{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1091/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1091","id":"gutenberg_1091","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1091","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Hero worship","Heroes"],"text":"Produced by Ron Burkey\n\n\n\n\n\nON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY\n\nBy Thomas Carlyle\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\nThe text is taken from the printed \"Sterling Edition\" of Carlyle's\nComplete Works, in 20 volumes, with the following modifications made\nin the etext version: Italicized text is delimited by underscores,\n_thusly_. The footnote (there is only one) has been embedded directly\ninto text, in brackets, [thusly]. Greek text has been transliterated\ninto Latin characters with the notation [Gr.] juxtaposed. Otherwise, the\npunctuation and spelling of the print version have been retained.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n  I.   THE HERO AS DIVINITY.  ODIN.  PAGANISM:  SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY.\n  II.  THE HERO AS PROPHET.  MAHOMET:  ISLAM.\n  III. THE HERO AS POET.  DANTE:  SHAKSPEARE.\n  IV.  THE HERO AS PRIEST.  LUTHER; REFORMATION:  KNOX; PURITANISM.\n  V.   THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.  JOHNSON, ROUSSEAU, BURNS.\n  VI.  THE HERO AS KING.  CROMWELL, NAPOLEON:  MODERN REVOLUTIONISM.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURES ON HEROES.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I. THE HERO AS DIVINITY. ODIN. PAGANISM: SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY.\n\n[May 5, 1840.]\n\nWe have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great Men, their\nmanner of appearance in our world's business, how they have shaped\nthemselves in the world's history, what ideas men formed of them,\nwhat work they did;--on Heroes, namely, and on their reception and\nperformance; what I call Hero-worship and the Heroic in human affairs.\nToo evidently this is a large topic; deserving quite other treatment\nthan we can expect to give it at present. A large topic; indeed, an\nillimitable one; wide as Universal History itself. For, as I take it,\nUniversal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this\nworld, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.\nThey were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns,\nand in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of\nmen contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing\naccomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the\npractical realization and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the\nGreat Men sent into the world: the soul of the whole world's history, it\nmay justly be considered, were the history of these. Too clearly it is a\ntopic we shall do no justice to in this place!\n\nOne comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable\ncompany. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without\ngaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain, which it\nis good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens, which has\nenlightened the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindled lamp\nonly, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a\nflowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood\nand heroic nobleness;--in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well\nwith them. On any terms whatsoever, you will not grudge to wander in\nsuch neighborhood for a while. These Six classes of Heroes, chosen out\nof widely distant countries and epochs, and in mere external figure\ndiffering altogether, ought, if we look faithfully at them, to\nillustrate several things for us. Could we see them well, we should get\nsome glimpses into the very marrow of the world's history. How happy,\ncould I but, in any measure, in such times as these, make manifest to\nyou the meanings of Heroism; the divine relation (for I may well call it\nsuch) which in all times unites a Great Man to other men; and thus, as\nit were, not exhaust my subject, but so much as break ground on it! At\nall events, I must make the attempt.\n\n\nIt is well said, in every sense, that a man's religion is the chief fact\nwith regard to him. A man's, or a nation of men's. By religion I do not\nmean here the church-creed which he professes, the articles of faith\nwhich he will sign and, in words or otherwise, assert; not this wholly,\nin many cases not this at all. We see men of all kinds of professed\ncreeds attain to almost all degrees of worth or worthlessness under each\nor any of them. This is not what I call religion, this profession and\nassertion; which is often only a profession and assertion from the\noutworks of the man, from the mere argumentative region of him, if even\nso deep as that. But the thing a man does practically believe (and this\nis often enough _without_ asserting it even to himself, much less to\nothers); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for\ncertain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and\nhis duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for\nhim, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his _religion_; or,\nit may be, his mere scepticism and _no-religion_: the manner it is in\nwhich he feels himself to be spiritually related to the Unseen World or\nNo-World; and I say, if you tell me what that is, you tell me to a very\ngreat extent what the man is, what the kind of things he will do is. Of\na man or of a nation we inquire, therefore, first of all, What\nreligion they had? Was it Heathenism,--plurality of gods, mere sensuous\nrepresentation of this Mystery of Life, and for chief recognized element\ntherein Physical Force? Was it Christianism; faith in an Invisible,\nnot as real only, but as the only reality; Time, through every meanest\nmoment of it, resting on Eternity; Pagan empire of Force displaced by a\nnobler supremacy, that of Holiness? Was it Scepticism, uncertainty and\ninquiry whether there was an Unseen World, any Mystery of Life except\na mad one;--doubt as to all this, or perhaps unbelief and flat denial?\nAnswering of this question is giving us the soul of the history of the\nman or nation. The thoughts they had were the parents of the actions\nthey did; their feelings were parents of their thoughts: it was\nthe unseen and spiritual in them that determined the outward and\nactual;--their religion, as I say, was the great fact about them. In\nthese Discourses, limited as we are, it will be good to direct our\nsurvey chiefly to that religious phasis of the matter. That once known\nwell, all is known. We have chosen as the first Hero in our series Odin\nthe central figure of Scandinavian Paganism; an emblem to us of a most\nextensive province of things. Let us look for a little at the Hero as\nDivinity, the oldest primary form of Heroism.\n\nSurely it seems a very strange-looking thing this Paganism; almost\ninconceivable to us in these days. A bewildering, inextricable jungle of\ndelusions, confusions, falsehoods, and absurdities, covering the whole\nfield of Life! A thing that fills us with astonishment, almost, if it\nwere possible, with incredulity,--for truly it is not easy to understand\nthat sane men could ever calmly, with their eyes open, believe and live\nby such a set of doctrines. That men should have worshipped their poor\nfellow-man as a God, and not him only, but stocks and stones, and all\nmanner of animate and inanimate objects; and fashioned for themselves\nsuch a distracted chaos of hallucinations by way of Theory of the\nUniverse: all this looks like an incredible fable. Nevertheless it is\na clear fact that they did it. Such hideous inextricable jungle of\nmisworships, misbeliefs, men, made as we are, did actually hold by,\nand live at home in. This is strange. Yes, we may pause in sorrow and\nsilence over the depths of darkness that are in man; if we rejoice in\nthe heights of purer vision he has attained to. Such things were and are\nin man; in all men; in us too.\n\nSome speculators have a short way of accounting for the Pagan religion:\nmere quackery, priestcraft, and dupery, say they; no sane man ever did\nbelieve it,--merely contrived to persuade other men, not worthy of\nthe name of sane, to believe it! It will be often our duty to protest\nagainst this sort of hypothesis about men's doings and history; and\nI here, on the very threshold, protest against it in reference to\nPaganism, and to all other _isms_ by which man has ever for a length of\ntime striven to walk in this world. They have all had a truth in them,\nor men would not have taken them up. Quackery and dupery do abound; in\nreligions, above all in the more advanced decaying stages of religions,\nthey have fearfully abounded: but quackery was never the originating\ninfluence in such things; it was not the health and life of such things,\nbut their disease, the sure precursor of their being about to die! Let\nus never forget this. It seems to me a most mournful hypothesis, that\nof quackery giving birth to any faith even in savage men. Quackery gives\nbirth to nothing; gives death to all things. We shall not see into the\ntrue heart of anything, if we look merely at the quackeries of it; if we\ndo not reject the quackeries altogether; as mere diseases, corruptions,\nwith which our and all men's sole duty is to have done with them, to\nsweep them out of our thoughts as out of our practice. Man everywhere\nis the born enemy of lies. I find Grand Lamaism itself to have a kind\nof truth in it. Read the candid, clear-sighted, rather sceptical Mr.\nTurner's _Account of his Embassy_ to that country, and see. They have\ntheir belief, these poor Thibet people, that Providence sends down\nalways an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some\nbelief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, belief that there is\na _Greatest_ Man; that _he_ is discoverable; that, once discovered, we\nought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds! This is the\ntruth of Grand Lamaism; the \"discoverability\" is the only error here.\nThe Thibet priests have methods of their own of discovering what Man is\nGreatest, fit to be supreme over them. Bad methods: but are they so\nmuch worse than our methods,--of understanding him to be always the\neldest-born of a certain genealogy? Alas, it is a difficult thing to\nfind good methods for!--We shall begin to have a chance of understanding\nPaganism, when we first admit that to its followers it was, at one time,\nearnestly true. Let us consider it very certain that men did believe\nin Paganism; men with open eyes, sound senses, men made altogether like\nourselves; that we, had we been there, should have believed in it. Ask\nnow, What Paganism could have been?\n\nAnother theory, somewhat more respectable, attributes such things\nto Allegory. It was a play of poetic minds, say these theorists; a\nshadowing forth, in allegorical fable, in personification and visual\nform, of what such poetic minds had known and felt of this Universe.\nWhich agrees, add they, with a primary law of human nature, still\neverywhere observably at work, though in less important things, That\nwhat a man feels intensely, he struggles to speak out of him, to see\nrepresented before him in visual shape, and as if with a kind of life\nand historical reality in it. Now doubtless there is such a law, and it\nis one of the deepest in human nature; neither need we doubt that it did\noperate fundamentally in this business. The hypothesis which ascribes\nPaganism wholly or mostly to this agency, I call a little more\nrespectable; but I cannot yet call it the true hypothesis. Think, would\n_we_ believe, and take with us as our life-guidance, an allegory, a\npoetic sport? Not sport but earnest is what we should require. It is a\nmost earnest thing to be alive in this world; to die is not sport for\na man. Man's life never was a sport to him; it was a stern reality,\naltogether a serious matter to be alive!\n\nI find, therefore, that though these Allegory theorists are on the way\ntowards truth in this matter, they have not reached it either. Pagan\nReligion is indeed an Allegory, a Symbol of what men felt and knew about\nthe Universe; and all Religions are symbols of that, altering always\nas that alters: but it seems to me a radical perversion, and even\ninversion, of the business, to put that forward as the origin and moving\ncause, when it was rather the result and termination. To get beautiful\nallegories, a perfect poetic symbol, was not the want of men; but to\nknow what they were to believe about this Universe, what course they\nwere to steer in it; what, in this mysterious Life of theirs, they\nhad to hope and to fear, to do and to forbear doing. The _Pilgrim's\nProgress_ is an Allegory, and a beautiful, just and serious one: but\nconsider whether Bunyan's Allegory could have _preceded_ the Faith it\nsymbolizes! The Faith had to be already there, standing believed by\neverybody;--of which the Allegory could _then_ become a shadow; and,\nwith all its seriousness, we may say a _sportful_ shadow, a mere play of\nthe Fancy, in comparison with that awful Fact and scientific certainty\nwhich it poetically strives to emblem. The Allegory is the product of\nthe certainty, not the producer of it; not in Bunyan's nor in any other\ncase. For Paganism, therefore, we have still to inquire, Whence came\nthat scientific certainty, the parent of such a bewildered heap of\nallegories, errors and confusions? How was it, what was it?\n\nSurely it were a foolish attempt to pretend \"explaining,\" in this place,\nor in any place, such a phenomenon as that far-distant distracted cloudy\nimbroglio of Paganism,--more like a cloud-field than a distant continent\nof firm land and facts! It is no longer a reality, yet it was one. We\nought to understand that this seeming cloud-field was once a reality;\nthat not poetic allegory, least of all that dupery and deception was\nthe origin of it. Men, I say, never did believe idle songs, never risked\ntheir soul's life on allegories: men in all times, especially in early\nearnest times, have had an instinct for detecting quacks, for detesting\nquacks. Let us try if, leaving out both the quack theory and the\nallegory one, and listening with affectionate attention to that far-off\nconfused rumor of the Pagan ages, we cannot ascertain so much as this at\nleast, That there was a kind of fact at the heart of them; that they too\nwere not mendacious and distracted, but in their own poor way true and\nsane!\n\n\nYou remember that fancy of Plato's, of a man who had grown to maturity\nin some dark distance, and was brought on a sudden into the upper air to\nsee the sun rise. What would his wonder be, his rapt astonishment at the\nsight we daily witness with indifference! With the free open sense of\na child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole heart would be\nkindled by that sight, he would discern it well to be Godlike, his\nsoul would fall down in worship before it. Now, just such a childlike\ngreatness was in the primitive nations. The first Pagan Thinker\namong rude men, the first man that began to think, was precisely this\nchild-man of Plato's. Simple, open as a child, yet with the depth and\nstrength of a man. Nature had as yet no name to him; he had not yet\nunited under a name the infinite variety of sights, sounds, shapes\nand motions, which we now collectively name Universe, Nature, or the\nlike,--and so with a name dismiss it from us. To the wild deep-hearted\nman all was yet new, not veiled under names or formulas; it stood naked,\nflashing in on him there, beautiful, awful, unspeakable. Nature was to\nthis man, what to the Thinker and Prophet it forever is, preternatural.\nThis green flowery rock-built earth, the trees, the mountains, rivers,\nmany-sounding seas;--that great deep sea of azure that swims overhead;\nthe winds sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning itself\ntogether, now pouring out fire, now hail and rain; what _is_ it? Ay,\nwhat? At bottom we do not yet know; we can never know at all. It is\nnot by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty; it is by our\nsuperior levity, our inattention, our _want_ of insight. It is by _not_\nthinking that we cease to wonder at it. Hardened round us, encasing\nwholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere\n_words_. We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud \"electricity,\" and\nlecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and\nsilk: but _what_ is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it?\nScience has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide\nfrom us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can\nnever penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere superficial film.\nThis world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle;\nwonderful, inscrutable, _magical_ and more, to whosoever will _think_ of\nit.\n\nThat great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable,\nsilent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift,\nsilent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the\nUniverse swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are\n_not_: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us\ndumb,--for we have no word to speak about it. This Universe, ah me--what\ncould the wild man know of it; what can we yet know? That it is a Force,\nand thousand-fold Complexity of Forces; a Force which is _not_ we. That\nis all; it is not we, it is altogether different from us. Force, Force,\neverywhere Force; we ourselves a mysterious Force in the centre of that.\n\"There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it; how\nelse could it rot?\" Nay surely, to the Atheistic Thinker, if such a one\nwere possible, it must be a miracle too, this huge illimitable whirlwind\nof Force, which envelops us here; never-resting whirlwind, high as\nImmensity, old as Eternity. What is it? God's Creation, the religious\npeople answer; it is the Almighty God's! Atheistic science babbles\npoorly of it, with scientific nomenclatures, experiments and what not,\nas if it were a poor dead thing, to be bottled up in Leyden jars and\nsold over counters: but the natural sense of man, in all times, if he\nwill honestly apply his sense, proclaims it to be a living thing,--ah,\nan unspeakable, godlike thing; towards which the best attitude for us,\nafter never so much science, is awe, devout prostration and humility of\nsoul; worship if not in words, then in silence.\n\nBut now I remark farther: What in such a time as ours it requires a\nProphet or Poet to teach us, namely, the stripping-off of those poor\nundevout wrappages, nomenclatures and scientific hearsays,--this, the\nancient earnest soul, as yet unencumbered with these things, did for\nitself. The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was then\ndivine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. He stood bare before it\nface to face. \"All was Godlike or God:\"--Jean Paul still finds it so;\nthe giant Jean Paul, who has power to escape out of hearsays: but there\nthen were no hearsays. Canopus shining down over the desert, with its\nblue diamond brightness (that wild blue spirit-like brightness, far\nbrighter than we ever witness here), would pierce into the heart of the\nwild Ishmaelitish man, whom it was guiding through the solitary waste\nthere. To his wild heart, with all feelings in it, with no _speech_ for\nany feeling, it might seem a little eye, that Canopus, glancing out on\nhim from the great deep Eternity; revealing the inner Splendor to him.\nCannot we understand how these men _worshipped_ Canopus; became what\nwe call Sabeans, worshipping the stars? Such is to me the secret of\nall forms of Paganism. Worship is transcendent wonder; wonder for which\nthere is now no limit or measure; that is worship. To these primeval\nmen, all things and everything they saw exist beside them were an emblem\nof the Godlike, of some God.\n\nAnd look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To us also, through\nevery star, through every blade of grass, is not a God made visible, if\nwe will open our minds and eyes? We do not worship in that way now:\nbut is it not reckoned still a merit, proof of what we call a \"poetic\nnature,\" that we recognize how every object has a divine beauty in it;\nhow every object still verily is \"a window through which we may look\ninto Infinitude itself\"? He that can discern the loveliness of things,\nwe call him Poet! Painter, Man of Genius, gifted, lovable. These poor\nSabeans did even what he does,--in their own fashion. That they did\nit, in what fashion soever, was a merit: better than what the entirely\nstupid man did, what the horse and camel did,--namely, nothing!\n\nBut now if all things whatsoever that we look upon are emblems to us\nof the Highest God, I add that more so than any of them is man such\nan emblem. You have heard of St. Chrysostom's celebrated saying in\nreference to the Shekinah, or Ark of Testimony, visible Revelation of\nGod, among the Hebrews: \"The true Shekinah is Man!\" Yes, it is even so:\nthis is no vain phrase; it is veritably so. The essence of our being,\nthe mystery in us that calls itself \"I,\"--ah, what words have we for\nsuch things?--is a breath of Heaven; the Highest Being reveals himself\nin man. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as\na vesture for that Unnamed? \"There is but one Temple in the Universe,\"\nsays the devout Novalis, \"and that is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier\nshall that high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this\nRevelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human\nbody!\" This sounds much like a mere flourish of rhetoric; but it is not\nso. If well meditated, it will turn out to be a scientific fact; the\nexpression, in such words as can be had, of the actual truth of the\nthing. We are the miracle of miracles,--the great inscrutable mystery of\nGod. We cannot understand it, we know not how to speak of it; but we may\nfeel and know, if we like, that it is verily so.\n\nWell; these truths were once more readily felt than now. The young\ngenerations of the world, who had in them the freshness of young\nchildren, and yet the depth of earnest men, who did not think that they\nhad finished off all things in Heaven and Earth by merely giving them\nscientific names, but had to gaze direct at them there, with awe and\nwonder: they felt better what of divinity is in man and Nature; they,\nwithout being mad, could _worship_ Nature, and man more than anything\nelse in Nature. Worship, that is, as I said above, admire without limit:\nthis, in the full use of their faculties, with all sincerity of heart,\nthey could do. I consider Hero-worship to be the grand modifying element\nin that ancient system of thought. What I called the perplexed jungle\nof Paganism sprang, we may say, out of many roots: every admiration,\nadoration of a star or natural object, was a root or fibre of a root;\nbut Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in\na great degree all the rest were nourished and grown.\n\nAnd now if worship even of a star had some meaning in it, how much more\nmight that of a Hero! Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of\na Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is,\nat bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of\nadmiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man.\nIt is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's\nlife. Religion I find stand upon it; not Paganism only, but far higher\nand truer religions,--all religion hitherto known. Hero-worship,\nheartfelt prostrate admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for\na noblest godlike Form of Man,--is not that the germ of Christianity\nitself? The greatest of all Heroes is One--whom we do not name here!\nLet sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will find it the\nultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man's whole history\non earth.\n\nOr coming into lower, less unspeakable provinces, is not all Loyalty\nakin to religious Faith also? Faith is loyalty to some inspired\nTeacher, some spiritual Hero. And what therefore is loyalty proper, the\nlife-breath of all society, but an effluence of Hero-worship, submissive\nadmiration for the truly great? Society is founded on Hero-worship. All\ndignities of rank, on which human association rests, are what we may\ncall a _Hero_archy (Government of Heroes),--or a Hierarchy, for it\nis \"sacred\" enough withal! The Duke means _Dux_, Leader; King is\n_Kon-ning_, _Kan-ning_, Man that _knows_ or _cans_. Society everywhere\nis some representation, not insupportably inaccurate, of a graduated\nWorship of Heroes--reverence and obedience done to men really great and\nwise. Not insupportably inaccurate, I say! They are all as bank-notes,\nthese social dignitaries, all representing gold;--and several of them,\nalas, always are _forged_ notes. We can do with some forged false notes;\nwith a good many even; but not with all, or the most of them forged!\nNo: there have to come revolutions then; cries of Democracy, Liberty and\nEquality, and I know not what:--the notes being all false, and no gold\nto be had for _them_, people take to crying in their despair that\nthere is no gold, that there never was any! \"Gold,\" Hero-worship, _is_\nnevertheless, as it was always and everywhere, and cannot cease till man\nhimself ceases.\n\nI am well aware that in these days Hero-worship, the thing I call\nHero-worship, professes to have gone out, and finally ceased. This, for\nreasons which it will be worth while some time to inquire into, is\nan age that as it were denies the existence of great men; denies the\ndesirableness of great men. Show our critics a great man, a Luther for\nexample, they begin to what they call \"account\" for him; not to worship\nhim, but take the dimensions of him,--and bring him out to be a little\nkind of man! He was the \"creature of the Time,\" they say; the Time\ncalled him forth, the Time did everything, he nothing--but what we the\nlittle critic could have done too! This seems to me but melancholy work.\nThe Time call forth? Alas, we have known Times _call_ loudly enough for\ntheir great man; but not find him when they called! He was not there;\nProvidence had not sent him; the Time, _calling_ its loudest, had to go\ndown to confusion and wreck because he would not come when called.\n\nFor if we will think of it, no Time need have gone to ruin, could it\nhave _found_ a man great enough, a man wise and good enough: wisdom to\ndiscern truly what the Time wanted, valor to lead it on the right road\nthither; these are the salvation of any Time. But I liken common languid\nTimes, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their languid\ndoubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently crumbling\ndown into ever worse distress towards final ruin;--all this I liken to\ndry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of Heaven that shall kindle\nit. The great man, with his free force direct out of God's own hand, is\nthe lightning. His word is the wise healing word which all can believe\nin. All blazes round him now, when he has once struck on it, into fire\nlike his own. The dry mouldering sticks are thought to have called him\nforth. They did want him greatly; but as to calling him forth--! Those\nare critics of small vision, I think, who cry: \"See, is it not the\nsticks that made the fire?\" No sadder proof can be given by a man of his\nown littleness than disbelief in great men. There is no sadder symptom\nof a generation than such general blindness to the spiritual lightning,\nwith faith only in the heap of barren dead fuel. It is the last\nconsummation of unbelief. In all epochs of the world's history, we\nshall find the Great Man to have been the indispensable savior of his\nepoch;--the lightning, without which the fuel never would have burnt.\nThe History of the World, I said already, was the Biography of Great\nMen.\n\nSuch small critics do what they can to promote unbelief and universal\nspiritual paralysis: but happily they cannot always completely succeed.\nIn all times it is possible for a man to arise great enough to feel that\nthey and their doctrines are chimeras and cobwebs. And what is notable,\nin no time whatever can they entirely eradicate out of living men's\nhearts a certain altogether peculiar reverence for Great Men; genuine\nadmiration, loyalty, adoration, however dim and perverted it may be.\nHero-worship endures forever while man endures. Boswell venerates his\nJohnson, right truly even in the Eighteenth century. The unbelieving\nFrench believe in their Voltaire; and burst out round him into very\ncurious Hero-worship, in that last act of his life when they \"stifle\nhim under roses.\" It has always seemed to me extremely curious this\nof Voltaire. Truly, if Christianity be the highest instance of\nHero-worship, then we may find here in Voltaireism one of the lowest!\nHe whose life was that of a kind of Antichrist, does again on this\nside exhibit a curious contrast. No people ever were so little prone\nto admire at all as those French of Voltaire. _Persiflage_ was the\ncharacter of their whole mind; adoration had nowhere a place in it. Yet\nsee! The old man of Ferney comes up to Paris; an old, tottering, infirm\nman of eighty-four years. They feel that he too is a kind of Hero;\nthat he has spent his life in opposing error and injustice, delivering\nCalases, unmasking hypocrites in high places;--in short that _he_ too,\nthough in a strange way, has fought like a valiant man. They feel\nwithal that, if _persiflage_ be the great thing, there never was such a\n_persifleur_. He is the realized ideal of every one of them; the thing\nthey are all wanting to be; of all Frenchmen the most French. He is\nproperly their god,--such god as they are fit for. Accordingly all\npersons, from the Queen Antoinette to the Douanier at the Porte St.\nDenis, do they not worship him? People of quality disguise themselves\nas tavern-waiters. The Maitre de Poste, with a broad oath, orders his\nPostilion, \"_Va bon train_; thou art driving M. de Voltaire.\" At\nParis his carriage is \"the nucleus of a comet, whose train fills whole\nstreets.\" The ladies pluck a hair or two from his fur, to keep it as a\nsacred relic. There was nothing highest, beautifulest, noblest in all\nFrance, that did not feel this man to be higher, beautifuler, nobler.\n\nYes, from Norse Odin to English Samuel Johnson, from the divine Founder\nof Christianity to the withered Pontiff of Encyclopedism, in all times\nand places, the Hero has been worshipped. It will ever be so. We all\nlove great men; love, venerate and bow down submissive before great men:\nnay can we honestly bow down to anything else? Ah, does not every true\nman feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is\nreally above him? No nobler or more blessed feeling dwells in man's\nheart. And to me it is very cheering to consider that no sceptical\nlogic, or general triviality, insincerity and aridity of any Time and\nits influences can destroy this noble inborn loyalty and worship that\nis in man. In times of unbelief, which soon have to become times of\nrevolution, much down-rushing, sorrowful decay and ruin is visible\nto everybody. For myself in these days, I seem to see in this\nindestructibility of Hero-worship the everlasting adamant lower than\nwhich the confused wreck of revolutionary things cannot fall. The\nconfused wreck of things crumbling and even crashing and tumbling\nall round us in these revolutionary ages, will get down so far; _no_\nfarther. It is an eternal corner-stone, from which they can begin to\nbuild themselves up again. That man, in some sense or other, worships\nHeroes; that we all of us reverence and must ever reverence Great Men:\nthis is, to me, the living rock amid all rushings-down whatsoever;--the\none fixed point in modern revolutionary history, otherwise as if\nbottomless and shoreless.\n\n\nSo much of truth, only under an ancient obsolete vesture, but the spirit\nof it still true, do I find in the Paganism of old nations. Nature is\nstill divine, the revelation of the workings of God; the Hero is still\nworshipable: this, under poor cramped incipient forms, is what all\nPagan religions have struggled, as they could, to set forth. I think\nScandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any other.\nIt is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in these regions of\nEurope till the eleventh century: eight hundred years ago the Norwegians\nwere still worshippers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of\nour fathers; the men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless\nwe still resemble in so many ways. Strange: they did believe that,\nwhile we believe so differently. Let us look a little at this poor Norse\ncreed, for many reasons. We have tolerable means to do it; for there is\nanother point of interest in these Scandinavian mythologies: that they\nhave been preserved so well.\n\nIn that strange island Iceland,--burst up, the geologists say, by\nfire from the bottom of the sea; a wild land of barrenness and lava;\nswallowed many months of every year in black tempests, yet with a wild\ngleaming beauty in summertime; towering up there, stern and grim, in\nthe North Ocean with its snow jokuls, roaring geysers, sulphur-pools and\nhorrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battle-field of Frost\nand Fire;--where of all places we least looked for Literature or written\nmemorials, the record of these things was written down. On the seabord\nof this wild land is a rim of grassy country, where cattle can subsist,\nand men by means of them and of what the sea yields; and it seems they\nwere poetic men these, men who had deep thoughts in them, and uttered\nmusically their thoughts. Much would be lost, had Iceland not been burst\nup from the sea, not been discovered by the Northmen! The old Norse\nPoets were many of them natives of Iceland.\n\nSaemund, one of the early Christian Priests there, who perhaps had a\nlingering fondness for Paganism, collected certain of their old Pagan\nsongs, just about becoming obsolete then,--Poems or Chants of a mythic,\nprophetic, mostly all of a religious character: that is what Norse\ncritics call the _Elder_ or Poetic _Edda_. _Edda_, a word of uncertain\netymology, is thought to signify _Ancestress_. Snorro Sturleson, an\nIceland gentleman, an extremely notable personage, educated by this\nSaemund's grandson, took in hand next, near a century afterwards, to put\ntogether, among several other books he wrote, a kind of Prose Synopsis\nof the whole Mythology; elucidated by new fragments of traditionary\nverse. A work constructed really with great ingenuity, native talent,\nwhat one might call unconscious art; altogether a perspicuous clear\nwork, pleasant reading still: this is the _Younger_ or Prose _Edda_.\nBy these and the numerous other _Sagas_, mostly Icelandic, with the\ncommentaries, Icelandic or not, which go on zealously in the North to\nthis day, it is possible to gain some direct insight even yet; and see\nthat old Norse system of Belief, as it were, face to face. Let us forget\nthat it is erroneous Religion; let us look at it as old Thought, and try\nif we cannot sympathize with it somewhat.\n\nThe primary characteristic of this old Northland Mythology I find to\nbe Impersonation of the visible workings of Nature. Earnest simple\nrecognition of the workings of Physical Nature, as a thing wholly\nmiraculous, stupendous and divine. What we now lecture of as Science,\nthey wondered at, and fell down in awe before, as Religion The dark\nhostile Powers of Nature they figure to themselves as \"_Jotuns_,\"\nGiants, huge shaggy beings of a demonic character. Frost, Fire,\nSea-tempest; these are Jotuns. The friendly Powers again, as\nSummer-heat, the Sun, are Gods. The empire of this Universe is divided\nbetween these two; they dwell apart, in perennial internecine feud.\nThe Gods dwell above in Asgard, the Garden of the Asen, or Divinities;\nJotunheim, a distant dark chaotic land, is the home of the Jotuns.\n\nCurious all this; and not idle or inane, if we will look at the\nfoundation of it! The power of _Fire_, or _Flame_, for instance,\nwhich we designate by some trivial chemical name, thereby hiding from\nourselves the essential character of wonder that dwells in it as in all\nthings, is with these old Northmen, Loke, a most swift subtle _Demon_,\nof the brood of the Jotuns. The savages of the Ladrones Islands too (say\nsome Spanish voyagers) thought Fire, which they never had seen before,\nwas a devil or god, that bit you sharply when you touched it, and that\nlived upon dry wood. From us too no Chemistry, if it had not Stupidity\nto help it, would hide that Flame is a wonder. What _is_ Flame?--_Frost_\nthe old Norse Seer discerns to be a monstrous hoary Jotun, the Giant\n_Thrym_, _Hrym_; or _Rime_, the old word now nearly obsolete here, but\nstill used in Scotland to signify hoar-frost. _Rime_ was not then as now\na dead chemical thing, but a living Jotun or Devil; the monstrous Jotun\n_Rime_ drove home his Horses at night, sat \"combing their manes,\"--which\nHorses were _Hail-Clouds_, or fleet _Frost-Winds_. His Cows--No, not\nhis, but a kinsman's, the Giant Hymir's Cows are _Icebergs_: this Hymir\n\"looks at the rocks\" with his devil-eye, and they _split_ in the glance\nof it.\n\nThunder was not then mere Electricity, vitreous or resinous; it was the\nGod Donner (Thunder) or Thor,--God also of beneficent Summer-heat. The\nthunder was his wrath: the gathering of the black clouds is the drawing\ndown of Thor's angry brows; the fire-bolt bursting out of Heaven is\nthe all-rending Hammer flung from the hand of Thor: he urges his loud\nchariot over the mountain-tops,--that is the peal; wrathful he \"blows\nin his red beard,\"--that is the rustling storm-blast before the thunder\nbegins. Balder again, the White God, the beautiful, the just and\nbenignant (whom the early Christian Missionaries found to resemble\nChrist), is the Sun, beautifullest of visible things; wondrous too, and\ndivine still, after all our Astronomies and Almanacs! But perhaps\nthe notablest god we hear tell of is one of whom Grimm the German\nEtymologist finds trace: the God _Wunsch_, or Wish. The God _Wish_; who\ncould give us all that we _wished_! Is not this the sincerest and yet\nrudest voice of the spirit of man? The _rudest_ ideal that man ever\nformed; which still shows itself in the latest forms of our spiritual\nculture. Higher considerations have to teach us that the God _Wish_ is\nnot the true God.\n\nOf the other Gods or Jotuns I will mention only for etymology's sake,\nthat Sea-tempest is the Jotun _Aegir_, a very dangerous Jotun;--and now\nto this day, on our river Trent, as I learn, the Nottingham bargemen,\nwhen the River is in a certain flooded state (a kind of backwater, or\neddying swirl it has, very dangerous to them), call it Eager; they cry\nout, \"Have a care, there is the _Eager_ coming!\" Curious; that word\nsurviving, like the peak of a submerged world! The _oldest_ Nottingham\nbargemen had believed in the God Aegir. Indeed our English blood too in\ngood part is Danish, Norse; or rather, at bottom, Danish and Norse and\nSaxon have no distinction, except a superficial one,--as of Heathen and\nChristian, or the like. But all over our Island we are mingled largely\nwith Danes proper,--from the incessant invasions there were: and this,\nof course, in a greater proportion along the east coast; and greatest of\nall, as I find, in the North Country. From the Humber upwards, all over\nScotland, the Speech of the common people is still in a singular degree\nIcelandic; its Germanism has still a peculiar Norse tinge. They too are\n\"Normans,\" Northmen,--if that be any great beauty--!\n\nOf the chief god, Odin, we shall speak by and by. Mark at present so\nmuch; what the essence of Scandinavian and indeed of all Paganism is:\na recognition of the forces of Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal\nAgencies,--as Gods and Demons. Not inconceivable to us. It is the\ninfant Thought of man opening itself, with awe and wonder, on this\never-stupendous Universe. To me there is in the Norse system something\nvery genuine, very great and manlike. A broad simplicity, rusticity, so\nvery different from the light gracefulness of the old Greek Paganism,\ndistinguishes this Scandinavian System. It is Thought; the genuine\nThought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened to the things about\nthem; a face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of the things,--the\nfirst characteristic of all good Thought in all times. Not graceful\nlightness, half-sport, as in the Greek Paganism; a certain homely\ntruthfulness and rustic strength, a great rude sincerity, discloses\nitself here. It is strange, after our beautiful Apollo statues and clear\nsmiling mythuses, to come down upon the Norse Gods \"brewing ale\" to\nhold their feast with Aegir, the Sea-Jotun; sending out Thor to get\nthe caldron for them in the Jotun country; Thor, after many adventures,\nclapping the Pot on his head, like a huge hat, and walking off with\nit,--quite lost in it, the ears of the Pot reaching down to his heels!\nA kind of vacant hugeness, large awkward gianthood, characterizes that\nNorse system; enormous force, as yet altogether untutored, stalking\nhelpless with large uncertain strides. Consider only their primary\nmythus of the Creation. The Gods, having got the Giant Ymer slain, a\nGiant made by \"warm wind,\" and much confused work, out of the conflict\nof Frost and Fire,--determined on constructing a world with him. His\nblood made the Sea; his flesh was the Land, the Rocks his bones; of\nhis eyebrows they formed Asgard their Gods'-dwelling; his skull was the\ngreat blue vault of Immensity, and the brains of it became the Clouds.\nWhat a Hyper-Brobdignagian business! Untamed Thought, great, giantlike,\nenormous;--to be tamed in due time into the compact greatness, not\ngiantlike, but godlike and stronger than gianthood, of the Shakspeares,\nthe Goethes!--Spiritually as well as bodily these men are our\nprogenitors.\n\nI like, too, that representation they have of the tree Igdrasil. All\nLife is figured by them as a Tree. Igdrasil, the Ash-tree of Existence,\nhas its roots deep down in the kingdoms of Hela or Death; its trunk\nreaches up heaven-high, spreads its boughs over the whole Universe: it\nis the Tree of Existence. At the foot of it, in the Death-kingdom, sit\nThree _Nornas_, Fates,--the Past, Present, Future; watering its\nroots from the Sacred Well. Its \"boughs,\" with their buddings\nand disleafings?--events, things suffered, things done,\ncatastrophes,--stretch through all lands and times. Is not every leaf\nof it a biography, every fibre there an act or word? Its boughs are\nHistories of Nations. The rustle of it is the noise of Human Existence,\nonwards from of old. It grows there, the breath of Human Passion\nrustling through it;--or storm tost, the storm-wind howling through it\nlike the voice of all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree of Existence.\nIt is the past, the present, and the future; what was done, what is\ndoing, what will be done; \"the infinite conjugation of the verb _To\ndo_.\" Considering how human things circulate, each inextricably in\ncommunion with all,--how the word I speak to you to-day is borrowed,\nnot from Ulfila the Moesogoth only, but from all men since the first\nman began to speak,--I find no similitude so true as this of a Tree.\nBeautiful; altogether beautiful and great. The \"_Machine_ of the\nUniverse,\"--alas, do but think of that in contrast!\n\n\nWell, it is strange enough this old Norse view of Nature; different\nenough from what we believe of Nature. Whence it specially came, one\nwould not like to be compelled to say very minutely! One thing we may\nsay: It came from the thoughts of Norse men;--from the thought, above\nall, of the _first_ Norse man who had an original power of thinking. The\nFirst Norse \"man of genius,\" as we should call him! Innumerable men had\npassed by, across this Universe, with a dumb vague wonder, such as the\nvery animals may feel; or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder,\nsuch as men only feel;--till the great Thinker came, the _original_ man,\nthe Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the slumbering capability\nof all into Thought. It is ever the way with the Thinker, the spiritual\nHero. What he says, all men were not far from saying, were longing to\nsay. The Thoughts of all start up, as from painful enchanted sleep,\nround his Thought; answering to it, Yes, even so! Joyful to men as the\ndawning of day from night;--_is_ it not, indeed, the awakening for them\nfrom no-being into being, from death into life? We still honor such a\nman; call him Poet, Genius, and so forth: but to these wild men he was\na very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected blessing for them; a\nProphet, a God!--Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds\nitself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation\nafter generation,--till its full stature is reached, and _such_ System\nof Thought can grow no farther; but must give place to another.\n\nFor the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we\nfancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a\nHero, of worth immeasurable; admiration for whom, transcending the known\nbounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate Thinking;\nand many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude,\nwould the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the\nsphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their own\ndestiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here, what to\nlook for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him;\nhe first has made Life alive!--We may call this Odin, the origin of\nNorse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse Thinker bore\nwhile he was a man among men. His view of the Universe once promulgated,\na like view starts into being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing,\nwhile it continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but\ninvisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility\nin all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all\nothers, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world--!\n\nOne other thing we must not forget; it will explain, a little, the\nconfusion of these Norse Eddas. They are not one coherent System of\nThought; but properly the _summation_ of several successive systems. All\nthis of the old Norse Belief which is flung out for us, in one level of\ndistance in the Edda, like a picture painted on the same canvas, does\nnot at all stand so in the reality. It stands rather at all manner of\ndistances and depths, of successive generations since the Belief first\nbegan. All Scandinavian thinkers, since the first of them, contributed\nto that Scandinavian System of Thought; in ever-new elaboration and\naddition, it is the combined work of them all. What history it had,\nhow it changed from shape to shape, by one thinker's contribution after\nanother, till it got to the full final shape we see it under in the\nEdda, no man will now ever know: _its_ Councils of Trebizond, Councils\nof Trent, Athanasiuses, Dantes, Luthers, are sunk without echo in the\ndark night! Only that it had such a history we can all know. Wheresover\na thinker appeared, there in the thing he thought of was a contribution,\naccession, a change or revolution made. Alas, the grandest \"revolution\"\nof all, the one made by the man Odin himself, is not this too sunk for\nus like the rest! Of Odin what history? Strange rather to reflect that\nhe _had_ a history! That this Odin, in his wild Norse vesture, with his\nwild beard and eyes, his rude Norse speech and ways, was a man like us;\nwith our sorrows, joys, with our limbs, features;--intrinsically all one\nas we: and did such a work! But the work, much of it, has perished; the\nworker, all to the name. \"_Wednesday_,\" men will say to-morrow; Odin's\nday! Of Odin there exists no history; no document of it; no guess about\nit worth repeating.\n\nSnorro indeed, in the quietest manner, almost in a brief business style,\nwrites down, in his _Heimskringla_, how Odin was a heroic Prince, in the\nBlack-Sea region, with Twelve Peers, and a great people straitened for\nroom. How he led these _Asen_ (Asiatics) of his out of Asia; settled\nthem in the North parts of Europe, by warlike conquest; invented\nLetters, Poetry and so forth,--and came by and by to be worshipped as\nChief God by these Scandinavians, his Twelve Peers made into Twelve\nSons of his own, Gods like himself: Snorro has no doubt of this. Saxo\nGrammaticus, a very curious Northman of that same century, is still\nmore unhesitating; scruples not to find out a historical fact in every\nindividual mythus, and writes it down as a terrestrial event in Denmark\nor elsewhere. Torfaeus, learned and cautious, some centuries later,\nassigns by calculation a _date_ for it: Odin, he says, came into Europe\nabout the Year 70 before Christ. Of all which, as grounded on mere\nuncertainties, found to be untenable now, I need say nothing. Far,\nvery far beyond the Year 70! Odin's date, adventures, whole terrestrial\nhistory, figure and environment are sunk from us forever into unknown\nthousands of years.\n\nNay Grimm, the German Antiquary, goes so far as to deny that any man\nOdin ever existed. He proves it by etymology. The word _Wuotan_, which\nis the original form of _Odin_, a word spread, as name of their chief\nDivinity, over all the Teutonic Nations everywhere; this word, which\nconnects itself, according to Grimm, with the Latin _vadere_, with\nthe English _wade_ and such like,--means primarily Movement, Source of\nMovement, Power; and is the fit name of the highest god, not of any man.\nThe word signifies Divinity, he says, among the old Saxon, German and\nall Teutonic Nations; the adjectives formed from it all signify divine,\nsupreme, or something pertaining to the chief god. Like enough! We must\nbow to Grimm in matters etymological. Let us consider it fixed that\n_Wuotan_ means _Wading_, force of _Movement_. And now still, what\nhinders it from being the name of a Heroic Man and _Mover_, as well as\nof a god? As for the adjectives, and words formed from it,--did not the\nSpaniards in their universal admiration for Lope, get into the habit of\nsaying \"a Lope flower,\" \"a Lope _dama_,\" if the flower or woman were of\nsurpassing beauty? Had this lasted, _Lope_ would have grown, in Spain,\nto be an adjective signifying _godlike_ also. Indeed, Adam Smith, in his\nEssay on Language, surmises that all adjectives whatsoever were formed\nprecisely in that way: some very green thing, chiefly notable for its\ngreenness, got the appellative name _Green_, and then the next thing\nremarkable for that quality, a tree for instance, was named the _green_\ntree,--as we still say \"the _steam_ coach,\" \"four-horse coach,\" or the\nlike. All primary adjectives, according to Smith, were formed in this\nway; were at first substantives and things. We cannot annihilate a man\nfor etymologies like that! Surely there was a First Teacher and Captain;\nsurely there must have been an Odin, palpable to the sense at one time;\nno adjective, but a real Hero of flesh and blood! The voice of all\ntradition, history or echo of history, agrees with all that thought will\nteach one about it, to assure us of this.\n\nHow the man Odin came to be considered a _god_, the chief god?--that\nsurely is a question which nobody would wish to dogmatize upon. I have\nsaid, his people knew no _limits_ to their admiration of him; they\nhad as yet no scale to measure admiration by. Fancy your own generous\nheart's-love of some greatest man expanding till it _transcended_ all\nbounds, till it filled and overflowed the whole field of your thought!\nOr what if this man Odin,--since a great deep soul, with the afflatus\nand mysterious tide of vision and impulse rushing on him he knows\nnot whence, is ever an enigma, a kind of terror and wonder to\nhimself,--should have felt that perhaps _he_ was divine; that _he_\nwas some effluence of the \"Wuotan,\" \"_Movement_\", Supreme Power\nand Divinity, of whom to his rapt vision all Nature was the awful\nFlame-image; that some effluence of Wuotan dwelt here in him! He was not\nnecessarily false; he was but mistaken, speaking the truest he knew. A\ngreat soul, any sincere soul, knows not what he is,--alternates between\nthe highest height and the lowest depth; can, of all things, the least\nmeasure--Himself! What others take him for, and what he guesses that he\nmay be; these two items strangely act on one another, help to determine\none another. With all men reverently admiring him; with his own wild\nsoul full of noble ardors and affections, of whirlwind chaotic darkness\nand glorious new light; a divine Universe bursting all into godlike\nbeauty round him, and no man to whom the like ever had befallen, what\ncould he think himself to be? \"Wuotan?\" All men answered, \"Wuotan!\"--\n\nAnd then consider what mere Time will do in such cases; how if a man\nwas great while living, he becomes tenfold greater when dead. What an\nenormous _camera-obscura_ magnifier is Tradition! How a thing grows in\nthe human Memory, in the human Imagination, when love, worship and\nall that lies in the human Heart, is there to encourage it. And in the\ndarkness, in the entire ignorance; without date or document, no book, no\nArundel-marble; only here and there some dumb monumental cairn. Why,\nin thirty or forty years, were there no books, any great man would grow\n_mythic_, the contemporaries who had seen him, being once all dead.\nAnd in three hundred years, and in three thousand years--! To attempt\n_theorizing_ on such matters would profit little: they are matters which\nrefuse to be _theoremed_ and diagramed; which Logic ought to know that\nshe _cannot_ speak of. Enough for us to discern, far in the uttermost\ndistance, some gleam as of a small real light shining in the centre of\nthat enormous camera-obscure image; to discern that the centre of it all\nwas not a madness and nothing, but a sanity and something.\n\nThis light, kindled in the great dark vortex of the Norse Mind, dark but\nliving, waiting only for light; this is to me the centre of the whole.\nHow such light will then shine out, and with wondrous thousand-fold\nexpansion spread itself, in forms and colors, depends not on _it_, so\nmuch as on the National Mind recipient of it. The colors and forms\nof your light will be those of the _cut-glass_ it has to shine\nthrough.--Curious to think how, for every man, any the truest fact is\nmodelled by the nature of the man! I said, The earnest man, speaking to\nhis brother men, must always have stated what seemed to him a _fact_, a\nreal Appearance of Nature. But the way in which such Appearance or\nfact shaped itself,--what sort of _fact_ it became for him,--was and\nis modified by his own laws of thinking; deep, subtle, but universal,\never-operating laws. The world of Nature, for every man, is the Fantasy\nof Himself. This world is the multiplex \"Image of his own Dream.\" Who\nknows to what unnamable subtleties of spiritual law all these Pagan\nFables owe their shape! The number Twelve, divisiblest of all, which\ncould be halved, quartered, parted into three, into six, the most\nremarkable number,--this was enough to determine the _Signs of the\nZodiac_, the number of Odin's _Sons_, and innumerable other Twelves. Any\nvague rumor of number had a tendency to settle itself into Twelve. So\nwith regard to every other matter. And quite unconsciously too,--with no\nnotion of building up \"Allegories \"! But the fresh clear glance of those\nFirst Ages would be prompt in discerning the secret relations of things,\nand wholly open to obey these. Schiller finds in the _Cestus of\nVenus_ an everlasting aesthetic truth as to the nature of all Beauty;\ncurious:--but he is careful not to insinuate that the old Greek Mythists\nhad any notion of lecturing about the \"Philosophy of Criticism\"!--On the\nwhole, we must leave those boundless regions. Cannot we conceive that\nOdin was a reality? Error indeed, error enough: but sheer falsehood,\nidle fables, allegory aforethought,--we will not believe that our\nFathers believed in these.\n\n\nOdin's _Runes_ are a significant feature of him. Runes, and the miracles\nof \"magic\" he worked by them, make a great feature in tradition. Runes\nare the Scandinavian Alphabet; suppose Odin to have been the inventor\nof Letters, as well as \"magic,\" among that people! It is the greatest\ninvention man has ever made! this of marking down the unseen thought\nthat is in him by written characters. It is a kind of second speech,\nalmost as miraculous as the first. You remember the astonishment and\nincredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the Spanish\nSoldier who was guarding him scratch _Dios_ on his thumb-nail, that he\nmight try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle\nwas possible. If Odin brought Letters among his people, he might work\nmagic enough!\n\nWriting by Runes has some air of being original among the Norsemen: not\na Phoenician Alphabet, but a native Scandinavian one. Snorro tells us\nfarther that Odin invented Poetry; the music of human speech, as well as\nthat miraculous runic marking of it. Transport yourselves into the early\nchildhood of nations; the first beautiful morning-light of our Europe,\nwhen all yet lay in fresh young radiance as of a great sunrise, and\nour Europe was first beginning to think, to be! Wonder, hope; infinite\nradiance of hope and wonder, as of a young child's thoughts, in the\nhearts of these strong men! Strong sons of Nature; and here was not only\na wild Captain and Fighter; discerning with his wild flashing eyes what\nto do, with his wild lion-heart daring and doing it; but a Poet too, all\nthat we mean by a Poet, Prophet, great devout Thinker and Inventor,--as\nthe truly Great Man ever is. A Hero is a Hero at all points; in the soul\nand thought of him first of all. This Odin, in his rude semi-articulate\nway, had a word to speak. A great heart laid open to take in this great\nUniverse, and man's Life here, and utter a great word about it. A Hero,\nas I say, in his own rude manner; a wise, gifted, noble-hearted man. And\nnow, if we still admire such a man beyond all others, what must these\nwild Norse souls, first awakened into thinking, have made of him! To\nthem, as yet without names for it, he was noble and noblest; Hero,\nProphet, God; _Wuotan_, the greatest of all. Thought is Thought, however\nit speak or spell itself. Intrinsically, I conjecture, this Odin must\nhave been of the same sort of stuff as the greatest kind of men. A great\nthought in the wild deep heart of him! The rough words he articulated,\nare they not the rudimental roots of those English words we still use?\nHe worked so, in that obscure element. But he was as a _light_ kindled\nin it; a light of Intellect, rude Nobleness of heart, the only kind of\nlights we have yet; a Hero, as I say: and he had to shine there, and\nmake his obscure element a little lighter,--as is still the task of us\nall.\n\nWe will fancy him to be the Type Norseman; the finest Teuton whom that\nrace had yet produced. The rude Norse heart burst up into _boundless_\nadmiration round him; into adoration. He is as a root of so many great\nthings; the fruit of him is found growing from deep thousands of years,\nover the whole field of Teutonic Life. Our own Wednesday, as I said, is\nit not still Odin's Day? Wednesbury, Wansborough, Wanstead, Wandsworth:\nOdin grew into England too, these are still leaves from that root!\nHe was the Chief God to all the Teutonic Peoples; their Pattern\nNorseman;--in such way did _they_ admire their Pattern Norseman; that\nwas the fortune he had in the world.\n\nThus if the man Odin himself have vanished utterly, there is this huge\nShadow of him which still projects itself over the whole History of his\nPeople. For this Odin once admitted to be God, we can understand well\nthat the whole Scandinavian Scheme of Nature, or dim No-scheme, whatever\nit might before have been, would now begin to develop itself altogether\ndifferently, and grow thenceforth in a new manner. What this Odin saw\ninto, and taught with his runes and his rhymes, the whole Teutonic\nPeople laid to heart and carried forward. His way of thought became\ntheir way of thought:--such, under new conditions, is the history of\nevery great thinker still. In gigantic confused lineaments, like some\nenormous camera-obscure shadow thrown upwards from the dead deeps of the\nPast, and covering the whole Northern Heaven, is not that Scandinavian\nMythology in some sort the Portraiture of this man Odin? The gigantic\nimage of _his_ natural face, legible or not legible there, expanded and\nconfused in that manner! Ah, Thought, I say, is always Thought. No great\nman lives in vain. The History of the world is but the Biography of\ngreat men.\n\nTo me there is something very touching in this primeval figure of\nHeroism; in such artless, helpless, but hearty entire reception of a\nHero by his fellow-men. Never so helpless in shape, it is the noblest of\nfeelings, and a feeling in some shape or other perennial as man himself.\nIf I could show in any measure, what I feel deeply for a long time now,\nThat it is the vital element of manhood, the soul of man's history here\nin our world,--it would be the chief use of this discoursing at present.\nWe do not now call our great men Gods, nor admire _without_ limit; ah\nno, _with_ limit enough! But if we have no great men, or do not admire\nat all,--that were a still worse case.\n\nThis poor Scandinavian Hero-worship, that whole Norse way of looking at\nthe Universe, and adjusting oneself there, has an indestructible merit\nfor us. A rude childlike way of recognizing the divineness of Nature,\nthe divineness of Man; most rude, yet heartfelt, robust, giantlike;\nbetokening what a giant of a man this child would yet grow to!--It was\na truth, and is none. Is it not as the half-dumb stifled voice of the\nlong-buried generations of our own Fathers, calling out of the depths of\nages to us, in whose veins their blood still runs: \"This then, this is\nwhat we made of the world: this is all the image and notion we could\nform to ourselves of this great mystery of a Life and Universe. Despise\nit not. You are raised high above it, to large free scope of vision; but\nyou too are not yet at the top. No, your notion too, so much enlarged,\nis but a partial, imperfect one; that matter is a thing no man will\never, in time or out of time, comprehend; after thousands of years of\never-new expansion, man will find himself but struggling to comprehend\nagain a part of it: the thing is larger shall man, not to be\ncomprehended by him; an Infinite thing!