{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70412/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70412","id":"gutenberg_70412","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70412","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Homiletical illustrations"],"text":"SECULAR ANNOTATIONS ON SCRIPTURE TEXTS.\n\n\n\n\n Scripture Texts Illustrated\n BY\n GENERAL LITERATURE.\n\n BY THE\n REV. FRANCIS JACOX, B.A.\n\n [Illustration]\n\n NEW YORK: THOMAS NELSON & SONS,\n 42, BLEECKER STREET.\n 1871.\n\n _Issued in this country by special arrangement with Messrs.\n HODDER & STOUGHTON, of London, England._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n PAGE\n\n FELLOWSHIP IN ACHAN\u2019S FALL 1\n JOSHUA xxii. 20.\n\n SILENT SYMPATHY 6\n JOB ii. 13.\n\n THE TEMPTER\u2019S \u201cIT IS WRITTEN\u201d 10\n ST. MATTHEW iv. 6, sq.\n\n ROYALTY REMINDED OF THE POOR 15\n DANIEL iv. 27.\n\n WIND, EARTHQUAKE, FIRE, AND STILL SMALL VOICE 32\n 1 KINGS xix. 11, 12.\n\n HAMAN HANGED ON HIS OWN GALLOWS 41\n ESTHER vii. 10.\n\n TO-DAY\u2019S SUFFICING EVIL, AND TO-MORROW\u2019S FORECAST CARE 47\n ST. MATTHEW vi. 34.\n\n MEDICAMENTAL MUSIC 55\n 1 SAMUEL xvi. 23.\n\n FREE FROM RIGHTEOUSNESS 60\n ROMANS vi. 20.\n\n THE SERVICE OF FREEDOM 66\n ST. MATTHEW xi. 29, 30.\n\n THE DISCREET SILENCE OF FOLLY 70\n PROVERBS xvii. 28.\n\n PENAL PREVISION 76\n 1 SAMUEL xxvii. 19, 20.\n\n BEATIFIC VISION AND OVERSHADOWING CLOUD 86\n ST. LUKE ix. 34.\n\n THE SPREADING GOURD AND THE SPEEDING WORM 91\n JONAH iv. 6-8.\n\n SELF-PRAISE 96\n PROVERBS xxvii. 2.\n\n PAINTED FACE, TIRED HEAD, AND EXPOSED SKULL 101\n 2 KINGS ix. 30, 35.\n\n THE CARCASE OF JEZEBEL ON THE FACE OF THE FIELD 104\n 2 KINGS ix. 37.\n\n \u201cCONSIDER THE LILIES\u201d 109\n ST. MATTHEW vi. 28.\n\n A HISTRIONIC ASPECT OF LIFE 114\n 1 CORINTHIANS vii. 31.\n\n PHARAOH\u2019S ALTERNATIONS OF AMENDMENT AND RELAPSE 125\n EXODUS vii.-x. _passim_.\n\n SLEEP AND DEATH 134\n ST. JOHN xi. 11-14.\n\n ELIAB AND DAVID IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH 139\n 1 SAMUEL xvii. 28.\n\n THE PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 143\n ST. LUKE iv. 24.\n\n DESIRED BOON: REALIZED BANE 147\n PSALM cvi. 15; lxxviii. 22, sq.\n\n \u201cAND HE DIED\u201d 156\n GENESIS v. _passim_.\n\n AN ULTRA-PROTESTER 165\n ST. MATTHEW xxvi. 33-35; 69-75.\n\n FLEETING SHADOWS 170\n JOB xiv. 2.\n\n HARAN TAKEN: TERAH LEFT 182\n GENESIS xi. 28.\n\n THE MOTE AND THE BEAM 187\n ST. MATTHEW vii. 5.\n\n STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS 192\n 1 PETER ii. 11.\n\n THE FALSITY OF THE FAMILIAR FRIEND 200\n PSALM xli. 9.\n\n \u201cJUDGE NOT\u201d 208\n ST. MATTHEW vii. 1.\n\n PART-KNOWLEDGE 224\n 1 CORINTHIANS xiii. 9.\n\n RULING THE WAVES 231\n PSALM cxiv. 1-5; ST. MARK iv. 39.\n\n IN DEADLY PERIL UNAWARES 237\n 1 SAMUEL xxvi. 8-25.\n\n NO LEISURE 242\n ST. MARK vi. 31.\n\n A PROPHYLACTIC KNIFE TO THE THROAT 249\n PROVERBS xxiii. 2.\n\n HAZAEL\u2019S ABHORRENT REPUDIATION OF HIS FUTURE SELF 255\n 2 KINGS viii. 13.\n\n THE OPEN RIGHT HAND\u2019S SECRET FROM THE LEFT 259\n ST. MATTHEW vi. 3.\n\n TO-MORROW 263\n ST. JAMES iv. 13, 14.\n\n THE DIVINE AUTHORSHIP OF ORDER 273\n 1 CORINTHIANS xiv. 33, 40.\n\n SWEET SLEEP AND ITS FORFEITURE 282\n PROVERBS iii. 24.\n\n ONCE DENIED, THRICE DENIED 286\n ST. MATTHEW xxvi. 69, sq.\n\n LINKED LIES 290\n GENESIS xxvii. 19-24.\n\n A TIME TO WEEP, AND A TIME TO LAUGH 296\n ECCLESIASTES iii. 4.\n\n DISALLOWED DESIGNS 301\n PROVERBS xix. 21\n\n MAN DEVISING: GOD DIRECTING 305\n PROVERBS xvi. 9.\n\n A PURSEBEARER\u2019S PROTEST AGAINST PURPOSELESS WASTE 309\n ST. JOHN xii. 5.\n\n LIGHT AT EVENING-TIME 313\n ZECHARIAH xiv. 7.\n\n WISHED-FOR DAY 323\n ACTS xxvii. 29.\n\n THE MORE THAN BROTHERHOOD OF A BOSOM FRIEND 328\n PROVERBS xviii. 24.\n\n MANY YEARS TO ENJOY LIFE: THIS NIGHT TO DIE 333\n ST. LUKE xii. 19, 20.\n\n GREAT BABYLON BUILT: A BUILDER\u2019S BOAST 337\n DANIEL iv. 29-33.\n\n INVOCATION AND INACTION 342\n EXODUS xiv. 15.\n\n CO-OPERANT UNITS 348\n EPHESIANS iv. 16.\n\n SUBORDINATE, NOT SUPERFLUOUS; OR, DEPRECIATED MEMBERSHIP 353\n 1 CORINTHIANS xii. 22.\n\n THE WRATH-DISPELLING POWER OF A SOFT ANSWER 357\n PROVERBS xv. 1.\n\n A TWICE-TOLD TALE OF YEARS 361\n ECCLESIASTES vi. 6.\n\n DAYBREAK NO SOLACE: NIGHTFALL NO RELIEF 365\n DEUTERONOMY xxviii. 36, 37.\n\n BUYER\u2019S BARGAIN AND BOAST 367\n PROVERBS xx. 14.\n\n GRAY-HAIRED UNAWARES 372\n HOSEA vii. 9.\n\n RESTRAINED ANGER 376\n PROVERBS xvi. 32.\n\n EVANESCENCE OF THE EARLY DEW 381\n HOSEA vi. 3.\n\n EARS TO HEAR 386\n ST. LUKE viii. 8.\n\n NOT ALONE IN THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS 389\n PSALM xxiii. 4.\n\n\n\n\nSECULAR ANNOTATIONS ON SCRIPTURE TEXTS.\n\n\n\n\n_FELLOWSHIP IN ACHAN\u2019S FALL._\n\nJOSHUA xxii. 20.\n\n\nWhen Achan the son of Zerah committed a trespass in the accursed thing,\nwrath fell not alone upon Achan, but upon all the congregation of Israel;\n\u201cand that man perished not alone in his iniquity.\u201d The text is one to\narrest the thoughtless, and to suggest even to the most thoughtful matter\nfor very serious consideration.\n\n\u201cShould one man sin, and would God be wroth with all the congregation?\u201d\nThat deprecatory question had been put twenty years before Achan\u2019s\ntrespass, by the congregation of Israel, in the matter of Korah, when\nthey fell upon their faces and pleaded with God, the God of the spirits\nof all flesh. And some centuries later the confession of King David in\ntime of pestilence took this form: that he had sinned and done wickedly;\nbut those sheep\u2014those subjects of his, involved in the penalty of his\ntransgression, and dying off like sheep in a flock to the right and left\nof him, seventy thousand of them from morning to evening, from Dan even\nto Beersheba,\u2014what had they done?\n\nIf, indeed, says Dr. South, a man could be wicked and a villain to\nhimself alone, the mischief would be so much the more tolerable. But the\ncase, as he goes on to show, is much otherwise: the guilt of the crime\nlights upon one, but the example of it sways a multitude; especially if\nthe criminal be of any note or eminence in the world. \u201cFor the fall of\nsuch a one by any temptation (be it never so plausible) is like that\nof a principal stone or stately pillar, tumbling from a lofty edifice\ninto the deep mire of the street; it does not only plunge and sink into\nthe black dirt itself, but also dashes or bespatters all that are about\nit or near it when it falls.\u201d It is by no very subtle and far-fetched\nreasoning that a living divine essays to show that we may sin in the\npersons of other men, and so may sin in other countries which we never\nsaw, and in years after we are in our graves. For may we not, he asks,\nbe partakers in other men\u2019s sins of which at their commission we knew\nnot, indeed at whose commission we would shudder? May we not in the\nmoral world sometimes set the great stone rolling down the hill, with\nlittle thought of the ruin it may deal below? \u201cAh, you may live after\nyou are dead, to do mischief; live in the evil thoughts you instilled,\nthe false doctrines you taught, the perverted character you helped to\nform.\u201d And just as a righteous exemplar, \u201cbeing dead, yet speaketh,\u201d and\nis a living means of good ages after he has been in his grave, \u201cso may\nyou, insignificant though you be, have left some impress of yourself upon\nminds more powerful than your own, and so be exercising a power to do\nharm to people you have never heard of, years after you are dead.\u201d Thus\nit is that far down into unknown time, and far away into the unknown\ndistance, the moral contagion of our sin may be proved to spread; so that\nwe may still be incurring guilt after the green turf is over us, and in\nlands which we have never seen and shall never see. \u201cThe evil principle\nwe instilled, the evil example we set, may ripen into bitter fruit in\nthe murderous blow which shall be dealt a century hence upon Australian\nplains!\u201d Well may the note of exclamation follow: how strange, yet how\ninevitable, the tie which may link our uneventful life with the stormy\npassions of numbers far away! More wonderful than even the Atlantic cable\nis declared to be that unknown fibre, along which, from other men\u2019s sins,\nresponsibility may thrill even to our departed souls: \u201ca chain whose\nlinks are formed perhaps of idle words, of forgotten looks, of phrases\nof double meaning, of bad advice, of cynical sentiment hardly seriously\nmeant; yet carried on through life after life, through soul after soul,\ntill the little seed of evil sown by you has developed into some deed of\nguilt at which you shudder, but from participation in responsibility for\nwhich you cannot clear yourself.\u201d Every sin, we are in fine reminded, may\nwaken its echo; every sin is reduplicated and reiterated in other souls\nand lives.\n\nA distinguished French preacher, of the Reformed faith, has a striking\ndiscourse on what he entitles the _solidarity_ of evil; and he too\ndilates upon the mysterious links which connect together persons and acts\nthat appear to have nothing in common,\u2014suggesting melancholy examples of\nthe contagion of guilt and its consequences, of the expansive power of\ncorruption and its almost boundless results.\n\nOur most powerful female writer of fiction has emphatically taught,\nif a striking story can teach, that there is no sort of wrong deed of\nwhich a man can bear the punishment alone; you can\u2019t isolate yourself,\nand say that the evil which is in you shall not spread. Men\u2019s lives are\nas thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe; evil\nspreads as necessarily as disease. \u201cI know, I feel the terrible extent of\nsuffering this sin of Arthur\u2019s has caused to others,\u201d\u2014so the good rector\ntells one who cherishes vengeance on the wrong-doer; \u201cbut so does every\nsin cause suffering to others besides those who commit it.\u201d The problem\nhow far a man is to be held responsible for the unforeseen consequences\nof his own deed this speaker pronounces to be one that might well make\nus tremble to look into it; the evil consequences that may lie folded\nin a single act of selfish indulgence being a thought so awful that it\nought surely to awaken some feeling less presumptuous than a rash and\nvindictive desire to punish.\n\nIn another of her books the same authoress takes pains to prove how\ndeeply inherent it is in this life of ours that men have to suffer for\neach other\u2019s sins; so inevitably diffusive is human suffering that we\ncan conceive no retribution which does not spread beyond its mark in\npulsations of unmerited pain.\n\nThere is a passage in one of Madame de Charri\u00e8re\u2019s letters in which,\navowing her full recognition of the fact that she must pay in person for\nthe costly experience of life, she expresses the futile wish that others\nmight not have to share in the costs, but owns with a sigh that the wish\n_is_ futile, for one does nothing absolutely alone she says, and nothing\nso happens to us as to entirely exclude the participation of others: \u201c_On\nne fait rien tout seul, et il ne nous arrive rien \u00e0 nous seuls._\u201d We are\ntaught by modern science that the slightest movement, of the smallest\nbody, in the remotest region, produces results which are perpetual, which\ndiffuse themselves through all space, and which, though they may be\nmetamorphosed, cannot be destroyed.[1] Or again, as Mrs. Browning reminds\nus,\u2014\n\n \u201cEach creature holds an insular point in space:\n Yet what man stirs a finger, breathes a sound,\n But all the multitudinous beings round,\n In all the countless worlds, with time and place\n For their conditions, down to the central base,\n Thrill, haply, in vibration and rebound,\n Life answering life across the vast profound,\n In full antiphony....\u201d\n\nIf no good work that a man does is lost\u2014the smallest useful work, as an\noctogenarian essayist assures us, continuing to be useful long after the\nman is dead and forgotten, so neither do bad actions die with the doer.\n\u201cFuture generations suffer for the sin of their ancestors, and one great\ncrime or act of folly causes the misery of unborn millions.\u201d So all\nthings, it is added, hang together in one unbroken chain, of which we see\na few links, but the beginning and the end we see not and never shall see.\n\nSeneca was writing for all time when he said that no man\u2019s error is\nconfined to himself, but affects all around him, whether by example, or\nconsequences, or both: \u201c_nemo errat uni sibi_.\u201d A latter-day philosopher\nassigns to a place among the most insoluble riddles propounded to mortal\ncomprehension what he calls the fatal decree by which every crime is\nmade to be the agony of many innocent persons as well as of the single\nguilty one. \u201cAh!\u201d exclaims Hilda to guilty Miriam, in the story of\n\u201cTransformation,\u201d\u2014\u201cnow I understand how the sins of generations past\nhave created an atmosphere of sin for those that follow. While there is\na single guilty person in the universe, each innocent one must feel his\ninnocence tortured by that guilt. Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the\nwhole sky!\u201d To apply the lines of a reflective poet,\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis not their own crimes only, men commit;\n They harrow them into another\u2019s breast,\n And they shall reap the growth with bitter pain.\u201d\n\nVery forcibly Mr. Isaac Taylor warns us that in almost every event of\nlife the remote consequences vastly outweigh the proximate in actual\namount of importance; and he undertakes to show, on principles even of\nmathematical calculation, that each individual of the human family holds\nin his hand the centre lines of an interminable web-work, on which are\nsustained the fortunes of multitudes of his successors; the implicated\nconsequences, if summed together, making up therefore a weight of human\nweal or woe that is reflected back with an incalculable momentum upon\nthe lot of each. The practical conclusion is that every one is bound to\nremember that the personal sufferings or peculiar vicissitudes or toils\nthrough which he is called to pass are to be estimated and explained only\nin an immeasurably small proportion if his single welfare is regarded,\nwhile their \u201cfull price and value are not to be computed unless the drops\nof the morning dew could be numbered.\u201d So the most popular of domestic\nstory-tellers expatiates in an early work on the impossibility of wiping\noff from us, as with a wet cloth, the stains left by the fault of those\nwho are near to us. Another of the tribe, but more \u201csensational\u201d in\nsubject and style, is keen to show how the influence of a man\u2019s evil deed\nslowly percolates through insidious channels of which he never dreams;\nhow the deed of folly or of guilt is still active for evil when the\nsinner who committed it has forgotten his wickedness. \u201cWho shall say\nwhere or when the results of one man\u2019s evil-doing shall cease? The seed\nof sin engenders no common root, shooting straight upwards through the\nearth, and bearing a given crop. It is the germ of a foul running weed,\nwhose straggling suckers travel underground beyond the ken of mortal\neye, beyond the power of mortal calculation.\u201d And so again the caustic\nshowman of \u201cVanity Fair,\u201d in his last completed work, paused to explain\nhow a culprit\u2019s evil behaviour of five and twenty years back, brought\npresent grief and loss of rest to three unoffending persons; and he\ncharacteristically utters the wistful wish that we \u201ccould all take the\npunishment for our individual crimes on our individual shoulders,\u201d but\nlaments the futility of any such wish, recognising as he does so plainly\nthat when the culprit is condemned to hang, it is those connected with\nhim who have to weep and suffer, and wear piteous mourning in their\nhearts long after he has jumped off the Tyburn ladder.\n\nWe conclude with a suggestive stanza of Mr. Robert Browning\u2019s, worth\nlearning by heart in more senses than one: he is speaking of the soul\ndeclaring itself by its fruit\u2014the thing it does:\u2014\n\n \u201cBe Hate that fruit, or Love that fruit,\n It forwards the general deed of Man;\n And each of the many helps to recruit\n The life of the race by a general plan,\n Each living his own, to boot.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_SILENT SYMPATHY._\n\nJOB ii. 13.\n\n\nJob\u2019s friends have long since been a sort of bye-word. But be it not\nforgotten that the friendship of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, to the\nruined and desolate man of Uz, evidences itself as very genuine in one\nor two salient points, before it came to be, what it is apt to be now\nexclusively considered, all talk. Before the talk there was prolonged\nsilence; and before the silence there was lamentation of undoubted\nearnest. Coming from afar to mourn with him, and to comfort him,\nfrom afar off they caught sight of him, but so altered\u2014_heu, quantum\nmutatus!_\u2014that they lifted up their voice and wept; and they rent each\none his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven. And\nthen they \u201csat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights,\n_and none spake a word unto him_; for they saw that his grief was very\ngreat.\u201d\n\nThe sonnet of a Quaker poet has thus far vindicated the sincerity of\ntheir friendship, and on the ground of their silent sympathy:\n\n \u201cHowever ye might err in after-speech,\n The mute expression of that voiceless woe\n Whereby ye sought your sympathy to show\n With him of Uz, doth eloquently preach,\u2014\n Teaching a lesson it were well to teach\n Some comforters, of utterance less slow,\n Prone to believe that they more promptly know\n Grief\u2019s mighty depths, and by their words can reach.\n _Seven days and nights_, in stillness as profound\n As that of chaos, patiently ye sate\n By the heart-stricken and the desolate.\n And though your sympathy might fail to sound\n The fathomless depth of his dark spirit\u2019s wound,\n Not less your silence was sublimely great.\u201d\n\nIn his vivid picture of the desolation of a bereaved husband, Sir Richard\nSteele goes on to say, \u201cI knew consolation would now be impertinent;\nand therefore contented myself to sit by him, and condole with him in\nsilence.\u201d \u201c_Les consolations indiscr\u00e8tes_,\u201d says Rousseau, \u201c_ne font\nqu\u2019aigrir les violentes afflictions. L\u2019indiff\u00e9rence et la froideur\ntrouvent ais\u00e9ment des paroles, mais la tristesse et LE SILENCE sont alors\nle vrai langage de l\u2019amiti\u00e9_.\u201d Gray writes to Mason, while yet uncertain\nwhether the latter is already a widower or not,\u2014\u201cIf the last struggle be\nover ... allow me (at least in idea, for what could I do were I present\nmore than this,) to sit by you in silence, and pity from my heart, not\nher who is at rest, but you who lose her.\u201d So it happened that Mason\nreceived this little billet at almost the precise moment when it would be\nmost affecting.\n\nHorace Walpole, again, writes to an afflicted correspondent,\u2014\u201cI say no\nmore, for time only, not words, can soften such afflictions, nor can any\nconsolations be suggested, that do not more immediately occur to the\npersons afflicted. To moralize can comfort those only who do not want to\nbe comforted.\u201d So Marcia replies to Lucia, in Addison\u2019s tragedy:\n\n \u201c_Lucia._ What can I think or say to give thee comfort?\n\n _Marcia._ Talk not of comfort, \u2019tis for lighter ills.\u201d\n\nWords are words, says Shakspeare\u2019s Brabantio, and never yet heard he\nthat the bruised heart was relieved through the ear. When, towards the\nclose of Campbell\u2019s metrical tale of fair Wyoming, on Susquehanna\u2019s side,\n\u201cprone to the dust, afflicted Waldegrave hid his face on earth, him\nwatched, in gloomy ruth, his woodland guide; but words had none to soothe\nthe grief that knows not consolation\u2019s name.\u201d But the Oneyda chief was\nnot on that account Waldegrave\u2019s least efficient comforter. What though\nothers around him, less reticent, and more demonstrative, found utterance\neasy, and shaped their kind common-place meaning into kind common-place\nwords? \u201cOf them that stood encircling his despair, he heard some friendly\nwords, but knew not what they were.\u201d Wise-hearted, too, was Southey\u2019s\nyoung Arabian, in watching silently the frantic grief of the newly\nchildless old diviner: in pitying silence Thalaba stood by, and gazed,\nand listened: \u201cnot with the officious hand of consolation, fretting\nthe sore wound he could not hope to heal.\u201d It has been called the last\ntriumph of affection and magnanimity, when a loving heart can respect the\nsuffering silence of its beloved, and allow that lonely liberty in which\nalone some natures can find comfort. A late author portrayed in one of\nhis tales a dull, common-place fellow enough, of limited intellect and\nattainments, whose, however, was one of those kind and honest natures\nfortunately endowed with subtle powers of perception that lie deeper than\nthe head. Accordingly he is described, in the capacity of an unofficious\ncondoler, as appreciating perfectly the grief of his friend; at his\nside throughout the day, but never obtruding himself, never attempting\njarring platitudes of condolence: \u201cin a word he fully understood the deep\nand beautiful sympathy of silence.\u201d So with Adela and Caroline in _The\nBertrams_,\u2014interchanging those pressures of the hand, those mute marks of\nfellow-feeling, \u201cwhich we all know so well how to give when we long to\nlighten the sorrows which are too deep to be probed by words.\u201d But though\nwe all may know so well how to give these mute marks, we do not all and\nalways practice what we know. \u2019Tis true, \u2019tis pity; pity \u2019tis \u2019tis true.\n\nAdam Bede\u2019s outburst of maddened feelings, uttered in tones of appealing\nanguish, when the loss of Hetty is first made clear to him, is noted in\nsilence by the discreet rector, who is too wise to utter soothing words\nat present, as he watches in Adam that look of sudden age which sometimes\ncomes over a young face in moments of terrible emotion. As Bartle Massey\nelsewhere describes this silent sympathizer, \u201cAy, he\u2019s good metal; ...\nsays no more than\u2019s needful. He\u2019s not one of those that think they can\ncomfort you with chattering, as if folks who stand by and look on knew a\ndeal better what the trouble was than those who have to bear it.\u201d\n\nMadame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9 frankly deposes of her capacity as regards wordy\nconsolation: \u201c_Pour moi, je ne sais point de paroles dans une telle\noccasion._\u201d Mr. Tennyson submits what is applicable to any _telle\noccasion_,\n\n \u201cThat only silence suiteth best.\n Words weaker than your grief would make\n Grief more. \u2019Twere better I should cease.\u201d\n\nMiss Procter sings the praises of a true comforter in little Effie,\u2014\u201cjust\nI think that she does not try,\u2014only looks with a wistful wonder why grown\npeople should ever cry.\u201d It is such a comfort to be able to cry in peace,\nadds that sweet singer (with _larmes dans la voix_):\n\n \u201cAnd my comforter knows a lesson\n Wiser, truer than all the rest:\u2014\n That to help and to heal a sorrow,\n Love and silence are always best.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE TEMPTER\u2019S \u201cIT IS WRITTEN.\u201d_\n\nMATTHEW iv. 6.\n\n\n\u201cIt is written,\u201d said the Tempter, quoting Scripture for his purpose,\nwhen it was his hour and the power of darkness, in the day of temptation\nin the wilderness. The quotation was refuted on the spot, and the Tempter\nwas foiled. But his failure has not deterred mankind, at sundry times and\nin divers manners, from venturing on the same appeal, with no very unlike\ndesign. The wise as serpents (there was a serpent in Eden) who are not\nalso harmless as doves, have now and then essayed to round a sophistic\nperiod, or clench an immoral argument, with an _It is written_.\n\nAmong the crowd of pilgrims who throng the pages of his allegory,\nBunyan depicts one Mr. Selfwill, who holds that a man may follow the\nvices as well as the virtues of pilgrims; and that if he does both, he\nshall certainly be saved. But what ground has he for so saying? is Mr.\nGreatheart\u2019s query. And old Mr. Honesty replies, \u201cWhy, he said he had\nScripture for his warrant.\u201d He could cite David\u2019s practice in one bad\ndirection, and Sarah\u2019s lying in another, and Jacob\u2019s dissimulation in a\nthird. And what they did, he might do too. \u201cI have heard him plead for\nit, bring Scripture for it, bring arguments for it,\u201d etc., quoth old\nHonesty with a degree of indignation that does credit to his name.\n\n \u201cThe devil can quote Scripture for his purpose.\n An evil soul, producing holy witness,\n Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,\n A goodly apple rotten at the core.\u201d\n\nSuch is Antonio\u2019s stricture on Shylock\u2019s appeal to Jacob\u2019s practice,\n\u201cWhen Jacob grazed his uncle Laban\u2019s sheep\u201d; and there is a parallel\npassage in the next act, where Bassanio is the speaker:\u2014\n\n \u201cIn religion,\n What damn\u00e8d error but some sober brow\n Will bless it and approve it with a text,\n Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?\u201d\n\nAgainst divines, indeed, of every school and age, the reproach of citing\na text in support of doctrine or practice the reverse of divine, has been\nfreely cast, with more or less of reason. Orthodox and heterodox, each\nhas flung against the other his retort uncourteous.\n\n \u201cHave not all heretics the same pretence\n To plead the Scriptures in their own defence?\n How did the Nicene Council then decide\n That strong debate? Was it by Scripture tried?\n No, sure; to that the rebel would not yield:\n Squadrons of texts _he_ marshall\u2019d in the field.\n ...\n With texts point-blank and plain he faced the foe;\n And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so?\u201d\n\nA Dublin synod of the Irish Roman Catholic bishops, a few years since,\nwhich distinguished itself by its enthusiasm for Pope Pius IX., against\nthe King of Italy, and by its arrogation of a divine right of practical\nmonopoly in overseeing the schools and colleges of Ireland, was made the\ntheme of comment by unsympathetic British critics; who remarked that\nwhen the question of education is stirred in such quarters, the dullest\nheretic can divine that the national system is to be denounced; and that\nit is easy to guess at the text of Scripture to be quoted in support\nof the pretensions of the Church. \u201cThe command to \u2018go and teach all\nnations\u2019 vested in the successors of the Apostles a rightful monopoly\nof instruction in Greek, mathematics, and civil engineering.\u201d According\nto the same elastic authority, the \u201cPuritans,\u201d we are reminded, were\njustified in shooting and hanging their enemies, because Samuel hewed\nAgag in pieces, or because Phineas arose and executed judgment. \u201cThere\nnever was a proposition which could not be proved by a text; and perhaps\nthe effect is more complete when the citation is taken from the Vulgate.\u201d\nGray\u2019s malicious lines against Lord Sandwich, a notorious evil-liver,\nas candidate for the High Stewardship in the University of Cambridge,\ninclude this stanza, supposed to be uttered by a representative D.D.,\nof the old port-wine school, and a staunch supporter of his profligate\nlordship:\n\n \u201cDid not Israel filch from th\u2019 Egyptians of old\n Their jewels of silver and jewels of gold?\n The prophet of Bethel, we read, told a lie;\n He[2] drinks\u2014so did Noah:\u2014he swears\u2014so do I.\u201d\n\nGray\u2019s _jeu d\u2019esprit_ was, throughout, not in the best of taste; but it\nwas vastly relished at the time, as an election squib. The reference\nto spoiling the Egyptians is a well worked one in the history of\nquotations. Coleridge has a story of a Mameluke Bey, whose \u201cprecious\nlogic\u201d extorted a large contribution from the Egyptian Jews. \u201cThese\nbooks, the Pentateuch, are authentic?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cWell, the debt then is\nacknowledged: and now the receipt, or the money, or your heads! The Jews\nborrowed a large treasure from the Egyptians; but you are the Jews, and\non you, therefore, I call for the repayment.\u201d Such conclusions, from such\npremises, and backed by such vouchers, are open to logicians of every\norder, sacred and profane.\n\n \u201cHence comment after comment, spun as fine\n As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line;\n Hence the same word that bids our lusts obey,\n Is misapplied to sanctify their sway.\n If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend,\n Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend:\n If languages and copies all cry, No!\n Somebody proved it centuries ago.\u201d\n\nBurns was never any too backward in having his fling at a \u201cminister\u201d; and\nthere is exceptional (and perhaps exceptionable) gusto in his averment\nthat,\n\n \u201cE\u2019en ministers, they have been kenn\u2019d,\n In holy rapture,\n A rousing _whid_, at times, to vend,\n And nail\u2019t wi\u2019 Scripture.\u201d\n\nThere was a time in the life of Diderot when that freest of free-thinkers\nmade a living, such as it was, by writing sermons to order\u2014half a dozen\nof them, for instance, a missionary bespoke for the Portuguese colonies,\nand is said to have paid for them very handsomely at fifty crowns each.\nMr. Carlyle is caustic in his commemoration of this incident in Denis\nDiderot\u2019s career. \u201cFurther, he made sermons, to order; as the Devil is\nsaid to quote Scripture.\u201d In Mr. Carlyle\u2019s latest and longest history,\nwe find once and again the like allusion. Frederick William, and his\nadvisers, bent on a certain match for the Princess Wilhelmina, which the\nqueen, her mother, as steadfastly opposed, took to quoting Scripture by\nway of subduing her majesty\u2019s resistance. \u201cThere was much discourse,\nsuasive, argumentative. Grumkow quoting Scripture on her majesty, as the\ndevil can on occasion,\u201d says Wilhelmina. \u201cExpress scriptures, \u2018Wives,\nbe obedient to your husbands,\u2019 and the like texts; but her majesty,\non the Scripture side, too, gave him as much as he brought.\u201d And at a\nlater stage of the negotiation, the same Grumkow appears again, citing\nthe Vulgate to a confidential correspondent, in reference to their\npolitical schemings. \u201cBut \u2018_Si Deus est nobiscum_\u2019\u2014\u2018If God be for us, who\ncan be against us?\u2019 For the Grumkow can quote Scripture; nay, solaces\nhimself with it, which is a feat beyond what the devil is competent\nto.\u201d Shakespeare embodies in Richard of Gloster a type of the political\nintriguer of this complexion; as where that usurper thus answers the\ngulled associates who urge him to be avenged on the opposite faction:\n\n \u201cBut then I sigh, and with a piece of Scripture,\n Tell them, that God bids us do good for evil.\n And thus I clothe my naked villany\n With old odd ends, stolen forth of holy writ;\n And seem a saint when most I play the devil.\u201d\n\nAn unmitigated scoundrel in one of Mr. Dickens\u2019s books is represented as\novertly grudging his old father the scant remnant of his days, and citing\nholy writ for sanction of his complaint. \u201cWhy, a man of any feeling ought\nto be ashamed of being eighty\u2014let alone any more. Where\u2019s his religion,\nI should like to know, when he goes flying in the face of the Bible like\nthat? Threescore and ten\u2019s the mark; and no man with a conscience,\nand a proper sense of what\u2019s expected of him, has any business to live\nlonger.\u201d Whereupon the author interposes this parenthetical comment, and\nhighly characteristic it is: \u201cIs any one surprised at Mr. Jonas making\nsuch a reference to such a book for such a purpose? Does any one doubt\nthe old saw that the devil ... quotes Scripture for his own ends? If he\nwill take the trouble to look about him, he may find a greater number\nof confirmations of the fact in the occurrences of a single day than\nthe steam-gun can discharge balls in a minute.\u201d Fiction would supply us\nwith abundant illustrations\u2014fiction in general, and Sir Walter Scott in\nparticular. As where Simon of Hackburn, the martial borderer, backs his\nhot appeal to arms, for the avenging a deed of wrong, by an equivocal\nreference to holy writ. \u201cLet women sit and greet at hame, men must do as\nthey have been done by; it is the Scripture says it.\u201d \u201cHaud your tongue,\nsir,\u201d exclaims one of the seniors, sternly; \u201cdinna abuse the Word that\ngate; ye dinna ken what ye speak about.\u201d Or as where the Templar essays\nto corrupt the Jewess by citing the examples of David and Solomon: \u201cIf\nthou readest the Scriptures,\u201d retorts Rebecca, \u201cand the lives of the\nsaints, only to justify thine own licence and profligacy, thy crime\nis like that of him who extracteth poison from the most healthful and\nnecessary herbs.\u201d One other example. Undy Scott, that plausible scamp\nof Mr. Trollope\u2019s making, propounds an immoral paradox, to the scope of\nwhich one of his dupes is bold enough to object. But how is the objector\ndisposed of? \u201c\u2018Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,\u2019 said Undy, quoting\nScripture, as the devil did before him.\u201d Dupes can quote Scripture, too,\nand perhaps that is more demoralizing still. For Cowper did not rhyme\nwithout reason when he declared, that\n\n \u201cOf all the arts sagacious dupes invent,\n To cheat themselves, and gain the world\u2019s assent,\n The worst is\u2014Scripture warped from its intent.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_ROYALTY REMINDED OF THE POOR._\n\nDANIEL iv. 27.\n\n\nGreat was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, even as the tree that he saw in\nhis dream; for, by the avowal of the Hebrew prophet who interpreted that\ndream, the king was indeed become strong, and his greatness was grown,\nand reached unto the heaven, and his dominion unto the ends of the earth.\nBut sentence had gone forth, as against the tree, so against the king.\nNebuchadnezzar was to be degraded; despoiled of his kingdom, cast down\nfrom his throne, and driven from men, to eat grass as oxen. This counsel,\nhowever, the prophet urged upon the sovran, that he should break off his\nsins by righteousness, and his \u201ciniquities by showing mercy to the poor\u201d;\nif it might be a lengthening of his tranquillity, or a healing of his\nerror.\n\nWhat error? That of which ex-king Lear accused himself, when he\nowned, amid words of frenzy, all however with more or less of tragic\nsignificance in them, that he had taken too little care of _this_,\u2014of\nsympathy with desolate indigence, and of readiness to relieve the\nsufferings of the destitute and forlorn.\n\nThe storm is raging on the heath, and faithful Kent implores his aged\nmaster to take shelter, such as it is, within a hovel hard by; some\nfriendship will it lend him against the tempest; the tyranny of the open\nnight\u2019s too rough for nature to endure. But Lear would be let alone.\n\u201cWilt break my heart?\u201d he exclaims, in answer to Kent\u2019s fresh entreaty:\nKent had rather break his own. Again the drenched, discrowned old man is\nurged to enter the hovel on the heath. But he stays outside, to reason on\nhis past and present, till reason gives way. Kent may think it a matter\nof moment that this contentious storm invades them to the skin; and so\nit is to him. But Lear has deeper griefs to shatter him; and \u201cwhere the\ngreater malady is fixed, the lesser is scarce felt.\u201d Let Kent go in,\nby all means: the king enjoins it\u2014at least the ex-king desires it: let\nKent seek his own ease\u2014and perhaps Lear will follow him in. Meanwhile,\nin draggling robes, drenched to the skin, chilled to the heart, Lear\u2019s\nthoughts perforce are turned to \u201chouseless poverty,\u201d to the indigent and\nvagrant creatures once, and so lately, his subjects, equally exposed\nto the downpour of the wrathful skies, of whom he had seldom, if ever,\nthought till now. Poor naked wretches, he apostrophises them, wheresoever\nthey are, that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,\u2014how shall their\nhouseless heads, and unfed sides, their looped and windowed raggedness,\ndefend them from seasons such as these? And then, in an outburst of\nrepentant self-reproach, he that had been King of Britain breaks forth\ninto the avowal,\n\n \u201cO, I have ta\u2019en\n Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;\n Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;\n That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,\n And show the heavens more just.\u201d\n\nBetween the history of Lear and that of Gloster, in the same play, there\nis a curious and significant parallel maintained throughout. And it is\nobservable that when Gloster too, another duped and outcast father, is\nwandering in his turn on the same heath, and is accosted by \u201cpoor mad\nTom,\u201d\u2014the sightless, miserable father thus addresses the \u201cnaked fellow\u201d\nwhose identity he so little suspects:\n\n \u201cHere, take this purse, thou whom the heaven\u2019s plagues\n Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched,\n Makes thee the happier:\u2014Heavens, deal so still!\n Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,\n That slaves your ordinance, that will not see\n Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;\n So distribution should undo the excess,\n And each man have enough.\u201d\n\nStrictly a parallel passage to the one just cited from the lips of Lear,\neven as the disastrous personal experiences of King of Britain and Duke\nof Gloster were along parallel lines, as we have said.\n\nThe words of Amos, the herdman of Tekoa, include a denunciation of woe to\nthem that lie upon beds of ivory, and eat the lambs out of the flock,\nand the calves out of the midst of the stall, and drink wine in bowls,\nand anoint themselves with costly ointments, and chant to the sound of\nthe viol,\u2014but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. As the minor\nprophet with his woe to them that are thus at ease in Zion, so a major\nprophet declares this to have been the iniquity of a doomed race\u2014pride,\nfulness of bread, and abundance of idleness, with disregard of all\nmeans to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Lazarus the beggar\nwas, as some scholars interpret the passage, \u201ccontent to be fed\u201d on the\ncrumbs which fell from the rich man\u2019s table; in which case he would not\nappear to have been refused the crumbs: indeed, had this been the case,\nit would scarcely, they contend, have been omitted in the rebuke of\nAbraham. \u201cThe rich man\u2019s sins were ravenousness and negligence rather\nthan inhumanity.\u201d[3] He took too little care of this\u2014that beggary lay in\nhelpless prostration before his doorway, the while he clothed himself in\npurple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.\n\nLa Bruy\u00e8re observes that \u201cla sant\u00e9 et les richesses \u00f4tent aux hommes\nl\u2019exp\u00e9rience du mal, leur inspirent la duret\u00e9 pour leurs semblables;\u201d\nand adds, that \u201cles gens d\u00e9j\u00e0 charg\u00e9s de leur propre mis\u00e8re sont ceux\nqui entrent davantage, par leur compassion, dans celle d\u2019autrui.\u201d If\nthese by comparison become wondrous kind, it is their fellow-feeling that\nmakes them so. _Haud ignari mali, miseris succurrere discunt._ In another\nchapter of his \u201cCharacters,\u201d La Bruy\u00e8re sketches the portrait of one he\nstyles Champagne, who \u201cau sortir d\u2019un long d\u00eener qui lui enfle l\u2019estomac,\net dans les douces fum\u00e9es d\u2019un vin d\u2019Avenay ou de Sillery, signe un\nordre qu\u2019on lui pr\u00e9sente, qui \u00f4terait le pain \u00e0 toute une province, si\nl\u2019on n\u2019y rem\u00e9diait: il est excusable. Quel moyen de comprendre, dans\nla premi\u00e8re heure de la digestion, qu\u2019on puisse quelque part mourir de\nfaim?\u201d _Il est excusable_, on the principle of Horace Walpole\u2019s similar\nplea, or apology, for unheeding royalty. He writes to Miss Hannah More\nthat he used to hate that king and t\u2019other prince\u2014but that on reflection\nhe found the censure ought to fall on human nature in general. \u201cThey\nare made of the same stuff as we, and dare we say what we should be in\ntheir situation? Poor creatures! think how they are educated, or rather\ncorrupted, early, how flattered! To be educated properly, they should\nbe led through hovels [as Lear was on the heath\u2014somewhat late in life],\nand hospitals, and prisons. Instead of being reprimanded (and perhaps\nimmediately afterwards _sugar-plum\u2019d_) for not learning their Latin or\nFrench grammar, they now and then should be kept fasting; and, if they\ncut their finger, should have no plaster till it festered. No part of a\nroyal brat\u2019s memory, which is good enough, should be burthened but with\nthe remembrance of human suffering.\u201d \u201c_Il y a une esp\u00e8ce de honte d\u2019\u00eatre\nheureux \u00e0 la vue de certaines mis\u00e8res_,\u201d writes La Bruy\u00e8re again. Adam\nSmith, however, made a dead set against what he calls those \u201cwhining and\nmelancholy moralists,\u201d who he complains, are perpetually reproaching us\nwith our happiness, while so many of our brethren are in misery, who\nregard as impious the natural joy of prosperity, which does not think of\nthe many wretches that are at every instant labouring under all sorts\nof calamities, in the languor of poverty, in the agony of disease, etc.\n\u201cCommiseration for those miseries which we never saw, which we never\nheard of, but which we may be assured are at all times infesting such\nnumbers of our fellow-creatures, ought, they think, to damp the pleasures\nof the fortunate, and to render a certain melancholy dejection habitual\nto all men.\u201d Adam Smith opposes this \u201cextreme sympathy\u201d as altogether\nabsurd and unreasonable; as unattainable too, so that a certain affected\nand sentimental sadness is the nearest approach that can be made to it;\nand he further declares that this disposition of mind, though it could be\nattained, would be perfectly useless, and could serve no other purpose\nthan to render miserable the person who possessed it. This, of course,\nis assuming the wretchedness in question to be beyond the sympathiser\u2019s\nrelief. Dr. Smith may be supposed to have had in view Thomson\u2019s\ncelebrated passage:\n\n \u201cAh! little think the gay licentious proud,\n Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;\n They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,\n And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;\n Ah! little think they, while they dance along,\n How many feel this very moment death\n And all the sad variety of pain.\u201d\n\nMany variations on that theme of sad variety the poet sings: moving\naccidents by flood and fire,\u2014pining want, and dungeon glooms,\u2014the\nmany who drink the cup of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread of\nmisery\u2014sore pierced by wintry winds, how many shrink into the sordid hut\nof cheerless poverty (the hovel on the heath again), etc., etc., etc.