“All (that) I could never be, All (that) man ignored in me.” All that the world could not know, a man’s thoughts, desires, and intentions, all that he wished or tried to be or do, although unknown to his fellows, have their value in God’s eyes. Man is the Cup, whose shape (i.e., character) has been formed by the wheel of the great Potter, God. See further as to this Eastern metaphor.
The late Mrs. A. W. Verrall, widow of Doctor Verrall and herself a brilliant scholar, pointed out in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, June, 1911, a probable connection between “Rabbi ben Ezra,” and “Omar Khayyam,” and I do not think that her interesting views have been published elsewhere.
Both poems centre round the idea of man as a Cup, but treat the metaphor from very different standpoints. Omar’s cup (quoting from the first edition) is to be filled with “Life’s Liquor” (ii), with “Wine! Red Wine!” (vi), with what “clears To-Day of past regrets” (xx); the object is to drown the memory of the fact that “without asking” we are “hurried hither” and “hurried hence” (xxx); the “Ruby Vintage” is to be drunk “with old Khayyam,” and “when the Angel with his darker Draught draws up” to us we are to take that draught without shrinking (xlviii). On the other hand Rabbi ben Ezra’s Cup is to be used by the great Potter. We are told to look “not down but up! to uses of a cup” (30). The Rabbi asks “God who mouldest men ... to take and use His work” (32) and the ultimate purpose of the Cup, when it has been made “perfect as planned,” is to slake the thirst of the Master.
The comparison of man to the Clay of the Potter in both poems is not sufficient in itself to show any connection between them. Such a comparison is found, as Fitzgerald reminds us, “in the Literature of the World from the Hebrew Prophets to the present time”[30]; and it is as appropriately employed by the Hebrew as by the Persian thinker. But Mrs. Verrall has other grounds:
The little pamphlet in its brown wrapper containing the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was first published by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859, and, as is well known, attracted so little attention that, although there were only 250 copies, it found its way into the two-penny boxes of the book-sellers, (It now sells for about £50!) But, nevertheless, the poem was eagerly read and enthusiastically praised by a small group, among whom were Swinburne and Rossetti. In 1861 Robert Browning came to live in London, and often saw Rossetti, who was his friend. It is, therefore, very improbable that he did not learn of the poem, which had so impressed Rossetti. In 1864 “Rabbi ben Ezra” was published in the volume called Dramatis Personae.
Again, there is intrinsic evidence that Browning intended a direct refutation of Omar’s theory of life. Compare verses 26 and 27 of “Rabbi ben Ezra” with verses xxxvi and xxxvii of “Omar Khayyam” (first edition).
Omar says that he “watched the Potter thumping his wet clay,” and, thereupon advises:
Rabbi ben Ezra says:
and proceeds:
Although the “carpe diem” (“seize to-day”) theory of life is no doubt common to all literatures, the cumulative effect of Mrs. Verrall’s argument is strong, although not conclusive.
As regards the above verses, compare the next quotation.
Sabaoth, armies, hosts. “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.”
Between the great things that we cannot do, and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing.
Adolph Monod (1802-1856).
Reputation is what men and women think of us; Character is what God and the angels know of us.
Thomas Paine.
Love is the Amen of the Universe.
Novalis.
He (Dr. Johnson) would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. “Much,” said he, “may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.”
Boswell (Life of Johnson).
(A Mr. Strahan, a Scotchman, asked Dr. Johnson what he thought of Scotland) “That it is a very vile country to be sure, Sir,” returned for answer Dr. Johnson. “Well, Sir!” replied the other, somewhat mortified, “God made it.” “Certainly he did,” answered Mr. Johnson again, “but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen.”
Mrs. Piozzi (Johnsoniana).
These are the two best of Johnson’s chaffing jibes against Scotchmen. The neatness of the latter is, to my mind, spoilt by the words at the end, which I have omitted: “and—comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan,—but God made hell.” The following may also be quoted as showing both Johnson and that clever charlatan, Wilkes, quizzing Boswell (year 1781):
Wilkes: “Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an advocate at the Scotch bar?”
Boswell: “I believe two thousand pounds.”
Wilkes: “How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?”
Johnson: “Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England; but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?”
Many Scotchmen undoubtedly enjoy chaff against themselves and their country, and I think this was so with Boswell. It is a phase of social psychology that needs explaining.
In these jokes Johnson was, consciously or not, influenced by the fine Royalist poet, John Cleveland (1613-1658); but the latter was very much in earnest. He detested the Scotch for fighting against Charles I. His references to Scotland in The Rebel Scot are wonderfully clever:—
And again:—
God is present by His essence; which, because it is infinite, cannot be contained within the limits of any place; and because He is of an essential purity and spiritual nature, He cannot be undervalued by being supposed present in the places of unnatural uncleanness: because, as the sun, reflecting upon the mud of strands and shores, is unpolluted in its beams, so is God not dishonoured when we suppose Him in every one of His creatures, and in every part of every one of them.
Jeremy Taylor (Holy Living, Ch. 1, Sec. 3).
There is an old Scottish proverb, “The sun is no waur for shining on the midden.”