\"\n\n\nThe essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies, we\nfound to be recognition of the divineness of Nature; sincere communion\nof man with the mysterious invisible Powers visibly seen at work in\nthe world round him. This, I should say, is more sincerely done in\nthe Scandinavian than in any Mythology I know. Sincerity is the great\ncharacteristic of it. Superior sincerity (far superior) consoles us for\nthe total want of old Grecian grace. Sincerity, I think, is better than\ngrace. I feel that these old Northmen wore looking into Nature with open\neye and soul: most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet manlike; with\na great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a true, loving,\nadmiring, unfearing way. A right valiant, true old race of men. Such\nrecognition of Nature one finds to be the chief element of Paganism;\nrecognition of Man, and his Moral Duty, though this too is not wanting,\ncomes to be the chief element only in purer forms of religion. Here,\nindeed, is a great distinction and epoch in Human Beliefs; a great\nlandmark in the religious development of Mankind. Man first puts himself\nin relation with Nature and her Powers, wonders and worships over those;\nnot till a later epoch does he discern that all Power is Moral, that the\ngrand point is the distinction for him of Good and Evil, of _Thou shalt_\nand _Thou shalt not_.\n\nWith regard to all these fabulous delineations in the _Edda_, I will\nremark, moreover, as indeed was already hinted, that most probably they\nmust have been of much newer date; most probably, even from the first,\nwere comparatively idle for the old Norsemen, and as it were a kind of\nPoetic sport. Allegory and Poetic Delineation, as I said above, cannot\nbe religious Faith; the Faith itself must first be there, then Allegory\nenough will gather round it, as the fit body round its soul. The Norse\nFaith, I can well suppose, like other Faiths, was most active while\nit lay mainly in the silent state, and had not yet much to say about\nitself, still less to sing.\n\nAmong those shadowy _Edda_ matters, amid all that fantastic congeries\nof assertions, and traditions, in their musical Mythologies, the main\npractical belief a man could have was probably not much more than this:\nof the _Valkyrs_ and the _Hall of Odin_; of an inflexible _Destiny_; and\nthat the one thing needful for a man was _to be brave_. The _Valkyrs_\nare Choosers of the Slain: a Destiny inexorable, which it is useless\ntrying to bend or soften, has appointed who is to be slain; this was\na fundamental point for the Norse believer;--as indeed it is for all\nearnest men everywhere, for a Mahomet, a Luther, for a Napoleon too. It\nlies at the basis this for every such man; it is the woof out of which\nhis whole system of thought is woven. The _Valkyrs_; and then that these\n_Choosers_ lead the brave to a heavenly _Hall of Odin_; only the base\nand slavish being thrust elsewhither, into the realms of Hela the\nDeath-goddess: I take this to have been the soul of the whole Norse\nBelief. They understood in their heart that it was indispensable to be\nbrave; that Odin would have no favor for them, but despise and thrust\nthem out, if they were not brave. Consider too whether there is not\nsomething in this! It is an everlasting duty, valid in our day as in\nthat, the duty of being brave. _Valor_ is still _value_. The first duty\nfor a man is still that of subduing _Fear_. We must get rid of Fear;\nwe cannot act at all till then. A man's acts are slavish, not true but\nspecious; his very thoughts are false, he thinks too as a slave and\ncoward, till he have got Fear under his feet. Odin's creed, if we\ndisentangle the real kernel of it, is true to this hour. A man shall\nand must be valiant; he must march forward, and quit himself like a\nman,--trusting imperturbably in the appointment and _choice_ of the\nupper Powers; and, on the whole, not fear at all. Now and always, the\ncompleteness of his victory over Fear will determine how much of a man\nhe is.\n\nIt is doubtless very savage that kind of valor of the old Northmen.\nSnorro tells us they thought it a shame and misery not to die in battle;\nand if natural death seemed to be coming on, they would cut wounds in\ntheir flesh, that Odin might receive them as warriors slain. Old kings,\nabout to die, had their body laid into a ship; the ship sent forth,\nwith sails set and slow fire burning it; that, once out at sea, it might\nblaze up in flame, and in such manner bury worthily the old hero, at\nonce in the sky and in the ocean! Wild bloody valor; yet valor of\nits kind; better, I say, than none. In the old Sea-kings too, what an\nindomitable rugged energy! Silent, with closed lips, as I fancy them,\nunconscious that they were specially brave; defying the wild ocean with\nits monsters, and all men and things;--progenitors of our own Blakes\nand Nelsons! No Homer sang these Norse Sea-kings; but Agamemnon's was\na small audacity, and of small fruit in the world, to some of them;--to\nHrolf's of Normandy, for instance! Hrolf, or Rollo Duke of Normandy, the\nwild Sea-king, has a share in governing England at this hour.\n\nNor was it altogether nothing, even that wild sea-roving and battling,\nthrough so many generations. It needed to be ascertained which was\nthe _strongest_ kind of men; who were to be ruler over whom. Among the\nNorthland Sovereigns, too, I find some who got the title _Wood-cutter_;\nForest-felling Kings. Much lies in that. I suppose at bottom many of\nthem were forest-fellers as well as fighters, though the Skalds talk\nmainly of the latter,--misleading certain critics not a little; for no\nnation of men could ever live by fighting alone; there could not produce\nenough come out of that! I suppose the right good fighter was oftenest\nalso the right good forest-feller,--the right good improver, discerner,\ndoer and worker in every kind; for true valor, different enough from\nferocity, is the basis of all. A more legitimate kind of valor that;\nshowing itself against the untamed Forests and dark brute Powers of\nNature, to conquer Nature for us. In the same direction have not we\ntheir descendants since carried it far? May such valor last forever with\nus!\n\nThat the man Odin, speaking with a Hero's voice and heart, as with an\nimpressiveness out of Heaven, told his People the infinite importance\nof Valor, how man thereby became a god; and that his People, feeling a\nresponse to it in their own hearts, believed this message of his, and\nthought it a message out of Heaven, and him a Divinity for telling it\nthem: this seems to me the primary seed-grain of the Norse Religion,\nfrom which all manner of mythologies, symbolic practices, speculations,\nallegories, songs and sagas would naturally grow. Grow,--how strangely!\nI called it a small light shining and shaping in the huge vortex of\nNorse darkness. Yet the darkness itself was _alive_; consider that. It\nwas the eager inarticulate uninstructed Mind of the whole Norse People,\nlonging only to become articulate, to go on articulating ever farther!\nThe living doctrine grows, grows;--like a Banyan-tree; the first _seed_\nis the essential thing: any branch strikes itself down into the earth,\nbecomes a new root; and so, in endless complexity, we have a whole wood,\na whole jungle, one seed the parent of it all. Was not the whole Norse\nReligion, accordingly, in some sense, what we called \"the enormous\nshadow of this man's likeness\"? Critics trace some affinity in some\nNorse mythuses, of the Creation and such like, with those of the\nHindoos. The Cow Adumbla, \"licking the rime from the rocks,\" has a\nkind of Hindoo look. A Hindoo Cow, transported into frosty countries.\nProbably enough; indeed we may say undoubtedly, these things will have\na kindred with the remotest lands, with the earliest times. Thought does\nnot die, but only is changed. The first man that began to think in this\nPlanet of ours, he was the beginner of all. And then the second man, and\nthe third man;--nay, every true Thinker to this hour is a kind of Odin,\nteaches men _his_ way of thought, spreads a shadow of his own likeness\nover sections of the History of the World.\n\n\nOf the distinctive poetic character or merit of this Norse Mythology\nI have not room to speak; nor does it concern us much. Some wild\nProphecies we have, as the _Voluspa_ in the _Elder Edda_; of a rapt,\nearnest, sibylline sort. But they were comparatively an idle adjunct of\nthe matter, men who as it were but toyed with the matter, these\nlater Skalds; and it is _their_ songs chiefly that survive. In later\ncenturies, I suppose, they would go on singing, poetically symbolizing,\nas our modern Painters paint, when it was no longer from the innermost\nheart, or not from the heart at all. This is everywhere to be well kept\nin mind.\n\nGray's fragments of Norse Lore, at any rate, will give one no notion\nof it;--any more than Pope will of Homer. It is no square-built gloomy\npalace of black ashlar marble, shrouded in awe and horror, as Gray gives\nit us: no; rough as the North rocks, as the Iceland deserts, it is; with\na heartiness, homeliness, even a tint of good humor and robust mirth in\nthe middle of these fearful things. The strong old Norse heart did not\ngo upon theatrical sublimities; they had not time to tremble. I like\nmuch their robust simplicity; their veracity, directness of conception.\nThor \"draws down his brows\" in a veritable Norse rage; \"grasps his\nhammer till the _knuckles grow white_.\" Beautiful traits of pity too, an\nhonest pity. Balder \"the white God\" dies; the beautiful, benignant; he\nis the Sungod. They try all Nature for a remedy; but he is dead. Frigga,\nhis mother, sends Hermoder to seek or see him: nine days and nine nights\nhe rides through gloomy deep valleys, a labyrinth of gloom; arrives at\nthe Bridge with its gold roof: the Keeper says, \"Yes, Balder did pass\nhere; but the Kingdom of the Dead is down yonder, far towards the\nNorth.\" Hermoder rides on; leaps Hell-gate, Hela's gate; does see\nBalder, and speak with him: Balder cannot be delivered. Inexorable! Hela\nwill not, for Odin or any God, give him up. The beautiful and gentle has\nto remain there. His Wife had volunteered to go with him, to die with\nhim. They shall forever remain there. He sends his ring to Odin; Nanna\nhis wife sends her _thimble_ to Frigga, as a remembrance.--Ah me--!\n\nFor indeed Valor is the fountain of Pity too;--of Truth, and all that\nis great and good in man. The robust homely vigor of the Norse heart\nattaches one much, in these delineations. Is it not a trait of right\nhonest strength, says Uhland, who has written a fine _Essay_ on Thor,\nthat the old Norse heart finds its friend in the Thunder-god? That it\nis not frightened away by his thunder; but finds that Summer-heat, the\nbeautiful noble summer, must and will have thunder withal! The Norse\nheart _loves_ this Thor and his hammer-bolt; sports with him. Thor is\nSummer-heat: the god of Peaceable Industry as well as Thunder. He is the\nPeasant's friend; his true henchman and attendant is Thialfi, _Manual\nLabor_. Thor himself engages in all manner of rough manual work, scorns\nno business for its plebeianism; is ever and anon travelling to the\ncountry of the Jotuns, harrying those chaotic Frost-monsters, subduing\nthem, at least straitening and damaging them. There is a great broad\nhumor in some of these things.\n\nThor, as we saw above, goes to Jotun-land, to seek Hymir's Caldron, that\nthe Gods may brew beer. Hymir the huge Giant enters, his gray beard\nall full of hoar-frost; splits pillars with the very glance of his eye;\nThor, after much rough tumult, snatches the Pot, claps it on his head;\nthe \"handles of it reach down to his heels.\" The Norse Skald has a kind\nof loving sport with Thor. This is the Hymir whose cattle, the\ncritics have discovered, are Icebergs. Huge untutored Brobdignag\ngenius,--needing only to be tamed down; into Shakspeares, Dantes,\nGoethes! It is all gone now, that old Norse work,--Thor the Thunder-god\nchanged into Jack the Giant-killer: but the mind that made it is here\nyet. How strangely things grow, and die, and do not die! There are twigs\nof that great world-tree of Norse Belief still curiously traceable. This\npoor Jack of the Nursery, with his miraculous shoes of swiftness, coat\nof darkness, sword of sharpness, he is one. _Hynde Etin_, and still more\ndecisively _Red Etin of Ireland_, _in_ the Scottish Ballads, these\nare both derived from Norseland; _Etin_ is evidently a _Jotun_. Nay,\nShakspeare's _Hamlet_ is a twig too of this same world-tree; there seems\nno doubt of that. Hamlet, _Amleth_ I find, is really a mythic personage;\nand his Tragedy, of the poisoned Father, poisoned asleep by drops in his\near, and the rest, is a Norse mythus! Old Saxo, as his wont was, made it\na Danish history; Shakspeare, out of Saxo, made it what we see. That\nis a twig of the world-tree that has _grown_, I think;--by nature or\naccident that one has grown!\n\nIn fact, these old Norse songs have a _truth_ in them, an inward\nperennial truth and greatness,--as, indeed, all must have that can very\nlong preserve itself by tradition alone. It is a greatness not of mere\nbody and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of soul. There is a sublime\nuncomplaining melancholy traceable in these old hearts. A great free\nglance into the very deeps of thought. They seem to have seen, these\nbrave old Northmen, what Meditation has taught all men in all ages, That\nthis world is after all but a show,--a phenomenon or appearance, no real\nthing. All deep souls see into that,--the Hindoo Mythologist, the German\nPhilosopher,--the Shakspeare, the earnest Thinker, wherever he may be:\n\n     \"We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!\"\n\nOne of Thor's expeditions, to Utgard (the _Outer_ Garden, central seat\nof Jotun-land), is remarkable in this respect. Thialfi was with him, and\nLoke. After various adventures, they entered upon Giant-land; wandered\nover plains, wild uncultivated places, among stones and trees. At\nnightfall they noticed a house; and as the door, which indeed formed\none whole side of the house, was open, they entered. It was a simple\nhabitation; one large hall, altogether empty. They stayed there.\nSuddenly in the dead of the night loud noises alarmed them. Thor grasped\nhis hammer; stood in the door, prepared for fight. His companions within\nran hither and thither in their terror, seeking some outlet in that rude\nhall; they found a little closet at last, and took refuge there. Neither\nhad Thor any battle: for, lo, in the morning it turned out that the\nnoise had been only the _snoring_ of a certain enormous but peaceable\nGiant, the Giant Skrymir, who lay peaceably sleeping near by; and this\nthat they took for a house was merely his _Glove_, thrown aside there;\nthe door was the Glove-wrist; the little closet they had fled into was\nthe Thumb! Such a glove;--I remark too that it had not fingers as ours\nhave, but only a thumb, and the rest undivided: a most ancient, rustic\nglove!\n\nSkrymir now carried their portmanteau all day; Thor, however, had his\nown suspicions, did not like the ways of Skrymir; determined at night to\nput an end to him as he slept. Raising his hammer, he struck down into\nthe Giant's face a right thunder-bolt blow, of force to rend rocks. The\nGiant merely awoke; rubbed his cheek, and said, Did a leaf fall? Again\nThor struck, so soon as Skrymir again slept; a better blow than before;\nbut the Giant only murmured, Was that a grain of sand? Thor's third\nstroke was with both his hands (the \"knuckles white\" I suppose), and\nseemed to dint deep into Skrymir's visage; but he merely checked his\nsnore, and remarked, There must be sparrows roosting in this tree, I\nthink; what is that they have dropt?--At the gate of Utgard, a place so\nhigh that you had to \"strain your neck bending back to see the top\nof it,\" Skrymir went his ways. Thor and his companions were admitted;\ninvited to take share in the games going on. To Thor, for his part, they\nhanded a Drinking-horn; it was a common feat, they told him, to drink\nthis dry at one draught. Long and fiercely, three times over, Thor\ndrank; but made hardly any impression. He was a weak child, they told\nhim: could he lift that Cat he saw there? Small as the feat seemed, Thor\nwith his whole godlike strength could not; he bent up the creature's\nback, could not raise its feet off the ground, could at the utmost raise\none foot. Why, you are no man, said the Utgard people; there is an Old\nWoman that will wrestle you! Thor, heartily ashamed, seized this haggard\nOld Woman; but could not throw her.\n\nAnd now, on their quitting Utgard, the chief Jotun, escorting them\npolitely a little way, said to Thor: \"You are beaten then:--yet be not\nso much ashamed; there was deception of appearance in it. That Horn you\ntried to drink was the _Sea_; you did make it ebb; but who could drink\nthat, the bottomless! The Cat you would have lifted,--why, that is the\n_Midgard-snake_, the Great World-serpent, which, tail in mouth, girds\nand keeps up the whole created world; had you torn that up, the world\nmust have rushed to ruin! As for the Old Woman, she was _Time_, Old Age,\nDuration: with her what can wrestle? No man nor no god with her; gods\nor men, she prevails over all! And then those three strokes you\nstruck,--look at these _three valleys_; your three strokes made these!\"\nThor looked at his attendant Jotun: it was Skrymir;--it was, say Norse\ncritics, the old chaotic rocky _Earth_ in person, and that glove-_house_\nwas some Earth-cavern! But Skrymir had vanished; Utgard with its\nsky-high gates, when Thor grasped his hammer to smite them, had gone to\nair; only the Giant's voice was heard mocking: \"Better come no more to\nJotunheim!\"--\n\nThis is of the allegoric period, as we see, and half play, not of the\nprophetic and entirely devout: but as a mythus is there not real antique\nNorse gold in it? More true metal, rough from the Mimer-stithy, than in\nmany a famed Greek Mythus _shaped_ far better! A great broad Brobdignag\ngrin of true humor is in this Skrymir; mirth resting on earnestness and\nsadness, as the rainbow on black tempest: only a right valiant heart is\ncapable of that. It is the grim humor of our own Ben Jonson, rare old\nBen; runs in the blood of us, I fancy; for one catches tones of it,\nunder a still other shape, out of the American Backwoods.\n\nThat is also a very striking conception that of the _Ragnarok_,\nConsummation, or _Twilight of the Gods_. It is in the _Voluspa_ Song;\nseemingly a very old, prophetic idea. The Gods and Jotuns, the divine\nPowers and the chaotic brute ones, after long contest and partial\nvictory by the former, meet at last in universal world-embracing\nwrestle and duel; World-serpent against Thor, strength against strength;\nmutually extinctive; and ruin, \"twilight\" sinking into darkness,\nswallows the created Universe. The old Universe with its Gods is sunk;\nbut it is not final death: there is to be a new Heaven and a new Earth;\na higher supreme God, and Justice to reign among men. Curious: this law\nof mutation, which also is a law written in man's inmost thought, had\nbeen deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers in their rude style; and\nhow, though all dies, and even gods die, yet all death is but a phoenix\nfire-death, and new-birth into the Greater and the Better! It is the\nfundamental Law of Being for a creature made of Time, living in this\nPlace of Hope. All earnest men have seen into it; may still see into it.\n\nAnd now, connected with this, let us glance at the _last_ mythus of the\nappearance of Thor; and end there. I fancy it to be the latest in\ndate of all these fables; a sorrowing protest against the advance of\nChristianity,--set forth reproachfully by some Conservative Pagan.\nKing Olaf has been harshly blamed for his over-zeal in introducing\nChristianity; surely I should have blamed him far more for an under-zeal\nin that! He paid dear enough for it; he died by the revolt of his\nPagan people, in battle, in the year 1033, at Stickelstad, near that\nDrontheim, where the chief Cathedral of the North has now stood for\nmany centuries, dedicated gratefully to his memory as _Saint_ Olaf. The\nmythus about Thor is to this effect. King Olaf, the Christian Reform\nKing, is sailing with fit escort along the shore of Norway, from haven\nto haven; dispensing justice, or doing other royal work: on leaving a\ncertain haven, it is found that a stranger, of grave eyes and aspect,\nred beard, of stately robust figure, has stept in. The courtiers address\nhim; his answers surprise by their pertinency and depth: at length he\nis brought to the King. The stranger's conversation here is not less\nremarkable, as they sail along the beautiful shore; but after some time,\nhe addresses King Olaf thus: \"Yes, King Olaf, it is all beautiful, with\nthe sun shining on it there; green, fruitful, a right fair home for you;\nand many a sore day had Thor, many a wild fight with the rock Jotuns,\nbefore he could make it so. And now you seem minded to put away Thor.\nKing Olaf, have a care!\" said the stranger, drawing down his brows;--and\nwhen they looked again, he was nowhere to be found.--This is the last\nappearance of Thor on the stage of this world!\n\nDo we not see well enough how the Fable might arise, without unveracity\non the part of any one? It is the way most Gods have come to appear\namong men: thus, if in Pindar's time \"Neptune was seen once at the\nNemean Games,\" what was this Neptune too but a \"stranger of noble grave\naspect,\"--fit to be \"seen\"! There is something pathetic, tragic for me\nin this last voice of Paganism. Thor is vanished, the whole Norse world\nhas vanished; and will not return ever again. In like fashion to that,\npass away the highest things. All things that have been in this world,\nall things that are or will be in it, have to vanish: we have our sad\nfarewell to give them.\n\nThat Norse Religion, a rude but earnest, sternly impressive\n_Consecration of Valor_ (so we may define it), sufficed for these old\nvaliant Northmen. Consecration of Valor is not a bad thing! We will take\nit for good, so far as it goes. Neither is there no use in _knowing_\nsomething about this old Paganism of our Fathers. Unconsciously, and\ncombined with higher things, it is in us yet, that old Faith withal! To\nknow it consciously, brings us into closer and clearer relation with the\nPast,--with our own possessions in the Past. For the whole Past, as I\nkeep repeating, is the possession of the Present; the Past had always\nsomething _true_, and is a precious possession. In a different time, in\na different place, it is always some other _side_ of our common Human\nNature that has been developing itself. The actual True is the sum\nof all these; not any one of them by itself constitutes what of Human\nNature is hitherto developed. Better to know them all than misknow them.\n\"To which of these Three Religions do you specially adhere?\" inquires\nMeister of his Teacher. \"To all the Three!\" answers the other: \"To all\nthe Three; for they by their union first constitute the True Religion.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II. THE HERO AS PROPHET. MAHOMET: ISLAM.\n\n[May 8, 1840.]\n\nFrom the first rude times of Paganism among the Scandinavians in the\nNorth, we advance to a very different epoch of religion, among a very\ndifferent people: Mahometanism among the Arabs. A great change; what a\nchange and progress is indicated here, in the universal condition and\nthoughts of men!\n\nThe Hero is not now regarded as a God among his fellowmen; but as one\nGod-inspired, as a Prophet. It is the second phasis of Hero-worship:\nthe first or oldest, we may say, has passed away without return; in the\nhistory of the world there will not again be any man, never so great,\nwhom his fellowmen will take for a god. Nay we might rationally ask,\nDid any set of human beings ever really think the man they _saw_ there\nstanding beside them a god, the maker of this world? Perhaps not: it was\nusually some man they remembered, or _had_ seen. But neither can this\nany more be. The Great Man is not recognized henceforth as a god any\nmore.\n\nIt was a rude gross error, that of counting the Great Man a god. Yet let\nus say that it is at all times difficult to know _what_ he is, or how\nto account of him and receive him! The most significant feature in the\nhistory of an epoch is the manner it has of welcoming a Great Man. Ever,\nto the true instincts of men, there is something godlike in him. Whether\nthey shall take him to be a god, to be a prophet, or what they shall\ntake him to be? that is ever a grand question; by their way of answering\nthat, we shall see, as through a little window, into the very heart\nof these men's spiritual condition. For at bottom the Great Man, as he\ncomes from the hand of Nature, is ever the same kind of thing: Odin,\nLuther, Johnson, Burns; I hope to make it appear that these are all\noriginally of one stuff; that only by the world's reception of them, and\nthe shapes they assume, are they so immeasurably diverse. The worship\nof Odin astonishes us,--to fall prostrate before the Great Man, into\n_deliquium_ of love and wonder over him, and feel in their hearts that\nhe was a denizen of the skies, a god! This was imperfect enough: but\nto welcome, for example, a Burns as we did, was that what we can call\nperfect? The most precious gift that Heaven can give to the Earth; a man\nof \"genius\" as we call it; the Soul of a Man actually sent down from\nthe skies with a God's-message to us,--this we waste away as an idle\nartificial firework, sent to amuse us a little, and sink it into ashes,\nwreck and ineffectuality: _such_ reception of a Great Man I do not\ncall very perfect either! Looking into the heart of the thing, one may\nperhaps call that of Burns a still uglier phenomenon, betokening still\nsadder imperfections in mankind's ways, than the Scandinavian\nmethod itself! To fall into mere unreasoning _deliquium_ of love\nand admiration, was not good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational\nsupercilious no-love at all is perhaps still worse!--It is a thing\nforever changing, this of Hero-worship: different in each age, difficult\nto do well in any age. Indeed, the heart of the whole business of the\nage, one may say, is to do it well.\n\nWe have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet; but as the one\nwe are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of Prophets;\nbut I do esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our\nbecoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I\njustly can. It is the way to get at his secret: let us try to understand\nwhat _he_ meant with the world; what the world meant and means with him,\nwill then be a more answerable question. Our current hypothesis about\nMahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood incarnate, that\nhis religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be\nnow untenable to any one. The lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped\nround this man, are disgraceful to ourselves only. When Pococke inquired\nof Grotius, Where the proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to\npick peas from Mahomet's ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him?\nGrotius answered that there was no proof! It is really time to dismiss\nall that. The word this man spoke has been the life-guidance now of a\nhundred and eighty millions of men these twelve hundred years. These\nhundred and eighty millions were made by God as well as we. A greater\nnumber of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour, than\nin any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable\npiece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the\nAlmighty have lived by and died by? I, for my part, cannot form any such\nsupposition. I will believe most things sooner than that. One would be\nentirely at a loss what to think of this world at all, if quackery so\ngrew and were sanctioned here.\n\nAlas, such theories are very lamentable. If we would attain to knowledge\nof anything in God's true Creation, let us disbelieve them wholly!\nThey are the product of an Age of Scepticism: they indicate the saddest\nspiritual paralysis, and mere death-life of the souls of men: more\ngodless theory, I think, was never promulgated in this Earth. A false\nman found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If\nhe do not know and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay and\nwhat else be works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap.\nIt will not stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a hundred and eighty\nmillions; it will fall straightway. A man must conform himself to\nNature's laws, _be_ verily in communion with Nature and the truth of\nthings, or Nature will answer him, No, not at all! Speciosities\nare specious--ah me!--a Cagliostro, many Cagliostros, prominent\nworld-leaders, do prosper by their quackery, for a day. It is like a\nforged bank-note; they get it passed out of _their_ worthless hands:\nothers, not they, have to smart for it. Nature bursts up in fire-flames,\nFrench Revolutions and such like, proclaiming with terrible veracity\nthat forged notes are forged.\n\nBut of a Great Man especially, of him I will venture to assert that it\nis incredible he should have been other than true. It seems to me the\nprimary foundation of him, and of all that can lie in him, this. No\nMirabeau, Napoleon, Burns, Cromwell, no man adequate to do anything, but\nis first of all in right earnest about it; what I call a sincere man. I\nshould say _sincerity_, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first\ncharacteristic of all men in any way heroic. Not the sincerity that\ncalls itself sincere; ah no, that is a very poor matter indeed;--a\nshallow braggart conscious sincerity; oftenest self-conceit mainly.\nThe Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not\nconscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity; for\nwhat man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one day? No, the\nGreat Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does\nnot ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does\nnot depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere! The great Fact\nof Existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he cannot get out of the\nawful presence of this Reality. His mind is so made; he is great by\nthat, first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real as Life, real as Death,\nis this Universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and\nwalk in a vain show, he cannot. At all moments the Flame-image glares\nin upon him; undeniable, there, there!--I wish you to take this as my\nprimary definition of a Great Man. A little man may have this, it\nis competent to all men that God has made: but a Great Man cannot be\nwithout it.\n\nSuch a man is what we call an _original_ man; he comes to us at\nfirst-hand. A messenger he, sent from the Infinite Unknown with tidings\nto us. We may call him Poet, Prophet, God;--in one way or other, we all\nfeel that the words he utters are as no other man's words. Direct from\nthe Inner Fact of things;--he lives, and has to live, in daily communion\nwith that. Hearsays cannot hide it from him; he is blind, homeless,\nmiserable, following hearsays; _it_ glares in upon him. Really his\nutterances, are they not a kind of \"revelation;\"--what we must call such\nfor want of some other name? It is from the heart of the world that he\ncomes; he is portion of the primal reality of things. God has made many\nrevelations: but this man too, has not God made him, the latest\nand newest of all? The \"inspiration of the Almighty giveth him\nunderstanding:\" we must listen before all to him.\n\n\nThis Mahomet, then, we will in no wise consider as an Inanity and\nTheatricality, a poor conscious ambitious schemer; we cannot conceive\nhim so. The rude message he delivered was a real one withal; an earnest\nconfused voice from the unknown Deep. The man's words were not false,\nnor his workings here below; no Inanity and Simulacrum; a fiery mass\nof Life cast up from the great bosom of Nature herself. To _kindle_\nthe world; the world's Maker had ordered it so. Neither can the faults,\nimperfections, insincerities even, of Mahomet, if such were never so\nwell proved against him, shake this primary fact about him.\n\nOn the whole, we make too much of faults; the details of the business\nhide the real centre of it. Faults? The greatest of faults, I should\nsay, is to be conscious of none. Readers of the Bible above all, one\nwould think, might know better. Who is called there \"the man according\nto God's own heart\"? David, the Hebrew King, had fallen into sins\nenough; blackest crimes; there was no want of sins. And thereupon the\nunbelievers sneer and ask, Is this your man according to God's heart?\nThe sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults,\nwhat are the outward details of a life; if the inner secret of it, the\nremorse, temptations, true, often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it,\nbe forgotten? \"It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.\" Of\nall acts, is not, for a man, _repentance_ the most divine? The deadliest\nsin, I say, were that same supercilious consciousness of no sin;--that\nis death; the heart so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility\nand fact; is dead: it is \"pure\" as dead dry sand is pure. David's life\nand history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be\nthe truest emblem ever given of a man's moral progress and warfare here\nbelow. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle\nof an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often\nbaffled, sore baffled, down as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never\nended; ever, with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose, begun\nanew. Poor human nature! Is not a man's walking, in truth, always that:\n\"a succession of falls\"? Man can do no other. In this wild element of\na Life, he has to struggle onwards; now fallen, deep-abased; and ever,\nwith tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again,\nstruggle again still onwards. That his struggle _be_ a faithful\nunconquerable one: that is the question of questions. We will put\nup with many sad details, if the soul of it were true. Details by\nthemselves will never teach us what it is. I believe we misestimate\nMahomet's faults even as faults: but the secret of him will never be\ngot by dwelling there. We will leave all this behind us; and assuring\nourselves that he did mean some true thing, ask candidly what it was or\nmight be.\n\n\nThese Arabs Mahomet was born among are certainly a notable people. Their\ncountry itself is notable; the fit habitation for such a race. Savage\ninaccessible rock-mountains, great grim deserts, alternating with\nbeautiful strips of verdure: wherever water is, there is greenness,\nbeauty; odoriferous balm-shrubs, date-trees, frankincense-trees.\nConsider that wide waste horizon of sand, empty, silent, like a\nsand-sea, dividing habitable place from habitable. You are all alone\nthere, left alone with the Universe; by day a fierce sun blazing down\non it with intolerable radiance; by night the great deep Heaven with its\nstars. Such a country is fit for a swift-handed, deep-hearted race of\nmen. There is something most agile, active, and yet most meditative,\nenthusiastic in the Arab character. The Persians are called the French\nof the East; we will call the Arabs Oriental Italians. A gifted noble\npeople; a people of wild strong feelings, and of iron restraint over\nthese: the characteristic of noble-mindedness, of genius. The wild\nBedouin welcomes the stranger to his tent, as one having right to all\nthat is there; were it his worst enemy, he will slay his foal to treat\nhim, will serve him with sacred hospitality for three days, will set him\nfairly on his way;--and then, by another law as sacred, kill him if\nhe can. In words too as in action. They are not a loquacious people,\ntaciturn rather; but eloquent, gifted when they do speak. An earnest,\ntruthful kind of men. They are, as we know, of Jewish kindred: but\nwith that deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem to combine\nsomething graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish. They had \"Poetic\ncontests\" among them before the time of Mahomet. Sale says, at Ocadh,\nin the South of Arabia, there were yearly fairs, and there, when the\nmerchandising was done, Poets sang for prizes:--the wild people gathered\nto hear that.\n\nOne Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of many or of all\nhigh qualities: what we may call religiosity. From of old they had\nbeen zealous worshippers, according to their light. They worshipped the\nstars, as Sabeans; worshipped many natural objects,--recognized them as\nsymbols, immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature. It was wrong;\nand yet not wholly wrong. All God's works are still in a sense symbols\nof God. Do we not, as I urged, still account it a merit to recognize a\ncertain inexhaustible significance, \"poetic beauty\" as we name it, in\nall natural objects whatsoever? A man is a poet, and honored, for doing\nthat, and speaking or singing it,--a kind of diluted worship. They had\nmany Prophets, these Arabs; Teachers each to his tribe, each according\nto the light he had. But indeed, have we not from of old the noblest\nof proofs, still palpable to every one of us, of what devoutness and\nnoble-mindedness had dwelt in these rustic thoughtful peoples? Biblical\ncritics seem agreed that our own _Book of Job_ was written in that\nregion of the world. I call that, apart from all theories about it, one\nof the grandest things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as\nif it were not Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble\npatriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble Book; all men's Book!\nIt is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending Problem,--man's\ndestiny, and God's ways with him here in this earth. And all in such\nfree flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity; in its\nepic melody, and repose of reconcilement. There is the seeing eye,\nthe mildly understanding heart. So _true_ every way; true eyesight\nand vision for all things; material things no less than spiritual: the\nHorse,--\"hast thou clothed his neck with _thunder_?\"--he \"_laughs_\nat the shaking of the spear!\" Such living likenesses were never since\ndrawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as\nof the heart of mankind;--so soft, and great; as the summer midnight, as\nthe world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in\nthe Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.--\n\nTo the idolatrous Arabs one of the most ancient universal objects of\nworship was that Black Stone, still kept in the building called Caabah,\nat Mecca. Diodorus Siculus mentions this Caabah in a way not to be\nmistaken, as the oldest, most honored temple in his time; that is,\nsome half-century before our Era. Silvestre de Sacy says there is some\nlikelihood that the Black Stone is an aerolite. In that case, some man\nmight _see_ it fall out of Heaven! It stands now beside the Well Zemzem;\nthe Caabah is built over both. A Well is in all places a beautiful\naffecting object, gushing out like life from the hard earth;--still more\nso in those hot dry countries, where it is the first condition of being.\nThe Well Zemzem has its name from the bubbling sound of the waters,\n_zem-zem_; they think it is the Well which Hagar found with her little\nIshmael in the wilderness: the aerolite and it have been sacred now, and\nhad a Caabah over them, for thousands of years. A curious object, that\nCaabah! There it stands at this hour, in the black cloth-covering the\nSultan sends it yearly; \"twenty-seven cubits high;\" with circuit,\nwith double circuit of pillars, with festoon-rows of lamps and quaint\nornaments: the lamps will be lighted again _this_ night,--to glitter\nagain under the stars. An authentic fragment of the oldest Past. It is\nthe _Keblah_ of all Moslem: from Delhi all onwards to Morocco, the eyes\nof innumerable praying men are turned towards it, five times, this day\nand all days: one of the notablest centres in the Habitation of Men.\n\nIt had been from the sacredness attached to this Caabah Stone and\nHagar's Well, from the pilgrimings of all tribes of Arabs thither, that\nMecca took its rise as a Town. A great town once, though much decayed\nnow. It has no natural advantage for a town; stands in a sandy hollow\namid bare barren hills, at a distance from the sea; its provisions, its\nvery bread, have to be imported. But so many pilgrims needed lodgings:\nand then all places of pilgrimage do, from the first, become places of\ntrade. The first day pilgrims meet, merchants have also met: where\nmen see themselves assembled for one object, they find that they can\naccomplish other objects which depend on meeting together. Mecca\nbecame the Fair of all Arabia. And thereby indeed the chief staple and\nwarehouse of whatever Commerce there was between the Indian and the\nWestern countries, Syria, Egypt, even Italy. It had at one time a\npopulation of 100,000; buyers, forwarders of those Eastern and Western\nproducts; importers for their own behoof of provisions and corn. The\ngovernment was a kind of irregular aristocratic republic, not without a\ntouch of theocracy. Ten Men of a chief tribe, chosen in some rough way,\nwere Governors of Mecca, and Keepers of the Caabah. The Koreish were\nthe chief tribe in Mahomet's time; his own family was of that tribe. The\nrest of the Nation, fractioned and cut asunder by deserts, lived under\nsimilar rude patriarchal governments by one or several: herdsmen,\ncarriers, traders, generally robbers too; being oftenest at war one with\nanother, or with all: held together by no open bond, if it were not this\nmeeting at the Caabah, where all forms of Arab Idolatry assembled in\ncommon adoration;--held mainly by the _inward_ indissoluble bond of\na common blood and language. In this way had the Arabs lived for long\nages, unnoticed by the world; a people of great qualities, unconsciously\nwaiting for the day when they should become notable to all the world.\nTheir Idolatries appear to have been in a tottering state; much was\ngetting into confusion and fermentation among them. Obscure tidings of\nthe most important Event ever transacted in this world, the Life and\nDeath of the Divine Man in Judea, at once the symptom and cause of\nimmeasurable change to all people in the world, had in the course of\ncenturies reached into Arabia too; and could not but, of itself, have\nproduced fermentation there.\n\n\nIt was among this Arab people, so circumstanced, in the year 570 of our\nEra, that the man Mahomet was born. He was of the family of Hashem,\nof the Koreish tribe as we said; though poor, connected with the chief\npersons of his country. Almost at his birth he lost his Father; at the\nage of six years his Mother too, a woman noted for her beauty, her\nworth and sense: he fell to the charge of his Grandfather, an old man, a\nhundred years old. A good old man: Mahomet's Father, Abdallah, had been\nhis youngest favorite son. He saw in Mahomet, with his old life-worn\neyes, a century old, the lost Abdallah come back again, all that was\nleft of Abdallah. He loved the little orphan Boy greatly; used to say,\nThey must take care of that beautiful little Boy, nothing in their\nkindred was more precious than he. At his death, while the boy was still\nbut two years old, he left him in charge to Abu Thaleb the eldest of the\nUncles, as to him that now was head of the house. By this Uncle, a just\nand rational man as everything betokens, Mahomet was brought up in the\nbest Arab way.\n\nMahomet, as he grew up, accompanied his Uncle on trading journeys and\nsuch like; in his eighteenth year one finds him a fighter following his\nUncle in war. But perhaps the most significant of all his journeys is\none we find noted as of some years' earlier date: a journey to the Fairs\nof Syria. The young man here first came in contact with a quite foreign\nworld,--with one foreign element of endless moment to him: the Christian\nReligion. I know not what to make of that \"Sergius, the Nestorian Monk,\"\nwhom Abu Thaleb and he are said to have lodged with; or how much any\nmonk could have taught one still so young. Probably enough it is greatly\nexaggerated, this of the Nestorian Monk. Mahomet was only fourteen;\nhad no language but his own: much in Syria must have been a strange\nunintelligible whirlpool to him. But the eyes of the lad were open;\nglimpses of many things would doubtless be taken in, and lie very\nenigmatic as yet, which were to ripen in a strange way into views, into\nbeliefs and insights one day. These journeys to Syria were probably the\nbeginning of much to Mahomet.\n\nOne other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no\nschool-learning; of the thing we call school-learning none at all. The\nart of writing was but just introduced into Arabia; it seems to be the\ntrue opinion that Mahomet never could write! Life in the Desert, with\nits experiences, was all his education. What of this infinite Universe\nhe, from his dim place, with his own eyes and thoughts, could take in,\nso much and no more of it was he to know. Curious, if we will reflect on\nit, this of having no books. Except by what he could see for himself, or\nhear of by uncertain rumor of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert, he\ncould know nothing. The wisdom that had been before him or at a distance\nfrom him in the world, was in a manner as good as not there for him. Of\nthe great brother souls, flame-beacons through so many lands and times,\nno one directly communicates with this great soul. He is alone there,\ndeep down in the bosom of the Wilderness; has to grow up so,--alone with\nNature and his own Thoughts.\n\nBut, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thoughtful man. His\ncompanions named him \"_Al Amin_, The Faithful.\" A man of truth and\nfidelity; true in what he did, in what he spake and thought. They noted\nthat _he_ always meant something. A man rather taciturn in speech;\nsilent when there was nothing to be said; but pertinent, wise, sincere,\nwhen he did speak; always throwing light on the matter. This is the only\nsort of speech _worth_ speaking! Through life we find him to have been\nregarded as an altogether solid, brotherly, genuine man. A serious,\nsincere character; yet amiable, cordial, companionable, jocose even;--a\ngood laugh in him withal: there are men whose laugh is as untrue as\nanything about them; who cannot laugh. One hears of Mahomet's beauty:\nhis fine sagacious honest face, brown florid complexion, beaming black\neyes;--I somehow like too that vein on the brow, which swelled up\nblack when he was in anger: like the \"_horseshoe_ vein\" in Scott's\n_Redgauntlet_. It was a kind of feature in the Hashem family, this black\nswelling vein in the brow; Mahomet had it prominent, as would appear.\nA spontaneous, passionate, yet just, true-meaning man! Full of wild\nfaculty, fire and light; of wild worth, all uncultured; working out his\nlife-task in the depths of the Desert there.\n\nHow he was placed with Kadijah, a rich Widow, as her Steward, and\ntravelled in her business, again to the Fairs of Syria; how he managed\nall, as one can well understand, with fidelity, adroitness; how her\ngratitude, her regard for him grew: the story of their marriage is\naltogether a graceful intelligible one, as told us by the Arab authors.\nHe was twenty-five; she forty, though still beautiful. He seems to have\nlived in a most affectionate, peaceable, wholesome way with this wedded\nbenefactress; loving her truly, and her alone. It goes greatly\nagainst the impostor theory, the fact that he lived in this entirely\nunexceptionable, entirely quiet and commonplace way, till the heat of\nhis years was done. He was forty before he talked of any mission from\nHeaven. All his irregularities, real and supposed, date from after\nhis fiftieth year, when the good Kadijah died. All his \"ambition,\"\nseemingly, had been, hitherto, to live an honest life; his \"fame,\"\nthe mere good opinion of neighbors that knew him, had been sufficient\nhitherto. Not till he was already getting old, the prurient heat of his\nlife all burnt out, and _peace_ growing to be the chief thing this world\ncould give him, did he start on the \"career of ambition;\" and, belying\nall his past character and existence, set up as a wretched empty\ncharlatan to acquire what he could now no longer enjoy! For my share, I\nhave no faith whatever in that.\n\nAh no: this deep-hearted Son of the Wilderness, with his beaming black\neyes and open social deep soul, had other thoughts in him than ambition.\nA silent great soul; he was one of those who cannot _but_ be in earnest;\nwhom Nature herself has appointed to be sincere. While others walk in\nformulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there, this man could\nnot screen himself in formulas; he was alone with his own soul and the\nreality of things. The great Mystery of Existence, as I said, glared in\nupon him, with its terrors, with its splendors; no hearsays could hide\nthat unspeakable fact, \"Here am I!\" Such _sincerity_, as we named it,\nhas in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a Voice\ndirect from Nature's own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as to\nnothing else;--all else is wind in comparison. From of old, a thousand\nthoughts, in his pilgrimings and wanderings, had been in this man:\nWhat am I? What _is_ this unfathomable Thing I live in, which men name\nUniverse? What is Life; what is Death? What am I to believe? What am\nI to do? The grim rocks of Mount Hara, of Mount Sinai, the stern sandy\nsolitudes answered not. The great Heaven rolling silent overhead, with\nits blue-glancing stars, answered not. There was no answer. The man's\nown soul, and what of God's inspiration dwelt there, had to answer!\n\nIt is the thing which all men have to ask themselves; which we too have\nto ask, and answer. This wild man felt it to be of _infinite_ moment;\nall other things of no moment whatever in comparison. The jargon of\nargumentative Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine\nof Arab Idolatry: there was no answer in these. A Hero, as I repeat,\nhas this first distinction, which indeed we may call first and last, the\nAlpha and Omega of his whole Heroism, That he looks through the shows\nof things into _things_. Use and wont, respectable hearsay, respectable\nformula: all these are good, or are not good. There is something behind\nand beyond all these, which all these must correspond with, be the image\nof, or they are--_Idolatries_; \"bits of black wood pretending to be\nGod;\" to the earnest soul a mockery and abomination. Idolatries never so\ngilded, waited on by heads of the Koreish, will do nothing for this man.\nThough all men walk by them, what good is it? The great Reality\nstands glaring there upon _him_. He there has to answer it, or perish\nmiserably. Now, even now, or else through all Eternity never! Answer it;\n_thou_ must find an answer.--Ambition? What could all Arabia do for this\nman; with the crown of Greek Heraclius, of Persian Chosroes, and all\ncrowns in the Earth;--what could they all do for him? It was not of the\nEarth he wanted to hear tell; it was of the Heaven above and of the Hell\nbeneath. All crowns and sovereignties whatsoever, where would _they_ in\na few brief years be? To be Sheik of Mecca or Arabia, and have a bit of\ngilt wood put into your hand,--will that be one's salvation? I decidedly\nthink, not. We will leave it altogether, this impostor hypothesis, as\nnot credible; not very tolerable even, worthy chiefly of dismissal by\nus.\n\nMahomet had been wont to retire yearly, during the month Ramadhan, into\nsolitude and silence; as indeed was the Arab custom; a praiseworthy\ncustom, which such a man, above all, would find natural and useful.\nCommuning with his own heart, in the silence of the mountains; himself\nsilent; open to the \"small still voices:\" it was a right natural custom!\nMahomet was in his fortieth year, when having withdrawn to a cavern\nin Mount Hara, near Mecca, during this Ramadhan, to pass the month in\nprayer, and meditation on those great questions, he one day told his\nwife Kadijah, who with his household was with him or near him this year,\nThat by the unspeakable special favor of Heaven he had now found it all\nout; was in doubt and darkness no longer, but saw it all. That all these\nIdols and Formulas were nothing, miserable bits of wood; that there was\nOne God in and over all; and we must leave all Idols, and look to Him.\nThat God is great; and that there is nothing else great! He is the\nReality. Wooden Idols are not real; He is real. He made us at first,\nsustains us yet; we and all things are but the shadow of Him; a\ntransitory garment veiling the Eternal Splendor. \"_Allah akbar_, God is\ngreat;\"--and then also \"_Islam_,\" That we must submit to God. That our\nwhole strength lies in resigned submission to Him, whatsoever He do to\nus. For this world, and for the other! The thing He sends to us, were\nit death and worse than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign\nourselves to God.--\"If this be _Islam_,\" says Goethe, \"do we not all\nlive in _Islam_?\" Yes, all of us that have any moral life; we all live\nso. It has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to\nsubmit to Necessity,--Necessity will make him submit,--but to know and\nbelieve well that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was\nthe wisest, the best, the thing wanted there. To cease his frantic\npretension of scanning this great God's-World in his small fraction of a\nbrain; to know that it _had_ verily, though deep beyond his soundings,\na Just Law, that the soul of it was Good;--that his part in it was to\nconform to the Law of the Whole, and in devout silence follow that; not\nquestioning it, obeying it as unquestionable.\n\nI say, this is yet the only true morality known. A man is right and\ninvincible, virtuous and on the road towards sure conquest, precisely\nwhile he joins himself to the great deep Law of the World, in spite\nof all superficial laws, temporary appearances, profit-and-loss\ncalculations; he is victorious while he co-operates with that great\ncentral Law, not victorious otherwise:--and surely his first chance of\nco-operating with it, or getting into the course of it, is to know with\nhis whole soul that it is; that it is good, and alone good! This is the\nsoul of Islam; it is properly the soul of Christianity;--for Islam is\ndefinable as a confused form of Christianity; had Christianity not been,\nneither had it been. Christianity also commands us, before all, to be\nresigned to God. We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give\near to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and wishes: to know that we know\nnothing; that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems;\nthat we have to receive whatsoever befalls us as sent from God above,\nand say, It is good and wise, God is great! \"Though He slay me, yet will\nI trust in Him.\" Islam means in its way Denial of Self, Annihilation\nof Self. This is yet the highest Wisdom that Heaven has revealed to our\nEarth.\n\nSuch light had come, as it could, to illuminate the darkness of this\nwild Arab soul. A confused dazzling splendor as of life and Heaven, in\nthe great darkness which threatened to be death: he called it revelation\nand the angel Gabriel;--who of us yet can know what to call it? It\nis the \"inspiration of the Almighty\" that giveth us understanding. To\n_know_; to get into the truth of anything, is ever a mystic act,--of\nwhich the best Logics can but babble on the surface. \"Is not Belief the\ntrue god-announcing Miracle?\" says Novalis.--That Mahomet's whole soul,\nset in flame with this grand Truth vouchsafed him, should feel as if\nit were important and the only important thing, was very natural. That\nProvidence had unspeakably honored him by revealing it, saving him from\ndeath and darkness; that he therefore was bound to make known the same\nto all creatures: this is what was meant by \"Mahomet is the Prophet of\nGod;\" this too is not without its true meaning.--\n\nThe good Kadijah, we can fancy, listened to him with wonder, with doubt:\nat length she answered: Yes, it was true this that he said. One can\nfancy too the boundless gratitude of Mahomet; and how of all the\nkindnesses she had done him, this of believing the earnest struggling\nword he now spoke was the greatest. \"It is certain,\" says Novalis, \"my\nConviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will believe in\nit.\" It is a boundless favor.--He never forgot this good Kadijah.\nLong afterwards, Ayesha his young favorite wife, a woman who indeed\ndistinguished herself among the Moslem, by all manner of qualities,\nthrough her whole long life; this young brilliant Ayesha was, one day,\nquestioning him: \"Now am not I better than Kadijah? She was a widow;\nold, and had lost her looks: you love me better than you did\nher?\"--\"No, by Allah!\" answered Mahomet: \"No, by Allah! She believed\nin me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had but one\nfriend, and she was that!\"--Seid, his Slave, also believed in him;\nthese with his young Cousin Ali, Abu Thaleb's son, were his first\nconverts.\n\nHe spoke of his Doctrine to this man and that; but the most treated it\nwith ridicule, with indifference; in three years, I think, he had gained\nbut thirteen followers. His progress was slow enough. His encouragement\nto go on, was altogether the usual encouragement that such a man in such\na case meets. After some three years of small success, he invited forty\nof his chief kindred to an entertainment; and there stood up and told\nthem what his pretension was: that he had this thing to promulgate\nabroad to all men; that it was the highest thing, the one thing: which\nof them would second him in that? Amid the doubt and silence of all,\nyoung Ali, as yet a lad of sixteen, impatient of the silence, started\nup, and exclaimed in passionate fierce language, That he would!\nThe assembly, among whom was Abu Thaleb, Ali's Father, could not be\nunfriendly to Mahomet; yet the sight there, of one unlettered elderly\nman, with a lad of sixteen, deciding on such an enterprise against all\nmankind, appeared ridiculous to them; the assembly broke up in laughter.\nNevertheless it proved not a laughable thing; it was a very serious\nthing! As for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded\ncreature, as he shows himself, now and always afterwards; full of\naffection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as\na lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian\nknighthood. He died by assassination in the Mosque at Bagdad; a death\noccasioned by his own generous fairness, confidence in the fairness of\nothers: he said, If the wound proved not unto death, they must pardon\nthe Assassin; but if it did, then they must slay him straightway, that\nso they two in the same hour might appear before God, and see which side\nof that quarrel was the just one!\n\nMahomet naturally gave offence to the Koreish, Keepers of the Caabah,\nsuperintendents of the Idols. One or two men of influence had joined\nhim: the thing spread slowly, but it was spreading. Naturally he gave\noffence to everybody: Who is this that pretends to be wiser than we all;\nthat rebukes us all, as mere fools and worshippers of wood! Abu Thaleb\nthe good Uncle spoke with him: Could he not be silent about all that;\nbelieve it all for himself, and not trouble others, anger the chief men,\nendanger himself and them all, talking of it? Mahomet answered: If the\nSun stood on his right hand and the Moon on his left, ordering him to\nhold his peace, he could not obey! No: there was something in this Truth\nhe had got which was of Nature herself; equal in rank to Sun, or Moon,\nor whatsoever thing Nature had made. It would speak itself there, so\nlong as the Almighty allowed it, in spite of Sun and Moon, and all\nKoreish and all men and things. It must do that, and could do no other.\nMahomet answered so; and, they say, \"burst into tears.\" Burst into\ntears: he felt that Abu Thaleb was good to him; that the task he had got\nwas no soft, but a stern and great one.\n\nHe went on speaking to who would listen to him; publishing his Doctrine\namong the pilgrims as they came to Mecca; gaining adherents in this\nplace and that. Continual contradiction, hatred, open or secret danger\nattended him. His powerful relations protected Mahomet himself; but by\nand by, on his own advice, all his adherents had to quit Mecca, and seek\nrefuge in Abyssinia over the sea. The Koreish grew ever angrier; laid\nplots, and swore oaths among them, to put Mahomet to death with their\nown hands. Abu Thaleb was dead, the good Kadijah was dead. Mahomet is\nnot solicitous of sympathy from us; but his outlook at this time was\none of the dismalest. He had to hide in caverns, escape in disguise; fly\nhither and thither; homeless, in continual peril of his life. More than\nonce it seemed all over with him; more than once it turned on a straw,\nsome rider's horse taking fright or the like, whether Mahomet and his\nDoctrine had not ended there, and not been heard of at all. But it was\nnot to end so.\n\nIn the thirteenth year of his mission, finding his enemies all banded\nagainst him, forty sworn men, one out of every tribe, waiting to take\nhis life, and no continuance possible at Mecca for him any longer,\nMahomet fled to the place then called Yathreb, where he had gained some\nadherents; the place they now call Medina, or \"_Medinat al Nabi_, the\nCity of the Prophet,\" from that circumstance. It lay some two hundred\nmiles off, through rocks and deserts; not without great difficulty, in\nsuch mood as we may fancy, he escaped thither, and found welcome. The\nwhole East dates its era from this Flight, _hegira_ as they name it: the\nYear 1 of this Hegira is 622 of our Era, the fifty-third of Mahomet's\nlife. He was now becoming an old man; his friends sinking round him one\nby one; his path desolate, encompassed with danger: unless he could find\nhope in his own heart, the outward face of things was but hopeless\nfor him. It is so with all men in the like case. Hitherto Mahomet had\nprofessed to publish his Religion by the way of preaching and persuasion\nalone. But now, driven foully out of his native country, since unjust\nmen had not only given no ear to his earnest Heaven's-message, the deep\ncry of his heart, but would not even let him live if he kept speaking\nit,--the wild Son of the Desert resolved to defend himself, like a man\nand Arab. If the Koreish will have it so, they shall have it. Tidings,\nfelt to be of infinite moment to them and all men, they would not listen\nto these; would trample them down by sheer violence, steel and murder:\nwell, let steel try it then! Ten years more this Mahomet had; all of\nfighting of breathless impetuous toil and struggle; with what result we\nknow.\n\nMuch has been said of Mahomet's propagating his Religion by the sword.