\n\n \u201cThought fond man\n Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills\n That one incessant struggle render life\n One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,\n Vice in his high career would stand appalled,\n And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;\n The conscious heart of charity would warm,\n And her wide wish benevolence dilate;\n The social tear would rise, the social sigh,\n And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,\n Refining still, the social passions work.\u201d\n\nThis may, perhaps, said Baron Alderson, in winding up a charge to a\ngrand jury, whom he exhorted at that winter season to show sympathy and\nkindness to the distressed,\u2014this, perhaps, may be one of the objects\nfor which God sends suffering, that it may tend to re-unite those whom\nprosperity has severed. So Burns\u2014\n\n \u201cO ye who, sunk in beds of down,\n Feel not a want but what yourselves create,\n Think for a moment on his wretched fate\n Whom friends and fortune quite disown.\n Ill-satisfied keen nature\u2019s clam\u2019rous call,\n Stretch\u2019d on his straw he lays himself to sleep,\n While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,\n Chill, o\u2019er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap.\n ...\n Affliction\u2019s sons are brothers in distress:\n A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!\u201d\n\nAgain and again the question recurs, to quote from an able casuist on\ncasual charity, why one man should be literally dying of want, whilst\nanother is able to send him a cheque for \u00a3100 without thinking about it,\nor knowing that the money is gone? If Dives, it is asked, feels bound to\ngive Lazarus so much, where does he draw the line? If the demand upon the\nsuperfluities of the rich is to be measured by the wants of the poor,\nwhy stop at \u00a3100 rather than \u00a31000 or \u00a310,000 or \u00a3100,000? \u201cThis is the\nquestion which lies at the root of half the melancholy sarcasms and still\nmore melancholy wit of the present day. The writings of such men as Hood\nare little more than embodiments of it in a variety of forms, ludicrous\nor pathetic. It forms the burden of a whole class of literature, not the\nless influential because it is somewhat vague in its doctrines, and rests\nrather on sentiments than on dogmas.\u201d Now this writer believes it to be\nalways the best to look such questions in the face, and to attempt at\nleast to give the true answer to them. And the answer, at least in part,\nin this instance, he takes to be that the antithesis is only sentimental,\nand not logical. The poverty of the very poor is not, he contends, either\na cause or an effect of the riches of the very rich, nor would it be\nrelieved by their permanent impoverishment. \u201cThat it is not a cause of\ntheir riches, is obvious from the fact that if by any change pauperism\nand misery were suddenly abolished, the rich would be all the richer.\u201d\nBut not to follow out a line of argument that would take us too far\nafield, we may advert to a corresponding essay, in the same _Review_,\nif not by the same contributor,\u2014in which a picture is drawn of a rich\nman at church, who hears some stray verses in the second lesson, or some\neloquent menace from the pulpit, which makes him very uncomfortable about\nthe contrast between his own easy life and the massive wretchedness of\nSpitalfields or Poplar. The uneasiness is supposed to rankle in him for\nsome time, spoiling his digestion, and making him very cross to his wife\nand daughters. Not that he \u201cfor a moment dreams of literally obeying the\ntexts in the New Testament that have hit him hard; for he has a shrewd\nnotion that they imply a very different state of society from the busy\nnineteenth century. He feels that he has no time for visiting the sick,\nand that if he had, the sick would think him a great nuisance; and he\nknows that when he got to the bedside, he would probably be at his wits\u2019\nends for anything to say, and would end by twisting his watch-chain,\nand remarking that it was a cold day.\u201d The practical inference is, that\nif he is to do any of the corporal works of mercy, he must do them by\ncommission;\u2014and so, at last, the irritation in his conscience throws\nitself out in the form of a liberal cheque upon his bankers. _He_, at\nleast, will vindicate himself, so far as that vicarious beneficence may\navail, from any possible charge of branded fellowship with such as the\npoet of the Seasons depicts, in\n\n \u201cThe cruel wretch\n Who, all day long in sordid pleasure rolled,\n Himself a useless load, has squandered vile\n Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheered\n A drooping family of modest worth.\u201d\n\nHorace Walpole, on being complimented by letter on the patience with\nwhich he bore an acute attack of his chronic malady, replies: \u201cIf people\nof easy fortunes cannot bear illness with temper, what are the poor\nto do, who have none of our comforts and alleviations? The affluent,\nI fear, do not consider what a benefit-ticket has fallen to their lot\nout of millions not so fortunate; yet less do they reflect that chance,\nnot merit, drew the prize out of the wheel.\u201d Crabbe portrays this\nnon-reflecting complacency in one of his metrical tales:\n\n \u201cMonth after month was passed, and all were spent\n In quiet comfort and in rich content:\n Miseries there were, and woes, the world around,\n But these had not her pleasant dwelling found;\n She knew that mothers grieved, and widows wept,\n And she was sorry, said her prayers, and slept.\n Thus passed the seasons, and to Dinah\u2019s board\n Gave what the seasons to the rich afford;\n For she indulged,\u201d etc.\n\nNot so serenely does Bishop Jeremy Taylor imagine a gazer from the skies\nto look down on the sorrows of this earth of ours, in the celebrated\nparagraph beginning, \u201cBut if we could from one of the battlements of\nheaven espy how many men and women lie fainting and dying,\u201d etc. And,\nby the way, there is another of Crabbe\u2019s Tales, in which, too late,\na self-upbraiding spirit thus accuses itself for neglecting a ruined\nwrong-doer, whose death she has just discovered:\n\n \u201cTo have this money in my purse\u2014to know\n What grief was his, and what to grief we owe;\n To see him often, always to conceive\n How he must pine and languish, groan and grieve;[4]\n And every day in ease and peace to dine,\n And rest in comfort!\u2014what a heart is mine!\u201d\n\nRichard Savage, as Mr. Whitehead pictures him, bitterly conversant with\ncold and hunger, a houseless vagrant through the streets by night, and a\nfamishing lounger in them by day, apostrophises Mr. Overseer in his pursy\nprosperity, much as (_mutatis mutandis_) Lear apostrophises pomp. \u201cTurn\nout, fat man of substance, and bob for wisdom and charity on the banks\nof Southwark. They are best taken at night, when God only sees you\u2014when\nthe east wind is abroad, making you shake like the sinner who was hanged\nfor breaking into your dwelling-house. \u2018The air bites shrewdly, it is\nvery cold,\u2019 sayest thou? It is so. But tell me whether, on the fourth\nnight, when thou liest stretched on thy blessed bed, thy heart is not\nwarmer than it was wont to be\u2014whether thou dost not pray prayers of long\nomission\u2014whether thou wilt not, in the morning, bethink thee of the poor,\nand relieve them out of thy abundance? Sayest thou, no? God help thee!\u201d\nAs Van den Bosch tells the big-wigs of Ghent,\n\n \u201cAh, sirs, you know not, you, who lies afield\n When nights are cold, with frogs for bedfellows;\n You know not, you, who fights and sheds his blood,\n And fasts and fills his belly with the east wind.\u201d\n\nDiderot rose one Shrove Tuesday morning, and groping in his pocket, found\nnothing wherewith to dine that day\u2014which he spent in wandering about\nParis and its precincts. He was ill when he got back to his quarters,\nwent to bed, and was treated by his landlady to a little toast and wine.\n\u201cThat day,\u201d he often told a friend, in after life, \u201cI swore that, if\never I came to have anything, I would never in my life refuse a poor\nman help, never condemn my fellow-creature to a day as painful.\u201d As the\nsailor says, after the wreck, in one of Mr. Roscoe\u2019s tragedies: \u201cWe may\nbe wrecked a dozen times, for what our betters care; but being aboard\nthemselves, they see some spice of danger in it, and that breeds a\nfellow-feeling.\u201d And, proverbially, a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous\nkind.\n\nMr. Ruskin demands whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury would\nbe desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering\nwhich accompanies it in the world. \u201cLuxury is indeed possible in the\nfuture\u2014innocent and exquisite; luxury for all, and by the help of all;\nbut luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest\nman living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold.\u201d\n\nGibbon records to the honour of at least one Pontiff\u2019s temporal\ngovernment of Rome, that he\u2014Gregory the Great\u2014relieved by the bounty\nof each day, and of every hour, the instant distress of the sick and\nneedy\u2014his treasurers being continually summoned to satisfy, in his\nname, the requirements of indigence and merit. \u201cNor would the pontiff\nindulge himself in a frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from\nhis own table to some objects deserving of his compassion.\u201d A _non\npossumus_ this, in its beneficent _nisi prius_ scope, more appreciable\nby Protestants at least than that of some other Holy Fathers. A\nsovran\u2019s interest in the sufferings of his or her subjects is always of\nexceptional interest in the eyes of fellow-subjects. Leigh Hunt knew\nthis, when he pictured, in her early happy wifehood, our Sovran Lady the\nQueen of these realms,\n\n \u201cToo generous-happy to endure\n The thought of all the woful poor\n Who that same night lay down their heads\n In mockeries of starving beds,\n In cold, in wet, disease, despair,\n In madness that will say no prayer;\n With wailing infants some; and some\n By whom the little clay lies dumb;\n And some, whom feeble love\u2019s excess,\n Through terror, tempts to murderousness.\n And at that thought the big drops rose\n In pity for her people\u2019s woes;\n And this glad mother and great queen\n Weeping for the poor was seen,\n And vowing in her princely will\n That they should thrive and bless her still.\u201d\n\nMadame de Chevreuse, in a popular French romance, is made to say to,\nand _at_, Anne of Austria, that kings are so far removed from other\npeople, from the \u201cvulgar herd,\u201d that they forget that others ever stand\nin need of the bare necessaries of life. She likens them to the dweller\non African mountains, who, gazing from the verdant table-land, refreshed\nby the rills of melted snow, cannot comprehend that the dwellers in\nthe plains below him are perishing from hunger and thirst in the midst\nof their lands, burnt up by the heat of the sun. When, in the same\nromance\u2014by courtesy historical; only the proportion of history to romance\nin it is much about that of Falstaff\u2019s bread bill to his running account\nfor sack\u2014one of Anne of Austria\u2019s sons, the reigning king, young Lewis\nthe Fourteenth, is substituted in the Bastille for his ill-starred\nbrother, and so comes to taste of suffering _in propri\u00e2 person\u00e2_,\u2014the\nroyal prisoner tries to remember at what hour the first repast is served\nto the captives in that fortress\u2014but his ignorance of this detail\noccasions a feeling of remorse that smites him like the keen thrust of a\ndagger: \u201cthat he should have lived for five and twenty years a king, and\nin the enjoyment of every happiness, without having bestowed a moment\u2019s\nthought\n\n [O, I have ta\u2019en too little thought of this!]\n\non the misery of those who had been unjustly deprived of their liberty.\nThe king blushed for very shame. He felt that Heaven, in permitting this\nfearful humiliation, did no more than render to the man the same torture\nas was inflicted by that man upon so many others.\u201d\u2014It is in a glowing\ndescription of one of the great f\u00eates at Versailles under the auspices\nof this, the Grand Monarque, that M. Ars\u00e8ne Houssaye delivers himself\nof this pensive aside: \u201cEt la musique de Lulli ach\u00e8ve d\u2019enivrer tout ce\nbeau monde, qui ne pense pas un seul instant que pr\u00e8s de l\u00e0, \u00e0 la grille\nm\u00eame du ch\u00e2teau des merveilles, une pauvre femme prie et pleure, tout\naffam\u00e9e, pour ses enfants. Qu\u2019importe! passe ton chemin, et reviens plus\ntard. Comment t\u2019appelles-tu, bonne femme?\u2014Je m\u2019appelle la France: _je\nreviendrai_.\u201d\n\nPart of the education of the royal heir-apparent of the Incas consisted\nin a course of gymnastic training, with competitive trials of\nskill\u2014during which, for a period of thirty days, \u201cthe royal neophyte\nfared no better than his comrades, sleeping on the bare ground, going\nunshod, and wearing a mean attire,\u2014a mode of life, it was supposed, which\nmight tend to inspire him with more sympathy with the destitute.\u201d It is\nto royalty that Jeanie Deans is pleading, when she exclaims, \u201cAlas! it is\nnot when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves, that we think on other\npeople\u2019s sufferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then.... But\nwhen the hour of trouble comes\u2014and seldom may it visit your leddyship\u2014and\nwhen the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low\u2014lang and late\nmay it be yours\u2014O my leddy, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells,\nbut what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly.\u201d\nAn English traveller in Russia, discussing the difficulty with which\nnews of starving peasants reaches the ears of the czar, and tracing\nthe roundabout track by which, at last, when many have died, and\nmany more are dying, a stifled wail penetrates through the \u201cofficial\ncotton-stuffed ears of district police auditoria, district chambers\nof domains, military chiefs of governments, and imperial chancelleries\nwithout number,\u201d and comes soughing into the private cabinet of the\nczar at the Winter Palace or Peterhoff,\u2014goes on to say: \u201cThe empress,\ngood soul, sheds tears when she hears of the dreadful sufferings of the\npoor people so many hundred versts off. The imperial children, I have\nno doubt, wonder why, if the peasants have no bread to eat, they don\u2019t\ntake to plum-cake; the Emperor is affected, but goes to work,\u201d etc.\nWhich last expression, by the way, reminds us of a _quasi_ quotation by\nMr. Carlyle of Shakespeare\u2019s text in juxtaposition with mention of the\ngreatest of czars: \u201cDescend, O Donothing Pomp; quit thy down-cushions;\nexpose thyself to learn what wretches feel, and how to cure it! The\nczar of Russia became a dusty toiling shipwright; ... and his aim was\nsmall to thine.\u201d There was a miserable day in the Highland wanderings of\nPrince Charles when, with Ned Burke and Donald Macleod for companions,\nafter roving about all night, excessively faint for want of food, he was\nobliged to subsist on meal stirred in brine\u2014there being no fresh water\nwithin reach. The prince is said to have expressed himself thankful for\neven this nauseous food\u2014\u201csalt-water drammock\u201d\u2014and to have declared, on\nthe occasion, that if ever he mounted a throne, he should not fail to\nremember \u201cthose who dined with him to-day.\u201d When Flora Macdonald and\nLady Clanranald, not long afterwards, came to the royal outcast,\u2014on\nentering the hut they found him engaged in roasting the heart and liver\nof a sheep on a wooden spit; a sight at which some of the party could\nnot help shedding tears. \u201cCharles, always the least concerned at his\ndistressing circumstances, though never forgetting the hopes inspired by\nhis birth, jocularly observed that it would be well perhaps for all kings\nif they had to come through such a fiery ordeal as he was enduring.\u201d At a\nsubsequent period we find him living for days together on a few handfuls\nof oatmeal and about a pound of butter\u2014referring to which he afterwards\ntold a Highland gentleman that he had come to know what a quarter of a\npeck of meal was, having once subsisted on such a quantity for the better\npart of a week. Another time we find him spending the night in an open\ncave, on the top of a high hill between the Braes of Glenmorriston and\nStrathglass,\u2014a cave too narrow to let him stretch himself, and in which\nhe lay drenched to the skin, with no possibility of getting a fire to dry\nhim. \u201cWithout food, and deprived of sleep by the narrowness and hardness\nof his bed, the only comfort he could obtain was the miserable one of\nsmoking a pipe.\u201d Hardly was Lear himself more thoroughly exposed to feel\nwhat wretches feel, on that night beside the hovel on the heath.\n\nIn that paradoxical essay of his, on saying grace before meat, Charles\nLamb remarks that the indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall\nhave a meal the next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present\nsense of the blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into\nwhose minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some\nextreme theory, have entered. According to the essayist, the heats\nof epicurism put out the gentle flame of devotion: the incense which\nrises round is pagan, and the belly-god intercepts it for his own. \u201cThe\nvery excess of the provision beyond the needs, takes away all sense of\nproportion between the end and means. The Giver is veiled by his gifts.\nYou are startled at the injustice of returning thanks\u2014for what?\u2014for\nhaving so much, while so many starve. It is to praise the gods amiss.\u201d\n\nTaking for his text the apprenticeship of good Abbot Samson at St.\nEdmund\u2019s shrine, Mr. Carlyle moralises on how much would many a Serene\nHighness have learnt, had he travelled through the world with water-jug\nand empty wallet, _sine omni expens\u00e2_, and returned only to sit down\nat the foot of St. Edmund\u2019s shrine to shackles and bread and water.\nPatriotism itself, a political economist has remarked, can never be\ngenerated by a passive enjoyment of good; the evil tendency of which\nhe bids us see by merely looking to a city like London; where the rich\nwho live together in streets of fine houses many miles long, and have\nevery comfort provided for them without their interference, and need\nnothing from the poor but what they buy for money, and conclude that the\nsame State which cares for them will care equally for the poor,\u2014such\nrich men, it is alleged, have every inducement to become isolated from\nall but the few with whom it is pleasant to live. We may choose, says\nProfessor Kingsley, to look at the masses in the gross as subjects for\nstatistics\u2014and of course, where possible, for profits. \u201cThere is One\nabove who knows every thirst, and ache, and sorrow, and temptation of\neach slattern, and gin-drinker, and street boy. The day will come when\nHe will require an account of these neglects of ours\u2014not in the gross.\u201d\nMrs. Gaskell ably describes the fear of Margaret Hale, in \u201cNorth and\nSouth,\u201d lest, in her West-end ease, she should become sleepily deadened\ninto forgetfulness of anything beyond the life that was lapping her round\nwith luxury. \u201cThere might be toilers and moilers there in London, but\nshe never saw them; the very servants lived in an underground world of\ntheir own, of which she knew neither the hopes nor the fears; they only\nseemed to start into existence when some want or whim of their master\nand mistress needed them.\u201d Mr. Thackeray presents Ethel Newcome in the\nfairest light when he shows her studious to become acquainted with her\nindigent neighbours\u2014giving much time to them and thought; visiting from\nhouse to house without ostentation; awe-stricken by that spectacle\nof poverty which we have with us always, of which the sight rebukes\nour selfish griefs into silence, the thought compels us to charity,\nhumility, and devotion. \u201cDeath never dying out; hunger always crying;\nand children born to it day after day,\u2014our young London lady, flying\nfrom the splendours and follies in which her life had been passed, found\nherself in the presence of these; threading darkling alleys which swarmed\nwith wretched life; sitting by naked beds, whither by God\u2019s blessing\nshe was sometimes enabled to carry a little comfort and consolation; or\nwhence she came heart-stricken by the overpowering misery, or touched by\nthe patient resignation, of the new friends to whom fate had directed\nher.\u201d No longer _ignara mali, miseris succurrere discit_. An essayist of\nMr. Thackeray\u2019s school, on the topic of parliamentary trains, breaks\nout, or off, into the apostrophe: \u201cAh, judges of Amontillado sherry;\ncrushers of walnuts with silver crackers; connoisseurs who prefer French\nto Spanish olives, and are curious about the yellow seal; gay riders in\npadded chariots; proud cavaliers of blood-horses,\u2014you don\u2019t know how\npainfully and slowly, almost agonisingly, the poor have to scrape and\nsave, and deny themselves the necessaries of life, to gather together\nthe penny-a-mile fare.\u201d Lord Jeffrey eagerly asserted the even painful\ninterest with which one of Mr. Dickens\u2019s Christmas books affected him:\n\u201csanative, I dare say, to the spirit, but making us despise and loathe\nourselves for passing our days in luxury, while better and gentler\ncreatures are living such lives as make us wonder that such things can be\nin a society of human beings, or even in the world of a good God.\u201d Lord\nLytton has compared the stray glimpses one gets of want and misery, to\nlooking through a solar microscope at the monsters in a drop of water,\nwhen the gazer wonders how things so terrible have hitherto been unknown\nto him: \u201cLapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the sofa of your\npatent conscience ... you are startled and dismayed\u201d at the sight:\nyou say within yourself, \u201cCan such things be? I never dreamed of this\nbefore! I thought what was invisible to me was non-existent in itself\u2014I\nwill remember this dread experiment.\u201d The like is the moral of Hood\u2019s\npoem of the Lady\u2019s Dream. From grief exempt, she had never dreamt of\nsuch a world of woe as appals her in apocalyptic visions of the night;\nnever dreamt till now of the hearts that daily break, and the tears that\nhourly fall, and the many, many troubles of life that grieve this earthly\nball\u2014disease, and hunger, and pain, and want; but now she dreams of them\nall\u2014of the naked she might have clad, the famished she might have fed,\nthe sorrowing she might have solaced; of each pleading that, long ago,\nshe scanned with a heedless eye.\n\n \u201cI drank the richest draughts;\n And ate whatever is good\u2014\n Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit\n Supplied my hungry mood;\n But I never remembered the wretched ones\n That starve for want of food.\n\n I dressed as the noble dress,\n In cloth of silver and gold,\n With silk, and satin, and costly furs,\n In many an ample fold;\n But I never remembered the naked limbs\n That froze with winter\u2019s cold.\n\n The wounds I might have healed!\n The human sorrow and smart!\n And yet it never was in my soul\n To play so ill a part\n But evil is wrought by want of Thought\n\n[So Lear\u2019s \u201cO, I have ta\u2019en _too little thought_ of this!\u201d]\n\n As well as want of Heart!\n\n She clasped her fervent hands,\n And the tears began to stream;\n Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,\n Remorse was so extreme,\n And yet, O yet, that many a dame\n Would dream the Lady\u2019s Dream!\u201d\n\nAn _Edinburgh_ Reviewer of mortality in trades and professions, dwelling\non the fatal conditions under which very many classes earn their daily\nbread, and sometimes not so much as that,\u2014observes that the great middle\nand upper classes, accustomed to be furnished with all the appliances of\neasy life and luxury, seldom give a thought as to the manner in which\ntheir wants are supplied. \u201cAccustomed to sip the honey, it never strikes\nus that perhaps its product involves in some cases the life of the\nworking-bee. The lady, who, from the silken ease of her fauteuil, surveys\nher drawing-room, may learn a lesson of compassion for the poor workmen\nin nearly every article that lies before her.\u201d To take one example out\nof the many upon which Dr. Wynter dilates\u2014the case of the silverer of\nlooking-glasses: \u201cIf the charming belle, as she surveys her beauty in the\nglass, could but for a moment see reflected this poor shattered human\ncreature, with trembling muscles, brown visage, and blackened teeth, she\nwould doubtless start with horror; but, as it is, the slaves of luxury\nand vanity drop out of life unobserved and uncared for, as the stream of\ntravellers disappeared one by one through the bridge of Mirza.\u201d\n\n \u201cO let those cities that of plenty\u2019s cup,\n And her prosperities, so largely taste,\n With their superfluous riots, hear these tears!\n The misery of Tharsus may be theirs.\u201d\n\nThe moral of the eastern tale of Nourjahad is practical and pertinent. He\ndelivers himself up to luxury and riot. He forgets that there are wants\nand distresses among his fellow-creatures. He lives only for himself,\nand his heart becomes as hard as the coffers which hold his misapplied\ntreasures. But before it is too late he is awakened to remorse, and looks\nback with shame and horror on his past life. What shall he do to expiate\nhis offences? One thing at least is within his power, and that will he do\nat once: expend his riches in the relief of want\u2014nor rest until he has\nfound out every family in Ormuz whom calamity has overtaken, that he may\nrestore them to prosperity. Henceforth he spends his days in his closet,\nlaying plans for the benefit of his fellow-creatures. Ben Jonson\u2019s\nSordido promises the like amendment:\u2014\n\n \u201cPardon me, gentle friends, I\u2019ll make fair \u2019mends\n For my foul errors past....\n My barns and garners shall stand open still\n To all the poor that come, and my best grain\n Be made alms-bread, to feed half-famished mouths.\n Though hitherto amongst you I have lived\n Like an unsavoury muck-hill to myself,\n Yet now my gathered heaps, being spread abroad,\n Shall turn to better and more fruitful uses.\n ... O how deeply\n The bitter curses of the poor do pierce!\n I am by wonder changed; come in with me\n And witness my repentance: now I prove\n No life is blest that is not graced with love.\u201d\n\nSo again with the rich man in one of Crabbe\u2019s Borough sketches from life;\nthat rich man, to wit, who\n\n \u201cbuilt a house, both large and high,\n And entered in and set him down to sigh;\n And planted ample woods and gardens fair,\n And walked with anguish and compunction there;\n The rich man\u2019s pines to every friend a treat,\n _He_ saw with pain and _he_ refused to eat;\n His daintiest food, his richest wines, were all\n Turned by remorse to vinegar and gall:\n The softest down by living body pressed\n The rich man bought, and tried to take his rest;\n But care had thorns upon his pillow spread,\n And scattered sand and nettles in his bed:\n Nervous he grew\u2014would often sigh and groan,\u2014\n He talked but little, and he walked alone;\n Till by his priest convinced, that from one deed\n Of genuine love would joy and health proceed,\n He from that time with care and zeal began\n To seek and soothe the grievous ills of man;\n And as his hands their aid to grief apply,\n He learns to smile and he forgets to sigh.\n Now he can drink his wine and taste his food,\n And feel the blessings Heaven has dealt are good;\n And since the suffering seek the rich man\u2019s door,\n He sleeps as soundly as when young and poor.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_WIND, EARTHQUAKE, FIRE, AND STILL SMALL VOICE._\n\n1 KINGS xix. 11, 12.\n\n\nWhile Elijah stood upon the mount before the Lord, there arose a great\nand strong wind that rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks;\nbut the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but\nthe Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but\nthe Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.\nWe are not told that the Lord was not in the still small voice. We find\nthat He was. And with that voice He addressed Elijah, reasoned with him,\nadmonished, sustained, and directed him. May it not be said, in applying\nand adapting the narrative, which things are an allegory? The import of\nthe narrative sublimely anticipates the homely fable of sun and wind.\nWind, earthquake, and fire, are mighty agents; but they may pass by\nwithout tangible result as regards real influence on the spirit of man;\nwhereas the gentle influence of a still small voice speaks home to it at\nonce, and it responds to the strain, and is subdued by the spell.\n\nThe drift of the present annotations, in their applied sense, finds\nexpression in Ben Jonson\u2019s reminder:\n\n \u201cThere is\n A way of working more by love than fear:\n Fear works on servile natures, not the free.\u201d\n\nIn Landor\u2019s Parable of Asabel, the angel\u2019s gentleness wrought upon that\nturbulent, refractory spirit, \u201ceven as the quiet and silent water wins\nitself an entrance where tempest and fire pass over.\u201d It is written that\nother angels did look up with loving and admiration into the visage\nof this angel on his return; and he told the younger and more zealous\nof them, that whenever they would descend into the gloomy vortex of\nthe human heart, under the softness and serenity of their voice and\ncountenance its turbulence would subside.\n\nPlutarch tells us of Fabius Maximus, that he thought it hard that, while\nthose who breed dogs and horses soften their stubborn tempers, and bring\ndown their fierce spirits by care and kindness, rather than with whips\nand chains, he who has the command of men should not endeavour to correct\ntheir errors by gentleness and goodness, but treat them in even a harsher\nand more violent manner than gardeners do the wild fig-trees, pears, and\nolives, whose nature they subdue by cultivation, and which by that means\nthey bring to produce very agreeable fruit.[5]\n\nWe read of the distinguished Spanish author and statesman, Fermin\nCaballero, that while under the care of a kind and judicious instructor,\nhe, as a boy, made rapid advance in the study of classical literature;\nbut that on being removed from this tutor, and subjected to harsh and\ngrinding discipline, he lapsed into idleness and obstinacy beyond all\ncontrol. Not the least wise of the maxims to be culled from the pages\nof Terence is that in which _satius esse credit Pudore et liberalitate\nliberos retinere, quam metu_. Southey insists that no man was ever more\nthoroughly ignorant of the nature of children than John Wesley, as when\nhe enjoins: \u201cLet a child from a year old be taught to fear the rod, and\nto cry softly; from that age make him do as he is bid, if you whip him\nten times running to effect it.\u201d If Wesley had been a father himself,\nurges that tenderest of fathers, Robert the Rhymer, \u201che would have known\nthat children are more easily governed by love than by fear.\u201d And as\nwith children, so with men, who are but children of a larger growth; and\nespecially so with women, if we may take the word of one of Shakspeare\u2019s\nmost winsome women for it:\n\n \u201cYou may ride us\n With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere\n With spur we heat an acre.\u201d\n\nSo with Landor\u2019s Filippa, on whom harsh treatment and compulsory measures\nare simply thrown away:\n\n \u201cRudeness can neither move nor discompose her:\n A word, a look, of kindness, instantly\n Opens her heart and brings her cheek upon you.\u201d\n\nAnd as with men and women, so with peoples, who are made up of men and\nwomen. And yet, although, as the author of the \u201cWealth of Nations\u201d\nexpresses it, management and persuasion are always the easiest and safest\ninstruments of government, as force and violence are the worst and most\ndangerous; such, it seems, is the natural insolence of man, that he\nalmost always disdains to use the good instrument, except when he cannot\nor dare not use the bad one. Not that nations are without diversities\nof character, and so of susceptibility to diverse modes of government.\nGibbon apologises, as it were, for Diocletian\u2019s utter destruction of\nthose proud cities, Busiris and Coptos, and for his severe treatment\nof Egypt in general, by the remark, that the character of the Egyptian\nnation, insensible to kindness, but extremely susceptible to fear, could\nalone justify this excessive rigour. The tone is that of the courtier\nCrispe, to Phocas, in Corneille\u2019s \u201cHeraclius:\u201d\n\n \u201cIl faut agir de force avec de tels esprits ...\n La violence est juste o\u00f9 la douceur est vaine.\u201d\n\nAnd Coke maintains that if they are the best whom love induces, they are\nthe most whom fear restrains: _Si meliores sunt quos ducit amor, plures\nsunt quos corrigit timor_. La Fontaine\u2019s fable of the fishes and the\nflute-playing shepherd, intimates the sheer futility of wasting sweet\nsounds on ears not to be so caught. There are men, sententiously quoth\nDr. Tempest, in the \u201cLast Chronicle of Barset,\u201d who are deaf as adders to\ncourtesy, but who are compelled to obedience at once by ill-usage.\n\nEducationists must provide for the contingency of having to deal with\nabnormal natures of this crabbed and distorted kind. But as exceptions\nonly. The Jesuits are confessedly masters of the arts of education; and\nthe rule of the Jesuits is to lead not to drive, their pupils; to allure\nand win, not to coerce and constrain them. Winsome womankind is mistress\nof the like arts. Those of the sex who _are_ winsome, it has been\nsaid, with their plastic manners and non-aggressive force, always have\ntheir own way in the end. \u201cThey coax and flatter for their rights, and\nconsequently they are given privileges in excess of their rights; whereas\nthe women who take their rights, as things to which they are entitled\nwithout favour, lose them and their privileges together.\u201d Kitely\u2019s advice\nis good, in \u201cEvery Man in his Humour,\u201d and of general application:\n\n \u201cBut rather use the soft persuading way,\n Whose powers will work more gently, and compose\n The imperfect thoughts you labour to reclaim;\n More winning, than enforcing the consent.\u201d\n\nThe first bishop sent from Iona for the Northumbrian Church was Corman,\na man described by Dean Milman as of austere and inflexible character,\nwho, finding more resistance than he expected to his doctrines, in a full\nassembly of the nation sternly reproached the Northumbrians for their\nobstinacy, and declared that he would no longer waste his labours on so\nirreclaimable a race. A gentle voice was heard: \u201cBrother, have you not\nbeen too harsh with your unlearned hearers? Should you not, like the\napostles, have fed them with the milk of Christian doctrine, till they\ncould receive the full feast of our sublimer truths?\u201d All eyes, it is\nadded, were turned on Aidan, a humble but devout monk; and by general\nacclamation that discreet and gentle teacher was saluted as bishop. The\nsame historian describes Aldhelm of Malmesbury, in minstrel\u2019s garb,\narresting the careless crowd of church-goers on a bridge they must pass,\nand having fully enthralled their attention by the sweetness of his\nsong, anon introducing into it some of the solemn truths of religion;\nthus succeeding in winning to the faith many hearts, which he would have\nattempted in vain to move by severer language, or even by the awful\nexcommunication of the Church.[6] When F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was intrusted by Lewis\nthe Fourteenth with a mission to Poitou, to convert the Protestants,\nhe refused the aid of dragoons, and resorted to suavity of persuasion\nalone as an instrument of conversion. Of the Protestant missions in the\nwest of Ireland, complaint has been made of their being conducted too\noffensively, like raids upon heathendom: the Romanist, who might possibly\nopen his bosom to the warm rays of charity, only folds the cloak of his\nhereditary faith more closely round him, when assailed by the bitter\nwind of a propagandism which seeks its way to the heart by violence and\ninsult.[7]\n\nIt is at once, on the one part pleasant, on the other painful, to find\nthe Lord Treasurer Burleigh, who had ever been the fast friend of\nWhitgift, frequently expressing his disapprobation of the primate\u2019s\nseverity against non-conformists, and his wish \u201cthat the spirit\nof gentleness might win, rather than severity.\u201d And being here on\nElizabethan ground, let us note Mr. Froude\u2019s reference to the diverse\nprocedure of Cecil and Throgmorton in their several dealings with the\nqueen,\u2014she being one of the many strong-willed people, on whom menaces\nand reproaches operate only as a spur. Cecil understood best Elizabeth\u2019s\ndisposition. \u201cBy \u2018practices,\u2019 by \u2018bye-ways,\u2019 as he afterwards described\nit, by affecting to humour what he was passionately anxious to prevent,\nhe was holding his mistress under delicate control; and he dreaded\nlest his light leading-strings should be broken by a ruder touch.\u201d As\nwith the queen, so with her people. When Catherine de Medici expressed\nastonishment to Sir Thomas Smith, at a certain deference paid by his\nsovereign to the nation she ruled, \u201cMadam,\u201d he replied, \u201cher people be\nnot like your people; they must be trained by _douceur_ and persuasion,\nnot by rigour and violence.\u201d The greatest of Russian empresses emulated\nin this respect the greatest of English queens. Indeed, her tendency\nto indulgence was imputed to Catharine II. as a fault, advantage being\ntaken of her constant reluctance to punish. But how far greater things\ndid she, on the whole, achieve with her subjects, exclaims Mr. Herman\nMerivale, \u201cthus gently led, than those of her predecessors and successors\nwho employed on them in such abundance the more forcible methods of\ngovernment!\u201d\n\nMr. Freeman, in the course of showing that Harold\u2019s way of bringing in\nthe proud Danes of the North to his obedience was not exactly the same as\nWilliam\u2019s way, describes him as determining, with that noble and generous\ndaring which is sometimes the highest prudence, to trust himself in the\nhands of the people who refused to acknowledge him. \u201cThese his enemies,\nwho would not that he should reign over them, instead of being brought\nand slain before him, were to be won over by the magic of his personal\npresence in their own land.\u201d To apply what the Gaulish ambassador says of\na great Roman in Jonson\u2019s tragedy,\n\n \u201cThis magistrate hath struck an awe into me,\n And by his sweetness won a more regard\n Unto his place, than all the boisterous moods\n That ignorant greatness practiseth, to fill\n The large, unfit authority it wears.\u201d\n\nThe Antwerp authorities had reason and experience on their side when they\nsought to persuade the Prince of Parma, in 1585, that the hearts of, not\nthe Antwerpers only, but of the Hollanders and Zealanders, were easily\nto be won at that moment: give them religious liberty, and \u201cgovern them\nby gentleness rather than by Spanish grandees,\u201d and a reconciliation\nwould speedily be ensured. Two years later, but then two years too\nlate, we find the prince averring that he liked \u201cto proceed rather by\nthe ways of love than of rigour and effusion of blood.\u201d This was in\nanswer to Queen Elizabeth, who, at a previous juncture, angrily derided\nany \u201cslight and mild kind of dealing with a people so ingrate,\u201d and\nwas all for corrosives instead of lenitives for such festering wounds.\nRulers, who fail to secure what they wish by gentle means, are apt very\nsoon to resort to the less excellent way; like Chilperic, the \u201cNero of\nFrance,\u201d coaxing the Jew Priscus to turn Christian; first employing\nargument, then trying blandishments, and anon taking to more powerful\nreasoning by throwing the Jew into prison. Tytler remarks of the \u201cviolent\ninstructions\u201d enforced by Henry VIII. on his envoy to James V., that had\nthe overbearing Tudor adopted a suaver tone, a favourable impression\nmight have been made; but the King o\u2019 Scots was \u201cnot to be threatened\ninto a compliance with a line of policy which, if suggested in a tone of\nconciliation, his judgment might have approved,\u201d and his unwounded sense\nof self-respect have consented to carry into effect.\n\nSimon the glover, in Scott\u2019s story of medi\u00e6val Perth, is well described\nas watchful over the tactics his daughter employs towards Henry Smith,\n\u201cwhom he knew to be as ductile, when influenced by his affections, as\nhe was fierce and intractable when assailed by hostile remonstrances\nor threats.\u201d _Par un chemin plus doux_, says a shrewd counsellor in\nRacine, _vous pourrez le ramener_; whereas _les menaces le rendront plus\nfarouche_. Archbishop Whately deprecates the bullying and browbeating\nsystem in vogue with certain barristers, and declares it to be a mistake\nas a means of eliciting truth: he cites his own observation of the\nmarked success of the opposite mode of questioning, and maintains that,\ngenerally speaking, a quiet, gentle, and straightforward examination\nwill be the most adapted to elicit truth; the browbeating and blustering\nwhich are likeliest to confuse an honest, simple-minded witness, being\njust what the dishonest one is the best prepared for. \u201cThe more the storm\nblusters, the more carefully he wraps round him the cloak which a warm\nsunshine will often induce him to throw off.\u201d\n\nWe are told of Dr. Beattie, in his relations as a professor with his\nclass, that his sway was absolute, because it was founded in reason\nand affection; that he never employed a harsh epithet in finding fault\nwith any of his pupils; and that when, instead of a rebuke, which they\nwere conscious they deserved, they met merely with a mild reproof, it\nwas conveyed in such a manner as to throw, not only the delinquent, but\nsometimes the whole class into tears. Fielding\u2019s boy-hero is at once in\ntears when the kind squire takes him in hand, instead of the harsh tutor;\nhis \u201cguilt now flew in his face more than any severity could make it.\nHe could more easily bear the lashes of Thwackum than the generosity of\nAllworthy.\u201d Mrs. Fry used to bear eager record of the docility she had\nfound, and the gratitude she had experienced, from female prisoners,\nthough the most abandoned of their sex: kind treatment, even with\nrestraint obviously for their good, was so new to them, that it called\nforth, as Sir Samuel Romilly says, \u201ceven in the most depraved, grateful\nand generous feelings.\u201d True to the life is the picture Mr. Reade has\ndrawn of the effect on the actress, of a young wife coming to her as a\nsupplicant, instead of inveighing against her,\u2014coming with faith in her\ngoodness, and sobbing to her for pity: \u201ca big tear rolled down her cheek,\nand proved her something more than an actress.\u201d In another of his books\nhe illustrates the truth that men can resist the remonstrances that wound\nthem, and so irritate them, better than they can those gentle appeals\nwhich rouse no anger, but soften the whole heart. \u201cThe old people stung\nhim; but Mercy, without design, took a surer way. She never said a word;\nbut sometimes, when the discussions were at their height, she turned\nher dove-like eyes on him, with a look so loving, so humbly inquiring,\nso timidly imploring, that his heart melted within him.