I dare say Alexander the Great was somewhat staggered in his plans of conquest by Parmenio’s way of putting things. “After you have conquered Persia what will you do?” “Then I shall conquer India.” “After you have conquered India, what will you do?” “Conquer Scythia.” “And after you have conquered Scythia, what will you do?” “Sit down and rest.” “Well,” said Parmenio to the conqueror, “why not sit down and rest now?”
A. K. H. Boyd (The Recreations of a Country Parson).
I include this because it is a good short paraphrase of the actual story of Pyrrhus and Cineas (Plutarch’s Lives—“Pyrrhus”) and because of the curious absurdity of attributing such philosophic advice to the warrior, Parmenio. This general was the only one of Alexander’s old advisers who urged him to invade Asia! (Plutarch’s Lives—“Alexander”).
Sorrow and care and anxiety may quite well live in Elizabethan cottages, grown over with honeysuckle and jasmine; and very sad eyes may look forth from windows around which roses twine.
A. K. H. Boyd (The Recreations of a Country Parson).
This book had a great vogue, but not sufficient merit to preserve it from oblivion.
CANADIAN BOAT-SONG
From the Gaelic.
The authorship of these verses is uncertain, but it probably lies between John Galt, author of Annals of the Parish, and Lockhart, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. The verses were quoted by Professor Wilson (Christopher North) in his Noctes Ambrosianae in Blackwood, Sept., 1829, but, because Wilson was not the author, they are not reproduced in his collected works (Blackwood, 1855).
A degenerate Lord, &c. This refers to the eviction of the Highland crofters and cottars. In 1829 the Duke of Hamilton had just cleared the population out of the Isle of Arran.
Sheiling or Shealing, a hut used by shepherds, fishermen, or others for shelter when at work at a distance from home.
Anterôs is the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not return the love of others, as otherwise his brother Erôs, god of love, will be unhappy.
The fine poem from which this is quoted represents one of the phases of Myers’ experience. It was published in 1882, but written about ten years before. He had then lost his faith in Christianity, but believed in a future life on grounds based partly upon philosophy and partly on “vision.” He had those moments of exaltation when, as he says:
For entrance into the future life, Love and complete Self-surrender are the best equipment for the soul.
Life is short, and we have not too much time for gladdening the lives of those who are travelling the dark road with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
Amiel’s Journal.
SELF-SACRIFICE
We bury decay in the earth; we plant in it the perishing; we feed it with offensive refuse: but nothing grows out of it that is not clean; it gives us back life and beauty.
Charles Dudley Warner (My Summer in a Garden).
SOUL’S BEAUTY
Although Rossetti was not a classical student, he seems here to have arrived at the Platonic idea of an abstract Beauty, of whose essence are all beautiful things, “sea or sky or woman.” Love and death, terror and mystery guard her, as a goddess on her throne, and all lovers of the beautiful are worshippers at her shrine.
Thinking is only a dream of feeling; a dead feeling; a pale-grey, feeble life.
Novalis.
A whetstone cannot cut, but it makes iron sharp, and gives it a keen edge.
Isocrates (436-338 B.C.).
This is quoted in Plutarch’s Lives. Isocrates was asked why he taught rhetoric so much and yet spoke so rarely; and this was his reply. Horace (Ars Poetica 304) playfully says that he is no longer able to write verses but he will teach others to write, adding “a whetstone is not used for cutting, but is used for sharpening steel nevertheless.”
The career of Isocrates, “that old man eloquent,”[31] is extremely interesting. He preserved his energy and his influence to the end of his long life of 98 years.
A very musical expression of a very ugly thought.
Women never betray themselves to men as they do to each other.
George Eliot (Middlemarch).
THE RETREAT
I include this poem, although it is in the anthologies, because from my own experience a young reader will not see its beauty without some words of explanation. It is the precursor of the greatest ode ever written, Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Wordsworth, Vaughan, and many others believe that we had a separate existence before we came into this world (and there is much in the experience of each of us to warrant that belief). Wordsworth says:
But in order to appreciate either Wordsworth’s or Vaughan’s poem it is not necessary to have this belief in a past separate existence—it is enough to realize that
One may see the small value God has for riches by the people He gives them to.
Alexander Pope.
Browning in his last poem, the well-known “Epilogue,” speaks with another voice. He wishes his friends to think of him after death as he was when alive:—
F. W. H. Myers wrote:—
We need a summons to no houri-haunted paradise, no passionless contemplation, no monotony of prayer and praise; but to endless advance by endless effort, and, if need be, by endless pain. Be it mine, then, to plunge among the unknown Destinies—to dare and still to dare!
Emerson’s heaven also was
In life, Love comes first. Indeed, we only come because Love calls for us. We find it waiting with outstretched arms on arrival. Love is the beginning of everything.
F. W. Boreham (Faces in the Fire).
Tóward, “approaching.”