\nIt is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of the Christian\nReligion, that it propagated itself peaceably in the way of preaching\nand conviction. Yet withal, if we take this for an argument of the truth\nor falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake in it. The sword\nindeed: but where will you get your sword! Every new opinion, at its\nstarting, is precisely in a _minority of one_. In one man's head alone,\nthere it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it;\nthere is one man against all men. That _he_ take a sword, and try to\npropagate with that, will do little for him. You must first get your\nsword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can. We do not\nfind, of the Christian Religion either, that it always disdained the\nsword, when once it had got one. Charlemagne's conversion of the Saxons\nwas not by preaching. I care little about the sword: I will allow a\nthing to struggle for itself in this world, with any sword or tongue\nor implement it has, or can lay hold of. We will let it preach, and\npamphleteer, and fight, and to the uttermost bestir itself, and do, beak\nand claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that it will, in the long-run,\nconquer nothing which does not deserve to be conquered. What is better\nthan itself, it cannot put away, but only what is worse. In this great\nDuel, Nature herself is umpire, and can do no wrong: the thing which is\ndeepest-rooted in Nature, what we call _truest_, that thing and not the\nother will be found growing at last.\n\nHere however, in reference to much that there is in Mahomet and his\nsuccess, we are to remember what an umpire Nature is; what a greatness,\ncomposure of depth and tolerance there is in her. You take wheat to\ncast into the Earth's bosom; your wheat may be mixed with chaff, chopped\nstraw, barn-sweepings, dust and all imaginable rubbish; no matter:\nyou cast it into the kind just Earth; she grows the wheat,--the whole\nrubbish she silently absorbs, shrouds _it_ in, says nothing of the\nrubbish. The yellow wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent\nabout all the rest,--has silently turned all the rest to some benefit\ntoo, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is\ntrue and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her\ntruth. She requires of a thing only that it _be_ genuine of heart; she\nwill protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in\nall the things she ever gave harbor to. Alas, is not this the history of\nall highest Truth that comes or ever came into the world? The _body_ of\nthem all is imperfection, an element of light in darkness: to us they\nhave to come embodied in mere Logic, in some merely _scientific_ Theorem\nof the Universe; which _cannot_ be complete; which cannot but be found,\none day, incomplete, erroneous, and so die and disappear. The body of\nall Truth dies; and yet in all, I say, there is a soul which never dies;\nwhich in new and ever-nobler embodiment lives immortal as man himself!\nIt is the way with Nature. The genuine essence of Truth never dies. That\nit be genuine, a voice from the great Deep of Nature, there is the point\nat Nature's judgment-seat. What _we_ call pure or impure, is not with\nher the final question. Not how much chaff is in you; but whether you\nhave any wheat. Pure? I might say to many a man: Yes, you are pure; pure\nenough; but you are chaff,--insincere hypothesis, hearsay, formality;\nyou never were in contact with the great heart of the Universe at all;\nyou are properly neither pure nor impure; you _are_ nothing, Nature has\nno business with you.\n\nMahomet's Creed we called a kind of Christianity; and really, if we\nlook at the wild rapt earnestness with which it was believed and laid\nto heart, I should say a better kind than that of those miserable Syrian\nSects, with their vain janglings about _Homoiousion_ and _Homoousion_,\nthe head full of worthless noise, the heart empty and dead! The truth\nof it is embedded in portentous error and falsehood; but the truth of\nit makes it be believed, not the falsehood: it succeeded by its truth.\nA bastard kind of Christianity, but a living kind; with a heart-life in\nit; not dead, chopping barren logic merely! Out of all that rubbish\nof Arab idolatries, argumentative theologies, traditions, subtleties,\nrumors and hypotheses of Greeks and Jews, with their idle wire-drawings,\nthis wild man of the Desert, with his wild sincere heart, earnest as\ndeath and life, with his great flashing natural eyesight, had seen into\nthe kernel of the matter. Idolatry is nothing: these Wooden Idols\nof yours, \"ye rub them with oil and wax, and the flies stick on\nthem,\"--these are wood, I tell you! They can do nothing for you; they\nare an impotent blasphemous presence; a horror and abomination, if ye\nknew them. God alone is; God alone has power; He made us, He can kill\nus and keep us alive: \"_Allah akbar_, God is great.\" Understand that His\nwill is the best for you; that howsoever sore to flesh and blood, you\nwill find it the wisest, best: you are bound to take it so; in this\nworld and in the next, you have no other thing that you can do!\n\nAnd now if the wild idolatrous men did believe this, and with their\nfiery hearts lay hold of it to do it, in what form soever it came to\nthem, I say it was well worthy of being believed. In one form or the\nother, I say it is still the one thing worthy of being believed by all\nmen. Man does hereby become the high-priest of this Temple of a\nWorld. He is in harmony with the Decrees of the Author of this World;\ncooperating with them, not vainly withstanding them: I know, to this\nday, no better definition of Duty than that same. All that is _right_\nincludes itself in this of co-operating with the real Tendency of the\nWorld: you succeed by this (the World's Tendency will succeed), you are\ngood, and in the right course there. _Homoiousion_, _Homoousion_, vain\nlogical jangle, then or before or at any time, may jangle itself out,\nand go whither and how it likes: this is the _thing_ it all struggles to\nmean, if it would mean anything. If it do not succeed in meaning this,\nit means nothing. Not that Abstractions, logical Propositions, be\ncorrectly worded or incorrectly; but that living concrete Sons of Adam\ndo lay this to heart: that is the important point. Islam devoured all\nthese vain jangling Sects; and I think had right to do so. It was\na Reality, direct from the great Heart of Nature once more. Arab\nidolatries, Syrian formulas, whatsoever was not equally real, had to go\nup in flame,--mere dead _fuel_, in various senses, for this which was\n_fire_.\n\n\nIt was during these wild warfarings and strugglings, especially after\nthe Flight to Mecca, that Mahomet dictated at intervals his Sacred Book,\nwhich they name _Koran_, or _Reading_, \"Thing to be read.\" This is the\nWork he and his disciples made so much of, asking all the world, Is not\nthat a miracle? The Mahometans regard their Koran with a reverence which\nfew Christians pay even to their Bible. It is admitted every where as\nthe standard of all law and all practice; the thing to be gone upon in\nspeculation and life; the message sent direct out of Heaven, which this\nEarth has to conform to, and walk by; the thing to be read. Their Judges\ndecide by it; all Moslem are bound to study it, seek in it for the light\nof their life. They have mosques where it is all read daily; thirty\nrelays of priests take it up in succession, get through the whole each\nday. There, for twelve hundred years, has the voice of this Book, at all\nmoments, kept sounding through the ears and the hearts of so many men.\nWe hear of Mahometan Doctors that had read it seventy thousand times!\n\nVery curious: if one sought for \"discrepancies of national taste,\" here\nsurely were the most eminent instance of that! We also can read the\nKoran; our Translation of it, by Sale, is known to be a very fair one.\nI must say, it is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome\nconfused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness,\nentanglement; most crude, incondite;--insupportable stupidity, in short!\nNothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran.\nWe read in it, as we might in the State-Paper Office, unreadable masses\nof lumber, that perhaps we may get some glimpses of a remarkable man. It\nis true we have it under disadvantages: the Arabs see more method in it\nthan we. Mahomet's followers found the Koran lying all in fractions, as\nit had been written down at first promulgation; much of it, they say,\non shoulder-blades of mutton, flung pell-mell into a chest: and\nthey published it, without any discoverable order as to time or\notherwise;--merely trying, as would seem, and this not very strictly, to\nput the longest chapters first. The real beginning of it, in that way,\nlies almost at the end: for the earliest portions were the shortest.\nRead in its historical sequence it perhaps would not be so bad. Much\nof it, too, they say, is rhythmic; a kind of wild chanting song, in the\noriginal. This may be a great point; much perhaps has been lost in the\nTranslation here. Yet with every allowance, one feels it difficult to\nsee how any mortal ever could consider this Koran as a Book written in\nHeaven, too good for the Earth; as a well-written book, or indeed as\na _book_ at all; and not a bewildered rhapsody; _written_, so far as\nwriting goes, as badly as almost any book ever was! So much for national\ndiscrepancies, and the standard of taste.\n\nYet I should say, it was not unintelligible how the Arabs might so love\nit. When once you get this confused coil of a Koran fairly off your\nhands, and have it behind you at a distance, the essential type of it\nbegins to disclose itself; and in this there is a merit quite other than\nthe literary one. If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to\nreach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to\nthat. One would say the primary character of the Koran is this of its\n_genuineness_, of its being a _bona-fide_ book. Prideaux, I know, and\nothers have represented it as a mere bundle of juggleries; chapter\nafter chapter got up to excuse and varnish the author's successive sins,\nforward his ambitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss\nall that. I do not assert Mahomet's continual sincerity: who is\ncontinually sincere? But I confess I can make nothing of the critic,\nin these times, who would accuse him of deceit _prepense_; of conscious\ndeceit generally, or perhaps at all;--still more, of living in a mere\nelement of conscious deceit, and writing this Koran as a forger and\njuggler would have done! Every candid eye, I think, will read the Koran\nfar otherwise than so. It is the confused ferment of a great rude human\nsoul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read; but fervent, earnest,\nstruggling vehemently to utter itself in words. With a kind of\nbreathless intensity he strives to utter himself; the thoughts crowd on\nhim pell-mell: for very multitude of things to say, he can get\nnothing said. The meaning that is in him shapes itself into no form of\ncomposition, is stated in no sequence, method, or coherence;--they are\nnot _shaped_ at all, these thoughts of his; flung out unshaped, as they\nstruggle and tumble there, in their chaotic inarticulate state. We\nsaid \"stupid:\" yet natural stupidity is by no means the character of\nMahomet's Book; it is natural uncultivation rather. The man has not\nstudied speaking; in the haste and pressure of continual fighting, has\nnot time to mature himself into fit speech. The panting breathless haste\nand vehemence of a man struggling in the thick of battle for life\nand salvation; this is the mood he is in! A headlong haste; for very\nmagnitude of meaning, he cannot get himself articulated into words. The\nsuccessive utterances of a soul in that mood, colored by the various\nvicissitudes of three-and-twenty years; now well uttered, now worse:\nthis is the Koran.\n\nFor we are to consider Mahomet, through these three-and-twenty years, as\nthe centre of a world wholly in conflict. Battles with the Koreish and\nHeathen, quarrels among his own people, backslidings of his own wild\nheart; all this kept him in a perpetual whirl, his soul knowing rest\nno more. In wakeful nights, as one may fancy, the wild soul of the man,\ntossing amid these vortices, would hail any light of a decision for\nthem as a veritable light from Heaven; _any_ making-up of his mind, so\nblessed, indispensable for him there, would seem the inspiration of a\nGabriel. Forger and juggler? No, no! This great fiery heart, seething,\nsimmering like a great furnace of thoughts, was not a juggler's. His\nLife was a Fact to him; this God's Universe an awful Fact and Reality.\nHe has faults enough. The man was an uncultured semi-barbarous Son of\nNature, much of the Bedouin still clinging to him: we must take him for\nthat. But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Impostor without eyes\nor heart, practicing for a mess of pottage such blasphemous swindlery,\nforgery of celestial documents, continual high-treason against his Maker\nand Self, we will not and cannot take him.\n\nSincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran; what had\nrendered it precious to the wild Arab men. It is, after all, the first\nand last merit in a book; gives rise to merits of all kinds,--nay, at\nbottom, it alone can give rise to merit of any kind. Curiously,\nthrough these incondite masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint,\nejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of what we\nmight almost call poetry, is found straggling. The body of the Book\nis made up of mere tradition, and as it were vehement enthusiastic\nextempore preaching. He returns forever to the old stories of the\nProphets as they went current in the Arab memory: how Prophet after\nProphet, the Prophet Abraham, the Prophet Hud, the Prophet Moses,\nChristian and other real and fabulous Prophets, had come to this Tribe\nand to that, warning men of their sin; and been received by them even as\nhe Mahomet was,--which is a great solace to him. These things he\nrepeats ten, perhaps twenty times; again and ever again, with wearisome\niteration; has never done repeating them. A brave Samuel Johnson, in his\nforlorn garret, might con over the Biographies of Authors in that way!\nThis is the great staple of the Koran. But curiously, through all this,\ncomes ever and anon some glance as of the real thinker and seer. He has\nactually an eye for the world, this Mahomet: with a certain directness\nand rugged vigor, he brings home still, to our heart, the thing his own\nheart has been opened to. I make but little of his praises of Allah,\nwhich many praise; they are borrowed I suppose mainly from the Hebrew,\nat least they are far surpassed there. But the eye that flashes direct\ninto the heart of things, and _sees_ the truth of them; this is to me a\nhighly interesting object. Great Nature's own gift; which she bestows on\nall; but which only one in the thousand does not cast sorrowfully away:\nit is what I call sincerity of vision; the test of a sincere heart.\n\nMahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work\nno miracles. I? \"I am a Public Preacher;\" appointed to preach this\ndoctrine to all creatures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really from\nof old been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world, says he;\nis it not wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly \"a sign to you,\" if your\neyes were open! This Earth, God made it for you; \"appointed paths in\nit;\" you can live in it, go to and fro on it.--The clouds in the dry\ncountry of Arabia, to Mahomet they are very wonderful: Great clouds, he\nsays, born in the deep bosom of the Upper Immensity, where do they\ncome from! They hang there, the great black monsters; pour down their\nrain-deluges \"to revive a dead earth,\" and grass springs, and \"tall\nleafy palm-trees with their date-clusters hanging round. Is not that a\nsign?\" Your cattle too,--Allah made them; serviceable dumb creatures;\nthey change the grass into milk; you have your clothing from them, very\nstrange creatures; they come ranking home at evening-time, \"and,\" adds\nhe, \"and are a credit to you!\" Ships also,--he talks often about ships:\nHuge moving mountains, they spread out their cloth wings, go bounding\nthrough the water there, Heaven's wind driving them; anon they lie\nmotionless, God has withdrawn the wind, they lie dead, and cannot stir!\nMiracles? cries he: What miracle would you have? Are not you yourselves\nthere? God made you, \"shaped you out of a little clay.\" Ye were small\nonce; a few years ago ye were not at all. Ye have beauty, strength,\nthoughts, \"ye have compassion on one another.\" Old age comes on you, and\ngray hairs; your strength fades into feebleness; ye sink down, and again\nare not. \"Ye have compassion on one another:\" this struck me much: Allah\nmight have made you having no compassion on one another,--how had it\nbeen then! This is a great direct thought, a glance at first-hand into\nthe very fact of things. Rude vestiges of poetic genius, of whatsoever\nis best and truest, are visible in this man. A strong untutored\nintellect; eyesight, heart: a strong wild man,--might have shaped\nhimself into Poet, King, Priest, any kind of Hero.\n\nTo his eyes it is forever clear that this world wholly is miraculous.\nHe sees what, as we said once before, all great thinkers, the rude\nScandinavians themselves, in one way or other, have contrived to see:\nThat this so solid-looking material world is, at bottom, in very deed,\nNothing; is a visual and factual Manifestation of God's power and\npresence,--a shadow hung out by Him on the bosom of the void Infinite;\nnothing more. The mountains, he says, these great rock-mountains, they\nshall dissipate themselves \"like clouds;\" melt into the Blue as clouds\ndo, and not be! He figures the Earth, in the Arab fashion, Sale tells\nus, as an immense Plain or flat Plate of ground, the mountains are\nset on that to _steady_ it. At the Last Day they shall disappear \"like\nclouds;\" the whole Earth shall go spinning, whirl itself off into wreck,\nand as dust and vapor vanish in the Inane. Allah withdraws his hand\nfrom it, and it ceases to be. The universal empire of Allah, presence\neverywhere of an unspeakable Power, a Splendor, and a Terror not to be\nnamed, as the true force, essence and reality, in all things whatsoever,\nwas continually clear to this man. What a modern talks of by the name,\nForces of Nature, Laws of Nature; and does not figure as a divine\nthing; not even as one thing at all, but as a set of things, undivine\nenough,--salable, curious, good for propelling steamships! With our\nSciences and Cyclopaedias, we are apt to forget the _divineness_, in\nthose laboratories of ours. We ought not to forget it! That once well\nforgotten, I know not what else were worth remembering. Most sciences,\nI think were then a very dead thing; withered, contentious, empty;--a\nthistle in late autumn. The best science, without this, is but as the\ndead _timber_; it is not the growing tree and forest,--which gives\never-new timber, among other things! Man cannot _know_ either, unless\nhe can _worship_ in some way. His knowledge is a pedantry, and dead\nthistle, otherwise.\n\nMuch has been said and written about the sensuality of Mahomet's\nReligion; more than was just. The indulgences, criminal to us, which\nhe permitted, were not of his appointment; he found them practiced,\nunquestioned from immemorial time in Arabia; what he did was to curtail\nthem, restrict them, not on one but on many sides. His Religion is not\nan easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas,\nprayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not \"succeed\nby being an easy religion.\" As if indeed any religion, or cause holding\nof religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men to say\nthat they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure,\nrecompense,--sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the next! In the\nmeanest mortal there lies something nobler. The poor swearing soldier,\nhired to be shot, has his \"honor of a soldier,\" different from\ndrill-regulations and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet\nthings, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under\nGod's Heaven as a god-made Man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly\nlongs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles\ninto a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease.\nDifficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the _allurements_ that act\non the heart of man. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have\na flame that burns up all lower considerations. Not happiness, but\nsomething higher: one sees this even in the frivolous classes, with\ntheir \"point of honor\" and the like. Not by flattering our appetites;\nno, by awakening the Heroic that slumbers in every heart, can any\nReligion gain followers.\n\nMahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a sensual\nman. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a common voluptuary,\nintent mainly on base enjoyments,--nay on enjoyments of any kind. His\nhousehold was of the frugalest; his common diet barley-bread and water:\nsometimes for months there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth.\nThey record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch\nhis own cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what\nvulgar men toil for. Not a bad man, I should say; something better in\nhim than _hunger_ of any sort,--or these wild Arab men, fighting and\njostling three-and-twenty years at his hand, in close contact with him\nalways, would not have reverenced him so! They were wild men, bursting\never and anon into quarrel, into all kinds of fierce sincerity; without\nright worth and manhood, no man could have commanded them. They called\nhim Prophet, you say? Why, he stood there face to face with them; bare,\nnot enshrined in any mystery; visibly clouting his own cloak, cobbling\nhis own shoes; fighting, counselling, ordering in the midst of them:\nthey must have seen what kind of a man he _was_, let him be _called_\nwhat you like! No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a\ncloak of his own clouting. During three-and-twenty years of rough actual\ntrial. I find something of a veritable Hero necessary for that, of\nitself.\n\nHis last words are a prayer; broken ejaculations of a heart struggling\nup, in trembling hope, towards its Maker. We cannot say that his\nreligion made him _worse_; it made him better; good, not bad. Generous\nthings are recorded of him: when he lost his Daughter, the thing he\nanswers is, in his own dialect, every way sincere, and yet equivalent to\nthat of Christians, \"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed\nbe the name of the Lord.\" He answered in like manner of Seid, his\nemancipated well-beloved Slave, the second of the believers. Seid had\nfallen in the War of Tabuc, the first of Mahomet's fightings with the\nGreeks. Mahomet said, It was well; Seid had done his Master's work,\nSeid had now gone to his Master: it was all well with Seid. Yet Seid's\ndaughter found him weeping over the body;--the old gray-haired man\nmelting in tears! \"What do I see?\" said she.--\"You see a friend weeping\nover his friend.\"--He went out for the last time into the mosque, two\ndays before his death; asked, If he had injured any man? Let his own\nback bear the stripes. If he owed any man? A voice answered, \"Yes, me\nthree drachms,\" borrowed on such an occasion. Mahomet ordered them to\nbe paid: \"Better be in shame now,\" said he, \"than at the Day of\nJudgment.\"--You remember Kadijah, and the \"No, by Allah!\" Traits of that\nkind show us the genuine man, the brother of us all, brought visible\nthrough twelve centuries,--the veritable Son of our common Mother.\n\nWithal I like Mahomet for his total freedom from cant. He is a rough\nself-helping son of the wilderness; does not pretend to be what he is\nnot. There is no ostentatious pride in him; but neither does he go much\nupon humility: he is there as he can be, in cloak and shoes of his own\nclouting; speaks plainly to all manner of Persian Kings, Greek Emperors,\nwhat it is they are bound to do; knows well enough, about himself, \"the\nrespect due unto thee.\" In a life-and-death war with Bedouins, cruel\nthings could not fail; but neither are acts of mercy, of noble natural\npity and generosity wanting. Mahomet makes no apology for the one, no\nboast of the other. They were each the free dictate of his heart; each\ncalled for, there and then. Not a mealy-mouthed man! A candid ferocity,\nif the case call for it, is in him; he does not mince matters! The War\nof Tabuc is a thing he often speaks of: his men refused, many of them,\nto march on that occasion; pleaded the heat of the weather, the harvest,\nand so forth; he can never forget that. Your harvest? It lasts for a\nday. What will become of your harvest through all Eternity? Hot weather?\nYes, it was hot; \"but Hell will be hotter!\" Sometimes a rough sarcasm\nturns up: He says to the unbelievers, Ye shall have the just measure of\nyour deeds at that Great Day. They will be weighed out to you; ye shall\nnot have short weight!--Everywhere he fixes the matter in his eye;\nhe _sees_ it: his heart, now and then, is as if struck dumb by the\ngreatness of it. \"Assuredly,\" he says: that word, in the Koran, is\nwritten down sometimes as a sentence by itself: \"Assuredly.\"\n\nNo _Dilettantism_ in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and\nSalvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest about\nit! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur-search for\nTruth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin. The\nroot of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul\nof the man never having been _open_ to Truth;--\"living in a vain show.\"\nSuch a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a\nfalsehood. The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk\ndeep in him, in quiet paralysis of life-death. The very falsehoods of\nMahomet are truer than the truths of such a man. He is the insincere\nman: smooth-polished, respectable in some times and places; inoffensive,\nsays nothing harsh to anybody; most _cleanly_,--just as carbonic acid\nis, which is death and poison.\n\nWe will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always of the superfinest\nsort; yet it can be said that there is always a tendency to good in\nthem; that they are the true dictates of a heart aiming towards what is\njust and true. The sublime forgiveness of Christianity, turning of the\nother cheek when the one has been smitten, is not here: you _are_ to\nrevenge yourself, but it is to be in measure, not overmuch, or beyond\njustice. On the other hand, Islam, like any great Faith, and insight\ninto the essence of man, is a perfect equalizer of men: the soul of one\nbeliever outweighs all earthly kingships; all men, according to Islam\ntoo, are equal. Mahomet insists not on the propriety of giving alms, but\non the necessity of it: he marks down by law how much you are to give,\nand it is at your peril if you neglect. The tenth part of a man's annual\nincome, whatever that may be, is the _property_ of the poor, of those\nthat are afflicted and need help. Good all this: the natural voice of\nhumanity, of pity and equity dwelling in the heart of this wild Son of\nNature speaks _so_.\n\nMahomet's Paradise is sensual, his Hell sensual: true; in the one and\nthe other there is enough that shocks all spiritual feeling in us. But\nwe are to recollect that the Arabs already had it so; that Mahomet, in\nwhatever he changed of it, softened and diminished all this. The worst\nsensualities, too, are the work of doctors, followers of his, not his\nwork. In the Koran there is really very little said about the joys\nof Paradise; they are intimated rather than insisted on. Nor is it\nforgotten that the highest joys even there shall be spiritual; the pure\nPresence of the Highest, this shall infinitely transcend all other joys.\nHe says, \"Your salutation shall be, Peace.\" _Salam_, Have Peace!--the\nthing that all rational souls long for, and seek, vainly here below,\nas the one blessing. \"Ye shall sit on seats, facing one another: all\ngrudges shall be taken away out of your hearts.\" All grudges! Ye shall\nlove one another freely; for each of you, in the eyes of his brothers,\nthere will be Heaven enough!\n\nIn reference to this of the sensual Paradise and Mahomet's sensuality,\nthe sorest chapter of all for us, there were many things to be said;\nwhich it is not convenient to enter upon here. Two remarks only I shall\nmake, and therewith leave it to your candor. The first is furnished me\nby Goethe; it is a casual hint of his which seems well worth taking note\nof. In one of his Delineations, in _Meister's Travels_ it is, the hero\ncomes upon a Society of men with very strange ways, one of which was\nthis: \"We require,\" says the Master, \"that each of our people shall\nrestrict himself in one direction,\" shall go right against his desire in\none matter, and _make_ himself do the thing he does not wish, \"should we\nallow him the greater latitude on all other sides.\" There seems to me a\ngreat justness in this. Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not\nthe evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that\nis. Let a man assert withal that he is king over his habitudes; that\nhe could and would shake them off, on cause shown: this is an excellent\nlaw. The Month Ramadhan for the Moslem, much in Mahomet's Religion,\nmuch in his own Life, bears in that direction; if not by forethought,\nor clear purpose of moral improvement on his part, then by a certain\nhealthy manful instinct, which is as good.\n\nBut there is another thing to be said about the Mahometan Heaven and\nHell. This namely, that, however gross and material they may be, they\nare an emblem of an everlasting truth, not always so well remembered\nelsewhere. That gross sensual Paradise of his; that horrible flaming\nHell; the great enormous Day of Judgment he perpetually insists on: what\nis all this but a rude shadow, in the rude Bedouin imagination, of that\ngrand spiritual Fact, and Beginning of Facts, which it is ill for us too\nif we do not all know and feel: the Infinite Nature of Duty? That man's\nactions here are of _infinite_ moment to him, and never die or end at\nall; that man, with his little life, reaches upwards high as Heaven,\ndownwards low as Hell, and in his threescore years of Time holds an\nEternity fearfully and wonderfully hidden: all this had burnt itself, as\nin flame-characters, into the wild Arab soul. As in flame and lightning,\nit stands written there; awful, unspeakable, ever present to him. With\nbursting earnestness, with a fierce savage sincerity, half-articulating,\nnot able to articulate, he strives to speak it, bodies it forth in that\nHeaven and that Hell. Bodied forth in what way you will, it is the first\nof all truths. It is venerable under all embodiments. What is the chief\nend of man here below? Mahomet has answered this question, in a way that\nmight put some of us to shame! He does not, like a Bentham, a Paley,\ntake Right and Wrong, and calculate the profit and loss, ultimate\npleasure of the one and of the other; and summing all up by addition and\nsubtraction into a net result, ask you, Whether on the whole the Right\ndoes not preponderate considerably? No; it is not _better_ to do the one\nthan the other; the one is to the other as life is to death,--as Heaven\nis to Hell. The one must in nowise be done, the other in nowise left\nundone. You shall not measure them; they are incommensurable: the one\nis death eternal to a man, the other is life eternal. Benthamee Utility,\nvirtue by Profit and Loss; reducing this God's-world to a dead\nbrute Steam-engine, the infinite celestial Soul of Man to a kind of\nHay-balance for weighing hay and thistles on, pleasures and pains\non:--If you ask me which gives, Mahomet or they, the beggarlier and\nfalser view of Man and his Destinies in this Universe, I will answer, it\nis not Mahomet--!\n\nOn the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Mahomet's is a kind\nof Christianity; has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest\nlooking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections. The\nScandinavian God _Wish_, the god of all rude men,--this has been\nenlarged into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a Heaven symbolical of sacred\nDuty, and to be earned by faith and well-doing, by valiant action, and\na divine patience which is still more valiant. It is Scandinavian\nPaganism, and a truly celestial element superadded to that. Call it not\nfalse; look not at the falsehood of it, look at the truth of it. For\nthese twelve centuries, it has been the religion and life-guidance of\nthe fifth part of the whole kindred of Mankind. Above all things, it has\nbeen a religion heartily _believed_. These Arabs believe their religion,\nand try to live by it! No Christians, since the early ages, or only\nperhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood by their\nFaith as the Moslem do by theirs,--believing it wholly, fronting Time\nwith it, and Eternity with it. This night the watchman on the streets\nof Cairo when he cries, \"Who goes?\" will hear from the passenger, along\nwith his answer, \"There is no God but God.\" _Allah akbar_, _Islam_,\nsounds through the souls, and whole daily existence, of these dusky\nmillions. Zealous missionaries preach it abroad among Malays, black\nPapuans, brutal Idolaters;--displacing what is worse, nothing that is\nbetter or good.\n\nTo the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness into light; Arabia\nfirst became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people, roaming\nunnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world: a Hero-Prophet\nwas sent down to them with a word they could believe: see, the unnoticed\nbecomes world-notable, the small has grown world-great; within one\ncentury afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on\nthat;--glancing in valor and splendor and the light of genius, Arabia\nshines through long ages over a great section of the world. Belief\nis great, life-giving. The history of a Nation becomes fruitful,\nsoul-elevating, great, so soon as it believes. These Arabs, the man\nMahomet, and that one century,--is it not as if a spark had fallen, one\nspark, on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable sand; but lo, the\nsand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Grenada!\nI said, the Great Man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of\nmen waited for him like fuel, and then they too would flame.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III. THE HERO AS POET. DANTE: SHAKSPEARE.\n\n[May 12, 1840.]\n\nThe Hero as Divinity, the Hero as Prophet, are productions of old ages;\nnot to be repeated in the new. They presuppose a certain rudeness of\nconception, which the progress of mere scientific knowledge puts an end\nto. There needs to be, as it were, a world vacant, or almost vacant\nof scientific forms, if men in their loving wonder are to fancy their\nfellow-man either a god or one speaking with the voice of a god.\nDivinity and Prophet are past. We are now to see our Hero in the less\nambitious, but also less questionable, character of Poet; a character\nwhich does not pass. The Poet is a heroic figure belonging to all ages;\nwhom all ages possess, when once he is produced, whom the newest age as\nthe oldest may produce;--and will produce, always when Nature pleases.\nLet Nature send a Hero-soul; in no age is it other than possible that he\nmay be shaped into a Poet.\n\nHero, Prophet, Poet,--many different names, in different times, and\nplaces, do we give to Great Men; according to varieties we note in them,\naccording to the sphere in which they have displayed themselves! We\nmight give many more names, on this same principle. I will remark again,\nhowever, as a fact not unimportant to be understood, that the different\n_sphere_ constitutes the grand origin of such distinction; that the Hero\ncan be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will, according to the\nkind of world he finds himself born into. I confess, I have no notion\nof a truly great man that could not be _all_ sorts of men. The Poet who\ncould merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas, would never make\na stanza worth much. He could not sing the Heroic warrior, unless he\nhimself were at least a Heroic warrior too. I fancy there is in him the\nPolitician, the Thinker, Legislator, Philosopher;--in one or the other\ndegree, he could have been, he is all these. So too I cannot understand\nhow a Mirabeau, with that great glowing heart, with the fire that was\nin it, with the bursting tears that were in it, could not have written\nverses, tragedies, poems, and touched all hearts in that way, had his\ncourse of life and education led him thitherward. The grand fundamental\ncharacter is that of Great Man; that the man be great. Napoleon has\nwords in him which are like Austerlitz Battles. Louis Fourteenth's\nMarshals are a kind of poetical men withal; the things Turenne says\nare full of sagacity and geniality, like sayings of Samuel Johnson. The\ngreat heart, the clear deep-seeing eye: there it lies; no man whatever,\nin what province soever, can prosper at all without these. Petrarch and\nBoccaccio did diplomatic messages, it seems, quite well: one can easily\nbelieve it; they had done things a little harder than these! Burns,\na gifted song-writer, might have made a still better Mirabeau.\nShakspeare,--one knows not what _he_ could not have made, in the supreme\ndegree.\n\nTrue, there are aptitudes of Nature too. Nature does not make all great\nmen, more than all other men, in the self-same mould. Varieties of\naptitude doubtless; but infinitely more of circumstance; and far\noftenest it is the _latter_ only that are looked to. But it is as with\ncommon men in the learning of trades. You take any man, as yet a vague\ncapability of a man, who could be any kind of craftsman; and make him\ninto a smith, a carpenter, a mason: he is then and thenceforth that\nand nothing else. And if, as Addison complains, you sometimes see a\nstreet-porter, staggering under his load on spindle-shanks, and near\nat hand a tailor with the frame of a Samson handling a bit of cloth\nand small Whitechapel needle,--it cannot be considered that aptitude\nof Nature alone has been consulted here either!--The Great Man also,\nto what shall he be bound apprentice? Given your Hero, is he to become\nConqueror, King, Philosopher, Poet? It is an inexplicably complex\ncontroversial-calculation between the world and him! He will read the\nworld and its laws; the world with its laws will be there to be read.\nWhat the world, on _this_ matter, shall permit and bid is, as we said,\nthe most important fact about the world.--\n\n\nPoet and Prophet differ greatly in our loose modern notions of them. In\nsome old languages, again, the titles are synonymous; _Vates_ means\nboth Prophet and Poet: and indeed at all times, Prophet and Poet, well\nunderstood, have much kindred of meaning. Fundamentally indeed they are\nstill the same; in this most important respect especially, That they\nhave penetrated both of them into the sacred mystery of the Universe;\nwhat Goethe calls \"the open secret.\" \"Which is the great secret?\" asks\none.--\"The _open_ secret,\"--open to all, seen by almost none! That\ndivine mystery, which lies everywhere in all Beings, \"the Divine Idea\nof the World, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance,\" as Fichte\nstyles it; of which all Appearance, from the starry sky to the grass of\nthe field, but especially the Appearance of Man and his work, is but the\n_vesture_, the embodiment that renders it visible. This divine mystery\n_is_ in all times and in all places; veritably is. In most times and\nplaces it is greatly overlooked; and the Universe, definable always in\none or the other dialect, as the realized Thought of God, is considered\na trivial, inert, commonplace matter,--as if, says the Satirist, it were\na dead thing, which some upholsterer had put together! It could do no\ngood, at present, to _speak_ much about this; but it is a pity for every\none of us if we do not know it, live ever in the knowledge of it. Really\na most mournful pity;--a failure to live at all, if we live otherwise!\n\nBut now, I say, whoever may forget this divine mystery, the _Vates_,\nwhether Prophet or Poet, has penetrated into it; is a man sent hither to\nmake it more impressively known to us. That always is his message; he\nis to reveal that to us,--that sacred mystery which he more than others\nlives ever present with. While others forget it, he knows it;--I might\nsay, he has been driven to know it; without consent asked of him, he\nfinds himself living in it, bound to live in it. Once more, here is no\nHearsay, but a direct Insight and Belief; this man too could not help\nbeing a sincere man! Whosoever may live in the shows of things, it is\nfor him a necessity of nature to live in the very fact of things. A\nman once more, in earnest with the Universe, though all others were\nbut toying with it. He is a _Vates_, first of all, in virtue of being\nsincere. So far Poet and Prophet, participators in the \"open secret,\"\nare one.\n\nWith respect to their distinction again: The _Vates_ Prophet, we might\nsay, has seized that sacred mystery rather on the moral side, as Good\nand Evil, Duty and Prohibition; the _Vates_ Poet on what the Germans\ncall the aesthetic side, as Beautiful, and the like. The one we may call\na revealer of what we are to do, the other of what we are to love.\nBut indeed these two provinces run into one another, and cannot be\ndisjoined. The Prophet too has his eye on what we are to love: how else\nshall he know what it is we are to do? The highest Voice ever heard on\nthis earth said withal, \"Consider the lilies of the field; they toil\nnot, neither do they spin: yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed\nlike one of these.\" A glance, that, into the deepest deep of Beauty.\n\"The lilies of the field,\"--dressed finer than earthly princes,\nspringing up there in the humble furrow-field; a beautiful _eye_ looking\nout on you, from the great inner Sea of Beauty! How could the rude\nEarth make these, if her Essence, rugged as she looks and is, were not\ninwardly Beauty? In this point of view, too, a saying of Goethe's, which\nhas staggered several, may have meaning: \"The Beautiful,\" he intimates,\n\"is higher than the Good; the Beautiful includes in it the Good.\" The\n_true_ Beautiful; which however, I have said somewhere, \"differs from\nthe _false_ as Heaven does from Vauxhall!\" So much for the distinction\nand identity of Poet and Prophet.--\n\nIn ancient and also in modern periods we find a few Poets who are\naccounted perfect; whom it were a kind of treason to find fault with.\nThis is noteworthy; this is right: yet in strictness it is only an\nillusion. At bottom, clearly enough, there is no perfect Poet! A vein\nof Poetry exists in the hearts of all men; no man is made altogether of\nPoetry. We are all poets when we _read_ a poem well. The \"imagination\nthat shudders at the Hell of Dante,\" is not that the same faculty,\nweaker in degree, as Dante's own? No one but Shakspeare can embody,\nout of _Saxo Grammaticus_, the story of _Hamlet_ as Shakspeare did: but\nevery one models some kind of story out of it; every one embodies it\nbetter or worse. We need not spend time in defining. Where there is no\nspecific difference, as between round and square, all definition must\nbe more or less arbitrary. A man that has _so_ much more of the poetic\nelement developed in him as to have become noticeable, will be called\nPoet by his neighbors. World-Poets too, those whom we are to take for\nperfect Poets, are settled by critics in the same way. One who rises\n_so_ far above the general level of Poets will, to such and such\ncritics, seem a Universal Poet; as he ought to do. And yet it is, and\nmust be, an arbitrary distinction. All Poets, all men, have some touches\nof the Universal; no man is wholly made of that. Most Poets are very\nsoon forgotten: but not the noblest Shakspeare or Homer of them can be\nremembered _forever_;--a day comes when he too is not!\n\nNevertheless, you will say, there must be a difference between true\nPoetry and true Speech not poetical: what is the difference? On this\npoint many things have been written, especially by late German Critics,\nsome of which are not very intelligible at first. They say, for\nexample, that the Poet has an _infinitude_ in him; communicates an\n_Unendlichkeit_, a certain character of \"infinitude,\" to whatsoever he\ndelineates. This, though not very precise, yet on so vague a matter is\nworth remembering: if well meditated, some meaning will gradually be\nfound in it. For my own part, I find considerable meaning in the old\nvulgar distinction of Poetry being _metrical_, having music in it, being\na Song. Truly, if pressed to give a definition, one might say this as\nsoon as anything else: If your delineation be authentically _musical_,\nmusical not in word only, but in heart and substance, in all the\nthoughts and utterances of it, in the whole conception of it, then\nit will be poetical; if not, not.--Musical: how much lies in that! A\n_musical_ thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the\ninmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it, namely the\n_melody_ that lies hidden in it; the inward harmony of coherence which\nis its soul, whereby it exists, and has a right to be, here in this\nworld. All inmost things, we may say, are melodious; naturally utter\nthemselves in Song. The meaning of Song goes deep. Who is there that,\nin logical words, can express the effect music has on us? A kind of\ninarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the\nInfinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that!\n\nNay all speech, even the commonest speech, has something of song in\nit: not a parish in the world but has its parish-accent;--the rhythm or\n_tune_ to which the people there _sing_ what they have to say! Accent is\na kind of chanting; all men have accent of their own,--though they only\n_notice_ that of others. Observe too how all passionate language does\nof itself become musical,--with a finer music than the mere accent; the\nspeech of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song. All deep\nthings are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song;\nas if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! The primal element of\nus; of us, and of all things. The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies: it\nwas the feeling they had of the inner structure of Nature; that the soul\nof all her voices and utterances was perfect music. Poetry, therefore,\nwe will call _musical Thought_. The Poet is he who _thinks_ in that\nmanner. At bottom, it turns still on power of intellect; it is a man's\nsincerity and depth of vision that makes him a Poet. See deep enough,\nand you see musically; the heart of Nature _being_ everywhere music, if\nyou can only reach it.\n\nThe _Vates_ Poet, with his melodious Apocalypse of Nature, seems to\nhold a poor rank among us, in comparison with the _Vates_ Prophet; his\nfunction, and our esteem of him for his function, alike slight. The Hero\ntaken as Divinity; the Hero taken as Prophet; then next the Hero taken\nonly as Poet: does it not look as if our estimate of the Great Man,\nepoch after epoch, were continually diminishing? We take him first for\na god, then for one god-inspired; and now in the next stage of it, his\nmost miraculous word gains from us only the recognition that he is a\nPoet, beautiful verse-maker, man of genius, or such like!--It looks so;\nbut I persuade myself that intrinsically it is not so. If we consider\nwell, it will perhaps appear that in man still there is the _same_\naltogether peculiar admiration for the Heroic Gift, by what name soever\ncalled, that there at any time was.\n\nI should say, if we do not now reckon a Great Man literally divine,\nit is that our notions of God, of the supreme unattainable Fountain of\nSplendor, Wisdom and Heroism, are ever rising _higher_; not altogether\nthat our reverence for these qualities, as manifested in our like, is\ngetting lower. This is worth taking thought of. Sceptical Dilettantism,\nthe curse of these ages, a curse which will not last forever, does\nindeed in this the highest province of human things, as in all\nprovinces, make sad work; and our reverence for great men, all\ncrippled, blinded, paralytic as it is, comes out in poor plight, hardly\nrecognizable. Men worship the shows of great men; the most disbelieve\nthat there is any reality of great men to worship. The dreariest,\nfatalest faith; believing which, one would literally despair of\nhuman things. Nevertheless look, for example, at Napoleon! A Corsican\nlieutenant of artillery; that is the show of _him_: yet is he not\nobeyed, worshipped after his sort, as all the Tiaraed and Diademed of\nthe world put together could not be? High Duchesses, and ostlers of\ninns, gather round the Scottish rustic, Burns;--a strange feeling\ndwelling in each that they never heard a man like this; that, on the\nwhole, this is the man! In the secret heart of these people it still\ndimly reveals itself, though there is no accredited way of uttering\nit at present, that this rustic, with his black brows and flashing\nsun-eyes, and strange words moving laughter and tears, is of a dignity\nfar beyond all others, incommensurable with all others. Do not we feel\nit so? But now, were Dilettantism, Scepticism, Triviality, and all that\nsorrowful brood, cast out of us,--as, by God's blessing, they shall one\nday be; were faith in the shows of things entirely swept out, replaced\nby clear faith in the _things_, so that a man acted on the impulse of\nthat only, and counted the other non-extant; what a new livelier feeling\ntowards this Burns were it!\n\nNay here in these ages, such as they are, have we not two mere Poets, if\nnot deified, yet we may say beatified? Shakspeare and Dante are Saints\nof Poetry; really, if we will think of it, _canonized_, so that it is\nimpiety to meddle with them. The unguided instinct of the world, working\nacross all these perverse impediments, has arrived at such result. Dante\nand Shakspeare are a peculiar Two. They dwell apart, in a kind of royal\nsolitude; none equal, none second to them: in the general feeling of the\nworld, a certain transcendentalism, a glory as of complete perfection,\ninvests these two. They _are_ canonized, though no Pope or Cardinals\ntook hand in doing it! Such, in spite of every perverting influence,\nin the most unheroic times, is still our indestructible reverence for\nheroism.--We will look a little at these Two, the Poet Dante and the\nPoet Shakspeare: what little it is permitted us to say here of the Hero\nas Poet will most fitly arrange itself in that fashion.\n\n\nMany volumes have been written by way of commentary on Dante and his\nBook; yet, on the whole, with no great result. His Biography is, as\nit were, irrecoverably lost for us. An unimportant, wandering,\nsorrow-stricken man, not much note was taken of him while he lived; and\nthe most of that has vanished, in the long space that now intervenes.\nIt is five centuries since he ceased writing and living here. After\nall commentaries, the Book itself is mainly what we know of him. The\nBook;--and one might add that Portrait commonly attributed to Giotto,\nwhich, looking on it, you cannot help inclining to think genuine,\nwhoever did it. To me it is a most touching face; perhaps of all faces\nthat I know, the most so. Lonely there, painted as on vacancy, with the\nsimple laurel wound round it; the deathless sorrow and pain, the known\nvictory which is also deathless;--significant of the whole history of\nDante! I think it is the mournfulest face that ever was painted from\nreality; an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There is in it,\nas foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, gentle affection as of\na child; but all this is as if congealed into sharp contradiction, into\nabnegation, isolation, proud hopeless pain. A soft ethereal soul looking\nout so stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of\nthick-ribbed ice! Withal it is a silent pain too, a silent scornful\none: the lip is curled in a kind of godlike disdain of the thing that is\neating out his heart,--as if it were withal a mean insignificant thing,\nas if he whom it had power to torture and strangle were greater than it.\nThe face of one wholly in protest, and lifelong unsurrendering battle,\nagainst the world. Affection all converted into indignation: an\nimplacable indignation; slow, equable, silent, like that of a god! The\neye too, it looks out as in a kind of _surprise_, a kind of inquiry, Why\nthe world was of such a sort? This is Dante: so he looks, this \"voice of\nten silent centuries,\" and sings us \"his mystic unfathomable song.\"\n\nThe little that we know of Dante's Life corresponds well enough with\nthis Portrait and this Book. He was born at Florence, in the upper class\nof society, in the year 1265. His education was the best then going;\nmuch school-divinity, Aristotelean logic, some Latin classics,--no\ninconsiderable insight into certain provinces of things: and Dante, with\nhis earnest intelligent nature, we need not doubt, learned better than\nmost all that was learnable. He has a clear cultivated understanding,\nand of great subtlety; this best fruit of education he had contrived to\nrealize from these scholastics. He knows accurately and well what\nlies close to him; but, in such a time, without printed books or free\nintercourse, he could not know well what was distant: the small clear\nlight, most luminous for what is near, breaks itself into singular\n_chiaroscuro_ striking on what is far off. This was Dante's learning\nfrom the schools. In life, he had gone through the usual destinies; been\ntwice out campaigning as a soldier for the Florentine State, been on\nembassy; had in his thirty-fifth year, by natural gradation of talent\nand service, become one of the Chief Magistrates of Florence. He had met\nin boyhood a certain Beatrice Portinari, a beautiful little girl of his\nown age and rank, and grown up thenceforth in partial sight of her,\nin some distant intercourse with her. All readers know his graceful\naffecting account of this; and then of their being parted; of her being\nwedded to another, and of her death soon after. She makes a great figure\nin Dante's Poem; seems to have made a great figure in his life. Of all\nbeings it might seem as if she, held apart from him, far apart at\nlast in the dim Eternity, were the only one he had ever with his whole\nstrength of affection loved. She died: Dante himself was wedded; but it\nseems not happily, far from happily. I fancy, the rigorous earnest man,\nwith his keen excitabilities, was not altogether easy to make happy.\n\nWe will not complain of Dante's miseries: had all gone right with him as\nhe wished it, he might have been Prior, Podesta, or whatsoever they\ncall it, of Florence, well accepted among neighbors,--and the world had\nwanted one of the most notable words ever spoken or sung. Florence\nwould have had another prosperous Lord Mayor; and the ten dumb centuries\ncontinued voiceless, and the ten other listening centuries (for there\nwill be ten of them and more) had no _Divina Commedia_ to hear! We will\ncomplain of nothing. A nobler destiny was appointed for this Dante; and\nhe, struggling like a man led towards death and crucifixion, could not\nhelp fulfilling it. Give _him_ the choice of his happiness! He knew not,\nmore than we do, what was really happy, what was really miserable.\n\nIn Dante's Priorship, the Guelf-Ghibelline, Bianchi-Neri, or some other\nconfused disturbances rose to such a height, that Dante, whose party had\nseemed the stronger, was with his friends cast unexpectedly forth into\nbanishment; doomed thenceforth to a life of woe and wandering. His\nproperty was all confiscated and more; he had the fiercest feeling that\nit was entirely unjust, nefarious in the sight of God and man. He tried\nwhat was in him to get reinstated; tried even by warlike surprisal, with\narms in his hand: but it would not do; bad only had become worse. There\nis a record, I believe, still extant in the Florence Archives, dooming\nthis Dante, wheresoever caught, to be burnt alive. Burnt alive; so\nit stands, they say: a very curious civic document. Another curious\ndocument, some considerable number of years later, is a Letter of\nDante's to the Florentine Magistrates, written in answer to a milder\nproposal of theirs, that he should return on condition of apologizing\nand paying a fine. He answers, with fixed stern pride: \"If I cannot\nreturn without calling myself guilty, I will never return, _nunquam\nrevertar_.\"\n\nFor Dante there was now no home in this world. He wandered from patron\nto patron, from place to place; proving, in his own bitter words, \"How\nhard is the path, _Come e duro calle_.\" The wretched are not cheerful\ncompany. Dante, poor and banished, with his proud earnest nature, with\nhis moody humors, was not a man to conciliate men. Petrarch reports of\nhim that being at Can della Scala's court, and blamed one day for his\ngloom and taciturnity, he answered in no courtier-like way. Della\nScala stood among his courtiers, with mimes and buffoons (_nebulones ac\nhistriones_) making him heartily merry; when turning to Dante, he said:\n\"Is it not strange, now, that this poor fool should make himself so\nentertaining; while you, a wise man, sit there day after day, and have\nnothing to amuse us with at all?\" Dante answered bitterly: \"No,\nnot strange; your Highness is to recollect the Proverb, _Like to\nLike_;\"--given the amuser, the amusee must also be given! Such a man,\nwith his proud silent ways, with his sarcasms and sorrows, was not made\nto succeed at court. By degrees, it came to be evident to him that he\nhad no longer any resting-place, or hope of benefit, in this earth. The\nearthly world had cast him forth, to wander, wander; no living heart to\nlove him now; for his sore miseries there was no solace here.\n\nThe deeper naturally would the Eternal World impress itself on him; that\nawful reality over which, after all, this Time-world, with its Florences\nand banishments, only flutters as an unreal shadow. Florence thou shalt\nnever see: but Hell and Purgatory and Heaven thou shalt surely see!\nWhat is Florence, Can della Scala, and the World and Life altogether?\nETERNITY: thither, of a truth, not elsewhither, art thou and all things\nbound! The great soul of Dante, homeless on earth, made its home more\nand more in that awful other world. Naturally his thoughts brooded on\nthat, as on the one fact important for him. Bodied or bodiless, it is\nthe one fact important for all men:--but to Dante, in that age, it was\nbodied in fixed certainty of scientific shape; he no more doubted of\nthat _Malebolge_ Pool, that it all lay there with its gloomy circles,\nwith its _alti guai_, and that he himself should see it, than we doubt\nthat we should see Constantinople if we went thither. Dante's heart,\nlong filled with this, brooding over it in speechless thought and awe,\nbursts forth at length into \"mystic unfathomable song;\" and this his\n_Divine Comedy_, the most remarkable of all modern Books, is the result.\n\nIt must have been a great solacement to Dante, and was, as we can see,\na proud thought for him at times, That he, here in exile, could do this\nwork; that no Florence, nor no man or men, could hinder him from doing\nit, or even much help him in doing it. He knew too, partly, that it was\ngreat; the greatest a man could do. \"If thou follow thy star, _Se tu\nsegui tua stella_,\"--so could the Hero, in his forsakenness, in his\nextreme need, still say to himself: \"Follow thou thy star, thou shalt\nnot fail of a glorious haven!\" The labor of writing, we find, and indeed\ncould know otherwise, was great and painful for him; he says, This Book,\n\"which has made me lean for many years.\" Ah yes, it was won, all of it,\nwith pain and sore toil,--not in sport, but in grim earnest. His Book,\nas indeed most good Books are, has been written, in many senses, with\nhis heart's blood. It is his whole history, this Book. He died after\nfinishing it; not yet very old, at the age of fifty-six;--broken-hearted\nrather, as is said. He lies buried in his death-city Ravenna: _Hic\nclaudor Dantes patriis extorris ab oris_. The Florentines begged back\nhis body, in a century after; the Ravenna people would not give it.\n\"Here am I Dante laid, shut out from my native shores.\"\n\nI said, Dante's Poem was a Song: it is Tieck who calls it \"a mystic\nunfathomable Song;\" and such is literally the character of it. Coleridge\nremarks very pertinently somewhere, that wherever you find a sentence\nmusically worded, of true rhythm and melody in the words, there is\nsomething deep and good in the meaning too. For body and soul, word and\nidea, go strangely together here as everywhere. Song: we said before,\nit was the Heroic of Speech! All _old_ Poems, Homer's and the rest, are\nauthentically Songs. I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems\nare; that whatsoever is not _sung_ is properly no Poem, but a piece of\nProse cramped into jingling lines,--to the great injury of the grammar,\nto the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we wants to get at\nis the _thought_ the man had, if he had any: why should he twist it into\njingle, if he _could_ speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart\nof him is rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of him,\naccording to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth\nand music of his thoughts, that we can give him right to rhyme and\nsing; that we call him a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of\nSpeakers,--whose speech is Song. Pretenders to this are many; and to an\nearnest reader, I doubt, it is for most part a very melancholy, not to\nsay an insupportable business, that of reading rhyme! Rhyme that had\nno inward necessity to be rhymed;--it ought to have told us plainly,\nwithout any jingle, what it was aiming at. I would advise all men who\n_can_ speak their thought, not to sing it; to understand that, in\na serious time, among serious men, there is no vocation in them for\nsinging it. Precisely as we love the true song, and are charmed by it as\nby something divine, so shall we hate the false song, and account it a\nmere wooden noise, a thing hollow, superfluous, altogether an insincere\nand offensive thing.\n\nI give Dante my highest praise when I say of his _Divine Comedy_ that it\nis, in all senses, genuinely a Song. In the very sound of it there is\na _canto fermo_; it proceeds as by a chant. The language, his simple\n_terza rima_, doubtless helped him in this. One reads along naturally\nwith a sort of _lilt_. But I add, that it could not be otherwise; for\nthe essence and material of the work are themselves rhythmic. Its depth,\nand rapt passion and sincerity, makes it musical;--go _deep_ enough,\nthere is music everywhere. A true inward symmetry, what one calls\nan architectural harmony, reigns in it, proportionates it all:\narchitectural; which also partakes of the character of music. The three\nkingdoms, _Inferno_, _Purgatorio_, _Paradiso_, look out on one\nanother like compartments of a great edifice; a great supernatural\nworld-cathedral, piled up there, stern, solemn, awful; Dante's World of\nSouls! It is, at bottom, the _sincerest_ of all Poems; sincerity,\nhere too, we find to be the measure of worth. It came deep out of\nthe author's heart of hearts; and it goes deep, and through long\ngenerations, into ours. The people of Verona, when they saw him on the\nstreets, used to say, \"_Eccovi l' uom ch' e stato all' Inferno_, See,\nthere is the man that was in Hell!