\u201d So with Janet\nDempster, in George Eliot\u2019s story of clerical life, who \u201cwas not to\nbe made meek by cruelty; she would repent of nothing in the face of\ninjustice, though she was subdued in a moment by a word or a look that\nrecalled the old days of fondness.\u201d In fine, we may conclude with the\nconclusion of old Master Knowell, in the Elizabethan play:\n\n \u201cThere is a way of winning more by love,\n And urging of the modesty, than fear:\n Force works on servile natures, not the free.\n He that\u2019s compelled to goodness, may be good,\n But \u2019tis but for that fit; where others, drawn\n By softness and example, get a habit.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_HAMAN HANGED ON HIS OWN GALLOWS._\n\nESTHER vii. 10\n\n\nHarbonah was one of the chamberlains of that king Ahasuerus, who reigned\nfrom India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty\nprovinces. And Harbonah it was that said before the king,\u2014when Haman, the\nson of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews\u2019 enemy, had gone one step too far\nin his enmity to the Jews, and had let his vaulting ambition overleap\nitself in his insolent confidence in royal favour,\u2014Harbonah it was that\nprompted royal vengeance with the suggestive reminder,\u2014\u201cBehold also, the\ngallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had\nspoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman.\u201d Then the king\nsaid\u2014catching at once at the chamberlain\u2019s suggestion\u2014\u201cHang him thereon.\u201d\n\u201cSo they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.\u201d\n\nSomewhat musty is the adage that no law is more equitable than that by\nwhich the deviser of death perishes by his own device: _nec lex est\n\u00e6quior ulla, quam necis artificem arte perire su\u00e2_. Musty it might be\neven in Harbonah\u2019s days; but the chamberlain, in the excitement of so\nsignal an example, would feel that time cannot stale, nor custom wither,\nthe force and import of that retributive law.\n\nMr. de Quincey, in his memorable narrative of the revolt of the Tartars,\nor flight of the Kalmuck Khan and his people from the Russian territories\nto the frontiers of China (1771), relates in conclusion how Zebek-Dorchi,\nthe author and originator of this great Tartar _exodus_, perished after a\nmanner specially gratifying to those who compassed his ruin; the Chinese\nmorality being exactly of that kind which approves in everything the _lex\ntalionis_. \u201cFinally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge,\ntogether with all his accomplices; and under the skilful management\nof the Chinese nobles in the emperor\u2019s establishment, the murderous\nartifices of these Tartar chieftains were made to recoil upon themselves,\nand the whole of them perished by assassination at a great imperial\nbanquet.\u201d Iterated and reiterated in holy writ is the retributive law\nthat the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness; that transgressors\nshall be taken in their own naughtiness; that he that seeketh mischief it\nshall come unto him. The presidents and princes under King Darius, who\nsought occasion against Daniel, and persuaded their reluctant sovereign\nto cast the prophet into the den of lions, who however wrought him no\nmanner of hurt,\u2014upon _them_ the _lex talionis_ vindicated its literal\nseverity when they in their turn were cast into the lions\u2019 den, and the\nlions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or\never they came at the bottom of the den.\n\nThe early ballads of almost every literature delight in these retributive\nsurprises. Genuine was the zest of our fathers for such a retort as that\nof William of Cloudesly on the Justice who is having him measured for his\ngrave:\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2018I have seen as great a marvel,\u2019 said Cloudesly,\n \u2018As between this and prime\n He that maketh a grave for me\n Himself may lie therein.\u2019\u201d\n\nSo fond is popular history of teaching this sort of philosophy by\nexamples, that examples to the purpose are widely accepted which are\nyet not historical. Cardinal Balue, under Louis XI., is pointed out\nin his iron cage, as a malignant inventor punished in and through his\nown invention; but Michelet has exposed the fallacy of supposing Balue\nthe inventor of those iron cages which had long been known in Italy.\nStill he had the \u201cmerit\u201d of being their importer into France; and the\n_lex talionis_ has its application to him. One remembers of course the\nRegent Morton hugged to death by the \u201cmaiden\u201d he had been the means of\nintroducing into Scotland. The French doctor, Guillotin, is even now\nnot uncommonly believed to have perished in the reign of terror by the\ninstrument invented by and named after him; whereas he quietly died in\nhis bed, many, many years later than that. But the Revolution history\nis well stored with instances like that of Ch\u00e2lier, condemned to death\nby the criminal tribunal at Lyons,\u2014the guillotine, which he had sent\nfor from Paris to destroy his enemies, being first destined to sever\nhis own head from his body. A bungling executioner prolonged the last\nagonies of this man, who in fact was hacked to death, not decapitated.\nHe tasted slowly, as Lamartine says, of the death, a thirst for which\nhe had so often sought to excite in the people; \u201che was glutted with\nblood, but it was his own.\u201d Alison recognises in the death of Murat a\nmemorable instance of the moral retribution which often attends upon\n\u201cgreat deeds of iniquity, and by the instrumentality of the very acts\nwhich appeared to place them beyond its reach.\u201d He underwent in 1815\nthe very fate to which, seven years before, he had consigned a hundred\nSpaniards at Madrid, guilty of no other crime than that of defending\ntheir country; and this, as Sir Archibald adds, \u201cby the application\nof a law to his own case, which he himself had introduced, to check\nthe attempts of the Bourbons to regain a throne which he had usurped.\u201d\nNo man, Lord Macaulay affirms, ever made a more unscrupulous use of\nthe legislative power for the destruction of his enemies than Thomas\nCromwell; and it was by an unscrupulous use of the legislative power\nthat he was himself destroyed. Those who tauntingly reminded Fenwick,\nwhen attainted in 1696, that he had supported the bill which attainted\nMonmouth, were warned that they might perhaps themselves be tauntingly\nreminded in some dark and terrible hour, that they had supported the bill\nwhich attainted Fenwick. \u201cGod forbid that our tyrants should ever be able\nto plead, in justification of the worst that they can inflict upon us,\nprecedents furnished by ourselves!\u201d Again, it is in recording how, late\nin life, a horrible calumny settled upon Cicero, that Mr. de Quincey,\nwithout lending a moment\u2019s credit to the foul insinuation, nevertheless\nis free to recognise the equity of this retribution revolving upon one\nwho, he asserts, had so often slandered others in the same malicious\nway. \u201cAt last the poisoned chalice came round to his own lips, and at a\nmoment when it wounded the most acutely.\u201d _S\u00e6pe_, as Seneca has it, _in\nmagistrum scelera redierunt sua_.\n\nFor\n\n \u201cin these cases\n We still have judgment here; that we but teach\n Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return\n To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice\n Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice\n To our own lips.\u201d\n\nPlutarch rejoices in showing in Hercules an avenger who adapted the\nspecial mode of vengeance to the distinctive deserts of the wrong-doer.\nHe punished with the very mode of punishment devised by those who were\nnow made to suffer it. Ant\u00e6us he killed in wrestling, and Termerus by\nbreaking his skull,\u2014it being the _specialit\u00e9_ of Termerus to destroy\nthe passengers he met by dashing his head against theirs. Theseus was\nthe imitator of Hercules in this retributive system; he punished Sinis,\na bandit,\u2014who used to kill travellers by binding them to the boughs of\ntwo pine-trees, which were then allowed to swing back and separate\u2014by\nmaking an end of him in the self-same way; Procrustes again he stretched\non his own bed. Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum, infamous for his\ncruelty, and specially for the device devised for him by Perillus of a\nbrazen bull in which he burnt his victims\u2014this Phalaris first tried the\ndevice on this Perillus; and when Phalaris was deposed an indignant mob\npractised upon _him_ the self-same torture to which he had subjected\nso many. And ever memorable among other tales of antiquity,\u2014old wives\u2019\nfables if you will, but then have not all fables a moral?\u2014is that of\nDiomedes, who was devoured by the horses he had himself taught to feed\non the flesh and blood of men. \u201cAshes always fly back in the face of\nhim that throws them,\u201d is a proverb in the Yoruba language, quoted by\nArchbishop Trench as equivalent to our \u201cHarm watch, harm catch,\u201d and\nperhaps to the Spanish, \u201cHe that sows thorns, let him not walk barefoot.\u201d\nAn overruling Power disposes of what the malignity of man proposes, and\n\n \u201cThus doth it force the swords of wicked men\n To turn their own points on their masters\u2019 bosoms.\u201d\n\nThe psalmist felt that he was praying in accordance with the Divine will,\nwhen he prayed that the ungodly might fall into their own nets together,\nwhile he ever escaped them. So again with his prayer that the mischief\nof their own lips might fall upon the heads of them that compassed him\nabout. For it was a matter at once of faith and of experience with the\npsalmist, that the evil deviser and evil-doer, travailing with mischief,\nconceiving sorrow, and bringing forth ungodliness, who had graven and\ndigged up a pit, was apt to fall himself into the destruction that he\nmade for other. \u201cFor his travail shall come upon his own head, and his\nwickedness shall fall on his own pate.\u201d Owen Feltham delights to recall,\nfrom the stores of ancient and medi\u00e6val story, how Bagoas, a Persian\nnobleman, having poisoned Artaxerxes and Artamenes, was detected by\nDarius, and forced to drink poison himself; how Diomedes, as we have\nalready seen, for the beasts he had fed on human flesh was by Hercules\nmade food; and how Pope Alexander VI., having designed the poisoning of\nhis friend Cardinal Adrian, by his cup-bearer\u2019s mistake of the bottle,\ntook the draught himself, \u201cand so died by the same engine which he\nhimself had appointed to kill another\u201d\u2014a sort of enginery glanced at in\nBen Jonson:\u2014\n\n \u201cI have you in a purse-net,\n Good master Picklock, with your worming brain,\n And wriggling engine-head\u201d\n\ntoo clever by half. Luther, in his Table-talk, welcomes the import of the\nJewish story of Og, king of Bashan, who they say had lifted a great rock\nto throw at his enemies, \u201cbut God made a hole in the middle, so that it\nslipped down upon the giant\u2019s neck, and he could never rid himself of\nit.\u201d The fourth book of Southey\u2019s \u201cThalaba\u201d closes with a shriek from\nLobaba the sorcerer, which this final stanza sufficiently explains:\n\n \u201cWhat, wretch, and hast thou raised\n The rushing terrors of the wilderness,\n To fall on thine own head?\n Death! death! inevitable death!\n Driven by the breath of God,\n A column of the desert met his way.\u201d\n\nNor, among the lyrical pieces of the same poet, be forgotten that ballad\nof the Inchcape rock, which tells how the bell put up by the abbot of\nAberbrothok to warn ships of their peril, was taken down by a sea pirate,\nSir Ralph the Rover, who in the words of an old Scottish topographer, \u201ca\nyeare thereafter perished upon the same rocke, with ship and goodes, in\nthe righteous judgment of God.\u201d Many and many\n\n \u201cstories have been told of men whose lives\n Were infamous, and so their end. I mean\n That the red murderer has himself been murdered;\n The traitor struck with treason; he who let\n The orphan perish came himself to want:\n Thus justice and great God have ordered it!\n So that the scene of evil has been turned\n Against the actor; pain paid back with pain;\n And poison given for poison.\u201d\n\nPrescott\u2019s narrative of the decline and fall of Luna, minister under John\nII. of Castile, is pointed with this moral to adorn the tale; that \u201cby\none of those dispensations of Providence which often confound the plans\nof the wisest, the column which the minister had so artfully raised for\nhis support served only to crush him.\u201d _S\u00e6pe intereunt aliis meditantes\nnecem_; and that by the very means mediated.\n\n \u201cFor \u2019tis the sport, to have the engineer\n Hoist with his own petard,\u201d\n\nsays Hamlet, in vindictive anticipation of such an issue, or rather\nupshot. The guilty king, his uncle, suggests misgivings lest his arrows,\nby a certain mischance, might\n\n \u201chave reverted to my bow again,\n And not where I had aimed them;\u201d\n\nand arrows, so returning, are by poetical justice apt to do the foiled\nbowman a mischief. That king\u2019s fellow-conspirator, Laertes, is thus\npunished, and owns it:\u2014\n\n \u201c_Osric._ How is\u2019t, Laertes?\n\n _Laertes._ Why as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric;\n I am justly killed with mine own treachery.\u201d\n\nAnd so is the king himself; and he, Laertes testifies,\u2014\n\n \u201cis justly served:\n It is a poison tempered by himself\u201d\n\nfor Hamlet, which Claudius has just drank of, and drinking died. The\ntragedy of the prince of Denmark does indeed abound in instances of what\nHoratio calls\n\n \u201cAccidental judgments, casual slaughters,\n And deaths put on by cunning and forced cause;\n And, in this upshot, purposes mistook\n Fallen on the inventors\u2019 heads.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_TO-DAY\u2019S SUFFICING EVIL, AND TO-MORROW\u2019S FORECAST CARE._\n\nST. MATTHEW vi. 34.\n\n\nWith a divine calm fall those words from the Sermon of the Mount\u2014spoken\nas never man spake\u2014which bid us take \u201cno thought for the morrow; for the\nmorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the\nday is the evil thereof.\u201d\n\nPagan philosophy had, and natural theism has, its approximation to\nthe same point of view. Horace is all for letting the mind enjoy the\nenjoyable present, and for leaving no room or resting-place for the sole\nof the foot of Black Care, raven and unclean bird that she is. The morrow\nmay be hers, but to-day at least is his, and the morrow shall take care\nfor the things of itself:\n\n \u201cL\u00e6tus in pr\u00e6sens animus quod ultra est\n Oderit curare.\u201d\n\nDavid Hume, again, meets the doctrine that we should always have before\nour eyes, death, disease, poverty, blindness, calumny, and the like,\nas ills which are incident to human nature, and which may befall us\nto-morrow,\u2014by the answer, that if we confine ourselves to a general and\ndistant reflection on the ills of human life, such a vague procedure can\nhave no effect to prepare us for them; and that if, on the other hand, by\nclose and intense meditation we render them present and intimate to us,\nwe realise the true secret for poisoning all our pleasures, and rendering\nus perpetually miserable. He grieves more than need be, who begins to\ngrieve before he need, is one of Seneca\u2019s sententious sayings: _Plus\ndolet quam necesse est, qui ante dolet quam necesse est_. One of Mrs.\nGore\u2019s women of the world\u2014who might probably be counted by the hundred\u2014is\nsprightly and smart in her rebuke of her husband and his sister for their\ndelight in perplexing the brightest moments of existence by all the\nagonies of second sight, and whom she represents as quite indignant when\nthey find her sympathy waiting the actual occurrence of evil. \u201cI hate,\u201d\nshe says, \u201cto turn back my head towards the dark shadow that follows me,\nor direct my telescope towards a coming storm.\u201d And herein was she wise,\nif not with all the wisdom of those Christian morals, of which we have so\nimpressive an expositor in Sir Thomas Browne. \u201cLeave future occurrences\nto their uncertainties,\u201d writes the fine old physician, Religiosus\nMedicus, \u201cthink that which is present thy own; and, since \u2019tis easier to\nforetell an eclipse than a foul day at some distance, look for little\nregular below. Attend with patience the uncertainty of things, and what\nlieth yet unexerted in the chaos of futurity.\u201d Shakspeare\u2019s noble Roman,\nat the dawn of the day of battle on which so much depends, is natural man\nenough to utter the aspiration:\n\n \u201cO, that a man might know\n The end of this day\u2019s business, ere it come!\u201d\n\nBut he is also stoic philosopher enough to check that prospective\nyearning, with the reflection,\n\n \u201cBut it sufficeth that the day will end,\n And then the end is known.\u201d\n\nSwift opens his Birthday Address to Stella with the assurance,\n\n \u201cThis day, whate\u2019er the fates decree,\n Shall still be kept with joy by me:\n This day, then, let us not be told,\n That you are sick and I grown old;\n Nor think on our approaching ills,\n And talk of spectacles and pills;\n To-morrow will be time enough\n To hear such mortifying stuff.\u201d\n\nFor once, however, it is only in the opening verses that the dean\nis jocose; and he soon turns aside from his strain of levity to bid\nStella accept some serious lines \u201cfrom not the gravest of divines.\u201d\nSchleiermacher, in one of his rather gushing letters,\u2014for he, too, though\nnothing of a Swift, and though of real weight in divinity, was not in all\nsenses the gravest of divines,\u2014implores his \u201cdearest Jette\u201d not to look\nso much into the future. He cannot beg this too earnestly and too often,\nhe says,\u2014so depressed is Jette apt to be by anticipation of things to\ncome, and from a perverse habit of condensing advent difficulties. \u201cIt is\neasy to see through _one_ pane of glass, but through ten placed one upon\nanother we cannot see. Does this prove that each one is not transparent?\nor are we ever called upon to look through more than one at a time?\nDouble panes we only have recourse to for warmth; and just so it is with\nlife. We have but to live _one_ moment at a time. Keep each one isolated,\nand you will easily see your way through them.\u201d So again writes good\nFrederick Perthes to his wife, whose fearful and hopeful longings, he\ntells her, are indeed guarantees for the great future beyond the grave,\nbut whom he urges to bear in mind that a vigorous grasp of the present\nis our duty so long as we are upon earth. It is the present moment, he\nreminds her, that supplies the energy and decision that fit us for life;\nretrospect brings sadness, and the dark future excites fears, so that we\nshould be crippled in our exertions were we not to lay a vigorous grasp\nupon the present. And\n\n \u201cLabour with what zeal you will,\n Something still remains undone;\n Something uncompleted still\n Waits the rising of the sun.\n\n By the bedside, on the stair,\n At the threshold, near the gates,\n With its menace or its prayer,\n Like a mendicant it waits;\n\n Waits, and will not go away;\n Waits, and will not be gainsaid:\n By the cares of yesterday\n Each to-day is heavier made;\n\n Till at length the burden seems\n Greater than our strength can bear;\n Heavy as the weight of dreams\n Pressing on us everywhere.\n\n And we stand from day to day,\n Like the dwarfs of times gone by,\n Who, as Northern legends say,\n On their shoulders held the sky.\u201d\n\nQuite exceptional is the temperament impersonated by Wordsworth in one\nwho seemed a man of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows.\n\nLongfellow has his midnight reflection on To-morrow; himself a watcher\nand contemplative, his little ones asleep: and thus the _pens\u00e9es_ end:\n\n \u201cTo-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,\n Who cries to me, \u2018Remember Barmecide,\n And tremble to be happy with the rest.\u2019\n And I make answer, \u2018I am satisfied;\n I dare not ask; I know not what is best;\n God hath already said what shall betide.\u2019\u201d\n\nThere is never, observes Madame d\u2019Arblay, in her diary, such a\nsuperfluity of actual happiness as to make it either rational or\njustifiable to feed upon _expected_ misery. \u201cThat portion of philosophy\nwhich belongs to making the most of the present day, grows upon me\nstrongly; and, as I have suffered infinitely from its neglect, it is what\nI most encourage, and, indeed, require.\u201d Kindly ordained, she takes it,\nis the concealment of\n\n \u201cthe day of sorrow;\n And enough is the present tense of toil\u2014\n For this world, to all, is a stiffish soil\u2014\n And the mind flies back with a glad recoil\n From the debts not due till to-morrow.\u201d\n\nIt is one of Scott\u2019s young heroes who opens a letter of troublous tidings\nwith the confession that, until now, he had rarely known what it was to\nsustain a moment\u2019s real sorrow; what he called such was, he now felt\nassured, only the weariness of mind which, having nothing actually\npresent to complain of, turns upon itself, and becomes anxious about the\nfuture\u2014disregarding the Scriptural monition that sufficient unto the day\nis the evil thereof. Is there, Armstrong asks,\n\n \u201can evil worse than fear itself?\n And what avails it that indulgent Heaven\n From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,\n If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,\n Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?\n Enjoy the present; nor, with needless cares\n Of what may spring from blind misfortune\u2019s womb,\n Appal the surest hours that life bestows:\n Serene, and master of yourself, prepare\n For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven.\u201d\n\nPrevision and imagination, as Rousseau says, multiply the evils of our\nlot: \u201c_Pour moi_,\u201d he professes\u2014however the profession may have squared\nwith the practice\u2014\u201c_j\u2019ai beau savoir que je soufrirai demain, il me\nsuffit de ne pas souffrir aujourd\u2019hui pour \u00eatre tranquille_.\u201d It is\ncertainly a frenzy, quoth old Montaigne, to go now and whip yourself,\nbecause it may so fall out that fortune may one day decree you a\nwhipping, and to put on your furred gown at Midsummer, because you will\nstand in need of it at Christmas. It was one of Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9\u2019s\nmaxims in life to \u201cregarder l\u2019avenir comme une obscurit\u00e9, dont il peut\narriver des biens et des clart\u00e9s \u00e0 quoi l\u2019on ne s\u2019attend pas.\u201d Milton\u2019s\nAdam laments the mournful privilege of \u201cvisions ill foreseen.\u201d Better had\nhe lived ignorant of future! so had borne his part of evil only, each\nday\u2019s lot enough to bear. So again, in Milton\u2019s Masque, the elder brother\nbids the younger be not over-exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain\nevils:\n\n \u201cFor grant they be so, while they rest unknown,\n What need a man forestall his date of grief,\n And run to meet what he would most avoid?\u201d\n\nAnd once more, Milton himself, in one of those Sonnets which stand in\nthe like relation of merit to his great epic that Shakspeare\u2019s do to\nhis great dramas, admonishes his scholar, Cyriack Skinner, that heaven\ndisproves the care,\n\n \u201cthough wise in show,\n That with superfluous burden loads the day,\n And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.\u201d\n\n\u201cMelancholy commonly flies to the future for its aliment,\u201d says Sydney\nSmith, \u201cand it must be encountered,\u201d he adds, \u201cby diminishing the range\nof our views.\u201d The great remedy for melancholy, he insists in another\nplace, is to \u201ctake short views of life.\u201d Are you happy now? Then why\ndestroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may never come at\nall? For \u201cevery substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them\nshadows of your own making.\u201d One of his correspondents he emphatically\ncounsels to dispel that prophetic gloom which dives into futurity, to\nextract sorrow from days and years to come, and which considers its\nown unhappy visions as the decrees of Providence. \u201cWe know nothing of\nto-morrow, our business is to be good and happy to day.\u201d In effect, like\nMaucroix,\n\n \u201cIl rit de ces prudents qui, par trop de sagesse,\n S\u2019en vont dans l\u2019avenir chercher de la tristesse\n Et des soucis cuisants.\u201d\n\nOnce and again in his autobiography does the most influential, perhaps,\nof French philosophers avow his resolve _\u00e1 vivre d\u00e9sormais au jour la\njourn\u00e9e_, to take short views of life, and regard distant objects as at\nonce illusive and elusory. \u201cUsons de chaque jour sans trop de pr\u00e9voyance\ndu lendemain,\u201d says another. And it was an old French poet, fourscore and\nupwards, who in 1700 wrote the four verses which since then have been\noften cited:\n\n \u201cChaque jour est un bien que du ciel je re\u00e7ois,\n Je jouis aujourd\u2019hui de celui qu\u2019il me donne;\n Il n\u2019appartient pas plus aux jeunes gens qu\u2019a moi,\n Et celui de demain n\u2019appartient a personne.\u201d\n\nDr. Boyd recognises as sound philosophy in Sydney Smith, the advising\nus, whether physically or morally, to \u201ctake short views.\u201d One of his\nillustrations to the purpose is, that it would knock you up at once if,\nwhen the railway carriage moved out of the station at Edinburgh, you\nbegan to trace in your mind\u2019s eye the whole route to London. Never do\nthat, he says; think first of Dunbar, then of Newcastle, then of York,\nand, putting the thing thus, you will get over the distance without\nfatigue of mind. What little child, he asks, would have heart to begin\nthe alphabet, if, before he did so, you put clearly before him all\nthe school and college work of which it is the beginning? \u201cThe poor\nlittle thing would knock up at once, wearied out by your want of skill\nin putting things. And so it is that Providence, kindly and gradually\nputting things, whiles us onward, still keeping hope and heart, through\nthe trials and cares of life.\u201d Every dog has its day, quaintly observes\nA. H. K. B. on another occasion; but the day of the rational dog is\noverclouded in a fashion unknown to his inferior fellow-creatures; it\nis overclouded by the anticipation of the coming day which will not be\nhis. And the essayist reminds us accordingly how \u201cthat great though\nmorbid man, John Foster,\u201d could not heartily enjoy the summer weather,\nfor thinking how every sunny day that shone upon him was a downward step\ntowards the winter gloom\u2014each indication that the season was advancing,\nthough only to greater beauty, filling him with a sort of forecast\nregret. \u201cI have seen a fearful sight to-day,\u201d he would say, \u201cI have\nseen a buttercup.\u201d And we know, of course, adds his critic, \u201cthat in his\ncase there was nothing like affectation; it was only that, unhappily for\nhimself, the bent of his mind was so onward-looking, that he saw only a\npremonition of December in the roses of June.\u201d Waife, in Lord Lytton\u2019s\nstory, checks his grandchild\u2019s query when, happy, and unaccustomed to\nhappiness, and therefore distrusting its continuance, she wistfully\nexclaims, \u201cIt cannot last, can it?\u201d \u201c\u2019Tis no use in this life, my dear,\u201d\nWaife tells her, \u201cno use at all disturbing present happiness by asking,\n\u2018Can it last?\u2019 To-day is man\u2019s, to-morrow his Maker\u2019s.\u201d Life being a\nsuccession of stages, urges another practical philosopher, we should\nthink of one stage at a time. Most people, he judiciously reminds us,\ncan bear one day\u2019s evil; what breaks men down is the trying to bear on\none day the evil of two days, twenty days, a hundred days. \u201cWe can bear\na day of pain, followed by a night of pain, and that again by a day of\npain, and thus onward. But we can bear each day and night of pain, only\nby taking each by itself. We can break each rod, but not the bundle.\u201d\nAnd the sufferer, in real great suffering, is well described as turning\nto the wall in blank despair, when he looks too far on. To cite another\nillustration of A. K. H. B.\u2019s, we should, for certain purposes, look\nnot at the entire chain, but at each successive link of it; we know, of\ncourse, that each link will be succeeded by the next; but we should think\nof them one at a time.\n\nDo not say, _wait the end_, is a maxim of Paul Louis Courier\u2019s, who\ndeclares that, saving the respect due to the ancients, nothing is more\nfalse than that rule. \u201cThe evil of to-morrow shall never deprive me\nof the good of to-day,\u201d is one of the brilliant Frenchman\u2019s resolves.\nAnother brilliant but highly bilious Frenchman testifies from observation\nand experience to the necessity, in the long run, of living from day to\nday, without indulgence either in unavailing regrets or anxious forecast,\n\u201con s\u2019aper\u00e7oit qu\u2019il faut vivre au jour le jour, oublier beaucoup, enfin\n\u00e9ponger la vie \u00e0 m\u00e9sure qu\u2019elle s\u2019\u00e9coule.\u201d But it may too truly be said\nof this philosopher that he wrote, and lived, as one having no hope, and\nwithout God in the world.\n\nHorace was in his placid _Il Penseroso_ mood when he counselled the\nacceptance of each new-born day as possibly one\u2019s last, and appropriating\nit accordingly:\n\n \u201cInter spem curamque, timores inter et iras,\n Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum:\n Grata superveniet qu\u00e6 non sperabitur hora.\u201d\n\nWe might suggest suggestive parallels by the score, as this from a play\nof Leigh Hunt\u2019s,\n\n \u201cOne day\u2014could you not try one day and then\n Enjoy or fear another as it suited?\n Ay, one\u2014one\u2014one. Try but one day, and then\n Trust me if one day would not give you strength,\u201d\n\nfor morrows in store. Or this, from a poem of Owen Meredith\u2019s:\n\n \u201cBe quiet! Take things as they come;\n Each hour will draw out some surprise.\n With blessing let the days go home:\n Thou shalt have thanks from evening skies.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_MEDICAMENTAL MUSIC._\n\n1 SAMUEL xvi. 23.\n\n\nIn the days when Saul loved David greatly, and found comfort in the\nconstant presence of his favourite, it sometimes \u201ccame to pass that when\nthe evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and\nplayed with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil\nspirit departed from him.\u201d\n\nThat there is something more than ordinary in music, Bishop Beveridge, in\nhis \u201cPrivate Thoughts,\u201d infers from this fact\u2014that David made use of the\nharp for driving away the evil spirit from Saul, as well as for bringing\nthe good spirit upon himself. The gentle prelate therefore recognises\nin music a sort of secret and charming power, such as naturally dispels\n\u201cthose black humours which the evil spirit is apt to brood upon,\u201d and\nsuch too as composes the mind into a more regular, sweet, and docile\ndisposition, thereby rendering it \u201cthe fitter for the Holy Spirit\nto work upon, the more susceptive of Divine grace, and more faithful\nmessenger to convey truth to the understanding.\u201d And he cites his\npersonal experience\u2014_experto crede_\u2014in favour of this view.\n\nAnatomizing melancholy, old Burton adds to the instance of David that\nof Elisha, who when he was troubled by importunate kings, called for a\nminstrel, \u201cand when he played, the hand of the Lord came upon him.\u201d Of\ncourse the erudite anatomist heaps up corroborative instances of all\nkinds and ages, mythological, classical, medi\u00e6val; and he quotes many of\nthose obscure and obsolete authorities whom it has been the cheap policy\nof many a bookmaker to cite from Burton\u2019s _thesaurus_ second-hand.\n\nSpenser opens a canto of his \u201cFaerie Queene\u201d with a tribute to the powers\nof minstrelsy as exercised by Orpheus,\u2014\n\n \u201cOr such as that celestial psalmist was,\n That when the wicked fiend his lord tormented,\n With heavenly notes, that did all others pass,\n The outrage of his furious fit relented.\u201d\n\nOr again, to quote a parallel passage from a later poet of the didactic\nschool, whom, perhaps simply because he (Dr. Armstrong) was didactic,\nsome people think as essentially prosy as Spenser is on all sides allowed\nto be quintessentially poetical:\u2014\n\n \u201cSuch was the bard, whose heavenly strains of old\n Appeased the fiend of melancholy Saul.\u201d\n\nBuretti declares music to have the power of so affecting the whole\nnervous system as to give sensible ease in a large variety of disorders,\nand in some cases a radical cure. Particularly he instances sciatica as\ncapable of being relieved by this agency. Theophrastus is mentioned by\nPliny as recommending it for the hip gout; and there are references on\nrecord by old Cato and Varro to the same effect. \u00c6sculapius figures in\nPindar as healing acute disorders with soothing songs.\n\n \u201cMusic exalts each joy, allays each grief,\n Expels diseases, softens every pain,\n Subdues the rage of poison and of plague:\n And hence the wise of ancient days adored\n One power of Physic, Melody, and Song.\u201d\n\nOver Luther, as Sir James Stephen has remarked, there brooded a\nconstitutional melancholy, sometimes engendering sadness, but more often\ngiving birth to dreams so wild that, if vivified by the imagination of\nDante, they might have passed into visions as awful and majestic as those\nof the \u201cInferno.\u201d Various were the spells to which Luther had recourse,\nto cast out the demons that haunted him; and of these remedial agencies\nthe most potent perhaps was music. \u201cHe had ascertained and taught\nthat the spirit of darkness abhors sweet sounds not less than light\nitself; for music (he says), while it chases away the evil suggestions,\neffectually baffles the wiles of the tempter. His lute, and hand, and\nvoice, accompanying his own solemn melodies, were therefore raised to\nrepel the vehement aggressions of the enemy of mankind.\u201d\n\nA story is told of Farinelli, the famous singer, being sent for express\nto Madrid, to try the effect of his magical voice on the king of Spain,\nwho was then buried in the profoundest melancholy\u2014proof against every\nappeal to exertion, living without signs of life in a darkened chamber,\nthe unresisting prey of dejection beyond relief. But relief came with\nFarinelli. The vocalist was desired by the physicians to sing in an outer\nroom, which for a day or two he did, without any apparent effect upon\nthe royal patient. But at length it was noticed that the king seemed\npartially roused from his stupor, and became an evident listener; next\nday tears were seen starting from his eyes; the day after he ordered the\ndoor of his chamber to be left open; and at last \u201cthe perturbed spirit\nentirely left our modern Saul, and the medicinal voice of Farinelli\neffected what no other medicine could.\u201d Well known in modern verse is the\npoet\u2019s picture of a despairing sufferer, whom nought avails to move until\u2014\n\n \u201cAt last a slave bethought her of a harp:\n The harper came, and tuned his instrument;\n At the first notes, irregular and sharp,\n On him her flashing eyes a moment bent,\n Then to the wall she turned as if to warp\n Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent.\n ...\n Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall\n In time to his old tune ...\n ... And in a gushing stream\n The tears rushed forth from her o\u2019erclouded brain,\n Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.\u201d\n\nNor be forgotten the impressive instance of Schiller\u2019s Wallenstein, in\nhis hour of darkness, tranquillised by Thekla\u2019s voice and lute:\u2014\n\n \u201cCome here, my girl. Seat thee by me,\n For there is a good spirit on thy lips.\n Thy mother praised to me thy ready skill;\n She says a voice of melody dwells in thee,\n Which doth enchant the soul. Now such a voice\n Will drive away from me the evil demon\n That beats his black wings close above my head.\u201d\n\nWilliam Godwin makes his savage Tyrell amenable to well warbled melody.\nReaders of Scott will remember how a frenzied Highlander is soothed into\nself restraint by the minstrelsy of Annot Lyle. Goethe makes the first\nbar of an air by Gretchen suffice to lull the sorrows of young Werter,\nwho protests that \u201cinstantly the gloom and madness which hang over me are\ndispersed, and I breathe freely again.\u201d Another Charlotte\u2014our English\nRichardson\u2019s\u2014is less successful in her manipulation of medicinal melody,\nwhen essaying to subdue an angry spirit by the spells of song: \u201cI go to\nmy harpsichord; music enrages him. He is worse than Saul; for Saul could\nbe gloomily pleased with the music even of the man he hated,\u201d But this is\nantedating Saul\u2019s aversion; in those days Saul loved David greatly.\n\nDr. Croly, in an eloquent paragraph of his elaborate eastern romance,\nrecords how carefully music, \u201cof all pleasures the most intellectual,\nthat glorious painting to the ear, that rich mastery of the gloomier\nemotions of our nature,\u201d was studied by the Jewish priesthood, and with\na skill that influenced the habits of the country. \u201cHow often,\u201d exclaims\nSalathiel, \u201chave my fiercest perturbations sunk, at the sounds that once\nfilled the breezes of Jud\u00e6a! How often, when my brain was burning, and\nthe blood ran through my veins like molten brass, have I been softened\ndown to painless tears by the chorus from our hills, the mellow harmony\nof harp and horn, blending with the voices of the youths and maidens of\nIsrael!\u201d\n\nIt is characteristic, as Herr Kohl observes, of music-loving Bohemia,\nthat in the lunatic asylum of its capital, music should be considered one\nof the chief aids and appliances for the improvement of the patients. In\naddition to the garden concerts, in which all assist who can, there is\nchamber music\u2014quartets, trios, etc.,\u2014every morning and evening in the\nwards; and a musical director takes high rank in the official staff of\nthe establishment.\n\nElizabeth Charlotte of Orleans, mother of the Regent, describes in one\nof her letters a Madame de Persillie, well born and well bred, but a\ndangerous lunatic; who however, if you could but slip a guitar into her\nhand when the fury-fit came on, would become calm again as soon as she\nbegan to play. \u201cI pity her greatly,\u201d writes the good-natured duchess\n(whose homely German nature never became properly assimilated to the\nFrench court); \u201cshe was very fond of me, and used to address me as _Mon\naimable_; but whenever she came to see me I always had a guitar quite\nready for her.\u201d It was but common prudence to be thus prepared for the\nworst; and when the worst came to the worst, then a guitar was best.\n\nSchleiermacher exclaims in one of his letters, \u201cSurely, if there was\nany good in Saul\u2019s innermost soul it must have been an _adagio_ that\nexorcised the evil spirit.\u201d The evil spirit in question is introduced\nby name, Malzah, in a recent Canadian drama, and is made to avow the\naccomplished fact of exorcism in the following strain:\u2014\n\n \u201cMusic, music hath its sway:\n Music\u2019s order I obey,\n I have unwound myself at sound\n From off Saul\u2019s heart, where coiled I lay.\u201d\n\nWhich snaky or serpentine similitude is akin to a passage in Mr.\nBrowning\u2019s \u201cParacelsus\u201d\u2014distant as the kinship between the two poems may\nbe in other respects:\n\n \u201cMy heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;\n Its darkness passes, which nought else could touch;\n Like some dank snake that force may not expel,\n Which glideth out to music sweet and low.\u201d\n\nAgain and again in Shakspeare is the remedial agency of music resorted\nto by afflicted royalty. At one time it is Queen Katharine, fading and\nheartsore, who bids one of her women cease working, and sing\u2014\n\n \u201cTake thy lute, wench; my soul grows sad with troubles;\n Sing, and disperse them if thou canst.\u201d\n\nAnd the singer\u2019s theme is how \u201cin sweet music is such art, killing care\nand grief at heart.\u201d At another time it is dying Harry IV., who prays his\nattendants, as they bear him to an inner room\u2014\n\n \u201cLet there be no noise made, my gentle friends!\n Unless some dull[8] and favourable hand\n Will whisper music to my weary spirit.\u201d\n\nAnd once more, we have Lear\u2019s physician prescribing music for the safer\nawakening of the distraught old man from that long sleep which was only\nnot his last.\n\n\n\n\n_FREE FROM RIGHTEOUSNESS._\n\nROMANS vi. 20.\n\n\nIn being, and so long as they continued, slaves of sin (\u03b4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ae\u03c2\n\u1f01\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2), the recipients of St. Paul\u2019s epistle to the Romans are\nforcibly described by him as having been, _ipso facto_, free from\nrighteousness (\u1f10\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u1fc3). But what fruit had they in the\nfreedom of which they were now ashamed?\n\n \u201cHe is the freeman whom the truth makes free,\n And all are slaves beside.\u201d\n\nThey knew that to whom men yield themselves servants to obey, his\nservants they are to whom they are obedient, whether of sin unto\ndeath, or of loyal service unto righteousness. There is a freedom from\nrighteousness, which is servitude to sin; and there is that service of\nGod which, though a service, or rather because a service, is perfect\nfreedom.\n\nGray, in the best known of his odes (best known by heart) devises this\nexpressive phrase,\n\n \u201cConstraint, that sweetens liberty.\u201d\n\nIt refers to schoolboys, enjoying all the more their playground freedom\nfor the previous and succeeding restraints and constraints of the\nschoolroom. All work and no play makes a dull boy; but so does all play\nand no work. In this sense, as in so many others, does the paradox hold\ngood that half is more than the whole (\u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd \u1f25\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2), and even a\nschoolboy can find by experience that a half holiday may be more than a\nwhole one.\n\nWordsworth sounds the depths of this philosophy in his magnificent Ode to\nDuty. He is fatigued by freedom; he would be no longer the sport of every\nrandom gust; he would no longer stray in smooth walks, but would serve\nDuty more strictly if he might:\u2014\n\n \u201cThrough no disturbance of my soul,\n Or strong compunction in me wrought,\n _I supplicate for thy control_;\n But in the quietness of thought:\n _Me this uncharted freedom tires_;\n I feel the weight of chance desires;\n My hopes no more must change their name,\n I long for a repose that ever is the same.