelstein pressed it down with all her force, arresting the motion
like a drag. Incensed by the laughter of the spectators, Shosshi put
forth all his strength at the shafts, jerked the widow off her feet and
see-sawed her sky-wards, huddled up spherically like a balloon, but
clinging as grimly as ever to the defalcating barrow. Then Shosshi
started off at a run, the carpentry rattling, and the dead weight of his
living burden making his muscles ache.

Right to the end of the street he dragged her, pursued by a hooting
crowd. Then he stopped, worn out.

"Will you give me that sixpence, you _Ganef_!"

"No, I haven't got it. You'd better go back to your shop, else you'll
suffer from worse thieves."

It was true. Widow Finkelstein smote her wig in horror and hurried back
to purvey treacle.

But that night when she shut up the shutters, she hurried off to
Shosshi's address, which she had learned in the interim. His little
brother opened the door and said Shosshi was in the shed.

He was just nailing the thicker of those rockers on to the body of a
cradle. His soul was full of bitter-sweet memories. Widow Finkelstein
suddenly appeared in the moonlight. For a moment Shosshi's heart beat
wildly. He thought the buxom figure was Becky's.

"I have come for my sixpence."

Ah! The words awoke him from his dream. It was only the Widow
Finkelstein.

And yet--! Verily, the widow, too, was plump and agreeable; if only her
errand had been pleasant, Shosshi felt she might have brightened his
back yard. He had been moved to his depths latterly and a new tenderness
and a new boldness towards women shone in his eyes.

He rose and put his head on one side and smiled amiably and said, "Be
not so foolish. I did not take a copper. I am a poor young man. You have
plenty of money in your stocking."

"How know you that?" said the widow, stretching forward her right foot
meditatively and gazing at the strip of stocking revealed.

318
"Never mind!" said Shosshi, shaking his head sapiently.

"Well, it's true," she admitted. "I have two hundred and seventeen
golden sovereigns besides my shop. But for all that why should you keep
my sixpence?" She asked it with the same good-humored smile.

The logic of that smile was unanswerable. Shosshi's mouth opened, but no
sound issued from it. He did not even say the Evening Prayer. The moon
sailed slowly across the heavens. The water flowed into the cistern with
a soft soothing sound.

Suddenly it occurred to Shosshi that the widow's waist was not very
unlike that which he had engirdled imaginatively. He thought he would
just try if the sensation was anything like what he had fancied. His arm
strayed timidly round her black-beaded mantle. The sense of his audacity
was delicious. He was wondering whether he ought to say
_She-hechyoni_--the prayer over a new pleasure. But the Widow
Finkelstein stopped his mouth with a kiss. After that Shosshi forgot his
pious instincts.

Except old Mrs. Ansell, Sugarman was the only person scandalized.
Shosshi's irrepressible spirit of romance had robbed him of his
commission. But Meckisch danced with Shosshi Shmendrik at the wedding,
while the _Calloh_ footed it with the Russian giantess. The men danced
in one-half of the room, the women in the other.