\" Ah yes, he had been in Hell;--in\nHell enough, in long severe sorrow and struggle; as the like of him\nis pretty sure to have been. Commedias that come out _divine_ are not\naccomplished otherwise. Thought, true labor of any kind, highest\nvirtue itself, is it not the daughter of Pain? Born as out of the black\nwhirlwind;--true _effort_, in fact, as of a captive struggling to free\nhimself: that is Thought. In all ways we are \"to become perfect through\n_suffering_.\"--_But_, as I say, no work known to me is so elaborated as\nthis of Dante's. It has all been as if molten, in the hottest furnace of\nhis soul. It had made him \"lean\" for many years. Not the general whole\nonly; every compartment of it is worked out, with intense earnestness,\ninto truth, into clear visuality. Each answers to the other; each fits\nin its place, like a marble stone accurately hewn and polished. It is\nthe soul of Dante, and in this the soul of the middle ages, rendered\nforever rhythmically visible there. No light task; a right intense one:\nbut a task which is _done_.\n\nPerhaps one would say, _intensity_, with the much that depends on it, is\nthe prevailing character of Dante's genius. Dante does not come before\nus as a large catholic mind; rather as a narrow, and even sectarian\nmind: it is partly the fruit of his age and position, but partly too of\nhis own nature. His greatness has, in all senses, concentred itself into\nfiery emphasis and depth. He is world-great not because he is worldwide,\nbut because he is world-deep. Through all objects he pierces as it\nwere down into the heart of Being. I know nothing so intense as Dante.\nConsider, for example, to begin with the outermost development of his\nintensity, consider how he paints. He has a great power of vision;\nseizes the very type of a thing; presents that and nothing more. You\nremember that first view he gets of the Hall of Dite: _red_ pinnacle,\nred-hot cone of iron glowing through the dim immensity of gloom;--so\nvivid, so distinct, visible at once and forever! It is as an emblem of\nthe whole genius of Dante. There is a brevity, an abrupt precision in\nhim: Tacitus is not briefer, more condensed; and then in Dante it seems\na natural condensation, spontaneous to the man. One smiting word; and\nthen there is silence, nothing more said. His silence is more eloquent\nthan words. It is strange with what a sharp decisive grace he snatches\nthe true likeness of a matter: cuts into the matter as with a pen of\nfire. Plutus, the blustering giant, collapses at Virgil's rebuke; it\nis \"as the sails sink, the mast being suddenly broken.\" Or that poor\nBrunetto Latini, with the _cotto aspetto_, \"face _baked_,\" parched brown\nand lean; and the \"fiery snow\" that falls on them there, a \"fiery snow\nwithout wind,\" slow, deliberate, never-ending! Or the lids of those\nTombs; square sarcophaguses, in that silent dim-burning Hall, each with\nits Soul in torment; the lids laid open there; they are to be shut at\nthe Day of Judgment, through Eternity. And how Farinata rises; and how\nCavalcante falls--at hearing of his Son, and the past tense \"_fue_\"! The\nvery movements in Dante have something brief; swift, decisive, almost\nmilitary. It is of the inmost essence of his genius this sort of\npainting. The fiery, swift Italian nature of the man, so silent,\npassionate, with its quick abrupt movements, its silent \"pale rages,\"\nspeaks itself in these things.\n\nFor though this of painting is one of the outermost developments of a\nman, it comes like all else from the essential faculty of him; it is\nphysiognomical of the whole man. Find a man whose words paint you a\nlikeness, you have found a man worth something; mark his manner of doing\nit, as very characteristic of him. In the first place, he could not have\ndiscerned the object at all, or seen the vital type of it, unless he\nhad, what we may call, _sympathized_ with it,--had sympathy in him to\nbestow on objects. He must have been _sincere_ about it too; sincere\nand sympathetic: a man without worth cannot give you the likeness of\nany object; he dwells in vague outwardness, fallacy and trivial hearsay,\nabout all objects. And indeed may we not say that intellect altogether\nexpresses itself in this power of discerning what an object is?\nWhatsoever of faculty a man's mind may have will come out here. Is it\neven of business, a matter to be done? The gifted man is he who _sees_\nthe essential point, and leaves all the rest aside as surplusage: it is\nhis faculty too, the man of business's faculty, that he discern the true\n_likeness_, not the false superficial one, of the thing he has got to\nwork in. And how much of _morality_ is in the kind of insight we get\nof anything; \"the eye seeing in all things what it brought with it the\nfaculty of seeing\"! To the mean eye all things are trivial, as certainly\nas to the jaundiced they are yellow. Raphael, the Painters tell us, is\nthe best of all Portrait-painters withal. No most gifted eye can exhaust\nthe significance of any object. In the commonest human face there lies\nmore than Raphael will take away with him.\n\nDante's painting is not graphic only, brief, true, and of a vividness as\nof fire in dark night; taken on the wider scale, it is every way noble,\nand the outcome of a great soul. Francesca and her Lover, what qualities\nin that! A thing woven as out of rainbows, on a ground of eternal black.\nA small flute-voice of infinite wail speaks there, into our very heart\nof hearts. A touch of womanhood in it too: _della bella persona, che\nmi fu tolta_; and how, even in the Pit of woe, it is a solace that _he_\nwill never part from her! Saddest tragedy in these _alti guai_. And\nthe racking winds, in that _aer bruno_, whirl them away again, to\nwail forever!--Strange to think: Dante was the friend of this poor\nFrancesca's father; Francesca herself may have sat upon the Poet's knee,\nas a bright innocent little child. Infinite pity, yet also infinite\nrigor of law: it is so Nature is made; it is so Dante discerned that she\nwas made. What a paltry notion is that of his _Divine Comedy's_ being a\npoor splenetic impotent terrestrial libel; putting those into Hell whom\nhe could not be avenged upon on earth! I suppose if ever pity, tender\nas a mother's, was in the heart of any man, it was in Dante's. But a\nman who does not know rigor cannot pity either. His very pity will be\ncowardly, egoistic,--sentimentality, or little better. I know not in\nthe world an affection equal to that of Dante. It is a tenderness, a\ntrembling, longing, pitying love: like the wail of AEolian harps, soft,\nsoft; like a child's young heart;--and then that stern, sore-saddened\nheart! These longings of his towards his Beatrice; their meeting\ntogether in the _Paradiso_; his gazing in her pure transfigured eyes,\nher that had been purified by death so long, separated from him so\nfar:--one likens it to the song of angels; it is among the purest\nutterances of affection, perhaps the very purest, that ever came out of\na human soul.\n\nFor the _intense_ Dante is intense in all things; he has got into the\nessence of all. His intellectual insight as painter, on occasion too\nas reasoner, is but the result of all other sorts of intensity. Morally\ngreat, above all, we must call him; it is the beginning of all. His\nscorn, his grief are as transcendent as his love;--as indeed, what are\nthey but the _inverse_ or _converse_ of his love? \"_A Dio spiacenti ed\na' nemici sui_, Hateful to God and to the enemies of God:\" lofty scorn,\nunappeasable silent reprobation and aversion; \"_Non ragionam di lor_, We\nwill not speak of _them_, look only and pass.\" Or think of this; \"They\nhave not the _hope_ to die, _Non han speranza di morte_.\" One day,\nit had risen sternly benign on the scathed heart of Dante, that he,\nwretched, never-resting, worn as he was, would full surely _die_; \"that\nDestiny itself could not doom him not to die.\" Such words are in this\nman. For rigor, earnestness and depth, he is not to be paralleled in the\nmodern world; to seek his parallel we must go into the Hebrew Bible, and\nlive with the antique Prophets there.\n\nI do not agree with much modern criticism, in greatly preferring\nthe _Inferno_ to the two other parts of the Divine _Commedia_. Such\npreference belongs, I imagine, to our general Byronism of taste, and\nis like to be a transient feeling. The _Purgatorio_ and _Paradiso_,\nespecially the former, one would almost say, is even more excellent than\nit. It is a noble thing that _Purgatorio_, \"Mountain of Purification;\"\nan emblem of the noblest conception of that age. If sin is so fatal,\nand Hell is and must be so rigorous, awful, yet in Repentance too is\nman purified; Repentance is the grand Christian act. It is beautiful how\nDante works it out. The _tremolar dell' onde_, that \"trembling\" of the\nocean-waves, under the first pure gleam of morning, dawning afar on the\nwandering Two, is as the type of an altered mood. Hope has now dawned;\nnever-dying Hope, if in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure\nsojourn of demons and reprobate is underfoot; a soft breathing of\npenitence mounts higher and higher, to the Throne of Mercy itself. \"Pray\nfor me,\" the denizens of that Mount of Pain all say to him. \"Tell my\nGiovanna to pray for me,\" my daughter Giovanna; \"I think her mother\nloves me no more!\" They toil painfully up by that winding steep, \"bent\ndown like corbels of a building,\" some of them,--crushed together so\n\"for the sin of pride;\" yet nevertheless in years, in ages and aeons,\nthey shall have reached the top, which is heaven's gate, and by Mercy\nshall have been admitted in. The joy too of all, when one has prevailed;\nthe whole Mountain shakes with joy, and a psalm of praise rises, when\none soul has perfected repentance and got its sin and misery left\nbehind! I call all this a noble embodiment of a true noble thought.\n\nBut indeed the Three compartments mutually support one another, are\nindispensable to one another. The _Paradiso_, a kind of inarticulate\nmusic to me, is the redeeming side of the _Inferno_; the _Inferno_\nwithout it were untrue. All three make up the true Unseen World,\nas figured in the Christianity of the Middle Ages; a thing forever\nmemorable, forever true in the essence of it, to all men. It was perhaps\ndelineated in no human soul with such depth of veracity as in this\nof Dante's; a man _sent_ to sing it, to keep it long memorable. Very\nnotable with what brief simplicity he passes out of the every-day\nreality, into the Invisible one; and in the second or third stanza, we\nfind ourselves in the World of Spirits; and dwell there, as among things\npalpable, indubitable! To Dante they _were_ so; the real world, as it\nis called, and its facts, was but the threshold to an infinitely higher\nFact of a World. At bottom, the one was as _preternatural_ as the other.\nHas not each man a soul? He will not only be a spirit, but is one. To\nthe earnest Dante it is all one visible Fact; he believes it, sees it;\nis the Poet of it in virtue of that. Sincerity, I say again, is the\nsaving merit, now as always.\n\nDante's Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, are a symbol withal, an emblematic\nrepresentation of his Belief about this Universe:--some Critic in a\nfuture age, like those Scandinavian ones the other day, who has ceased\naltogether to think as Dante did, may find this too all an \"Allegory,\"\nperhaps an idle Allegory! It is a sublime embodiment, or sublimest,\nof the soul of Christianity. It expresses, as in huge world-wide\narchitectural emblems, how the Christian Dante felt Good and Evil to\nbe the two polar elements of this Creation, on which it all turns;\nthat these two differ not by preferability of one to the other, but by\nincompatibility absolute and infinite; that the one is excellent and\nhigh as light and Heaven, the other hideous, black as Gehenna and the\nPit of Hell! Everlasting Justice, yet with Penitence, with everlasting\nPity,--all Christianism, as Dante and the Middle Ages had it, is\nemblemed here. Emblemed: and yet, as I urged the other day, with\nwhat entire truth of purpose; how unconscious of any embleming! Hell,\nPurgatory, Paradise: these things were not fashioned as emblems; was\nthere, in our Modern European Mind, any thought at all of their being\nemblems! Were they not indubitable awful facts; the whole heart of man\ntaking them for practically true, all Nature everywhere confirming them?\nSo is it always in these things. Men do not believe an Allegory. The\nfuture Critic, whatever his new thought may be, who considers this\nof Dante to have been all got up as an Allegory, will commit one sore\nmistake!--Paganism we recognized as a veracious expression of the\nearnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the Universe; veracious, true\nonce, and still not without worth for us. But mark here the difference\nof Paganism and Christianism; one great difference. Paganism emblemed\nchiefly the Operations of Nature; the destinies, efforts, combinations,\nvicissitudes of things and men in this world; Christianism emblemed\nthe Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous\nnature: a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men,--the\nchief recognized virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear. The other was not\nfor the sensuous nature, but for the moral. What a progress is here, if\nin that one respect only--!\n\nAnd so in this Dante, as we said, had ten silent centuries, in a very\nstrange way, found a voice. The _Divina Commedia_ is of Dante's writing;\nyet in truth it belongs to ten Christian centuries, only the finishing\nof it is Dante's. So always. The craftsman there, the smith with that\nmetal of his, with these tools, with these cunning methods,--how little\nof all he does is properly _his_ work! All past inventive men work\nthere with him;--as indeed with all of us, in all things. Dante is the\nspokesman of the Middle Ages; the Thought they lived by stands here, in\neverlasting music. These sublime ideas of his, terrible and beautiful,\nare the fruit of the Christian Meditation of all the good men who had\ngone before him. Precious they; but also is not he precious? Much, had\nnot he spoken, would have been dumb; not dead, yet living voiceless.\n\nOn the whole, is it not an utterance, this mystic Song, at once of one\nof the greatest human souls, and of the highest thing that Europe\nhad hitherto realized for itself? Christianism, as Dante sings it, is\nanother than Paganism in the rude Norse mind; another than \"Bastard\nChristianism\" half-articulately spoken in the Arab Desert, seven hundred\nyears before!--The noblest _idea_ made _real_ hitherto among men, is\nsung, and emblemed forth abidingly, by one of the noblest men. In the\none sense and in the other, are we not right glad to possess it? As I\ncalculate, it may last yet for long thousands of years. For the\nthing that is uttered from the inmost parts of a man's soul, differs\naltogether from what is uttered by the outer part. The outer is of the\nday, under the empire of mode; the outer passes away, in swift endless\nchanges; the inmost is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. True\nsouls, in all generations of the world, who look on this Dante, will\nfind a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes\nand hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity; they will feel that\nthis Dante too was a brother. Napoleon in Saint Helena is charmed with\nthe genial veracity of old Homer. The oldest Hebrew Prophet, under a\nvesture the most diverse from ours, does yet, because he speaks from the\nheart of man, speak to all men's hearts. It is the one sole secret of\ncontinuing long memorable. Dante, for depth of sincerity, is like an\nantique Prophet too; his words, like theirs, come from his very heart.\nOne need not wonder if it were predicted that his Poem might be the\nmost enduring thing our Europe has yet made; for nothing so endures as a\ntruly spoken word. All cathedrals, pontificalities, brass and stone,\nand outer arrangement never so lasting, are brief in comparison to an\nunfathomable heart-song like this: one feels as if it might survive,\nstill of importance to men, when these had all sunk into new\nirrecognizable combinations, and had ceased individually to be. Europe\nhas made much; great cities, great empires, encyclopaedias, creeds,\nbodies of opinion and practice: but it has made little of the class\nof Dante's Thought. Homer yet _is_ veritably present face to face with\nevery open soul of us; and Greece, where is _it_? Desolate for thousands\nof years; away, vanished; a bewildered heap of stones and rubbish, the\nlife and existence of it all gone. Like a dream; like the dust of King\nAgamemnon! Greece was; Greece, except in the _words_ it spoke, is not.\n\nThe uses of this Dante? We will not say much about his \"uses.\" A human\nsoul who has once got into that primal element of _Song_, and sung forth\nfitly somewhat therefrom, has worked in the _depths_ of our existence;\nfeeding through long times the life-roots of all excellent human\nthings whatsoever,--in a way that \"utilities\" will not succeed well in\ncalculating! We will not estimate the Sun by the quantity of gaslight\nit saves us; Dante shall be invaluable, or of no value. One remark I\nmay make: the contrast in this respect between the Hero-Poet and the\nHero-Prophet. In a hundred years, Mahomet, as we saw, had his Arabians\nat Grenada and at Delhi; Dante's Italians seem to be yet very much where\nthey were. Shall we say, then, Dante's effect on the world was small in\ncomparison? Not so: his arena is far more restricted; but also it is far\nnobler, clearer;--perhaps not less but more important. Mahomet speaks\nto great masses of men, in the coarse dialect adapted to such; a dialect\nfilled with inconsistencies, crudities, follies: on the great masses\nalone can he act, and there with good and with evil strangely blended.\nDante speaks to the noble, the pure and great, in all times and places.\nNeither does he grow obsolete, as the other does. Dante burns as a pure\nstar, fixed there in the firmament, at which the great and the high of\nall ages kindle themselves: he is the possession of all the chosen of\nthe world for uncounted time. Dante, one calculates, may long survive\nMahomet. In this way the balance may be made straight again.\n\nBut, at any rate, it is not by what is called their effect on the world,\nby what _we_ can judge of their effect there, that a man and his work\nare measured. Effect? Influence? Utility? Let a man _do_ his work; the\nfruit of it is the care of Another than he. It will grow its own fruit;\nand whether embodied in Caliph Thrones and Arabian Conquests, so that it\n\"fills all Morning and Evening Newspapers,\" and all Histories, which are\na kind of distilled Newspapers; or not embodied so at all;--what matters\nthat? That is not the real fruit of it! The Arabian Caliph, in so far\nonly as he did something, was something. If the great Cause of Man, and\nMan's work in God's Earth, got no furtherance from the Arabian Caliph,\nthen no matter how many scimetars he drew, how many gold piasters\npocketed, and what uproar and blaring he made in this world,--_he_ was\nbut a loud-sounding inanity and futility; at bottom, he _was_ not\nat all. Let us honor the great empire of _Silence_, once more! The\nboundless treasury which we do not jingle in our pockets, or count up\nand present before men! It is perhaps, of all things, the usefulest for\neach of us to do, in these loud times.--\n\n\nAs Dante, the Italian man, was sent into our world to embody musically\nthe Religion of the Middle Ages, the Religion of our Modern Europe, its\nInner Life; so Shakspeare, we may say, embodies for us the Outer Life\nof our Europe as developed then, its chivalries, courtesies, humors,\nambitions, what practical way of thinking, acting, looking at the\nworld, men then had. As in Homer we may still construe Old Greece; so in\nShakspeare and Dante, after thousands of years, what our modern Europe\nwas, in Faith and in Practice, will still be legible. Dante has given us\nthe Faith or soul; Shakspeare, in a not less noble way, has given us the\nPractice or body. This latter also we were to have; a man was sent for\nit, the man Shakspeare. Just when that chivalry way of life had reached\nits last finish, and was on the point of breaking down into slow or\nswift dissolution, as we now see it everywhere, this other sovereign\nPoet, with his seeing eye, with his perennial singing voice, was sent to\ntake note of it, to give long-enduring record of it. Two fit men: Dante,\ndeep, fierce as the central fire of the world; Shakspeare, wide, placid,\nfar-seeing, as the Sun, the upper light of the world. Italy produced the\none world-voice; we English had the honor of producing the other.\n\nCurious enough how, as it were by mere accident, this man came to us.\nI think always, so great, quiet, complete and self-sufficing is\nthis Shakspeare, had the Warwickshire Squire not prosecuted him for\ndeer-stealing, we had perhaps never heard of him as a Poet! The woods\nand skies, the rustic Life of Man in Stratford there, had been enough\nfor this man! But indeed that strange outbudding of our whole English\nExistence, which we call the Elizabethan Era, did not it too come as\nof its own accord? The \"Tree Igdrasil\" buds and withers by its own\nlaws,--too deep for our scanning. Yet it does bud and wither, and every\nbough and leaf of it is there, by fixed eternal laws; not a Sir\nThomas Lucy but comes at the hour fit for him. Curious, I say, and not\nsufficiently considered: how everything does co-operate with all; not\na leaf rotting on the highway but is indissoluble portion of solar and\nstellar systems; no thought, word or act of man but has sprung\nwithal out of all men, and works sooner or later, recognizably or\nirrecognizable, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation of sap and\ninfluences, mutual communication of every minutest leaf with the lowest\ntalon of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion of the\nwhole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the Kingdoms of\nHela and Death, and whose boughs overspread the highest Heaven--!\n\nIn some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan Era with its\nShakspeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded\nit, is itself attributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The\nChristian Faith, which was the theme of Dante's Song, had produced this\nPractical Life which Shakspeare was to sing. For Religion then, as it\nnow and always is, was the soul of Practice; the primary vital fact\nin men's life. And remark here, as rather curious, that Middle-Age\nCatholicism was abolished, so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish\nit, before Shakspeare, the noblest product of it, made his appearance.\nHe did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature at her own time, with\nCatholicism or what else might be necessary, sent him forth; taking\nsmall thought of Acts of Parliament. King Henrys, Queen Elizabeths go\ntheir way; and Nature too goes hers. Acts of Parliament, on the whole,\nare small, notwithstanding the noise they make. What Act of Parliament,\ndebate at St. Stephen's, on the hustings or elsewhere, was it that\nbrought this Shakspeare into being? No dining at Freemason's Tavern,\nopening subscription-lists, selling of shares, and infinite other\njangling and true or false endeavoring! This Elizabethan Era, and all\nits nobleness and blessedness, came without proclamation, preparation of\nours. Priceless Shakspeare was the free gift of Nature; given altogether\nsilently;--received altogether silently, as if it had been a thing of\nlittle account. And yet, very literally, it is a priceless thing. One\nshould look at that side of matters too.\n\nOf this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a\nlittle idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the\nbest judgment not of this country only, but of Europe at large, is\nslowly pointing to the conclusion, that Shakspeare is the chief of all\nPoets hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has\nleft record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I know\nnot such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all\nthe characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth; placid\njoyous strength; all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and\nclear, as in a tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in\nthe constructing of Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart from all other\n\"faculties\" as they are called, an understanding manifested, equal to\nthat in Bacon's _Novum Organum_ That is true; and it is not a truth that\nstrikes every one. It would become more apparent if we tried, any of\nus for himself, how, out of Shakspeare's dramatic materials, _we_ could\nfashion such a result! The built house seems all so fit,--every way\nas it should be, as if it came there by its own law and the nature of\nthings,--we forget the rude disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The\nvery perfection of the house, as if Nature herself had made it, hides\nthe builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any other man, we\nmay call Shakspeare in this: he discerns, knows as by instinct, what\ncondition he works under, what his materials are, what his own force and\nits relation to them is. It is not a transitory glance of insight that\nwill suffice; it is deliberate illumination of the whole matter; it is\na calmly _seeing_ eye; a great intellect, in short. How a man, of some\nwide thing that he has witnessed, will construct a narrative, what kind\nof picture and delineation he will give of it,--is the best measure you\ncould get of what intellect is in the man. Which circumstance is vital\nand shall stand prominent; which unessential, fit to be suppressed;\nwhere is the true _beginning_, the true sequence and ending? To find out\nthis, you task the whole force of insight that is in the man. He must\n_understand_ the thing; according to the depth of his understanding,\nwill the fitness of his answer be. You will try him so. Does like join\nitself to like; does the spirit of method stir in that confusion, so\nthat its embroilment becomes order? Can the man say, _Fiat lux_, Let\nthere be light; and out of chaos make a world? Precisely as there is\nlight in himself, will he accomplish this.\n\nOr indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting,\ndelineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is\ngreat. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is\nunexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The\nthing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost\nheart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him,\nso that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said:\npoetic creation, what is this too but _seeing_ the thing sufficiently?\nThe _word_ that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such\nclear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakspeare's _morality_,\nhis valor, candor, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious\nstrength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions,\nvisible there too? Great as the world. No _twisted_, poor convex-concave\nmirror, reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities;\na perfectly _level_ mirror;--that is to say withal, if we will\nunderstand it, a man justly related to all things and men, a good man.\nIt is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes in all kinds\nof men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus;\nsets them all forth to us in their round completeness; loving, just, the\nequal brother of all. _Novum Organum_, and all the intellect you will\nfind in Bacon, is of a quite secondary order; earthy, material, poor in\ncomparison with this. Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost\nnothing of the same rank. Goethe alone, since the days of Shakspeare,\nreminds me of it. Of him too you say that he _saw_ the object; you may\nsay what he himself says of Shakspeare: \"His characters are like watches\nwith dial-plates of transparent crystal; they show you the hour like\nothers, and the inward mechanism also is all visible.\"\n\nThe seeing eye! It is this that discloses the inner harmony of things;\nwhat Nature meant, what musical idea Nature has wrapped up in these\noften rough embodiments. Something she did mean. To the seeing eye that\nsomething were discernible. Are they base, miserable things? You can\nlaugh over them, you can weep over them; you can in some way or other\ngenially relate yourself to them;--you can, at lowest, hold your peace\nabout them, turn away your own and others' face from them, till the hour\ncome for practically exterminating and extinguishing them! At bottom,\nit is the Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that he have intellect\nenough. He will be a Poet if he have: a Poet in word; or failing that,\nperhaps still better, a Poet in act. Whether he write at all; and if\nso, whether in prose or in verse, will depend on accidents: who knows\non what extremely trivial accidents,--perhaps on his having had a\nsinging-master, on his being taught to sing in his boyhood! But the\nfaculty which enables him to discern the inner heart of things, and the\nharmony that dwells there (for whatsoever exists has a harmony in the\nheart of it, or it would not hold together and exist), is not the result\nof habits or accidents, but the gift of Nature herself; the primary\noutfit for a Heroic Man in what sort soever. To the Poet, as to every\nother, we say first of all, _See_. If you cannot do that, it is of no\nuse to keep stringing rhymes together, jingling sensibilities against\neach other, and _name_ yourself a Poet; there is no hope for you. If you\ncan, there is, in prose or verse, in action or speculation, all manner\nof hope. The crabbed old Schoolmaster used to ask, when they brought him\na new pupil, \"But are ye sure he's _not a dunce_?\" Why, really one\nmight ask the same thing, in regard to every man proposed for whatsoever\nfunction; and consider it as the one inquiry needful: Are ye sure he's\nnot a dunce? There is, in this world, no other entirely fatal person.\n\nFor, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a\ncorrect measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I\nshould say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under\nthat. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were\ndistinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination,\nfancy, &c., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error.\nThen again, we hear of a man's \"intellectual nature,\" and of his\n\"moral nature,\" as if these again were divisible, and existed apart.\nNecessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance;\nwe must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all.\nBut words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our\napprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified\nthereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that\nthese divisions are at bottom but _names_; that man's spiritual nature,\nthe vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible;\nthat what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are\nbut different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly\nconnected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one\nof them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the\nmoral quality of a man, what is this but another _side_ of the one vital\nForce whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of\nhim. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings;\nhis courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in\nthe opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is\n_one_; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.\n\nWithout hands a man might have feet, and could still walk: but, consider\nit,--without morality, intellect were impossible for him; a thoroughly\nimmoral _man_ could not know anything at all! To know a thing, what we\ncan call knowing, a man must first _love_ the thing, sympathize with it:\nthat is, be _virtuously_ related to it. If he have not the justice to\nput down his own selfishness at every turn, the courage to stand by the\ndangerous-true at every turn, how shall he know? His virtues, all\nof them, will lie recorded in his knowledge. Nature, with her truth,\nremains to the bad, to the selfish and the pusillanimous forever a\nsealed book: what such can know of Nature is mean, superficial,\nsmall; for the uses of the day merely.--But does not the very Fox know\nsomething of Nature? Exactly so: it knows where the geese lodge! The\nhuman Reynard, very frequent everywhere in the world, what more does he\nknow but this and the like of this? Nay, it should be considered too,\nthat if the Fox had not a certain vulpine _morality_, he could not even\nknow where the geese were, or get at the geese! If he spent his time\nin splenetic atrabiliar reflections on his own misery, his ill usage\nby Nature, Fortune and other Foxes, and so forth; and had not courage,\npromptitude, practicality, and other suitable vulpine gifts and graces,\nhe would catch no geese. We may say of the Fox too, that his morality\nand insight are of the same dimensions; different faces of the same\ninternal unity of vulpine life!--These things are worth stating; for\nthe contrary of them acts with manifold very baleful perversion, in this\ntime: what limitations, modifications they require, your own candor will\nsupply.\n\nIf I say, therefore, that Shakspeare is the greatest of Intellects,\nI have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakspeare's\nintellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious\nintellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.\nNovalis beautifully remarks of him, that those Dramas of his are\nProducts of Nature too, deep as Nature herself. I find a great truth in\nthis saying. Shakspeare's Art is not Artifice; the noblest worth of it\nis not there by plan or precontrivance. It grows up from the deeps of\nNature, through this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of Nature. The\nlatest generations of men will find new meanings in Shakspeare, new\nelucidations of their own human being; \"new harmonies with the infinite\nstructure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas, affinities\nwith the higher powers and senses of man.\" This well deserves\nmeditating. It is Nature's highest reward to a true simple great\nsoul, that he get thus to be _a part of herself_. Such a man's works,\nwhatsoever he with utmost conscious exertion and forethought shall\naccomplish, grow up withal unconsciously, from the unknown deeps in\nhim;--as the oak-tree grows from the Earth's bosom, as the mountains and\nwaters shape themselves; with a symmetry grounded on Nature's own laws,\nconformable to all Truth whatsoever. How much in Shakspeare lies hid;\nhis sorrows, his silent struggles known to himself; much that was not\nknown at all, not speakable at all: like _roots_, like sap and forces\nworking underground! Speech is great; but Silence is greater.\n\nWithal the joyful tranquillity of this man is notable. I will not\nblame Dante for his misery: it is as battle without victory; but true\nbattle,--the first, indispensable thing. Yet I call Shakspeare greater\nthan Dante, in that he fought truly, and did conquer. Doubt it not, he\nhad his own sorrows: those _Sonnets_ of his will even testify expressly\nin what deep waters he had waded, and swum struggling for his life;--as\nwhat man like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to me a heedless\nnotion, our common one, that he sat like a bird on the bough; and sang\nforth, free and off-hand, never knowing the troubles of other men. Not\nso; with no man is it so. How could a man travel forward from rustic\ndeer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not fall in with sorrows\nby the way? Or, still better, how could a man delineate a Hamlet, a\nCoriolanus, a Macbeth, so many suffering heroic hearts, if his own\nheroic heart had never suffered?--And now, in contrast with all this,\nobserve his mirthfulness, his genuine overflowing love of laughter! You\nwould say, in no point does he _exaggerate_ but only in laughter. Fiery\nobjurgations, words that pierce and burn, are to be found in Shakspeare;\nyet he is always in measure here; never what Johnson would remark as\na specially \"good hater.\" But his laughter seems to pour from him in\nfloods; he heaps all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the butt he is\nbantering, tumbles and tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you would\nsay, with his whole heart laughs. And then, if not always the finest, it\nis always a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty;\nnever. No man who _can_ laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at\nthese things. It is some poor character only _desiring_ to laugh, and\nhave the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy; good\nlaughter is not \"the crackling of thorns under the pot.\" Even at\nstupidity and pretension this Shakspeare does not laugh otherwise than\ngenially. Dogberry and Verges tickle our very hearts; and we dismiss\nthem covered with explosions of laughter: but we like the poor fellows\nonly the better for our laughing; and hope they will get on well there,\nand continue Presidents of the City-watch. Such laughter, like sunshine\non the deep sea, is very beautiful to me.\n\n\nWe have no room to speak of Shakspeare's individual works; though\nperhaps there is much still waiting to be said on that head. Had we, for\ninstance, all his plays reviewed as _Hamlet_, in _Wilhelm Meister_, is!\nA thing which might, one day, be done. August Wilhelm Schlegel has a\nremark on his Historical Plays, _Henry Fifth_ and the others, which is\nworth remembering. He calls them a kind of National Epic. Marlborough,\nyou recollect, said, he knew no English History but what he had learned\nfrom Shakspeare. There are really, if we look to it, few as memorable\nHistories. The great salient points are admirably seized; all rounds\nitself off, into a kind of rhythmic coherence; it is, as Schlegel says,\nepic;--as indeed all delineation by a great thinker will be. There are\nright beautiful things in those Pieces, which indeed together form one\nbeautiful thing. That battle of Agincourt strikes me as one of the\nmost perfect things, in its sort, we anywhere have of Shakspeare's. The\ndescription of the two hosts: the worn-out, jaded English; the dread\nhour, big with destiny, when the battle shall begin; and then that\ndeathless valor: \"Ye good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England!\"\nThere is a noble Patriotism in it,--far other than the \"indifference\"\nyou sometimes hear ascribed to Shakspeare. A true English heart\nbreathes, calm and strong, through the whole business; not boisterous,\nprotrusive; all the better for that. There is a sound in it like the\nring of steel. This man too had a right stroke in him, had it come to\nthat!\n\nBut I will say, of Shakspeare's works generally, that we have no full\nimpress of him there; even as full as we have of many men. His works are\nso many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the world that was\nin him. All his works seem, comparatively speaking, cursory, imperfect,\nwritten under cramping circumstances; giving only here and there a note\nof the full utterance of the man. Passages there are that come upon you\nlike splendor out of Heaven; bursts of radiance, illuminating the very\nheart of the thing: you say, \"That is _true_, spoken once and forever;\nwheresoever and whensoever there is an open human soul, that will\nbe recognized as true!\" Such bursts, however, make us feel that the\nsurrounding matter is not radiant; that it is, in part, temporary,\nconventional. Alas, Shakspeare had to write for the Globe Playhouse:\nhis great soul had to crush itself, as it could, into that and no other\nmould. It was with him, then, as it is with us all. No man works save\nunder conditions. The sculptor cannot set his own free Thought before\nus; but his Thought as he could translate it into the stone that was\ngiven, with the tools that were given. _Disjecta membra_ are all that we\nfind of any Poet, or of any man.\n\n\nWhoever looks intelligently at this Shakspeare may recognize that he too\nwas a _Prophet_, in his way; of an insight analogous to the Prophetic,\nthough he took it up in another strain. Nature seemed to this man also\ndivine; unspeakable, deep as Tophet, high as Heaven; \"We are such stuff\nas Dreams are made of!\" That scroll in Westminster Abbey, which few read\nwith understanding, is of the depth of any seer. But the man sang; did\nnot preach, except musically. We called Dante the melodious Priest\nof Middle-Age Catholicism. May we not call Shakspeare the still more\nmelodious Priest of a _true_ Catholicism, the \"Universal Church\" of\nthe Future and of all times? No narrow superstition, harsh asceticism,\nintolerance, fanatical fierceness or perversion: a Revelation, so far as\nit goes, that such a thousand-fold hidden beauty and divineness dwells\nin all Nature; which let all men worship as they can! We may say\nwithout offence, that there rises a kind of universal Psalm out of this\nShakspeare too; not unfit to make itself heard among the still more\nsacred Psalms. Not in disharmony with these, if we understood them, but\nin harmony!--I cannot call this Shakspeare a \"Sceptic,\" as some do;\nhis indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time\nmisleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though he says little about\nhis Patriotism; nor sceptic, though he says little about his Faith. Such\n\"indifference\" was the fruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart\nwas in his own grand sphere of worship (we may call it such); these\nother controversies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to\nhim.\n\nBut call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right glorious\nthing, and set of things, this that Shakspeare has brought us? For\nmyself, I feel that there is actually a kind of sacredness in the fact\nof such a man being sent into this Earth. Is he not an eye to us all;\na blessed heaven-sent Bringer of Light?--And, at bottom, was it not\nperhaps far better that this Shakspeare, every way an unconscious man,\nwas _conscious_ of no Heavenly message? He did not feel, like Mahomet,\nbecause he saw into those internal Splendors, that he specially was the\n\"Prophet of God:\" and was he not greater than Mahomet in that? Greater;\nand also, if we compute strictly, as we did in Dante's case, more\nsuccessful. It was intrinsically an error that notion of Mahomet's, of\nhis supreme Prophethood; and has come down to us inextricably involved\nin error to this day; dragging along with it such a coil of fables,\nimpurities, intolerances, as makes it a questionable step for me here\nand now to say, as I have done, that Mahomet was a true Speaker at all,\nand not rather an ambitious charlatan, perversity and simulacrum; no\nSpeaker, but a Babbler! Even in Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will have\nexhausted himself and become obsolete, while this Shakspeare, this Dante\nmay still be young;--while this Shakspeare may still pretend to be a\nPriest of Mankind, of Arabia as of other places, for unlimited periods\nto come!\n\nCompared with any speaker or singer one knows, even with Aeschylus or\nHomer, why should he not, for veracity and universality, last like them?\nHe is _sincere_ as they; reaches deep down like them, to the universal\nand perennial. But as for Mahomet, I think it had been better for\nhim _not_ to be so conscious! Alas, poor Mahomet; all that he was\n_conscious_ of was a mere error; a futility and triviality,--as indeed\nsuch ever is. The truly great in him too was the unconscious: that he\nwas a wild Arab lion of the desert, and did speak out with that great\nthunder-voice of his, not by words which he _thought_ to be great, but\nby actions, by feelings, by a history which _were_ great! His Koran has\nbecome a stupid piece of prolix absurdity; we do not believe, like him,\nthat God wrote that! The Great Man here too, as always, is a Force\nof Nature. Whatsoever is truly great in him springs up from the\n_in_articulate deeps.\n\n\nWell: this is our poor Warwickshire Peasant, who rose to be Manager of\na Playhouse, so that he could live without begging; whom the Earl of\nSouthampton cast some kind glances on; whom Sir Thomas Lucy, many thanks\nto him, was for sending to the Treadmill! We did not account him a god,\nlike Odin, while he dwelt with us;--on which point there were much to\nbe said. But I will say rather, or repeat: In spite of the sad state\nHero-worship now lies in, consider what this Shakspeare has actually\nbecome among us. Which Englishman we ever made, in this land of ours,\nwhich million of Englishmen, would we not give up rather than the\nStratford Peasant? There is no regiment of highest Dignitaries that we\nwould sell him for. He is the grandest thing we have yet done. For our\nhonor among foreign nations, as an ornament to our English Household,\nwhat item is there that we would not surrender rather than him? Consider\nnow, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your\nShakspeare, you English; never have had any Indian Empire, or never have\nhad any Shakspeare? Really it were a grave question. Official persons\nwould answer doubtless in official language; but we, for our part too,\nshould not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire;\nwe cannot do without Shakspeare! Indian Empire will go, at any rate,\nsome day; but this Shakspeare does not go, he lasts forever with us; we\ncannot give up our Shakspeare!\n\nNay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him merely as a real,\nmarketable, tangibly useful possession. England, before long, this\nIsland of ours, will hold but a small fraction of the English: in\nAmerica, in New Holland, east and west to the very Antipodes, there will\nbe a Saxondom covering great spaces of the Globe. And now, what is it\nthat can keep all these together into virtually one Nation, so that\nthey do not fall out and fight, but live at peace, in brotherlike\nintercourse, helping one another? This is justly regarded as the\ngreatest practical problem, the thing all manner of sovereignties and\ngovernments are here to accomplish: what is it that will accomplish\nthis? Acts of Parliament, administrative prime-ministers cannot. America\nis parted from us, so far as Parliament could part it. Call it not\nfantastic, for there is much reality in it: Here, I say, is an English\nKing, whom no time or chance, Parliament or combination of Parliaments,\ncan dethrone! This King Shakspeare, does not he shine, in crowned\nsovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of\nrallying-signs; indestructible; really more valuable in that point of\nview than any other means or appliance whatsoever? We can fancy him\nas radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years\nhence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of\nParish-Constable soever, English men and women are, they will say to one\nanother: \"Yes, this Shakspeare is ours; we produced him, we speak\nand think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him.\" The most\ncommon-sense politician, too, if he pleases, may think of that.\n\nYes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an articulate\nvoice; that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the\nheart of it means! Italy, for example, poor Italy lies dismembered,\nscattered asunder, not appearing in any protocol or treaty as a unity\nat all; yet the noble Italy is actually _one_: Italy produced its Dante;\nItaly can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong with so many\nbayonets, Cossacks and cannons; and does a great feat in keeping such a\ntract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet speak. Something\ngreat in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had no voice of genius,\nto be heard of all men and times. He must learn to speak. He is a great\ndumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted\ninto nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still audible. The Nation\nthat has a Dante is bound together as no dumb Russia can be.--We must\nhere end what we had to say of the _Hero-Poet_.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV. THE HERO AS PRIEST. LUTHER; REFORMATION: KNOX; PURITANISM.\n\n[May 15, 1840.]\n\nOur present discourse is to be of the Great Man as Priest. We\nhave repeatedly endeavored to explain that all sorts of Heroes are\nintrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to the\nDivine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to speak\nof this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a great,\nvictorious, enduring manner; there is given a Hero,--the outward shape\nof whom will depend on the time and the environment he finds himself\nin. The Priest too, as I understand it, is a kind of Prophet; in him too\nthere is required to be a light of inspiration, as we must name it. He\npresides over the worship of the people; is the Uniter of them with the\nUnseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of the people; as the Prophet\nis their spiritual King with many captains: he guides them heavenward,\nby wise guidance through this Earth and its work. The ideal of him\nis, that he too be what we can call a voice from the unseen Heaven;\ninterpreting, even as the Prophet did, and in a more familiar manner\nunfolding the same to men. The unseen Heaven,--the \"open secret of the\nUniverse,\"--which so few have an eye for! He is the Prophet shorn of\nhis more awful splendor; burning with mild equable radiance, as the\nenlightener of daily life. This, I say, is the ideal of a Priest. So in\nold times; so in these, and in all times. One knows very well that, in\nreducing ideals to practice, great latitude of tolerance is needful;\nvery great. But a Priest who is not this at all, who does not any longer\naim or try to be this, is a character--of whom we had rather not speak\nin this place.\n\nLuther and Knox were by express vocation Priests, and did faithfully\nperform that function in its common sense. Yet it will suit us better\nhere to consider them chiefly in their historical character, rather as\nReformers than Priests. There have been other Priests perhaps equally\nnotable, in calmer times, for doing faithfully the office of a Leader of\nWorship; bringing down, by faithful heroism in that kind, a light from\nHeaven into the daily life of their people; leading them forward, as\nunder God's guidance, in the way wherein they were to go. But when\nthis same _way_ was a rough one, of battle, confusion and danger, the\nspiritual Captain, who led through that, becomes, especially to us who\nlive under the fruit of his leading, more notable than any other. He\nis the warfaring and battling Priest; who led his people, not to quiet\nfaithful labor as in smooth times, but to faithful valorous conflict,\nin times all violent, dismembered: a more perilous service, and a more\nmemorable one, be it higher or not. These two men we will account our\nbest Priests, inasmuch as they were our best Reformers. Nay I may ask,\nIs not every true Reformer, by the nature of him, a _Priest_ first of\nall? He appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible\nforce; knows that it, the invisible, is strong and alone strong. He is\na believer in the divine truth of things; a _seer_, seeing through the\nshows of things; a worshipper, in one way or the other, of the divine\ntruth of things; a Priest, that is. If he be not first a Priest, he will\nnever be good for much as a Reformer.\n\nThus then, as we have seen Great Men, in various situations, building\nup Religions, heroic Forms of human Existence in this world, Theories\nof Life worthy to be sung by a Dante, Practices of Life by a\nShakspeare,--we are now to see the reverse process; which also is\nnecessary, which also may be carried on in the Heroic manner. Curious\nhow this should be necessary: yet necessary it is. The mild shining\nof the Poet's light has to give place to the fierce lightning of the\nReformer: unfortunately the Reformer too is a personage that cannot\nfail in History! The Poet indeed, with his mildness, what is he but\nthe product and ultimate adjustment of Reform, or Prophecy, with its\nfierceness? No wild Saint Dominics and Thebaid Eremites, there had been\nno melodious Dante; rough Practical Endeavor, Scandinavian and other,\nfrom Odin to Walter Raleigh, from Ulfila to Cranmer, enabled Shakspeare\nto speak. Nay the finished Poet, I remark sometimes, is a symptom that\nhis epoch itself has reached perfection and is finished; that before\nlong there will be a new epoch, new Reformers needed.\n\nDoubtless it were finer, could we go along always in the way of _music_;\nbe tamed and taught by our Poets, as the rude creatures were by their\nOrpheus of old. Or failing this rhythmic _musical_ way, how good were it\ncould we get so much as into the _equable_ way; I mean, if _peaceable_\nPriests, reforming from day to day, would always suffice us! But it is\nnot so; even this latter has not yet been realized. Alas, the battling\nReformer too is, from time to time, a needful and inevitable phenomenon.\nObstructions are never wanting: the very things that were once\nindispensable furtherances become obstructions; and need to be shaken\noff, and left behind us,--a business often of enormous difficulty. It is\nnotable enough, surely, how a Theorem or spiritual Representation, so we\nmay call it, which once took in the whole Universe, and was completely\nsatisfactory in all parts of it to the highly discursive acute intellect\nof Dante, one of the greatest in the world,--had in the course of\nanother century become dubitable to common intellects; become deniable;\nand is now, to every one of us, flatly incredible, obsolete as Odin's\nTheorem! To Dante, human Existence, and God's ways with men, were all\nwell represented by those _Malebolges_, _Purgatorios_; to Luther not\nwell. How was this? Why could not Dante's Catholicism continue; but\nLuther's Protestantism must needs follow? Alas, nothing will _continue_.\n\nI do not make much of \"Progress of the Species,\" as handled in these\ntimes of ours; nor do I think you would care to hear much about it.\nThe talk on that subject is too often of the most extravagant, confused\nsort. Yet I may say, the fact itself seems certain enough; nay we can\ntrace out the inevitable necessity of it in the nature of things. Every\nman, as I have stated somewhere, is not only a learner but a doer: he\nlearns with the mind given him what has been; but with the same mind\nhe discovers farther, he invents and devises somewhat of his own.\nAbsolutely without originality there is no man. No man whatever\nbelieves, or can believe, exactly what his grandfather believed: he\nenlarges somewhat, by fresh discovery, his view of the Universe, and\nconsequently his Theorem of the Universe,--which is an _infinite_\nUniverse, and can never be embraced wholly or finally by any view or\nTheorem, in any conceivable enlargement: he enlarges somewhat, I say;\nfinds somewhat that was credible to his grandfather incredible to him,\nfalse to him, inconsistent with some new thing he has discovered or\nobserved. It is the history of every man; and in the history of Mankind\nwe see it summed up into great historical amounts,--revolutions, new\nepochs. Dante's Mountain of Purgatory does _not_ stand \"in the ocean of\nthe other Hemisphere,\" when Columbus has once sailed thither! Men find\nno such thing extant in the other Hemisphere. It is not there. It must\ncease to be believed to be there. So with all beliefs whatsoever in this\nworld,--all Systems of Belief, and Systems of Practice that spring from\nthese.\n\nIf we add now the melancholy fact, that when Belief waxes uncertain,\nPractice too becomes unsound, and errors, injustices and miseries\neverywhere more and more prevail, we shall see material enough for\nrevolution. At all turns, a man who will _do_ faithfully, needs to\nbelieve firmly. If he have to ask at every turn the world's suffrage; if\nhe cannot dispense with the world's suffrage, and make his own suffrage\nserve, he is a poor eye-servant; the work committed to him will be\n_mis_done. Every such man is a daily contributor to the inevitable\ndownfall. Whatsoever work he does, dishonestly, with an eye to the\noutward look of it, is a new offence, parent of new misery to somebody\nor other. Offences accumulate till they become insupportable; and are\nthen violently burst through, cleared off as by explosion. Dante's\nsublime Catholicism, incredible now in theory, and defaced still worse\nby faithless, doubting and dishonest practice, has to be torn asunder by\na Luther, Shakspeare's noble Feudalism, as beautiful as it once looked\nand was, has to end in a French Revolution. The accumulation of offences\nis, as we say, too literally _exploded_, blasted asunder volcanically;\nand there are long troublous periods, before matters come to a\nsettlement again.\n\nSurely it were mournful enough to look only at this face of the matter,\nand find in all human opinions and arrangements merely the fact that\nthey were uncertain, temporary, subject to the law of death! At bottom,\nit is not so: all death, here too we find, is but of the body, not of\nthe essence or soul; all destruction, by violent revolution or howsoever\nit be, is but new creation on a wider scale. Odinism was _Valor_;\nChristianism was _Humility_, a nobler kind of Valor. No thought that\never dwelt honestly as true in the heart of man but _was_ an honest\ninsight into God's truth on man's part, and _has_ an essential truth in\nit which endures through all changes, an everlasting possession for us\nall. And, on the other hand, what a melancholy notion is that, which\nhas to represent all men, in all countries and times except our own, as\nhaving spent their life in blind condemnable error, mere lost Pagans,\nScandinavians, Mahometans, only that we might have the true ultimate\nknowledge! All generations of men were lost and wrong, only that this\npresent little section of a generation might be saved and right. They\nall marched forward there, all generations since the beginning of the\nworld, like the Russian soldiers into the ditch of Schweidnitz Fort,\nonly to fill up the ditch with their dead bodies, that we might march\nover and take the place! It is an incredible hypothesis.\n\nSuch incredible hypothesis we have seen maintained with fierce emphasis;\nand this or the other poor individual man, with his sect of individual\nmen, marching as over the dead bodies of all men, towards sure victory\nbut when he too, with his hypothesis and ultimate infallible credo, sank\ninto the ditch, and became a dead body, what was to be said?--Withal, it\nis an important fact in the nature of man, that he tends to reckon his\nown insight as final, and goes upon it as such. He will always do it,\nI suppose, in one or the other way; but it must be in some wider, wiser\nway than this. Are not all true men that live, or that ever lived,\nsoldiers of the same army, enlisted, under Heaven's captaincy, to do\nbattle against the same enemy, the empire of Darkness and Wrong? Why\nshould we misknow one another, fight not against the enemy but against\nourselves, from mere difference of uniform? All uniforms shall be good,\nso they hold in them true valiant men. All fashions of arms, the Arab\nturban and swift scimetar, Thor's strong hammer smiting down _Jotuns_,\nshall be welcome. Luther's battle-voice, Dante's march-melody, all\ngenuine things are with us, not against us. We are all under one\nCaptain, soldiers of the same host.--Let us now look a little at this\nLuther's fighting; what kind of battle it was, and how he comported\nhimself in it. Luther too was of our spiritual Heroes; a Prophet to his\ncountry and time.\n\n\nAs introductory to the whole, a remark about Idolatry will perhaps be\nin place here. One of Mahomet's characteristics, which indeed belongs to\nall Prophets, is unlimited implacable zeal against Idolatry. It is the\ngrand theme of Prophets: Idolatry, the worshipping of dead Idols as\nthe Divinity, is a thing they cannot away with, but have to denounce\ncontinually, and brand with inexpiable reprobation; it is the chief of\nall the sins they see done under the sun. This is worth noting. We will\nnot enter here into the theological question about Idolatry. Idol is\n_Eidolon_, a thing seen, a symbol. It is not God, but a Symbol of God;\nand perhaps one may question whether any the most benighted mortal ever\ntook it for more than a Symbol. I fancy, he did not think that the poor\nimage his own hands had made _was_ God; but that God was emblemed by\nit, that God was in it some way or other. And now in this sense, one may\nask, Is not all worship whatsoever a worship by Symbols, by _eidola_, or\nthings seen? Whether _seen_, rendered visible as an image or picture to\nthe bodily eye; or visible only to the inward eye, to the imagination,\nto the intellect: this makes a superficial, but no substantial\ndifference. It is still a Thing Seen, significant of Godhead; an Idol.\nThe most rigorous Puritan has his Confession of Faith, and intellectual\nRepresentation of Divine things, and worships thereby; thereby is\nworship first made possible for him. All creeds, liturgies, religious\nforms, conceptions that fitly invest religious feelings, are in this\nsense _eidola_, things seen. All worship whatsoever must proceed by\nSymbols, by Idols:--we may say, all Idolatry is comparative, and the\nworst Idolatry is only _more_ idolatrous.\n\nWhere, then, lies the evil of it? Some fatal evil must lie in it, or\nearnest prophetic men would not on all hands so reprobate it. Why is\nIdolatry so hateful to Prophets? It seems to me as if, in the worship\nof those poor wooden symbols, the thing that had chiefly provoked the\nProphet, and filled his inmost soul with indignation and aversion, was\nnot exactly what suggested itself to his own thought, and came out of\nhim in words to others, as the thing. The rudest heathen that worshipped\nCanopus, or the Caabah Black-Stone, he, as we saw, was superior to the\nhorse that worshipped nothing at all! Nay there was a kind of lasting\nmerit in that poor act of his; analogous to what is still meritorious in\nPoets: recognition of a certain endless _divine_ beauty and significance\nin stars and all natural objects whatsoever. Why should the Prophet\nso mercilessly condemn him? The poorest mortal worshipping his Fetish,\nwhile his heart is full of it, may be an object of pity, of contempt and\navoidance, if you will; but cannot surely be an object of hatred. Let\nhis heart _be_ honestly full of it, the whole space of his dark narrow\nmind illuminated thereby; in one word, let him entirely _believe_ in\nhis Fetish,--it will then be, I should say, if not well with him, yet\nas well as it can readily be made to be, and you will leave him alone,\nunmolested there.