\u201d\n\nWhose service is perfect freedom\u2014that is God\u2019s service only. The true\ncharacter of that service (in Greek Testament phrase, _slavery_) is\naptly indicated by St. Paul to the Ephesians, where he speaks of _with\ngood will doing service_\u2014\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u2019 \u03b5\u1f50\u03bd\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u0394\u039f\u03a5\u039b\u0395\u03a5\u039f\u039d\u03a4\u0395\u03a3, \u1f61\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u039a\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u1ff3 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba\n\u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2. The law of the Spirit of life makes free from the law of\nsin and death, that the righteousness of spiritual law may be fulfilled\nin those who sometime were free from righteousness. Freedom from\nrighteousness is, in fact, identical with that bondage of corruption from\nwhich they are delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of\nGod. He that is so called, being free, is yet Christ\u2019s servant, \u03b4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\nAnd, as a servant, whatsoever he doeth he is to do heartily, as to the\nLord, and not to men\u2014\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u039a\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u1ff3 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff7 \u0394\u039f\u03a5\u039b\u0395\u03a5\u0395\u0399. Goethe\u2019s biographer\ntells us how he would assert, against the encyclopedists, that \u201cwhatever\nfrees the intellect, without at the same time giving us command over\nourselves, is pernicious;\u201d or would utter one of his profound and\npregnant \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 such as _Nur das Gesetz kann uns die Freiheit geben_,\ni.e., only within the circle of law can there be true freedom. \u201cWe are\nnot free when we acknowledge no higher power, but when we acknowledge it,\nand in reverence raise ourselves by proving that a Higher lives in us.\u201d\nWe may wrest to our purpose the lines of Schiller, in _Wallensteins Tod_:\n\n \u201cNay, let it not afflict you that your power\n Is circumscribed. Much liberty, much error!\n The narrow path of duty is securest.\u201d\n\nLiberty of will is likened by Jeremy Taylor to the motion of a magnetic\nneedle towards the north, full of trembling and uncertainty till it be\nfixed in the beloved point: \u201cit wavers as long as it is free, and is\nat rest when it can choose no more.\u201d What is liberty? asks M. Jules\nSimon; and answers, The power of doing or not doing. But, he proceeds\nto inquire, can this liberty exist independent of law?\u2014_cette libert\u00e9\npeut-elle subsister sans r\u00e8gle?_ Nay, liberty without rule, or law,\nso far from ennobling him who possesses it, degrades him. Liberty is\nnot given to us to withdraw us from the authority of law, but that\nwe may obey it in recognising its great First Cause. Unrestrained\nliberty is our ruin; liberty subjected to law, and that an immovable\nlaw, is the instrument and the token of our true greatness. Wordsworth\nphilosophically affirms that \u201call men may find cause, when life is at\na weary pause, and they have panted up the hill of duty with reluctant\nwill,\u201d to\n\n \u201cBe thankful, even though tired and faint,\n For the rich bounties of constraint;\n Whence oft invigorating transports flow,\n That choice lacked courage to bestow.\u201d\n\nThe truth admits of exemplification in a thousand minor details of\nevery-day life. Mrs. Gaskell relates how she heard Charlotte Bront\u00e8\ndeclare, in reference to the \u201cexact punctuality and obedience to the\nlaws of time and place\u201d enforced by her somewhat despotic aunt on the\nmotherless family at Haworth parsonage, that no one but themselves could\ntell the value of this control in after life: \u201cwith their impulsive\nnatures it was positive repose to have learnt obedience to external\nlaws.\u201d In the last of her own fictions\u2014and, though unfinished, the ripest\nand best\u2014Mrs. Gaskell herself suggestively observes of a patient who,\nwhen a medical adviser is at length called in, finds it a great relief to\nbe told what to do, what to eat, drink, and avoid, that \u201csuch decisions\n_ab extra_ are sometimes a wonderful relief to those whose habit has\nbeen to decide, not only for themselves, but for every one else;\u201d and\nthat occasionally the relaxation of the strain which a character for\ninfallible wisdom brings with it does much to restore health. M. de\nVigny, in one of his highly finished _historiettes_, speculates on the\nnature and power of the instinct which seems to urge mankind, as by a\nkind of necessity, to seek pleasure in obedience, and to feel a desire\nto depose, as it were, their free agency and consequent responsibility\nin other hands; as if thereby a burden was laid down, too weighty to be\nvoluntarily supported; and how this sensation of relief seems to give a\nsecret feeling of complacency, and a freedom to the act of obedience,\nwhich reconcile it to the pride of human nature. Soldiers, observes Sir\nWalter Scott, are always most pleased when they are best in order for\nperforming their military service; and licence or inactivity, however\nacceptable at times, are not, when continued, so agreeable to men of the\ncamp as strict discipline and a prospect of employment. \u201cI have heard men\ntalk of the blessings of freedom,\u201d says Wamba to himself, when suddenly\nfreed from sharing the captivity of his master; \u201cbut I wish any wise\nman would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.\u201d So Elia,\nin his essay on The Superannuated Man, to whom life being now one long\nholiday has no holiday henceforth; where he expatiates on the sight of\n\u201cbusy faces to recreate the idle man, who contemplates them ever passing\nby\u2014the very face of business a charm by contrast to his relaxation from\nit.\u201d Many an individual experience can put its own private interpretation\non the averment of one of Rousseau\u2019s correspondents\u2014_Ce lien si redout\u00e9\nme delivre d\u2019une servitude beaucoup plus redoubtable_.\n\nOf significant application again is De Quincey\u2019s denial of the truth of\nLessing\u2019s \u00e6sthetical assertion, that the sense of necessary and absolute\nlimitation is banished from the idea of a fine art. On the contrary,\nhe maintains this sense is indispensable as a means of resisting (and\ntherefore realizing) the sense of freedom: \u201cthe freedom of a fine art\nis found not in the absence of restraint, but in the conflict with it.\u201d\nSo in literature. That certain rules of composition sustain themselves\nat all is due, according to Mr. W. Caldwell Roscoe, to the fact that\ncreative genius of a high order is not impatient of forms, but rather\nloves, on the contrary, to have certain limits defined for it, and to be\nfreed to some extent from \u201cthe weight of too much liberty.\u201d Shakspeare,\nhe adds, did not fret because tragedies are limited to five acts, nor\nMilton quarrel with the formal conditions of an epic poem. Here again\nshall we find in Wordsworth a passage to the point:\u2014\n\n \u201cIn truth the prison, unto which we doom\n Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,\n In sundry moods, \u2019twas pastime to be bound\n Within the Sonnet\u2019s scanty plot of ground;\n Pleased, if some souls (for such there needs must be),\n Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,\n Should find brief solace there, as I have found.\u201d\n\nThe biographer of Edward Irving tells us how deeply he was affected when\nthe decision of the presbytery against him removed him from the range\nof their control, so that, \u201cnotwithstanding all his independence, the\nprofound loyalty of his soul was henceforth baulked of its healthful\nnecessities.\u201d He felt himself with a pang to be cast unnaturally free\nof restraint\u2014\u201cthat lawful, sweet restraint, ... to which the tender\ndutifulness so seldom wanting to great genius naturally clings.\u201d[9]\nHabits of instant and mechanical obedience are affirmed by Sir Henry\nTaylor to be those that give rest to the child, and spare its health and\ntemper. Men are but children of a larger growth; and though as regards\nobedience to a Father which is in heaven, \u201cmechanical\u201d obedience may not\nbe the word, yet is cheerfully implicit obedience the thing; obedience is\nthe privilege of the child.\n\n \u201cFor obedience is nobler than freedom. What\u2019s free?\n The vexed straw on the wind, the frothed spume on the sea.\n The great ocean itself, as it rolls and it swells,\n In the bonds of a boundless obedience dwells.\u201d\n\nThe next section takes up the same theme under another heading, and with\na fresh set of variations.\n\n\n\n\n_THE SERVICE OF FREEDOM._\n\nST. MATTHEW xi. 29, 30.\n\n\nIt is in tones of winning promise and invitation that men are offered\nthe wearing of Christ\u2019s yoke. Let all who are weary and heavy laden come\nto Him: come, that they may take His yoke upon them. There is a seeming\nparadox in the invitation. Should not the weary be invited by promised\nfreedom from all yoke-bearing? Should not the heavy-laden be attracted by\na pledge of entire immunity from burdens grievous to be borne, whether\nheavy or light? Not so. Christ\u2019s yoke is easy, but it is a yoke. The\nburden he imposes is light, but a burden of some sort He does impose.\nBeing made free from sin, men become the servants\u2014servitors, slaves\neven, \u03b4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, of righteousness. But in so being made free from sin, and\nbecoming servants, \u03b4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, to God, they have their fruit unto holiness,\nand the end everlasting life. And the yoke of privilege promised by\nChrist differs from the irksome bonds and rigid constraint of scribes and\nrabbis; a yoke which, says St. Peter, neither we nor our fathers were\nable to bear, inasmuch as it implies and involves a purely spiritual\nservice\u2014that we should serve (\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd) in newness of spirit, and not in\nthe oldness of the letter. \u201cIf the Son therefore shall make you free, ye\nshall be free indeed.\u201d\n\nKeble says of men, in the \u201cChristian Year,\u201d that,\n\n \u201cFreely they own, or heedless prove,\n The curse of lawless hearts, the joy of self-control.\u201d\n\nThe joy of self-control. For what Wordsworth expressively calls\n\u201cunchartered freedom,\u201d as revelled in by those who ignore a holy and\nhappy-making law of duty, is not in the long run, a boon, but a bane.\nTrue, that, as Cowper has it,\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis liberty alone that gives the flower\n Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,\n And we are weeds without it. All constraint,\n Except what wisdom lays on evil men,\n Is evil.\u201d\n\nBut the constraint that sweetens liberty is excepted; the control that\nenfranchises from servitude to self, and exalts to a liberty which\nmonarchs cannot grant: \u201c\u2019Tis liberty of heart, derived from Heaven,\u201d\n\u201cand held by charter;\u201d \u201ca clean escape from tyrannizing lust.\u201d \u201cGrace\nmakes the slave a freeman;\u201d for \u201cHe is the freeman whom the truth makes\nfree, and all are slaves beside.\u201d Byron was drawing on his own bitter\nexperience when he wrote the lines,\n\n \u201cLord of himself\u2014that heritage of woe,\n That fearful empire which the human breast\n But holds to rob the heart within of rest.\u201d\n\nImlac, the sage, describes, in \u201cRasselas\u201d the placid flow of life enjoyed\nby a devout brotherhood, whose \u201ctime is regularly distributed; one duty\nsucceeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of\nunguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity. There\nis a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour,\u201d and the\nconstraint is to them a pledge of happiness, hallowed as it is with a\nDivine sanction, and promissory of \u201can ampler ether, a diviner air\u201d to\ncome, in which they shall breathe more freely, and inhale more deeply,\nthe breath of life.\n\nFreedom is not the being free to do nothing, or to do just what one\nlikes, and when, and how, without why or wherefore. _La libert\u00e9 n\u2019est pas\noisivet\u00e9_, says La Bruy\u00e8re; and then he proceeds to say what liberty is:\n\u201cC\u2019est le choix de travail et de l\u2019exercice: \u00eatre libre, en un mot, n\u2019est\npas ne rien faire, c\u2019est \u00eatre seul arbitre de ce qu\u2019on fait, ou de ce\nqu\u2019on ne fait point. Quel bien en ce sens que la libert\u00e9!\u201d But how much\nworthier of that note of admiration the gospel definitions, explicit or\nimplicit, of _ce que c\u2019est la libert\u00e9_!\n\nThere is a touching suggestiveness in what Frederick Perthes says in a\nletter after the death of his wife. All his doings and plannings for four\nand twenty years past had been solely, he declares, in reference to her.\n\u201cBut now all this is over. I am no longer bound; I can do what I will,\nand next to the yearning after her, I am most oppressed in my solitude\nby the consciousness of freedom.\u201d Fain would he be in those dear bonds\nagain; to apply a passage in one of Shakspeare\u2019s minor poems, he\n\n \u201cIn her fillet still would bide,\n And, true to bondage, would not break from thence.\u201d\n\nOr as Ferdinand says of Miranda, in the \u201cTempest,\u201d\n\n \u201cAll corners else o\u2019 the earth\n Let liberty make use of; space enough\n Have I in such a prison.\u201d\n\nIn this sense may be applied in earnest what Butler writes in sport, of\nan independent spirit who\n\n \u201cDisdains control, and yet can be\n Nowhere, but in a prison, free.\u201d\n\nSo the sculptor in Hawthorne\u2019s tale of \u201cTransformation,\u201d intent on\nwinning winsome Hilda for his own, \u201cwould try if it were possible to\ntake this shy, yet frank and innocently fearless creature captive, and\nimprison her in his heart, and make her sensible of a larger freedom\nthere than in all the world besides.\u201d \u201cI have read somewhere,\u201d says a\nsimple maiden in one of Lord Lytton\u2019s fictions, \u201cthat the slave is gay in\nhis holiday from toil; if you free him, the gaiety vanishes, and he cares\nno more for the dance under the palm-tree.\u201d Don Alphonse, in Madame de\nR\u00e9musat\u2019s \u201cLettres Espagnoles,\u201d writes to his sister an account of the\ncourtiers\u2019 embarrassment on being released by the king from ceremonial\nattendance, and allowed to do each one as he liked. \u201cL\u2019improvisation en\ntout est chose assez difficile, et particuli\u00e8rement celle de la libert\u00e9.\nIl faut que je confesse que nous n\u2019avons su que faire de la n\u00f4tre.\u201d The\nmoral of the fable may be read in Landor\u2019s lines, supposed to be indited\nby the caged nightingales so tenderly tended by Agapenthe, and brought to\nAthens for her from Thessaly, and who bid the reader think not\n\n \u201cThat we would gladly fly again\n To gloomy wood or windy plain.\n Certain we are we ne\u2019er should find\n A care so provident, so kind....\n O may you prove, as well as we,\n That e\u2019en in Athens there may be\n A sweeter thing than liberty.\u201d\n\nApply, again, to the general subject the special fact, by way of\nillustration, that restrictions and shackles are essential to rhythmic\nwriting, and voluntary thraldom the natural condition of poetry. The\nChevalier de la Faye, in his \u201cApology\u201d for the supposed difficulties of\nrhyme in our Cisalpine dialects (one Italian poet being \u201cdistinguishable\namong his fellow-captives by the light a\u00ebrial nature of his fetters,\u201d)\nsuggests an ingenious parallel to the _jets d\u2019eau_ that ornament the\ngardens of the Tuileries, Versailles, and St. Cloud, in a copy of verses\nwhich have been thus Englished by Father Prout:\u2014\n\n \u201cFrom the rhyme\u2019s restrictive rigour\n Thought derives its impulse oft,\n Genius draws new strength and vigour,\n Fancy springs and shoots aloft.\n So, in leaden conduits pent,\n Mounts the liquid element,\n By pressure forced to climb:\n And he who feared the rule\u2019s restraint\n Finds but a friendly ministrant\n In Reason\u2019s helpmate, Rhyme.\u201d\n\nPithy and pertinent too are Mr. Coventry Patmore\u2019s lines on those who\n\n \u201cLive by law, not like the fool,\n But like the bard, who freely sings\n In strictest bonds of rhyme and rule,\n And finds in them, not bonds, but wings.\u201d\n\nThey who so live are in every sense the happier, without an \u201cexcept\nthese bonds,\u201d but because of them. They find in them not bonds, but\nwings; and thenceforth have free course, and go on their way rejoicing.\nThey, like the repentant rebels in Shakspeare\u2019s \u201cKing John,\u201d and by the\nsame river metaphor,\n\n \u201cLeaving their rankness and irregular course,\n Stoop low within those bounds they had o\u2019erlook\u2019d,\n And calmly run on in obedience.\u201d\n\nWhat they are no longer free to do, is to do ill. And that freedom is\nas perfect servitude as the service of God is perfect freedom. In fine,\nand in the words (but expanding the meaning) of one of Samuel Butler\u2019s\nmetrical reflections:\u2014\n\n \u201cLaw does not put the least restraint\n Upon our freedom, but maintain\u2019t;\n Or if it does, \u2019tis for our good,\n To give us freer latitude;\n For wholesome laws preserve us free\n By stinting of our liberty.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE DISCREET SILENCE OF FOLLY._\n\nPROVERBS xvii. 28.\n\n\nIt is written among the Proverbs of Solomon, that \u201cEven a fool, when he\nholdeth his peace, is counted wise.\u201d Even the fool that shutteth his lips\nis esteemed a man of understanding. The wise king declares in another\nplace, that a fool\u2019s mouth is his destruction, and that his lips are\nthe snare of his soul. Let him keep his mouth closed, and his folly is\nan unknown quantity; out of sight, out of mind. Let him keep his lips\nshut, and wisdom shall be imputed unto him. Of him lookers-on will say, a\ndiscreet man that. For they are only lookers-on, not listeners. To listen\nwould break the spell. As it is, they are apt to count him as deep as he\nis still. Do not still waters run deep?\n\nSir Thomas Browne\u2014himself a silent man, but no fool; quite the other\nway\u2014bids us, in one of his stately sentences, think not silence the\nwisdom of fools; but if rightly timed, the honour of wise men, who have\nnot the infirmity, but the virtue of taciturnity, and speak not out of\nthe abundance, but the well-weighed thoughts of the heart. \u201cSuch silence\nmay be eloquence, and speak thy worth above the power of words.\u201d Would\nthe author of \u201cVulgar Errors,\u201d however, have sanctioned for one moment\nthe reference of the proverb on reticent foolishness to that limbo?\nOn the contrary, the drift of his argument is wholly in favour of the\nproverb; for, if the silence of the wise is wisdom, as he contends, much\nmore is a tongue-tied condition expedient in the fool.\n\n_Stultitiam dissimulare non potes nisi taciturnitate_, says the Latin\nadage: there is no way to conceal folly but by holding your tongue.\n\nThere is something at once of pathos and almost of humorous reproach, in\nthe appeal of the Man of Uz, in his extremity, to his too didactic and\ncomplacently dogmatical friends: \u201cOh that ye would altogether hold your\npeace! and it should be your wisdom.\u201d\n\nMontaigne exclaims, \u201cTo how many blockheads of my time has a cold and\ntaciturn demeanour procured the credit of prudence and capacity!\u201d Note\nthe counsel of Carlo to Sogliardo, in one of Ben Jonson\u2019s heaviest\ncomedies: \u201cWhen anything is propounded above your capacity, smile at\nit, make two or three faces, and \u2019tis excellent; they\u2019ll think you\u2019ve\ntravelled; though you argue a whole day in silence thus, and discourse\nin nothing but laughter, \u2019twill pass.\u201d Elsewhere rare Ben cites\napprovingly the \u201cwitty saying,\u201d about one who was taken for a great and\nweighty man so long as he held his peace: \u201cThis man might have been a\ncounsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle\nof the ward.\u201d Denouncing in his strong dialect the vapid verbiage of\nshallow praters, Mr. Carlyle exclaims, \u201cEven Triviality, Imbecility,\nthat can sit silent, how respectable is it in comparison!\u201d Michelet says\nof the Spanish grandees of Charles the Fifth\u2019s time, that the haughty\nsilence they maintained, scarce deigning even a syllable of reply,\nserved them admirably to conceal their dearth of ideas. Silence and\nimperturbability, according to the author of \u201cThe Gentle Life,\u201d are the\ntwo requisites for a man to get on in the world.\n\nIf there are two things not to be hidden\u2014love and a cough\u2014there is a\nthird, contends Nello, the barber of Florence, and that is ignorance,\nwhen once a man is obliged to do something besides wagging his head.\nCharles Lamb shrewdly observes that a man may do very well with a very\nlittle knowledge, and scarce be found out, in a mixed company; everybody\nbeing so much more ready to produce his own than to call for a display\nof your acquisitions. But in a _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_, he adds, there is no\nshuffling; the truth will out.\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 de Choisy hugged himself on the success of a discreet silence\nduring his residence in Batavia, where he had special reasons to beware\nof committing, and of exposing, himself. \u201cOften when I utter not a word,\nthey suppose it is because I don\u2019t choose to talk; whereas the real\nmotive for my silence is a profound ignorance, such as it is best to\nkeep concealed from the gaze of mortals.\u201d Moli\u00e8re\u2019s sprightly chevalier,\nDorante, counsels a fatuous marquis not to talk of what he knows nothing\nat all about\u2014bidding him hope that in virtue of a scrupulously observed\nsilence, he and the like of him may haply come to be regarded as clever\nfellows. \u201cEt songez qu\u2019en ne disant mot, on croira peut-\u00eatre que vous\n\u00eates d\u2019habiles gens.\u201d A story is told of Zeuxis, how he reproved a\ncertain Megabyzus, high priest of great Diana of the Ephesians, who\ndiscoursed of pictures in the painter\u2019s studio with so reckless an\naudacity of ignorance, that the very lads who were grinding colours\nthere could not refrain from giggling; whereupon quoth Zeuxis to his\ntoo-eloquent friend, \u201cAs long as you kept from talking, you were the\nadmiration of these boys, who were all wonder at your rich attire, and\nthe number of your servants; but now that you have ventured to expatiate\nupon the arts, of which you know simply nothing, they are laughing at\nyou outright.\u201d Plutarch tells the same story of Apelles. Again to draw\nupon Moli\u00e8re: a fool who keeps his folly tongue-tied, is not to be\ndistinguished from a savant who hold his peace:\n\n \u201cUn sot qui ne dit mot ne se distingue pas\n D\u2019un savant qui se tait.\u201d\n\nNot to be distinguished, possibly, from a savant who talks, and talks to\nthe purpose too.\n\nThere are two opposite ways, on Washington Irving\u2019s showing, by which\nsome men get into notice\u2014one by talking a vast deal and thinking a\nlittle, and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at\nall. By the first, he says, many a vapouring, superficial pretender\nacquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many a\nvacant dunder-pate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be\ncomplimented, by a discerning world, with all the attributes of wisdom.\nSilent, quiet people, as Miss Jewsbury incidentally remarks, have a\ncharmed mystery about them which gives them a great advantage over more\ndemonstrative mortals; \u201cnobody knows exactly what they think, nor the\nimpression made on them by anything; all within them has the prestige of\nan oracle; the extent of what they indicate is unknown; and what little\nis uttered goes so far.\u201d The best, perhaps, as well as the best-known\nof all stories illustrative of our theme, is that of Coleridge admiring\na certain dinner-guest, so impregnable in his sublime reserve, so\ninexorably proof against every temptation to join in the table-talk, such\na model (in appearance) of dignified superiority\u2014until there was carried\nin that unlucky dish of apple-dumplings, the very first glance at which\nroused Sir Oracle to the enthusiastic outburst, \u201cThem are the jockeys for\nme!\u201d Goldsmith had, long before, recorded a somewhat parallel passage\nof disenchantment. His travelled Chinese, Lien Chi Altangi, is present\nat a dinner-party of dignitaries and dons in whose company and from\nwhose converse he expects to find a feast of reason as well as turtle,\nand a flow of soul as well as claret. Their silence before dinner is\nserved, rather puzzles and disappoints the eager expectant; who, however,\naccounts for and excuses it by the reflection, that men of wisdom are\never slow of speech, and deliver nothing unadvisedly. \u201cSilence,\u201d says\nConfucius, \u201cis a friend that will never betray.\u201d The dons and dignitaries\nwere now by the mandarin\u2019s surmise, inventing maxims, or hard sayings,\nfor their mutual instruction, when some one should think proper to begin.\n\u201cMy curiosity was now wrought up to the highest pitch; I impatiently\nlooked round to see if any were going to interrupt the mighty pause;\nwhen at last one of the company declared that there was a sow in his\nneighbourhood that farrowed fifteen pigs at a litter.\u201d Broken at once was\nthe spell, and disillusion was the Chinaman\u2019s doom.\n\nPope, being satirist of the first class, as well as poet of (say) the\nsecond, took care, in his imitative stanzas on Silence, not to be all\nsentiment and rhapsodical rapture on that subject. Hence, one or his\nstanzas begins, \u201cSilence, the knave\u2019s repute;\u201d and another declares\nDulness to be her bosom-friend:\n\n \u201cAnd in thy bosom lurks in Thought\u2019s disguise;\n Thou varnisher of fools, and cheat of all the wise.\u201d\n\nThe moral of one of Gay\u2019s fables is to the purpose\u2014that one, namely, in\nwhich a young dog, ignorant of game, gives tongue as lustily as if he\nknew all about it, and gets well lashed for his pains. To the astounded\npuppy\u2019s remonstrance the whip-bearing huntsman replies:\u2014\n\n \u201cHad not thy forward noisy tongue\n Proclaim\u2019d thee always in the wrong,\n Thou might\u2019st have mingled with the rest,\n And ne\u2019er thy foolish nose confess\u2019d;\n But fools, to talking ever prone,\n Are sure to make their follies known.\u201d\n\nSo a French satirist of the last century bids _le sot_ remember, that by\nsimply holding his tongue, he will acquire not a little respect\u2014hopeless\nas the reminder in such a case may be; for you might as well counsel the\ncoward not to tremble, as the fool not to expose himself in words, words,\nwords:\n\n \u201cSouvenez-vous qu\u2019un sot doit garder le silence,\n Il serait respect\u00e9 beaucoup plus qu\u2019il ne pense;\n Mais vouloir le contraindre \u00e0 ne jamais parler,\n C\u2019est, sans espoir, d\u00e9fendre au poltron ne trembler.\u201d\n\nCould it but be enforced, the one injunction to be laid upon the fool\nmight be condensed into an applied line from Moli\u00e8re, where Orgon bids\nDorine hold her tongue, and regard that as a standing order:\u2014\n\n \u201cTaisez-vous. C\u2019est le mot qu\u2019il vous faut toujours dire.\u201d\n\nAll silent people, Lord Lytton affirms, can seem conventionally elegant.\nAnd he tells the story of a groom married to a rich lady, and in\nconsequent trepidation as to the probability of being ridiculed by the\nguests in his new home and her old one, to whom an Oxford clergyman\ngave this bit of advice: \u201cWear a black coat, and hold your tongue.\u201d The\ngroom took the hint, and, we are assured, was always considered the\nmost gentlemanly man in the county. Elsewhere, again, the same author\nrelates his meeting with a diplomatist of weighty name, a stock example\nof political success, but of whom he could make nothing whatever, except\nindeed that he was a preposterous numskull. When, therefore, the Prime\nMinister, some days later, spoke to our author of this \u201csuperior man,\u201d he\ngot for a reply, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think much of him. I spent the other day\nwith him, and found him insufferably dull.\u201d \u201cIndeed!\u201d said the minister,\nwith something of horror in his tone; \u201cwhy then, I see how it is. Lord\n\u2e3a has been positively talking to you!\u201d Had he but altogether held his\npeace, it had been his wisdom.\n\nAccording to La Bruy\u00e8re, everything tells in favour of the man who talks\nbut little; the presumption is that he is a superior man; and if, in\npoint of fact, he is not a sheer blockhead, the presumption then is\nthat he is very superior indeed. His comparative freedom from folly is\npositively presumed to exist in the superlative degree. In another place\nthe same observant philosopher describes in his best style the sort of\npeople who, by a grand talent for silence, win golden opinions from all\nsorts of men; they look wise, and now and then enforce and re-enforce\nthe look by a timely shrug of the shoulders, or significant shake of the\nhead; but the assumed depth of wisdom don\u2019t really go two inches down;\nscratch the surface, and you come to the bottom at once.\n\nFor, as Shakspeare has it,\n\n \u201cThere are a sort of men whose visages\n Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;\n And do a wilful stillness entertain,\n With purpose to be dress\u2019d in an opinion\n Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit.\n ...\n O, my Antonio, I do know of those,\n That therefore only are reputed wise,\n For saying nothing; who, I am very sure,\n If they should speak, would\u2e3a\u201d\n\n_not_ be reputed wise, but the uttermost opposite, whatever that may be\ncalled.\n\n\n\n\n_PENAL PREVISION._\n\n1 SAMUEL xxvii. 19, 20.\n\n\nWhy had Saul disquieted Samuel, to bring him up from the place of the\ndead, by the midnight agency of the \u201cwise woman\u201d of Endor? Because he\nwould fain pry into futurity, and learn from supernatural sources his\ncoming fate. The desired foresight was vouchsafed him. By to-morrow he\nand his sons were to be with the dead-and-gone seer, whose spirit he had\nrashly invoked. The prevision had its present penalty. \u201cThen Saul fell\nstraightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the\nwords of Samuel.\u201d The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, and\nonly those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children.\nThe tree of foreknowledge of good and evil may offer fruit that is\npleasant to the sight, and seemingly to be desired to make one wise; but\nit is fatal food, not to be eaten of, nor to be touched, by any but the\nventuresome profane.\n\nIndulged to his cost with previsions of what should befall his posterity,\nMilton\u2019s Adam, at sight of the Flood and its ravages, breaks out into the\nexclamation,\n\n \u201cO visions ill foreseen! Better had I\n Lived ignorant of future! so had borne\n My part of evil only, each day\u2019s lot\n Enough to bear.\u201d\n\nWarned by so distressful an experience, he would have no man seek\nhenceforth to be foretold what shall befall him or his children; \u201cevil he\nmay be sure, which neither his foreknowing can prevent; and he the future\nevil shall, no less in apprehension than in substance, feel grievous to\nbear.\u201d It has been asked what would become of men, were their future\nabsolutely foreknown by them: would they not become in imagination, and\ntherefore in reality, the passive slaves of an inevitable fate, with all\nhope extinguished, all fear intensified, awaiting in terror the foreseen\nevil, and looking with indifference on the promised good, darkened as it\nwould be by the shadow of intervening calamities, and stripped of the\nbright colouring of hope? And yet,\n\n \u201cWith eager search to dart the soul,\n Curiously vain, from pole to pole,\n And from the planets\u2019 wandering spheres\n To extort the number of our years,\n And whether all those years shall flow\n Serenely smooth, and free from woe,\n Or rude misfortune shall deform\n Our life with one continual storm;\n Or if the scene shall motley be\n Alternate joy and misery,\u2014\n Is a desire which, more or less,\n All men feel, though few confess.\u201d\n\nSo at least affirms the author of the \u201cRosciad,\u201d\u2014who in another of his\nwritings puts the query:\n\n \u201cTell me, philosopher, is it a crime\n To pry into the secret womb of time;\n Or, born in ignorance, must we despair\n To reach events, and read the future there?\u201d\n\nAssuredly, says Cicero, the ignorance of evils to come is of more\nadvantage than the knowledge of them: _certe ignoratio futurorum malorum\nutilior est quam scientia_. And Horace, in a celebrated passage:\n\n \u201cPrudens futuri temporis exitum\n Caliginos\u00e2 nocte premit Deus:\n Ridetque, si mortalis ultra\n Fas trepidat.\u201d...\n\n_Caliginosa nox_ forms a thick black curtain.\n\n \u201cWhat hangs behind that curtain?\u2014would\u2019st thou learn?\n If thou art wise, thou would\u2019st not.\u201d\n\nA thoughtful mind, sententiously observes Miss Clarissa Harlowe, is not\na blessing to be coveted, unless it has such a happy vivacity with it\nas her friend Miss Howe\u2019s: a vivacity which enables one to enjoy the\npresent, without being anxious about the future. It is, according to\nGoldsmith, the happy confidence in bright illusions that gives life\nits true relish, and keeps up our spirits amidst every distress and\ndisappointment. \u201cHow much less would be done, if a man knew how little he\ncan do! How wretched a creature would he be, if he saw the end as well\nas the beginning of his projects! He would have nothing left but to sit\ndown in torpid despair, and exchange enjoyment for actual calamity.\u201d The\nwarrior in Mr. Roscoe\u2019s tragedy argues judiciously when he says,\n\n \u201cWhat is\u2019t to me, that I should vex my soul\n In dim forebodings of what is to be?\n It is enough I know, and ache to know,\n What on this bridge of time I have to do,\n Not overlook the abysm till my head fail.\u201d\n\nFortunately for us mortals, Mr. Froude says, necessary as any future\nmay be, and inevitable as by our own actions we may have made it, it is\nkindly kept from us wrapt up in clouds, and we are not made wretched\nabout it by anticipation. \u201cO my fortune,\u201d prays Agrippina, in one of\nJonson\u2019s Roman tragedies, \u201clet it be sudden thou preparest against me;\nstrike all my powers of understanding blind, and ignorant of destiny to\ncome!\u201d\n\nSeek to know no more, is in vain the joint appeal of the three witches\nto Macbeth, beside the magic caldron in the cave; but as to the future\nof Banquo\u2019s issue he _will_ be satisfied. Cranmer, predicting a glorious\nreign for the infant Elizabeth, parenthesises a sigh on the common lot\u2014\n\n \u201cWould I had known no more! but she must die.\u201d\n\nShakspeare\u2019s King Henry the Fourth, again, in one place utters the\naspiration, \u201cO Heaven! that one might read the book of fate!\u201d Hardly an\naspiration, however, as the context shows; a privilege to be deprecated\nrather; for could there be foreseen all the changes and chances of one\u2019s\nmortal life, \u201chow chances mock, and changes fill the cup of alteration\nwith divers liquors,\u201d\n\n \u201cO, if this were seen,\n The happiest youth,\u2014viewing his progress through,\n What perils past, what crosses to ensue,\u2014\n Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.\u201d\n\nMr. de Quincey describes an Installation of the Knights of St. Patrick at\nwhich he was present, during the Lord-Lieutenancy of Lord Cornwallis\u2014the\nnarrator\u2019s companions on that occasion being Lord and Lady Castlereagh,\nwho \u201cwere both young at this time, and both wore an impressive appearance\nof youthful happiness; neither, happily for their peace of mind, able to\npierce that cloud of years, not much more than twenty, which divided them\nfrom the day destined in one hour to wreck the happiness of both.\u201d Vision\nill foreseen it were to know the times and the seasons, the manner how,\nand the place where.\n\n \u201cO tell me, cried Ereenia, for from thee\n Nought can be hidden, when the end will be.\n Seek not to know, old Casyapa replied,\n What pleaseth Heaven to hide.\n Dark is the abyss of Time.\n But light enough to guide your steps is given;\n Whatever weal or woe betide,\n Turn never from the way of truth aside,\n And leave the event, in holy hope, to Heaven.\u201d\n\nThe hermit in Scott\u2019s \u201cTalisman,\u201d who, after failing to read aright the\nfate of others, has to own himself uncertain whether he may not have\nmiscalculated his own,\u2014withdraws from the action of the story with the\nreflection that God will not have us break into His council-house, or\nspy out His hidden mysteries. \u201cWe must wait His time with watching and\nprayer\u2014with fear and with hope. I came hither the stern seer\u2014the proud\nprophet, skilled, as I thought, to instruct princes, and gifted even\nwith supernatural powers, but burdened with a weight which I deemed no\nshoulders but mine could have borne. But my bands have been broken! I go\nhence humble in mine ignorance,\u201d etc. In Scott\u2019s other and less popular\nTale of the Crusaders, Eveline deprecates the Lady of Baldringham\u2019s\noffer to show her niece how the balance of fate inclines, and shrinks\nfrom the asserted privilege \u201cenjoyed\u201d by their house of looking forward\nbeyond the points of present time, and seeing in the very bud the thorns\nor flowers which are one day to encircle their head. \u201cFor my own sake,\nnoble kinswoman,\u201d answered Eveline, \u201cI would decline such foreknowledge,\neven were it possible to acquire it without transgressing the rules of\nthe Church. Could I have foreseen what has befallen me within these last\nunhappy days, I had lost the enjoyment of every happy moment before that\ntime.\u201d So again reasons the Italian adept, Baptista Damiotti, in one of\nSir Walter\u2019s shorter tales, when dismissing the two agitated ladies who\nhave been consulting his magic mirror. \u201cFew,\u201d he added, in a melancholy\ntone, \u201cleave this house as well in health as they entered it. Such being\nthe consequence of seeking knowledge by mysterious means, I leave you\nto judge of the condition of those who have the power of gratifying\nsuch irregular curiosity.\u201d Cowper observes in one of his letters that\nman often prophesies without knowing it; but that did he foresee, what\nis always foreseen by him who dictates what he supposes to be his own,\nhe would suffer by anticipation as well as by consequence; and wish\nperhaps as ardently for the happy ignorance to which he is at present so\nmuch indebted, as some have foolishly and inconsiderately done, for a\nknowledge that would be but another name for misery. Even in the ecstasy\nof rapturous foresight the Seer exclaims,\n\n \u201cVisions of glory, spare my aching sight,\n Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!\u201d\n\nWhen Harold and Haco, \u201cpale king and dark youth,\u201d in Lord Lytton\u2019s\nhistorical novel, would read the riddle of the future, and \u201cclimb\nto heaven through the mysteries of hell,\u201d the witch bids them\u2014poor\n\u201cworms\u201d\u2014crawl back to the clay\u2014to the earth: \u201cOne such night as the hag\nye despise enjoys as her sport and her glee, would freeze your veins, and\nsear the life in your eyeballs,\u201d etc., etc. What says the wizard, again,\nin Tasso?\n\n \u201cBut that I should the sure events unfold\n Of things to come, or destinies foretel,\n Too rash is your desire, your wish too bold.\u201d\n\nCagliostro, professing to foresee the fate of La Perouse, is\nimportunately asked by his fellow-guests at that memorable dinner-party\ncommemorated by M. Dumas, why then he did not forewarn and save that\nbrave man before setting out. At the very least, why not have told him to\n\u201cbeware of unknown isles\u201d\u2014that he might at any rate have had the chance\nof avoiding them? But, \u201cI assure you no, count,\u201d is the mystic\u2019s reply;\n\u201cand, if he had believed me, it would only have been the more horrible,\nfor the unfortunate man would have seen himself approaching those isles\ndestined to be fatal to him, without the power to escape from them.\nTherefore he would have died, not one, but a hundred deaths, for he would\nhave gone through it all by anticipation. Hope, of which I should have\ndeprived him, is what best sustains a man under all trials.\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d says\nCondorcet, the sceptical and sententious, \u201cthe veil which hides from us\nour future, is the only real good which God has vouchsafed to man.\u201d And\nwhat again, to the same purport, says the Hermit Monk to Alpine\u2019s Lord:\u2014\n\n \u201cRoderick, it is a fearful strife\n For man endowed with mortal life,\n Whose shroud of sentient clay can still\n Feel feverish pang and fainting chill, ...\n \u2019Tis hard for such to view, unfurl\u2019d,\n The curtain of the future world.\n Yet witness every quaking limb,\n My sunken pulse, mine eyeballs dim,\n My soul with harrowing anguish torn,\u2014\n This for my chieftain have I borne!\u201d\n\nAnd therefore, says Sir Thomas Browne, in his moralisings on the\nundesirableness of all such foresight, \u201cand therefore the wisdom of\nastrologers, who speak of future things, hath wisely softened the\nseverity of their doctrines; and even in their sad predictions, while\nthey tell us of inclination not coaction from the stars, they kill us\nnot with Stygian oaths and merciless necessity, but leave us hopes of\nevasion.\u201d _Tant mieux_ for those who, like Hudibras,\n\n ... \u201cstill gape to anticipate\n The cabinet-designs of fate,\n Apply to wizards to foresee\n What shall, and what shall never be;\u201d\n\nlike Hudibras, bursting with the wish,\n\n \u201cOh, that I could enucleate\n And solve the problem of my fate;\n Or find, by necromantic art,\n How far the destinies take my part!\u201d\n\nVanity and vexation of spirit, these visionary previsions all. Sacred,\ntherefore, be, in Thomson\u2019s phrase, the veil that kindly clouds a light\ntoo keen for mortals,\n\n ... \u201cfor those that here in dust\n Must cheerful toil out their appointed years.\u201d\n\nIn a feeling paragraph on the pains of a first separation, Miss Ferrier\nobserves, or rather asks, if in the long and dreary interval that ensues,\nit were foreseen what griefs were to be borne, what ties severed, what\nhearts seared or broken\u2014\u201cwho of woman born could bear the sight and live?\nBut \u2019tis in mercy these things are hidden from our eyes.\u201d Looking back\nupon a certain year\u2019s accumulated troubles, Mrs. Gaskell\u2019s Margaret Hale\n\u201cwondered how they had been borne. If she could have anticipated them,\nhow she would have shrunk away and hid herself from the coming time!\u201d And\nyet day by day, it is explained, had of itself, and by itself, been very\nendurable\u2014small, keen, bright little spots of positive enjoyment having\ncome sparkling into the very middle of sorrows. Margaret Hale does but\nexemplify in prose what Home\u2019s Lady Randolph enunciates in sonorous verse:\n\n \u201cHad some good angel oped to me the book\n Of Providence, and let me read my life,\n My heart had broke when I beheld the sum\n Of ills which one by one I have endured.\u201d\n\nWhereupon the lady\u2019s faithful Anna remarks:\n\n \u201cThat God, whose ministers good angels are,\n Hath shut the book, in mercy to mankind.\u201d\n\nNot but that this doctrine has found special recusants, if too generally\ntaken, or, in their own instance, too particularly applied. \u201cI have\nsomewhere read,\u201d says Caleb Williams, \u201cthat Heaven in mercy hides from us\nthe future incidents of our life. My own experience does not well accord\nwith this assertion.