My closing remark is as to avoiding debates that are in their very nature interminable.... There is a certain intensity of emotion, interest, bias or prejudice if you will, that can neither reason nor be reasoned with. On the purely intellectual side, the disqualifying circumstances are complexity and vagueness. If a topic necessarily hauls in numerous other topics of difficulty, the essay may do something for it, but not the debate. Worst of all is the presence of several large, ill-defined, and unsettled terms. A not unfrequent case is a combination of the several defects, each, perhaps, in a small degree. A tinge of predilection or party, a double or triple complication of doctrines, and one or two hazy terms will make a debate that is pretty sure to end as it began. Thus it is that a question, plausible to appearance, may contain within it capacities of misunderstanding, cross-purposes, and pointless issues, sufficient to occupy the long night of Pandemonium, or beguile the journey to the nearest fixed star.
Alexander Bain (Contemporary Review, April, 1877).
From an address to the Edinburgh University Philosophical Society.
Diogenes, seeing Neptune’s temple with votive pictures of those saved from wreck, says, “Yea, but where are they painted, that have been drowned?”
Bacon.
THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM
A canon of my own in judging verses is that no man has a right to put into metre what he can as well say out of metre. To which I may add, as a corollary, that a fortiore he has no right to put into metre what he can better say out of metre.
W. S. Lilly (Essay on George Eliot).
Aujourd’hui, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante.
(Now-a-days when a thing is not worth saying they sing it—i.e. put it in a song.)
Beaumarchais (Le Barbier de Séville, Act I. Sc. I.)
I do not know whether I gave you at any time the details of my work here, or the principles upon which I have been proceeding.... Some of the work set down includes Ancient Ethics—which is almost entirely grossly wrong and great rubbish also. This part I have persistently refused to get up, not because I disliked it, but because it is decidedly injurious to warp and twist the brain by impressing it with wrong thoughts and systems—just as it would be insane in the polisher of a mirror to think it would reflect the external world more truly, if he gave it a dint here, a scratch there, a bulge in another place, and so forth. It would take me too long to describe the details. Suffice it to say that one of the examiners in Mental Philosophy and in Moral and Political Philosophy is an old, blind (literally) man of the old school, who gave a very abnormally large amount of questions relating to Ancient Ethics, and an abnormally large amount to the early part of English Ethics—leaving hardly any marks to be scored by thorough understanding and ability to use the principles of the subjects.
The consequence was that those, who had crammed up the earlier text-books and could reproduce them, had an enormous advantage. This old fogey moreover is strongly anti-Spencerian. Indeed I heard that he had objected to my answers because “there was too much of Spencer and myself!” So that instead of criticism and originality, he avowedly preferred mere reproduction, a good example of the slavishness of that method of examination predominant mostly, which, as Spencer wrote to me some time ago, is devised for testing a man’s “power of acquisition instead of using that which has been acquired.”
Richard Hodgson (1855-1905) (Letter, Dec., 1881).
This letter was written to me from Cambridge, when Hodgson (see Preface) had found his immediate prospects blasted by the results of the Moral Science Tripos. No one was placed in the First Class and he (although at the head of the Tripos) only in the Second Class. This meant that he had no hope of a Fellowship, which would have enabled him to go on with original work in philosophy, and he would have to employ his time in earning a livelihood. Added to this was the cruel disappointment to his family and friends.
Hodgson was one of the most gifted men that Australia has produced. He had completed his M.A. and LL.D. courses in Melbourne by 1877, when he was twenty-two years of age, and then, discarding the profession of the law, left for Cambridge to read Mental and Moral Science. While still an undergraduate there he had written an article in reply to T. H. Green, and submitted it to Herbert Spencer, who highly approved of it, and sent it to the Contemporary. However, as stated above, Hodgson’s immediate future depended on the result of the examination. (He was at the time preparing one of the articles he contributed to Mind, and had in view further original work.)
When the result of the Tripos appeared, Henry Sidgwick and Venn who were then Lecturers and by far the best Moral Science men in Cambridge, came to sympathize with Hodgson, on the unfair result. They urged him to go to Germany so that he might acquire that perfect command of the German language which was necessary for his philosophic work. On learning that he was not in a position to do this, Sidgwick insisted—as he said, “in the interests of philosophy”—on defraying the whole of the expenses of Hodgson’s residence in Germany. As he insisted strongly, Hodgson accepted the offer, and went to Jena, armed with a very flattering letter of introduction from Herbert Spencer to Haeckel.
Almost immediately after his return from Germany the Society for Psychical Research was founded, and Hodgson joined it. He came to the conclusion that the work of this Society was more important than any other study, while probably it would also be of fundamental assistance to philosophy. He went out to India in 1884, and thoroughly exposed Madame Blavatsky and her “Theosophy,” and, from about 1886, devoted the rest of his life to Psychical Research. Although maintaining his reading and his intimacy with Henry Sidgwick, William James, and others, his services practically became lost to philosophy. This, however, does not affect the important fact illustrated by the Tripos incident. We learn what ineptitude can exist in a great university, and what grave results must necessarily follow therefrom.
Although Hodgson was writing under stress of a grievous calamity (yet with a dauntless heart—see verse on Dedication page), his remarks on Ancient Ethics are not, in my opinion, exaggerated.
Herbert Spencer’s remark to Hodgson about examinations may also be noted.