\n\nBut here enters the fatal circumstance of Idolatry, that, in the era\nof the Prophets, no man's mind _is_ any longer honestly filled with his\nIdol or Symbol. Before the Prophet can arise who, seeing through it,\nknows it to be mere wood, many men must have begun dimly to doubt that\nit was little more. Condemnable Idolatry is _insincere_ Idolatry.\nDoubt has eaten out the heart of it: a human soul is seen clinging\nspasmodically to an Ark of the Covenant, which it half feels now to have\nbecome a Phantasm. This is one of the balefulest sights. Souls are no\nlonger filled with their Fetish; but only pretend to be filled, and\nwould fain make themselves feel that they are filled. \"You do not\nbelieve,\" said Coleridge; \"you only believe that you believe.\" It is the\nfinal scene in all kinds of Worship and Symbolism; the sure symptom\nthat death is now nigh. It is equivalent to what we call Formulism, and\nWorship of Formulas, in these days of ours. No more immoral act can be\ndone by a human creature; for it is the beginning of all immorality, or\nrather it is the impossibility henceforth of any morality whatsoever:\nthe innermost moral soul is paralyzed thereby, cast into fatal magnetic\nsleep! Men are no longer _sincere_ men. I do not wonder that the earnest\nman denounces this, brands it, prosecutes it with inextinguishable\naversion. He and it, all good and it, are at death-feud. Blamable\nIdolatry is _Cant_, and even what one may call Sincere-Cant.\nSincere-Cant: that is worth thinking of! Every sort of Worship ends with\nthis phasis.\n\nI find Luther to have been a Breaker of Idols, no less than any other\nProphet. The wooden gods of the Koreish, made of timber and bees-wax,\nwere not more hateful to Mahomet than Tetzel's Pardons of Sin, made of\nsheepskin and ink, were to Luther. It is the property of every Hero, in\nevery time, in every place and situation, that he come back to reality;\nthat he stand upon things, and not shows of things. According as he\nloves, and venerates, articulately or with deep speechless thought, the\nawful realities of things, so will the hollow shows of things, however\nregular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or Conclaves, be intolerable\nand detestable to him. Protestantism, too, is the work of a Prophet:\nthe prophet-work of that sixteenth century. The first stroke of honest\ndemolition to an ancient thing grown false and idolatrous; preparatory\nafar off to a new thing, which shall be true, and authentically divine!\n\nAt first view it might seem as if Protestantism were entirely\ndestructive to this that we call Hero-worship, and represent as the\nbasis of all possible good, religious or social, for mankind. One\noften hears it said that Protestantism introduced a new era, radically\ndifferent from any the world had ever seen before: the era of \"private\njudgment,\" as they call it. By this revolt against the Pope, every man\nbecame his own Pope; and learnt, among other things, that he must never\ntrust any Pope, or spiritual Hero-captain, any more! Whereby, is not\nspiritual union, all hierarchy and subordination among men, henceforth\nan impossibility? So we hear it said.--Now I need not deny that\nProtestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, Popes and\nmuch else. Nay I will grant that English Puritanism, revolt against\nearthly sovereignties, was the second act of it; that the enormous\nFrench Revolution itself was the third act, whereby all sovereignties\nearthly and spiritual were, as might seem, abolished or made sure\nof abolition. Protestantism is the grand root from which our whole\nsubsequent European History branches out. For the spiritual will always\nbody itself forth in the temporal history of men; the spiritual is the\nbeginning of the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is everywhere\nfor Liberty and Equality, Independence and so forth; instead of _Kings_,\nBallot-boxes and Electoral suffrages: it seems made out that any\nHero-sovereign, or loyal obedience of men to a man, in things temporal\nor things spiritual, has passed away forever from the world. I should\ndespair of the world altogether, if so. One of my deepest convictions\nis, that it is not so. Without sovereigns, true sovereigns, temporal\nand spiritual, I see nothing possible but an anarchy; the hatefulest of\nthings. But I find Protestantism, whatever anarchic democracy it have\nproduced, to be the beginning of new genuine sovereignty and order.\nI find it to be a revolt against _false_ sovereigns; the painful but\nindispensable first preparative for _true_ sovereigns getting place\namong us! This is worth explaining a little.\n\nLet us remark, therefore, in the first place, that this of \"private\njudgment\" is, at bottom, not a new thing in the world, but only new at\nthat epoch of the world. There is nothing generically new or peculiar in\nthe Reformation; it was a return to Truth and Reality in opposition\nto Falsehood and Semblance, as all kinds of Improvement and genuine\nTeaching are and have been. Liberty of private judgment, if we will\nconsider it, must at all times have existed in the world. Dante had not\nput out his eyes, or tied shackles on himself; he was at home in\nthat Catholicism of his, a free-seeing soul in it,--if many a poor\nHogstraten, Tetzel, and Dr. Eck had now become slaves in it. Liberty of\njudgment? No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever\ncompel the soul of a man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own\nindefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign, and believe\nthere, by the grace of God alone! The sorriest sophistical Bellarmine,\npreaching sightless faith and passive obedience, must first, by some\nkind of _conviction_, have abdicated his right to be convinced. His\n\"private judgment\" indicated that, as the advisablest step _he_ could\ntake. The right of private judgment will subsist, in full force,\nwherever true men subsist. A true man _believes_ with his whole\njudgment, with all the illumination and discernment that is in him, and\nhas always so believed. A false man, only struggling to \"believe that\nhe believes,\" will naturally manage it in some other way. Protestantism\nsaid to this latter, Woe! and to the former, Well done! At bottom, it\nwas no new saying; it was a return to all old sayings that ever had been\nsaid. Be genuine, be sincere: that was, once more, the meaning of it.\nMahomet believed with his whole mind; Odin with his whole mind,--he, and\nall _true_ Followers of Odinism. They, by their private judgment, had\n\"judged \"--_so_.\n\nAnd now I venture to assert, that the exercise of private judgment,\nfaithfully gone about, does by no means necessarily end in selfish\nindependence, isolation; but rather ends necessarily in the opposite\nof that. It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy; but it is error,\ninsincerity, half-belief and untruth that make it. A man protesting\nagainst error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that\nbelieve in truth. There is no communion possible among men who believe\nonly in hearsays. The heart of each is lying dead; has no power of\nsympathy even with _things_,--or he would believe _them_ and not\nhearsays. No sympathy even with things; how much less with his\nfellow-men! He cannot unite with men; he is an anarchic man. Only in a\nworld of sincere men is unity possible;--and there, in the long-run, it\nis as good as _certain_.\n\nFor observe one thing, a thing too often left out of view, or rather\naltogether lost sight of in this controversy: That it is not necessary a\nman should himself have _discovered_ the truth he is to believe in, and\nnever so _sincerely_ to believe in. A Great Man, we said, was always\nsincere, as the first condition of him. But a man need not be great in\norder to be sincere; that is not the necessity of Nature and all Time,\nbut only of certain corrupt unfortunate epochs of Time. A man can\nbelieve, and make his own, in the most genuine way, what he has received\nfrom another;--and with boundless gratitude to that other! The merit of\n_originality_ is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the\noriginal man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not\nfor another. Every son of Adam can become a sincere man, an original\nman, in this sense; no mortal is doomed to be an insincere man. Whole\nages, what we call ages of Faith, are original; all men in them, or the\nmost of men in them, sincere. These are the great and fruitful ages:\nevery worker, in all spheres, is a worker not on semblance but on\nsubstance; every work issues in a result: the general sum of such work\nis great; for all of it, as genuine, tends towards one goal; all of\nit is _additive_, none of it subtractive. There is true union, true\nkingship, loyalty, all true and blessed things, so far as the poor Earth\ncan produce blessedness for men.\n\nHero-worship? Ah me, that a man be self-subsistent, original, true, or\nwhat we call it, is surely the farthest in the world from indisposing\nhim to reverence and believe other men's truth! It only disposes,\nnecessitates and invincibly compels him to disbelieve other men's dead\nformulas, hearsays and untruths. A man embraces truth with his eyes\nopen, and because his eyes are open: does he need to shut them before he\ncan love his Teacher of truth? He alone can love, with a right gratitude\nand genuine loyalty of soul, the Hero-Teacher who has delivered him\nout of darkness into light. Is not such a one a true Hero and\nSerpent-queller; worthy of all reverence! The black monster, Falsehood,\nour one enemy in this world, lies prostrate by his valor; it was he that\nconquered the world for us!--See, accordingly, was not Luther himself\nreverenced as a true Pope, or Spiritual Father, _being_ verily such?\nNapoleon, from amid boundless revolt of Sansculottism, became a King.\nHero-worship never dies, nor can die. Loyalty and Sovereignty are\neverlasting in the world:--and there is this in them, that they\nare grounded not on garnitures and semblances, but on realities and\nsincerities. Not by shutting your eyes, your \"private judgment;\" no, but\nby opening them, and by having something to see! Luther's message was\ndeposition and abolition to all false Popes and Potentates, but life and\nstrength, though afar off, to new genuine ones.\n\nAll this of Liberty and Equality, Electoral suffrages, Independence and\nso forth, we will take, therefore, to be a temporary phenomenon, by no\nmeans a final one. Though likely to last a long time, with sad enough\nembroilments for us all, we must welcome it, as the penalty of sins that\nare past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are coming. In all\nways, it behooved men to quit simulacra and return to fact; cost what it\nmight, that did behoove to be done. With spurious Popes, and Believers\nhaving no private judgment,--quacks pretending to command over\ndupes,--what can you do? Misery and mischief only. You cannot make an\nassociation out of insincere men; you cannot build an edifice except\nby plummet and level,--at right-angles to one another! In all this wild\nrevolutionary work, from Protestantism downwards, I see the blessedest\nresult preparing itself: not abolition of Hero-worship, but rather what\nI would call a whole World of Heroes. If Hero mean _sincere man_, why\nmay not every one of us be a Hero? A world all sincere, a believing\nworld: the like has been; the like will again be,--cannot help being.\nThat were the right sort of Worshippers for Heroes: never could the\ntruly Better be so reverenced as where all were True and Good!--But we\nmust hasten to Luther and his Life.\n\n\nLuther's birthplace was Eisleben in Saxony; he came into the world there\non the 10th of November, 1483. It was an accident that gave this honor\nto Eisleben. His parents, poor mine-laborers in a village of that\nregion, named Mohra, had gone to the Eisleben Winter-Fair: in the tumult\nof this scene the Frau Luther was taken with travail, found refuge in\nsome poor house there, and the boy she bore was named MARTIN LUTHER.\nStrange enough to reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she had gone\nwith her husband to make her small merchandisings; perhaps to sell the\nlock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy the small winter-necessaries\nfor her narrow hut or household; in the whole world, that day, there was\nnot a more entirely unimportant-looking pair of people than this Miner\nand his Wife. And yet what were all Emperors, Popes and Potentates, in\ncomparison? There was born here, once more, a Mighty Man; whose light\nwas to flame as the beacon over long centuries and epochs of the world;\nthe whole world and its history was waiting for this man. It is strange,\nit is great. It leads us back to another Birth-hour, in a still meaner\nenvironment, Eighteen Hundred years ago,--of which it is fit that we\n_say_ nothing, that we think only in silence; for what words are there!\nThe Age of Miracles past? The Age of Miracles is forever here--!\n\nI find it altogether suitable to Luther's function in this Earth, and\ndoubtless wisely ordered to that end by the Providence presiding over\nhim and us and all things, that he was born poor, and brought up poor,\none of the poorest of men. He had to beg, as the school-children\nin those times did; singing for alms and bread, from door to door.\nHardship, rigorous Necessity was the poor boy's companion; no man nor no\nthing would put on a false face to flatter Martin Luther. Among things,\nnot among the shows of things, had he to grow. A boy of rude figure, yet\nwith weak health, with his large greedy soul, full of all faculty and\nsensibility, he suffered greatly. But it was his task to get acquainted\nwith _realities_, and keep acquainted with them, at whatever cost: his\ntask was to bring the whole world back to reality, for it had dwelt too\nlong with semblance! A youth nursed up in wintry whirlwinds, in desolate\ndarkness and difficulty, that he may step forth at last from his stormy\nScandinavia, strong as a true man, as a god: a Christian Odin,--a right\nThor once more, with his thunder-hammer, to smite asunder ugly enough\n_Jotuns_ and Giant-monsters!\n\nPerhaps the turning incident of his life, we may fancy, was that death\nof his friend Alexis, by lightning, at the gate of Erfurt. Luther had\nstruggled up through boyhood, better and worse; displaying, in spite\nof all hindrances, the largest intellect, eager to learn: his father\njudging doubtless that he might promote himself in the world, set him\nupon the study of Law. This was the path to rise; Luther, with little\nwill in it either way, had consented: he was now nineteen years of age.\nAlexis and he had been to see the old Luther people at Mansfeldt; were\ngot back again near Erfurt, when a thunder-storm came on; the bolt\nstruck Alexis, he fell dead at Luther's feet. What is this Life\nof ours?--gone in a moment, burnt up like a scroll, into the blank\nEternity! What are all earthly preferments, Chancellorships, Kingships?\nThey lie shrunk together--there! The Earth has opened on them; in a\nmoment they are not, and Eternity is. Luther, struck to the heart,\ndetermined to devote himself to God and God's service alone. In spite\nof all dissuasions from his father and others, he became a Monk in the\nAugustine Convent at Erfurt.\n\nThis was probably the first light-point in the history of Luther, his\npurer will now first decisively uttering itself; but, for the present,\nit was still as one light-point in an element all of darkness. He says\nhe was a pious monk, _ich bin ein frommer Monch gewesen_; faithfully,\npainfully struggling to work out the truth of this high act of his; but\nit was to little purpose. His misery had not lessened; had rather, as it\nwere, increased into infinitude. The drudgeries he had to do, as novice\nin his Convent, all sorts of slave-work, were not his grievance:\nthe deep earnest soul of the man had fallen into all manner of black\nscruples, dubitations; he believed himself likely to die soon, and far\nworse than die. One hears with a new interest for poor Luther that, at\nthis time, he lived in terror of the unspeakable misery; fancied that he\nwas doomed to eternal reprobation. Was it not the humble sincere nature\nof the man? What was he, that he should be raised to Heaven! He that\nhad known only misery, and mean slavery: the news was too blessed to\nbe credible. It could not become clear to him how, by fasts, vigils,\nformalities and mass-work, a man's soul could be saved. He fell into\nthe blackest wretchedness; had to wander staggering as on the verge of\nbottomless Despair.\n\nIt must have been a most blessed discovery, that of an old Latin Bible\nwhich he found in the Erfurt Library about this time. He had never seen\nthe Book before. It taught him another lesson than that of fasts and\nvigils. A brother monk too, of pious experience, was helpful. Luther\nlearned now that a man was saved not by singing masses, but by the\ninfinite grace of God: a more credible hypothesis. He gradually got\nhimself founded, as on the rock. No wonder he should venerate the Bible,\nwhich had brought this blessed help to him. He prized it as the Word of\nthe Highest must be prized by such a man. He determined to hold by that;\nas through life and to death he firmly did.\n\nThis, then, is his deliverance from darkness, his final triumph over\ndarkness, what we call his conversion; for himself the most important of\nall epochs. That he should now grow daily in peace and clearness; that,\nunfolding now the great talents and virtues implanted in him, he should\nrise to importance in his Convent, in his country, and be found more and\nmore useful in all honest business of life, is a natural result. He was\nsent on missions by his Augustine Order, as a man of talent and fidelity\nfit to do their business well: the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich, named\nthe Wise, a truly wise and just prince, had cast his eye on him as a\nvaluable person; made him Professor in his new University of Wittenberg,\nPreacher too at Wittenberg; in both which capacities, as in all duties\nhe did, this Luther, in the peaceable sphere of common life, was gaining\nmore and more esteem with all good men.\n\nIt was in his twenty-seventh year that he first saw Rome; being sent\nthither, as I said, on mission from his Convent. Pope Julius the Second,\nand what was going on at Rome, must have filled the mind of Luther\nwith amazement. He had come as to the Sacred City, throne of God's\nHigh-priest on Earth; and he found it--what we know! Many thoughts it\nmust have given the man; many which we have no record of, which perhaps\nhe did not himself know how to utter. This Rome, this scene of false\npriests, clothed not in the beauty of holiness, but in far other\nvesture, is _false_: but what is it to Luther? A mean man he, how shall\nhe reform a world? That was far from his thoughts. A humble, solitary\nman, why should he at all meddle with the world? It was the task of\nquite higher men than he. His business was to guide his own footsteps\nwisely through the world. Let him do his own obscure duty in it well;\nthe rest, horrible and dismal as it looks, is in God's hand, not in his.\n\nIt is curious to reflect what might have been the issue, had Roman\nPopery happened to pass this Luther by; to go on in its great wasteful\norbit, and not come athwart his little path, and force him to assault\nit! Conceivable enough that, in this case, he might have held his peace\nabout the abuses of Rome; left Providence, and God on high, to deal with\nthem! A modest quiet man; not prompt he to attack irreverently persons\nin authority. His clear task, as I say, was to do his own duty; to\nwalk wisely in this world of confused wickedness, and save his own soul\nalive. But the Roman High-priesthood did come athwart him: afar off\nat Wittenberg he, Luther, could not get lived in honesty for it; he\nremonstrated, resisted, came to extremity; was struck at, struck again,\nand so it came to wager of battle between them! This is worth attending\nto in Luther's history. Perhaps no man of so humble, peaceable a\ndisposition ever filled the world with contention. We cannot but see\nthat he would have loved privacy, quiet diligence in the shade; that it\nwas against his will he ever became a notoriety. Notoriety: what would\nthat do for him? The goal of his march through this world was the\nInfinite Heaven; an indubitable goal for him: in a few years, he should\neither have attained that, or lost it forever! We will say nothing at\nall, I think, of that sorrowfulest of theories, of its being some mean\nshopkeeper grudge, of the Augustine Monk against the Dominican,\nthat first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced the Protestant\nReformation. We will say to the people who maintain it, if indeed any\nsuch exist now: Get first into the sphere of thought by which it is\nso much as possible to judge of Luther, or of any man like Luther,\notherwise than distractedly; we may then begin arguing with you.\n\nThe Monk Tetzel, sent out carelessly in the way of trade, by Leo\nTenth,--who merely wanted to raise a little money, and for the rest\nseems to have been a Pagan rather than a Christian, so far as he was\nanything,--arrived at Wittenberg, and drove his scandalous trade there.\nLuther's flock bought Indulgences; in the confessional of his Church,\npeople pleaded to him that they had already got their sins pardoned.\nLuther, if he would not be found wanting at his own post, a false\nsluggard and coward at the very centre of the little space of ground\nthat was his own and no other man's, had to step forth against\nIndulgences, and declare aloud that _they_ were a futility and sorrowful\nmockery, that no man's sins could be pardoned by _them_. It was the\nbeginning of the whole Reformation. We know how it went; forward from\nthis first public challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of October, 1517,\nthrough remonstrance and argument;--spreading ever wider, rising ever\nhigher; till it became unquenchable, and enveloped all the world.\nLuther's heart's desire was to have this grief and other griefs amended;\nhis thought was still far other than that of introducing separation in\nthe Church, or revolting against the Pope, Father of Christendom.--The\nelegant Pagan Pope cared little about this Monk and his doctrines;\nwished, however, to have done with the noise of him: in a space of some\nthree years, having tried various softer methods, he thought good to end\nit by _fire_. He dooms the Monk's writings to be burnt by the hangman,\nand his body to be sent bound to Rome,--probably for a similar purpose.\nIt was the way they had ended with Huss, with Jerome, the century\nbefore. A short argument, fire. Poor Huss: he came to that Constance\nCouncil, with all imaginable promises and safe-conducts; an earnest,\nnot rebellious kind of man: they laid him instantly in a stone dungeon\n\"three feet wide, six feet high, seven feet long;\" _burnt_ the true\nvoice of him out of this world; choked it in smoke and fire. That was\n_not_ well done!\n\nI, for one, pardon Luther for now altogether revolting against the Pope.\nThe elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had kindled into noble\njust wrath the bravest heart then living in this world. The bravest, if\nalso one of the humblest, peaceablest; it was now kindled. These words\nof mine, words of truth and soberness, aiming faithfully, as human\ninability would allow, to promote God's truth on Earth, and save men's\nsouls, you, God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the hangman and\nfire? You will burn me and them, for answer to the God's-message they\nstrove to bring you? You are not God's vicegerent; you are another's\nthan his, I think! I take your Bull, as an emparchmented Lie, and burn\n_it_. _You_ will do what you see good next: this is what I do.--It was\non the 10th of December, 1520, three years after the beginning of the\nbusiness, that Luther, \"with a great concourse of people,\" took this\nindignant step of burning the Pope's fire-decree \"at the Elster-Gate of\nWittenberg.\" Wittenberg looked on \"with shoutings;\" the whole world was\nlooking on. The Pope should not have provoked that \"shout\"! It was\nthe shout of the awakening of nations. The quiet German heart, modest,\npatient of much, had at length got more than it could bear. Formulism,\nPagan Popeism, and other Falsehood and corrupt Semblance had ruled long\nenough: and here once more was a man found who durst tell all men that\nGod's-world stood not on semblances but on realities; that Life was a\ntruth, and not a lie!\n\nAt bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther as a Prophet\nIdol-breaker; a bringer-back of men to reality. It is the function of\ngreat men and teachers. Mahomet said, These idols of yours are wood; you\nput wax and oil on them, the flies stick on them: they are not God, I\ntell you, they are black wood! Luther said to the Pope, This thing of\nyours that you call a Pardon of Sins, it is a bit of rag-paper with ink.\nIt is nothing else; it, and so much like it, is nothing else. God alone\ncan pardon sins. Popeship, spiritual Fatherhood of God's Church, is that\na vain semblance, of cloth and parchment? It is an awful fact. God's\nChurch is not a semblance, Heaven and Hell are not semblances. I stand\non this, since you drive me to it. Standing on this, I a poor German\nMonk am stronger than you all. I stand solitary, friendless, but on\nGod's Truth; you with your tiaras, triple-hats, with your treasuries and\narmories, thunders spiritual and temporal, stand on the Devil's Lie, and\nare not so strong--!\n\nThe Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April, 1521,\nmay be considered as the greatest scene in Modern European History; the\npoint, indeed, from which the whole subsequent history of civilization\ntakes its rise. After multiplied negotiations, disputations, it had\ncome to this. The young Emperor Charles Fifth, with all the Princes\nof Germany, Papal nuncios, dignitaries spiritual and temporal, are\nassembled there: Luther is to appear and answer for himself, whether he\nwill recant or not. The world's pomp and power sits there on this\nhand: on that, stands up for God's Truth, one man, the poor miner Hans\nLuther's Son. Friends had reminded him of Huss, advised him not to go;\nhe would not be advised. A large company of friends rode out to meet\nhim, with still more earnest warnings; he answered, \"Were there as many\nDevils in Worms as there are roof-tiles, I would on.\" The people, on\nthe morrow, as he went to the Hall of the Diet, crowded the windows and\nhouse-tops, some of them calling out to him, in solemn words, not to\nrecant: \"Whosoever denieth me before men!\" they cried to him,--as in\na kind of solemn petition and adjuration. Was it not in reality our\npetition too, the petition of the whole world, lying in dark bondage\nof soul, paralyzed under a black spectral Nightmare and triple-hatted\nChimera, calling itself Father in God, and what not: \"Free us; it rests\nwith thee; desert us not!\"\n\nLuther did not desert us. His speech, of two hours, distinguished itself\nby its respectful, wise and honest tone; submissive to whatsoever could\nlawfully claim submission, not submissive to any more than that. His\nwritings, he said, were partly his own, partly derived from the Word of\nGod. As to what was his own, human infirmity entered into it; unguarded\nanger, blindness, many things doubtless which it were a blessing for him\ncould he abolish altogether. But as to what stood on sound truth and\nthe Word of God, he could not recant it. How could he? \"Confute me,\" he\nconcluded, \"by proofs of Scripture, or else by plain just arguments: I\ncannot recant otherwise. For it is neither safe nor prudent to do aught\nagainst conscience. Here stand I; I can do no other: God assist me!\"--It\nis, as we say, the greatest moment in the Modern History of Men. English\nPuritanism, England and its Parliaments, Americas, and vast work these\ntwo centuries; French Revolution, Europe and its work everywhere at\npresent: the germ of it all lay there: had Luther in that moment done\nother, it had all been otherwise! The European World was asking him:\nAm I to sink ever lower into falsehood, stagnant putrescence, loathsome\naccursed death; or, with whatever paroxysm, to cast the falsehoods out\nof me, and be cured and live?--\n\n\nGreat wars, contentions and disunion followed out of this Reformation;\nwhich last down to our day, and are yet far from ended. Great talk and\ncrimination has been made about these. They are lamentable, undeniable;\nbut after all, what has Luther or his cause to do with them? It seems\nstrange reasoning to charge the Reformation with all this. When Hercules\nturned the purifying river into King Augeas's stables, I have no doubt\nthe confusion that resulted was considerable all around: but I think\nit was not Hercules's blame; it was some other's blame! The Reformation\nmight bring what results it liked when it came, but the Reformation\nsimply could not help coming. To all Popes and Popes' advocates,\nexpostulating, lamenting and accusing, the answer of the world is: Once\nfor all, your Popehood has become untrue. No matter how good it was, how\ngood you say it is, we cannot believe it; the light of our whole mind,\ngiven us to walk by from Heaven above, finds it henceforth a thing\nunbelievable. We will not believe it, we will not try to believe it,--we\ndare not! The thing is _untrue_; we were traitors against the Giver\nof all Truth, if we durst pretend to think it true. Away with it; let\nwhatsoever likes come in the place of it: with _it_ we can have no\nfarther trade!--Luther and his Protestantism is not responsible\nfor wars; the false Simulacra that forced him to protest, they are\nresponsible. Luther did what every man that God has made has not only\nthe right, but lies under the sacred duty, to do: answered a Falsehood\nwhen it questioned him, Dost thou believe me?--No!--At what cost soever,\nwithout counting of costs, this thing behooved to be done. Union,\norganization spiritual and material, a far nobler than any Popedom or\nFeudalism in their truest days, I never doubt, is coming for the world;\nsure to come. But on Fact alone, not on Semblance and Simulacrum, will\nit be able either to come, or to stand when come. With union grounded\non falsehood, and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have\nanything to do. Peace? A brutal lethargy is peaceable, the noisome grave\nis peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one!\n\nAnd yet, in prizing justly the indispensable blessings of the New, let\nus not be unjust to the Old. The Old was true, if it no longer is. In\nDante's days it needed no sophistry, self-blinding or other dishonesty,\nto get itself reckoned true. It was good then; nay there is in the soul\nof it a deathless good. The cry of \"No Popery\" is foolish enough in\nthese days. The speculation that Popery is on the increase, building new\nchapels and so forth, may pass for one of the idlest ever started. Very\ncurious: to count up a few Popish chapels, listen to a few Protestant\nlogic-choppings,--to much dull-droning drowsy inanity that still calls\nitself Protestant, and say: See, Protestantism is _dead_; Popeism is\nmore alive than it, will be alive after it!--Drowsy inanities, not a\nfew, that call themselves Protestant are dead; but _Protestantism_ has\nnot died yet, that I hear of! Protestantism, if we will look, has in\nthese days produced its Goethe, its Napoleon; German Literature and the\nFrench Revolution; rather considerable signs of life! Nay, at bottom,\nwhat else is alive _but_ Protestantism? The life of most else that one\nmeets is a galvanic one merely,--not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of\nlife!\n\nPopery can build new chapels; welcome to do so, to all lengths. Popery\ncannot come back, any more than Paganism can,--_which_ also still\nlingers in some countries. But, indeed, it is with these things, as with\nthe ebbing of the sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither, thither\non the beach; for _minutes_ you cannot tell how it is going; look in\nhalf an hour where it is,--look in half a century where your Popehood\nis! Alas, would there were no greater danger to our Europe than the poor\nold Pope's revival! Thor may as soon try to revive.--And withal this\noscillation has a meaning. The poor old Popehood will not die away\nentirely, as Thor has done, for some time yet; nor ought it. We may say,\nthe Old never dies till this happen, Till all the soul of good that was\nin it have got itself transfused into the practical New. While a good\nwork remains capable of being done by the Romish form; or, what is\ninclusive of all, while a pious _life_ remains capable of being led\nby it, just so long, if we consider, will this or the other human soul\nadopt it, go about as a living witness of it. So long it will obtrude\nitself on the eye of us who reject it, till we in our practice too have\nappropriated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then, but also not till\nthen, it will have no charm more for any man. It lasts here for a\npurpose. Let it last as long as it can.--\n\n\nOf Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars and bloodshed,\nthe noticeable fact that none of them began so long as he continued\nliving. The controversy did not get to fighting so long as he was there.\nTo me it is proof of his greatness in all senses, this fact. How seldom\ndo we find a man that has stirred up some vast commotion, who does\nnot himself perish, swept away in it! Such is the usual course of\nrevolutionists. Luther continued, in a good degree, sovereign of this\ngreatest revolution; all Protestants, of what rank or function soever,\nlooking much to him for guidance: and he held it peaceable, continued\nfirm at the centre of it. A man to do this must have a kingly faculty:\nhe must have the gift to discern at all turns where the true heart of\nthe matter lies, and to plant himself courageously on that, as a strong\ntrue man, that other true men may rally round him there. He will not\ncontinue leader of men otherwise. Luther's clear deep force of judgment,\nhis force of all sorts, of _silence_, of tolerance and moderation, among\nothers, are very notable in these circumstances.\n\nTolerance, I say; a very genuine kind of tolerance: he distinguishes\nwhat is essential, and what is not; the unessential may go very much as\nit will. A complaint comes to him that such and such a Reformed Preacher\n\"will not preach without a cassock.\" Well, answers Luther, what harm\nwill a cassock do the man? \"Let him have a cassock to preach in; let\nhim have three cassocks if he find benefit in them!\" His conduct in the\nmatter of Karlstadt's wild image-breaking; of the Anabaptists; of the\nPeasants' War, shows a noble strength, very different from spasmodic\nviolence. With sure prompt insight he discriminates what is what: a\nstrong just man, he speaks forth what is the wise course, and all men\nfollow him in that. Luther's Written Works give similar testimony of\nhim. The dialect of these speculations is now grown obsolete for us;\nbut one still reads them with a singular attraction. And indeed the mere\ngrammatical diction is still legible enough; Luther's merit in literary\nhistory is of the greatest: his dialect became the language of all\nwriting. They are not well written, these Four-and-twenty Quartos of\nhis; written hastily, with quite other than literary objects. But in no\nBooks have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble faculty of\na man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged\nsterling sense and strength. He dashes out illumination from him; his\nsmiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the\nmatter. Good humor too, nay tender affection, nobleness and depth: this\nman could have been a Poet too! He had to _work_ an Epic Poem, not\nwrite one. I call him a great Thinker; as indeed his greatness of heart\nalready betokens that.\n\nRichter says of Luther's words, \"His words are half-battles.\" They may\nbe called so. The essential quality of him was, that he could fight and\nconquer; that he was a right piece of human Valor. No more valiant man,\nno mortal heart to be called _braver_, that one has record of, ever\nlived in that Teutonic Kindred, whose character is valor. His defiance\nof the \"Devils\" in Worms was not a mere boast, as the like might be if\nnow spoken. It was a faith of Luther's that there were Devils, spiritual\ndenizens of the Pit, continually besetting men. Many times, in his\nwritings, this turns up; and a most small sneer has been grounded on it\nby some. In the room of the Wartburg where he sat translating the Bible,\nthey still show you a black spot on the wall; the strange memorial of\none of these conflicts. Luther sat translating one of the Psalms; he was\nworn down with long labor, with sickness, abstinence from food: there\nrose before him some hideous indefinable Image, which he took for the\nEvil One, to forbid his work: Luther started up, with fiend-defiance;\nflung his inkstand at the spectre, and it disappeared! The spot still\nremains there; a curious monument of several things. Any apothecary's\napprentice can now tell us what we are to think of this apparition, in\na scientific sense: but the man's heart that dare rise defiant, face to\nface, against Hell itself, can give no higher proof of fearlessness.\nThe thing he will quail before exists not on this Earth or under\nit.--Fearless enough! \"The Devil is aware,\" writes he on one occasion,\n\"that this does not proceed out of fear in me. I have seen and defied\ninnumerable Devils. Duke George,\" of Leipzig, a great enemy of his,\n\"Duke George is not equal to one Devil,\"--far short of a Devil! \"If I\nhad business at Leipzig, I would ride into Leipzig, though it rained\nDuke Georges for nine days running.\" What a reservoir of Dukes to ride\ninto--!\n\nAt the same time, they err greatly who imagine that this man's courage\nwas ferocity, mere coarse disobedient obstinacy and savagery, as many\ndo. Far from that. There may be an absence of fear which arises from the\nabsence of thought or affection, from the presence of hatred and stupid\nfury. We do not value the courage of the tiger highly! With Luther it\nwas far otherwise; no accusation could be more unjust than this of mere\nferocious violence brought against him. A most gentle heart withal, full\nof pity and love, as indeed the truly valiant heart ever is. The tiger\nbefore a _stronger_ foe--flies: the tiger is not what we call valiant,\nonly fierce and cruel. I know few things more touching than those soft\nbreathings of affection, soft as a child's or a mother's, in this great\nwild heart of Luther. So honest, unadulterated with any cant; homely,\nrude in their utterance; pure as water welling from the rock. What, in\nfact, was all that down-pressed mood of despair and reprobation,\nwhich we saw in his youth, but the outcome of pre-eminent thoughtful\ngentleness, affections too keen and fine? It is the course such men as\nthe poor Poet Cowper fall into. Luther to a slight observer might have\nseemed a timid, weak man; modesty, affectionate shrinking tenderness the\nchief distinction of him. It is a noble valor which is roused in a heart\nlike this, once stirred up into defiance, all kindled into a heavenly\nblaze.\n\nIn Luther's _Table-Talk_, a posthumous Book of anecdotes and sayings\ncollected by his friends, the most interesting now of all the Books\nproceeding from him, we have many beautiful unconscious displays of the\nman, and what sort of nature he had. His behavior at the death-bed of\nhis little Daughter, so still, so great and loving, is among the most\naffecting things. He is resigned that his little Magdalene should die,\nyet longs inexpressibly that she might live;--follows, in awe-struck\nthought, the flight of her little soul through those unknown realms.\nAwe-struck; most heartfelt, we can see; and sincere,--for after all\ndogmatic creeds and articles, he feels what nothing it is that we know,\nor can know: His little Magdalene shall be with God, as God wills; for\nLuther too that is all; _Islam_ is all.\n\nOnce, he looks out from his solitary Patmos, the Castle of Coburg, in\nthe middle of the night: The great vault of Immensity, long flights of\nclouds sailing through it,--dumb, gaunt, huge:--who supports all that?\n\"None ever saw the pillars of it; yet it is supported.\" God supports it.\nWe must know that God is great, that God is good; and trust, where\nwe cannot see.--Returning home from Leipzig once, he is struck by the\nbeauty of the harvest-fields: How it stands, that golden yellow corn,\non its fair taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving\nthere,--the meek Earth, at God's kind bidding, has produced it once\nagain; the bread of man!--In the garden at Wittenberg one evening at\nsunset, a little bird has perched for the night: That little bird, says\nLuther, above it are the stars and deep Heaven of worlds; yet it has\nfolded its little wings; gone trustfully to rest there as in its home:\nthe Maker of it has given it too a home!--Neither are mirthful turns\nwanting: there is a great free human heart in this man. The common\nspeech of him has a rugged nobleness, idiomatic, expressive, genuine;\ngleams here and there with beautiful poetic tints. One feels him to be\na great brother man. His love of Music, indeed, is not this, as it were,\nthe summary of all these affections in him? Many a wild unutterability\nhe spoke forth from him in the tones of his flute. The Devils fled from\nhis flute, he says. Death-defiance on the one hand, and such love of\nmusic on the other; I could call these the two opposite poles of a great\nsoul; between these two all great things had room.\n\nLuther's face is to me expressive of him; in Kranach's best portraits\nI find the true Luther. A rude plebeian face; with its huge crag-like\nbrows and bones, the emblem of rugged energy; at first, almost a\nrepulsive face. Yet in the eyes especially there is a wild silent\nsorrow; an unnamable melancholy, the element of all gentle and fine\naffections; giving to the rest the true stamp of nobleness. Laughter was\nin this Luther, as we said; but tears also were there. Tears also were\nappointed him; tears and hard toil. The basis of his life was Sadness,\nEarnestness. In his latter days, after all triumphs and victories, he\nexpresses himself heartily weary of living; he considers that God alone\ncan and will regulate the course things are taking, and that perhaps the\nDay of Judgment is not far. As for him, he longs for one thing: that\nGod would release him from his labor, and let him depart and be at rest.\nThey understand little of the man who cite this in discredit of him!--I\nwill call this Luther a true Great Man; great in intellect, in courage,\naffection and integrity; one of our most lovable and precious men.\nGreat, not as a hewn obelisk; but as an Alpine mountain,--so simple,\nhonest, spontaneous, not setting up to be great at all; there for quite\nanother purpose than being great! Ah yes, unsubduable granite, piercing\nfar and wide into the Heavens; yet in the clefts of it fountains, green\nbeautiful valleys with flowers! A right Spiritual Hero and Prophet; once\nmore, a true Son of Nature and Fact, for whom these centuries, and many\nthat are to come yet, will be thankful to Heaven.\n\n\nThe most interesting phasis which the Reformation anywhere assumes,\nespecially for us English, is that of Puritanism. In Luther's own\ncountry Protestantism soon dwindled into a rather barren affair: not a\nreligion or faith, but rather now a theological jangling of argument,\nthe proper seat of it not the heart; the essence of it sceptical\ncontention: which indeed has jangled more and more, down to\nVoltaireism itself,--through Gustavus-Adolphus contentions onwards to\nFrench-Revolution ones! But in our Island there arose a Puritanism,\nwhich even got itself established as a Presbyterianism and National\nChurch among the Scotch; which came forth as a real business of the\nheart; and has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some senses,\none may say it is the only phasis of Protestantism that ever got to the\nrank of being a Faith, a true heart-communication with Heaven, and of\nexhibiting itself in History as such. We must spare a few words for\nKnox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but still more important as\nChief Priest and Founder, which one may consider him to be, of the Faith\nthat became Scotland's, New England's, Oliver Cromwell's. History will\nhave something to say about this, for some time to come!\n\nWe may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I suppose,\nbut would find it a very rough defective thing. But we, and all men, may\nunderstand that it was a genuine thing; for Nature has adopted it,\nand it has grown, and grows. I say sometimes, that all goes by\nwager-of-battle in this world; that _strength_, well understood, is\nthe measure of all worth. Give a thing time; if it can succeed, it is a\nright thing. Look now at American Saxondom; and at that little Fact of\nthe sailing of the Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven in\nHolland! Were we of open sense as the Greeks were, we had found a Poem\nhere; one of Nature's own Poems, such as she writes in broad facts over\ngreat continents. For it was properly the beginning of America: there\nwere straggling settlers in America before, some material as of a body\nwas there; but the soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven\nout of their own country, not able well to live in Holland, determine\non settling in the New World. Black untamed forests are there, and wild\nsavage creatures; but not so cruel as Star-chamber hangmen. They\nthought the Earth would yield them food, if they tilled honestly; the\neverlasting heaven would stretch, there too, overhead; they should be\nleft in peace, to prepare for Eternity by living well in this world of\nTime; worshipping in what they thought the true, not the idolatrous way.\nThey clubbed their small means together; hired a ship, the little ship\nMayflower, and made ready to set sail.\n\nIn Neal's _History of the Puritans_ [Neal (London, 1755), i. 490] is an\naccount of the ceremony of their departure: solemnity, we might call it\nrather, for it was a real act of worship. Their minister went down with\nthem to the beach, and their brethren whom they were to leave behind;\nall joined in solemn prayer, That God would have pity on His poor\nchildren, and go with them into that waste wilderness, for He also had\nmade that, He was there also as well as here.--Hah! These men, I think,\nhad a work! The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong one day,\nif it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, laughable then;\nbut nobody can manage to laugh at it now. Puritanism has got weapons and\nsinews; it has firearms, war-navies; it has cunning in its ten fingers,\nstrength in its right arm; it can steer ships, fell forests, remove\nmountains;--it is one of the strongest things under this sun at present!\n\nIn the history of Scotland, too, I can find properly but one epoch:\nwe may say, it contains nothing of world-interest at all but this\nReformation by Knox. A poor barren country, full of continual broils,\ndissensions, massacrings; a people in the last state of rudeness and\ndestitution; little better perhaps than Ireland at this day. Hungry\nfierce barons, not so much as able to form any arrangement with each\nother _how to divide_ what they fleeced from these poor drudges; but\nobliged, as the Colombian Republics are at this day, to make of every\nalteration a revolution; no way of changing a ministry but by hanging\nthe old ministers on gibbets: this is a historical spectacle of no very\nsingular significance! \"Bravery\" enough, I doubt not; fierce fighting in\nabundance: but not braver or fiercer than that of their old Scandinavian\nSea-king ancestors; _whose_ exploits we have not found worth dwelling\non! It is a country as yet without a soul: nothing developed in it but\nwhat is rude, external, semi-animal. And now at the Reformation, the\ninternal life is kindled, as it were, under the ribs of this outward\nmaterial death. A cause, the noblest of causes kindles itself, like a\nbeacon set on high; high as Heaven, yet attainable from Earth;--whereby\nthe meanest man becomes not a Citizen only, but a Member of Christ's\nvisible Church; a veritable Hero, if he prove a true man!\n\nWell; this is what I mean by a whole \"nation of heroes;\" a _believing_\nnation. There needs not a great soul to make a hero; there needs a\ngod-created soul which will be true to its origin; that will be a great\nsoul! The like has been seen, we find. The like will be again seen,\nunder wider forms than the Presbyterian: there can be no lasting good\ndone till then.--Impossible! say some. Possible? Has it not _been_, in\nthis world, as a practiced fact? Did Hero-worship fail in Knox's case?\nOr are we made of other clay now? Did the Westminster Confession of\nFaith add some new property to the soul of man? God made the soul\nof man. He did not doom any soul of man to live as a Hypothesis and\nHearsay, in a world filled with such, and with the fatal work and fruit\nof such--!\n\nBut to return: This that Knox did for his Nation, I say, we may really\ncall a resurrection as from death. It was not a smooth business; but it\nwas welcome surely, and cheap at that price, had it been far rougher. On\nthe whole, cheap at any price!--as life is. The people began to _live_:\nthey needed first of all to do that, at what cost and costs soever.\nScotch Literature and Thought, Scotch Industry; James Watt, David Hume,\nWalter Scott, Robert Burns: I find Knox and the Reformation acting in\nthe heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena; I find\nthat without the Reformation they would not have been. Or what of\nScotland? The Puritanism of Scotland became that of England, of\nNew England. A tumult in the High Church of Edinburgh spread into a\nuniversal battle and struggle over all these realms;--there came\nout, after fifty years' struggling, what we all call the \"_Glorious_\nRevolution\" a _Habeas Corpus_ Act, Free Parliaments, and much\nelse!--Alas, is it not too true what we said, That many men in the van\ndo always, like Russian soldiers, march into the ditch of Schweidnitz,\nand fill it up with their dead bodies, that the rear may pass over them\ndry-shod, and gain the honor? How many earnest rugged Cromwells, Knoxes,\npoor Peasant Covenanters, wrestling, battling for very life, in rough\nmiry places, have to struggle, and suffer, and fall, greatly censured,\n_bemired_,--before a beautiful Revolution of Eighty-eight can step\nover them in official pumps and silk-stockings, with universal\nthree-times-three!\n\nIt seems to me hard measure that this Scottish man, now after three\nhundred years, should have to plead like a culprit before the world;\nintrinsically for having been, in such way as it was then possible to\nbe, the bravest of all Scotchmen! Had he been a poor Half-and-half, he\ncould have crouched into the corner, like so many others; Scotland\nhad not been delivered; and Knox had been without blame. He is the one\nScotchman to whom, of all others, his country and the world owe a debt.\nHe has to plead that Scotland would forgive him for having been worth to\nit any million \"unblamable\" Scotchmen that need no forgiveness! He bared\nhis breast to the battle; had to row in French galleys, wander forlorn\nin exile, in clouds and storms; was censured, shot at through his\nwindows; had a right sore fighting life: if this world were his place of\nrecompense, he had made but a bad venture of it. I cannot apologize for\nKnox. To him it is very indifferent, these two hundred and fifty years\nor more, what men say of him. But we, having got above all those details\nof his battle, and living now in clearness on the fruits of his victory,\nwe, for our own sake, ought to look through the rumors and controversies\nenveloping the man, into the man himself.\n\nFor one thing, I will remark that this post of Prophet to his Nation was\nnot of his seeking; Knox had lived forty years quietly obscure, before\nhe became conspicuous. He was the son of poor parents; had got a college\neducation; become a Priest; adopted the Reformation, and seemed well\ncontent to guide his own steps by the light of it, nowise unduly\nintruding it on others. He had lived as Tutor in gentlemen's families;\npreaching when any body of persons wished to hear his doctrine: resolute\nhe to walk by the truth, and speak the truth when called to do it;\nnot ambitious of more; not fancying himself capable of more. In this\nentirely obscure way he had reached the age of forty; was with the small\nbody of Reformers who were standing siege in St. Andrew's Castle,--when\none day in their chapel, the Preacher after finishing his exhortation to\nthese fighters in the forlorn hope, said suddenly, That there ought to\nbe other speakers, that all men who had a priest's heart and gift in\nthem ought now to speak;--which gifts and heart one of their own number,\nJohn Knox the name of him, had: Had he not? said the Preacher, appealing\nto all the audience: what then is _his_ duty? The people answered\naffirmatively; it was a criminal forsaking of his post, if such a man\nheld the word that was in him silent. Poor Knox was obliged to stand\nup; he attempted to reply; he could say no word;--burst into a flood\nof tears, and ran out. It is worth remembering, that scene. He was in\ngrievous trouble for some days. He felt what a small faculty was his\nfor this great work. He felt what a baptism he was called to be baptized\nwithal. He \"burst into tears.\"\n\nOur primary characteristic of a Hero, that he is sincere, applies\nemphatically to Knox. It is not denied anywhere that this, whatever\nmight be his other qualities or faults, is among the truest of men. With\na singular instinct he holds to the truth and fact; the truth alone is\nthere for him, the rest a mere shadow and deceptive nonentity. However\nfeeble, forlorn the reality may seem, on that and that only _can_ he\ntake his stand. In the Galleys of the River Loire, whither Knox and the\nothers, after their Castle of St. Andrew's was taken, had been sent as\nGalley-slaves,--some officer or priest, one day, presented them an Image\nof the Virgin Mother, requiring that they, the blasphemous heretics,\nshould do it reverence. Mother? Mother of God? said Knox, when the turn\ncame to him: This is no Mother of God: this is \"_a pented bredd_,\"--_a_\npiece of wood, I tell you, with paint on it! She is fitter for swimming,\nI think, than for being worshipped, added Knox; and flung the thing\ninto the river. It was not very cheap jesting there: but come of it what\nmight, this thing to Knox was and must continue nothing other than the\nreal truth; it was a _pented bredd_: worship it he would not.\n\nHe told his fellow-prisoners, in this darkest time, to be of courage;\nthe Cause they had was the true one, and must and would prosper; the\nwhole world could not put it down. Reality is of God's making; it is\nalone strong. How many _pented bredds_, pretending to be real, are\nfitter to swim than to be worshipped!--This Knox cannot live but by\nfact: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff. He is\nan instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic: it\nis the grand gift he has. We find in Knox a good honest intellectual\ntalent, no transcendent one;--a narrow, inconsiderable man, as compared\nwith Luther: but in heartfelt instinctive adherence to truth, in\n_sincerity_, as we say, he has no superior; nay, one might ask, What\nequal he has? The heart of him is of the true Prophet cast. \"He lies\nthere,\" said the Earl of Morton at his grave, \"who never feared the\nface of man.\" He resembles, more than any of the moderns, an Old-Hebrew\nProphet. The same inflexibility, intolerance, rigid narrow-looking\nadherence to God's truth, stern rebuke in the name of God to all that\nforsake truth: an Old-Hebrew Prophet in the guise of an Edinburgh\nMinister of the Sixteenth Century. We are to take him for that; not\nrequire him to be other.\n\nKnox's conduct to Queen Mary, the harsh visits he used to make in her\nown palace, to reprove her there, have been much commented upon. Such\ncruelty, such coarseness fills us with indignation. On reading the\nactual narrative of the business, what Knox said, and what Knox meant,\nI must say one's tragic feeling is rather disappointed. They are not\nso coarse, these speeches; they seem to me about as fine as the\ncircumstances would permit! Knox was not there to do the courtier; he\ncame on another errand. Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with\nthe Queen, thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian priest to a\ndelicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence of them altogether.\nIt was unfortunately not possible to be polite with the Queen of\nScotland, unless one proved untrue to the Nation and Cause of Scotland.\nA man who did not wish to see the land of his birth made a hunting-field\nfor intriguing ambitious Guises, and the Cause of God trampled underfoot\nof Falsehoods, Formulas and the Devil's Cause, had no method of making\nhimself agreeable! \"Better that women weep,\" said Morton, \"than\nthat bearded men be forced to weep.\" Knox was the constitutional\nopposition-party in Scotland: the Nobles of the country, called by their\nstation to take that post, were not found in it; Knox had to go, or no\none. The hapless Queen;--but the still more hapless Country, if _she_\nwere made happy! Mary herself was not without sharpness enough, among\nher other qualities: \"Who are you,\" said she once, \"that presume to\nschool the nobles and sovereign of this realm?\"--\"Madam, a subject born\nwithin the same,\" answered he. Reasonably answered! If the \"subject\"\nhave truth to speak, it is not the \"subject's\" footing that will fail\nhim here.--\n\nWe blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good that each of\nus be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after all the talk there\nis and has been about it, what is tolerance? Tolerance has to tolerate\nthe unessential; and to see well what that is. Tolerance has to be\nnoble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can tolerate no longer.\nBut, on the whole, we are not altogether here to tolerate! We are\nhere to resist, to control and vanquish withal. We do not \"tolerate\"\nFalsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on us; we say to\nthem, Thou art false, thou art not tolerable! We are here to extinguish\nFalsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise way! I will not quarrel\nso much with the way; the doing of the thing is our great concern. In\nthis sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.\n\nA man sent to row in French Galleys, and such like, for teaching the\nTruth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humor! I am not\nprepared to say that Knox had a soft temper; nor do I know that he had\nwhat we call an ill temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not. Kind\nhonest affections dwelt in the much-enduring, hard-worn, ever-battling\nman. That he _could_ rebuke Queens, and had such weight among those\nproud turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they were; and could\nmaintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and Sovereignty in that\nwild realm, he who was only \"a subject born within the same:\" this of\nitself will prove to us that he was found, close at hand, to be no mean\nacrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong, sagacious man. Such alone\ncan bear rule in that kind. They blame him for pulling down cathedrals,\nand so forth, as if he were a seditious rioting demagogue: precisely the\nreverse is seen to be the fact, in regard to cathedrals and the rest\nof it, if we examine! Knox wanted no pulling down of stone edifices; he\nwanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men. Tumult\nwas not his element; it was the tragic feature of his life that he was\nforced to dwell so much in that. Every such man is the born enemy of\nDisorder; hates to be in it: but what then? Smooth Falsehood is not\nOrder; it is the general sum-total of Disorder. Order is _Truth_,--each\nthing standing on the basis that belongs to it: Order and Falsehood\ncannot subsist together.\n\nWithal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of drollery in him;\nwhich I like much, in combination with his other qualities. He has a\ntrue eye for the ridiculous. His _History_, with its rough earnestness,\nis curiously enlivened with this. When the two Prelates, entering\nGlasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly up, take\nto hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and at last\nflourishing their crosiers like quarter-staves, it is a great sight for\nhim every way! Not mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though there is\nenough of that too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh mounts up\nover the earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a laugh in\nthe _eyes_ most of all. An honest-hearted, brotherly man; brother to the\nhigh, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy with both. He had\nhis pipe of Bourdeaux too, we find, in that old Edinburgh house of his;\na cheery social man, with faces that loved him! They go far wrong who\nthink this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. Not at all:\nhe is one of the solidest of men. Practical, cautious-hopeful, patient;\na most shrewd, observing, quietly discerning man. In fact, he has very\nmuch the type of character we assign to the Scotch at present: a certain\nsardonic taciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a stouter heart than\nhe himself knows of. He has the power of holding his peace over many\nthings which do not vitally concern him,--\"They? what are they?\" But the\nthing which does vitally concern him, that thing he will speak of; and\nin a tone the whole world shall be made to hear: all the more emphatic\nfor his long silence.\n\nThis Prophet of the Scotch is to me no hateful man!--He had a sore fight\nof an existence; wrestling with Popes and Principalities; in defeat,\ncontention, life-long struggle; rowing as a galley-slave, wandering as\nan exile. A sore fight: but he won it. \"Have you hope?\" they asked him\nin his last moment, when he could no longer speak. He lifted his finger,\n\"pointed upwards with his finger,\" and so died. Honor to him! His works\nhave not died. The letter of his work dies, as of all men's; but the\nspirit of it never.\n\nOne word more as to the letter of Knox's work. The unforgivable offence\nin him is, that he wished to set up Priests over the head of Kings. In\nother words, he strove to make the Government of Scotland a _Theocracy_.