\u201d And mentioning one critical occasion, he adds,\nthat this once at least he should have been saved from insupportable\nlabour and indescribable anguish, could he have foreseen what was then\nimpending.\u2014Sometimes the natural complaint is like that of Duke Ferdinand\nin John Webster\u2019s tragedy:\n\n \u201cOh, most imperfect light of human reason,\n That mak\u2019st us so unhappy to foresee\n What we can least prevent!\u201d\n\nSometimes a solace is found in such a reflection as this:\n\n \u201cThen did I see how that presentient shroud\n Of grief, which raiseth many a fond complaint\n In mortal bosoms, is a friendly cloud.\n Storms fall less heavily which men fore-paint.\n And the struck spirit utterly would faint,\n Hurl\u2019d from full joy.\u201d\n\nTo be ignorant of evils to come, as well as forgetful of past, Sir Thomas\nBrowne hails as a merciful provision of nature, \u201cwhereby we digest the\nmixture of our few and evil days.\u201d In another of his works the fine old\nphysician would have us, in the heyday of prosperity, \u201cthink of sullen\nvicissitudes,\u201d but beat not our brains to foreknow them. \u201cBe armed\nagainst such obscurities, rather by submission than fore-knowledge. The\nknowledge of future evils modifies present felicities, and there is more\ncontent in the uncertainty or ignorance of them. This favour our Saviour\nvouchsafed unto Peter, when he foretold not his death in plain terms,\nand so by an ambiguous and cloudy delivery damped not the spirit of His\ndisciples. But in the assured fore-knowledge of the deluge, Noah lived\nmany years under the affliction of a flood, and Jerusalem was taken unto\nJeremy before it was besieged.\u201d Holy George Herbert is scarcely more\nquaint in verse than Sir Thomas Browne in prose:\n\n \u201cOnly the present is thy part and fee.\n And happy thou,\n If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow,\n Thou couldst well see\n What present things required of thee.\n\n They ask enough; why shouldst thou further go?\n Raise not the mud\n Of future depths, but drink the clear and good.\n Dig not for woe\n In times to come; for it will grow.\n\n Man and the present fit; if he _provide_\n He breaks the square.\n This hour is mine: if for the next I care,\n I grow too wide,\n And do crusade upon death\u2019s side:\n\n For death each hour environs and surrounds.\n He that would know\n And care for future chances, cannot go\n Unto those grounds,\n But thro\u2019 a churchyard which them bounds.\u201d\n\nThe assured knowledge of the exact minute of one\u2019s death may be treated\nreligiously as a privilege, after the manner of appeals by gaol-chaplains\nto condemned-cell criminals; as where the clergyman of the Tolbooth\nChurch bade Wilson and Robertson, convicted Porteous rioters, not despair\non account of the suddenness of the summons, \u201cbut rather to feel this\ncomfort in their misery, that, though all who now [in that church] lifted\nthe voice, or bent the knee in conjunction with them, lay under the\nsame sentence of certain death, _they_ only had the advantage of knowing\nthe precise moment at which it should be executed upon them.\u201d But how\ndoes Professor Henry Rogers treat the question, in its practical aspect,\nin his so-called \u201cVision about Prevision\u201d? The seer, or foreseer, in\nthat _fantasiest\u00fcck_, when asked, concerning those who consult him as\nto the future, whether some at least do not wish to know the hour of\ntheir death\u2014that they may duly prepare for it? answers, \u201cThat least of\nall. Not a soul will hear his tale told to the end; they won\u2019t let us\nunveil to them the hour or the mode of their dissolution.... They prefer\nhaving a veil thrown over the closing scene of their life. Like other\nplay-goers, they do not like death to be actually exhibited on the stage,\nand willingly let the curtain fall ere the catastrophe.\u201d Well, but the\nseer himself: he at any rate is above that weakness: he at any rate has\ninquired into the secret of his end? \u201cFor what purpose?\u201d is his reply:\nis not that knowledge the very misery of prisoners in the condemned\ncell? are they not accounted miserable precisely because they are to\ndie just that day month? will not hundreds, who pity them for that very\ncircumstance, in fact die before them? and yet are not these accounted\nhappy in comparison, because they know it not?\n\n \u201cE\u2019en the great shadow, Death, lost half its gloom\n In kind oblivion of impending doom,\u201d\n\nsays one philosophical poet. Another, and a greater, in a poem on\npresentiments, has this among many stanzas addressed to them:\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis said, that warnings ye dispense,\n Emboldened by a keener sense;\n That men have lived for whom,\n With dread precision, ye made clear\n The hour that in a distant year\n Should knell them to the tomb.\n Unwelcome insight!\u201d\u2e3a\n\n_that_ is the comment, that the note of exclamation, with which\nWordsworth commences the stanza next ensuing. When death has invaded the\nquiet rectory in Miss Tytler\u2019s Huguenot story, we have each servant\nmysteriously and fanatically delivering her experience in the matter of\ncorpse-candles, death-spells, death-watches, etc., so that one might have\nlearned for all one\u2019s life afterwards to look on one\u2019s death as a dark\nfate, haunting and hovering over one\u2019s own person and those of beloved\nfriends, from which there is no escape, not even by prayer and fasting;\nmight have learned to \u201clook out for it in dim prognostications, to\nwatch for it, and anticipate its cruel blows in incipient madness.\u2014\u2018Our\nBibles say we know not the day nor the hour,\u2019 said Grand\u2019m\u00e8re; \u2018but He\nknows\u2014that is enough.\u2019\u201d One of La Bruy\u00e8re\u2019s _pens\u00e9es sur la mort_ is,\nthat \u201cce qu\u2019il y a de certain dans la mort, est un peu adouci par ce qui\nest incertain: c\u2019est un ind\u00e9fini dans le tems, qui tient quelque chose\nde l\u2019infini, et de ce qu\u2019on appelle \u00e9ternit\u00e9.\u201d Byron indeed utters the\nremonstrant query,\n\n \u201cAh! why do darkening shades conceal\n The hour when man must cease to be?\u201d\n\nBut his sigh was little in the spirit of the Psalmist\u2019s prayer to be made\nto know his end, and the measure of his days, what it was.\n\n\n\n\n_BEATIFIC VISION AND OVERSHADOWING CLOUD._\n\nST. LUKE ix. 34.\n\n\nTo the three favoured apostles it was granted by their Master to be\neye-witnesses of His majesty, when they were with Him on the holy\nmount. They saw the fashion of His countenance altered, and His raiment\nbecome white and glistering. They saw with Him in glory Moses, whose\nburial-place no man knew, and Elijah, who was translated that he should\nnot see death. And Peter said it was good to be there, and he desired\nto make that mount of transfiguration a dwelling-place, and to prolong\nthe splendours of that beatific vision. Three tabernacles he proposed to\nrear, in that eager impetuosity which so often marked his character;\nat present scarcely knowing what he said, but conscious of a privileged\napocalypse, and deprecating its speedy withdrawal. But \u201cwhile he thus\nspake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them; and they feared as they\nentered into the cloud.\u201d\n\nSo it was again at a later day, and upon another mount, when the risen\nMaster was asked by His assembled apostles would He at this time restore\nagain the kingdom to Israel? Brief was the reply, and no sooner uttered\nthan, while they beheld\u2014gazed wistfully, hopingly, longingly, on the\nPresence they had so lately lost, and were now eager to retain\u2014while they\nbeheld, \u201cHe was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe overshadowing cloud to mar the sunshine is one of the commonest of\ncommon-places in man\u2019s experience. Perpetually being verified in prosaic\nreality, all too real, is the poet\u2019s image\u2014\n\n \u201cAcross the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom,\n A ghostly shadow flitted,\u201d\n\n_Medio de fonte leporum surgit amari aliquid._ The very exuberance of\nhuman happiness tends to suggest its opposite.\n\nGibbon felt simply as a man when he felt what he has described in a\nmemorable passage relating to his sense of gratified triumph at the\nconclusion of his _magnum opus_. It was between the hours of eleven and\ntwelve, he records, on a calm night in June, that he wrote the last lines\nof his last page in a summer-house in his garden at Lausanne. After\nlaying down his pen, he took several turns in a covered walk of acacias,\nwhich commanded a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.\nThe air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon\nwas reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. \u201cI will not\ndissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and,\nperhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled,\nand a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had\ntaken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and\nthat whatsoever might be the future date of my history the life of the\nhistorian must be short and precarious.\u201d It is the common lot. It is but\nanother reading of the complaint in Prior\u2019s pastorals\u2014\n\n \u201cYet thus beloved, thus loving to excess,\n Yet thus receiving and returning bliss,\n In this great moment, in this golden Now,\n ...\n A melancholy tear afflicts my eye,\n And my heart labours with a sudden sigh;\n Invading fears repel my coward joy,\n And ills foreseen the present bliss destroy.\u201d\n\nOr as elsewhere the same poet gloomily exclaims, and fruitlessly\nsupplicates\u2014\n\n \u201cO impotent estate of human life,\n Where hope and fear maintain eternal strife!\n Where fleeting joy does lasting doubt inspire,\n And most we question what we most desire!\n Amongst Thy various gifts, great Heaven, bestow\n Our cup of love unmixed; forbear to throw\n Bitter ingredients in; nor pall the draught\n With nauseous grief.\u201d\n\nHardly can it be called, though the author of \u201cThe Ring and the Book\u201d\ndoes call it,\u2014\n\n ... \u201cstrange how, even when most secure\n In our domestic peace, a certain dim\n And flitting shade can sadden all; it seems\n A restlessness of heart, a silent yearning,\n A sense of something wanting, incomplete.\u201d\n\nA thought comes over us sometimes in our career of pleasure, Lord Lytton\nremarks, or in the exultation of our ambitious pursuits, a thought comes\nover us like a cloud, that around us and about us Death, Shame, Crime,\nDespair, are busy at their work. He tells us what he has read somewhere\nof an enchanted land where the inmates walked along voluptuous gardens,\nand built palaces, and heard music, and made merry; while around and\nwithin the land were deep caverns, where the gnomes and the fiends dwelt;\nand ever and anon their groans and laughter, and the sounds of their\nunutterable toils or ghastly revels, travelled to the upper air, mixing\nin an awful strangeness with the summer festivity and buoyant occupation\nof those above. And this he claims to be a picture of human life.\n\nAlways there is a black spot in our sunshine, exclaims Mr. Carlyle; and\nhe tells us what it is, \u201cthe shadow of ourselves.\u201d\n\nAt a seeming crisis of assured prosperity the heroine of a French _roman_\nis made to exclaim, \u201cThe future is all our own\u2014the radiant future,\nwithout cloud or obstacle, pure in the immensity of its horizon, and\nextending beyond the reach of sight.\u201d But while she thus speaks her\nfeatures suddenly assume an expression of touching melancholy, as she\nadds, in a voice of profound emotion, \u201cAnd yet\u2014at this very hour\u2014so many\nunfortunate creatures are suffering pain!\u201d So with the young hero in one\nof Mr. Hannay\u2019s fictions: \u201cIn that moment he felt that he had attained\na new stage of life; yet, an instant\u2019s reaction seized him, as in every\nfruition through one\u2019s progress in time comes that curious moment\u2019s\nspeck, the touch of an unseen hand, that seems to tell you, \u2018Too much\njoy is not for you here.\u2019 It passed away, having just dashed his triumph\nas it always does.\u201d At a later stage in this adventurer\u2019s career the ebb\nof his spirits is made the text of a paragraph comparing them to a ship\nin the tropics, where a light wind comes, and dies again, and leaves you\nbecalmed, or the horizon blackens suddenly and death seems impending\nin the unhealthy air. \u201cFew things are more touching than that peculiar\nmelancholy which sometimes comes over one in theatres or at feasts, and\nreminds us of the dark element in nature and the heart ... which chills\nthe philosopher and the pleasure-taker.... When the light southerner of\nold got a glimpse of it he called for his lyre and his garlands; but\nroses will not charm it away from the deep heart of the child of the\nTeuton, and he sees its awful shadow trembling in the wine.\u201d The English\nOpium-eater somewhere professes to derive from the spectacle of dancing,\nwhere the motion is continuous and the music not of a trivial character\nbut charged with the spirit of festal pleasure, \u201cthe very grandest form\nof passionate sadness which can belong to any spectacle whatever.\u201d\nWordsworth is treating of presentiments when he says that\u2014\n\n \u201cThe laughter of the Christmas hearth\n With sighs of self-exhausted mirth\n They feelingly reprove.\u201d\n\nAnd of such is Currer Bell too treating in a passage that tells of the\nwriter\u2019s fancy budding fresh and her heart basking in sunshine; only\nthese feelings \u201cwere well kept in check by the secret but ceaseless\nconsciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a tiger\ncrouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in my ear\nalways.\u201d \u1f18\u03be \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03c6\u03cd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd.\n\n \u201cWho knows what that low sullen murmur means,\n The river\u2019s fall sends up to blast life\u2019s fairest scenes?\u201d\n\nThe happiest, as Pope\u2019s Homer has it, \u201ctaste not happiness sincere,\nbut find the cordial draught is dashed with care.\u201d What biography of\nsuccessful ambition but has its parallel passage to one in Prescott\u2019s\nhistory of the conqueror of Peru: \u201cAmidst this burst of adulation the cup\nof joy commended to Pizarro\u2019s lips had one drop of bitterness in it that\ngave its flavour to all the rest\u201d! As M. Amp\u00e9re\u2019s Cleopatra owns,\u2014\n\n \u201cOui, parmi les plaisirs, la joie et les festins,\n Je m\u00e9dite du sort les arr\u00eats incertains.\u201d\n\nHow apt, at a bright banquet, is the thought of death to flash across the\nmind, is trite among the truisms of experience. It was at Belshazzar\u2019s\nfeast, while they drank wine out of the golden vessels of the temple, and\npraised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and\nof stone, when the revelry was at its height and the revellers at their\nbest, that in the same hour there came forth fingers of a man\u2019s hand,\nand wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of\nthe king\u2019s palace; and then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and\nhis countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astounded. In\nHawthorne\u2019s allegory of the Maypole at Merry Mount, the lord and lady\nof the May are abruptly overcome with a shadow of sadness, just when\nthe minstrelsy of pipe, cittern, and viola is pealing forth in such a\nmirthful cadence that the boughs of the maypole quiver to the sound;\nand just then too, as if a spell had loosened them, down comes a little\nshower of withering roseleaves from the maypole. There is sometimes, says\nFielding, a little speck of black in the brightest and gayest colours of\nfortune, which contaminates and deadens the whole.\n\n \u201cIn every joy there lurks\n An impulse of decay;\n With silent speed it works,\n While all without is gay:\u201d\n\n\u2014with silent speed, like the worm at Jonah\u2019s gourd. \u201cFleurs, vous aussi,\u201d\nso B\u00e9ranger apostrophizes them,\n\n ... \u201cvous avez vos souffrances.\n Le ver est l\u00e0; le vent peut accourir.\u201d\n\n_Le ver_, as the worm prepared for Jonah\u2019s gourd; _le vent_, as the\nvehement east wind to wither Jonah\u2019s strength.\n\n \u201cWhile blooming love assures us golden fruit,\n Some inborn poison taints the secret root;\n Soon fall the flowers of joy.\u201d\n\nBut Jonah\u2019s gourd must have a section apart.\n\n\n\n\n_THE SPREADING GOURD AND THE SPEEDING WORM._\n\nJONAH iv. 6-8.\n\n\nAs Elijah the Tishbite sat down in the wilderness under a juniper-tree,\nheavy-hearted, and fleeing for his life from the grasp of Jezebel, yet\nrequesting for himself that he might die; as he said, \u201cIt is enough; now,\nO Lord, take away my life,\u201d yet anon found rest and refreshment under\nthe juniper-tree, and did eat and drink, and lay down again, and went\nin the strength of that rest and that meat, forty days and forty nights,\nunto Horeb the mount of God; so Jonah the son of Amittai, displeased\nexceedingly, and very angry, prayed in bitterness the same prayer, \u201cO\nLord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to\ndie than to live.\u201d Did he well to be angry? Did Elijah well to despair?\nUnder a juniper-tree Elijah recovered strength, took heart, and became of\ngood courage. For Jonah there was preparing a gourd. A gourd; and a worm\nto make short work of the gourd.\n\nJonah left the city in wrath, and made him a booth, and sat under it in\nthe shadow, till he might see what would become of the city\u2014the city\nwhich he had doomed and God had spared. Under the burning sun he awaited\nthe judgment of Nineveh. \u201cAnd the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made\nit to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to\ndeliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.\n\n\u201cBut God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote\nthe gourd that it withered.\u201d\n\nAnd when the sun arose, there arose too another thing of God\u2019s preparing.\nAs He had prepared the gourd, and prepared the worm to smite the gourd,\nso, at sunrise, \u201cGod prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon\nthe head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.\u201d And\nnot only so, but again expressed the wish, with the old bitterness and\neven increasing wrath. Did he well to be angry for the gourd? \u201cI do well\nto be angry, even unto death,\u201d he exclaimed. The gourd was so gladdening\na creation, it made even that morose spirit exceeding glad. But scarcely\nhad he time to congratulate himself on this relief, in complacent\nassurance of its continuance, when the sheltering gourd was eaten to the\nheart by a speeding worm, and what came up in a night, perished in a\nnight; and this also was vanity, vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\nA perverse fate seems to lie in wait for man,\n\n \u201cAnd though he in a fertile climate dwell,\n Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,\n Yet throw such charges of vexation on\u2019t,\n As it may lose some colour.\u201d\n\nIn the words of another of Shakspeare\u2019s dramas, \u201cjoy cannot show itself\nmodest enough without a badge of bitterness.\u201d _Inter delicias semper\naliquid s\u00e6vi nos strangulat_, says the Latin adage; the _aliquid s\u00e6vi_\nanswering to the _aliquid amari_ of Lucretius, _quod in ipsis floribus\nangat_; or again to the _aliquid solliciti_ of Ovid,\n\n ... \u201cNulla est sincera voluptas;\n Sollicitique aliquid l\u00e6tis intervenit.\u201d\n\nWhy, Byron asks himself, in his diary (at Ravenna), why, at the very\nheight of desire and human pleasure, does there mingle a certain sense\nof doubt and sorrow\u2014a fear of what is to come\u2014a doubt of what _is_\u2014a\nretrospect of the past, leading to a prognostication of the future?\nMrs. Browning has penned a suggestive sonnet to which the title is\nsuperscribed of Pain in Pleasure:\n\n \u201cA thought lay like a flower upon my heart,\n And drew around it other thoughts like bees\n For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses,\u2014\n Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art\n Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart\n Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees,\n That I might hive me with such thoughts, and please\n My soul so, always. Foolish counterpart\n Of a weak man\u2019s vain wishes! While I spake,\n The thought I called a flower, grew nettle-rough\u2014\n The thoughts called bees, stung me to festering,\n Oh, entertain (cried reason, as she woke,)\n Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough,\n And they will all prove sad enough to sting.\u201d\n\nAs Shakspeare words it in one of _his_ sonnets,\n\n \u201cRoses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;\n Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud,\u201d\n\nand every gourd has its worm. So again Cowper:\n\n \u201cHere every drop of honey hides a sting;\n Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers.\u201d\n\nOn the same text moralizes the meditative sire of the Cid, in Corneille\u2019s\ntragedy:\n\n \u201cJamais nous ne go\u00fbtons de parfaite all\u00e9gresse:\n Nos plus heureux succ\u00e8s sont m\u00eal\u00e9s de tristesse;\n Toujours quelques soucis en ces \u00e9v\u00e9nements\n Troublent la puret\u00e9 de nos contentements.\u201d\n\n_Semper amari aliquid._ It is like Johnson\u2019s reflections on his first\ntransports at Ranelagh. When first he entered those festive gardens,\nit gave, he tells Boswell, an expansion and gay sensation to his mind,\nsuch as he never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he\nreviewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great\nmultitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to the\ndoctor\u2019s heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant\ncircle but was afraid to go home and think; that \u201cthe thoughts of each\nindividual there would be distressing when alone.\u201d Boswell approves the\nreflection as \u201cexperimentally just,\u201d and appends a commonplace of his\nown, upon the feeling of langour, which succeeds the animation of gaiety,\nbeing itself a very severe pain.\n\nIt was in the mid hey-day of military triumph that Paulus \u00c6milius\nastonished his encircling admirers by, first, a prolonged silence, and\nnext, a sombre homily on the vicissitudes of fortune, and of human\naffairs. What time for confidence can there be to man, he asked,\nwhen in the very instant of victory he must necessarily dread the\npower of fortune, and the very joy of success must be mingled with\nanxiety\u2014_aliquid solliciti_\u2014from a reflection on the course of unsparing\nfate, which humbles one man to-day, and to-morrow another! Gladdening is\nthe gourd, with its pleasant promise of protection against the arrow that\nflieth by day from a burning sun; but only him can it make, like Jonah,\nexceeding glad, who knows not, or makes a point of forgetting, what a\nworm can do, between a setting and a rising sun.\n\nThe night thoughts of man in general are one with the Night Thoughts of\nYoung in particular, when he exclaims,\n\n \u201cHow sad a sight is human happiness\n To those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an hour!\n \u2014Know, smiler! at thy peril thou art pleased:\n Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.\u201d\n\nThis is the state of man, by the experience of Shakspeare\u2019s Wolsey:\nto-day he puts forth the tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, and\nbears his blushing honours thick upon him. He is exceeding glad, even as\nthe prophet of his gourd; but a worm is preparing, or if not, a frost;\nand next day, or at latest\n\n \u201cThe third day, comes a frost, a killing frost;\n And,\u2014when he thinks, good easy man, full surely\n His greatness is a ripening,\u2014nips his root,\n And then he falls.\u201d\n\nThe worm may speed in its mission, or otherwise; but the fulfilment of\nits mission is only a question of time. There is a\n\n ... \u201clittle rift within the lute,\n That by-and-by will make the music mute,\n And ever widening slowly silence all.\n\n \u201cThe little rift within the lover\u2019s lute\n Or little pitted speck in garner\u2019d fruit,\n That, rotting onward slowly moulders all.\u201d\n\nSlowly, sometimes, but surely. Not so slowly as surely.\n\nRemembering both the \u201cfoolish pride\u201d of Jonah in his gourd, and his\n\u201cimpious discontentment\u201d at the decree which smote it, which of us but\nmight, for ourselves, do worse than adopt the words and the spirit of one\nverse at least of Pope\u2019s Universal Prayer,\n\n \u201cSave me alike from foolish pride\n And impious discontent\n At aught Thy wisdom hath denied,\n Or aught Thy bounty lent.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_SELF-PRAISE._\n\nPROVERBS xxvii. 2.\n\n\n\u201cLet another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger,\nand not thine own lips.\u201d Our English adage, \u201cSelf-praise is no\nrecommendation,\u201d has its analogue in the Latin: _Laus in proprio ore\nsordescit_\u2014\u201cA man\u2019s own laudation of himself is unseemly.\u201d Another bit of\ngood old Latin admonition is, to enlarge rather upon the praises of one\u2019s\nfriends, than upon one\u2019s own: _Amicorum, magis qu\u00e0m tuam ipsius laudem,\npr\u00e6dica_; which seems to be, however, but a literal transcript of the\nsecond line in a couplet from the Greek Anthology:\n\n \u1f59\u03c0\u1f72\u03c1 \u03c3\u03b5\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03c6\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f10\u03b3\u03ba\u03ce\u03bc\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n \u03a6\u03af\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u1f14\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u1fb6\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u1f22 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5.\n\nSyrus, again, utters the caution, \u201cThat whoso praiseth himself will\nsoon find some one to laugh at him\u201d\u2014_Qui seipsum laudat, cito derisorem\ninveniet_. It was \u00c6sop\u2019s derisive counsel to an unreadable author, who\ndid all his own praising and puffing, and therefore did it well\u2014well, at\nleast, in quantity, if not in quality\u2014to stick by all manner of means to\nthat home-brewed system; for it was the poor creature\u2019s only chance of\never tasting the sweets of praise at all.\n\n \u201cEgo, quod te laudas, vehementer probo,\n Namque hoc ab alio nunquam continget tibi.\u201d\n\nIn one of the wordy encounters between Shakspeare\u2019s Beatrice and\nBenedick, the lady imputes signal unwisdom to the signor, when she tells\nhim \u201cThere\u2019s not one wise man in twenty that will praise himself.\u201d\nBenedick scouts this as an old, old apophthegm, quite out of date; for,\nsays he, \u201cif a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies,\nhe shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings, and the widow\nweeps.\u201d And how long is _that_? Why, an hour in clamour (the bell),\nand (the widow) a quarter in rheum. Therefore, he infers, \u201cit is most\nexpedient for the wise to be the trumpeter of his own virtues, as I am to\nmyself. So much for praising myself (who, I myself will bear witness, is\npraiseworthy).\u201d Shakspeare often expatiates, with dramatic diversities\nof phase and aspect, of character and incident, upon this worldly-wise\ntheme, by the worldly-wise held worthy of all acceptation, of every man\nhis own trumpeter. To a few examples out of these many we may recur anon.\n\nSwift is writing after his own humour when he says, in the work he seems\nto have admired the most of his voluminous _opera omnia_, but to which\nsome refer as the distinct cause of his never getting a bishopric\u2014\u201cThat\nas for the liberty he has thought fit to take of praising himself\nupon some occasions or none, he is sure it will need no excuse, if a\nmultitude of great examples be allowed sufficient authority; for it is\nto be noted,\u201d he goes on to say, that praise was originally a pension\npaid by the world; but the moderns, finding the trouble and charge too\ngreat in collecting it, \u201chave lately bought out the fee simple; since\nwhich time the right of presentation is wholly in ourselves.\u201d But it is\nin the simpler states and stages of society, according to a latter-day\nessayist on social subjects, that the man who values himself highly has\nlittle scruple in confessing as much. \u201cSavages have no more reticence\nin parading their good points than peacocks.\u201d North American Indians,\nand the like, sublimely ignore any such courses of conduct as that, Not\nhe that approveth himself is commended. Their faith and practice run\ncounter to this kind of self-discipline. Chateaubriand gives an example\nof the style of chant in which a jubilant warrior, Sioux or Iroquois,\nproclaims his doughty prestige:\u2014\u201cBrave and renowned were my forefathers.\nMy grandsire was the wisdom of his tribe, and the thunder of war. My\nfather was a pine-tree in strength. My great-grandmother gave birth to\nfive men of war; my grandmother was alone worth a council of sachems;\nmy mother makes first-rate soup. As for myself, I am stronger and wiser\nthan all my ancestors.\u201d Later Americans, _not_ of the redskin family, are\ncharged with a scarcely inferior knack of extolling themselves in all\nthe simplicity of an ignorance which knows nothing higher or better, and\nwith being frankly astonished at their own successes. Among them, it is\nalleged by caustic Cis-atlantic criticism, nobody is thought the worse of\nfor praising himself; whereas among ourselves, \u201cthe practice is out of\ndate; a man cannot here puff himself off with impunity\u2014without in fact,\nbeing taken for a fool; and therefore, if he have ordinary sagacity,\nhe will keep within bounds.\u201d But not the less, it is allowed, must the\nthought of the heart find some outlet; men draw wide distinctions between\npride and vanity, but both have at least this in common, that they like\nto feel and be acknowledged \u201cfirst;\u201d and both, it is added, \u201cagree in\nthe instinct to gain their end by a side-wind\u2014to boast themselves by\nimplication, if circumstances will not permit the more agreeable incense\nof positive praise and adulation.\u201d\n\nPlutarch does not blame Cato (the elder) for perpetually boasting and\nexalting himself, although the old censor somewhere pronounces it absurd\nfor a man either to praise or to disparage himself. But Plutarch _does_\n\u201cthink the man who is often praising himself, not so complete in virtue\nas the modest man, who does not even want others to praise him.\u201d He takes\nfrequent note of the habit of self-commendation in some of his heroes,\nand of the absence of it in others. Cato, \u201cwho was never sparing in his\nown praises, and thought boasting a natural attendant on great actions,\u201d\nwas nothing like so grievous an offender in this respect, to Plutarch\u2019s\nthinking, as Cicero, whose writings, says he, \u201cwere so interlarded with\nencomiums on himself that, although his style was elegant and delightful,\nhis discourses were disgusting and nauseous to the reader; for the\nblemish stuck to him like an incurable disease.\u201d Comparing this greatest\nof Roman orators with the greatest of the Greek, Plutarch observes of\ntheir respective writings, that Demosthenes, when he touches on his own\npraise does it with an inoffensive delicacy, never, indeed, giving way to\nit at all unless he has some important matter in view; whereas Cicero,\nhabitually and systematically, \u201cspeaks in such high terms of himself\nthat it is plain he had a most intemperate vanity.\u201d Modern critics not\na few, German, English, and French, have made the most\u2014not to say made\nthe best\u2014of this foible of Cicero\u2019s. In particular, Mr. de Quincey makes\nmerry over it, without mercy, at the father of his country\u2019s expense.\n\nIsaac Barrow points the moral of the text which these heterogeneous\nannotations are meant to illustrate, with a special warning against\nCicero\u2019s infirmity. \u201cIf a man have worthy qualities and do great deeds,\nlet them speak for him,\u201d urges that masterly divine; they will of\nthemselves extort commendation; his silence about them, his seeming to\nneglect them, will enhance their worth in the opinion of men. \u201cPrating\nabout them, obtruding them upon men, will mar their credit, inducing men\nto think them done, not out of love to virtue, but for a vain-glorious\ndesign. Thus did Cicero, thus have many others, blasted the glory of\ntheir virtuous deeds.\u201d It is quaintly said by Owen Feltham, that whoso\nmakes boast of the good he truly has, obscures much of his own worth,\nin drawing it up by so unseemly a bucket as his own tongue. \u201cThough the\nvaunts be true, they do but awaken scoffs; and instead of a clapping\nhand, they find a look of scorn.\u201d When a soldier bragged too much of a\ngreat scar in his forehead, he was asked by Augustus if he did not get\nit when he turned his back on the enemy. So, \u201cIf I have done anything\nwell\u201d\u2014this is one of Feltham\u2019s \u201cResolves,\u201d\u2014\u201cI will never think it worth\nwhile to tell the world of it.\u201d\n\n \u201cO sir, to such as boasting show their scars,\n A mock is due,\u201d\n\nsays Shakspeare\u2019s Troilus to Ulysses\u2014modest, valiant Trojan, to shrewd,\ncircumspect Greek. So another Trojan to another Greek, in the same\nplay\u2014which Coleridge reckoned almost the most wonderful of Shakspeare\u2019s\nall\u2014\u00c6neas, namely, to Agamemnon; or rather, indeed, \u00c6neas to himself, in\nAgamemnon\u2019s hearing:\u2014\n\n ... \u201cBut peace, \u00c6neas,\n Peace Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips!\n The worthiness of praise disdains his worth,\n If that the praised himself bring the praise forth:\n But what the repining enemy commends,\n That breath fame follows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.\u201d\n\nAnd in yet another scene, Agamemnon, King of Men, pithily and pointedly\ntells that stalwart dullard\u2014big, blustering, boisterous Ajax\u2014who, for the\nlife of him, cannot see the pith or point of it, that \u201cwhatever praises\nitself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.\u201d Ajax suspects\nnot the general to mean that _he_, son of Telamon, is his own praise, his\nown chronicle.\n\nOne more excerpt from our myriad-minded poet:\u2014\u201cThen we wound our modesty,\nand make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we\npublish them.\u201d The wise saw drops from the sententious lips of the sage\nold steward of the Countess of Roussillon in what is probably as little\nread and slightly relished as any of Shakspeare\u2019s plays.\n\n * * * * *\n\nYears ago there used to perambulate the streets of London, a prodigy of\na hat, some seven feet high, the trade-mark advertisement of a hatter\nin the Strand. This gigantic puff Mr. Carlyle once made the text for\nsome characteristic strictures on the puffery of the age. Every man his\nown trumpeter: that he alleged was, to an alarming extent, the accepted\nrule. \u201cMake loudest possible proclamation of your hat.\u201d Against which\ndoctrine our strenuous _censor morum_ objected, that nature requires\nno man to make proclamation of his doings and hat-makings; but, on the\ncontrary, forbids all men to make such. There is not, he contends, a\nman, or hat-maker born into the world but feels, or has felt, that he\nis degrading himself if he speak of his excellences, and prowesses, and\nsupremacy in his craft. His inmost heart says to him, \u201cLeave thy friends\nto speak of these: if possible, thy enemies to speak of these; but at all\nevents, thy friends.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_PAINTED FACE, TIRED HEAD, & EXPOSED SKULL._\n\n2 KINGS ix. 30, 35.\n\n\nJezebel\u2019s painting her face and tiring her head, is so immediately\nfollowed, in the narrative of her death and non-burial, by there being\nfound no more of her left than the skull, besides the feet and the palms\nof the hands, that the connection is grimly suggestive of certain stanzas\nin the \u201cVision of Sin:\u201d\n\n \u201cYou are bones, and what of that?\n Every face, however full,\n Padded round with flesh and fat,\n Is but modell\u2019d on a skull.\n\n \u201cDeath is king, and Vivat Rex!\n Tread a measure on the stones,\n Madam\u2014if I know your sex\n From the fashion of your bones.\u201d\n\nByron muses on a skull[10] from among scattered heaps, as now a shattered\ncell which even the worm disdains; he ponders on its broken arch, its\nruined wall, its chambers desolate, and portals foul; yet,\n\n ... \u201cthis was once Ambition\u2019s airy hall,\n The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:\n Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,\n The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit\n And Passion\u2019s host, that never brook\u2019d control.\u201d\n\nIt is Yorick\u2019s skull that Hamlet is apostrophizing when he says, \u201cNow\nget you to my lady\u2019s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick,\nto _this_ favour she must come.\u201d _T\u00f4t ou tard_, as _le bon r\u00e9ligieux_\nin \u201cAtala\u201d reminds his fair young listener, _quelle qu\u2019e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 votre\nfelicit\u00e9, ce beau visage se f\u00fat chang\u00e9 en cette figure uniforme que le\ns\u00e9pulcre donne \u00e0 la famille d\u2019Adam_. The good king R\u00e9n\u00e9 had painted on\nthe walls of one of the rooms in the Celestine monastery at Avignon, a\nskeleton\u2014it was that of a once surpassing beauty who had won his heart.\nHow would the moral have lost its point had the head of the skeleton\nbeen replaced, like that in the painter\u2019s room in the Strada Vecchia\nof Rome, so graphically described in \u201cDutch Pictures,\u201d by a mask, or\ncardboard \u201cdummy\u201d of a superlatively inane cast of beauty\u2014the blue eyes\nand symmetrical lips (curved into an unmeaning and eternal simper),\nthe pink cheeks, and silken doll\u2019s tresses, \u201ccontrasting strangely\nwith the terribly matter-of-fact bones and ligaments beneath\u2014the moral\nto my lady\u2019s looking-glass.\u201d Gwillim, the Pursuivant, as quoted, not\napprovingly, in Southey\u2019s \u201cDoctor,\u201d counsels all gentlewomen that are\nproud of their beauty to consider that they \u201ccarry on their shoulders\nnothing but a skull wrapt in skin, which one day will be loathsome to be\nlooked on.\u201d The old French poet Villon, _aux charniers des Innocents_,\nspeculates in a manner that to one critic recalls the graveyard scene in\n\u201cHamlet,\u201d on the destiny of _corps f\u00e9minin, qui tant est tendre, poli,\nsuave, gracieux_\u2014for how can he help his thoughts running thitherward\n\u201cquand il consid\u00e8re ces t\u00eates entass\u00e9es en ces charniers\u201d? Who, indeed,\nas Keats once asked,\n\n \u201cWho hath not loiter\u2019d in a green churchyard,\n And let his spirit, like a demon mole,\n Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,\n To see skull, coffin\u2019d bones, and funeral stole;\n Pitying each form that hungry Death has marr\u2019d,\n And filling it once more with human soul?\u201d\n\nIn such a spot Blair lingers, to apostrophize beauty, as a pretty\nplaything, a dear deceit, which the grave discredits. The charms\nexpunged, the roses faded, and the lilies soiled, what has beauty more\nto boast of? Will the lovers of it flock round it now, to gaze and do it\nhomage?\n\n \u201cMethinks I see thee with thy head low laid,\n While, surfeited upon thy damask cheek,\n The high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll\u2019d,\n Riots unscared. For this was all thy caution?\n For this thy painful labours at the glass,\n T\u2019 improve those charms, and keep them in repair,\n For which the spoiler thanks thee not?\u201d\n\nSo that much less known, but much more powerful, writer, Thomas Lovell\nBeddoes, muses in Death\u2019s cabinet, the Campo Santo of Ferrara, on the\n\u201cunfashionable worm,\u201d respectless of, alike, the crown-illumined brow\nand the cheek\u2019s bewitchment, as he creeps to his repast\u2014on what? \u201cNo\nmatter how clad or nicknamed it might strut above, what age or sex,\u2014it\nis his dinner-time.\u201d The final residuum of such repasts becomes an\nunrecognisable skull, about which some chance possessor of it shall, in\nafter days, perhaps, indulge in cynical conjectures and speculations in a\ntone and to a tune like this:\n\n \u201cDid she live yesterday, or ages back?\n What colour were the eyes when bright and waking?\n And were your ringlets fair, or brown, or black,\n Poor little head! that long has done with aching?\u201d\n\nMercury, in Lucian\u2019s dialogue, shows Menippus the skulls of several\nworld-famous beauties; and the philosopher falls to moralizing upon that\nof Helen. \u201cWas it for this,\u201d[11] he exclaims, \u201cthat a thousand ships\nsailed from Greece, so many brave men died, and so many cities were\ndestroyed?\u201d Menippus was so far of the Ralph Nickleby type, \u201cnot a man to\nbe moved by a pretty face,\u201d with a grinning skull beneath it: men like\nhim profess to look and work below the surface, and so to see the skull,\nand not its delicate covering.\n\nWhere, asks the author of \u201cEsmond,\u201d are those jewels now that beamed\nunder Cleopatra\u2019s forehead, or shone in the sockets of Helen? With Mr.\nThackeray in another place, again, we take the skull up, and think of\nthe glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that\nshone in those vacant sockets, and cheeks dimpling with smiles that once\ncovered that ghastly yellow framework. \u201cThey used to call those teeth\npearls once. See! there\u2019s the cup she drank from, the gold chain she\nwore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her\nlooking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of a feast we\nfind a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a few bones.\u201d And has not\nMacaulay his \u201cSermon in a Churchyard\u201d? wherein one practical improvement\nof the subject, as conventional pulpiteers phrase it, runs thus:\u2014\n\n \u201cDost thou beneath the smile or frown\n Of some vain woman bend thy knee?\n Here take thy stand, and trample down\n Things that were once as fair as she.\n Here rave of her ten thousand graces,\n Bosom, and lip, and eye, and chin,\n While, as in scorn, the fleshless faces\n Of Hamiltons and Waldegraves grin.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE CARCASE OF JEZEBEL ON THE FACE OF THE FIELD._\n\n2 KINGS ix. 37.\n\n\nIn the portion of Jezreel\u2014by a retributive local coincidence\u2014were to lie\nthe mangled remains of Jezebel\u2014what the dogs should leave of her. \u201cAnd\nthe carcase of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in\nthe portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.\u201d\n_This_, Jezebel? how could _this_ be identified with the superb wife and\nsuperior of the king of Israel, as she was in her prime of life and pride\nof place? or even with the faded form of her that, newly a widow, but\nenergetic and man\u0153uvring to the last, and defiant in her fall, painted\nher face, and tired her head, and looked out at the window as Jehu\nentered in at the gate? Imperious Jezebel, thrice puissant and insatiably\npresuming, transformed into a heap of bone dust\u2014reduced to her lowest\nterms as mere organic matter\u2014resolved into just so much manure upon the\nface of the field.