See preceding quotation.
We may well begin to doubt whether the known and the natural can suffice for human life. No sooner do we try to think so than pessimism raises its head. The more our thoughts widen and deepen, as the universe grows upon us and we become accustomed to boundless space and time, the more petrifying is the contrast of our own insignificance, the more contemptible become the pettiness, shortness, fragility of the individual life. A moral paralysis creeps upon us. For awhile we comfort ourselves with the notion of self-sacrifice; we say, what matter if I pass, let me think of others! But the other has become contemptible no less than the self; all human griefs alike seem little worth assuaging, human happiness too paltry at the best to be worth increasing. The whole moral world is reduced to a point; good and evil, right and wrong become infinitesimal ephemeral matters, while eternity and infinity remain attributes of that only which is outside the sphere of morality. Life becomes more intolerable the more we know and discover, so long as everything widens and deepens except our own duration, and that remains as pitiful as ever. The affections die away in a world where everything great and enduring is cold; they die of their own conscious feebleness and bootlessness.
Sir J. R. Seeley (Natural Religion).
See the two preceding quotations.
LOVE-SWEETNESS
Jesus saith, Wherever there are two, they are not without God; and wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood and there am I.
(Logia of Jesus).
This is one of the Logia or Sayings of Jesus written on papyrus in the third century and discovered in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897. The italics, of course, are mine.
The first of all Gospels is this, that a Lie cannot endure for ever.
Meanwhile it is singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided you do not handle it roughly.
There are quarrels in which even Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly, might cover himself with glory—of a temporary nature.
... Nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.
Thou art bound hastily for the City of Nowhere; and wilt arrive!
Carlyle (French Revolution).
It is interesting to learn from a correspondent of The Spectator (Feb. 17, 1917) that Carlyle wrote two verses which he combined with Shakespeare’s “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” (Cymbeline iv, 2) to make a requiem, of which he was very fond:
Byron in “Don Juan” says:
(Speaking of the rare and exalted nature of Dorothea, who has adopted the normal, domestic married life) Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me, as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
George Eliot (Middlemarch).
This passage, which finely expresses an important truth, is at the end of Middlemarch. The reference is to a story of Herodotus. He says that Cyrus, the Persian, was angry with the river Gyndes (Diyalah), because it had drowned one of the white horses, which, as being sacred to the sun, accompanied the expedition. He, therefore, employed his army to divert the river into 360 channels (representing the number of days in the year). The story was probably told to Herodotus as explaining the great irrigation system that existed in Mesopotamia. The Diyalah flows into the Tigris not far from Baghdad.
See reference to this poem in Preface.
But to come again unto Apelles, this was his manner and custom besides, which he perpetually observed, that no day went over his head, but what businesse soever he had otherwise to call him away, he would make one draught or other (and never misse) for to exercise his hand and keepe it in use, inasmuch as from him grew the proverbe, Nulla dies sine linea, i.e. Be alwaies doing somewhat, though you doe but draw a line. His order was when he had finished a piece of work or painted table, and layd it out of his hand, to set it forth in some open gallerie or thorowfare, to be seen of folke that passed by, and himselfe would lie close behind it to hearken what faults were found therewith; preferring the judgment of the common people before his owne, and imagining they would spy more narrowly, and censure his doings sooner than himselfe: and as the tale is told, it fell out upon a time, that a shoomaker as he went by seemed to controlle his workmanship about the shoo or pantofle that he had made to a picture, and namely, that there was one latchet fewer than there should be: Apelles acknowledging that the man said true indeed, mended that fault by the next morning, and set forth his table as his manner was. The same shoomaker comming again the morrow after, and finding the want supplied which he noted the day before, took some pride unto himselfe, that his former admonition had sped so well, and was so bold as to cavil at somewhat about the leg. Apelles could not endure that, but putting forth his head from behind the painted table, and scorning thus to be checked and reproved, Sirrha (quoth hee) remember you are but a shoomaker, and therefore meddle no higher I advise you, than with shoos. Which words also of his came afterwards to be a common proverbe, Ne sutor ultra crepidam.
Pliny (Natural History).
Apelles, the greatest painter of antiquity. The two proverbs mean: “No day without a line,” “A cobbler should stick to his last.” Pantofle, sandal; latchet, the thong fastening the sandal; painted table, panel picture; controlle, find fault with.
Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom—a third part bud; a third part past, a third part in full bloom—is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.
John Ruskin (Stones of Venice II, vi, 25).
The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?
George Eliot (Janet’s Repentance).
This and the next three quotations are word-pictures (see p. 85).
The stanzas are reversed in order.
The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 85).
ON THE NONPAREIL
Naught but himself can be his parallel.
Randall was a pugilist of the time.