\nThis indeed is properly the sum of his offences, the essential sin;\nfor which what pardon can there be? It is most true, he did, at bottom,\nconsciously or unconsciously, mean a Theocracy, or Government of God. He\ndid mean that Kings and Prime Ministers, and all manner of persons, in\npublic or private, diplomatizing or whatever else they might be doing,\nshould walk according to the Gospel of Christ, and understand that this\nwas their Law, supreme over all laws. He hoped once to see such a thing\nrealized; and the Petition, _Thy Kingdom come_, no longer an empty word.\nHe was sore grieved when he saw greedy worldly Barons clutch hold of\nthe Church's property; when he expostulated that it was not secular\nproperty, that it was spiritual property, and should be turned to _true_\nchurchly uses, education, schools, worship;--and the Regent Murray had\nto answer, with a shrug of the shoulders, \"It is a devout imagination!\"\nThis was Knox's scheme of right and truth; this he zealously endeavored\nafter, to realize it. If we think his scheme of truth was too narrow,\nwas not true, we may rejoice that he could not realize it; that it\nremained after two centuries of effort, unrealizable, and is a \"devout\nimagination\" still. But how shall we blame _him_ for struggling to\nrealize it? Theocracy, Government of God, is precisely the thing to\nbe struggled for! All Prophets, zealous Priests, are there for that\npurpose. Hildebrand wished a Theocracy; Cromwell wished it, fought for\nit; Mahomet attained it. Nay, is it not what all zealous men, whether\ncalled Priests, Prophets, or whatsoever else called, do essentially\nwish, and must wish? That right and truth, or God's Law, reign supreme\namong men, this is the Heavenly Ideal (well named in Knox's time,\nand namable in all times, a revealed \"Will of God\") towards which the\nReformer will insist that all be more and more approximated. All true\nReformers, as I said, are by the nature of them Priests, and strive for\na Theocracy.\n\nHow far such Ideals can ever be introduced into Practice, and at what\npoint our impatience with their non-introduction ought to begin,\nis always a question. I think we may say safely, Let them introduce\nthemselves as far as they can contrive to do it! If they are the true\nfaith of men, all men ought to be more or less impatient always where\nthey are not found introduced. There will never be wanting Regent\nMurrays enough to shrug their shoulders, and say, \"A devout\nimagination!\" We will praise the Hero-priest rather, who does what is in\nhim to bring them in; and wears out, in toil, calumny, contradiction,\na noble life, to make a God's Kingdom of this Earth. The Earth will not\nbecome too godlike!\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V. THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS. JOHNSON, ROUSSEAU, BURNS.\n\n[May 19, 1840.]\n\nHero-Gods, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of Heroism that belong to\nthe old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of\nthem have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show\nthemselves in this world. The Hero as _Man of Letters_, again, of which\nclass we are to speak to-day, is altogether a product of these new ages;\nand so long as the wondrous art of _Writing_, or of Ready-writing which\nwe call _Printing_, subsists, he may be expected to continue, as one\nof the main forms of Heroism for all future ages. He is, in various\nrespects, a very singular phenomenon.\n\nHe is new, I say; he has hardly lasted above a century in the world yet.\nNever, till about a hundred years ago, was there seen any figure of a\nGreat Soul living apart in that anomalous manner; endeavoring to speak\nforth the inspiration that was in him by Printed Books, and find place\nand subsistence by what the world would please to give him for doing\nthat. Much had been sold and bought, and left to make its own bargain\nin the market-place; but the inspired wisdom of a Heroic Soul never till\nthen, in that naked manner. He, with his copy-rights and copy-wrongs,\nin his squalid garret, in his rusty coat; ruling (for this is what he\ndoes), from his grave, after death, whole nations and generations who\nwould, or would not, give him bread while living,--is a rather curious\nspectacle! Few shapes of Heroism can be more unexpected.\n\nAlas, the Hero from of old has had to cramp himself into strange shapes:\nthe world knows not well at any time what to do with him, so foreign is\nhis aspect in the world! It seemed absurd to us, that men, in their rude\nadmiration, should take some wise great Odin for a god, and worship him\nas such; some wise great Mahomet for one god-inspired, and religiously\nfollow his Law for twelve centuries: but that a wise great Johnson, a\nBurns, a Rousseau, should be taken for some idle nondescript, extant in\nthe world to amuse idleness, and have a few coins and applauses thrown\nhim, that he might live thereby; _this_ perhaps, as before hinted, will\none day seem a still absurder phasis of things!--Meanwhile, since it\nis the spiritual always that determines the material, this same\nMan-of-Letters Hero must be regarded as our most important modern\nperson. He, such as he may be, is the soul of all. What he teaches, the\nwhole world will do and make. The world's manner of dealing with him is\nthe most significant feature of the world's general position. Looking\nwell at his life, we may get a glance, as deep as is readily possible\nfor us, into the life of those singular centuries which have produced\nhim, in which we ourselves live and work.\n\nThere are genuine Men of Letters, and not genuine; as in every kind\nthere is a genuine and a spurious. If _hero_ be taken to mean genuine,\nthen I say the Hero as Man of Letters will be found discharging a\nfunction for us which is ever honorable, ever the highest; and was once\nwell known to be the highest. He is uttering forth, in such way as he\nhas, the inspired soul of him; all that a man, in any case, can do. I\nsay _inspired_; for what we call \"originality,\" \"sincerity,\" \"genius,\"\nthe heroic quality we have no good name for, signifies that. The Hero\nis he who lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine\nand Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the Temporary,\nTrivial: his being is in that; he declares that abroad, by act or speech\nas it may be in declaring himself abroad. His life, as we said before,\nis a piece of the everlasting heart of Nature herself: all men's life\nis,--but the weak many know not the fact, and are untrue to it, in most\ntimes; the strong few are strong, heroic, perennial, because it cannot\nbe hidden from them. The Man of Letters, like every Hero, is there\nto proclaim this in such sort as he can. Intrinsically it is the same\nfunction which the old generations named a man Prophet, Priest, Divinity\nfor doing; which all manner of Heroes, by speech or by act, are sent\ninto the world to do.\n\nFichte the German Philosopher delivered, some forty years ago at\nErlangen, a highly remarkable Course of Lectures on this subject:\n\"_Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten_, On the Nature of the Literary Man.\"\nFichte, in conformity with the Transcendental Philosophy, of which he\nwas a distinguished teacher, declares first: That all things which we\nsee or work with in this Earth, especially we ourselves and all persons,\nare as a kind of vesture or sensuous Appearance: that under all there\nlies, as the essence of them, what he calls the \"Divine Idea of\nthe World;\" this is the Reality which \"lies at the bottom of all\nAppearance.\" To the mass of men no such Divine Idea is recognizable in\nthe world; they live merely, says Fichte, among the superficialities,\npracticalities and shows of the world, not dreaming that there is\nanything divine under them. But the Man of Letters is sent hither\nspecially that he may discern for himself, and make manifest to us, this\nsame Divine Idea: in every new generation it will manifest itself in\na new dialect; and he is there for the purpose of doing that. Such is\nFichte's phraseology; with which we need not quarrel. It is his way of\nnaming what I here, by other words, am striving imperfectly to\nname; what there is at present no name for: The unspeakable Divine\nSignificance, full of splendor, of wonder and terror, that lies in the\nbeing of every man, of every thing,--the Presence of the God who made\nevery man and thing. Mahomet taught this in his dialect; Odin in his: it\nis the thing which all thinking hearts, in one dialect or another, are\nhere to teach.\n\nFichte calls the Man of Letters, therefore, a Prophet, or as he prefers\nto phrase it, a Priest, continually unfolding the Godlike to men: Men\nof Letters are a perpetual Priesthood, from age to age, teaching all\nmen that a God is still present in their life, that all \"Appearance,\"\nwhatsoever we see in the world, is but as a vesture for the \"Divine Idea\nof the World,\" for \"that which lies at the bottom of Appearance.\" In the\ntrue Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world,\na sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest;--guiding\nit, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the\nwaste of Time. Fichte discriminates with sharp zeal the _true_ Literary\nMan, what we here call the _Hero_ as Man of Letters, from multitudes of\nfalse unheroic. Whoever lives not wholly in this Divine Idea, or living\npartially in it, struggles not, as for the one good, to live wholly\nin it,--he is, let him live where else he like, in what pomps and\nprosperities he like, no Literary Man; he is, says Fichte, a \"Bungler,\n_Stumper_.\" Or at best, if he belong to the prosaic provinces, he may\nbe a \"Hodman;\" Fichte even calls him elsewhere a \"Nonentity,\" and has\nin short no mercy for him, no wish that _he_ should continue happy among\nus! This is Fichte's notion of the Man of Letters. It means, in its own\nform, precisely what we here mean.\n\nIn this point of view, I consider that, for the last hundred years, by\nfar the notablest of all Literary Men is Fichte's countryman, Goethe. To\nthat man too, in a strange way, there was given what we may call a life\nin the Divine Idea of the World; vision of the inward divine mystery:\nand strangely, out of his Books, the world rises imaged once more as\ngodlike, the workmanship and temple of a God. Illuminated all, not\nin fierce impure fire-splendor as of Mahomet, but in mild celestial\nradiance;--really a Prophecy in these most unprophetic times; to my\nmind, by far the greatest, though one of the quietest, among all the\ngreat things that have come to pass in them. Our chosen specimen of the\nHero as Literary Man would be this Goethe. And it were a very pleasant\nplan for me here to discourse of his heroism: for I consider him to be\na true Hero; heroic in what he said and did, and perhaps still more in\nwhat he did not say and did not do; to me a noble spectacle: a great\nheroic ancient man, speaking and keeping silence as an ancient Hero, in\nthe guise of a most modern, high-bred, high-cultivated Man of Letters!\nWe have had no such spectacle; no man capable of affording such, for the\nlast hundred and fifty years.\n\nBut at present, such is the general state of knowledge about Goethe, it\nwere worse than useless to attempt speaking of him in this case.\nSpeak as I might, Goethe, to the great majority of you, would remain\nproblematic, vague; no impression but a false one could be realized.\nHim we must leave to future times. Johnson, Burns, Rousseau, three great\nfigures from a prior time, from a far inferior state of circumstances,\nwill suit us better here. Three men of the Eighteenth Century; the\nconditions of their life far more resemble what those of ours still are\nin England, than what Goethe's in Germany were. Alas, these men did not\nconquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell. They were not heroic\nbringers of the light, but heroic seekers of it. They lived under\ngalling conditions; struggling as under mountains of impediment, and\ncould not unfold themselves into clearness, or victorious interpretation\nof that \"Divine Idea.\" It is rather the _Tombs_ of three Literary Heroes\nthat I have to show you. There are the monumental heaps, under which\nthree spiritual giants lie buried. Very mournful, but also great and\nfull of interest for us. We will linger by them for a while.\n\n\nComplaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the\ndisorganized condition of society: how ill many forces of society fulfil\ntheir work; how many powerful are seen working in a wasteful, chaotic,\naltogether unarranged manner. It is too just a complaint, as we all\nknow. But perhaps if we look at this of Books and the Writers of\nBooks, we shall find here, as it were, the summary of all other\ndisorganizations;--a sort of _heart_, from which, and to which all other\nconfusion circulates in the world! Considering what Book writers do in\nthe world, and what the world does with Book writers, I should say, It\nis the most anomalous thing the world at present has to show.--We should\nget into a sea far beyond sounding, did we attempt to give account of\nthis: but we must glance at it for the sake of our subject. The worst\nelement in the life of these three Literary Heroes was, that they found\ntheir business and position such a chaos. On the beaten road there is\ntolerable travelling; but it is sore work, and many have to perish,\nfashioning a path through the impassable!\n\nOur pious Fathers, feeling well what importance lay in the speaking of\nman to men, founded churches, made endowments, regulations; everywhere\nin the civilized world there is a Pulpit, environed with all manner of\ncomplex dignified appurtenances and furtherances, that therefrom a man\nwith the tongue may, to best advantage, address his fellow-men. They\nfelt that this was the most important thing; that without this there was\nno good thing. It is a right pious work, that of theirs; beautiful to\nbehold! But now with the art of Writing, with the art of Printing, a\ntotal change has come over that business. The Writer of a Book, is not\nhe a Preacher preaching not to this parish or that, on this day or\nthat, but to all men in all times and places? Surely it is of the last\nimportance that _he_ do his work right, whoever do it wrong;--that the\n_eye_ report not falsely, for then all the other members are astray!\nWell; how he may do his work, whether he do it right or wrong, or do\nit at all, is a point which no man in the world has taken the pains\nto think of. To a certain shopkeeper, trying to get some money for\nhis books, if lucky, he is of some importance; to no other man of any.\nWhence he came, whither he is bound, by what ways he arrived, by what\nhe might be furthered on his course, no one asks. He is an accident in\nsociety. He wanders like a wild Ishmaelite, in a world of which he is as\nthe spiritual light, either the guidance or the misguidance!\n\nCertainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man\nhas devised. Odin's _Runes_ were the first form of the work of a Hero;\n_Books_ written words, are still miraculous _Runes_, the latest form!\nIn Books lies the _soul_ of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible\nvoice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has\naltogether vanished like a dream. Mighty fleets and armies, harbors and\narsenals, vast cities, high-domed, many-engined,--they are precious,\ngreat: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons,\nPericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some ruined fragments,\ndumb mournful wrecks and blocks: but the Books of Greece! There Greece,\nto every thinker, still very literally lives: can be called up again\ninto life. No magic _Rune_ is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has\ndone, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in\nthe pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.\n\nDo not Books still accomplish _miracles_, as _Runes_ were fabled to do?\nThey persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating-library novel,\nwhich foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages, but will help to\nregulate the actual practical weddings and households of those foolish\ngirls. So \"Celia\" felt, so \"Clifford\" acted: the foolish Theorem of\nLife, stamped into those young brains, comes out as a solid Practice\none day. Consider whether any _Rune_ in the wildest imagination of\nMythologist ever did such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some\nBooks have done! What built St. Paul's Cathedral? Look at the heart of\nthe matter, it was that divine Hebrew BOOK,--the word partly of the man\nMoses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish herds, four thousand years ago,\nin the wildernesses of Sinai! It is the strangest of things, yet nothing\nis truer. With the art of Writing, of which Printing is a simple, an\ninevitable and comparatively insignificant corollary, the true reign\nof miracles for mankind commenced. It related, with a wondrous new\ncontiguity and perpetual closeness, the Past and Distant with the\nPresent in time and place; all times and all places with this our actual\nHere and Now. All things were altered for men; all modes of important\nwork of men: teaching, preaching, governing, and all else.\n\nTo look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable,\nrespectable product of the modern ages. Their existence too is modified,\nto the very basis of it, by the existence of Books. Universities arose\nwhile there were yet no Books procurable; while a man, for a single\nBook, had to give an estate of land. That, in those circumstances, when\na man had some knowledge to communicate, he should do it by gathering\nthe learners round him, face to face, was a necessity for him. If you\nwanted to know what Abelard knew, you must go and listen to Abelard.\nThousands, as many as thirty thousand, went to hear Abelard and that\nmetaphysical theology of his. And now for any other teacher who had also\nsomething of his own to teach, there was a great convenience opened:\nso many thousands eager to learn were already assembled yonder; of all\nplaces the best place for him was that. For any third teacher it was\nbetter still; and grew ever the better, the more teachers there came.\nIt only needed now that the King took notice of this new phenomenon;\ncombined or agglomerated the various schools into one school; gave it\nedifices, privileges, encouragements, and named it _Universitas_,\nor School of all Sciences: the University of Paris, in its essential\ncharacters, was there. The model of all subsequent Universities; which\ndown even to these days, for six centuries now, have gone on to found\nthemselves. Such, I conceive, was the origin of Universities.\n\nIt is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility of\ngetting Books, the whole conditions of the business from top to bottom\nwere changed. Once invent Printing, you metamorphosed all Universities,\nor superseded them! The Teacher needed not now to gather men personally\nround him, that he might _speak_ to them what he knew: print it in a\nBook, and all learners far and wide, for a trifle, had it each at his\nown fireside, much more effectually to learn it!--Doubtless there is\nstill peculiar virtue in Speech; even writers of Books may still, in\nsome circumstances, find it convenient to speak also,--witness our\npresent meeting here! There is, one would say, and must ever remain\nwhile man has a tongue, a distinct province for Speech as well as for\nWriting and Printing. In regard to all things this must remain; to\nUniversities among others. But the limits of the two have nowhere yet\nbeen pointed out, ascertained; much less put in practice: the University\nwhich would completely take in that great new fact, of the existence of\nPrinted Books, and stand on a clear footing for the Nineteenth\nCentury as the Paris one did for the Thirteenth, has not yet come into\nexistence. If we think of it, all that a University, or final highest\nSchool can do for us, is still but what the first School began\ndoing,--teach us to _read_. We learn to _read_, in various languages,\nin various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner\nof Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic\nknowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read,\nafter all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true\nUniversity of these days is a Collection of Books.\n\nBut to the Church itself, as I hinted already, all is changed, in its\npreaching, in its working, by the introduction of Books. The Church is\nthe working recognized Union of our Priests or Prophets, of those who by\nwise teaching guide the souls of men. While there was no Writing, even\nwhile there was no Easy-writing, or _Printing_, the preaching of the\nvoice was the natural sole method of performing this. But now with\nBooks!--He that can write a true Book, to persuade England, is not he\nthe Bishop and Archbishop, the Primate of England and of All England?\nI many a time say, the writers of Newspapers, Pamphlets, Poems, Books,\nthese _are_ the real working effective Church of a modern country. Nay\nnot only our preaching, but even our worship, is not it too accomplished\nby means of Printed Books? The noble sentiment which a gifted soul\nhas clothed for us in melodious words, which brings melody into our\nhearts,--is not this essentially, if we will understand it, of the\nnature of worship? There are many, in all countries, who, in this\nconfused time, have no other method of worship. He who, in any way,\nshows us better than we knew before that a lily of the fields is\nbeautiful, does he not show it us as an effluence of the Fountain of all\nBeauty; as the _handwriting_, made visible there, of the great Maker of\nthe Universe? He has sung for us, made us sing with him, a little verse\nof a sacred Psalm. Essentially so. How much more he who sings, who\nsays, or in any way brings home to our heart the noble doings, feelings,\ndarings and endurances of a brother man! He has verily touched our\nhearts as with a live coal _from the altar_. Perhaps there is no worship\nmore authentic.\n\nLiterature, so far as it is Literature, is an \"apocalypse of Nature,\" a\nrevealing of the \"open secret.\" It may well enough be named, in Fichte's\nstyle, a \"continuous revelation\" of the Godlike in the Terrestrial and\nCommon. The Godlike does ever, in very truth, endure there; is\nbrought out, now in this dialect, now in that, with various degrees\nof clearness: all true gifted Singers and Speakers are, consciously or\nunconsciously, doing so. The dark stormful indignation of a Byron, so\nwayward and perverse, may have touches of it; nay the withered mockery\nof a French sceptic,--his mockery of the False, a love and worship of\nthe True. How much more the sphere-harmony of a Shakspeare, of a Goethe;\nthe cathedral music of a Milton! They are something too, those humble\ngenuine lark-notes of a Burns,--skylark, starting from the humble\nfurrow, far overhead into the blue depths, and singing to us so\ngenuinely there! For all true singing is of the nature of worship; as\nindeed all true _working_ may be said to be,--whereof such _singing_ is\nbut the record, and fit melodious representation, to us. Fragments of a\nreal \"Church Liturgy\" and \"Body of Homilies,\" strangely disguised from\nthe common eye, are to be found weltering in that huge froth-ocean of\nPrinted Speech we loosely call Literature! Books are our Church too.\n\nOr turning now to the Government of men. Witenagemote, old Parliament,\nwas a great thing. The affairs of the nation were there deliberated and\ndecided; what we were to _do_ as a nation. But does not, though the name\nParliament subsists, the parliamentary debate go on now, everywhere\nand at all times, in a far more comprehensive way, _out_ of Parliament\naltogether? Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but,\nin the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a _Fourth Estate_ more\nimportant far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty\nsaying; it is a literal fact,--very momentous to us in these times.\nLiterature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out\nof Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing,\nDemocracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal\neveryday extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can\nspeak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch\nof government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of\nauthority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures.\nthe requisite thing is, that he have a tongue which others will listen\nto; this and nothing more is requisite. The nation is governed by all\nthat has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually _there_. Add only,\nthat whatsoever power exists will have itself, by and by, organized;\nworking secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions, it will\nnever rest till it get to work free, unencumbered, visible to all.\nDemocracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant.--\n\nOn all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of the things\nwhich man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous,\nwonderful and worthy are the things we call Books! Those poor bits\nof rag-paper with black ink on them;--from the Daily Newspaper to\nthe sacred Hebrew BOOK, what have they not done, what are they not\ndoing!--For indeed, whatever be the outward form of the thing (bits\nof paper, as we say, and black ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the\nhighest act of man's faculty that produces a Book? It is the _Thought_\nof man; the true thaumaturgic virtue; by which man works all things\nwhatsoever. All that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a\nThought. This London City, with all its houses, palaces, steam-engines,\ncathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult, what is it but a\nThought, but millions of Thoughts made into One;--a huge immeasurable\nSpirit of a THOUGHT, embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces,\nParliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not\na brick was made but some man had to _think_ of the making of that\nbrick.--The thing we called \"bits of paper with traces of black ink,\" is\nthe _purest_ embodiment a Thought of man can have. No wonder it is, in\nall ways, the activest and noblest.\n\nAll this, of the importance and supreme importance of the Man of Letters\nin modern Society, and how the Press is to such a degree superseding\nthe Pulpit, the Senate, the _Senatus Academicus_ and much else, has been\nadmitted for a good while; and recognized often enough, in late times,\nwith a sort of sentimental triumph and wonderment. It seems to me, the\nSentimental by and by will have to give place to the Practical. If Men\nof Letters _are_ so incalculably influential, actually performing such\nwork for us from age to age, and even from day to day, then I think\nwe may conclude that Men of Letters will not always wander like\nunrecognized unregulated Ishmaelites among us! Whatsoever thing, as I\nsaid above, has virtual unnoticed power will cast off its wrappages,\nbandages, and step forth one day with palpably articulated, universally\nvisible power. That one man wear the clothes, and take the wages, of a\nfunction which is done by quite another: there can be no profit in\nthis; this is not right, it is wrong. And yet, alas, the _making_ of it\nright,--what a business, for long times to come! Sure enough, this that\nwe call Organization of the Literary Guild is still a great way off,\nencumbered with all manner of complexities. If you asked me what were\nthe best possible organization for the Men of Letters in modern society;\nthe arrangement of furtherance and regulation, grounded the most\naccurately on the actual facts of their position and of the world's\nposition,--I should beg to say that the problem far exceeded my faculty!\nIt is not one man's faculty; it is that of many successive men turned\nearnestly upon it, that will bring out even an approximate solution.\nWhat the best arrangement were, none of us could say. But if you ask,\nWhich is the worst? I answer: This which we now have, that Chaos should\nsit umpire in it; this is the worst. To the best, or any good one, there\nis yet a long way.\n\nOne remark I must not omit, That royal or parliamentary grants of money\nare by no means the chief thing wanted! To give our Men of Letters\nstipends, endowments and all furtherance of cash, will do little\ntowards the business. On the whole, one is weary of hearing about the\nomnipotence of money. I will say rather that, for a genuine man, it is\nno evil to be poor; that there ought to be Literary Men poor,--to show\nwhether they are genuine or not! Mendicant Orders, bodies of good men\ndoomed to beg, were instituted in the Christian Church; a most natural\nand even necessary development of the spirit of Christianity. It was\nitself founded on Poverty, on Sorrow, Contradiction, Crucifixion, every\nspecies of worldly Distress and Degradation. We may say, that he who has\nnot known those things, and learned from them the priceless lessons they\nhave to teach, has missed a good opportunity of schooling. To beg, and\ngo barefoot, in coarse woollen cloak with a rope round your loins,\nand be despised of all the world, was no beautiful business;--nor an\nhonorable one in any eye, till the nobleness of those who did so had\nmade it honored of some!\n\nBegging is not in our course at the present time: but for the rest of\nit, who will say that a Johnson is not perhaps the better for being\npoor? It is needful for him, at all rates, to know that outward profit,\nthat success of any kind is _not_ the goal he has to aim at. Pride,\nvanity, ill-conditioned egoism of all sorts, are bred in his heart, as\nin every heart; need, above all, to be cast out of his heart,--to be,\nwith whatever pangs, torn out of it, cast forth from it, as a thing\nworthless. Byron, born rich and noble, made out even less than\nBurns, poor and plebeian. Who knows but, in that same \"best possible\norganization\" as yet far off, Poverty may still enter as an important\nelement? What if our Men of Letters, men setting up to be Spiritual\nHeroes, were still _then_, as they now are, a kind of \"involuntary\nmonastic order;\" bound still to this same ugly Poverty,--till they had\ntried what was in it too, till they had learned to make it too do for\nthem! Money, in truth, can do much, but it cannot do all. We must know\nthe province of it, and confine it there; and even spurn it back, when\nit wishes to get farther.\n\nBesides, were the money-furtherances, the proper season for them, the\nfit assigner of them, all settled,--how is the Burns to be recognized\nthat merits these? He must pass through the ordeal, and prove himself.\n_This_ ordeal; this wild welter of a chaos which is called Literary\nLife: this too is a kind of ordeal! There is clear truth in the idea\nthat a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards the upper\nregions and rewards of society, must ever continue. Strong men are\nborn there, who ought to stand elsewhere than there. The manifold,\ninextricably complex, universal struggle of these constitutes, and must\nconstitute, what is called the progress of society. For Men of Letters,\nas for all other sorts of men. How to regulate that struggle? There is\nthe whole question. To leave it as it is, at the mercy of blind Chance;\na whirl of distracted atoms, one cancelling the other; one of the\nthousand arriving saved, nine hundred and ninety-nine lost by the way;\nyour royal Johnson languishing inactive in garrets, or harnessed to the\nyoke of Printer Cave; your Burns dying broken-hearted as a Gauger; your\nRousseau driven into mad exasperation, kindling French Revolutions\nby his paradoxes: this, as we said, is clearly enough the _worst_\nregulation. The _best_, alas, is far from us!\n\nAnd yet there can be no doubt but it is coming; advancing on us, as yet\nhidden in the bosom of centuries: this is a prophecy one can risk.\nFor so soon as men get to discern the importance of a thing, they do\ninfallibly set about arranging it, facilitating, forwarding it; and rest\nnot till, in some approximate degree, they have accomplished that. I\nsay, of all Priesthoods, Aristocracies, Governing Classes at present\nextant in the world, there is no class comparable for importance to that\nPriesthood of the Writers of Books. This is a fact which he who runs may\nread,--and draw inferences from. \"Literature will take care of itself,\"\nanswered Mr. Pitt, when applied to for some help for Burns. \"Yes,\" adds\nMr. Southey, \"it will take care of itself; _and of you too_, if you do\nnot look to it!\"\n\nThe result to individual Men of Letters is not the momentous one; they\nare but individuals, an infinitesimal fraction of the great body; they\ncan struggle on, and live or else die, as they have been wont. But it\ndeeply concerns the whole society, whether it will set its _light_ on\nhigh places, to walk thereby; or trample it under foot, and scatter it\nin all ways of wild waste (not without conflagration), as heretofore!\nLight is the one thing wanted for the world. Put wisdom in the head of\nthe world, the world will fight its battle victoriously, and be the best\nworld man can make it. I called this anomaly of a disorganic Literary\nClass the heart of all other anomalies, at once product and parent; some\ngood arrangement for that would be as the _punctum saliens_ of a\nnew vitality and just arrangement for all. Already, in some European\ncountries, in France, in Prussia, one traces some beginnings of an\narrangement for the Literary Class; indicating the gradual possibility\nof such. I believe that it is possible; that it will have to be\npossible.\n\nBy far the most interesting fact I hear about the Chinese is one on\nwhich we cannot arrive at clearness, but which excites endless curiosity\neven in the dim state: this namely, that they do attempt to make their\nMen of Letters their Governors! It would be rash to say, one understood\nhow this was done, or with what degree of success it was done. All\nsuch things must be very unsuccessful; yet a small degree of success is\nprecious; the very attempt how precious! There does seem to be, all over\nChina, a more or less active search everywhere to discover the men of\ntalent that grow up in the young generation. Schools there are for\nevery one: a foolish sort of training, yet still a sort. The youths who\ndistinguish themselves in the lower school are promoted into\nfavorable stations in the higher, that they may still more distinguish\nthemselves,--forward and forward: it appears to be out of these that\nthe Official Persons, and incipient Governors, are taken. These are they\nwhom they _try_ first, whether they can govern or not. And surely with\nthe best hope: for they are the men that have already shown intellect.\nTry them: they have not governed or administered as yet; perhaps they\ncannot; but there is no doubt they _have_ some Understanding,--without\nwhich no man can! Neither is Understanding a _tool_, as we are too apt\nto figure; \"it is a _hand_ which can handle any tool.\" Try these men:\nthey are of all others the best worth trying.--Surely there is no\nkind of government, constitution, revolution, social apparatus or\narrangement, that I know of in this world, so promising to one's\nscientific curiosity as this. The man of intellect at the top of\naffairs: this is the aim of all constitutions and revolutions, if they\nhave any aim. For the man of true intellect, as I assert and believe\nalways, is the noble-hearted man withal, the true, just, humane and\nvaliant man. Get him for governor, all is got; fail to get him, though\nyou had Constitutions plentiful as blackberries, and a Parliament in\nevery village, there is nothing yet got--!\n\nThese things look strange, truly; and are not such as we commonly\nspeculate upon. But we are fallen into strange times; these things will\nrequire to be speculated upon; to be rendered practicable, to be in some\nway put in practice. These, and many others. On all hands of us, there\nis the announcement, audible enough, that the old Empire of Routine\nhas ended; that to say a thing has long been, is no reason for its\ncontinuing to be. The things which have been are fallen into decay, are\nfallen into incompetence; large masses of mankind, in every society of\nour Europe, are no longer capable of living at all by the things which\nhave been. When millions of men can no longer by their utmost exertion\ngain food for themselves, and \"the third man for thirty-six weeks each\nyear is short of third-rate potatoes,\" the things which have been must\ndecidedly prepare to alter themselves!--I will now quit this of the\norganization of Men of Letters.\n\n\nAlas, the evil that pressed heaviest on those Literary Heroes of ours\nwas not the want of organization for Men of Letters, but a far deeper\none; out of which, indeed, this and so many other evils for the Literary\nMan, and for all men, had, as from their fountain, taken rise. That our\nHero as Man of Letters had to travel without highway, companionless,\nthrough an inorganic chaos,--and to leave his own life and faculty lying\nthere, as a partial contribution towards _pushing_ some highway through\nit: this, had not his faculty itself been so perverted and paralyzed, he\nmight have put up with, might have considered to be but the common lot\nof Heroes. His fatal misery was the _spiritual paralysis_, so we may\nname it, of the Age in which his life lay; whereby his life too, do what\nhe might, was half paralyzed! The Eighteenth was a _Sceptical_ Century;\nin which little word there is a whole Pandora's Box of miseries.\nScepticism means not intellectual Doubt alone, but moral Doubt; all\nsorts of infidelity, insincerity, spiritual paralysis. Perhaps, in few\ncenturies that one could specify since the world began, was a life of\nHeroism more difficult for a man. That was not an age of Faith,--an\nage of Heroes! The very possibility of Heroism had been, as it were,\nformally abnegated in the minds of all. Heroism was gone forever;\nTriviality, Formulism and Commonplace were come forever. The \"age of\nmiracles\" had been, or perhaps had not been; but it was not any longer.\nAn effete world; wherein Wonder, Greatness, Godhood could not now\ndwell;--in one word, a godless world!\n\nHow mean, dwarfish are their ways of thinking, in this time,--compared\nnot with the Christian Shakspeares and Miltons, but with the old Pagan\nSkalds, with any species of believing men! The living TREE Igdrasil,\nwith the melodious prophetic waving of its world-wide boughs,\ndeep-rooted as Hela, has died out into the clanking of a World-MACHINE.\n\"Tree\" and \"Machine:\" contrast these two things. I, for my share,\ndeclare the world to be no machine! I say that it does _not_ go by\nwheel-and-pinion \"motives\" self-interests, checks, balances; that there\nis something far other in it than the clank of spinning-jennies, and\nparliamentary majorities; and, on the whole, that it is not a machine at\nall!--The old Norse Heathen had a truer motion of God's-world than these\npoor Machine-Sceptics: the old Heathen Norse were _sincere_ men. But\nfor these poor Sceptics there was no sincerity, no truth. Half-truth and\nhearsay was called truth. Truth, for most men, meant plausibility; to be\nmeasured by the number of votes you could get. They had lost any\nnotion that sincerity was possible, or of what sincerity was. How many\nPlausibilities asking, with unaffected surprise and the air of offended\nvirtue, What! am not I sincere? Spiritual Paralysis, I say, nothing left\nbut a Mechanical life, was the characteristic of that century. For the\ncommon man, unless happily he stood _below_ his century and belonged to\nanother prior one, it was impossible to be a Believer, a Hero; he lay\nburied, unconscious, under these baleful influences. To the strongest\nman, only with infinite struggle and confusion was it possible to work\nhimself half loose; and lead as it were, in an enchanted, most tragical\nway, a spiritual death-in-life, and be a Half-Hero!\n\nScepticism is the name we give to all this; as the chief symptom, as the\nchief origin of all this. Concerning which so much were to be said! It\nwould take many Discourses, not a small fraction of one Discourse, to\nstate what one feels about that Eighteenth Century and its ways. As\nindeed this, and the like of this, which we now call Scepticism, is\nprecisely the black malady and life-foe, against which all teaching and\ndiscoursing since man's life began has directed itself: the battle of\nBelief against Unbelief is the never-ending battle! Neither is it in the\nway of crimination that one would wish to speak. Scepticism, for that\ncentury, we must consider as the decay of old ways of believing, the\npreparation afar off for new better and wider ways,--an inevitable\nthing. We will not blame men for it; we will lament their hard fate. We\nwill understand that destruction of old _forms_ is not destruction of\neverlasting _substances_; that Scepticism, as sorrowful and hateful as\nwe see it, is not an end but a beginning.\n\nThe other day speaking, without prior purpose that way, of Bentham's\ntheory of man and man's life, I chanced to call it a more beggarly one\nthan Mahomet's. I am bound to say, now when it is once uttered, that\nsuch is my deliberate opinion. Not that one would mean offence against\nthe man Jeremy Bentham, or those who respect and believe him. Bentham\nhimself, and even the creed of Bentham, seems to me comparatively worthy\nof praise. It is a determinate _being_ what all the world, in a cowardly\nhalf-and-half manner, was tending to be. Let us have the crisis; we\nshall either have death or the cure. I call this gross, steam-engine\nUtilitarianism an approach towards new Faith. It was a laying-down\nof cant; a saying to oneself: \"Well then, this world is a dead iron\nmachine, the god of it Gravitation and selfish Hunger; let us see what,\nby checking and balancing, and good adjustment of tooth and pinion,\ncan be made of it!\" Benthamism has something complete, manful, in such\nfearless committal of itself to what it finds true; you may call it\nHeroic, though a Heroism with its _eyes_ put out! It is the culminating\npoint, and fearless ultimatum, of what lay in the half-and-half state,\npervading man's whole existence in that Eighteenth Century. It seems to\nme, all deniers of Godhood, and all lip-believers of it, are bound to\nbe Benthamites, if they have courage and honesty. Benthamism is an\n_eyeless_ Heroism: the Human Species, like a hapless blinded Samson\ngrinding in the Philistine Mill, clasps convulsively the pillars of\nits Mill; brings huge ruin down, but ultimately deliverance withal. Of\nBentham I meant to say no harm.\n\nBut this I do say, and would wish all men to know and lay to heart,\nthat he who discerns nothing but Mechanism in the Universe has in the\nfatalest way missed the secret of the Universe altogether. That all\nGodhood should vanish out of men's conception of this Universe seems to\nme precisely the most brutal error,--I will not disparage Heathenism by\ncalling it a Heathen error,--that men could fall into. It is not true;\nit is false at the very heart of it. A man who thinks so will think\n_wrong_ about all things in the world; this original sin will vitiate\nall other conclusions he can form. One might call it the most lamentable\nof Delusions,--not forgetting Witchcraft itself! Witchcraft worshipped\nat least a living Devil; but this worships a dead iron Devil; no God,\nnot even a Devil! Whatsoever is noble, divine, inspired, drops\nthereby out of life. There remains everywhere in life a despicable\n_caput-mortuum_; the mechanical hull, all soul fled out of it. How can a\nman act heroically? The \"Doctrine of Motives\" will teach him that it is,\nunder more or less disguise, nothing but a wretched love of Pleasure,\nfear of Pain; that Hunger, of applause, of cash, of whatsoever victual\nit may be, is the ultimate fact of man's life. Atheism, in brief;--which\ndoes indeed frightfully punish itself. The man, I say, is become\nspiritually a paralytic man; this godlike Universe a dead mechanical\nsteam-engine, all working by motives, checks, balances, and I know not\nwhat; wherein, as in the detestable belly of some Phalaris'-Bull of his\nown contriving, he the poor Phalaris sits miserably dying!\n\nBelief I define to be the healthy act of a man's mind. It\nis a mysterious indescribable process, that of getting to\nbelieve;--indescribable, as all vital acts are. We have our mind given\nus, not that it may cavil and argue, but that it may see into something,\ngive us clear belief and understanding about something, whereon we are\nthen to proceed to act. Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. Certainly\nwe do not rush out, clutch up the first thing we find, and straightway\nbelieve that! All manner of doubt, inquiry, [Gr.] _skepsis_ as it is\nnamed, about all manner of objects, dwells in every reasonable mind. It\nis the mystic working of the mind, on the object it is _getting_ to know\nand believe. Belief comes out of all this, above ground, like the tree\nfrom its hidden _roots_. But now if, even on common things, we require\nthat a man keep his doubts _silent_, and not babble of them till they in\nsome measure become affirmations or denials; how much more in regard to\nthe highest things, impossible to speak of in words at all! That a man\nparade his doubt, and get to imagine that debating and logic (which\nmeans at best only the manner of _telling_ us your thought, your belief\nor disbelief, about a thing) is the triumph and true work of what\nintellect he has: alas, this is as if you should _overturn_ the tree,\nand instead of green boughs, leaves and fruits, show us ugly taloned\nroots turned up into the air,--and no growth, only death and misery\ngoing on!\n\nFor the Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral\nalso; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by\nbelieving something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A\nsad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something\nhe can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and\ndigest! Lower than that he will not get. We call those ages in which\nhe gets so low the mournfulest, sickest and meanest of all ages. The\nworld's heart is palsied, sick: how can any limb of it be whole?\nGenuine Acting ceases in all departments of the world's work; dexterous\nSimilitude of Acting begins. The world's wages are pocketed, the\nworld's work is not done. Heroes have gone out; Quacks have come in.\nAccordingly, what Century, since the end of the Roman world, which also\nwas a time of scepticism, simulacra and universal decadence, so\nabounds with Quacks as that Eighteenth? Consider them, with their\ntumid sentimental vaporing about virtue, benevolence,--the wretched\nQuack-squadron, Cagliostro at the head of them! Few men were without\nquackery; they had got to consider it a necessary ingredient and amalgam\nfor truth. Chatham, our brave Chatham himself, comes down to the House,\nall wrapt and bandaged; he \"has crawled out in great bodily suffering,\"\nand so on;--_forgets_, says Walpole, that he is acting the sick man; in\nthe fire of debate, snatches his arm from the sling, and oratorically\nswings and brandishes it! Chatham himself lives the strangest mimetic\nlife, half-hero, half-quack, all along. For indeed the world is full of\ndupes; and you have to gain the _world's_ suffrage! How the duties of\nthe world will be done in that case, what quantities of error, which\nmeans failure, which means sorrow and misery, to some and to many, will\ngradually accumulate in all provinces of the world's business, we need\nnot compute.\n\nIt seems to me, you lay your finger here on the heart of the world's\nmaladies, when you call it a Sceptical World. An insincere world; a\ngodless untruth of a world! It is out of this, as I consider, that the\nwhole tribe of social pestilences, French Revolutions, Chartisms, and\nwhat not, have derived their being,--their chief necessity to be. This\nmust alter. Till this alter, nothing can beneficially alter. My one hope\nof the world, my inexpugnable consolation in looking at the miseries of\nthe world, is that this is altering. Here and there one does now find\na man who knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth, and no\nPlausibility and Falsity; that he himself is alive, not dead or\nparalytic; and that the world is alive, instinct with Godhood, beautiful\nand awful, even as in the beginning of days! One man once knowing this,\nmany men, all men, must by and by come to know it. It lies there clear,\nfor whosoever will take the _spectacles_ off his eyes and honestly look,\nto know! For such a man the Unbelieving Century, with its unblessed\nProducts, is already past; a new century is already come. The old\nunblessed Products and Performances, as solid as they look, are\nPhantasms, preparing speedily to vanish. To this and the other noisy,\nvery great-looking Simulacrum with the whole world huzzaing at its\nheels, he can say, composedly stepping aside: Thou art not _true_; thou\nart not extant, only semblant; go thy way!--Yes, hollow Formulism, gross\nBenthamism, and other unheroic atheistic Insincerity is visibly and\neven rapidly declining. An unbelieving Eighteenth Century is but an\nexception,--such as now and then occurs. I prophesy that the world will\nonce more become _sincere_; a believing world; with _many_ Heroes in it,\na heroic world! It will then be a victorious world; never till then.\n\nOr indeed what of the world and its victories? Men speak too much about\nthe world. Each one of us here, let the world go how it will, and be\nvictorious or not victorious, has he not a Life of his own to lead? One\nLife; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to\nus forevermore! It were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra,\nbut as wise and realities. The world's being saved will not save us; nor\nthe world's being lost destroy us. We should look to ourselves: there is\ngreat merit here in the \"duty of staying at home\"! And, on the whole,\nto say truth, I never heard of \"world's\" being \"saved\" in any other way.\nThat mania of saving worlds is itself a piece of the Eighteenth Century\nwith its windy sentimentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the\nsaving of the _world_ I will trust confidently to the Maker of the\nworld; and look a little to my own saving, which I am more competent\nto!--In brief, for the world's sake, and for our own, we will rejoice\ngreatly that Scepticism, Insincerity, Mechanical Atheism, with all their\npoison-dews, are going, and as good as gone.--\n\nNow it was under such conditions, in those times of Johnson, that our\nMen of Letters had to live. Times in which there was properly no truth\nin life. Old truths had fallen nigh dumb; the new lay yet hidden, not\ntrying to speak. That Man's Life here below was a Sincerity and Fact,\nand would forever continue such, no new intimation, in that dusk of\nthe world, had yet dawned. No intimation; not even any French\nRevolution,--which we define to be a Truth once more, though a Truth\nclad in hell-fire! How different was the Luther's pilgrimage, with\nits assured goal, from the Johnson's, girt with mere traditions,\nsuppositions, grown now incredible, unintelligible! Mahomet's Formulas\nwere of \"wood waxed and oiled,\" and could be burnt out of one's way:\npoor Johnson's were far more difficult to burn.--The strong man will\never find _work_, which means difficulty, pain, to the full measure of\nhis strength. But to make out a victory, in those circumstances of our\npoor Hero as Man of Letters, was perhaps more difficult than in any. Not\nobstruction, disorganization, Bookseller Osborne and Fourpence-halfpenny\na day; not this alone; but the light of his own soul was taken from him.\nNo landmark on the Earth; and, alas, what is that to having no loadstar\nin the Heaven! We need not wonder that none of those Three men rose to\nvictory. That they fought truly is the highest praise. With a mournful\nsympathy we will contemplate, if not three living victorious Heroes, as\nI said, the Tombs of three fallen Heroes! They fell for us too; making\na way for us. There are the mountains which they hurled abroad in their\nconfused War of the Giants; under which, their strength and life spent,\nthey now lie buried.\n\n\nI have already written of these three Literary Heroes, expressly or\nincidentally; what I suppose is known to most of you; what need not be\nspoken or written a second time. They concern us here as the singular\n_Prophets_ of that singular age; for such they virtually were; and the\naspect they and their world exhibit, under this point of view, might\nlead us into reflections enough! I call them, all three, Genuine Men\nmore or less; faithfully, for most part unconsciously, struggling to be\ngenuine, and plant themselves on the everlasting truth of things. This\nto a degree that eminently distinguishes them from the poor artificial\nmass of their contemporaries; and renders them worthy to be considered\nas Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting truth, as Prophets in\nthat age of theirs. By Nature herself a noble necessity was laid on them\nto be so. They were men of such magnitude that they could not live on\nunrealities,--clouds, froth and all inanity gave way under them: there\nwas no footing for them but on firm earth; no rest or regular motion for\nthem, if they got not footing there. To a certain extent, they were Sons\nof Nature once more in an age of Artifice; once more, Original Men.\n\nAs for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by nature, one\nof our great English souls. A strong and noble man; so much left\nundeveloped in him to the last: in a kindlier element what might he not\nhave been,--Poet, Priest, sovereign Ruler! On the whole, a man must not\ncomplain of his \"element,\" of his \"time,\" or the like; it is thriftless\nwork doing so. His time is bad: well then, he is there to make it\nbetter!--Johnson's youth was poor, isolated, hopeless, very miserable.\nIndeed, it does not seem possible that, in any the favorablest outward\ncircumstances, Johnson's life could have been other than a painful one.\nThe world might have had more of profitable _work_ out of him, or less;\nbut his _effort_ against the world's work could never have been a light\none. Nature, in return for his nobleness, had said to him, Live in an\nelement of diseased sorrow. Nay, perhaps the sorrow and the nobleness\nwere intimately and even inseparably connected with each other. At all\nevents, poor Johnson had to go about girt with continual hypochondria,\nphysical and spiritual pain. Like a Hercules with the burning\nNessus'-shirt on him, which shoots in on him dull incurable misery: the\nNessus'-shirt not to be stript off, which is his own natural skin! In\nthis manner _he_ had to live. Figure him there, with his scrofulous\ndiseases, with his great greedy heart, and unspeakable chaos of\nthoughts; stalking mournful as a stranger in this Earth; eagerly\ndevouring what spiritual thing he could come at: school-languages\nand other merely grammatical stuff, if there were nothing better! The\nlargest soul that was in all England; and provision made for it of\n\"fourpence-halfpenny a day.\" Yet a giant invincible soul; a true man's.\nOne remembers always that story of the shoes at Oxford: the rough,\nseamy-faced, rawboned College Servitor stalking about, in winter-season,\nwith his shoes worn out; how the charitable Gentleman Commoner secretly\nplaces a new pair at his door; and the rawboned Servitor, lifting them,\nlooking at them near, with his dim eyes, with what thoughts,--pitches\nthem out of window! Wet feet, mud, frost, hunger or what you will; but\nnot beggary: we cannot stand beggary! Rude stubborn self-help here;\na whole world of squalor, rudeness, confused misery and want, yet of\nnobleness and manfulness withal. It is a type of the man's life,\nthis pitching away of the shoes. An original man;--not a second-hand,\nborrowing or begging man. Let us stand on our own basis, at any rate! On\nsuch shoes as we ourselves can get. On frost and mud, if you will, but\nhonestly on that;--on the reality and substance which Nature gives _us_,\nnot on the semblance, on the thing she has given another than us--!\n\nAnd yet with all this rugged pride of manhood and self-help, was there\never soul more tenderly affectionate, loyally submissive to what was\nreally higher than he? Great souls are always loyally submissive,\nreverent to what is over them; only small mean souls are otherwise. I\ncould not find a better proof of what I said the other day, That the\nsincere man was by nature the obedient man; that only in a World\nof Heroes was there loyal Obedience to the Heroic. The essence of\n_originality_ is not that it be _new_: Johnson believed altogether in\nthe old; he found the old opinions credible for him, fit for him; and in\na right heroic manner lived under them. He is well worth study in regard\nto that. For we are to say that Johnson was far other than a mere man\nof words and formulas; he was a man of truths and facts. He stood by the\nold formulas; the happier was it for him that he could so stand: but in\nall formulas that _he_ could stand by, there needed to be a most\ngenuine substance. Very curious how, in that poor Paper-age, so barren,\nartificial, thick-quilted with Pedantries, Hearsays, the great Fact of\nthis Universe glared in, forever wonderful, indubitable, unspeakable,\ndivine-infernal, upon this man too! How he harmonized his Formulas with\nit, how he managed at all under such circumstances: that is a thing\nworth seeing. A thing \"to be looked at with reverence, with pity, with\nawe.\" That Church of St. Clement Danes, where Johnson still _worshipped_\nin the era of Voltaire, is to me a venerable place.\n\nIt was in virtue of his _sincerity_, of his speaking still in some sort\nfrom the heart of Nature, though in the current artificial dialect, that\nJohnson was a Prophet. Are not all dialects \"artificial\"? Artificial\nthings are not all false;--nay every true Product of Nature will\ninfallibly _shape_ itself; we may say all artificial things are, at\nthe starting of them, _true_. What we call \"Formulas\" are not in their\norigin bad; they are indispensably good. Formula is _method_, habitude;\nfound wherever man is found. Formulas fashion themselves as Paths do, as\nbeaten Highways, leading toward some sacred or high object, whither many\nmen are bent. Consider it. One man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse,\nfinds out a way of doing somewhat,--were it of uttering his soul's\nreverence for the Highest, were it but of fitly saluting his fellow-man.\nAn inventor was needed to do that, a _poet_; he has articulated the\ndim-struggling thought that dwelt in his own and many hearts. This\nis his way of doing that; these are his footsteps, the beginning of a\n\"Path.\" And now see: the second men travels naturally in the footsteps\nof his foregoer, it is the _easiest_ method. In the footsteps of his\nforegoer; yet with improvements, with changes where such seem good; at\nall events with enlargements, the Path ever _widening_ itself as more\ntravel it;--till at last there is a broad Highway whereon the whole\nworld may travel and drive. While there remains a City or Shrine, or\nany Reality to drive to, at the farther end, the Highway shall be right\nwelcome! When the City is gone, we will forsake the Highway. In this\nmanner all Institutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have\ncome into existence, and gone out of existence. Formulas all begin\nby being _full_ of substance; you may call them the _skin_, the\narticulation into shape, into limbs and skin, of a substance that is\nalready there: _they_ had not been there otherwise. Idols, as we said,\nare not idolatrous till they become doubtful, empty for the worshipper's\nheart. Much as we talk against Formulas, I hope no one of us is ignorant\nwithal of the high significance of _true_ Formulas; that they were, and\nwill ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our habitation in this\nworld.--\n\nMark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his \"sincerity.\" He has no\nsuspicion of his being particularly sincere,--of his being particularly\nanything! A hard-struggling, weary-hearted man, or \"scholar\" as he calls\nhimself, trying hard to get some honest livelihood in the world, not\nto starve, but to live--without stealing! A noble unconsciousness is in\nhim. He does not \"engrave _Truth_ on his watch-seal;\" no, but he stands\nby truth, speaks by it, works and lives by it. Thus it ever is. Think of\nit once more. The man whom Nature has appointed to do great things is,\nfirst of all, furnished with that openness to Nature which renders him\nincapable of being _in_sincere! To his large, open, deep-feeling heart\nNature is a Fact: all hearsay is hearsay; the unspeakable greatness of\nthis Mystery of Life, let him acknowledge it or not, nay even though\nhe seem to forget it or deny it, is ever present to _him_,--fearful\nand wonderful, on this hand and on that. He has a basis of sincerity;\nunrecognized, because never questioned or capable of question. Mirabeau,\nMahomet, Cromwell, Napoleon: all the Great Men I ever heard of have\nthis as the primary material of them. Innumerable commonplace men are\ndebating, are talking everywhere their commonplace doctrines, which they\nhave learned by logic, by rote, at second-hand: to that kind of man all\nthis is still nothing. He must have truth; truth which _he_ feels to be\ntrue. How shall he stand otherwise? His whole soul, at all moments, in\nall ways, tells him that there is no standing. He is under the noble\nnecessity of being true. Johnson's way of thinking about this world is\nnot mine, any more than Mahomet's was: but I recognize the everlasting\nelement of _heart-sincerity_ in both; and see with pleasure how neither\nof them remains ineffectual. Neither of them is as _chaff_ sown; in both\nof them is something which the seedfield will _grow_.\n\nJohnson was a Prophet to his people; preached a Gospel to them,--as all\nlike him always do. The highest Gospel he preached we may describe as a\nkind of Moral Prudence: \"in a world where much is to be done, and little\nis to be known,\" see how you will _do_ it! A thing well worth preaching.\n\"A world where much is to be done, and little is to be known:\" do not\nsink yourselves in boundless bottomless abysses of Doubt, of wretched\ngod-forgetting Unbelief;--you were miserable then, powerless, mad:\nhow could you _do_ or work at all? Such Gospel Johnson preached and\ntaught;--coupled, theoretically and practically, with this other great\nGospel, \"Clear your mind of Cant!\" Have no trade with Cant: stand on the\ncold mud in the frosty weather, but let it be in your own _real_ torn\nshoes: \"that will be better for you,\" as Mahomet says! I call this, I\ncall these two things _joined together_, a great Gospel, the greatest\nperhaps that was possible at that time.\n\nJohnson's Writings, which once had such currency and celebrity, are\nnow as it were disowned by the young generation. It is not wonderful;\nJohnson's opinions are fast becoming obsolete: but his style of thinking\nand of living, we may hope, will never become obsolete. I find in\nJohnson's Books the indisputablest traces of a great intellect and great\nheart;--ever welcome, under what obstructions and perversions soever.