\n\n \u201cImperious C\u00e6sar, dead, and turn\u2019d to clay,\n Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:\n O that the earth which kept the world in awe\n Should patch a wall to expel the winter\u2019s flaw.\u201d\n\nSo muses and speculates Hamlet, on the theme of \u201cto what base uses we\nmay return, Horatio,\u201d when his imagination traces the noble dust of\nAlexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole. \u2019Twere to consider too\ncuriously to consider so, Horatio may object. Not a jot, is Hamlet\u2019s\nanswer to the objection; for look you, Alexander died, was buried, was\nresolved into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam. \u201cAnd why of\nthat loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer barrel?\u201d\n_Quod erat demonstrandum._\n\nThe Prince of Denmark was in the like mood when, in other company, he\ntalked, to the same purpose, of how a man may fish with the worm[12] that\nhath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.\n\nWell may Juvenal bid the meditative moralist, _expende Annibalem_,\nand expound the text that _Mors sola fatetur quantula sint hominum\ncorpuscula_. But it needs a Shakspeare to reduce these to their lowest\nterms, in the style of Hamlet with imperious C\u00e6sar,\u2014a _reductis ad\nabsurdum_ indeed.\n\nSydney Smith somewhere girds at the idea of doctrinaire legislators\nmaking irrevocable laws for men who toss their remains about with spades,\n\u201cand use the relics of these legislators, to give breadth to brocoli,\nand to aid the vernal eruption of asparagus.\u201d Hawthorne once designed\na symbolical tale of a young man being slain and buried in the flower\ngarden of his betrothed, and the earth levelled over him. That particular\nspot, which she happens to plant with some peculiar variety of flowers,\nproduces them of admirable splendour, beauty, and perfume; and thus the\nclassic fantasy is realized, of dead people transformed to flowers.\n\nSir Thomas Browne\u2014how pregnant his hints are!\u2014touches on Mummy as having\nbecome merchandize: Mizraim curing wounds, and Pharaoh being sold for\nbalsams.\n\nThe heroic dust, as Chateaubriand calls it, of the heart of Duguesclin,\nstolen during the Revolution, was on the point of being pounded up\nby a glazier to mix his paints. So again we read of the slaughtered\nhosts during the retreat from Moscow: \u201cSome industrial companies have\ntransported themselves into the desert with their furnaces and their\ncaldrons; the bones have been converted into animal black; whether it\ncome from the dog or from the man, the varnish is equally valuable,\nand is as brilliant when drawn from obscurity as from glory.\u201d Cornelia\nKnight mentions a Parmese canon, who one day, while the French were\nin occupation of Piacenza, found the church in possession of three\nsurgeons, or surgeons\u2019 mates, of that army, \u201cbusily skinning\u201d the dead\nbody of a French soldier. \u201cHorrified at the sight, he asked the meaning\nof this ghastly proceeding, and was told that some scientific men had\ndiscovered that the human skin made excellent leather,\u201d and that it had\nbeen therefore ordered that all dead bodies should be skinned, for the\npurpose of providing boots and shoes for the soldiers. Ziska\u2019s skin-deep\ndrum-destiny was at least a seeming nobler, if not essentially a more\nuseful one.\n\nXenophon makes his pattern-prince desirous of having his body turned to\nbeneficial uses after death, by being incorporated with mother earth;\npositively enjoining his sons not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but\nto bury it in the ground as soon as the life was gone out of it. Little\nwould trouble him the anticipated contingency of such a _peut-\u00eatre_ as\nBurns surmises, in the case of a recently deceased acquaintance\u2014like\nXenophon, a sportsman to the core:\u2014\n\n \u201cThere low he lies, in lasting rest;\n Perhaps, upon his mould\u2019ring breast\n Some spitefu\u2019 moorfowl bigs her nest,\n To hatch and breed.\u201d\n\nCyrus, like the essentially practical statesman in Mrs. Gore\u2019s tale,\nwould presumably have detected no irony in Hamlet\u2019s assignment of\npurpose to the ashes of imperious C\u00e6sar: \u201cIt seemed a relief to his mind\nthat emperors, when turned to clay, could be turned to account.\u201d No\nmore objection to that, than to such a circumstance as \u201cThe Traveller\u201d\ndeplores, that\n\n ... \u201cin those domes where C\u00e6sar once bore sway,\n Defaced by time, and tottering in decay,\n There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,\n The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed.\u201d\n\nHave we not heard Liebig indignantly complain of our importing immense\nquantities of bones from abroad, thereby draining the fair foreign\nfields of their very life-blood\u2014scouring as we are said to do foreign\nbattle-plains, that the bony reliques of warriors who fought a good fight\nin their day, may now be of further avail to make our bread? An English\nsatirist of German sentimentalism pictures a contemplative young Teuton,\nat dinner time, pausing over his _sauer kraut_, as he calls to mind that\nthe churchyard wherein his ancestor was decently deposited, has been\nconverted into a kitchen garden; and the conviction flashes upon him that\nwhat was a distinguished man is now on the table in the form of cabbage.\n\nHave we not, again, heard Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans,\nindignantly brand, as the outcome of current materialism, such a\n\u201cpractical suggestion\u201d as that of a certain M. Moleschott, that, in the\ninterest of humanity, \u201cthe honour of the dead should be abolished,\u201d and\nall cemeteries desecrated after being used a twelvemonth, that the bones\ncontained in them may \u201csupply to plants the power of creating fresh men\u201d?\n\nIt is, I think, in one of Mr. Dicey\u2019s letters from the East that mention\nis made of the writer\u2019s seeing at Sakhara a half score of camels pacing\ndown from the mummy pits to the bank of the river, laden with nets in\nwhich were human bones, some two hundredweight in each net on each side\nof the camel; while among the pits were to be seen people busily engaged\nin searching out, sifting, and sorting the bones with which the ground\nis almost encrusted. The cargoes were to be sent on to Alexandria, and\nthence shipped to manure manufacturers in England. It is a strange\nfate, as the tourist reflects, to preserve one\u2019s skeleton for thousands\nof years in order that there may be fine Southdowns and Cheviots in a\ndistant land; and he stops to muse on the idea of a _gigot_ that consists\nin great part of the dwellers in Memphis.\n\nThat is a graphic picture the historian of the United Netherlands paints,\nof the artificial earthworks devised in extremity during the siege of\nOstend, in 1604, when there was no earth left for the defenders to\nuse, nearly everything solid having been scooped away in the perpetual\ndelving. The very sea-dykes had been robbed of their material, so that\nthe coming winter might find besiegers and besieged all washed together\ninto the German Ocean, and it was hard digging and grubbing among the\nscanty cellarages of the dilapidated houses. But there were plenty of\ngraves, Mr. Motley proceeds to relate; and now, not only were all the\ncemeteries within the precincts shovelled and carted in mass to the\ninner fortifications, but rewards being offered of ten stivers for each\ndead body, great heaps of disinterred soldiers were piled into the new\nramparts. \u201cThus these warriors, after laying down their lives for the\ncause of freedom, were made to do duty after death.\u201d\n\nWho, exclaims Owen Feltham, would have thought when Scanderbeg was laid\nin his tomb, that the Turks would afterwards break into it, and wear his\nbones for jewels? But _telle est la vie_\u2014or rather, in such a connection,\n_la mort_.\n\nThe Rev. John Eagles, avowing an inclination to join in Shakspeare\u2019s\nanathema on the movers of bones, adverts incidentally to the alleged fact\nof Swift\u2019s larynx having been stolen, and being now in possession of the\npurloiner in America,\u2014of an itinerant phrenologist now hawking about\nPope\u2019s skull,\u2014and of Mathews\u2019s thigh-bone circulating from house to house.\n\nCoupling such corporeal vicissitudes _post mortem_ with the text with\nwhich we started, of Jezebel\u2019s scattered remains on the face of the\nfield, we call to mind Ben Jonson\u2019s description (only too historically\ntrue) of the dispersed fragments of him that the other day had been\nvirtually master of Rome, and so of the wide world. Contending hands have\nappropriated all that is left of him: some have ravished an arm, others a\nthigh; this spoiler has the hands, and that the feet; \u201cthese fingers, and\nthese toes; that hath his liver, he his heart....\n\n \u201cThe whole, and all of what was great Sejanus,\n And, next to C\u00e6sar, did possess the world,\n Now torn and scatter\u2019d, as he needs no grave;\n Each little dust covers a little part;\n So lies he nowhere, and yet often buried.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201c_CONSIDER THE LILIES._\u201d\n\nST. MATTHEW vi. 28.\n\n\nVulgar utilitarianism\u2014for there is a vulgar and shallow phase of it, as\nwell as a scientific and a misrepresented one\u2014can surely find little to\nits fancy (but then it has no fancy) the invitation, or monition, even\nthough uttered in the Sermon on the Mount, of \u201cConsider the lilies.\u201d Why\nconsider them, it would fain object, seeing that they toil not, neither\ndo they spin? But that is the very reason for considering them. They are\nclothed from above with surpassing beauty, without taking thought for\nthemselves; so clothed, not for utilitarian ends, except in the large\nsense that the _dulce_ too is _utile_, that a thing of beauty is a joy\nfor ever; and _that_ is undeniably to be of some \u201cuse\u201d in the world.\n\nHerein lies the simple answer to the query in the laureate\u2019s poem,\u2014\n\n \u201cOh, to what uses shall we put the wildweed flower that simply blows?\n And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the rose?\n But any man that walks the mead, in bud, or blade, or bloom, may find,\n According as his humours lead, a meaning suited to his mind.\u201d\n\nAnd liberal applications lie in art as nature. The Warwickshire justice\ntells Shakspeare, after hearing him recite his stanzas on a sweetbriar,\n\u201cThou mightest have added some moral about life and beauty: poets never\nhandle roses without one.\u201d But then Justice Shallow is the critic. The\nauthor of the \u201cCitation and Examination\u201d in which the criticism is\nuttered, has an imaginary dialogue between Vittoria Colonna and Michel\nAngelo\u2014the former of whom defines the difference betwixt poetry and all\nother arts, all other kinds of composition, to be this: in them, utility\ncomes before delight; in this, delight before utility. Buonarotti submits\nthat in some pleasing poems there is nothing whatsoever of the useful.\nBut Vittoria thinks he is mistaken: an obvious moral is indeed a heavy\nprotuberance, which injures the gracefulness of a poem; but there is\nwisdom of one kind or other, she alleges, in every sentence of a really\ngood composition, and it produces its effect in various ways. \u201cThe\nbeautiful in itself is useful by awakening our finer sensibilities, which\nit must be our own fault if we do not often carry with us into action.\u201d\nLeigh Hunt, in his \u201cSong of the Flowers,\u201d makes them exult in the fact,\nby their mere existence demonstrated, that heaven loves colour; that\ngreat Nature clearly joys in red and green: \u201cWhat sweet thoughts she\nthinks of violets, and pinks, and a thousand flashing hues, made solely\nto be seen:\u201d\n\n \u201cUselessness divinest\n Of a use the finest\n Painteth us, the teachers of the end of use;\n Travellers weary eyed\n Bless us far and wide;\n Unto sick and prison\u2019d thoughts we give sudden truce;\n Not a poor town window\n Loves its sickliest planting,\n But its wall speaks loftier truth than Babylon\u2019s whole vaunting.\u201d\n\nSo again Mr. Procter apostrophizes Nature in his \u201cSong of the Snowdrop,\u201d\nas having surely sent it forth alone to the cold and sullen season, like\na thought at random thrown,\u2014\u201csent it thus for some grave reason.\n\n \u201cIf \u2019twere but to pierce the mind\n With a single gentle thought,\n Who shall deem thee hard or blind,\n Who, that thou hast vainly wrought?\u201d\n\nBishop Copleston, in his plea for a free cultivation of the poetic\nfaculty, contends that its being entirely neglected must prove an\nirreparable injury to young minds\u2014losing as they do that intellectual\ncharm from which life borrows its loveliest graces: hence he takes\nexception to Locke\u2019s expression, that educators should beware of making\n\u201canything a boy\u2019s business but downright virtue.\u201d Surely, argues his\ncritic, the improvement of the faculties which God has implanted in us\nis itself a virtue: our attention may be given in undue measure to one,\nand so may violate that just harmony without which nothing is virtuous,\nnothing lovely. The faculty itself, which the philosopher seems to\ncondemn, the divine claims to be one of the kindest gifts of heaven. And\nwhy, then, it is asked, should man be niggardly where Providence has\nbeen bountiful? \u201cWhy should he think scorn of that pleasant land, and\nundervalue those fair possessions, which were not thought beneath the\ncare of the Almighty?\u201d In the garden of Eden, we are reminded, was made\nto grow, not only what was good for food, but every tree also that was\npleasant to the sight: and in that garden man was placed, to keep it, and\nto dress it.\n\nIt is, as Isaac Taylor remarks, by her diversities,\u2014her gay adornments,\nher copious fund of forms, and her sportive freaks of shape and colour,\nthat Nature allures the eye of man, while she draws him on toward\nthe more arduous, but more noble pursuit of her hidden analogies. An\ninsensible process goes on, the effect of which is gradually to invest\ngeneral truths with a sort of majesty, as well as beauty; so that,\nat length, this new charm is found to prevail over the graces and\nattractions of the exterior diversity of things.\n\nEven philosophy, however, has been said to teach us that nature scatters\nthe lavish beauties of form and colour not always with a utilitarian\npurpose; or rather, that beauty\u2014merely to display beauty\u2014is often, as\nin birds and flowers and shells and crystals, the object of material\norganization. \u201cThere is no special use in the metallic lustre on the\nplumage of the humming-bird, and tropical blossoms blaze for the mere\nsake of being splendid.\u201d Yet is it owned to be noticeable that only in\nthe lower ranks of the kingdom of being is nature lavish of beauty for\nthe mere sake of the beautiful; and that as we advance upward in the\nscale of created things, a certain severity and reserve seem to grow upon\nnature itself.\n\nShenstone\u2014a now all but forgotten poet\u2014in a now quite forgotten ode,\nasserts, as in duty bound, the uses beyond use of Nature\u2019s fancy work:\n\n \u201cSearch but the garden or the wood,\n Let yon admired carnation own\n Not all was meant for raiment, or for food,\n Not all for needful use alone;\n There while the seeds of future blossoms dwell,\n \u2019Tis colour\u2019d for the sight, perfumed to please the smell.\n\n \u201cWhy knows the nightingale to sing?\n Why flows the pine\u2019s nectareous juice?\n Why shines with paint the linnet\u2019s wing?\n For sustenance alone? for use?\n For preservation?\u201d...\n\nAn art-poet significantly and suggestively writes, in lines to which\nthe contributory reader, must, on his part, supply readings as it were\nbetween the lines:\n\n \u201cThis wild white rose-bud in my hand hath meanings meant for me alone,\n Which no one else can understand: to you it breathes with altered tone;\n How shall I class its properties for you? or its wise whisperings\n Interpret? Other eyes and ears it teaches many other things.\u201d\n\nThe dull of hearing and seeing, it teaches very little. Josiah the\ncurate, in Colonel Hamley\u2019s tale, finds nothing suggestive in a rose in a\nbuttonhole\u2014not that he lacks interest in the flower in what he thinks its\nproper place. He never, he owns, could see any possible affinity between\nflowers and broadcloth; and why people should pluck blossoms from the\nstems and leaves that harmonize so well with them, to stick them into a\ndingy produce of the loom, he holds to be one of the puzzles of humanity.\nBut Josiah is indulgent to that sister Rosa of his, who confessedly\nresembles the lilies in so far that she toils not, neither does she spin;\nand who, idle child, seems to think human beings ought to be content with\nmerely blooming.\n\nWe like our churches to be beautiful, and our temples, and our whole\nsymbolic creations, Mr. Hannay somewhere observes; their beauty\nrepresents the general beauty of the universe, and that is one of the\nmodes by which God is pleased to appeal to our faculties of love and\nwonder and admiration. \u201cThe Romanists call the Virgin Mary a \u2018mystical\nrose,\u2019 and a beautiful woman is a mystical rose; attractive, and yet, at\nthe same time, a religious symbol\u2014an object which keeps alive in you the\nsense of wonder and love of beauty, and thankfulness to the Supreme for\nthe glories of His creation.\u201d\n\nIt has been said by an art-poet already quoted, that \u201cthe girl who twines\nin her soft hair the orange-flower, with love\u2019s devotion, by the mere\nact of being fair, sets countless laws of life in motion.\u201d Dr. Croly, in\nhis \u201cSalathiel,\u201d pleading for the _right_ of beauty to have a natural\npower over the heart, urges, for instance, that all that overcomes\nselfishness\u2014the besetting sin of the world\u2014is an instrument of good; and\ngoes on to say that beauty is but melody of a higher kind\u2014both alike\nsoftening the troubled and hard nature of man. \u201cEven if we looked on a\nlovely woman but as on a rose, an exquisite production of the summer\nhours of life, it would be idle to deny her influence in making even\nthose summer hours sweeter.\u201d We may apply the suggestion in one of Mrs.\nBrowning\u2019s last poems\u2014\n\n \u201cWhat if God has set her here\n Less for action than for Being?\u2014\n For the eye and for the ear.\n\n \u201cJust to show what beauty may,\n Just to prove what music can.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_A HISTRIONIC ASPECT OF LIFE._\n\n1 CORINTHIANS vii. 31.\n\n\nThe apostle would have his brethren so to use this world, as not abusing\nit; and for this reason, that \u201cthe fashion of this world passeth away.\u201d\nIn the original the phrase runs: \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03a3\u03a7\u0397\u039c\u0391 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5.\nThe expression is said by Grotius and others to be borrowed from the\ntheatre, and to refer to the scene-shifting of the stage. Life here below\nhas verily its histrionic aspects; the fashion of it passeth away much as\ndo the scene-painter\u2019s creations, the stage-carpenter\u2019s framework, the\nspectacular effects and dissolving views, nay the very actors themselves.\nFor, all the world is in some sense a stage, and all the men and women\nmerely players\u2014\n\n \u201cThey have their exits and their entrances;\n And one man in his time plays many parts,\n His acts being seven ages.\u201d\n\nConsidering his own profession, the figure is one that must often have\ncrossed and occupied Shakspeare\u2019s mind\u2014at once so keenly observing and\nso profoundly meditative. Not that he harps much upon it, so much as\nmight, perhaps, have been expected, in his plays. Still he does now and\nthen recur to the histrionic metaphor. And it is in his graver mood, not\nhis lighter, that he does so; in sober sadness, not with gibing glee. As\nwhere Lear, in the extremity of his distraction, intent on preaching to\nGloster, takes for his text the wail of infancy, crying, the first time\nthat it smells the air: for\n\n \u201cWhen we are born, we cry, that we are come\n To this great stage of fools.\u201d\n\nOr again, as where Antonio, the care-fraught merchant of Venice, assured\nby a friend that he is looking far from well, indeed \u201cmarvellously\nchanged,\u201d and remonstrated with for not taking life more easily, replies:\n\n \u201cI hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,\n A stage where every man must play a part,\n And mine a sad one.\u201d\n\n_Mundus universus exercet histrioniam_,\u2014the saw is Petronius Arbiter\u2019s.\nThere is an obverse reading, by some other old Eminent Hand: _Totum\nmundum agit histrio_. If all the world\u2019s a play, so again there\u2019s not in\nall the world a character the player won\u2019t act. Lucretius had the stage\nsimile of life in his mind\u2019s eye, when he said of those who hide certain\nof their doings, _vit\u00e6 post-scenia celant_,\u2014the _post-scenium_ being what\nwe call \u201cbehind the scenes,\u201d where the actors dress and \u201cmake up\u201d for\ntheir parts. And what says a distich in the Greek Anthology:\n\n \u201c\u03a3\u03ba\u03b7\u03bd\u1f74 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03c2 \u1f41 \u03b2\u03af\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03b1\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd\u00b7 \u1f22 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd,\n \u03a4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c3\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u1f74\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2, \u1f22 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f40\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2.\u201d\n\n \u201cLife is a stage, a play: so learn thy part,\n All cares removed, or rend with grief thy heart.\u201d\n\nSir Thomas Browne professes, in his large utterance and stately style:\n\u201cThe world to me is but a dream or mock show, and we all therein but\npantaloons and anticks, to my severer contemplations.\u201d To the same\neffect, though not in the same spirit, Wordsworth\u2019s recluse avows himself\ntired\n\n \u201cOf the ostentatious world a swelling stage\n With empty actions and vain passions stuffed.\u201d\n\nWhen both Swift and Bolingbroke had closed the tenth lustre of their\nyears, his cynical lordship wrote from Brussels to the cynical dean,\nthat he thought it high time to determine how they should \u201cplay the\nlast act of the farce. Might not my life,\u201d adds accomplished St. John,\n\u201cbe entitled much more properly a what-d\u2019ye-call-it than a farce? Some\ncomedy, a great deal of tragedy, and the whole interspersed with scenes\nof Harlequin, Scaramouch, and Dr. Baloardo.\u201d Accomplished St. John was\nalways, and to the last an accomplished actor. As for Dr. Swift, he\nexpanded the histrionic similitude of life into some eighteen stanzas on\nthe puppet show\u2014which record how wit, \u201cthe life of man to represent, and\nturn it all to ridicule, did once a puppet show invent, where the chief\nactor is a fool\u201d\u2014and of which, perhaps, the gravest runs thus:\n\n \u201cThis fleeting scene is but a stage\n Where various images appear;\n In different parts of youth and age,\n Alike the prince and peasant share.\u201d\n\nDon Quixote tells Sancho Panza how like human life is to a play. One\ntakes the part of a ruffian, another of a liar, a third of a merchant,\na fourth of a soldier. This man is for the occasion the lover; that man\nis the judicious friend. At last the play is ended. Each takes off the\nclothes which belong to his part, and the players remain equal. So it is\nin the comedy of this world, says Don Quixote. There are emperors and\npopes, and all the characters that can be introduced into a play; but it\nis played out, death takes away the outward trappings which made them\nseem to differ, and they remain equal in the tomb.\n\nWhere, is the author of the Complaint\u2019s complaining query, or querulous\nplaint,\n\n \u201cWhere, the prime actors of the last year\u2019s scene;\n Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume?\u201d\n\nIt is a trite topic, indeed, with Dr. Young,\u2014that of \u201cLife\u2019s gay stage,\none inch above the grave,\u201d whereon those strut and fret their hour, that\nshall soon be seen no more for ever. All, merely players.\n\n \u201cEach, in his turn, some tragic story tells,\n With now and then a wretched farce between.\u201d\n\nDr. Maginn takes note of the frequency with which Lucian compares life to\na theatrical procession, in which magnificent parts are assigned to some,\nwho pass before the eyes of the spectators clothed in costly garments,\nand bedecked with glittering jewels; but, the moment the show is over,\nare reduced to their original nothingness, no longer kings and heroes,\nbut poor players whose hour has been strutted out.\n\nNo wonder that the master Showman of Vanity Fair should pen an _envoi_\nafter this fashion:\n\n \u201cThe play is done; the curtain drops,\n Slow falling to the prompter\u2019s bell:\n A moment yet the actor stops,\n And looks around, to say farewell.\n It is an irksome word and task;\n And when he\u2019s laughed and said his say,\n He shows, as he removes the mask,\n A face that\u2019s anything but gay.\u201d\n\nHorace Walpole will be found iterating and reiterating in his letters\na favourite apophthegm of his\u2014that the world is a comedy to those who\nthink, a tragedy to those who feel.\n\nOne might safely assume beforehand that a people of so histrionic a turn\nas the French would make good use of the histrionic metaphor of life,\nin their _belles lettres_, of whatever date. And in point of fact the\nfigure is a well-worked one in French literature. Now it is a Cardinal\nde Retz, who, on being named coadjutor to his uncle, the Archbishop of\nParis, describes himself as thereupon ceasing to be \u201cin the pit, or\nat best in the orchestra, playing and funning with the fiddles,\u201d but\nmounting thence to the stage itself. Indeed, a modern critic has remarked\nthat Retz is perpetually making use of these expressions and images of\n_th\u00e9\u00e2tre_ and _com\u00e9die_. He was an accomplished actor from first to\nlast\u2014not above the line of low comedy now and then, and quite an adept in\nthe Cloak-and-Sword business. Now again it is his contemporary, Madame de\nMotteville, who so frequently represents herself as an occupant of one of\nthe best boxes, intent on diverting herself with the _belle com\u00e9die_ that\nwas being played under her eyes. \u201cLes cabinets des rois,\u201d says Madame\u2014who\nought to know\u2014are theatres in which pieces of universal interest are for\never being played: some simply comic; others decidedly tragical, though\nso frequently occasioned by the merest trifles. So, again, Madame des\nUrsins (the Princess Orsino), another _habitu\u00e9e_ behind the scenes, and\nherself a star of the first magnitude in any working company, describes\nthe world as _une com\u00e9die o\u00f9 il y avait souvent de bien mauvais acteurs_.\n\nThen, too, we have the Abb\u00e9 Chaulieu, when dancing attendance on the\nDuke of Vend\u00f4me, and assisting at all the f\u00eates and galas got up in\nthat prince\u2019s honour, writing in a sort of apologetic strain to his\nsister-in-law, that since all the world\u2019s a stage, one must just be\ncontent to don cap and bells with the rest[13]\u2014for if all your men and\nwomen are merely players, motley\u2019s your only wear.\n\nOf another _spirituel_, and very unspiritual, abb\u00e9 of that period,\nChoisy, it has been observed, that his life resembled a comedy, rife with\nall that is most various and most improbable: his career of fourscore\nyears composed a complete masquerade; for\n\n \u201cthis man in his time play\u2019d many parts,\u201d\n\nand in each of them he seems to have acted with professional aptitude,\nfacility, and zest.\n\nSuch another actor, with a difference, was Voltaire. As Voltaire himself\nsaid of the Duchess of Maine, \u201cElle aimera la com\u00e9die jusqu\u2019au dernier\nmoment, et, quand elle sera malade, je vous conseille de lui administrer\nquelque belle pi\u00e8ce,\u201d etc., etc.,\u2014so of the mocking philosopher of\nFerney, playing his many parts, it has been said, that he had a genius\nfor transformations, having always more than one _r\u00f4le_ to play in the\ncomedy of life\u2014which diversity of _r\u00f4les_ jumped with his humour, and\njust hit the mobile preferences of a man who so early in his existence\nturned player. The life of Voltaire is a comedy, says Sainte-Beuve: his\ncorrespondence with D\u2019Alembert shows us the coulisses and background\u2014and\nlets us in to damaging and disenchanting revelations behind the scenes.\nElsewhere he may be seen to fret and strut his hour upon the stage,\ncarefully made up, and all in point device costume; but here we have him\nin undress, and by dusty daylight, and off his guard.\n\n_Tous les com\u00e9diens ne sont pas du th\u00e9\u00e2tre_, is rightly reckoned one of\nthe prettiest _prov\u00e9rbes_ of M. Th\u00e9odore Leclerc. In the Proverbe which\nbears that pregnant title, a nephew incidentally tells his uncle, \u201cVous\nqui \u00eates un homme du monde, vous appelez cela l\u2019esprit du monde; moi qui\nsuis un com\u00e9dien, j\u2019appelle cela de la com\u00e9die. C\u2019est toujours la m\u00eame\nchose, sous un nom diff\u00e9rent.\u201d The salon and the stage are on a level.\nTo be a real man of the world, is to be an actor of the first class.\n\nM. Scribe puts the proverb as a practical epigram into the mouth of old\nMichonnet, when trying to soothe and inspirit his pet pupil for the\nstage: \u201cCalme toi et \u00e9tudie; ... il y a dans le monde de plus grands\ncom\u00e9diens que nous!\u201d\n\nIndeed, according to Chamfort, there is no choice in the matter; every\nman, however wise and unsophisticated and open-hearted, must, sooner or\nlater, turn actor, on this great stage of fools. For, \u201cla fortune et le\ncostume qui l\u2019entourent font de la vie une repr\u00e9sentation au milieu de\nlaquelle il faut qu\u2019\u00e0 la longue l\u2019homme le plus honn\u00eate devienne com\u00e9dien\nmalgr\u00e9 lui.\u201d We are all actors and actresses, says one of Miss Eden\u2019s\ncharacters, and \u201cnone of us quite up to our parts, though we act all\nday long.\u201d Not that every one plays just the part he or she would have\nchosen. The distribution of _r\u00f4les_ would seem often to make this a mad\nworld, my masters.\n\n \u201cLe monde, \u00e0 mon avis, est comme un grand th\u00e9\u00e2tre,\n O\u00f9 chacun en public, l\u2019un par l\u2019autre abus\u00e9,\n Souvent \u00e0 ce qu\u2019il est, joue un r\u00f4le oppos\u00e9.\u201d\n\nThis, one might almost paraphrase in the words of John Webster\u2019s wobegone\nDuchess Mariana:\n\n \u201cI account this world a tedious theatre,\n For I do play a part in\u2019t \u2019gainst my will.\u201d\n\nBy way of introducing his elaborate narrative of Darnley\u2019s fate, Mr.\nFroude tells us of Mary Stuart, that on the political stage she was \u201ca\ngreat actress. The \u2018woman\u2019 had a drama of her own going on behind the\nscenes; the theatre caught fire; the mock heroics of the Catholic crusade\nburnt into ashes; and a tremendous domestic tragedy was revealed before\nthe astonished eyes of Europe.\u201d And later again, describing Mary\u2019s\ncaressing wiles to beguile and tranquilise her doomed husband, on the\neve of the catastrophe, the same historian employs the same histrionic\nfigure: \u201cMary Stuart was an admirable actress; rarely, perhaps, on the\nworld\u2019s stage has there been a more skilful player.\u201d But the part, he\nadds, was a difficult one; she had still some natural compunction; and\nthe performance was not quite perfect.\n\nMost of our business is farce, writes old Montaigne: _Mundus universus\nexercet histrioniam_ (which the old French essayist\u2019s old English\ntranslator renders, \u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage, and all the men and women\nmerely players\u201d). We must play our part well, he adds, but withal as the\npart of a borrowed personage; we must not make a real essence of a mask\nand outward appearance, etc. So it is one of Ben Jonson\u2019s \u201cDiscoveries,\u201d\n\u201cde vit\u00e2 human\u00e2,\u201d that our whole life is like a play\u2014wherein every man,\nforgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of another. In one of\nhis comedies, rare Ben makes a sham inn-keeper, taking his ease in his\nown inn, and following his own fancies there, \u201cimagine all the world\u2019s a\nplay:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe state, and men\u2019s affairs, all passages\n Of life, to spring new scenes; come in, go out,\n And shift, and vanish.... I have got\n A seat to sit at ease here, in mine inn,\n To see the comedy; and laugh, and chuck\n At the variety and throng of humours\n And dispositions, that come justling in\n And out still, as they one drove hence another.\u201d\n\nFor every man, in the play of this world, says pious Master Feltham, is\nnot only an actor, but is a spectator, too: \u201cAt the beginning (that is,\nin his youth) it promises so much that he is loth to leave it; when it\ngrows towards the middle (the act of virility), then he sees the scenes\ngrow thick, and fill, and would gladly understand the end: but, when that\ndraws near, and he finds what it will be, he is then content to depart\nand leave his room to others.\u201d\n\nFielding\u2019s philosopher asks if the actor is esteemed happier to whose lot\nit falls to play the principal part, than he who plays the lowest? and\nyet the drama may run twenty nights together, and so outlast our lives;\nbut at the best, says he, \u201clife is only a little longer drama; and the\nbusiness of the great stage is consequently a little more serious than\nthat which is performed at the theatre-royal.\u201d\n\n \u201cIf the world be, indeed, as \u2019twas said, but a stage,\n The dress only is changed \u2019twixt the acts of an age.\n From the dark tiring-chamber behind straight reissue\n With new masks the old mummers; the very same tissue\n Of passionate antics that move through the play,\n With new parts to fulfil and new phrases to say.\u201d\n\nAn old Greek writer, speaking of Alexander of Pher\u00e6, who reigned in\nThessaly only ten months, and then was slain, calls him, in derision of\nhis brief lease of power, a theatrical tyrant, a mere stage king, who, as\nit were, walked on only to walk off again. But the palace of the C\u00e6sars,\nPlutarch remarks, received four emperors in a less space of time, one\nentering, and another making his exit, as if to fret and strut each his\nlittle hour upon the stage. How soon the stage directions, Enter Galba,\nenter and exit Otho, enter and exit Vitellius, lapse in _Exeunt omnes_!\n\nIn Charles the Sixth\u2019s ordinance, authorising the players of the\n\u201cMysteries of the Passion\u201d (towards the close of the fourteenth\ncentury), that poor crazed monarch\u2019 styles them his \u201cloved and dear\nco-mates.\u201d And what could be juster? Michelet asks. \u201cA hapless actor\nhimself, a poor player in the grand historic mystery, he went to see his\nco-mates\u2019\u2014saints, angels, and devils, perform their miserable travestie\nof the Passion. He was not only spectator; he was spectacle as well. His\npeople went to see in him the Passion of royalty.\u201d\n\nPlayers, the abstract and brief chronicles of the time, Hazlitt calls\nthe motley representatives of human nature. They are the only honest\nhypocrites, he says (and hypocrite, by the way, is classically a correct\nname for them, though Hazlitt may not have remembered or meant it): their\nlife is a voluntary dream, a studied madness\u2014it being the height of their\nambition to be \u201cbeside themselves:\u201d\u2014to-day kings, to-morrow beggars,\nit is only when they are themselves that they are nothing: made up of\nmimic laughter and tears, they wear the livery of other men\u2019s fortunes,\ntill their very thoughts are not their own. \u201cThey are, as it were,\ntrain-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity,\nfrailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them.... The\nstage is an epitome, a bettered likeness of the world, with the dull part\nleft out: and indeed, with this omission, it is nearly big enough to\nhold all the rest.\u201d\n\nSir Thomas Overbury had, two centuries before, written characteristically\nto the same purport. \u201cAll men have beene of his occupation,\u201d writes the\nill-starred knight of a good actor; \u201cand indeed, what hee doth fainedly,\nthat doe others essentially: this day one plays a monarch, the next\na private person. Here one acts a tyrant, on the morrow an exile: a\nparasite this man to-night, to-morrow a precisian,\u201d and so of divers\nothers.\n\n \u201cAnd why not players strut in courtiers\u2019 clothes?\n For these are actors, too, as well as those.\u201d\n\nOr, to top (Pope) Alexander the Great with Glorious John (Dryden):\n\n \u201cEven kings but play, and when their part is done,\n Some other, worse or better, mount the throne.\u201d\n\nAs we cannot be monarchs, says the Porpora of fiction, we are artists,\nand have a kingdom of our own: we dress ourselves as kings and great men,\nwe ascend the stage, we seat ourselves upon a fictitious throne, we play\na farce, we are actors. The world, he continues, sees us, but understands\nus not. \u201cIt is only when I am at the theatre that I see clearly our true\nrelations to society. The spirit of music unseals my eyes, and I see\nbehind the footlights a true court, real heroes, lofty inspirations;\nwhile the wretched dolts who flaunt in the boxes upon velvet couches are\nthe real actors. In truth, the world is a comedy; and we must play our\nparts in it with gravity and decorum, though conscious of the hollow\npageant which compasses us on every side.\u201d And Godolphin pronounces life\nto differ from the play only in this\u2014that it has no plot, all being\nvague, desultory, unconnected, till the curtain drops with the mystery\nunsolved.\n\nAll this is in Mr. Carlyle\u2019s vein\u2014of the _Sartor Resartus_ date at least;\nor as when he depicted the family vagaries of Mirabeaudom, which produced\n\u201csuch astonishing comico-tragical French farces\u201d\u2014with the eight chaotic\nvolumes of family correspondence, wherein the various personages speak\ntheir dialogue, unfold their farce-tragedy: \u201cSeen or half seen, it is a\nstage; as the whole world is. What with personages, what with destinies,\nno stranger house-drama [than that of the Mirabeau family] was enacting\non the earth at that time.\u201d The same figure Mr. Carlyle elsewhere applies\nto our own revolution times, in the century before: \u201cSuch is the drama\nof life, seen in Baillie of Kilwinning; a thing of multifarious tragic\nand epic meanings, then as now. A many-voiced tragedy and epos, yet with\nbroad-based comic and grotesque accompaniments, done by actors _not_\nin buskins;\u2014ever replete with elements of guilt and remorse, of pity,\ninstruction, and fear.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nACT WELL YOUR PART:\u2014there all the _moral_ lies. Though the world _be_\nhistrionical, and most men live ironically, says Sir Thomas Browne, \u201cyet\nbe thou what thou singly art, and personate only thyself.\u201d\n\nIt has been sadly and severely said of the Emperor Augustus, who was\nloved by no one, that if, at the moment of his death, he desired his\nfriends to dismiss him from this world by the common expression of\nscenical applause (_vos plaudite!_), in that valedictory injunction he\nexpressed inadvertently the true value of his own long life, which, in\nstrict candour, may be pronounced one continued series of histrionic\nefforts, and of excellent acting, adapted to selfish ends.\n\n_L\u2019honn\u00eate homme_, writes an epigrammatic thinker, _joue son r\u00f4le le\nmieux qu\u2019il peut sans songer \u00e0 la galerie_.\n\nRemember, says Epictetus, so to act your part upon this stage as to be\napproved by the master, whether it be a short or a long one that he\nhas given you to perform. If he will have you to represent a beggar,\nendeavour to act the beggar\u2019s part well; and so, a cripple, a prince, or\na plebeian. It is your part to perform well what you represent: it is his\nto choose what that shall be.\n\nThus spake the stoic philosopher. And how speaks the Christian divine?\nAs the merit of an actor, says Robert Hall, is not estimated by the\npart which he performs, but solely by the truth and propriety of his\nrepresentation, and the peasant is often applauded where the monarch is\nhissed; so when the great drama of life is concluded, He who allots its\nscenes and determines its period will take an account of His servants,\nand assign to each his due, in his own proper character.\n\nSince the life of man is likened to a scene, \u201cI had rather,\u201d writes John\nMilton, \u201cthat all my entrances and exits might mix with such persons\nonly whose worth erects them and their actions to a grave and tragic\ndeportment, and not to have to do with clowns and vices.\u201d\n\nAnd this, lest such a player have to echo, in spirit, if not to the\nletter, the bitter conviction of blinded, blundering Leontes\u2014_Io anche_\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd I\n Play too; but so disgraced a part, whose issue\n Will hiss me to my grave.\u201d\n\nThe measure of a happy life, writes Lord Shaftesbury\u2014he of the\n\u201cCharacteristics\u201d\u2014is not from the fewer or more suns we behold, the fewer\nor more breaths we draw, or meals we repeat; but from the having once\nlived well, acted our part handsomely, and made our exit cheerfully\u2014or,\nto print it as he wrote it, for the lovers of old books\u2019 sake\u2014\u201cand made\nour _Exit_ cheerfully, and as became us.\u201d\n\nIt is well remarked by Archbishop Trench that we have forfeited the full\nforce of the statement, \u201cGod is no respecter of _persons_,\u201d from the fact\nthat \u201cperson\u201d does not mean for us now all that it once meant. \u201cPerson,\u201d\nfrom \u201cpersona,\u201d the mask constantly worn by the actor of antiquity, is by\nnatural transfer the part or _r\u00f4le_ in the play which each sustains, as\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd is in Greek. \u201cIn the great tragi-comedy of life each sustains\na \u2018person;\u2019 one that of a king, another that of a hind; one must play\nDives, another Lazarus. This \u2018person\u2019 God, for whom the question is\nnot _what_ \u2018person\u2019 each sustains, but _how_ he sustains it, does not\nregard.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_PHARAOH\u2019S ALTERNATIONS OF AMENDMENT AND RELAPSE._\n\nEXODUS vii.-x., _passim_.\n\n\nHis land of Egypt covered with frogs, Pharaoh was urgent with Moses and\nAaron to \u201cintreat the Lord\u201d for him, and with conciliatory proposals\nin favour of the children of Israel. The plague of the frogs abated\naccordingly, Pharaoh hardened his heart as soon as he saw that there was\nrespite. So with the plague of flies that came in grievous swarms into\nthe house of Pharaoh, and into his servants\u2019 houses, and into all the\nland of Egypt, so that the land was corrupted by reason of the flies;\nagain Pharaoh besought Hebrew intercession, and pledged himself to acts\nof clemency; and again no sooner was the plague removed, than Pharaoh\nhardened his heart at that time also, neither would he let the people go.