“None but himself can be his parallel” is a line from The Double Falsehood of Louis Theobald (1691-1744), but it comes originally from Seneca (Hercules Furens, Act I, Sc. I):
I copied the above sonnet from Gossip in a Library by Edmund Gosse (1891), partly because Mr. Gosse said of it, “Anthologies are not edited in a truly catholic spirit, or they would contain this very remarkable sonnet.” I hardly think this, but the lines seem sufficiently interesting to quote.
(The King, seeing her so beautiful, said to his nephew, “For one kiss, for a smile, for one hair of her head, Infante Don Ruy, I would give Spain and Peru.” The wind that blows over the mountain will drive me mad.)
Victor Hugo (Gastibelza).
This charmingly extravagant praise of a lady’s beauty recalls the story of another poet. The Eastern conqueror, Timur (or Tamerlane), sent for the Persian poet Hafiz and very angrily asked him, “Art thou he who offered to give my two great cities, Samarkand and Bokhara, for the black mole on thy mistress’s cheek?” Hafiz, however, cleverly escaped trouble by replying, “Yes, sire, I always give freely, and in consequence am now reduced to poverty. May I crave your kind assistance?” Timur was amused at the reply and made the poet a present. The story, however, is considered doubtful, because Timur did not conquer Persia until some years after 1388, which is supposed to be the date of the poet’s death.
Mere verbal insults (to a Roman Emperor) were not considered treason; for, said the Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, in language that is a standing rebuke to pusillanimous tyrants, if the words are uttered in a spirit of frivolity, the attack merits contempt; if from madness, they excite pity; if from malice, they are to be forgiven.
William A. Hunter (1844-1898) (Roman Law, Appendix).
This recalls to mind the numerous cases of lèse-majesté for words spoken against the Kaiser before the war. The passage would make a pleasant retort to a rude opponent (a “pusillanimous tyrant”) in a debate.
I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great ones, is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular men feign themselves to be servants of others, to make these slaves to them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, etc., that they may be food for him.
Ben Jonson (Mores Aulici).
Paraphrased as:—
GLADSTONE AND THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH.
Mr. Gladstone’s relation to Psychical Research affords one more illustration of the width and force of his intellectual sympathies. Many men, even of high ability, if convinced as Mr. Gladstone was of the truth and sufficiency of the Christian revelation, permit themselves to ignore these experimental approaches to spiritual knowledge, as at best superfluous. They do not realize how profoundly the evidence, the knowledge, which we seek and which in some measure we find, must ultimately influence men’s views as to both the credibility and the adequacy of all forms of faith. Mr. Gladstone’s broad intellectual purview,—aided perhaps in this instance by something of the practical foresight of the statesman,—placed him in a quite different attitude towards our quest. “It is the most important work which is being done in the world,” he said in a conversation in 1885. “By far the most important,” he repeated, with a grave emphasis which suggested previous trains of thought, to which he did not care to give expression. He went on to apologize, in his courteous fashion, for his inability to render active help; and ended by saying “If you will accept sympathy without service, I shall be glad to join your ranks.” He became an Honorary Member, and followed with attention,—I know not with how much of study—the successive issues of our Proceedings. Towards the close of his life he desired that the Proceedings should be sent to St. Deiniol’s Library, which he had founded at Hawarden; thus giving final testimony to his sense of the salutary nature of our work. From a man so immersed in other thought and labour that work could assuredly claim no more; from men profoundly and primarily interested in the spiritual world it ought, I think, to claim no less.
F. W. H. Myers (S.P.R. Journal, June, 1898).
Apart from this interesting glimpse of Gladstone, it shows the importance he attached to the work of the Society for Psychical Research. To the severely orthodox, who think no evidence of life after death should be sought outside “Revelation,” his opinion should appeal. Every increase of knowledge is a further “Revelation.” In the Bible we are told of one resurrection, and there is certainly no reason why we should not seek the evidence of others. We should not shut our eyes and close our ears to new Revelation.
The Society has been thirty-eight years in existence and is still insufficiently appreciated. Hodgson said in The Forum, 1896 “There are so many ways of looking at the world. It may be a speck in space, or a huge cauldron with a graveyard for its crust, a place in which to get a hunger and satisfy it, the fighting ground for a while of dragon or ape, of Trojan or Turk, an evolutionary drama that must end in ice or fire. Many things it means to different men. One is busy with earthworms, another with stars, another with the splendour of the day or the strivings of the human soul. Numerous investigators are hunting for further proofs that we came out of the mud, but very few are seeking indications, in any scientific spirit, of what may follow the toil and turmoil of our individual existence here.”