\nThey are _sincere_ words, those of his; he means things by them. A\nwondrous buckram style,--the best he could get to then; a measured\ngrandiloquence, stepping or rather stalking along in a very solemn\nway, grown obsolete now; sometimes a tumid _size_ of phraseology not in\nproportion to the contents of it: all this you will put up with. For\nthe phraseology, tumid or not, has always _something within it_. So\nmany beautiful styles and books, with _nothing_ in them;--a man is\na malefactor to the world who writes such! _They_ are the avoidable\nkind!--Had Johnson left nothing but his _Dictionary_, one might have\ntraced there a great intellect, a genuine man. Looking to its clearness\nof definition, its general solidity, honesty, insight and successful\nmethod, it may be called the best of all Dictionaries. There is in it\na kind of architectural nobleness; it stands there like a great solid\nsquare-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete: you judge that a\ntrue Builder did it.\n\nOne word, in spite of our haste, must be granted to poor Bozzy. He\npasses for a mean, inflated, gluttonous creature; and was so in many\nsenses. Yet the fact of his reverence for Johnson will ever remain\nnoteworthy. The foolish conceited Scotch Laird, the most conceited man\nof his time, approaching in such awe-struck attitude the great dusty\nirascible Pedagogue in his mean garret there: it is a genuine reverence\nfor Excellence; a _worship_ for Heroes, at a time when neither Heroes\nnor worship were surmised to exist. Heroes, it would seem, exist always,\nand a certain worship of them! We will also take the liberty to deny\naltogether that of the witty Frenchman, that no man is a Hero to his\nvalet-de-chambre. Or if so, it is not the Hero's blame, but the Valet's:\nthat his soul, namely, is a mean _valet_-soul! He expects his Hero\nto advance in royal stage-trappings, with measured step, trains borne\nbehind him, trumpets sounding before him. It should stand rather, No\nman can be a _Grand-Monarque_ to his valet-de-chambre. Strip your Louis\nQuatorze of his king-gear, and there _is_ left nothing but a poor forked\nradish with a head fantastically carved;--admirable to no valet. The\nValet does not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas, no: it requires a\nkind of _Hero_ to do that;--and one of the world's wants, in _this_ as\nin other senses, is for most part want of such.\n\nOn the whole, shall we not say, that Boswell's admiration was well\nbestowed; that he could have found no soul in all England so worthy of\nbending down before? Shall we not say, of this great mournful Johnson\ntoo, that he guided his difficult confused existence wisely; led it\n_well_, like a right valiant man? That waste chaos of Authorship by\ntrade; that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in\nlife-theory and life-practice; in his poverty, in his dust and dimness,\nwith the sick body and the rusty coat: he made it do for him, like a\nbrave man. Not wholly without a loadstar in the Eternal; he had still\na loadstar, as the brave all need to have: with his eye set on that, he\nwould change his course for nothing in these confused vortices of the\nlower sea of Time. \"To the Spirit of Lies, bearing death and hunger, he\nwould in nowise strike his flag.\" Brave old Samuel: _ultimus Romanorum_!\n\n\nOf Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He is not what I\ncall a strong man. A morbid, excitable, spasmodic man; at best, intense\nrather than strong. He had not \"the talent of Silence,\" an invaluable\ntalent; which few Frenchmen, or indeed men of any sort in these times,\nexcel in! The suffering man ought really \"to consume his own smoke;\"\nthere is no good in emitting _smoke_ till you have made it into\n_fire_,--which, in the metaphorical sense too, all smoke is capable\nof becoming! Rousseau has not depth or width, not calm force for\ndifficulty; the first characteristic of true greatness. A fundamental\nmistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong who\ntakes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can\nwalk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong\nman. We need forever, especially in these loud-shrieking days, to remind\nourselves of that. A man who cannot _hold his peace_, till the time come\nfor speaking and acting, is no right man.\n\nPoor Rousseau's face is to me expressive of him. A high but narrow\ncontracted intensity in it: bony brows; deep, strait-set eyes, in\nwhich there is something bewildered-looking,--bewildered, peering with\nlynx-eagerness. A face full of misery, even ignoble misery, and also of\nthe antagonism against that; something mean, plebeian there, redeemed\nonly by _intensity_: the face of what is called a Fanatic,--a sadly\n_contracted_ Hero! We name him here because, with all his drawbacks, and\nthey are many, he has the first and chief characteristic of a Hero: he\nis heartily _in earnest_. In earnest, if ever man was; as none of these\nFrench Philosophers were. Nay, one would say, of an earnestness too\ngreat for his otherwise sensitive, rather feeble nature; and which\nindeed in the end drove him into the strangest incoherences, almost\ndelirations. There had come, at last, to be a kind of madness in him:\nhis Ideas _possessed_ him like demons; hurried him so about, drove him\nover steep places--!\n\nThe fault and misery of Rousseau was what we easily name by a single\nword, _Egoism_; which is indeed the source and summary of all faults and\nmiseries whatsoever. He had not perfected himself into victory over mere\nDesire; a mean Hunger, in many sorts, was still the motive principle of\nhim. I am afraid he was a very vain man; hungry for the praises of men.\nYou remember Genlis's experience of him. She took Jean Jacques to the\nTheatre; he bargaining for a strict incognito,--\"He would not be seen\nthere for the world!\" The curtain did happen nevertheless to be drawn\naside: the Pit recognized Jean Jacques, but took no great notice of him!\nHe expressed the bitterest indignation; gloomed all evening, spake no\nother than surly words. The glib Countess remained entirely convinced\nthat his anger was not at being seen, but at not being applauded\nwhen seen. How the whole nature of the man is poisoned; nothing but\nsuspicion, self-isolation, fierce moody ways! He could not live with\nanybody. A man of some rank from the country, who visited him often, and\nused to sit with him, expressing all reverence and affection for him,\ncomes one day; finds Jean Jacques full of the sourest unintelligible\nhumor. \"Monsieur,\" said Jean Jacques, with flaming eyes, \"I know why you\ncome here. You come to see what a poor life I lead; how little is in my\npoor pot that is boiling there. Well, look into the pot! There is half a\npound of meat, one carrot and three onions; that is all: go and tell the\nwhole world that, if you like, Monsieur!\"--A man of this sort was far\ngone. The whole world got itself supplied with anecdotes, for light\nlaughter, for a certain theatrical interest, from these perversions and\ncontortions of poor Jean Jacques. Alas, to him they were not laughing or\ntheatrical; too real to him! The contortions of a dying gladiator: the\ncrowded amphitheatre looks on with entertainment; but the gladiator is\nin agonies and dying.\n\nAnd yet this Rousseau, as we say, with his passionate appeals to\nMothers, with his _contrat-social_, with his celebrations of Nature,\neven of savage life in Nature, did once more touch upon Reality,\nstruggle towards Reality; was doing the function of a Prophet to his\nTime. As he could, and as the Time could! Strangely through all that\ndefacement, degradation and almost madness, there is in the inmost heart\nof poor Rousseau a spark of real heavenly fire. Once more, out of\nthe element of that withered mocking Philosophism, Scepticism and\nPersiflage, there has arisen in this man the ineradicable feeling and\nknowledge that this Life of ours is true: not a Scepticism, Theorem,\nor Persiflage, but a Fact, an awful Reality. Nature had made that\nrevelation to him; had ordered him to speak it out. He got it spoken\nout; if not well and clearly, then ill and dimly,--as clearly as he\ncould. Nay what are all errors and perversities of his, even those\nstealings of ribbons, aimless confused miseries and vagabondisms, if we\nwill interpret them kindly, but the blinkard dazzlement and staggerings\nto and fro of a man sent on an errand he is too weak for, by a path he\ncannot yet find? Men are led by strange ways. One should have tolerance\nfor a man, hope of him; leave him to try yet what he will do. While life\nlasts, hope lasts for every man.\n\nOf Rousseau's literary talents, greatly celebrated still among his\ncountrymen, I do not say much. His Books, like himself, are what I\ncall unhealthy; not the good sort of Books. There is a sensuality in\nRousseau. Combined with such an intellectual gift as his, it makes\npictures of a certain gorgeous attractiveness: but they are not\ngenuinely poetical. Not white sunlight: something _operatic_; a kind\nof rose-pink, artificial bedizenment. It is frequent, or rather it\nis universal, among the French since his time. Madame de Stael has\nsomething of it; St. Pierre; and down onwards to the present astonishing\nconvulsionary \"Literature of Desperation,\" it is everywhere abundant.\nThat same _rose-pink_ is not the right hue. Look at a Shakspeare, at a\nGoethe, even at a Walter Scott! He who has once seen into this, has seen\nthe difference of the True from the Sham-True, and will discriminate\nthem ever afterwards.\n\nWe had to observe in Johnson how much good a Prophet, under all\ndisadvantages and disorganizations, can accomplish for the world. In\nRousseau we are called to look rather at the fearful amount of evil\nwhich, under such disorganization, may accompany the good. Historically\nit is a most pregnant spectacle, that of Rousseau. Banished into Paris\ngarrets, in the gloomy company of his own Thoughts and Necessities\nthere; driven from post to pillar; fretted, exasperated till the heart\nof him went mad, he had grown to feel deeply that the world was not his\nfriend nor the world's law. It was expedient, if any way possible, that\nsuch a man should _not_ have been set in flat hostility with the world.\nHe could be cooped into garrets, laughed at as a maniac, left to starve\nlike a wild beast in his cage;--but he could not be hindered from\nsetting the world on fire. The French Revolution found its Evangelist in\nRousseau. His semi-delirious speculations on the miseries of civilized\nlife, the preferability of the savage to the civilized, and such like,\nhelped well to produce a whole delirium in France generally. True, you\nmay well ask, What could the world, the governors of the world, do with\nsuch a man? Difficult to say what the governors of the world could\ndo with him! What he could do with them is unhappily clear\nenough,--_guillotine_ a great many of them! Enough now of Rousseau.\n\n\nIt was a curious phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving second-hand\nEighteenth Century, that of a Hero starting up, among the artificial\npasteboard figures and productions, in the guise of a Robert Burns. Like\na little well in the rocky desert places,--like a sudden splendor of\nHeaven in the artificial Vauxhall! People knew not what to make of\nit. They took it for a piece of the Vauxhall fire-work; alas, it _let_\nitself be so taken, though struggling half-blindly, as in bitterness of\ndeath, against that! Perhaps no man had such a false reception from his\nfellow-men. Once more a very wasteful life-drama was enacted under the\nsun.\n\nThe tragedy of Burns's life is known to all of you. Surely we may\nsay, if discrepancy between place held and place merited constitute\nperverseness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse then\nBurns's. Among those second-hand acting-figures, _mimes_ for most part,\nof the Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original Man; one of those\nmen who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who take rank with the Heroic\namong men: and he was born in a poor Ayrshire hut. The largest soul\nof all the British lands came among us in the shape of a hard-handed\nScottish Peasant.\n\nHis Father, a poor toiling man, tried various things; did not succeed in\nany; was involved in continual difficulties. The Steward, Factor as\nthe Scotch call him, used to send letters and threatenings, Burns says,\n\"which threw us all into tears.\" The brave, hard-toiling, hard-suffering\nFather, his brave heroine of a wife; and those children, of whom Robert\nwas one! In this Earth, so wide otherwise, no shelter for _them_. The\nletters \"threw us all into tears:\" figure it. The brave Father, I say\nalways;--a _silent_ Hero and Poet; without whom the son had never been\na speaking one! Burns's Schoolmaster came afterwards to London, learnt\nwhat good society was; but declares that in no meeting of men did he\never enjoy better discourse than at the hearth of this peasant. And his\npoor \"seven acres of nursery-ground,\"--not that, nor the miserable patch\nof clay-farm, nor anything he tried to get a living by, would prosper\nwith him; he had a sore unequal battle all his days. But he stood to\nit valiantly; a wise, faithful, unconquerable man;--swallowing down\nhow many sore sufferings daily into silence; fighting like an unseen\nHero,--nobody publishing newspaper paragraphs about his nobleness;\nvoting pieces of plate to him! However, he was not lost; nothing\nis lost. Robert is there the outcome of him,--and indeed of many\ngenerations of such as him.\n\nThis Burns appeared under every disadvantage: uninstructed, poor, born\nonly to hard manual toil; and writing, when it came to that, in a rustic\nspecial dialect, known only to a small province of the country he lived\nin. Had he written, even what he did write, in the general language of\nEngland, I doubt not he had already become universally recognized as\nbeing, or capable to be, one of our greatest men. That he should have\ntempted so many to penetrate through the rough husk of that dialect of\nhis, is proof that there lay something far from common within it. He\nhas gained a certain recognition, and is continuing to do so over all\nquarters of our wide Saxon world: wheresoever a Saxon dialect is spoken,\nit begins to be understood, by personal inspection of this and the\nother, that one of the most considerable Saxon men of the Eighteenth\nCentury was an Ayrshire Peasant named Robert Burns. Yes, I will say,\nhere too was a piece of the right Saxon stuff: strong as the Harz-rock,\nrooted in the depths of the world;--rock, yet with wells of living\nsoftness in it! A wild impetuous whirlwind of passion and faculty\nslumbered quiet there; such heavenly _melody_ dwelling in the heart of\nit. A noble rough genuineness; homely, rustic, honest; true simplicity\nof strength; with its lightning-fire, with its soft dewy pity;--like the\nold Norse Thor, the Peasant-god!\n\nBurns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has told me that\nRobert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship, was usually\nthe gayest of speech; a fellow of infinite frolic, laughter, sense and\nheart; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting peats in the bog, or\nsuch like, than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well believe it. This\nbasis of mirth (\"_fond gaillard_,\" as old Marquis Mirabeau calls it), a\nprimal element of sunshine and joyfulness, coupled with his other deep\nand earnest qualities, is one of the most attractive characteristics\nof Burns. A large fund of Hope dwells in him; spite of his tragical\nhistory, he is not a mourning man. He shakes his sorrows gallantly\naside; bounds forth victorious over them. It is as the lion shaking\n\"dew-drops from his mane;\" as the swift-bounding horse, that _laughs_\nat the shaking of the spear.--But indeed, Hope, Mirth, of the sort\nlike Burns's, are they not the outcome properly of warm generous\naffection,--such as is the beginning of all to every man?\n\nYou would think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted British\nsoul we had in all that century of his: and yet I believe the day is\ncoming when there will be little danger in saying so. His writings, all\nthat he _did_ under such obstructions, are only a poor fragment of him.\nProfessor Stewart remarked very justly, what indeed is true of all Poets\ngood for much, that his poetry was not any particular faculty; but the\ngeneral result of a naturally vigorous original mind expressing itself\nin that way. Burns's gifts, expressed in conversation, are the theme\nof all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts: from the gracefulest\nutterances of courtesy, to the highest fire of passionate speech; loud\nfloods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic emphasis, clear\npiercing insight; all was in him. Witty duchesses celebrate him as a\nman whose speech \"led them off their feet.\" This is beautiful: but still\nmore beautiful that which Mr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more\nthan once alluded to, How the waiters and ostlers at inns would get\nout of bed, and come crowding to hear this man speak! Waiters and\nostlers:--they too were men, and here was a man! I have heard much about\nhis speech; but one of the best things I ever heard of it was, last\nyear, from a venerable gentleman long familiar with him. That it was\nspeech distinguished by always _having something in it_. \"He spoke\nrather little than much,\" this old man told me; \"sat rather silent in\nthose early days, as in the company of persons above him; and always\nwhen he did speak, it was to throw new light on the matter.\" I know not\nwhy any one should ever speak otherwise!--But if we look at his\ngeneral force of soul, his healthy _robustness_ every way, the rugged\ndownrightness, penetration, generous valor and manfulness that was in\nhim,--where shall we readily find a better-gifted man?\n\nAmong the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes feel as if\nBurns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than any other. They\ndiffer widely in vesture; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the\nsame burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;--built, in both\ncases, on what the old Marquis calls a _fond gaillard_. By nature, by\ncourse of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster;\na noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau too\nis veracity and sense, power of true _insight_, superiority of vision.\nThe thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of insight\ninto some object or other: so do both these men speak. The same raging\npassions; capable too in both of manifesting themselves as the tenderest\nnoble affections. Wit; wild laughter, energy, directness, sincerity:\nthese were in both. The types of the two men are not dissimilar. Burns\ntoo could have governed, debated in National Assemblies; politicized, as\nfew could. Alas, the courage which had to exhibit itself in capture of\nsmuggling schooners in the Solway Frith; in keeping _silence_ over so\nmuch, where no good speech, but only inarticulate rage was possible:\nthis might have bellowed forth Ushers de Breze and the like; and made\nitself visible to all men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great\never-memorable epochs! But they said to him reprovingly, his Official\nSuperiors said, and wrote: \"You are to work, not think.\" Of your\n_thinking-faculty_, the greatest in this land, we have no need; you are\nto gauge beer there; for that only are you wanted. Very notable;--and\nworth mentioning, though we know what is to be said and answered! As if\nThought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, in all places and\nsituations of the world, precisely the thing that was wanted. The fatal\nman, is he not always the unthinking man, the man who cannot think and\n_see_; but only grope, and hallucinate, and _mis_see the nature of the\nthing he works with? He mis-sees it, mis_takes_ it as we say; takes it\nfor one thing, and it _is_ another thing,--and leaves him standing like\na Futility there! He is the fatal man; unutterably fatal, put in the\nhigh places of men.--\"Why complain of this?\" say some: \"Strength is\nmournfully denied its arena; that was true from of old.\" Doubtless;\nand the worse for the _arena_, answer I! _Complaining_ profits little;\nstating of the truth may profit. That a Europe, with its French\nRevolution just breaking out, finds no need of a Burns except for\ngauging beer,--is a thing I, for one, cannot _rejoice_ at--!\n\nOnce more we have to say here, that the chief quality of Burns is the\n_sincerity_ of him. So in his Poetry, so in his Life. The song he sings\nis not of fantasticalities; it is of a thing felt, really there; the\nprime merit of this, as of all in him, and of his Life generally, is\ntruth. The Life of Burns is what we may call a great tragic sincerity. A\nsort of savage sincerity,--not cruel, far from that; but wild, wrestling\nnaked with the truth of things. In that sense, there is something of the\nsavage in all great men.\n\nHero-worship,--Odin, Burns? Well; these Men of Letters too were not\nwithout a kind of Hero-worship: but what a strange condition has that\ngot into now! The waiters and ostlers of Scotch inns, prying about\nthe door, eager to catch any word that fell from Burns, were doing\nunconscious reverence to the Heroic. Johnson had his Boswell for\nworshipper. Rousseau had worshippers enough; princes calling on him in\nhis mean garret; the great, the beautiful doing reverence to the poor\nmoon-struck man. For himself a most portentous contradiction; the two\nends of his life not to be brought into harmony. He sits at the tables\nof grandees; and has to copy music for his own living. He cannot even\nget his music copied: \"By dint of dining out,\" says he, \"I run the\nrisk of dying by starvation at home.\" For his worshippers too a most\nquestionable thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of\nvital well-being or ill-being to a generation, can we say that _these_\ngenerations are very first-rate?--And yet our heroic Men of Letters\ndo teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to call them;\nintrinsically there is no preventing it by any means whatever. The world\nhas to obey him who thinks and sees in the world. The world can alter\nthe manner of that; can either have it as blessed continuous summer\nsunshine, or as unblessed black thunder and tornado,--with unspeakable\ndifference of profit for the world! The manner of it is very alterable;\nthe matter and fact of it is not alterable by any power under the sky.\nLight; or, failing that, lightning: the world can take its choice. Not\nwhether we call an Odin god, prophet, priest, or what we call him; but\nwhether we believe the word he tells us: there it all lies. If it be a\ntrue word, we shall have to believe it; believing it, we shall have\nto do it. What _name_ or welcome we give him or it, is a point that\nconcerns ourselves mainly. _It_, the new Truth, new deeper revealing of\nthe Secret of this Universe, is verily of the nature of a message from\non high; and must and will have itself obeyed.--\n\nMy last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns's history,--his\nvisit to Edinburgh. Often it seems to me as if his demeanor there were\nthe highest proof he gave of what a fund of worth and genuine manhood\nwas in him. If we think of it, few heavier burdens could be laid on\nthe strength of a man. So sudden; all common _Lionism_. which ruins\ninnumerable men, was as nothing to this. It is as if Napoleon had\nbeen made a King of, not gradually, but at once from the Artillery\nLieutenancy in the Regiment La Fere. Burns, still only in his\ntwenty-seventh year, is no longer even a ploughman; he is flying to the\nWest Indies to escape disgrace and a jail. This month he is a ruined\npeasant, his wages seven pounds a year, and these gone from him: next\nmonth he is in the blaze of rank and beauty, handing down jewelled\nDuchesses to dinner; the cynosure of all eyes! Adversity is sometimes\nhard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a\nhundred that will stand adversity. I admire much the way in which Burns\nmet all this. Perhaps no man one could point out, was ever so sorely\ntried, and so little forgot himself. Tranquil, unastonished; not\nabashed, not inflated, neither awkwardness nor affectation: he feels\nthat _he_ there is the man Robert Burns; that the \"rank is but the\nguinea-stamp;\" that the celebrity is but the candle-light, which will\nshow _what_ man, not in the least make him a better or other man! Alas,\nit may readily, unless he look to it, make him a _worse_ man; a wretched\ninflated wind-bag,--inflated till he _burst_, and become a _dead_ lion;\nfor whom, as some one has said, \"there is no resurrection of the body;\"\nworse than a living dog!--Burns is admirable here.\n\nAnd yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion-hunters were the\nruin and death of Burns. It was they that rendered it impossible for him\nto live! They gathered round him in his Farm; hindered his industry;\nno place was remote enough from them. He could not get his Lionism\nforgotten, honestly as he was disposed to do so. He falls into\ndiscontents, into miseries, faults; the world getting ever more desolate\nfor him; health, character, peace of mind, all gone;--solitary enough\nnow. It is tragical to think of! These men came but to _see_ him; it was\nout of no sympathy with him, nor no hatred to him. They came to get a\nlittle amusement; they got their amusement;--and the Hero's life went\nfor it!\n\nRichter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of\n\"Light-chafers,\" large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and\nilluminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel\nwith a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honor to the\nFire-flies! But--!\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI. THE HERO AS KING. CROMWELL, NAPOLEON: MODERN REVOLUTIONISM.\n\n[May 22, 1840.]\n\nWe come now to the last form of Heroism; that which we call Kingship.\nThe Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be\nsubordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare\nin doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is\npractically the summary for us of _all_ the various figures of Heroism;\nPriest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can\nfancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to _command_ over us, to\nfurnish us with constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and\nhour what we are to _do_. He is called _Rex_, Regulator, _Roi_: our own\nname is still better; King, _Konning_, which means _Can_-ning, Able-man.\n\nNumerous considerations, pointing towards deep, questionable, and indeed\nunfathomable regions, present themselves here: on the most of which we\nmust resolutely for the present forbear to speak at all. As Burke said\nthat perhaps fair _Trial by Jury_ was the soul of Government, and that\nall legislation, administration, parliamentary debating, and the rest\nof it, went on, in \"order to bring twelve impartial men into a\njury-box;\"--so, by much stronger reason, may I say here, that the\nfinding of your _Ableman_ and getting him invested with the _symbols of\nability_, with dignity, worship (_worth_-ship), royalty, kinghood,\nor whatever we call it, so that _he_ may actually have room to guide\naccording to his faculty of doing it,--is the business, well or\nill accomplished, of all social procedure whatsoever in this world!\nHustings-speeches, Parliamentary motions, Reform Bills, French\nRevolutions, all mean at heart this; or else nothing. Find in any\ncountry the Ablest Man that exists there; raise _him_ to the supreme\nplace, and loyally reverence him: you have a perfect government for\nthat country; no ballot-box, parliamentary eloquence, voting,\nconstitution-building, or other machinery whatsoever can improve it a\nwhit. It is in the perfect state; an ideal country. The Ablest Man; he\nmeans also the truest-hearted, justest, the Noblest Man: what he _tells\nus to do_ must be precisely the wisest, fittest, that we could anywhere\nor anyhow learn;--the thing which it will in all ways behoove US, with\nright loyal thankfulness and nothing doubting, to do! Our _doing_ and\nlife were then, so far as government could regulate it, well regulated;\nthat were the ideal of constitutions.\n\nAlas, we know very well that Ideals can never be completely embodied in\npractice. Ideals must ever lie a very great way off; and we will right\nthankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable approximation\nthereto! Let no man, as Schiller says, too querulously \"measure by a\nscale of perfection the meagre product of reality\" in this poor world\nof ours. We will esteem him no wise man; we will esteem him a sickly,\ndiscontented, foolish man. And yet, on the other hand, it is never to be\nforgotten that Ideals do exist; that if they be not approximated to at\nall, the whole matter goes to wreck! Infallibly. No bricklayer builds a\nwall _perfectly_ perpendicular, mathematically this is not possible;\na certain degree of perpendicularity suffices him; and he, like a good\nbricklayer, who must have done with his job, leaves it so. And yet if he\nsway _too much_ from the perpendicular; above all, if he throw plummet\nand level quite away from him, and pile brick on brick heedless, just\nas it comes to hand--! Such bricklayer, I think, is in a bad way. He has\nforgotten himself: but the Law of Gravitation does not forget to act on\nhim; he and his wall rush down into confused welter of ruin--!\n\nThis is the history of all rebellions, French Revolutions, social\nexplosions in ancient or modern times. You have put the too _Un_able\nMan at the head of affairs! The too ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man. You\nhave forgotten that there is any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of\nputting the Able Man there. Brick must lie on brick as it may and can.\nUnable Simulacrum of Ability, _quack_, in a word, must adjust himself\nwith quack, in all manner of administration of human things;--which\naccordingly lie unadministered, fermenting into unmeasured masses\nof failure, of indigent misery: in the outward, and in the inward or\nspiritual, miserable millions stretch out the hand for their due supply,\nand it is not there. The \"law of gravitation\" acts; Nature's laws do\nnone of them forget to act. The miserable millions burst forth into\nSansculottism, or some other sort of madness: bricks and bricklayer lie\nas a fatal chaos--!\n\nMuch sorry stuff, written some hundred years ago or more, about the\n\"Divine right of Kings,\" moulders unread now in the Public Libraries of\nthis country. Far be it from us to disturb the calm process by which it\nis disappearing harmlessly from the earth, in those repositories! At the\nsame time, not to let the immense rubbish go without leaving us, as it\nought, some soul of it behind--I will say that it did mean something;\nsomething true, which it is important for us and all men to keep in\nmind. To assert that in whatever man you chose to lay hold of (by this\nor the other plan of clutching at him); and claps a round piece of metal\non the head of, and called King,--there straightway came to reside\na divine virtue, so that _he_ became a kind of god, and a Divinity\ninspired him with faculty and right to rule over you to all lengths:\nthis,--what can we do with this but leave it to rot silently in\nthe Public Libraries? But I will say withal, and that is what these\nDivine-right men meant, That in Kings, and in all human Authorities,\nand relations that men god-created can form among each other, there is\nverily either a Divine Right or else a Diabolic Wrong; one or the\nother of these two! For it is false altogether, what the last Sceptical\nCentury taught us, that this world is a steam-engine. There is a God in\nthis world; and a God's-sanction, or else the violation of such, does\nlook out from all ruling and obedience, from all moral acts of men.\nThere is no act more moral between men than that of rule and obedience.\nWoe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him\nthat refuses it when it is! God's law is in that, I say, however the\nParchment-laws may run: there is a Divine Right or else a Diabolic Wrong\nat the heart of every claim that one man makes upon another.\n\nIt can do none of us harm to reflect on this: in all the relations of\nlife it will concern us; in Loyalty and Royalty, the highest of these. I\nesteem the modern error, That all goes by self-interest and the checking\nand balancing of greedy knaveries, and that in short, there is nothing\ndivine whatever in the association of men, a still more despicable\nerror, natural as it is to an unbelieving century, than that of a\n\"divine right\" in people _called_ Kings. I say, Find me the true\n_Konning_, King, or Able-man, and he _has_ a divine right over me. That\nwe knew in some tolerable measure how to find him, and that all men were\nready to acknowledge his divine right when found: this is precisely the\nhealing which a sick world is everywhere, in these ages, seeking after!\nThe true King, as guide of the practical, has ever something of the\nPontiff in him,--guide of the spiritual, from which all practice has\nits rise. This too is a true saying, That the _King_ is head of the\n_Church_.--But we will leave the Polemic stuff of a dead century to lie\nquiet on its bookshelves.\n\n\nCertainly it is a fearful business, that of having your Ableman to\n_seek_, and not knowing in what manner to proceed about it! That is\nthe world's sad predicament in these times of ours. They are times\nof revolution, and have long been. The bricklayer with his bricks,\nno longer heedful of plummet or the law of gravitation, have toppled,\ntumbled, and it all welters as we see! But the beginning of it was not\nthe French Revolution; that is rather the _end_, we can hope. It were\ntruer to say, the _beginning_ was three centuries farther back: in\nthe Reformation of Luther. That the thing which still called itself\nChristian Church had become a Falsehood, and brazenly went about\npretending to pardon men's sins for metallic coined money, and to do\nmuch else which in the everlasting truth of Nature it did _not_ now do:\nhere lay the vital malady. The inward being wrong, all outward went ever\nmore and more wrong. Belief died away; all was Doubt, Disbelief. The\nbuilder cast _away_ his plummet; said to himself, \"What is gravitation?\nBrick lies on brick there!\" Alas, does it not still sound strange to\nmany of us, the assertion that there _is_ a God's-truth in the business\nof god-created men; that all is not a kind of grimace, an \"expediency,\"\ndiplomacy, one knows not what--!\n\nFrom that first necessary assertion of Luther's, \"You, self-styled\n_Papa_, you are no Father in God at all; you are--a Chimera, whom I know\nnot how to name in polite language!\"--from that onwards to the shout\nwhich rose round Camille Desmoulins in the Palais-Royal, \"_Aux armes_!\"\nwhen the people had burst up against _all_ manner of Chimeras,--I find\na natural historical sequence. That shout too, so frightful,\nhalf-infernal, was a great matter. Once more the voice of awakened\nnations;--starting confusedly, as out of nightmare, as out of\ndeath-sleep, into some dim feeling that Life was real; that God's-world\nwas not an expediency and diplomacy! Infernal;--yes, since they would\nnot have it otherwise. Infernal, since not celestial or terrestrial!\nHollowness, insincerity _has_ to cease; sincerity of some sort has to\nbegin. Cost what it may, reigns of terror, horrors of French Revolution\nor what else, we have to return to truth. Here is a Truth, as I said: a\nTruth clad in hell-fire, since they would not but have it so--!\n\nA common theory among considerable parties of men in England and\nelsewhere used to be, that the French Nation had, in those days, as\nit were gone _mad_; that the French Revolution was a general act of\ninsanity, a temporary conversion of France and large sections of the\nworld into a kind of Bedlam. The Event had risen and raged; but was a\nmadness and nonentity,--gone now happily into the region of Dreams and\nthe Picturesque!--To such comfortable philosophers, the Three Days of\nJuly, 1830, must have been a surprising phenomenon. Here is the French\nNation risen again, in musketry and death-struggle, out shooting and\nbeing shot, to make that same mad French Revolution good! The sons and\ngrandsons of those men, it would seem, persist in the enterprise: they\ndo not disown it; they will have it made good; will have themselves\nshot, if it be not made good. To philosophers who had made up their\nlife-system, on that \"madness\" quietus, no phenomenon could be more\nalarming. Poor Niebuhr, they say, the Prussian Professor and Historian,\nfell broken-hearted in consequence; sickened, if we can believe it, and\ndied of the Three Days! It was surely not a very heroic death;--little\nbetter than Racine's, dying because Louis Fourteenth looked sternly on\nhim once. The world had stood some considerable shocks, in its time;\nmight have been expected to survive the Three Days too, and be found\nturning on its axis after even them! The Three Days told all mortals\nthat the old French Revolution, mad as it might look, was not a\ntransitory ebullition of Bedlam, but a genuine product of this Earth\nwhere we all live; that it was verily a Fact, and that the world in\ngeneral would do well everywhere to regard it as such.\n\nTruly, without the French Revolution, one would not know what to make\nof an age like this at all. We will hail the French Revolution, as\nshipwrecked mariners might the sternest rock, in a world otherwise all\nof baseless sea and waves. A true Apocalypse, though a terrible one, to\nthis false withered artificial time; testifying once more that Nature\nis _preter_natural; if not divine, then diabolic; that Semblance is\nnot Reality; that it has to become Reality, or the world will take fire\nunder it,--burn _it_ into what it is, namely Nothing! Plausibility has\nended; empty Routine has ended; much has ended. This, as with a Trump of\nDoom, has been proclaimed to all men. They are the wisest who will\nlearn it soonest. Long confused generations before it be learned; peace\nimpossible till it be! The earnest man, surrounded, as ever, with a\nworld of inconsistencies, can await patiently, patiently strive to do\n_his_ work, in the midst of that. Sentence of Death is written down\nin Heaven against all that; sentence of Death is now proclaimed on the\nEarth against it: this he with his eyes may see. And surely, I\nshould say, considering the other side of the matter, what enormous\ndifficulties lie there, and how fast, fearfully fast, in all countries,\nthe inexorable demand for solution of them is pressing on,--he may\neasily find other work to do than laboring in the Sansculottic province\nat this time of day!\n\nTo me, in these circumstances, that of \"Hero-worship\" becomes a fact\ninexpressibly precious; the most solacing fact one sees in the world at\npresent. There is an everlasting hope in it for the management of the\nworld. Had all traditions, arrangements, creeds, societies that men ever\ninstituted, sunk away, this would remain. The certainty of Heroes being\nsent us; our faculty, our necessity, to reverence Heroes when sent: it\nshines like a polestar through smoke-clouds, dust-clouds, and all manner\nof down-rushing and conflagration.\n\nHero-worship would have sounded very strange to those workers and\nfighters in the French Revolution. Not reverence for Great Men; not any\nhope or belief, or even wish, that Great Men could again appear in the\nworld! Nature, turned into a \"Machine,\" was as if effete now; could not\nany longer produce Great Men:--I can tell her, she may give up the trade\naltogether, then; we cannot do without Great Men!--But neither have I\nany quarrel with that of \"Liberty and Equality;\" with the faith that,\nwise great men being impossible, a level immensity of foolish small\nmen would suffice. It was a natural faith then and there. \"Liberty and\nEquality; no Authority needed any longer. Hero-worship, reverence for\n_such_ Authorities, has proved false, is itself a falsehood; no more\nof it! We have had such _forgeries_, we will now trust nothing. So\nmany base plated coins passing in the market, the belief has now become\ncommon that no gold any longer exists,--and even that we can do very\nwell without gold!\" I find this, among other things, in that universal\ncry of Liberty and Equality; and find it very natural, as matters then\nstood.\n\nAnd yet surely it is but the _transition_ from false to true. Considered\nas the whole truth, it is false altogether;--the product of entire\nsceptical blindness, as yet only _struggling_ to see. Hero-worship\nexists forever, and everywhere: not Loyalty alone; it extends from\ndivine adoration down to the lowest practical regions of life. \"Bending\nbefore men,\" if it is not to be a mere empty grimace, better dispensed\nwith than practiced, is Hero-worship,--a recognition that there does\ndwell in that presence of our brother something divine; that every\ncreated man, as Novalis said, is a \"revelation in the Flesh.\" They were\nPoets too, that devised all those graceful courtesies which make life\nnoble! Courtesy is not a falsehood or grimace; it need not be such.\nAnd Loyalty, religious Worship itself, are still possible; nay still\ninevitable.\n\nMay we not say, moreover, while so many of our late Heroes have worked\nrather as revolutionary men, that nevertheless every Great Man, every\ngenuine man, is by the nature of him a son of Order, not of Disorder? It\nis a tragical position for a true man to work in revolutions. He seems\nan anarchist; and indeed a painful element of anarchy does encumber him\nat every step,--him to whose whole soul anarchy is hostile, hateful.\nHis mission is Order; every man's is. He is here to make what was\ndisorderly, chaotic, into a thing ruled, regular. He is the missionary\nof Order. Is not all work of man in this world a _making of Order_? The\ncarpenter finds rough trees; shapes them, constrains them into square\nfitness, into purpose and use. We are all born enemies of Disorder:\nit is tragical for us all to be concerned in image-breaking and\ndown-pulling; for the Great Man, _more_ a man than we, it is doubly\ntragical.\n\nThus too all human things, maddest French Sansculottisms, do and must\nwork towards Order. I say, there is not a _man_ in them, raging in the\nthickest of the madness, but is impelled withal, at all moments, towards\nOrder. His very life means that; Disorder is dissolution, death. No\nchaos but it seeks a _centre_ to revolve round. While man is\nman, some Cromwell or Napoleon is the necessary finish of a\nSansculottism.--Curious: in those days when Hero-worship was the most\nincredible thing to every one, how it does come out nevertheless, and\nassert itself practically, in a way which all have to credit. Divine\n_right_, take it on the great scale, is found to mean divine _might_\nwithal! While old false Formulas are getting trampled everywhere into\ndestruction, new genuine Substances unexpectedly unfold themselves\nindestructible. In rebellious ages, when Kingship itself seems dead and\nabolished, Cromwell, Napoleon step forth again as Kings. The history of\nthese men is what we have now to look at, as our last phasis of Heroism.\nThe old ages are brought back to us; the manner in which Kings were\nmade, and Kingship itself first took rise, is again exhibited in the\nhistory of these Two.\n\n\nWe have had many civil wars in England; wars of Red and White Roses,\nwars of Simon de Montfort; wars enough, which are not very memorable.\nBut that war of the Puritans has a significance which belongs to no one\nof the others. Trusting to your candor, which will suggest on the other\nside what I have not room to say, I will call it a section once more of\nthat great universal war which alone makes up the true History of the\nWorld,--the war of Belief against Unbelief! The struggle of men intent\non the real essence of things, against men intent on the semblances and\nforms of things. The Puritans, to many, seem mere savage Iconoclasts,\nfierce destroyers of Forms; but it were more just to call them haters of\n_untrue_ Forms. I hope we know how to respect Laud and his King as well\nas them. Poor Laud seems to me to have been weak and ill-starred, not\ndishonest an unfortunate Pedant rather than anything worse. His \"Dreams\"\nand superstitions, at which they laugh so, have an affectionate, lovable\nkind of character. He is like a College-Tutor, whose whole world is\nforms, College-rules; whose notion is that these are the life and safety\nof the world. He is placed suddenly, with that unalterable luckless\nnotion of his, at the head not of a College but of a Nation, to regulate\nthe most complex deep-reaching interests of men. He thinks they ought to\ngo by the old decent regulations; nay that their salvation will lie in\nextending and improving these. Like a weak man, he drives with spasmodic\nvehemence towards his purpose; cramps himself to it, heeding no voice of\nprudence, no cry of pity: He will have his College-rules obeyed by his\nCollegians; that first; and till that, nothing. He is an ill-starred\nPedant, as I said. He would have it the world was a College of that\nkind, and the world was _not_ that. Alas, was not his doom stern enough?\nWhatever wrongs he did, were they not all frightfully avenged on him?\n\nIt is meritorious to insist on forms; Religion and all else naturally\nclothes itself in forms. Everywhere the _formed_ world is the only\nhabitable one. The naked formlessness of Puritanism is not the thing\nI praise in the Puritans; it is the thing I pity,--praising only\nthe spirit which had rendered that inevitable! All substances clothe\nthemselves in forms: but there are suitable true forms, and then there\nare untrue unsuitable. As the briefest definition, one might say, Forms\nwhich _grow_ round a substance, if we rightly understand that, will\ncorrespond to the real nature and purport of it, will be true, good;\nforms which are consciously _put_ round a substance, bad. I invite you\nto reflect on this. It distinguishes true from false in Ceremonial Form,\nearnest solemnity from empty pageant, in all human things.\n\nThere must be a veracity, a natural spontaneity in forms. In the\ncommonest meeting of men, a person making, what we call, \"set speeches,\"\nis not he an offence? In the mere drawing-room, whatsoever courtesies\nyou see to be grimaces, prompted by no spontaneous reality within, are a\nthing you wish to get away from. But suppose now it were some matter\nof vital concernment, some transcendent matter (as Divine Worship is),\nabout which your whole soul, struck dumb with its excess of feeling,\nknew not how to _form_ itself into utterance at all, and preferred\nformless silence to any utterance there possible,--what should we say\nof a man coming forward to represent or utter it for you in the way of\nupholsterer-mummery? Such a man,--let him depart swiftly, if he love\nhimself! You have lost your only son; are mute, struck down, without\neven tears: an importunate man importunately offers to celebrate Funeral\nGames for him in the manner of the Greeks! Such mummery is not only not\nto be accepted,--it is hateful, unendurable. It is what the old Prophets\ncalled \"Idolatry,\" worshipping of hollow _shows_; what all earnest men\ndo and will reject. We can partly understand what those poor Puritans\nmeant. Laud dedicating that St. Catherine Creed's Church, in the\nmanner we have it described; with his multiplied ceremonial bowings,\ngesticulations, exclamations: surely it is rather the rigorous formal\nPedant, intent on his \"College-rules,\" than the earnest Prophet intent\non the essence of the matter!\n\nPuritanism found _such_ forms insupportable; trampled on such forms;--we\nhave to excuse it for saying, No form at all rather than such! It stood\npreaching in its bare pulpit, with nothing but the Bible in its hand.\nNay, a man preaching from his earnest _soul_ into the earnest _souls_ of\nmen: is not this virtually the essence of all Churches whatsoever?\nThe nakedest, savagest reality, I say, is preferable to any semblance,\nhowever dignified. Besides, it will clothe itself with _due_ semblance\nby and by, if it be real. No fear of that; actually no fear at all.\nGiven the living _man_, there will be found _clothes_ for him; he will\nfind himself clothes. But the suit-of-clothes pretending that _it_ is\nboth clothes and man--! We cannot \"fight the French\" by three hundred\nthousand red uniforms; there must be _men_ in the inside of them!\nSemblance, I assert, must actually _not_ divorce itself from Reality.\nIf Semblance do,--why then there must be men found to rebel against\nSemblance, for it has become a lie! These two Antagonisms at war here,\nin the case of Laud and the Puritans, are as old nearly as the world.\nThey went to fierce battle over England in that age; and fought out\ntheir confused controversy to a certain length, with many results for\nall of us.\n\n\nIn the age which directly followed that of the Puritans, their cause or\nthemselves were little likely to have justice done them. Charles Second\nand his Rochesters were not the kind of men you would set to judge what\nthe worth or meaning of such men might have been. That there could be\nany faith or truth in the life of a man, was what these poor Rochesters,\nand the age they ushered in, had forgotten. Puritanism was hung on\ngibbets,--like the bones of the leading Puritans. Its work nevertheless\nwent on accomplishing itself. All true work of a man, hang the author of\nit on what gibbet you like, must and will accomplish itself. We have our\n_Habeas-Corpus_, our free Representation of the People; acknowledgment,\nwide as the world, that all men are, or else must, shall, and will\nbecome, what we call _free_ men;--men with their life grounded on\nreality and justice, not on tradition, which has become unjust and\na chimera! This in part, and much besides this, was the work of the\nPuritans.\n\nAnd indeed, as these things became gradually manifest, the character\nof the Puritans began to clear itself. Their memories were, one after\nanother, taken _down_ from the gibbet; nay a certain portion of them\nare now, in these days, as good as canonized. Eliot, Hampden, Pym, nay\nLudlow, Hutchinson, Vane himself, are admitted to be a kind of Heroes;\npolitical Conscript Fathers, to whom in no small degree we owe what\nmakes us a free England: it would not be safe for anybody to designate\nthese men as wicked now. Few Puritans of note but find their apologists\nsomewhere, and have a certain reverence paid them by earnest men. One\nPuritan, I think, and almost he alone, our poor Cromwell, seems to hang\nyet on the gibbet, and find no hearty apologist anywhere. Him neither\nsaint nor sinner will acquit of great wickedness. A man of ability,\ninfinite talent, courage, and so forth: but he betrayed the Cause.\nSelfish ambition, dishonesty, duplicity; a fierce, coarse, hypocritical\n_Tartuffe_; turning all that noble Struggle for constitutional Liberty\ninto a sorry farce played for his own benefit: this and worse is the\ncharacter they give of Cromwell. And then there come contrasts with\nWashington and others; above all, with these noble Pyms and Hampdens,\nwhose noble work he stole for himself, and ruined into a futility and\ndeformity.\n\nThis view of Cromwell seems to me the not unnatural product of a century\nlike the Eighteenth. As we said of the Valet, so of the Sceptic: He does\nnot know a Hero when he sees him! The Valet expected purple mantles,\ngilt sceptres, bodyguards and flourishes of trumpets: the Sceptic of\nthe Eighteenth century looks for regulated respectable Formulas,\n\"Principles,\" or what else he may call them; a style of speech and\nconduct which has got to seem \"respectable,\" which can plead for\nitself in a handsome articulate manner, and gain the suffrages of an\nenlightened sceptical Eighteenth century! It is, at bottom, the\nsame thing that both the Valet and he expect: the garnitures of some\n_acknowledged_ royalty, which _then_ they will acknowledge! The King\ncoming to them in the rugged _un_formulistic state shall be no King.\n\nFor my own share, far be it from me to say or insinuate a word of\ndisparagement against such characters as Hampden, Elliot, Pym; whom I\nbelieve to have been right worthy and useful men. I have read diligently\nwhat books and documents about them I could come at;--with the honestest\nwish to admire, to love and worship them like Heroes; but I am sorry to\nsay, if the real truth must be told, with very indifferent success! At\nbottom, I found that it would not do. They are very noble men, these;\nstep along in their stately way, with their measured euphemisms,\nphilosophies, parliamentary eloquences, Ship-moneys, _Monarchies of\nMan_; a most constitutional, unblamable, dignified set of men. But the\nheart remains cold before them; the fancy alone endeavors to get up some\nworship of them. What man's heart does, in reality, break forth into any\nfire of brotherly love for these men? They are become dreadfully dull\nmen! One breaks down often enough in the constitutional eloquence of the\nadmirable Pym, with his \"seventhly and lastly.\" You find that it may\nbe the admirablest thing in the world, but that it is heavy,--heavy as\nlead, barren as brick-clay; that, in a word, for you there is little or\nnothing now surviving there! One leaves all these Nobilities standing\nin their niches of honor: the rugged outcast Cromwell, he is the man\nof them all in whom one still finds human stuff. The great savage\n_Baresark_: he could write no euphemistic _Monarchy of Man_; did not\nspeak, did not work with glib regularity; had no straight story to\ntell for himself anywhere. But he stood bare, not cased in euphemistic\ncoat-of-mail; he grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to heart,\nwith the naked truth of things! That, after all, is the sort of man for\none. I plead guilty to valuing such a man beyond all other sorts of men.\nSmooth-shaven Respectabilities not a few one finds, that are not good\nfor much. Small thanks to a man for keeping his hands clean, who would\nnot touch the work but with gloves on!\n\nNeither, on the whole, does this constitutional tolerance of the\nEighteenth century for the other happier Puritans seem to be a very\ngreat matter. One might say, it is but a piece of Formulism and\nScepticism, like the rest. They tell us, It was a sorrowful thing to\nconsider that the foundation of our English Liberties should have been\nlaid by \"Superstition.\" These Puritans came forward with Calvinistic\nincredible Creeds, Anti-Laudisms, Westminster Confessions; demanding,\nchiefly of all, that they should have liberty to _worship_ in their own\nway. Liberty to _tax_ themselves: that was the thing they should have\ndemanded! It was Superstition, Fanaticism, disgraceful ignorance of\nConstitutional Philosophy to insist on the other thing!--Liberty to\n_tax_ oneself? Not to pay out money from your pocket except on reason\nshown? No century, I think, but a rather barren one would have fixed on\nthat as the first right of man! I should say, on the contrary, A just\nman will generally have better cause than _money_ in what shape soever,\nbefore deciding to revolt against his Government. Ours is a most\nconfused world; in which a good man will be thankful to see any kind of\nGovernment maintain itself in a not insupportable manner: and here in\nEngland, to this hour, if he is not ready to pay a great many taxes\nwhich he can see very small reason in, it will not go well with him, I\nthink! He must try some other climate than this. Tax-gatherer? Money?\nHe will say: \"Take my money, since you _can_, and it is so desirable to\nyou; take it,--and take yourself away with it; and leave me alone to my\nwork here. I am still here; can still work, after all the money you have\ntaken from me!\" But if they come to him, and say, \"Acknowledge a Lie;\npretend to say you are worshipping God, when you are not doing it:\nbelieve not the thing that you find true, but the thing that I find, or\npretend to find true!\" He will answer: \"No; by God's help, no! You may\ntake my purse; but I cannot have my moral Self annihilated. The purse is\nany Highwayman's who might meet me with a loaded pistol: but the Self is\nmine and God my Maker's; it is not yours; and I will resist you to the\ndeath, and revolt against you, and, on the whole, front all manner of\nextremities, accusations and confusions, in defence of that!\"--\n\nReally, it seems to me the one reason which could justify revolting,\nthis of the Puritans. It has been the soul of all just revolts among\nmen. Not _Hunger_ alone produced even the French Revolution; no, but\nthe feeling of the insupportable all-pervading _Falsehood_ which had now\nembodied itself in Hunger, in universal material Scarcity and Nonentity,\nand thereby become _indisputably_ false in the eyes of all! We will\nleave the Eighteenth century with its \"liberty to tax itself.\" We will\nnot astonish ourselves that the meaning of such men as the Puritans\nremained dim to it. To men who believe in no reality at all, how shall a\n_real_ human soul, the intensest of all realities, as it were the Voice\nof this world's Maker still speaking to us,--be intelligible? What it\ncannot reduce into constitutional doctrines relative to \"taxing,\" or\nother the like material interest, gross, palpable to the sense, such\na century will needs reject as an amorphous heap of rubbish. Hampdens,\nPyms and Ship-money will be the theme of much constitutional eloquence,\nstriving to be fervid;--which will glitter, if not as fire does, then\nas ice does: and the irreducible Cromwell will remain a chaotic mass of\n\"madness,\" \"hypocrisy,\" and much else.\n\n\nFrom of old, I will confess, this theory of Cromwell's falsity has\nbeen incredible to me. Nay I cannot believe the like, of any Great Man\nwhatever. Multitudes of Great Men figure in History as false selfish\nmen; but if we will consider it, they are but _figures_ for us,\nunintelligible shadows; we do not see into them as men that could have\nexisted at all. A superficial unbelieving generation only, with no eye\nbut for the surfaces and semblances of things, could form such notions\nof Great Men. Can a great soul be possible without a _conscience_ in it,\nthe essence of all _real_ souls, great or small?--No, we cannot figure\nCromwell as a Falsity and Fatuity; the longer I study him and his\ncareer, I believe this the less. Why should we? There is no evidence of\nit. Is it not strange that, after all the mountains of calumny this\nman has been subject to, after being represented as the very prince of\nliars, who never, or hardly ever, spoke truth, but always some cunning\ncounterfeit of truth, there should not yet have been one falsehood\nbrought clearly home to him? A prince of liars, and no lie spoken by\nhim. Not one that I could yet get sight of. It is like Pococke asking\nGrotius, Where is your _proof_ of Mahomet's Pigeon? No proof!--Let us\nleave all these calumnious chimeras, as chimeras ought to be left. They\nare not portraits of the man; they are distracted phantasms of him, the\njoint product of hatred and darkness.\n\nLooking at the man's life with our own eyes, it seems to me, a very\ndifferent hypothesis suggests itself. What little we know of his earlier\nobscure years, distorted as it has come down to us, does it not all\nbetoken an earnest, affectionate, sincere kind of man? His nervous\nmelancholic temperament indicates rather a seriousness _too_ deep for\nhim. Of those stories of \"Spectres;\" of the white Spectre in broad\ndaylight, predicting that he should be King of England, we are not bound\nto believe much;--probably no more than of the other black Spectre,\nor Devil in person, to whom the Officer _saw_ him sell himself before\nWorcester Fight! But the mournful, oversensitive, hypochondriac humor\nof Oliver, in his young years, is otherwise indisputably known. The\nHuntingdon Physician told Sir Philip Warwick himself, He had often been\nsent for at midnight; Mr. Cromwell was full of hypochondria, thought\nhimself near dying, and \"had fancies about the Town-cross.\" These things\nare significant. Such an excitable deep-feeling nature, in that rugged\nstubborn strength of his, is not the symptom of falsehood; it is the\nsymptom and promise of quite other than falsehood!\n\nThe young Oliver is sent to study Law; falls, or is said to have fallen,\nfor a little period, into some of the dissipations of youth; but if\nso, speedily repents, abandons all this: not much above twenty, he is\nmarried, settled as an altogether grave and quiet man. \"He pays back\nwhat money he had won at gambling,\" says the story;--he does not think\nany gain of that kind could be really _his_. It is very interesting,\nvery natural, this \"conversion,\" as they well name it; this awakening of\na great true soul from the worldly slough, to see into the awful _truth_\nof things;--to see that Time and its shows all rested on Eternity, and\nthis poor Earth of ours was the threshold either of Heaven or of Hell!\nOliver's life at St. Ives and Ely, as a sober industrious Farmer, is it\nnot altogether as that of a true and devout man? He has renounced the\nworld and its ways; _its_ prizes are not the thing that can enrich him.\nHe tills the earth; he reads his Bible; daily assembles his servants\nround him to worship God. He comforts persecuted ministers, is fond of\npreachers; nay can himself preach,--exhorts his neighbors to be wise,\nto redeem the time. In all this what \"hypocrisy,\" \"ambition,\" \"cant,\"\nor other falsity? The man's hopes, I do believe, were fixed on the other\nHigher World; his aim to get well _thither_, by walking well through his\nhumble course in _this_ world. He courts no notice: what could notice\nhere do for him? \"Ever in his great Taskmaster's eye.\"\n\nIt is striking, too, how he comes out once into public view; he, since\nno other is willing to come: in resistance to a public grievance. I\nmean, in that matter of the Bedford Fens. No one else will go to law\nwith Authority; therefore he will. That matter once settled, he returns\nback into obscurity, to his Bible and his Plough. \"Gain influence\"? His\ninfluence is the most legitimate; derived from personal knowledge of\nhim, as a just, religious, reasonable and determined man. In this way\nhe has lived till past forty; old age is now in view of him, and the\nearnest portal of Death and Eternity; it was at this point that he\nsuddenly became \"ambitious\"! I do not interpret his Parliamentary\nmission in that way!\n\nHis successes in Parliament, his successes through the war, are honest\nsuccesses of a brave man; who has more resolution in the heart of him,\nmore light in the head of him than other men. His prayers to God; his\nspoken thanks to the God of Victory, who had preserved him safe, and\ncarried him forward so far, through the furious clash of a world all set\nin conflict, through desperate-looking envelopments at Dunbar; through\nthe death-hail of so many battles; mercy after mercy; to the \"crowning\nmercy\" of Worcester Fight: all this is good and genuine for a\ndeep-hearted Calvinistic Cromwell. Only to vain unbelieving Cavaliers,\nworshipping not God but their own \"love-locks,\" frivolities and\nformalities, living quite apart from contemplations of God, living\n_without_ God in the world, need it seem hypocritical.