\nPlague after plague ensued\u2014the murrain of beasts, the plague of boils\nand blains, and the plague of hail and fire; and so grievous was the\nlast\u2014smiting all that was in the field, both man and beast, as well as\nevery herb and tree\u2014that Pharaoh once more importuned Moses and Aaron,\nconfessing his sins, imploring forgiveness, and promising amendment.\nOnce and again he was heard and answered. \u201cAnd when Pharaoh saw that\nthe rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more,\nand hardened his heart ... neither would he let the children of Israel\ngo.\u201d The plague of locusts, destroying all that the hail had left, made\nhim call for the Hebrew brothers again in hottest haste,\u2014entreating\nforgiveness \u201conly this once,\u201d and deliverance \u201cfrom this death only.\u201d But\nthe mighty west wind that swept away the ravagers had no sooner ceased to\nblow, than the hardening process again set in, and the tyrant revelled as\nof yore in his accustomed tyranny. How many more plagues might have been\nadded to the ten\u2014decade upon decade\u2014with the like result, each facile\namendment merging in a more and more facile relapse, it is superfluous to\nguess.\n\nWe read in Homer, as versified by Pope, that\u2014\n\n \u201cThe weakest atheist-wretch all heaven defies,\n But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies.\u201d\n\nSo Boileau satirises the \u201cintrepid\u201d scoffer, who puts off believing in\nGod until fever prostrates him; who is almost as quick as the lightning\nto lift up his hands to heaven when the lightning glares across it, but\nlaughs at poor feeble humanity as soon as the atmosphere is cleared and\nthe storm quite spent:\n\n \u201cAttend pour croire en Dieu que la fi\u00e9vre le presse;\n Et, toujours dans l\u2019orage au ciel levant les mains,\n D\u00e8s que l\u2019air est calm\u00e9, rit des faibles humains.\u201d\n\nLady Mary Wortley Montagu describes in one of her vivacious letters\na stormy passage she has just made from Calais to Dover, and diverts\nherself not a little, as her ladyship\u2019s manner is, at the distress of a\nfellow-passenger, in alternations of anxiety as to being lost herself\nand losing her smuggled head-dress. \u201cShe was an English lady that I had\nmet at Calais, who desired me to let her go over with me in my cabin.\nShe had brought a fine point-head, which she was contriving to conceal\nfrom the custom-house officers. When the wind grew high, and our little\nvessel cracked, she fell very heartily to her prayers, and thought wholly\nof her soul. When it seemed to abate, she returned to the worldly care\nof her head-dress;\u201d and the alternative exclamations of the distracted\ncreature are liberally specified by Lady Mary; who then adds: \u201cThis easy\ntransition from her soul to her head-dress, and the alternate agonies\nthat both gave her, made it hard to determine which she thought of\ngreatest value.\u201d\n\nLord Lytton, in one of his fictions, comments on the instinct, as he\ncalls it, of that capricious and fluctuating conscience, belonging to\nweak minds, \u201cwhich remains still and drooping and lifeless as a flag on\na mast-head during the calm of prosperity, but flutters and flaps and\ntosses when the wind blows and the wave heaves.\u201d And an example to the\npurpose is given in the case of a selfish uncle, whose orphan nephews\nare all but coldly discarded until his own son is _in extremis_. \u201cMr.\nBeaufort ... thought very acutely and remorsefully of the condition of\nthe Mortons, during the danger of his own son. So far indeed from his\nanxiety for Arthur monopolising his care, it only sharpened his charity\ntowards the orphans; for many a man becomes devout and good when he\nfancies he has an _immediate_ interest in appeasing Providence.\u201d Such\na man, in such a case, becomes at any rate lavish of promises, which\nperhaps at the moment he even intends to keep. But how are promises of\nthis kind usually kept? Much after the manner predicated of Bajazet, by\nAcomat, in the French tragedy; a vaguely worded intimation, but definite\nenough in its scope: only let the pressure that extorts the promise be\nwithdrawn, and gone will be the value of the promise too:\n\n \u201cPromettez: affranchi du p\u00e9ril qui vous presse,\n Vous verrez de quel poids sera votre promesse.\u201d\n\nPope would consign such trifles light as air to the lunar sphere,\n\n \u201cWhere broken vows and death-bed alms are found,\n And lovers\u2019 hearts with ends of ribbon bound,\n The courtier\u2019s promises, the sick man\u2019s prayers.\u201d\n\nWhy do these last make so slight an impression on by-standers? Mr.\nWhitehead says because it is not a living but a dying man that speaks;\nand a dying man who wants to live. \u201cIt is fear that cries out in agony,\nnot penitence that prays.\u201d Fielding, in his masterpiece, moralises on the\ntruism that be men ever so much alarmed and frightened when apprehending\nthemselves in danger of dying, yet no sooner are they cleared from this\napprehension, than even the fears of it are erased from their minds. It\nis much later in the same story, that the \u201chero\u2019s\u201d avowed resolution, at\na crisis in his fortunes, to sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto\nhim, is ridiculed by a cynical acquaintance, as the effect merely of low\nspirits, and confinement\u2014with the quotation of \u201csome witticisms about the\ndevil when he was sick.\u201d The epigram in question is a favourite allusion\nwith novelists and moralists of all sorts and sizes. There is a border\nfreebooter of Scott\u2019s, who, having recovered from a severe illness,\nthanks to the medical skill of the Black Dwarf, greets his benefactor, on\nhorseback, all in bandit array, as soon as convalescent. \u201cSo,\u201d said the\ndwarf, \u201crapine and murder once more on horseback!\u201d \u201cOn horseback?\u201d said\nthe bandit; \u201cay, ay, Elshie, your leech-craft has set me on the bonnie\nbay again.\u201d \u201cAnd all those promises of amendment which you made during\nyour illness forgotten?\u201d continued Elshender. \u201cAll clear away, with the\nwater-saps and panada,\u201d returned the unabashed convalescent. \u201cYe ken,\nElshie, for they say ye are weel acquent wi\u2019 the gentleman,\n\n \u201c\u2018When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;\n When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he.\u2019\u201d\n\nFor it is not every vow taken in a panic, to become a monk if spared,\nthat is kept as Luther\u2019s was\u2014\u201cdevil\u201d though the anti-Lutherans of his\nday might account and call him. Young Martin saw one of his friends\nstruck dead by his side, by a stroke of lightning, in 1505; and the\nsight moved him to utter on the instant a vow to St. Anne that he would\nbecome a monk if he were himself spared. \u201cThe danger passed over, but\nhe did not seek to elude an engagement wrung from him in terror. He\nsolicited no dispensation from his vow.\u201d Brother Martin _ipso facto_\napproved himself no member of the fraternity of what Le Sage calls _vous\nautres, messieurs les diables_, in a passage that indirectly bears upon\nour theme, for it refers to the proverbial worthlessness of promises\ncoming from that quarter: \u201cVoil\u00e0 de belles promesses, r\u00e9pliqua l\u2019Ecolier;\nmais vous autres, messieurs les diables, on vous accuse de n\u2019\u00eatre pas\nfort r\u00e9ligieux \u00e0 tenir ce que vous promettez.\u201d The epigram runs, if not\nrhymes, as well in Latin as in English:\n\n \u201c\u00c6grotat d\u00e6mon, monachus tunc esse volebat;\n D\u00e6mon convaluit, d\u00e6mon ut ante fuit.\u201d\n\nReferring to proverbs of this kind it is that Archbishop Trench says,\nthat sometimes an adage, without changing its shape altogether, will yet\non the lips of different nations be slightly modified\u2014the modifications,\nslight as they often are, being not the less eminently characteristic.\n\u201cThus in English we say, _The river past, and God forgotten_, to express\nwith how mournful a frequency He whose assistance was invoked, it may\nhave been earnestly, in the moment of peril, is remembered no more,\nso soon as by His help the danger has been surmounted. The Spaniards\nhave the proverb too; but it is with them: _The river past, the\nsaint forgotten_: the saints being in Spain more prominent objects of\ninvocation than God. And the Italian form of it sounds a still sadder\ndepth of ingratitude: _The peril passed, the saint mocked_.\u201d Men\nindulge in doubts of a Supreme Being, says La Bruy\u00e8re, when they are\nlusty and strong; but with sickness comes belief, such as it is. \u201cL\u2019on\ndoute de Dieu dans une pleine sant\u00e9.... Quand on devient malade, et que\nl\u2019hydropisie est form\u00e9e ... l\u2019on croit en Dieu.\u201d Believes? As to that,\nthe devils believe, and tremble. But how when the dropsy is relieved\nand the trembling fit over? Dr. Johnson once adverted in conversation\nwith Seward and Boswell to the evil life he led until sickness wrought a\nreformation, which, in his case, had been lasting. Mr. Seward thereupon\nobserved: \u201cOne should think that sickness, and the view of death, would\nmake more men religious.\u201d But Johnson replied to this: \u201cSir, they do\nnot know how to go about it; they have not the first notion. A man who\nhas never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick\nthan a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of\ncalculation.\u201d[14] It is to be observed that the doctor claimed for\nhimself a previous regard for religion in quite early life; for some\nyears it had, to use his own phrase, \u201cdropped out of his mind,\u201d but\n\u201csickness brought it back,\u201d and he hoped he had never lost it since.\n\nIt is an old, old story, that of the generation which tempted God in the\ndesert, whose days He therefore consumed in vanity, and their years in\ntrouble. When He slew them, then they sought Him; and they returned, and\ninquired early after God. But it was only to start aside again, like a\nbroken bow.\n\n \u201cTamen ad mores natura recurrit\n Damnatos, fixa et mutari nescia.\u201d\n\n \u201cWhen men in health against physicians rail,\u201d\n\nsays Crabbe,\n\n \u201cThey should consider that their nerves may fail;\n Nay, when the world can nothing more produce,\n The priest, the insulted priest, may have his use.\u201d\n\nThere is a passage in Montesquieu\u2019s Persian Letters that reads like a\nparaphrase and expansion of this: \u201cQuand le m\u00e9decin est aupr\u00e8s de mon\nlit, le confesseur me trouve \u00e0 son avantage. Je sais bien emp\u00eacher la\nreligion de m\u2019affliger quand je me porte bien; mais je lui permets de\nme consoler quand je suis malade: lorsque je n\u2019ai plus rien \u00e0 esp\u00e9rer\nd\u2019un c\u00f4t\u00e9, la religion se pr\u00e9sente, et me gagne,\u201d etc. Plutarch tells\nus of Tullus Hostilius, that he exulted in irreligious opinions while\nin health, but was frightened into superstition when taken ill. To\nthis passage, one of Plutarch\u2019s translators, Dr. Langhorne, appends a\nfootnote, about none being so superstitious in distress as those who,\nin their prosperity, have laughed at religion; and cites as an instance\nthe famous Canon Vossius, who was \u201cno less remarkable for the greatness\nof his fears, than he was for the littleness of his faith.\u201d Cowper would\ncite to the same purpose a more distinguished example:\n\n \u201cThe Frenchman first in literary fame;\n Mention him, if you please. Voltaire? The same.\n ...\n The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew\n _Bon-mots_ to gall the Christian and the Jew:\n An infidel when well, but what when sick?\n Oh, then a text would touch him to the quick.\u201d\n\nSwift gives a satirical narrative of \u201cwhat passed in London during the\ngeneral consternation of all ranks and degrees of mankind\u201d on account of\nthe predicted destruction of the world by a comet, on a given day. Friday\nwas the declared day; and during Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, public\nbewilderment and terror are described as extreme\u2014the churches crowded,\nand thousands praying in the public streets. At length Friday came. But\nas the day wore on, popular fears began to abate, then lessened every\nhour; \u201cat night they were almost extinct, till the total darkness that\nhitherto used to terrify, now comforted every freethinker and atheist.\nGreat numbers went together to the taverns, bespoke suppers, and broke\nup whole hogsheads for joy. The subject of all wit and conversation was\nto ridicule the prophecy and rally each other. All the quality and\ngentry were perfectly ashamed, nay, some utterly disowned that they had\nmanifested any signs of religion.\n\n\u201cBut the next day, even the common people, as well as their betters,\nappeared in their usual state of indifference. They drank, they swore,\nthey lied, they cheated, they quarrelled, they murdered. In short, the\nworld went on in the old channel.\u201d\n\nTo apply what Butler says of \u201csaints\u201d in his application of the word, as\na cant term then of political significance:\n\n \u201cFor saints in peace degenerate,\n And dwindle down to reprobate; ...\n And though they\u2019ve tricks to cast their sins,\n As easy as serpents do their skins,\n That in a while grow out again,\n In peace they turn mere carnal men;\n And from the most refined of saints\n As naturally turn miscreants,[15]\n As barnacles turn solan geese\n I\u2019 th\u2019 islands of the Orcades.\u201d\n\nThat is a fine stroke of nature, in the Knight\u2019s Tale (from Chaucer),\nwhere Dryden makes Arcite resolve, only when and not until moribund, to\navow the wrong he has done to Palamon, and own his fear of repeating it\nshould he recover:\n\n \u201cWhen \u2019twas declared all hope of life was past,\n Conscience (that of all physic works the last)\n Caused him to send for Emily in haste.\n With her, at his desire, came Palamon;\u201d\n\nto whom Arcite owns the faithless part he has played, and desires\nforgiveness, but at the same time makes this frank avowal:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd much I doubt, should Heaven my life prolong,\n I should return to justify my wrong;\n For while my former flames remain within,\n Repentance is but want of power to sin.\u201d\n\nMr. Tennyson pictures for us a similar instance in Sir Lancelot:\n\n \u201cYet the great knight in his mid-sickness made\n Full many a holy vow and pure resolve.\n These, as but born of sickness, could not live;\n For when the blood ran lustier in him again,\n Full often the sweet image of one face,\n Making a treacherous quiet in his heart,\n Dispersed his resolution like a cloud.\u201d\n\nTreating of missions in Abyssinia in the sixteenth century, Gibbon\nrelates how, in a moment of terror, the emperor promised to reconcile\nhimself and his subjects to the Catholic faith. \u201cBut the vows,\u201d adds\nthe historian, \u201cwhich pain had extorted, were forsworn on the return\nof health.\u201d Swift again, in his history of England,\u2014for the Dean of\nSt. Patrick wrote one\u2014tells how William Rufus fell dangerously sick at\nGloucester, on his return from Scotland, and being moved by the fears of\ndying, began to discover great marks of repentance, with many promises\nof amendment and retribution. \u201cBut as it is the disposition of men who\nderive their vices from their complexions, that their passions usually\nbeat strong and weak with their pulses, so it fared with this prince,\nwho, upon recovery of his health, soon forgot the vows he had made in his\nsickness, relapsing with greater violence into the same irregularities,\u201d\netc.\n\nMichael Germain\u2014who, however, is allowed to have looked upon\nthe religious observances of Rome with the eye of a French\nencyclop\u00e9diste\u2014makes merry, as one of Mabillon\u2019s Italian expedition (in\n1685), at the expense of that indolent and hypochondriacal Pope (so Sir\nJames Stephen calls him), Innocent XI. \u201cIf I should attempt,\u201d writes this\nFrench Benedictine, \u201cto give you an exact account of the health of his\nHoliness, I must begin with Ovid, \u2018In nova fert animus mutatas dicere\nformas.\u2019 At ten he is sick, at fifteen well again, at eighteen eating\nas much as four men, at twenty-four dropsical.... The worst of it is,\nthat they say he has given up all thoughts of creating new cardinals,\nforgetting in his restored health the scruples he felt when sick; like\nother great sinners;\u201d like Louis XV., for instance, at the commencement\nof whose last illness Mr. Carlyle so vividly depicts the consternation\nof the infamous Du Barry, lest she should have to take flight, as\nher predecessors had been constrained to do when the Well-beloved\n(Bien-aim\u00e9) had been sick before. \u201cShould the Most Christian King die, or\neven get seriously afraid of dying! For, alas! had not the fair, haughty\nChateauroux to fly, with wet cheeks and flaming heart, from that fever\nscene at Metz, long since; driven forth by sour shavelings? She hardly\nreturned, when fever and shavelings were both swept into the background.\nPompadour, too, when Damiens wounded Royalty \u2018slightly, under the fifth\nrib,\u2019 ... had to pack, and be in readiness; yet did not go, the wound not\nproving poisoned.\u201d His Most Christian Majesty was of no distant kin with\nthat profligate viscount in Mr. Thackeray\u2019s story, who used to recount\nmisdeeds \u201cwith rueful remorse when he was ill, for the fear of death set\nhim instantly repenting; and with shrieks of laughter when he was well,\nhis lordship having a very great sense of humour.\u201d Of the same kindred\ncomes the same author\u2019s Miss Crawley, as we see her ill with fright,\nin her lonely, loveless old age. When in health and good spirits, this\nvenerable inhabitant of Vanity Fair, we are assured, had as free notions\nabout religion and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire;\nbut \u201cwhen illness overtook her, it was aggravated by the most dreadful\nterrors of death, and an utter cowardice took possession of the prostrate\nold sinner.\u201d Nor be forgotten, as a scion of the same stock, that puffy,\npursy, pusillanimous creature, Jos. Sedley, of whom we read that, in the\ncourse of his voyage home from Bengal, he disappeared in a panic during a\ntwo-days\u2019 gale, and remained in his cot reading a religious tract left on\nboard by a missionary\u2019s wife; while, \u201cfor common reading he had brought a\nstock of novels and plays,\u201d to which of course he would return with all\nthe more zest and devotion when the perils of the gale were past.\n\nComparing the influence on the mind of danger of death, and of danger\nfrom a storm, or from some other external cause than sickness, Archbishop\nWhately ascribes to the storm a much larger virtue of \u201cwholesome\ndiscipline\u201d than to the deadly sickness. He says, \u201cThe well-known\nproverb, \u2018The devil was sick,\u2019 etc., shows how generally it has been\nobserved that people, when they recover, forget the resolutions formed\nduring sickness. One reason of the difference, and perhaps the chief,\nis, that it is so much easier to _recall_ exactly the sensations felt\nwhen in perfect health and yet in imminent danger, and to act over again,\nas it were, in imagination, the whole scene, than to recall fully, when\nin health, the state of mind during some sickness, which itself so much\naffects the mind along with the body.\u201d\n\nAnd yet the effects defective of a storm are a commonplace with the\nsatirists. Peter Pindar devotes a \u201cpoem\u201d to the subject; and a greater\npoet\u2014if the said Peter can be called poet at all\u2014has a forcible stanza on\nthe equinoxes, when the Parc\u00e6 cut short the further spinning\n\n \u201cOf seamen\u2019s fates, and the loud tempests raise\n The waters, and repentance for past sinning\n In all who o\u2019er the great deep take their ways:\n They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don\u2019t;\n Because, if drown\u2019d, they can\u2019t\u2014if spar\u2019d, they won\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_SLEEP AND DEATH._\n\nST. JOHN xi. 11-14.\n\n\nTo His disciples our Lord spoke of His friend, and theirs, \u201cour friend,\nLazarus,\u201d as sleeping; intimating at the same time His intention of\ngoing on to Bethany, that He might awaken him out of sleep. \u201cThen said\nHis disciples, Lord, if he sleep he shall do well. Howbeit, Jesus spake\nof his death; but they thought that He had spoken of taking of rest in\nsleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.\u201d\n\nThe affinity of sleep to death is familiarly recognised in the Old\nTestament as in the New; indeed, in universal literature of whatever age,\nsacred and profane. Bathsheba anticipates the day, only too near at hand,\nwhen her lord the king \u201cshall sleep with his fathers.\u201d Daniel foretells\nthe awaking of many that sleep in the dust of the earth. The psalmist\nutters a deprecation lest he sleep the sleep of death. Jesus declared\nthe sick maiden to be not dead, but sleeping; and was laughed to scorn\nby those who _knew_ that she was dead. Them that sleep in Jesus, saith\nthe apostle, will God bring with Him. We shall not all sleep, he says\nelsewhere, but we shall all be changed.\n\nHomer personifies a dualism of \u201cSleep and Death, two twins of wing\u00e8d\nrace, of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace;\u201d and he makes the\nfriends of Sarpedon \u201chis sacred corse bequeath to the soft arms of\nsilent Sleep and Death.\u201d He pictures Aphrodite speeding to Lemnos o\u2019er\nthe rolling deep, to \u201cseek the cave of Death\u2019s half-brother, Sleep.\u201d The\ndying Gorgias, we are told, being in a slumber, and asked how he did,\nanswered, \u201cPretty well; only Sleep is commending me to the charge of his\nbrother.\u201d Samuel Daniel apostrophizes \u201cCare-charmer Sleep, son of the\nsable Night, brother to Death, in silent darkness born;\u201d and so too,\nBeaumont and Fletcher apostrophize him in almost the selfsame words.\nSo again their contemporary, John Webster, \u201cO thou soft natural Death,\nthat art joint twin to sweetest slumber!\u201d Cowley\u2019s ode _in memoriam_\nof William Harvey, begins with sombre commemoration of a dismal and a\nfearful night, \u201cwhen sleep, death\u2019s image, left his troubled breast, by\nsomething liker death possest.\u201d And the last verse of Denham\u2019s \u201cSong to\nMorpheus\u201d identifies the twins,\u2014practically makes a hendiadys of them, as\ngrammarians might call it:\n\n \u201cSleep, that is thy best repast,\n Yet of death it bears a taste,\n And both are the same thing at last.\u201d\n\nWarton\u2019s Latin epigram on sleep, as _certissima mortis imago_, has been\nEnglished by Wolcot with a beauty and felicity pronounced by critics to\nbe worthy of the original:\n\n \u201cCome, gentle sleep! attend thy votary\u2019s prayer;\n And, though death\u2019s image to my couch repair,\n How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie,\n And, without dying, O how sweet to die!\u201d\n\nShelley\u2019s opening of \u201cQueen Mab\u201d is a stock quotation: \u201cHow wonderful\nis Death, Death and his brother Sleep! one pale as yonder waning moon,\nwith lips of lurid blue; the other rosy as the morn when, throned on\nocean\u2019s wave, it blushes o\u2019er the world: yet both so passing wonderful!\u201d\nBut where, asks a prose writer of genius, where, in the sharp lineaments\nof rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of\nrest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for\nthose which are to come? \u201cLay death and sleep down, side by side, and\nsay who shall find the two akin.\u201d But this is selecting such an aspect\nof mortality as comes not within the poet\u2019s purview. Prosaical in every\nfibre is Sancho Panza meant to be; yet in his famous invocation of\nblessings on the invention, or rather on the inventor, of sleep, which,\nquoth he, \u201ccovers a man all over, body and mind, like a cloak\u201d\u2014for Sancho\nhas his poetical moods and tenses after all\u2014he goes on to recognise the\naffinity which poetry so freely asserts: \u201cIt [sleep] has only one fault,\nas I have heard say, which is, that it looks like death: for between\nthe sleeper and the corpse there is but little to choose.\u201d Shakspeare\u2019s\nIachimo calls sleep the \u201cape of death.\u201d To die, to sleep,\u2014muses\nHamlet,\u2014no more; and, by a sleep, to say we end the heart-ache, and the\nthousand natural ills that flesh is heir to, were a consummation devoutly\nto be wished. \u201cThy best of rest is sleep,\u201d soliloquizes the duke in\n\u201cMeasure for Measure,\u201d\n\n \u201cAnd that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear\u2019st\n Thy death, which is no more.\u201d\n\nA couplet of Butler\u2019s, in a description of nightfall, tells how\n\n ... \u201csleep the wearied world relieved,\n By counterfeiting death revived.\u201d\n\nA Greek proverb designates sleep \u201cthe minor mysteries of death\u201d\u2014in\nallusion to the lesser Eleusinian mysteries as compared with the greater:\n\u201c\u1f55\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1.\u201d Sir Thomas Overbury calls sleep,\ndeath\u2019s picture drawn to the life, or the twilight of life and death.\n\u201cIn sleep we kindly shake death by the hand; but when we are awaked, we\nwill not know him.\u201d With the closing clause of this sentence compare the\nclosing lines in the following picture by Byron, of man o\u2019erlaboured with\nhis being\u2019s strife, shrinking to \u201cthat sweet forgetfulness of life\u201d which\nsleep induces:\n\n \u201cThere lie love\u2019s feverish hope and cunning\u2019s guile,\n Hate\u2019s working brain, and lull\u2019d ambition\u2019s wile;\n O\u2019er each vain eye oblivion\u2019s pinions wave,\n And quench\u2019d existence crouches in a grave.\n What better name may slumber\u2019s bed become?\n Night\u2019s sepulchre, the universal home,\n Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine,\n Alike in naked helplessness recline;\n Glad for awhile to heave unconscious breath,\n Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death,\n And shun, though day but dawn on ills increast,\n That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least.\u201d\n\nWe term sleep a death, writes Sir Thomas Browne, and yet it is waking\nthat kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. \u201cIt\nis that death by which we may be literally said to die daily; a death\nwhich Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle\nand moderating point between life and death.\u201d And then the golden-tongued\nphysician\u2014in his _Religio Medici_\u2014goes on to say that, in fine, so like\ndeath seemed to him sleep, that he dare not trust it without his prayers,\nand a half adieu to the world; and taking his farewell \u201cin a colloquy\nwith God,\u201d that is set in the key of the Evening Hymn, where we pray\nto be taught to dread the grave as little as our bed. So, in verses of\nhis own weaving, this consummate master of stately rhetorical prose,\nbeseeches God to make his sleep a holy trance:\n\n \u201cSleep is a death;\u2014O make me try\n By sleeping, what it is to die!\n And as gently lay my head\n On my grave, as now my bed.\n Howe\u2019er I rest, great God, let me\n Awake again at last with Thee.\n And thus assured, behold I lie\n Securely, or to wake or die.\n These are my drowsy days; in vain\n I do now wake to sleep again:\n O come that hour when I shall never\n Sleep again, but wake for ever!\n\n\u201cThis is the dormitive I take to bedward; I need no other laudanum than\nthis to make me sleep; after which I close my eyes in security, content\nto take leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection.\u201d\n\nGeorge Herbert says, that\u2014\n\n \u201cWhen boys go first to bed,\n They step into their voluntary graves;\n Sleep binds them fast; only their breath\n Makes them not dead.\n Successive nights, like rolling waves,\n Convey them quickly, who are bound for death.\u201d\n\nYe children, does death ever alarm you? asks the venerable pastor in\nTegner\u2019s _Children of the Lord\u2019s Supper_: \u201cDeath is the brother of Love,\ntwin-brother is he, and is only more austere to behold.\u201d Shakspeare\u2019s\nnobleman is gazing with disgust on a sottish sleeper, when he exclaims,\n\u201cGrim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\u201d That image, as\nembodied in the form of a little child, has often inspired poets to\nstrains of tender admiration. Malaspina, in one of Landor\u2019s unacted (not\nto say, with almost equal truth, unread) plays thus contemplates, and\napostrophizes, such an image:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd still thou sleepest, my sweet babe! Is death\n Like sleep? Ah, who then, who would fear to die?\n How beautiful is all serenity!\n Sleep, a child\u2019s sleep, oh how far more serene,\n And oh, how far more beautiful than any!\n Whether we breathe so gently, or breathe not,\n Slight is the difference.\u201d\n\nMore familiar to every one in the least conversant with current\nliterature\u2014not ephemeral in its currency, or running so fast as to\nbe, like that which decayeth and waxeth old, ready to vanish away\u2014is\nMrs. Browning\u2019s poem on a sleeping child\u2014tired out with playing, and\nslumbering on the floor; the latter portion alone of which may here find\nroom:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd God knows, who sees us twain, child at childish leisure,\n I am near as tired of pain, as you seem of pleasure;\u2014\n Very soon, too, by His grace gently wrapt around me,\n Shall I show as calm a face, shall I sleep as soundly!\n Differing in this, that you clasp your playthings sleeping,\n While my hand shall drop the few given to my keeping.\n Differing in this, that I sleeping shall be colder,\n And in waking presently, brighter to beholder.\n Differing in this beside (sleeper, have you heard me?\n Do you move, and open wide eyes of wonder toward me?)\u2014\n That while you I thus recall from your sleep,\u2014I solely,\u2014\n Me from mine an angel shall, with reveille holy!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_ELIAB AND DAVID IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH._\n\n1 SAMUEL xvii. 28.\n\n\nWhen the Spirit of God came upon Saul, so that he prophesied among the\ncompany of prophets that met him, all that knew him beforetime asked one\nanother what was this that was come to the son of Kish? was Saul also\namong the prophets? Insomuch that it became a proverb, \u201cIs Saul also\namong the prophets?\u201d No prophet is accepted in his own country; _that_ is\nbecome a proverb too. And as with Saul, a young man among the prophets,\nso with youthful David among the men of war from their youth. Eliab, his\neldest brother, knew, as he thought, the pride and the naughtiness of his\nheart in coming down to the camp to see the battle; but he knew not what\nsterling stuff there was in the stripling. _Why_ had Jesse\u2019s youngest\nson come down hither? and with whom had he left those few sheep in the\nwilderness? Eliab\u2019s anger was kindled against David for his presumptuous\nand idle curiosity. His scorn was well-nigh as supreme as that of Goliath\nhimself for the youth,\u2014for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair\ncountenance. Quit his proper rusticities and retirement for the valley\nof Elah, that bristled with spear-heads and resounded with the din of\nbattle! a boy like him, that should be feeding his father\u2019s sheep at\nBethlehem! Was there not a cause? None that Eliab knew of, for one. He\nhad never seen anything in the lad to warrant this forwardness. Not to\nEliab or his brethren was it given to foresee in that fresh-coloured\nshepherd boy the present slayer of Goliath of Gath, and the bosom friend\nof princely Jonathan, and the paulo-post-future king of Israel, Israel\u2019s\nsweetest singer, and the man after God\u2019s own heart.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe adage about unrecognised worth, on the part of kinsfolk and\nneighbours, the proverb of the prophet without honour in his own country\nand in his father\u2019s house\u2014has its parallel passage in the _Hercules\nFurens_ of Euripides\u2014\n\n ... \u201c\u03bf\u1f51 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u2019 \u1f45\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\n \u0395\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03c5\u03c1\u2019 \u1f02\u03bd \u03bb\u03ac\u03b2\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd.\u201d\n\nPlutarch adopts it in his treatise on Exile, where he says that you\nvery rarely find a wise man taken for such in his own country: \u201c\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\n\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03bc\u03c9\u03c4\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f40\u03bb\u03af\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f02\u03bd \u03b5\u1f55\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b9\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03ba\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\u201d\n\nThe tradition that Pythagoras borrowed all his learning and philosophy\nfrom the East is rejected by modern scholars: could not so great a\nman, they ask, dispense with foreign teachers? And the answer is, that\nassuredly he could and did; but his countrymen, it is to be observed,\nby a very natural process of thought, looked upon his greatness as the\nresult of his Eastern education. \u201cNo man is a prophet in his own country,\nand the imaginative Greeks were peculiarly prone to invest the distant\nand the foreign with striking attributes;\u201d unable to believe in wisdom\nspringing up from among themselves, they turned to the East as to a vast\nand unknown region, whence all novelty, even of thought, must come. \u201c\u03a0\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b9\n\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2,\u201d says a Greek philosopher, \u201c\u1f14\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03b5 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b9\n\u1f41 \u03b2\u03af\u03bf\u03c2.\u201d\n\nAs the first, so the most arduous conquests of Mohammed were, says\nGibbon, those of his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend; since\nhe presented himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant with\nhis infirmities as a man. \u201cThus was Mohammed,\u201d writes Dean Milman, after\nrecording the conversion of the child Ali, \u201cthe prophet of his household.\nSlowly however did he win proselytes, even among his own kindred. Three\nyears elapsed before the faith received the accession of Abubeker and\nof Othman, the future caliphs. Mohammed at length is accepted as the\nprophet of his family, of the noble and priestly house of Hashem. Abu\nTalib, his uncle, remains almost alone an unbeliever. And now Mohammed\naspires to be the prophet of his _tribe_.\u201d But in effect the \u201cfalse\u201d\nprophet is an exception to the rule of no prophet accepted in his own\nhouse and country. An American commentator on Shakspeare incidentally\nexpounds that rule, in remarking on the degree to which our sense of\ntruth is impeded or impaired by the pressure on our minds of what is\nactual and visible and present. A faithful painter may, he observes,\nportray a human face with all its characteristic expression, and in all\nits true individuality; and yet the nearest relatives are not only the\nhardest to satisfy, but, by the very nature of their familiarity with the\nsubject, will often be the worst judges of the likeness. We are all of\nus, he adds, \u201cvery apt to fail in appreciating the best and noblest parts\nin the characters of those whom we know familiarly, for the thousand\nfamiliarities of common life interpose; and it is sad to think that often\nit is not until death has hallowed and idealized the character, that we\ncan do it justice.\u201d Envy and jealousy, remarks David Hume in treating of\nthe recognition of real genius, have too much place in a narrow circle,\nand even familiar acquaintance with the person of one thus gifted may\ndiminish the applause due to his performance\u2014that is, among those of\nhis own age and country. Pindar and \u00c6schylus, we are told, left their\ncountry because those who were born their equals could not endure to\nsee them rise their superiors. \u201cWhat a war against the gods is this!\u201d\na heathen admirer is made to exclaim: \u201cit seems as if it were decreed\nby a public edict that no one shall receive from them any gift beyond a\ncertain value; and that if they do receive it they shall be permitted to\nreturn the gods no thanks for it in their native city.\u201d There are towns\nso barbarous, remarks Boccaccio, in Landor\u2019s \u201cPentameron,\u201d that they must\nbe informed by strangers of their own great man when they happen to have\nproduced one; and would then detract from his merits, that they might\nnot exhibit their awkwardness in doing him honour, or their shame in\nwithholding it.\n\nCharles IX., on a progress through Provence, sent for Nostradamus, and\nfinding in what slight respect he was held by his countrymen, made a\npoint of publicly declaring, with right royal emphasis, that he should\ntake as a slight to himself the slighting of that philosopher.\n\nIn the Journal to Stella, Swift hails with cordiality\u2014for the Dean could\nbe cordial on occasion\u2014the appreciation in polite English circles, by\nministers and scholars, of Parnell the poet: \u201cLord Bolingbroke likes\nParnell mightily; and it is pleasant to see that one who hardly passed\nfor anything in Ireland makes his way here with a little friendly\nforwarding.\u201d In no unlike spirit and style writes Horace Walpole to\nMarshal Conway, then travelling abroad: \u201cThe honours you have received,\nthough I have so little taste for such things myself, gave me great\nsatisfaction; and I do not know whether there is not more pleasure in\n_not_ being a prophet in one\u2019s own country, when one is almost received\nlike Mohammed in every other. To be an idol at home is no assured\ntouchstone of merit. Stocks and stones have been adored in fifty regions,\nbut do not bear transplanting. The Apollo Belvedere and the Hercules\nFarnese may lose their temples, but never lose their estimation, by\ntravelling.\u201d In another letter we have Walpole exclaiming, \u201cBut adieu,\nretrospect! it is as idle as prophecy, the characteristic of which is\nnever to be believed where alone it could be useful, _i.e._, in its\nown country.\u201d And once more, in a later epistle, commenting on the\ndarksome aspect of the times: \u201cThat the scene grows very serious there\nis no doubt; nor do I assume vanity from having possessed the spirit of\nprophecy\u2014a most useless talent, as predictions never serve as warnings.\nWe know prophets are not honoured in their own country: where then should\nthey be honoured? where they are not known? where probably they never\nare heard of?\u201d But such notes of interrogation might be multiplied _ad\nlibitum_.\n\nIt is to a professedly common-place philosopher we owe the remark,\nthat while there are families in which there exists a preposterous\nover-estimate of the talents and acquirements of their several members,\nthere are other families in which there exists a depressing and\nunreasonable under-estimate of the same. He speaks to his knowledge\nof such a thing as a family in which certain boys during their early\neducation had it ceaselessly drilled into them that they were the idlest,\nstupidest, and most ignorant boys in the world; which boys had no sooner\ngone to a great public school than like rockets they went up forthwith\nto the top of their classes, and never lost their places there, and\nafterwards at the university distinguished themselves pre-eminently in\nhonours: \u201cIt will not surprise people who know much of human nature, to\nbe told that through this brilliant career of school and college work the\nhome belief in their idleness and ignorance continued unchanged, and that\nhardly at its end was the toil-worn senior wrangler regarded as other\nthan an idle and useless blockhead.\u201d The writer adds an example of his\nknowledge of a successful author\u2014to be identified of course by _some_\nreaders, whose relatives never believed, till the reviews assured them of\nit, that his writings were anything but \u201ccontemptible and discreditable\ntrash.\u201d\n\nThe subject is renewed in the ensuing section, on the text of a prophet\u2019s\nnon-acceptance in his own country.\n\n\n\n\n_THE PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY._\n\nST. LUKE iv. 24.\n\n\nIt was with the emphasis of a \u201cVerily I say unto you,\u201d that our Lord\nprefaced the assurance that no prophet is accepted in his own country.\nThe speaker spoke from bitter experience. For neither did His brethren\nbelieve in Him. It was when He was come into His own country, and taught\nin their synagogues with a wisdom that astonished them, and wrought\nmighty works of a kind that bewildered them, that His own countrymen set\nabout asking if this was not the carpenter\u2019s son? was not His mother the\nwell-known Mary? were not James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas, His\nbrethren? and His sisters, were they not all near at hand, and known\nas such? Whence then had this\u2014\u03bf\u1f57\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 (indefinitely contemptuous)\u2014all\nthese attributes? And they were offended, scandalized, they found a\nstumbling-block in the condition of Him and His. A double answer was\nvouchsafed them: the significant restriction of wonder working, for He\ndid not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief; and the more\ndirect reply, in so many words, that a prophet is not without honour,\nsave in his own country, and in his own house.\n\nMontaigne adverts to this man, or that, having been a miracle to the\nworld, in whom neither his wife nor his servant has ever seen anything\nremarkable: \u201cFew men have been admired by their own domestics\u201d\u2014a sentence\nto which point and popularity have been given by the epigrammatic\nform of it, due to Marshal Catinat. \u201cNo one,\u201d Montaigne continues,\n\u201chas been a prophet, not merely in his own house, but in his own\ncountry, as the experience of history shows. It is the same in matters\nof no consequence.... In my country of Gascony they look upon it as\nvery droll to see me in print. The farther off I am read from my own\nhome, the better I am esteemed; I am fain to purchase printers in\nGuienne,\u2014elsewhere they purchase me.\u201d Ben Jonson takes note of the\ngreater reverence paid to things remote or strange to us, than to much\nbetter, if these be nearer, and fall under our sense. \u201cMen, and almost\nall sorts of creatures, have their reputation by distance. Rivers, the\nfarther they run, and more from their spring, the broader they are, and\ngreater. And where our original is known, we are the less confident;\namong strangers we trust fortune.\u201d Lord Evandale, in Scott\u2019s \u201cOld\nMortality,\u201d discerns at once the \u201cextraordinary qualities\u201d of Henry\nMorton, which had escaped the notice of his kinsfolk and friends: \u201cYou\nhave not been long in learning all his extraordinary qualities, my lord,\u201d\nsays old Major Bellenden. \u201cI, who have known him from boyhood, could,\nbefore this affair, have said much of his good principles and good\nnature; but as to his high talents\u201d\u2014further on _that_ head deponent saith\nnot. The opinions of relatives as to a man\u2019s power, Dr. Wendell Holmes\ndeclares to be very commonly of little value; not so much because they\nsometimes over-rate their own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; as\nbecause, on the contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those\nwhom they have grown into the habit of considering like themselves. _Vile\nhabetur quod domi est_, Seneca tersely says.