Myers says: “The question of the survival of man is a branch of experimental psychology. Is there, or is there not, evidence in the actual observed phenomena of automatism, apparitions and the like, for a transcendental energy in living men, or for an influence emanating from personalities which have overpassed the tomb? This is the definite question, which we can at least intelligibly discuss, and which either we or our descendants may some day hope to answer.”
(A woman, look you, is a certain animal hard to understand and much inclined to mischief.)
Molière (Le Dépit Amoureux).
Swinburne introduced the new Hellenism or paganism, which was followed by Pater and J. A. Symonds and ended with Oscar Wilde (see p. 310 note.) Here Time is the supreme god who wrecks Christian Churches, etc.
Although Swinburne had no important message to deliver, yet by his wonderful mastery of metre and language he was of tremendous service in transforming English Poetry (see p. 219.) But in spite of the magical effect of his new melodies, he was wanting in the art (of which Milton is the supreme example) of varying his rhythm and accents. His extreme regularity, notwithstanding the fine language and the splendid swing of his verses, produces in his longer poems a certain effect of monotony. Swinburne spoke of the “spavined and spur-galled Pegasus” of George Eliot, but although she lacked his wonderful lyric melody, she was more artistic and effective than he in varying the rhythm of her verse. However, the immense influence of Swinburne on all subsequent poetry can never be forgotten. Even the dreary Iambic couplet in his hands was transformed into music.
There is the love of the good for the good’s sake, and the love of the truth for the truth’s sake. I have known many, especially women, love the good for the good’s sake; but very few, indeed—and scarcely one woman—love the truth for the truth’s sake. Yet without the latter, the former may become, as it has a thousand times been, the source of the persecution of the truth—the pretext and motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry. To see clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately identical is given only to those who love both sincerely and without any foreign ends.
S. T. Coleridge (Table Talk).
The old creeds grew out of human nature as genuinely as weeds and flowers out of the earth. It is well enough that the gardener, whose business it is to pull them up, should despise them as pigweed, wormwood, chickweed, shadblossom: so they are, out of their place; but the botanist picks up the same and recognizes them as Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchier, Amaranth. Natura nihil agit frustra. Let us coax each to yield its last bud.
Moncure D. Conway.
I have not Conway’s book An Earthward Pilgrimage to refer to. The latter part of the above is apparently a quotation from Thoreau, as I remember it is so quoted by Emerson.
God is my witness, what hours of wretchedness I have spent at times, while reading the Bible devoutly from day to day, and reverencing every word of it as the Word of God, when petty contradictions met me which seemed to my reason to conflict with the notion of the absolute historical veracity of every part of Scripture, and which, as I felt, in the study of any other book we should honestly treat as errors or mis-statements, without in the least detracting from the real value of the book! But in those days, I was taught that it was my duty to fling the suggestion from me at once, “as if it were a loaded shell shot into the fortress of my soul,” or to stamp out desperately, as with an iron heel, each spark of honest doubt, which God’s own gift, the love of truth, had kindled in my bosom.... I thank God that I was not able long to throw dust in the eyes of my own mind, and do violence to the love of truth in this way.
Bishop Colenso (1814-1883) (Pentateuch).
(See G. W. Cox’s Life of Colenso, I, 493.) Colenso’s quotation, “as if it were a loaded shell,” etc., is from Bishop Wilberforce. Cox mentions elsewhere that in one of Wilberforce’s published sermons he speaks of a young man of great promise dying in darkness and despair, because he had indulged in doubt as to whether the sun and moon stood still at Joshua’s bidding! Who, that went through the experiences of those days, can ever forget them? We had been taught that we “must believe” every word of the Bible to be divinely inspired or else be eternally damned. And yet we realized that such belief was absolutely impossible!
The horror with which Bishop Colenso’s revelations were received in orthodox circles would to-day be scarcely credible, and not until after the eighties were the results of the Higher Criticism generally accepted.
Let a man be once fully persuaded that there is no difference between the two positions, “The Bible contains the religion revealed by God,” and “Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God”; and that whatever can be said of the Bible, collectively taken, may and must be said of each and every sentence of the Bible, taken for and by itself,—and I no longer wonder at these paradoxes. I only object to the inconsistency of those who profess the same belief, and yet affect to look down with a contemptuous or compassionate smile on John Wesley for rejecting the Copernican system as incompatible therewith; or who exclaim, “Wonderful!” when they hear that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to the gallows in honour of the Witch of Endor.... I challenge these divines and their adherents to establish the compatibility of a belief in the modern astronomy and natural philosophy with their and Wesley’s doctrine respecting the inspired Scriptures.
S. T. Coleridge.
Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans in poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. Corn—which, in my garden, grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority—is, however, the child of song. It “waves” in all literature.
Charles Dudley Warner (My Summer in a Garden).