\n\nNor will his participation in the King's death involve him in\ncondemnation with us. It is a stern business killing of a King! But if\nyou once go to war with him, it lies _there_; this and all else lies\nthere. Once at war, you have made wager of battle with him: it is he to\ndie, or else you. Reconciliation is problematic; may be possible, or,\nfar more likely, is impossible. It is now pretty generally admitted that\nthe Parliament, having vanquished Charles First, had no way of making\nany tenable arrangement with him. The large Presbyterian party,\napprehensive now of the Independents, were most anxious to do so;\nanxious indeed as for their own existence; but it could not be. The\nunhappy Charles, in those final Hampton-Court negotiations, shows\nhimself as a man fatally incapable of being dealt with. A man who, once\nfor all, could not and would not _understand_:--whose thought did not\nin any measure represent to him the real fact of the matter; nay worse,\nwhose _word_ did not at all represent his thought. We may say this\nof him without cruelty, with deep pity rather: but it is true and\nundeniable. Forsaken there of all but the _name_ of Kingship, he still,\nfinding himself treated with outward respect as a King, fancied that\nhe might play off party against party, and smuggle himself into his\nold power by deceiving both. Alas, they both _discovered_ that he was\ndeceiving them. A man whose _word_ will not inform you at all what he\nmeans or will do, is not a man you can bargain with. You must get out\nof that man's way, or put him out of yours! The Presbyterians, in\ntheir despair, were still for believing Charles, though found false,\nunbelievable again and again. Not so Cromwell: \"For all our fighting,\"\nsays he, \"we are to have a little bit of paper?\" No--!\n\nIn fact, everywhere we have to note the decisive practical _eye_ of this\nman; how he drives towards the practical and practicable; has a genuine\ninsight into what _is_ fact. Such an intellect, I maintain, does not\nbelong to a false man: the false man sees false shows, plausibilities,\nexpediences: the true man is needed to discern even practical truth.\nCromwell's advice about the Parliament's Army, early in the contest, How\nthey were to dismiss their city-tapsters, flimsy riotous persons, and\nchoose substantial yeomen, whose heart was in the work, to be soldiers\nfor them: this is advice by a man who _saw_. Fact answers, if you see\ninto Fact! Cromwell's _Ironsides_ were the embodiment of this insight of\nhis; men fearing God; and without any other fear. No more conclusively\ngenuine set of fighters ever trod the soil of England, or of any other\nland.\n\nNeither will we blame greatly that word of Cromwell's to them; which\nwas so blamed: \"If the King should meet me in battle, I would kill the\nKing.\" Why not? These words were spoken to men who stood as before a\nHigher than Kings. They had set more than their own lives on the cast.\nThe Parliament may call it, in official language, a fighting \"_for_ the\nKing;\" but we, for our share, cannot understand that. To us it is no\ndilettante work, no sleek officiality; it is sheer rough death and\nearnest. They have brought it to the calling-forth of War; horrid\ninternecine fight, man grappling with man in fire-eyed rage,--the\n_infernal_ element in man called forth, to try it by that! _Do_ that\ntherefore; since that is the thing to be done.--The successes of\nCromwell seem to me a very natural thing! Since he was not shot in\nbattle, they were an inevitable thing. That such a man, with the eye\nto see, with the heart to dare, should advance, from post to post, from\nvictory to victory, till the Huntingdon Farmer became, by whatever name\nyou might call him, the acknowledged Strongest Man in England, virtually\nthe King of England, requires no magic to explain it--!\n\n\nTruly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall into\nScepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity; not to know Sincerity when\nthey see it. For this world, and for all worlds, what curse is so fatal?\nThe heart lying dead, the eye cannot see. What intellect remains is\nmerely the _vulpine_ intellect. That a true _King_ be sent them is of\nsmall use; they do not know him when sent. They say scornfully, Is this\nyour King? The Hero wastes his heroic faculty in bootless contradiction\nfrom the unworthy; and can accomplish little. For himself he does\naccomplish a heroic life, which is much, which is all; but for the world\nhe accomplishes comparatively nothing. The wild rude Sincerity, direct\nfrom Nature, is not glib in answering from the witness-box: in your\nsmall-debt _pie-powder_ court, he is scouted as a counterfeit. The\nvulpine intellect \"detects\" him. For being a man worth any thousand\nmen, the response your Knox, your Cromwell gets, is an argument for two\ncenturies whether he was a man at all. God's greatest gift to this Earth\nis sneeringly flung away. The miraculous talisman is a paltry plated\ncoin, not fit to pass in the shops as a common guinea.\n\nLamentable this! I say, this must be remedied. Till this be remedied in\nsome measure, there is nothing remedied. \"Detect quacks\"? Yes do, for\nHeaven's sake; but know withal the men that are to be trusted! Till\nwe know that, what is all our knowledge; how shall we even so much\nas \"detect\"? For the vulpine sharpness, which considers itself to be\nknowledge, and \"detects\" in that fashion, is far mistaken. Dupes indeed\nare many: but, of all _dupes_, there is none so fatally situated as\nhe who lives in undue terror of being duped. The world does exist; the\nworld has truth in it, or it would not exist! First recognize what is\ntrue, we shall _then_ discern what is false; and properly never till\nthen.\n\n\"Know the men that are to be trusted:\" alas, this is yet, in these days,\nvery far from us. The sincere alone can recognize sincerity. Not a Hero\nonly is needed, but a world fit for him; a world not of _Valets_;--the\nHero comes almost in vain to it otherwise! Yes, it is far from us: but\nit must come; thank God, it is visibly coming. Till it do come, what\nhave we? Ballot-boxes, suffrages, French Revolutions:--if we are as\nValets, and do not know the Hero when we see him, what good are all\nthese? A heroic Cromwell comes; and for a hundred and fifty years he\ncannot have a vote from us. Why, the insincere, unbelieving world is\nthe _natural property_ of the Quack, and of the Father of quacks and\nquackeries! Misery, confusion, unveracity are alone possible there. By\nballot-boxes we alter the _figure_ of our Quack; but the substance of\nhim continues. The Valet-World _has_ to be governed by the Sham-Hero, by\nthe King merely _dressed_ in King-gear. It is his; he is its! In brief,\none of two things: We shall either learn to know a Hero, a true Governor\nand Captain, somewhat better, when we see him; or else go on to be\nforever governed by the Unheroic;--had we ballot-boxes clattering at\nevery street-corner, there were no remedy in these.\n\nPoor Cromwell,--great Cromwell! The inarticulate Prophet; Prophet who\ncould not _speak_. Rude, confused, struggling to utter himself, with his\nsavage depth, with his wild sincerity; and he looked so strange,\namong the elegant Euphemisms, dainty little Falklands, didactic\nChillingworths, diplomatic Clarendons! Consider him. An outer hull\nof chaotic confusion, visions of the Devil, nervous dreams, almost\nsemi-madness; and yet such a clear determinate man's-energy working in\nthe heart of that. A kind of chaotic man. The ray as of pure starlight\nand fire, working in such an element of boundless hypochondria, unformed\nblack of darkness! And yet withal this hypochondria, what was it but\nthe very greatness of the man? The depth and tenderness of his wild\naffections: the quantity of _sympathy_ he had with things,--the quantity\nof insight he would yet get into the heart of things, the mastery he\nwould yet get over things: this was his hypochondria. The man's misery,\nas man's misery always does, came of his greatness. Samuel Johnson too\nis that kind of man. Sorrow-stricken, half-distracted; the wide element\nof mournful _black_ enveloping him,--wide as the world. It is the\ncharacter of a prophetic man; a man with his whole soul _seeing_, and\nstruggling to see.\n\nOn this ground, too, I explain to myself Cromwell's reputed confusion of\nspeech. To himself the internal meaning was sun-clear; but the material\nwith which he was to clothe it in utterance was not there. He had\n_lived_ silent; a great unnamed sea of Thought round him all his days;\nand in his way of life little call to attempt _naming_ or uttering that.\nWith his sharp power of vision, resolute power of action, I doubt not he\ncould have learned to write Books withal, and speak fluently enough;--he\ndid harder things than writing of Books. This kind of man is precisely\nhe who is fit for doing manfully all things you will set him on doing.\nIntellect is not speaking and logicizing; it is seeing and ascertaining.\nVirtue, Virtues, manhood, _hero_hood, is not fair-spoken immaculate\nregularity; it is first of all, what the Germans well name it, _Tugend_\n(_Taugend_, _dow_-ing or _Dough_-tiness), Courage and the Faculty to\n_do_. This basis of the matter Cromwell had in him.\n\nOne understands moreover how, though he could not speak in Parliament,\nhe might _preach_, rhapsodic preaching; above all, how he might be great\nin extempore prayer. These are the free outpouring utterances of what is\nin the heart: method is not required in them; warmth, depth, sincerity\nare all that is required. Cromwell's habit of prayer is a notable\nfeature of him. All his great enterprises were commenced with prayer.\nIn dark inextricable-looking difficulties, his Officers and he used to\nassemble, and pray alternately, for hours, for days, till some definite\nresolution rose among them, some \"door of hope,\" as they would name it,\ndisclosed itself. Consider that. In tears, in fervent prayers, and cries\nto the great God, to have pity on them, to make His light shine before\nthem. They, armed Soldiers of Christ, as they felt themselves to be;\na little band of Christian Brothers, who had drawn the sword against\na great black devouring world not Christian, but Mammonish,\nDevilish,--they cried to God in their straits, in their extreme need,\nnot to forsake the Cause that was His. The light which now rose upon\nthem,--how could a human soul, by any means at all, get better light?\nWas not the purpose so formed like to be precisely the best, wisest, the\none to be followed without hesitation any more? To them it was as the\nshining of Heaven's own Splendor in the waste-howling darkness; the\nPillar of Fire by night, that was to guide them on their desolate\nperilous way. _Was_ it not such? Can a man's soul, to this hour, get\nguidance by any other method than intrinsically by that same,--devout\nprostration of the earnest struggling soul before the Highest, the\nGiver of all Light; be such _prayer_ a spoken, articulate, or be it a\nvoiceless, inarticulate one? There is no other method. \"Hypocrisy\"? One\nbegins to be weary of all that. They who call it so, have no right to\nspeak on such matters. They never formed a purpose, what one can call\na purpose. They went about balancing expediencies, plausibilities;\ngathering votes, advices; they never were alone with the _truth_ of a\nthing at all.--Cromwell's prayers were likely to be \"eloquent,\" and much\nmore than that. His was the heart of a man who _could_ pray.\n\nBut indeed his actual Speeches, I apprehend, were not nearly so\nineloquent, incondite, as they look. We find he was, what all speakers\naim to be, an impressive speaker, even in Parliament; one who, from the\nfirst, had weight. With that rude passionate voice of his, he was\nalways understood to _mean_ something, and men wished to know what.\nHe disregarded eloquence, nay despised and disliked it; spoke always\nwithout premeditation of the words he was to use. The Reporters, too,\nin those days seem to have been singularly candid; and to have given the\nPrinter precisely what they found on their own note-paper. And withal,\nwhat a strange proof is it of Cromwell's being the premeditative\never-calculating hypocrite, acting a play before the world, That to the\nlast he took no more charge of his Speeches! How came he not to study\nhis words a little, before flinging them out to the public? If the words\nwere true words, they could be left to shift for themselves.\n\nBut with regard to Cromwell's \"lying,\" we will make one remark. This,\nI suppose, or something like this, to have been the nature of it. All\nparties found themselves deceived in him; each party understood him to\nbe meaning _this_, heard him even say so, and behold he turns out to\nhave been meaning _that_! He was, cry they, the chief of liars. But now,\nintrinsically, is not all this the inevitable fortune, not of a false\nman in such times, but simply of a superior man? Such a man must have\n_reticences_ in him. If he walk wearing his heart upon his sleeve for\ndaws to peck at, his journey will not extend far! There is no use for\nany man's taking up his abode in a house built of glass. A man always is\nto be himself the judge how much of his mind he will show to other men;\neven to those he would have work along with him. There are impertinent\ninquiries made: your rule is, to leave the inquirer uninformed on that\nmatter; not, if you can help it, misinformed, but precisely as dark as\nhe was! This, could one hit the right phrase of response, is what the\nwise and faithful man would aim to answer in such a case.\n\nCromwell, no doubt of it, spoke often in the dialect of small subaltern\nparties; uttered to them a _part_ of his mind. Each little party thought\nhim all its own. Hence their rage, one and all, to find him not of their\nparty, but of his own party. Was it his blame? At all seasons of his\nhistory he must have felt, among such people, how, if he explained to\nthem the deeper insight he had, they must either have shuddered aghast\nat it, or believing it, their own little compact hypothesis must have\ngone wholly to wreck. They could not have worked in his province any\nmore; nay perhaps they could not now have worked in their own province.\nIt is the inevitable position of a great man among small men. Small men,\nmost active, useful, are to be seen everywhere, whose whole activity\ndepends on some conviction which to you is palpably a limited one;\nimperfect, what we call an _error_. But would it be a kindness always,\nis it a duty always or often, to disturb them in that? Many a man,\ndoing loud work in the world, stands only on some thin traditionality,\nconventionality; to him indubitable, to you incredible: break that\nbeneath him, he sinks to endless depths! \"I might have my hand full of\ntruth,\" said Fontenelle, \"and open only my little finger.\"\n\nAnd if this be the fact even in matters of doctrine, how much more in\nall departments of practice! He that cannot withal _keep his mind to\nhimself_ cannot practice any considerable thing whatever. And we call it\n\"dissimulation,\" all this? What would you think of calling the general\nof an army a dissembler because he did not tell every corporal and\nprivate soldier, who pleased to put the question, what his thoughts were\nabout everything?--Cromwell, I should rather say, managed all this in\na manner we must admire for its perfection. An endless vortex of such\nquestioning \"corporals\" rolled confusedly round him through his whole\ncourse; whom he did answer. It must have been as a great true-seeing man\nthat he managed this too. Not one proved falsehood, as I said; not one!\nOf what man that ever wound himself through such a coil of things will\nyou say so much?--\n\n\nBut in fact there are two errors, widely prevalent, which pervert to the\nvery basis our judgments formed about such men as Cromwell; about their\n\"ambition,\" \"falsity,\" and such like. The first is what I might\ncall substituting the _goal_ of their career for the course and\nstarting-point of it. The vulgar Historian of a Cromwell fancies that\nhe had determined on being Protector of England, at the time when he was\nploughing the marsh lands of Cambridgeshire. His career lay all\nmapped out: a program of the whole drama; which he then step by step\ndramatically unfolded, with all manner of cunning, deceptive dramaturgy,\nas he went on,--the hollow, scheming [Gr.] _Upokrites_, or Play-actor,\nthat he was! This is a radical perversion; all but universal in such\ncases. And think for an instant how different the fact is! How much does\none of us foresee of his own life? Short way ahead of us it is all dim;\nan unwound skein of possibilities, of apprehensions, attemptabilities,\nvague-looming hopes. This Cromwell had _not_ his life lying all in that\nfashion of Program, which he needed then, with that unfathomable cunning\nof his, only to enact dramatically, scene after scene! Not so. We see it\nso; but to him it was in no measure so. What absurdities would fall away\nof themselves, were this one undeniable fact kept honestly in view\nby History! Historians indeed will tell you that they do keep it in\nview;--but look whether such is practically the fact! Vulgar History,\nas in this Cromwell's case, omits it altogether; even the best kinds of\nHistory only remember it now and then. To remember it duly with rigorous\nperfection, as in the fact it _stood_, requires indeed a rare faculty;\nrare, nay impossible. A very Shakspeare for faculty; or more than\nShakspeare; who could _enact_ a brother man's biography, see with the\nbrother man's eyes at all points of his course what things _he_ saw; in\nshort, _know_ his course and him, as few \"Historians\" are like to do.\nHalf or more of all the thick-plied perversions which distort our image\nof Cromwell, will disappear, if we honestly so much as try to represent\nthem so; in sequence, as they _were_; not in the lump, as they are\nthrown down before us.\n\nBut a second error, which I think the generality commit, refers to this\nsame \"ambition\" itself. We exaggerate the ambition of Great Men; we\nmistake what the nature of it is. Great Men are not ambitious in that\nsense; he is a small poor man that is ambitious so. Examine the man\nwho lives in misery because he does not shine above other men; who goes\nabout producing himself, pruriently anxious about his gifts and claims;\nstruggling to force everybody, as it were begging everybody for God's\nsake, to acknowledge him a great man, and set him over the heads of men!\nSuch a creature is among the wretchedest sights seen under this sun. A\n_great_ man? A poor morbid prurient empty man; fitter for the ward of a\nhospital, than for a throne among men. I advise you to keep out of his\nway. He cannot walk on quiet paths; unless you will look at him,\nwonder at him, write paragraphs about him, he cannot live. It is the\n_emptiness_ of the man, not his greatness. Because there is nothing in\nhimself, he hungers and thirsts that you would find something in him. In\ngood truth, I believe no great man, not so much as a genuine man who had\nhealth and real substance in him of whatever magnitude, was ever much\ntormented in this way.\n\nYour Cromwell, what good could it do him to be \"noticed\" by noisy crowds\nof people? God his Maker already noticed him. He, Cromwell, was already\nthere; no notice would make _him_ other than he already was. Till his\nhair was grown gray; and Life from the down-hill slope was all seen to\nbe limited, not infinite but finite, and all a measurable matter _how_\nit went,--he had been content to plough the ground, and read his Bible.\nHe in his old days could not support it any longer, without selling\nhimself to Falsehood, that he might ride in gilt carriages to Whitehall,\nand have clerks with bundles of papers haunting him, \"Decide this,\ndecide that,\" which in utmost sorrow of heart no man can perfectly\ndecide! What could gilt carriages do for this man? From of old, was\nthere not in his life a weight of meaning, a terror and a splendor as\nof Heaven itself? His existence there as man set him beyond the need\nof gilding. Death, Judgment and Eternity: these already lay as the\nbackground of whatsoever he thought or did. All his life lay begirt as\nin a sea of nameless Thoughts, which no speech of a mortal could name.\nGod's Word, as the Puritan prophets of that time had read it: this was\ngreat, and all else was little to him. To call such a man \"ambitious,\"\nto figure him as the prurient wind-bag described above, seems to me the\npoorest solecism. Such a man will say: \"Keep your gilt carriages and\nhuzzaing mobs, keep your red-tape clerks, your influentialities, your\nimportant businesses. Leave me alone, leave me alone; there is _too\nmuch of life_ in me already!\" Old Samuel Johnson, the greatest soul in\nEngland in his day, was not ambitious. \"Corsica Boswell\" flaunted at\npublic shows with printed ribbons round his hat; but the great old\nSamuel stayed at home. The world-wide soul wrapt up in its thoughts, in\nits sorrows;--what could paradings, and ribbons in the hat, do for it?\n\nAh yes, I will say again: The great _silent_ men! Looking round on the\nnoisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with\nlittle worth, one loves to reflect on the great Empire of _Silence_.\nThe noble silent men, scattered here and there, each in his department;\nsilently thinking, silently working; whom no Morning Newspaper makes\nmention of! They are the salt of the Earth. A country that has none or\nfew of these is in a bad way. Like a forest which had no _roots_; which\nhad all turned into leaves and boughs;--which must soon wither and be no\nforest. Woe for us if we had nothing but what we can _show_, or speak.\nSilence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than the stars; deeper than\nthe Kingdoms of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.--I hope\nwe English will long maintain our _grand talent pour le silence_. Let\nothers that cannot do without standing on barrel-heads, to spout, and\nbe seen of all the market-place, cultivate speech exclusively,--become a\nmost green forest without roots! Solomon says, There is a time to speak;\nbut also a time to keep silence. Of some great silent Samuel, not urged\nto writing, as old Samuel Johnson says he was, by _want of money_, and\nnothing other, one might ask, \"Why do not you too get up and speak;\npromulgate your system, found your sect?\" \"Truly,\" he will answer, \"I am\n_continent_ of my thought hitherto; happily I have yet had the ability\nto keep it in me, no compulsion strong enough to speak it. My 'system'\nis not for promulgation first of all; it is for serving myself to live\nby. That is the great purpose of it to me. And then the 'honor'? Alas,\nyes;--but as Cato said of the statue: So many statues in that Forum of\nyours, may it not be better if they ask, Where is Cato's statue?\"--\n\nBut now, by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let me say that\nthere are two kinds of ambition; one wholly blamable, the other laudable\nand inevitable. Nature has provided that the great silent Samuel shall\nnot be silent too long. The selfish wish to shine over others, let it\nbe accounted altogether poor and miserable. \"Seekest thou great\nthings, seek them not:\" this is most true. And yet, I say, there is an\nirrepressible tendency in every man to develop himself according to the\nmagnitude which Nature has made him of; to speak out, to act out, what\nnature has laid in him. This is proper, fit, inevitable; nay it is a\nduty, and even the summary of duties for a man. The meaning of life here\non earth might be defined as consisting in this: To unfold your _self_,\nto work what thing you have the faculty for. It is a necessity for\nthe human being, the first law of our existence. Coleridge beautifully\nremarks that the infant learns to _speak_ by this necessity it\nfeels.--We will say therefore: To decide about ambition, whether it is\nbad or not, you have two things to take into view. Not the coveting of\nthe place alone, but the fitness of the man for the place withal: that\nis the question. Perhaps the place was _his_; perhaps he had a natural\nright, and even obligation, to seek the place! Mirabeau's ambition to\nbe Prime Minister, how shall we blame it, if he were \"the only man in\nFrance that could have done any good there\"? Hopefuler perhaps had he\nnot so clearly _felt_ how much good he could do! But a poor Necker, who\ncould do no good, and had even felt that he could do none, yet sitting\nbroken-hearted because they had flung him out, and he was now quit of\nit, well might Gibbon mourn over him.--Nature, I say, has provided amply\nthat the silent great man shall strive to speak withal; _too_ amply,\nrather!\n\nFancy, for example, you had revealed to the brave old Samuel Johnson, in\nhis shrouded-up existence, that it was possible for him to do priceless\ndivine work for his country and the whole world. That the perfect\nHeavenly Law might be made Law on this Earth; that the prayer he prayed\ndaily, \"Thy kingdom come,\" was at length to be fulfilled! If you had\nconvinced his judgment of this; that it was possible, practicable; that\nhe the mournful silent Samuel was called to take a part in it! Would not\nthe whole soul of the man have flamed up into a divine clearness,\ninto noble utterance and determination to act; casting all sorrows and\nmisgivings under his feet, counting all affliction and contradiction\nsmall,--the whole dark element of his existence blazing into articulate\nradiance of light and lightning? It were a true ambition this! And think\nnow how it actually was with Cromwell. From of old, the sufferings of\nGod's Church, true zealous Preachers of the truth flung into dungeons,\nwhips, set on pillories, their ears crops off, God's Gospel-cause\ntrodden under foot of the unworthy: all this had lain heavy on his\nsoul. Long years he had looked upon it, in silence, in prayer; seeing no\nremedy on Earth; trusting well that a remedy in Heaven's goodness would\ncome,--that such a course was false, unjust, and could not last forever.\nAnd now behold the dawn of it; after twelve years silent waiting, all\nEngland stirs itself; there is to be once more a Parliament, the Right\nwill get a voice for itself: inexpressible well-grounded hope has come\nagain into the Earth. Was not such a Parliament worth being a member of?\nCromwell threw down his ploughs, and hastened thither.\n\nHe spoke there,--rugged bursts of earnestness, of a self-seen truth,\nwhere we get a glimpse of them. He worked there; he fought and strove,\nlike a strong true giant of a man, through cannon-tumult and all\nelse,--on and on, till the Cause _triumphed_, its once so formidable\nenemies all swept from before it, and the dawn of hope had become clear\nlight of victory and certainty. That _he_ stood there as the strongest\nsoul of England, the undisputed Hero of all England,--what of this? It\nwas possible that the Law of Christ's Gospel could now establish itself\nin the world! The Theocracy which John Knox in his pulpit might dream of\nas a \"devout imagination,\" this practical man, experienced in the whole\nchaos of most rough practice, dared to consider as capable of being\n_realized_. Those that were highest in Christ's Church, the devoutest\nwisest men, were to rule the land: in some considerable degree, it might\nbe so and should be so. Was it not _true_, God's truth? And if _true_,\nwas it not then the very thing to do? The strongest practical intellect\nin England dared to answer, Yes! This I call a noble true purpose; is it\nnot, in its own dialect, the noblest that could enter into the heart\nof Statesman or man? For a Knox to take it up was something; but for a\nCromwell, with his great sound sense and experience of what our world\n_was_,--History, I think, shows it only this once in such a degree.\nI account it the culminating point of Protestantism; the most heroic\nphasis that \"Faith in the Bible\" was appointed to exhibit here below.\nFancy it: that it were made manifest to one of us, how we could make the\nRight supremely victorious over Wrong, and all that we had longed and\nprayed for, as the highest good to England and all lands, an attainable\nfact!\n\nWell, I must say, the _vulpine_ intellect, with its knowingness, its\nalertness and expertness in \"detecting hypocrites,\" seems to me a rather\nsorry business. We have had but one such Statesman in England; one\nman, that I can get sight of, who ever had in the heart of him any such\npurpose at all. One man, in the course of fifteen hundred years; and\nthis was his welcome. He had adherents by the hundred or the ten;\nopponents by the million. Had England rallied all round him,--why,\nthen, England might have been a _Christian_ land! As it is, vulpine\nknowingness sits yet at its hopeless problem, \"Given a world of Knaves,\nto educe an Honesty from their united action;\"--how cumbrous a problem,\nyou may see in Chancery Law-Courts, and some other places! Till at\nlength, by Heaven's just anger, but also by Heaven's great grace, the\nmatter begins to stagnate; and this problem is becoming to all men a\n_palpably_ hopeless one.--\n\n\nBut with regard to Cromwell and his purposes: Hume, and a multitude\nfollowing him, come upon me here with an admission that Cromwell _was_\nsincere at first; a sincere \"Fanatic\" at first, but gradually became a\n\"Hypocrite\" as things opened round him. This of the Fanatic-Hypocrite\nis Hume's theory of it; extensively applied since,--to Mahomet and many\nothers. Think of it seriously, you will find something in it; not much,\nnot all, very far from all. Sincere hero hearts do not sink in this\nmiserable manner. The Sun flings forth impurities, gets balefully\nincrusted with spots; but it does not quench itself, and become no Sun\nat all, but a mass of Darkness! I will venture to say that such never\nbefell a great deep Cromwell; I think, never. Nature's own lionhearted\nSon; Antaeus-like, his strength is got by _touching the Earth_, his\nMother; lift him up from the Earth, lift him up into Hypocrisy, Inanity,\nhis strength is gone. We will not assert that Cromwell was an immaculate\nman; that he fell into no faults, no insincerities among the rest. He\nwas no dilettante professor of \"perfections,\" \"immaculate conducts.\"\nHe was a rugged Orson, rending his rough way through actual true\n_work_,--_doubtless_ with many a _fall_ therein. Insincerities, faults,\nvery many faults daily and hourly: it was too well known to him; known\nto God and him! The Sun was dimmed many a time; but the Sun had not\nhimself grown a Dimness. Cromwell's last words, as he lay waiting for\ndeath, are those of a Christian heroic man. Broken prayers to God, that\nHe would judge him and this Cause, He since man could not, in justice\nyet in pity. They are most touching words. He breathed out his wild\ngreat soul, its toils and sins all ended now, into the presence of his\nMaker, in this manner.\n\nI, for one, will not call the man a Hypocrite! Hypocrite, mummer, the\nlife of him a mere theatricality; empty barren quack, hungry for the\nshouts of mobs? The man had made obscurity do very well for him till his\nhead was gray; and now he _was_, there as he stood recognized unblamed,\nthe virtual King of England. Cannot a man do without King's Coaches and\nCloaks? Is it such a blessedness to have clerks forever pestering you\nwith bundles of papers in red tape? A simple Diocletian prefers planting\nof cabbages; a George Washington, no very immeasurable man, does the\nlike. One would say, it is what any genuine man could do; and would do.\nThe instant his real work were out in the matter of Kingship,--away with\nit!\n\nLet us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable everywhere a _King_ is, in\nall movements of men. It is strikingly shown, in this very War, what\nbecomes of men when they cannot find a Chief Man, and their enemies can.\nThe Scotch Nation was all but unanimous in Puritanism; zealous and of\none mind about it, as in this English end of the Island was always far\nfrom being the case. But there was no great Cromwell among them; poor\ntremulous, hesitating, diplomatic Argyles and such like: none of them\nhad a heart true enough for the truth, or durst commit himself to the\ntruth. They had no leader; and the scattered Cavalier party in that\ncountry had one: Montrose, the noblest of all the Cavaliers; an\naccomplished, gallant-hearted, splendid man; what one may call the\nHero-Cavalier. Well, look at it; on the one hand subjects without a\nKing; on the other a King without subjects! The subjects without King\ncan do nothing; the subjectless King can do something. This Montrose,\nwith a handful of Irish or Highland savages, few of them so much as\nguns in their hands, dashes at the drilled Puritan armies like a wild\nwhirlwind; sweeps them, time after time, some five times over, from the\nfield before him. He was at one period, for a short while, master of all\nScotland. One man; but he was a man; a million zealous men, but without\nthe one; they against him were powerless! Perhaps of all the persons in\nthat Puritan struggle, from first to last, the single indispensable one\nwas verily Cromwell. To see and dare, and decide; to be a fixed pillar\nin the welter of uncertainty;--a King among them, whether they called\nhim so or not.\n\n\nPrecisely here, however, lies the rub for Cromwell. His other\nproceedings have all found advocates, and stand generally justified;\nbut this dismissal of the Rump Parliament and assumption of the\nProtectorship, is what no one can pardon him. He had fairly grown to be\nKing in England; Chief Man of the victorious party in England: but it\nseems he could not do without the King's Cloak, and sold himself to\nperdition in order to get it. Let us see a little how this was.\n\nEngland, Scotland, Ireland, all lying now subdued at the feet of the\nPuritan Parliament, the practical question arose, What was to be done\nwith it? How will you govern these Nations, which Providence in a\nwondrous way has given up to your disposal? Clearly those hundred\nsurviving members of the Long Parliament, who sit there as supreme\nauthority, cannot continue forever to sit. What _is_ to be done?--It\nwas a question which theoretical constitution-builders may find easy to\nanswer; but to Cromwell, looking there into the real practical facts of\nit, there could be none more complicated. He asked of the Parliament,\nWhat it was they would decide upon? It was for the Parliament to\nsay. Yet the Soldiers too, however contrary to Formula, they who had\npurchased this victory with their blood, it seemed to them that they\nalso should have something to say in it! We will not \"for all our\nfighting have nothing but a little piece of paper.\" We understand that\nthe Law of God's Gospel, to which He through us has given the victory,\nshall establish itself, or try to establish itself, in this land!\n\nFor three years, Cromwell says, this question had been sounded in the\nears of the Parliament. They could make no answer; nothing but talk,\ntalk. Perhaps it lies in the nature of parliamentary bodies; perhaps\nno Parliament could in such case make any answer but even that of talk,\ntalk! Nevertheless the question must and shall be answered. You sixty\nmen there, becoming fast odious, even despicable, to the whole nation,\nwhom the nation already calls Rump Parliament, you cannot continue to\nsit there: who or what then is to follow? \"Free Parliament,\" right of\nElection, Constitutional Formulas of one sort or the other,--the thing\nis a hungry Fact coming on us, which we must answer or be devoured by\nit! And who are you that prate of Constitutional Formulas, rights of\nParliament? You have had to kill your King, to make Pride's Purges, to\nexpel and banish by the law of the stronger whosoever would not let\nyour Cause prosper: there are but fifty or threescore of you left there,\ndebating in these days. Tell us what we shall do; not in the way of\nFormula, but of practicable Fact!\n\nHow they did finally answer, remains obscure to this day. The diligent\nGodwin himself admits that he cannot make it out. The likeliest is, that\nthis poor Parliament still would not, and indeed could not dissolve and\ndisperse; that when it came to the point of actually dispersing, they\nagain, for the tenth or twentieth time, adjourned it,--and Cromwell's\npatience failed him. But we will take the favorablest hypothesis ever\nstarted for the Parliament; the favorablest, though I believe it is not\nthe true one, but too favorable.\n\nAccording to this version: At the uttermost crisis, when Cromwell and\nhis Officers were met on the one hand, and the fifty or sixty Rump\nMembers on the other, it was suddenly told Cromwell that the Rump in its\ndespair _was_ answering in a very singular way; that in their splenetic\nenvious despair, to keep out the Army at least, these men were hurrying\nthrough the House a kind of Reform Bill,--Parliament to be chosen by\nthe whole of England; equable electoral division into districts; free\nsuffrage, and the rest of it! A very questionable, or indeed for _them_\nan unquestionable thing. Reform Bill, free suffrage of Englishmen? Why,\nthe Royalists themselves, silenced indeed but not exterminated, perhaps\n_outnumber_ us; the great numerical majority of England was always\nindifferent to our Cause, merely looked at it and submitted to it. It is\nin weight and force, not by counting of heads, that we are the majority!\nAnd now with your Formulas and Reform Bills, the whole matter, sorely\nwon by our swords, shall again launch itself to sea; become a mere\nhope, and likelihood, _small_ even as a likelihood? And it is not a\nlikelihood; it is a certainty, which we have won, by God's strength and\nour own right hands, and do now hold _here_. Cromwell walked down to\nthese refractory Members; interrupted them in that rapid speed of their\nReform Bill;--ordered them to begone, and talk there no more.--Can we\nnot forgive him? Can we not understand him? John Milton, who looked\non it all near at hand, could applaud him. The Reality had swept the\nFormulas away before it. I fancy, most men who were realities in England\nmight see into the necessity of that.\n\nThe strong daring man, therefore, has set all manner of Formulas and\nlogical superficialities against him; has dared appeal to the genuine\nFact of this England, Whether it will support him or not? It is curious\nto see how he struggles to govern in some constitutional way; find some\nParliament to support him; but cannot. His first Parliament, the one\nthey call Barebones's Parliament, is, so to speak, a _Convocation of the\nNotables_. From all quarters of England the leading Ministers and chief\nPuritan Officials nominate the men most distinguished by religious\nreputation, influence and attachment to the true Cause: these are\nassembled to shape out a plan. They sanctioned what was past; shaped as\nthey could what was to come. They were scornfully called _Barebones's\nParliament_: the man's name, it seems, was not _Barebones_, but\nBarbone,--a good enough man. Nor was it a jest, their work; it was a\nmost serious reality,--a trial on the part of these Puritan Notables how\nfar the Law of Christ could become the Law of this England. There\nwere men of sense among them, men of some quality; men of deep piety I\nsuppose the most of them were. They failed, it seems, and broke down,\nendeavoring to reform the Court of Chancery! They dissolved themselves,\nas incompetent; delivered up their power again into the hands of the\nLord General Cromwell, to do with it what he liked and could.\n\nWhat _will_ he do with it? The Lord General Cromwell,\n\"Commander-in-chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised;\" he\nhereby sees himself, at this unexampled juncture, as it were the one\navailable Authority left in England, nothing between England and utter\nAnarchy but him alone. Such is the undeniable Fact of his position and\nEngland's, there and then. What will he do with it? After deliberation,\nhe decides that he will _accept_ it; will formally, with public\nsolemnity, say and vow before God and men, \"Yes, the Fact is so, and\nI will do the best I can with it!\" Protectorship, Instrument of\nGovernment,--these are the external forms of the thing; worked out and\nsanctioned as they could in the circumstances be, by the Judges, by the\nleading Official people, \"Council of Officers and Persons of interest in\nthe Nation:\" and as for the thing itself, undeniably enough, at the pass\nmatters had now come to, there _was_ no alternative but Anarchy or that.\nPuritan England might accept it or not; but Puritan England was, in real\ntruth, saved from suicide thereby!--I believe the Puritan People did,\nin an inarticulate, grumbling, yet on the whole grateful and real way,\naccept this anomalous act of Oliver's; at least, he and they together\nmade it good, and always better to the last. But in their Parliamentary\n_articulate_ way, they had their difficulties, and never knew fully what\nto say to it--!\n\nOliver's second Parliament, properly his _first_ regular Parliament,\nchosen by the rule laid down in the Instrument of Government, did\nassemble, and worked;--but got, before long, into bottomless questions\nas to the Protector's _right_, as to \"usurpation,\" and so forth; and had\nat the earliest legal day to be dismissed. Cromwell's concluding Speech\nto these men is a remarkable one. So likewise to his third Parliament,\nin similar rebuke for their pedantries and obstinacies. Most rude,\nchaotic, all these Speeches are; but most earnest-looking. You would\nsay, it was a sincere helpless man; not used to _speak_ the great\ninorganic thought of him, but to act it rather! A helplessness of\nutterance, in such bursting fulness of meaning. He talks much about\n\"births of Providence:\" All these changes, so many victories and events,\nwere not forethoughts, and theatrical contrivances of men, of _me_ or\nof men; it is blind blasphemers that will persist in calling them so!\nHe insists with a heavy sulphurous wrathful emphasis on this. As he well\nmight. As if a Cromwell in that dark huge game he had been playing, the\nworld wholly thrown into chaos round him, had _foreseen_ it all, and\nplayed it all off like a precontrived puppet-show by wood and wire!\nThese things were foreseen by no man, he says; no man could tell what\na day would bring forth: they were \"births of Providence,\" God's finger\nguided us on, and we came at last to clear height of victory, God's\nCause triumphant in these Nations; and you as a Parliament could\nassemble together, and say in what manner all this could be _organized_,\nreduced into rational feasibility among the affairs of men. You were\nto help with your wise counsel in doing that. \"You have had such an\nopportunity as no Parliament in England ever had.\" Christ's Law, the\nRight and True, was to be in some measure made the Law of this land.\nIn place of that, you have got into your idle pedantries,\nconstitutionalities, bottomless cavillings and questionings about\nwritten laws for my coming here;--and would send the whole matter into\nChaos again, because I have no Notary's parchment, but only God's\nvoice from the battle-whirlwind, for being President among you! That\nopportunity is gone; and we know not when it will return. You have had\nyour constitutional Logic; and Mammon's Law, not Christ's Law, rules\nyet in this land. \"God be judge between you and me!\" These are his final\nwords to them: Take you your constitution-formulas in your hand; and I\nmy informal struggles, purposes, realities and acts; and \"God be judge\nbetween you and me!\"--\n\nWe said above what shapeless, involved chaotic things the printed\nSpeeches of Cromwell are. _Wilfully_ ambiguous, unintelligible, say the\nmost: a hypocrite shrouding himself in confused Jesuitic jargon! To me\nthey do not seem so. I will say rather, they afforded the first glimpses\nI could ever get into the reality of this Cromwell, nay into the\npossibility of him. Try to believe that he means something, search\nlovingly what that may be: you will find a real _speech_ lying\nimprisoned in these broken rude tortuous utterances; a meaning in the\ngreat heart of this inarticulate man! You will, for thc first time,\nbegin to see that he was a man; not an enigmatic chimera, unintelligible\nto you, incredible to you. The Histories and Biographies written of this\nCromwell, written in shallow sceptical generations that could not\nknow or conceive of a deep believing man, are far more _obscure_ than\nCromwell's Speeches. You look through them only into the infinite vague\nof Black and the Inane. \"Heats and jealousies,\" says Lord Clarendon\nhimself: \"heats and jealousies,\" mere crabbed whims, theories and\ncrotchets; these induced slow sober quiet Englishmen to lay down their\nploughs and work; and fly into red fury of confused war against the\nbest-conditioned of Kings! _Try_ if you can find that true. Scepticism\nwriting about Belief may have great gifts; but it is really _ultra\nvires_ there. It is Blindness laying down the Laws of Optics.--\n\nCromwell's third Parliament split on the same rock as his second. Ever\nthe constitutional Formula: How came you there? Show us some Notary\nparchment! Blind pedants:--\"Why, surely the same power which makes you\na Parliament, that, and something more, made me a Protector!\" If\nmy Protectorship is nothing, what in the name of wonder is your\nParliamenteership, a reflex and creation of that?--\n\nParliaments having failed, there remained nothing but the way of\nDespotism. Military Dictators, each with his district, to _coerce_\nthe Royalist and other gainsayers, to govern them, if not by act of\nParliament, then by the sword. Formula shall _not_ carry it, while the\nReality is here! I will go on, protecting oppressed Protestants abroad,\nappointing just judges, wise managers, at home, cherishing true Gospel\nministers; doing the best I can to make England a Christian England,\ngreater than old Rome, the Queen of Protestant Christianity; I, since\nyou will not help me; I while God leaves me life!--Why did he not give\nit up; retire into obscurity again, since the Law would not acknowledge\nhim? cry several. That is where they mistake. For him there was no\ngiving of it up! Prime ministers have governed countries, Pitt, Pombal,\nChoiseul; and their word was a law while it held: but this Prime\nMinister was one that _could not get resigned_. Let him once resign,\nCharles Stuart and the Cavaliers waited to kill him; to kill the Cause\n_and_ him. Once embarked, there is no retreat, no return. This Prime\nMinister could _retire_ no-whither except into his tomb.\n\nOne is sorry for Cromwell in his old days. His complaint is incessant of\nthe heavy burden Providence has laid on him. Heavy; which he must bear\ntill death. Old Colonel Hutchinson, as his wife relates it, Hutchinson,\nhis old battle-mate, coming to see him on some indispensable business,\nmuch against his will,--Cromwell \"follows him to the door,\" in a\nmost fraternal, domestic, conciliatory style; begs that he would be\nreconciled to him, his old brother in arms; says how much it grieves him\nto be misunderstood, deserted by true fellow-soldiers, dear to him\nfrom of old: the rigorous Hutchinson, cased in his Republican formula,\nsullenly goes his way.--And the man's head now white; his strong arm\ngrowing weary with its long work! I think always too of his poor Mother,\nnow very old, living in that Palace of his; a right brave woman; as\nindeed they lived all an honest God-fearing Household there: if she\nheard a shot go off, she thought it was her son killed. He had to come\nto her at least once a day, that she might see with her own eyes that he\nwas yet living. The poor old Mother!--What had this man gained; what had\nhe gained? He had a life of sore strife and toil, to his last day. Fame,\nambition, place in History? His dead body was hung in chains, his \"place\nin History,\"--place in History forsooth!--has been a place of ignominy,\naccusation, blackness and disgrace; and here, this day, who knows if it\nis not rash in me to be among the first that ever ventured to pronounce\nhim not a knave and liar, but a genuinely honest man! Peace to him. Did\nhe not, in spite of all, accomplish much for us? _We_ walk smoothly over\nhis great rough heroic life; step over his body sunk in the ditch there.\nWe need not _spurn_ it, as we step on it!--Let the Hero rest. It was not\nto _men's_ judgment that he appealed; nor have men judged him very well.\n\n\nPrecisely a century and a year after this of Puritanism had got itself\nhushed up into decent composure, and its results made smooth, in 1688,\nthere broke out a far deeper explosion, much more difficult to hush up,\nknown to all mortals, and like to be long known, by the name of French\nRevolution. It is properly the third and final act of Protestantism; the\nexplosive confused return of mankind to Reality and Fact, now that they\nwere perishing of Semblance and Sham. We call our English Puritanism the\nsecond act: \"Well then, the Bible is true; let us go by the Bible!\" \"In\nChurch,\" said Luther; \"In Church and State,\" said Cromwell, \"let us go\nby what actually _is_ God's Truth.\" Men have to return to reality; they\ncannot live on semblance. The French Revolution, or third act, we may\nwell call the final one; for lower than that savage _Sansculottism_ men\ncannot go. They stand there on the nakedest haggard Fact, undeniable in\nall seasons and circumstances; and may and must begin again confidently\nto build up from that. The French explosion, like the English one, got\nits King,--who had no Notary parchment to show for himself. We have\nstill to glance for a moment at Napoleon, our second modern King.\n\nNapoleon does by no means seem to me so great a man as Cromwell. His\nenormous victories which reached over all Europe, while Cromwell abode\nmainly in our little England, are but as the high _stilts_ on which the\nman is seen standing; the stature of the man is not altered thereby.\nI find in him no such _sincerity_ as in Cromwell; only a far inferior\nsort. No silent walking, through long years, with the Awful Unnamable\nof this Universe; \"walking with God,\" as he called it; and faith and\nstrength in that alone: _latent_ thought and valor, content to lie\nlatent, then burst out as in blaze of Heaven's lightning! Napoleon lived\nin an age when God was no longer believed; the meaning of all Silence,\nLatency, was thought to be Nonentity: he had to begin not out of the\nPuritan Bible, but out of poor Sceptical _Encyclopedies_. This was\nthe length the man carried it. Meritorious to get so far. His compact,\nprompt, every way articulate character is in itself perhaps small,\ncompared with our great chaotic inarticulate Cromwell's. Instead of\n\"dumb Prophet struggling to speak,\" we have a portentous mixture of the\nQuack withal! Hume's notion of the Fanatic-Hypocrite, with such truth as\nit has, will apply much better to Napoleon than it did to Cromwell,\nto Mahomet or the like,--where indeed taken strictly it has hardly any\ntruth at all. An element of blamable ambition shows itself, from the\nfirst, in this man; gets the victory over him at last, and involves him\nand his work in ruin.\n\n\"False as a bulletin\" became a proverb in Napoleon's time. He makes what\nexcuse he could for it: that it was necessary to mislead the enemy, to\nkeep up his own men's courage, and so forth. On the whole, there are no\nexcuses. A man in no case has liberty to tell lies. It had been, in the\nlong-run, _better_ for Napoleon too if he had not told any. In fact,\nif a man have any purpose reaching beyond the hour and day, meant to be\nfound extant _next_ day, what good can it ever be to promulgate lies?\nThe lies are found out; ruinous penalty is exacted for them. No man will\nbelieve the liar next time even when he speaks truth, when it is of\nthe last importance that he be believed. The old cry of wolf!--A Lie is\nno-thing; you cannot of nothing make something; you make _nothing_ at\nlast, and lose your labor into the bargain.\n\nYet Napoleon _had_ a sincerity: we are to distinguish between what is\nsuperficial and what is fundamental in insincerity. Across these outer\nmanoeuverings and quackeries of his, which were many and most\nblamable, let us discern withal that the man had a certain instinctive\nineradicable feeling for reality; and did base himself upon fact, so\nlong as he had any basis. He has an instinct of Nature better than his\nculture was. His _savans_, Bourrienne tells us, in that voyage to Egypt\nwere one evening busily occupied arguing that there could be no God.\nThey had proved it, to their satisfaction, by all manner of logic.\nNapoleon looking up into the stars, answers, \"Very ingenious, Messieurs:\nbut _who made_ all that?\" The Atheistic logic runs off from him like\nwater; the great Fact stares him in the face: \"Who made all that?\" So\ntoo in Practice: he, as every man that can be great, or have victory in\nthis world, sees, through all entanglements, the practical heart of the\nmatter; drives straight towards that. When the steward of his\nTuileries Palace was exhibiting the new upholstery, with praises, and\ndemonstration how glorious it was, and how cheap withal, Napoleon,\nmaking little answer, asked for a pair of scissors, clips one of the\ngold tassels from a window-curtain, put it in his pocket, and walked on.\nSome days afterwards, he produced it at the right moment, to the horror\nof his upholstery functionary; it was not gold but tinsel! In St.\nHelena, it is notable how he still, to his last days, insists on the\npractical, the real. \"Why talk and complain; above all, why quarrel with\none another? There is no _result_ in it; it comes to nothing that one\ncan _do_. Say nothing, if one can do nothing!\" He speaks often so, to\nhis poor discontented followers; he is like a piece of silent strength\nin the middle of their morbid querulousness there.\n\nAnd accordingly was there not what we can call a _faith_ in him, genuine\nso far as it went? That this new enormous Democracy asserting itself\nhere in the French Revolution is an unsuppressible Fact, which the whole\nworld, with its old forces and institutions, cannot put down; this was\na true insight of his, and took his conscience and enthusiasm along with\nit,--a _faith_. And did he not interpret the dim purport of it well?\n\"_La carriere ouverte aux talens_, The implements to him who can handle\nthem:\" this actually is the truth, and even the whole truth; it includes\nwhatever the French Revolution or any Revolution, could mean. Napoleon,\nin his first period, was a true Democrat. And yet by the nature of him,\nfostered too by his military trade, he knew that Democracy, if it were\na true thing at all, could not be an anarchy: the man had a heart-hatred\nfor anarchy. On that Twentieth of June (1792), Bourrienne and he sat\nin a coffee-house, as the mob rolled by: Napoleon expresses the deepest\ncontempt for persons in authority that they do not restrain this rabble.\nOn the Tenth of August he wonders why there is no man to command these\npoor Swiss; they would conquer if there were. Such a faith in Democracy,\nyet hatred of anarchy, it is that carries Napoleon through all his great\nwork. Through his brilliant Italian Campaigns, onwards to the Peace\nof Leoben, one would say, his inspiration is: \"Triumph to the French\nRevolution; assertion of it against these Austrian Simulacra that\npretend to call it a Simulacrum!\" Withal, however, he feels, and has a\nright to feel, how necessary a strong Authority is; how the Revolution\ncannot prosper or last without such. To bridle in that great devouring,\nself-devouring French Revolution; to _tame_ it, so that its intrinsic\npurpose can be made good, that it may become _organic_, and be able\nto live among other organisms and _formed_ things, not as a wasting\ndestruction alone: is not this still what he partly aimed at, as the\ntrue purport of his life; nay what he actually managed to do? Through\nWagrams, Austerlitzes; triumph after triumph,--he triumphed so far.\nThere was an eye to see in this man, a soul to dare and do. He rose\nnaturally to be the King. All men saw that he _was_ such. The common\nsoldiers used to say on the march: \"These babbling _Avocats_, up at\nParis; all talk and no work! What wonder it runs all wrong? We shall\nhave to go and put our _Petit Caporal_ there!\" They went, and put him\nthere; they and France at large. Chief-consulship, Emperorship, victory\nover Europe;--till the poor Lieutenant of _La Fere_, not unnaturally,\nmight seem to himself the greatest of all men that had been in the world\nfor some ages.\n\nBut at this point, I think, the fatal charlatan-element got the upper\nhand. He apostatized from his old faith in Facts, took to believing in\nSemblances; strove to connect himself with Austrian Dynasties,\nPopedoms, with the old false Feudalities which he once saw clearly to\nbe false;--considered that _he_ would found \"his Dynasty\" and so forth;\nthat the enormous French Revolution meant only that! The man was \"given\nup to strong delusion, that he should believe a lie;\" a fearful but\nmost sure thing. He did not know true from false now when he looked\nat them,--the fearfulest penalty a man pays for yielding to untruth of\nheart. _Self_ and false ambition had now become his god: self-deception\nonce yielded to, _all_ other deceptions follow naturally more and more.\nWhat a paltry patchwork of theatrical paper-mantles, tinsel and mummery,\nhad this man wrapt his own great reality in, thinking to make it\nmore real thereby! His hollow _Pope's-Concordat_, pretending to be a\nre-establishment of Catholicism, felt by himself to be the method\nof extirpating it, \"_la vaccine de la religion_:\" his ceremonial\nCoronations, consecrations by the old Italian Chimera in\nNotre-Dame,--\"wanting nothing to complete the pomp of it,\" as Augereau\nsaid, \"nothing but the half-million of men who had died to put an end to\nall that\"! Cromwell's Inauguration was by the Sword and Bible; what we\nmust call a genuinely _true_ one. Sword and Bible were borne before him,\nwithout any chimera: were not these the _real_ emblems of Puritanism;\nits true decoration and insignia? It had used them both in a very real\nmanner, and pretended to stand by them now! But this poor Napoleon\nmistook: he believed too much in the _Dupability_ of men; saw no fact\ndeeper in man than Hunger and this! He was mistaken. Like a man that\nshould build upon cloud; his house and he fall down in confused wreck,\nand depart out of the world.\n\nAlas, in all of us this charlatan-element exists; and _might_ be\ndeveloped, were the temptation strong enough. \"Lead us not into\ntemptation\"! But it is fatal, I say, that it _be_ developed. The\nthing into which it enters as a cognizable ingredient is doomed to be\naltogether transitory; and, however huge it may _look_, is in itself\nsmall. Napoleon's working, accordingly, what was it with all the noise\nit made? A flash as of gunpowder wide-spread; a blazing-up as of dry\nheath. For an hour the whole Universe seems wrapt in smoke and flame;\nbut only for an hour. It goes out: the Universe with its old mountains\nand streams, its stars above and kind soil beneath, is still there.\n\nThe Duke of Weimar told his friends always, To be of courage; this\nNapoleonism was _unjust_, a falsehood, and could not last. It is true\ndoctrine. The heavier this Napoleon trampled on the world, holding it\ntyrannously down, the fiercer would the world's recoil against him be,\none day. Injustice pays itself with frightful compound-interest. I am\nnot sure but he had better have lost his best park of artillery, or\nhad his best regiment drowned in the sea, than shot that poor German\nBookseller, Palm! It was a palpable tyrannous murderous injustice, which\nno man, let him paint an inch thick, could make out to be other. It\nburnt deep into the hearts of men, it and the like of it; suppressed\nfire flashed in the eyes of men, as they thought of it,--waiting their\nday! Which day _came_: Germany rose round him.--What Napoleon _did_ will\nin the long-run amount to what he did justly; what Nature with her laws\nwill sanction. To what of reality was in him; to that and nothing more.\nThe rest was all smoke and waste. _La carriere ouverte aux talens_:\nthat great true Message, which has yet to articulate and fulfil itself\neverywhere, he left in a most inarticulate state. He was a great\n_ebauche_, a rude-draught never completed; as indeed what great man is\nother? Left in _too_ rude a state, alas!\n\nHis notions of the world, as he expresses them there at St. Helena,\nare almost tragical to consider. He seems to feel the most unaffected\nsurprise that it has all gone so; that he is flung out on the rock\nhere, and the World is still moving on its axis. France is great, and\nall-great: and at bottom, he is France. England itself, he says, is by\nNature only an appendage of France; \"another Isle of Oleron to\nFrance.\" So it was by _Nature_, by Napoleon-Nature; and yet look how in\nfact--HERE AM I! He cannot understand it: inconceivable that the\nreality has not corresponded to his program of it; that France was not\nall-great, that he was not France. \"Strong delusion,\" that he should\nbelieve the thing to be which _is_ not! The compact, clear-seeing,\ndecisive Italian nature of him, strong, genuine, which he once had,\nhas enveloped itself, half-dissolved itself, in a turbid atmosphere\nof French fanfaronade. The world was not disposed to be trodden down\nunderfoot; to be bound into masses, and built together, as _he_ liked,\nfor a pedestal to France and him: the world had quite other purposes in\nview! Napoleon's astonishment is extreme. But alas, what help now? He\nhad gone that way of his; and Nature also had gone her way. Having once\nparted with Reality, he tumbles helpless in Vacuity; no rescue for him.\nHe had to sink there, mournfully as man seldom did; and break his great\nheart, and die,--this poor Napoleon: a great implement too soon wasted,\ntill it was useless: our last Great Man!\n\nOur last, in a double sense. For here finally these wide roamings of\nours through so many times and places, in search and study of Heroes,\nare to terminate. I am sorry for it: there was pleasure for me in this\nbusiness, if also much pain. It is a great subject, and a most grave\nand wide one, this which, not to be too grave about it, I have named\n_Hero-worship_. It enters deeply, as I think, into the secret of\nMankind's ways and vitalest interests in this world, and is well worth\nexplaining at present. With six months, instead of six days, we might\nhave done better. I promised to break ground on it; I know not whether\nI have even managed to do that. I have had to tear it up in the rudest\nmanner in order to get into it at all. Often enough, with these abrupt\nutterances thrown out isolated, unexplained, has your tolerance been put\nto the trial. Tolerance, patient candor, all-hoping favor and\nkindness, which I will not speak of at present. The accomplished and\ndistinguished, the beautiful, the wise, something of what is best in\nEngland, have listened patiently to my rude words. With many feelings, I\nheartily thank you all; and say, Good be with you all!","title":"On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":88526}