\n\nEdmund Burke, in early life, was not happy at home\u2014there being none\namong the household on Arran Quay to sympathise with his dreams and\nhis aspirations. \u201cHe might think himself a genius,\u201d says one of his\nmany biographers, \u201cbut it was not to be expected that his own relations\nshould yet think him one.\u201d Describing his position and influence in Lord\nRockingham\u2019s administration, Mr. Macknight observes that it is, after\nall, a man\u2019s own relations who generally look with the least confidence\non his long wrestle with adversity, and are most astonished when the tide\nturns, and a great victory succeeds to what had seemed to them a mere\nhopeless toil. \u201cTo some of the Irish Nagles on the Blackwater, the news\nthat Edmund had been taken into the confidence of the great Whig Lord\nRockingham, ... must have seemed as extraordinary as it did to Joseph\u2019s\nbrethren that he should have become so great a man in hostile Egypt.\u201d\n\n_Son pays le crut fou_, says La Fontaine, of a Greek sage; _mais quoi!\naucun n\u2019est proph\u00e8te chez soi_. Of Joan of Arc, and her early mental\nstruggles, a French historian writes: \u201cIt behoves her to find in the\nbosom of her family someone who would believe in her: this was the most\ndifficult part of all.\u201d Non-recognition, disparagement, cold obstruction.\nSocieties and families, as Goethe says, behave in the same way to their\ndearest members, towns to their worthiest citizens. Consuelo advising\nAnzoleto to quit Venice, reminds him that \u201cno person is a prophet in his\nown country. This is a bad place for one who has been seen running about\nin rags, and where any one may come to say of you, \u2018I was his protector,\nI saw his hidden talent, it was I who recommended him and procured his\nadvance.\u2019\u201d Descartes had to support with philosophic patience the scorn\nof his family, impatient of a philosopher in it. Jean Bodin, neglected\nand slighted in his own land, exulted in the welcome accorded to his\nbooks in the English Universities, which printed as well as prized them:\n\u201cil n\u2019est pas rare que nous ayons besoin d\u2019apprendre des \u00e9trangers ce que\nvalent nos compatriotes,\u201d observes M. L\u00e9on Feug\u00e8re.\n\nEvery rule has its exceptions, and most proverbs too. The case of\nSt. Catharine, of Sienna, is cited by a Protestant biographer as \u201can\nexception to the rule that excludes a prophet from honour in his own\ncountry.\u201d The biographer of Edward Irving, recounting with enthusiasm the\ndetails of his reception in Annandale in 1828, adds that \u201cfor once the\nproverb seems to have failed. He had honour in his own country, where\ngentle and simple flocked to hear him,\u201d\u2014neighbouring ministers shutting\nup their kirks on the Sunday when he preached, and going the \u201clong\nSabbath-day\u2019s journey\u201d across the Annandale moors to hear him, along with\ntheir people. La Bruy\u00e8re points out on the one side a man recognised by\nthe world at large as a master-mind, honoured and sought after by eager\nadmirers, but at home, of no account at all; _petit dans son domestique\net aux yeux de ses proches_: on the other hand, a man who is a prophet\nin his own house and country, who enjoys a _vogue_ that is confined to\nhis immediate surroundings, and who _s\u2019applaudit d\u2019un m\u00e9rite rare et\nsingulier qui lui est accord\u00e9 par la famille dont il est l\u2019idole_. But\nexceptions to a rule are commonly taken in confirmation of it; and the\nrule as to a prophet\u2019s home acceptance is held to be only confirmed, not\ndisproved, by here and there a stray example in history to the contrary;\nsuch as Arnold, of Brescia, being rescued from captivity by some of\nthose partisan nobles of Campania by whom he was honoured as a prophet:\n\u201cTanquam _prophetam in terr\u00e2 su\u00e2_ cum omni honore habebant.\u201d Or, as\nthe experience, highly exceptional, of young Bernard of Clairvaux, the\n\u201cstrange and irresistible force\u201d of whose character, as the historian\nof Latin Christianity describes it, enthralled his brothers one after\nanother, and at length his sister. Off to the monastery of Clairvaux they\ntrooped, a complete monastic brotherhood. The youngest boy lingered a\nshort time with his aged father, and then joined the rest. \u201cEven the\nfather died a monk of Clairvaux in the arms of Bernard.\u201d But it was not,\nwe are duly reminded, on his own kindred alone that Bernard wrought with\nthis commanding power. \u201cWhen he was to preach, wives hurried away their\nhusbands, mothers withdrew their sons, friends their friends, from the\nresistless magic of his eloquence.\u201d And those that went\u2014what went they\nout into the wilderness to hear? A prophet? Yea, and almost more than a\nprophet, by the verdict of his own country and of his father\u2019s house.\n\n\n\n\n_DESIRED BOON: REALIZED BANE._\n\nPSALM cvi. 15; lxxviii. 22 sq.\n\n\nWe read of those who tempted God in the desert, that He gave them their\nrequest, and sent leanness withal into their soul. So they did eat meat\nand were well filled, for He gave them their own desire; but while their\nmeat was yet in their mouths, His wrath came upon them and slew the\nfattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.\n\nA latter-day poetess, almost masculine in genius, as in out-spoken vigour\nof diction, tells us that\u2014\n\n \u201cGod answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,\n And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,\u2014\n A gauntlet with a gift in\u2019t,\u201d\n\nand sometimes poison in the gift. Well therefore may the authoress of\nthese lines, which in their original import are scarcely applicable to\nour theme, make a distressed soul utter a petition that certainly is so:\u2014\n\n ... \u201c\u2019tis written in the Book,\n He heareth the young ravens when they cry;\n And yet they cry for carrion. O my God,\u2014\n And we, who make excuses for the rest,\n We do it in our measure. Then I knelt,\n And dropped my head upon the pavement too,\n And prayed, since I was foolish in desire\n Like other creatures, craving offal-food,\n That He would stop His ears to what I said,\n And listen only to the run and beat\n Of this poor, passionate, helpless blood....\u201d\n\n_Ne mihi contingant qu\u00e6 volo, sed qu\u00e6 sunt utilia_: the aspiration has\nbeen accepted as an adage, worthy of all acceptation, and of acceptation\nby all.\n\n \u201cMais, sans cesse ignorants de nos propres besoins,\n Nous demandons au ciel ce qu\u2019il nous faut le moins.\u201d\n\nTo Shakspeare for an illustration. Pompey, not the Great, is anxious for\nDivine sanction to speed his ambitious resolves to a prosperous issue.\nIf the great gods be just, he assumes, they will assist the deeds of\njustest men,\u2014and therefore himself, as pre-eminently entitled to that\ndesignation. He is impatient, too, for this manifest favour from above;\nand sage Menecrates takes occasion not only to check his impatience in\nparticular, but to give him a salutary warning on the subject in general:\n\n ... \u201cWe, ignorant of ourselves,\n Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers\n Deny us for our good; so find we profit\n By losing of our prayers.\u201d\n\nXenophon tells us of Socrates, that when he prayed, his petition was only\nthis\u2014that the gods would give to him those things that were good; which\nhe did, forasmuch as they alone knew what was good for man. \u201cBut he who\nshould ask for gold or silver, or increase of dominion, acted not, in\nhis opinion, more wisely than one who should pray for the opportunity to\nfight, or game, or anything of the like nature; the consequence of which,\nbeing altogether doubtful, might turn, for aught he knew, not a little to\nhis disadvantage.\u201d For,\n\n ... \u201cwhy, alas! do mortal men in vain\n Of fortune, fate, or Providence complain?\n God gives us what He knows our wants require,\n And better things than those that we desire:\n Some pray for riches; riches they obtain;\n But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain;\n Some pray from prison to be freed; and come,\n When guilty of their vows, to fall at home;\n Murdered by those they trusted with their life,\n A favoured servant, or a bosom wife.\n Such dear-bought blessings happen every day,\n Because we know not for what things we pray.\u201d\n\nThere is a Greek prayer by an unknown poet, but highly commended by the\nmost illustrious of Socrates\u2019 disciples: that sovran Jove would grant his\nsubjects good, whether they pray for it or not; and avert from them evil,\neven though they pray for it.\n\n \u0396\u03b5\u1fe6 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u1fe6, \u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f50\u03c7\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2\n \u1f0c\u03bc\u03bc\u03b9 \u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f50\u03c7\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u1f40\u03b9\u03c2, \u1f00\u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2.\n\nAnd it is to Plato\u2019s dialogue upon prayer that we owe the instructions\nimparted by Socrates to Alcibiades, upon which Addison has founded a\npaper in the _Spectator_. In that dialogue we read how Socrates met\nAlcibiades going to his devotions, and observing his eyes to be fixed\nupon the ground with great seriousness and attention\u2014for even that\nfastest of fast young men could, it seems, be slow enough to say his\nprayers\u2014told him that he had reason to be thoughtful upon that occasion,\nsince it was possible for a man to bring down evil upon himself by his\nown supplications, and that those things which the gods sent him in\nanswer to his petitions might turn to his destruction. This, says he,\nmay not only happen when a man prays for what is mischievous in its\nown nature, as \u0152dipus implored the gods to sow dissension between his\nsons; but when he prays for what he believes would be for his good, and\nagainst what he believes would be to his detriment. This the philosopher\nshows must necessarily happen among us, since most men are blinded with\nignorance, prejudice, or passion, which hinder them from seeing what\nthings are really eligible for them. And all this, as his manner is, the\nphilosopher teaches by examples.\n\nIt seems allowed that Juvenal took the cue of his tenth Satire, as well\nas Persius of his second, from the Dialogue of Plato aforesaid.\n\n \u201cEvert\u00eare domos totas, optantibus ipsis,\n Dii faciles. Nocitura tog\u00e2, nocitura petuntur\n Militi\u00e2.\u201d\n\nOr, as Englished by Mr. Owen of Warrington:\n\n \u201cTh\u2019 indulgent gods whole houses have o\u2019erthrown\n At men\u2019s own prayer;\u2014the fatal choice their own.\n In war we ask but woes; in peace but woes,\u201d etc.\n\nThe Crassi, Pompeii, and the like, are represented as ruined by the\nassent of Heaven to their ambitious prayers\u2014\n\n \u201cMagnaque numinibus vota exaudita _malignis_.\u201d\n\nNaples to Pompey a kind fever gave, to hide his honours in a welcome\ngrave (the poetry of Parson Owen may pardonably be printed as prose). But\npublic prayers arise: the gods allow the health requested by the erring\nvow: by Rome\u2019s and his cross fate that grave he fled, and lived\u2014to lose\nhis honours and his head.\n\n ... \u201cSed mult\u00e6 urbes, et publica vota\n Vicerunt. Igitur fortuna ipsius, et urbis,\n Servatum victo caput abstulit.\u201d\n\nJuvenal crowds his satire with cases in point, historical and\nmythological, political and domestic. The sum of the discourse is this:\nthat man should allow the higher powers themselves to determine what may\nbe of advantage to him, and suitable to his real wants,\u2014he being dearer\nto them than to himself:\n\n \u201cPermittes ipsis expendere Numinibus quid\n Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris:\n Nam pro jocundis aptissima qu\u00e6que dabunt Dii.\n Carior est illis homo qu\u00e0m sibi.\u201d\n\nMontaigne bethinks him that a foremost proof of our imbecility is, that\nwe cannot, by our own wish and desire, find out what we want. \u201cWhat plan,\nhow happily soe\u2019er begun, That, when achieved, we do not wish undone?\u201d\nAnd he repeats the old-world story of King Midas, who prayed to the gods\nthat all he touched might be turned into gold; and so it was: his bread\nbecame gold, his wine gold, the feathers of his bed, his under-clothing\nand his over-coats, gold all: \u201cso that he found himself overwhelmed with\nthe fruition of his desire, and endowed with a boon so intolerable, that\nhe was fain to unpray his prayers.\u201d In another essay Le Sieur Michel\ntells how severely the gods punished the wicked prayers of \u0152dipus, in\ngranting them. \u201cHe had prayed that his children might amongst themselves\ndetermine the succession to his throne by arms: and was so miserable as\nto see himself taken at his word. We should not pray that all things fall\nout as our will would have them, but that our will should subserve what\nis just and right.\u201d Owen Feltham records his having observed that what we\neither desire or fear doth seldom happen\u2014something we think not of, for\nthe most part intervening. How infinitely we should perplex ourselves,\nhe exclaims, if we could obtain whatever we might wish for! \u201cDo we not\noften desire that, which we afterwards see would be our confusion?...\nMan could not be more miserable, than if left to choose for himself....\nNothing brings destruction on him sooner, than when he presumes to part\nthe empire with God.\u201d As Aricie warns Theseus in the French tragedy:\n\n \u201cCraignez, seigneur, craignez que le ciel rigoureux\n Ne vous ha\u00efsse assez pour exaucer vos v\u0153ux.\u201d\n\nAnd two scenes later Theseus is himself sufficiently of the same mind to\nexclaim:\n\n \u201cNe pr\u00e9cipite point tes funestes bienfaits,\n Neptune! j\u2019aime mieux n\u2019\u00eatre exauc\u00e9 jamais.\u201d\n\nAnd afterwards again he utters the tristful line:\n\n \u201cInexorables dieux! qui m\u2019avez trop servi.\u201d\n\nSo in a subsequent passage:\n\n \u201cJe hais jusqu\u2019aux soins dont m\u2019honorent les dieux:\n Et je m\u2019en vais pleurer leurs faveurs meurtri\u00e8res,\n Sans plus les fatiguer d\u2019inutiles pri\u00e8res.\n Quoi qu\u2019ils fissent pour moi, leur funeste bont\u00e9\n Ne me saurait payer de ce qu\u2019ils m\u2019ont \u00f4t\u00e9.\u201d\n\nMadame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9, in one of her letters to Bussy, moralizes on the\nsuperior wisdom of Heaven\u2019s disposal to man\u2019s proposal; and adds: \u201cC\u2019est\nainsi que nous marchons en aveugles, ne sachant o\u00f9 nous allons, prenant\npour mauvais ce qui est bon, prenant pour bon ce qui est mauvais, et\ntoujours dans une enti\u00e8re ignorance.\u201d The optative mood of yesterday, a\npast tense, is changed in the present tense of to-day for deprecation and\nregret.\n\nIn one of his many onslaughts against conventionalism, Mr. Emerson says\nthat what we ask daily is to be conventional. \u201cSupply, most kind gods!\nthis defect in my dress, in my form, in my fortunes, which puts me a\nlittle out of the ring; supply it, and let me be like the rest whom\nI admire, and on good terms with them.\u201d But the wise gods, according\nto this essayist, reply, \u201cNo, we have better things for thee. By\nhumiliations, by defeats, by loss of sympathy, by gulfs of disparity,\nlearn a wider truth and humanity than that of a fine gentleman,\u201d\u2014a\nFifth-Avenue landlord, or a West-End householder, not being Mr. Emerson\u2019s\nideal of the highest style of man. \u00c6sop, Saadi, Cervantes, Regnard, he\nadds, have been taken by corsairs, left for dead, sold for slaves, and\nknow the realities of human life.\u2014With Mr. Carlyle, we will not complain,\ntherefore, of Dante\u2019s miseries; who, had all gone right with him, as he\nwished it, might have been Prior, Podest\u00e0, or whatsoever they call it,\nof Florence, well accepted among neighbours,\u2014in which case, the world\nhad wanted one of the most notable works ever spoken or sung. \u201cFlorence\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 Comedia_ to hear! We will\ncomplain of nothing. A nobler destiny was appointed for this Dante; and\nhe, struggling like a man towards death and crucifixion, could not help\nfulfilling it. Give _him_ the choice of his happiness! He knew not, more\nthan we do, what was really happy, what was really miserable.\u201d\n\nVisions, and hopes, and prospects, writes Horace Walpole, are pretty\nplaythings for boys. \u201cIt is folly to vex one\u2019s self for what cannot last\nvery long. Indeed, what can, even when one is young? Corydon firmly\nbelieves he shall be wretched for ever if he does not marry Phyllis.\nThat misery can but last till she has lost her bloom. His eternal woe\nwould vanish if her nose grew red. How often do our griefs become our\ncomforts! I know what I wish to-day; not at all what I shall wish\nto-morrow. Sixty says, You did not wish for _me_, yet you would like\nto keep me. Sixty is in the right; and I have not a word more to say.\u201d\nThe Strawberry Hill esquire was himself turning the shady side of sixty\nwhen he thus wrote. Of quite another school was that gentle and good Q.\nQ., as she styled herself, once popular, now almost forgotten, who thus\nmoralized her song:\n\n \u201cHow false is found, as on in life we go,\n Our early estimate of bliss or woe!\n \u2014Some sparkling joy attracts us, that we fain\n Would sell a precious birthright to obtain:\n There all our hopes of happiness are placed,\n Life looks without it like a joyless waste;\n No good is prized, no comfort sought beside,\n Prayers, tears implore, and will not be denied:\n Heaven pitying hears th\u2019 intemperate, rude appeal,\n And suits its answer to our truest weal.\n The self-sought idol, if at last bestow\u2019d,\n Proves, what our wilfulness required\u2014a goad.\n Ne\u2019er, but as needful chastisement, is given\n The wish thus forced and torn and storm\u2019d from Heaven;\n But if withheld, in pity, from our prayer,\n We rave, awhile, of torment and despair....\n Meantime, Heaven bears the grievous wrong, and waits\n In patient pity till the storm abates ...\n Deigning, perhaps, to show the mourner soon,\n \u2019Twas special mercy that denied the boon.\u201d\n\nChateaubriand\u2019s most sentimental of melancholy-mad heroes, overwhelmed,\nas he flatters himself, with imaginary sufferings, offers up a prayer\nfor some real calamity to overtake him; and, to his cost, is taken at\nhis word. \u201cDans mon d\u00e9lire, j\u2019avais \u00e9t\u00e9 jusqu\u2019\u00e0 d\u00e9sirer d\u2019\u00e9prouver un\nmalheur, pour avoir du moins un objet r\u00e9el de souffrance: \u00e9pouvantable\nsouhait, que Dieu dans sa col\u00e8re, a trop exauc\u00e9!\u201d It is but the Christian\n(yet not too Christian) expression of the old pagan poet\u2019s gloomy verse:\n_magnaque numinibus vota exaudita malignis_.\n\nThere is a sonnet of Filicaja\u2019s, of which a good deal is made by\nRichardson in his History of Sir Charles Grandison,\u2014the concluding\nlines being an impressive vindication of the ways of Providence to man:\n_Provvidenza alta infinita_, if it sometimes denies the favours we\nimplore, denies in kindness; and seeming to deny a blessing, grants one\nin that very refusal: _o negar finge, e nel negar concede_.\n\nWilliam Collins the painter\u2014a loving and lovable man as well as refined\nartist\u2014in one of his letters home expresses his \u201cdecided opinion, that if\nthe Almighty were to give us everything for which we feel desirous, we\nshould as often find it necessary to pray to Him to take away as to grant\nnew favours.\u201d And he refers to thousands of cases that he could bring\nforward in proof of his assertion.\n\nIt amounts to a sort of refrain in the melodious rhythm of that\nfragmentary prose-poem of De Quincey\u2019s, \u201cThe Daughter of Lebanon,\u201d\u2014the\nadmonition of the prophet to the lovely woman in the Damascus\nmarket-place: \u201cAsk what thou wilt\u2014great or small\u2014and through me thou\nshalt receive it from God. But, my child, ask not amiss. For God is\nable out of thy own evil asking to weave snares for thy footing. And\noftentimes to the lambs whom He loves, He gives by seeming to refuse;\ngives in some better sense, or\u201d (and here the prophet\u2019s voice swelled\ninto the power of anthems) \u201cin some far happier world.\u201d And when the\nsun is declining to the west on the thirtieth day, the prophet iterates\nthe strain of old: \u201cLady of Lebanon, the day is already come, and the\nhour is coming, in which my covenant must be fulfilled with thee. Wilt\nthou, therefore, being now wiser in thy thoughts, suffer God, thy new\nFather, to give by seeming to refuse; to give in some better sense, or\nin some far happier world?\u201d But the daughter of Lebanon sorrowed at\nthese words; she yearned after her native hills, and the sweet twin-born\nsister with whom from infant days hand-in-hand she had wandered amongst\nthe everlasting cedars. The delirium of fever, and approaching death,\nare next described; and again the evangelist sits down by her bedside,\nand rebukes the clouds that trouble her vision, and bids them stand\nno more between that dying Magdalen and the forests of Lebanon. Anon,\nwe read how the blue sky parted to the right and to the left, laying\nbare the infinite revelations that can be made visible only to dying\neyes; and how, as the child of Lebanon gazed upon the mighty visions,\nshe saw bending forward from the heavenly host, as if in gratulation to\nherself, the one countenance for which she hungered and thirsted. \u201cThe\ntwin-sister, that should have waited for her in Lebanon, had died of\ngrief, and was waiting for her in Paradise. Immediately in rapture she\nsoared upwards from her couch; immediately in weakness she fell back;\nand being caught by the evangelist, she flung her arms around his neck;\nwhilst he breathed into her ear his final whisper, \u2018Wilt thou now suffer\nthat God should give by seeming to refuse?\u2019\u2014\u2018Oh yes\u2014yes\u2014yes,\u2019 was the\nfervent answer from the daughter of Lebanon.\u201d Hitherto she had known not\nwhat to ask for as she ought. Hitherto her asking had been amiss: she had\nasked for she knew not what. But now her vision was purged. Now she had\nthe second-sight that could pierce through and beyond the night-side of\nnature, and gaze on the land that is very far off. Hitherto she had, at\nthe best, seen through a glass darkly; but now, it might be said, face to\nface. So that she knew what to ask for, now.\n\nChactas, the blind old sachem in Chateaubriand\u2019s Wertherian romance,\nis made to bring that once enthusiastically admired story to an end by\nrelating a parable to his woe-fraught young listener. It tells how the\nMeschaceb\u00e9, soon after leaving its source among the hills, began to feel\nweary of being a simple brook; and so asked for snows from the mountains,\nwater from the torrents, rain from the tempests; until, its petitions\ngranted, it burst its bounds, and ravaged its hitherto delightsome banks.\nAt first the proud stream exulted in its force; but seeing ere long that\nit carried desolation in its flow, that its progress was now doomed to\nsolitude, and that its waters were for ever turbid, it came to regret the\nhumble bed hollowed out for it by nature,\u2014the birds, the flowers, the\ntrees, and the brooks, hitherto the modest companions of its tranquil\ncourse.\n\nThe moral of the myth of Tithonus is one for all time. Mr. Tennyson has\npointed it for ours. He shows us in Tithonus a white-haired shadow\nroaming like a dream the ever silent spaces of the East; and from this\ngrey shadow, once a man, the wailing utterance of a sad story comes:\u2014\n\n \u201cI ask\u2019d thee, \u2018Give me immortality.\u2019\n Then didst thou grant my asking with a smile,\n Like wealthy men who care not how they give.\n But thy strong Hours indignant work\u2019d their wills,\n And beat me down and marr\u2019d and wasted me,\n And tho\u2019 they could not end me, left me maim\u2019d\n To dwell in presence of immortal youth,\n And all I was, in ashes....\n ... Let me go: take back thy gift:\n Why should a man desire in any way\n To vary from the kindly race of men,\n Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance\n Where all should pass, as is most meet for all?\n ...\n Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,\n And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,\n In days far off, on that dark earth, be true?\n \u2018The gods themselves cannot recal their gifts.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201c_AND HE DIED._\u201d\n\nGENESIS v. _passim_.\n\n\nWell known is Addison\u2019s reference to an eminent man in the Romish Church,\nwho upon reading in the Book of Genesis how that all the days that Adam\nlived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died; and all the\ndays of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died; and all\nthe days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he\ndied;\u2014immediately shut himself up in a convent, an absolute recluse from\nthe world, as not thinking anything in this life worth pursuing, which\nhad not regard to another.\n\nWhat man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?\n\n \u201cDead!\u2014Man\u2019s \u2018I was,\u2019 by God\u2019s \u2018I am\u2019\u2014\n All hero-worship comes to that.\n High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat\n As a gravestone. Bring your _Jacet jam_\u2014\n The epitaph\u2019s an epigram.\u201d\n\nSo writes Mrs. Browning. And thus writes Barry Cornwall, on the same\ntrite text; it is the last stanza of the History of a Life, and of a\nsuccessful one:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd then\u2014he died. Behold before ye\n Humanity\u2019s poor sum and story;\n Life\u2014death\u2014and all that is of glory.\u201d\n\nAnd again, in the same poet\u2019s chanson of the time of Charlemagne, the\nstanza that magnifies that hero-king, and tells how he fought and\nvanquished Lombard, Saxon, Saracen, and ruled every race he conquered\nwith a deep consummate skill\u2014is followed by one beginning,\n\n \u201cBut\u2014he died! and he was buried\n In his tomb of sculptured stone,\u201d etc.\n\nAnd once again, in one of this author\u2019s dramatic fragments is sketched\nthe career of what Mr. Carlyle would call a \u201cfoiled potentiality\u201d\u2014of one\nwho, in favourable circumstances, might have been, but who in prosaic\nreality and the matter-of-fact pressure of this work-a-day world, never\nactually became, great. Had he but lived under better auspices, he would\nhave been\u2014\n\n _B._ \u201cA king?\n\n _A._ A _man_! what else,\n King, emperor, tyrant, shah, would matter not.\n He would have been\u2014a name; such as of old\n Grew into gods!\n\n _B._ And so he died?\n\n _A._ He died.\u201d\n\nDeath stands everywhere in the background, as the elder Schlegel says in\nhis analysis of the elements of tragic poetry, and to it every well or\nill-spent moment brings us nearer and closer; and even when a man has\nbeen so singularly fortunate as to reach the utmost term of life without\nany grievous calamity, the inevitable doom still awaits him to leave or\nto be left by all that is most dear to him on earth. In the words, most\nmusical, most melancholy, of the laureate,\n\n \u201cThe woods decay, the woods decay and fall,\n The vapours weep their burthen to the ground;\n Man comes and tills the field, and lies beneath;\n And after many a summer dies the swan.\u201d\n\nAddison, in another essay than that already referred to, describes an\nafternoon he passed in Westminster Abbey, straying through and lingering\nin the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, \u201camusing himself,\u201d as\nthe phrase then ran\u2014not quite in our frivolous sense\u2014with the tombstones\nand the inscriptions that he met with in those several regions of the\ndead, most of which recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that\nhe was born upon one day, and died upon another; the whole history of\nhis life being comprehended in those two circumstances that are common\nto all mankind. The \u201cSpectator\u201d could not but look upon these registers\nof existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the\ndeparted persons, who had left no other memorial of them but that they\nwere born, and that they died. Mr. de Quincey characteristically opened\nhis autobiographic sketches in their original form, with the avowal that\nnothing makes such dreary and monotonous reading as the old hackneyed\nroll-call, chronologically arranged, of inevitable facts in a man\u2019s\nlife. \u201cOne is so certain of the man\u2019s having been born, and also of his\nhaving died, that it is dismal to be under the necessity of reading it.\u201d\nThe man\u2014a man\u2014any man\u2014every man. It is the common lot. And we know what\nJames Montgomery has made of the Common Lot. Here are two or three of the\nstanzas that are most to the purpose:\u2014\n\n \u201cOnce in the flight of ages past,\n There lived a man: and who was he?\n Mortal! howe\u2019er thy lot be cast,\n That man resembled thee.\n\n ...\n\n \u201cHe suffered,\u2014but his pangs are o\u2019er;\n Enjoy\u2019d,\u2014but his delights are fled;\n Had friends,\u2014his friends are now no more;\n And foes,\u2014his foes are dead.\n\n ...\n\n \u201cHe saw whatever thou hast seen;\n Encounter\u2019d all that troubles thee:\n He was\u2014whatever thou hast been;\n He is\u2014what thou shalt be.\n\n ...\n\n \u201cThe annals of the human race,\n Their ruins, since the world began,\n Of him, afford no other trace\n Than this,\u2014THERE LIVED A MAN!\u201d\n\nThere lived a man\u2014lived, and loved, and learned, and laboured\u2014enjoyed the\ncommon joys of his kind, endured the common sufferings. AND HE DIED. Old\nEgeus mooted a veritable truism when moralizing thus, in Chaucer:\u2014\n\n \u201cYit ither ne lyvede never man, he seyde,\n In al this world, that some tyme he ne deyde.\u201d\n\nA French historian comments on this characteristic of old cloister\nchronicles, that the obscurest event of the cloister holds in them as\nconspicuous a place as the greatest revolutions in history. For instance,\nin a chronicle cited by him of the year of grace 732, which produced\nthe battle of Poictiers, whereby Charles Martel arrested the vast\ninvasion of Islamism, not a line is vouchsafed to that event. In fact,\nthe year is passed over without notice, as containing nothing really\ndeserving of notice. But beside a date expressly given, we read, \u201cMartin\nest mort,\u201d\u2014Martin being an unknown monk of the Abbey of Corvey; and,\nfarther on again, \u201cCharles, maire du palais, est mort.\u201d Martin was an\nunknown monk, and he died. Charles Martel was mayor of the palace, and\nthe conqueror at Poictiers, and he died. Well remarks M. Demogeot, that\n\u201ctous les hommes deviennent egaux devant la secheresse laconique de ces\npremiers chroniqueurs.\u201d \u201cWe must all go, that is certain,\u201d writes Mrs.\nPiozzi to Sir James Fellows, \u201cand \u2019tis the only thing that _is_ certain.\n\u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5 ends all the cases Dr. James quotes from your old friend\nHippocrates.\u201d All the physician\u2019s cases have the same terminal affix, AND\nHE DIED. Very long-lived some of them may be; but, as Mr. Browning puts\nit in his fine poem of \u201cSaul,\u201d\n\n \u201cBut the licence of age has its limit; thou diest at last.\u201d\n\nWe are told of St. Anschar, whose missionary career in Sweden is\ncommemorated in Milman\u2019s \u201cLatin Christianity,\u201d that the ardour of youth\nhad begun to relax his strict austerity of monastic discipline, when all\nat once the world was startled by the tidings of Charlemagne\u2019s death.\nThat the mighty sovran of so many kingdoms must suffer the common lot,\nstruck young Anschar as something beyond the common; and from that hour\nhe lived in the world as not of it, and bore on his way through it as\nverily a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth, with serious work to do, but\nworking in and walking by faith, not sight.\n\nMarcus Antoninus, in his self-communings, bids himself consider how many\nphysicians are dead that used to value themselves upon the cure of their\npatients, and how many astrologers who thought themselves great men by\nforetelling the deaths of others; how many warriors, who had knocked out\nthe brains of thousands upon thousands; and how many tyrants who managed\nthe power of life and death with as much rigour as if they had been\nthemselves immortal.\n\nAmong the pointed sayings that have been thought worthy of\npreservation\u2014by Gibbon, for example\u2014of Hormisdas, a fugitive prince\nof Persia, who was at Rome in the fourth century, is this,\u2014\u201cthat one\nthing only had displeased him, to find that men died at Rome as well as\nelsewhere.\u201d Courtiers have avowed themselves shocked at the non-exception\nof royalty from the universal doom. A courtly preacher, who had announced\nthe unconditional fact that we are all mortal, is said to have checked\nhimself, on remembering that royalty was present, and to have qualified\nthe assertion by the circumspect salvo, \u201cAt least, nearly all.\u201d[16]\nLewis the Eleventh was too shrewd a man to give heed to such courtly\nsuggestions; otherwise, if ever there were prince that would fain have\nbelieved the fiction, it was he, so abhorrent to his shuddering nature\nwas the imagination of his own decease. And Commines relates how\nphysicians combined their remedies with the sacred objects produced from\nthe sanctuary to avert the dread decree, \u201cpour lui allonger la vie.\nToutefois le tout n\u2019y fasoit rien; et falloit qu\u2019il pass\u00e2t par l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les\nautres ont pass\u00e9s.\u201d And he died. All stories have the same ending.\n\n \u201cThe Frenchman first in literary fame;\n Mention him, if you please. Voltaire? The same,\n With spirit, genius, eloquence supplied,\n Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartily\u2014and died.\u201d\n\nThat very old poet, Stephen Hawes, for discovering in whom \u201cone fine\nline,\u201d Warton was called \u201cthe indulgent historian of our poetry,\u201d tells\nhis own life-story quite to an end, including the particulars of his\nfuneral and epitaph. A finer critic than Warton, or than Warton\u2019s critic,\nbids those who smile at the design dismiss their levity before the poet\u2019s\nutterance:\u2014\n\n \u201cO! mortal folke, you may beholde and see\n Howe I lye here, sometime a mighty knight.\n The end of joye and prosperitie\n Is death at last thorough his course and might.\n After the day there cometh the dark night,\n For though the day appear ever so long,\n At last the bell ringeth to evensong\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cRingeth,\u201d says Mrs. Browning, \u201cin our ear with a soft and solemn music,\nto which the soul is prodigal of echoes.\u201d\n\nWhat\u2014asks the most meditative of Roman emperors, in his Meditations,\ndiscussing with himself the ultimate fate, often reluctantly undergone,\nof certain long-lived persons\u2014what are they more than those who went off\nin their infancy? What is become of C\u00e6cilianus, Fabius, Julianus, and\nLepidus? Their heads are all laid somewhere. They buried a great many;\nbut at last they came to be buried themselves. Mr. Dickens, as well as\nHervey, has his meditations among the tombs,\u2014and these are of them in\nthe little hemmed-in churchyards of the city\u2014these, over an old tree\nat the church window, with no room for its branches, that has seen out\ngeneration after generation of civic worthies: \u201cSo with the tomb of the\nold Master of the Company, on which it drips. His son restored it, and\ndied; his daughter restored it, and died; and then he had been remembered\nlong enough, and the tree took possession of him, and his name cracked\nout.\u201d To quote Chaucer again:\n\n \u201cThat is to seyn, in youthe or elles in age,\n He moot ben deed, the kyng as schal a page.\u201d\n\nCranmer\u2019s transported prevision, in Shakspeare, of the grand future that\nawaited the infant princess Elizabeth, is dashed with sadness towards the\nend\u2014the strain subsiding into a minor key\u2014by the unwelcome but inevitable\nreflection, \u201cBut she must die.\u201d So muses and moralises Talbot again, in\nanother of the historical plays:\n\n \u201cBut kings and mightiest potentates must die;\n For that\u2019s the end of human misery.\u201d\n\nAnd Warwick, in another of them, finding that, of all his lands, is\nnothing left him but his body\u2019s length, exclaims, as one that at last\nfeels it feelingly,\n\n \u201cWhy, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\n And, live we how we can, yet die we must.\u201d\n\nAnd once more in yet another of them, when King John dies, and Salisbury\nwitnessing the death, exclaims, \u201cBut now a king\u2014now thus!\u201d the prince who\nis to succeed takes home the lesson to himself, and confesses, in diction\nborrowed from the mere machinery of clockwork,\n\n \u201cEven so must I run on, and even so stop.\u201d\n\nIn exhibiting to Odysseus in the shades below a group of the fairest and\nmost famous of women, Homer has been supposed by some of his commentators\nto have designed a lecture on mortality to the whole sex. Tertullian\u2019s\ntrumpet is blown with no uncertain sound when _he_ thus addresses the\nfrivolous fair of his day: \u201cI have said, ye are gods, and ye are all\nthe children of the Most High.... But, O gods of flesh and blood, O\ngods of earth and dust, ye shall die like men, and all your glory shall\nfall to the ground, _veruntamen sicut homines moriemini_.\u201d This is in\nTertullian\u2019s description of the vain and prodigal and exacting beauty.\nSuggestive in its way is an anecdote related by Mrs. Thrale about Sir\nJoshua Reynolds\u2019s picture of two fashionable belles, Mrs. Crewe and Mrs.\nBouverie, attired as two shepherdesses, and with this motto attached,\n_Et in Arcadi\u00e2 ego_. What could that mean? is Dr. Johnson said to have\nasked. Reynolds replied that the king could have told him: \u201c_He_ saw it\nyesterday, and said at once, \u2018Oh, there is a tombstone in the background.\nAy, ay, death is even in Arcadia.\u2019\u201d The thought is said to have been\nborrowed from Poussin\u2014where some gay revellers stumble over a death\u2019s\nhead, with a scroll proceeding from its mouth, saying, Et in Arcadi\u00e2\n_ego_.\n\nMemorable at Saladin\u2019s banquet to Richard and his peers\u2014ever memorable\namong the banners and pennons, the trophies of battles won and kingdoms\noverthrown, is the long lance displaying a shroud, \u201cthe banner of Death,\nwith this impressive inscription\u2014\u2018Saladin, King of Kings\u2014Saladin, Victor\nof Victors\u2014Saladin must Die.\u2019\u201d\n\nPoet Prior laments with courtly distress the inflexible fact that the\nBritish monarch, to whom he is addressing his _carmen seculare_ for the\nyear of grace MDCC., must go the way of all flesh:\n\n \u201cBut a relentless destiny\n Urges all that e\u2019er was born:\n Snatch\u2019d from her arms, Britannia once must mourn\n The demi-god; the earthly half must die.\u201d\n\nFor as Master Matthew puts it in another ode:\u2014\n\n \u201cAlike must every state and every age\n Sustain the universal tyrant\u2019s rage;\n For neither William\u2019s power nor Mary\u2019s charms\n Could, or repel, or pacify his arms.\n ...\n Wisdom and eloquence in vain would plead\n One moment\u2019s respite for the learned head:\n Judges of writings and of men have died\n (M\u00e6cenas, Sackville, Socrates, and Hyde);\n And in their various turns their sons must tread\n Those gloomy journeys which their sires have led.\n\n \u201cThe ancient sage, who did so long maintain\n That bodies die, but souls return again,\n With all the births and deaths he had in store\n Went out Pythagoras, and came no more.\n And modern Asgill,[17] whose capricious thought\n Is yet with stores of wilder notions fraught,\n Too soon convinced, shall yield that fleeting breath\n Which played so idly with the darts of death.\u201d\n\nThe truism appears to have been a favourite theme with Prior, who\nexpatiates upon it in a variety of keys. Here is one other specimen from\nhis stores, in octosyllabic metre:\u2014\n\n \u201cAll must obey the general doom,\n Down from Alcides to Tom Thumb.\n Grim Pluto will not be withstood\n By force or craft. Tall Robin Hood,\n As well as Little John, is dead\u2014\n (You see how deeply I am read).\u201d\n\nDoes not Cervantes begin the last chapter of his great work with the\nreflection that, as all human things, especially the lives of men, are\ntransitory, ever advancing to their decline and final termination, so\n\u201cDon Quixote was favoured by no privilege of exemption from the common\nfate,\u201d for the period of his dissolution came when he least thought of\nit\u2014and he died.\n\nDeath\u2019s final conquest is the subject of a fine poem of James Shirley\u2019s;\nthe piece by which he is, in every sense, best remembered. How death\nlays his icy hands on kings, is there told with pitiless candour; and\nthe merry monarch, _par excellence_, Charles the Second, is said to have\ngreatly admired the poetry, if not the candour, of Shirley\u2019s strain.\nEarly or late, all stoop to fate; that is the trite topic. But the moral\nis noble, and nobly expressed. The poet reminds laurelled victors that\nthe garlands are withering on their brow, and that soon upon death\u2019s\npurple altar shall the \u201cvictor victim\u201d bleed:\u2014\n\n \u201cAll heads must come\n To the cold tomb;\n Only the actions of the just\n Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.\u201d\n\nThe first verse only of George Herbert\u2019s \u201cVirtue\u201d is familiar to men; all\nfour have a music and a meaning of their own:\u2014\n\n \u201cSweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,\n The bridal of the earth and sky,\n The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;\n For thou must die.\n\n \u201cSweet rose, whose hue angry and brave\n Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,\n Thy root is ever in its grave,\n And thou must die.\n\n \u201cSweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,\n A box where sweets compacted lie,\n My music shows ye have your closes,\n And all must die.\n\n \u201cOnly a sweet and virtuous soul,\n Like seasoned timber, never gives;\n But though the whole world turn to coal,\n Then chiefly lives.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_AN ULTRA-PROTESTER._\n\nST. MATTHEW xxvi. 33-35, 69-75.\n\n\nTo have written it ultra-Protestant, would mislead into an expectation\nof polemical matter, offensive to Orangeism, and entirely alien\nfrom the purpose. For who is the hyper-protester, not to write it\nultra-Protestant, of whom we speak? None other than St. Peter.\nNominally the first Pope. But let that pass. Whether technically an\nultra-Protestant or not,\u2014let that pass too. It is with his surplusage\nof protestations, vehemently asserted, and anon ignominiously ignored,\nthat we are at present concerned. Though all men, all, should be offended\nbecause of Christ, should stumble and fall because of Him, yet would he\nnever be offended, never stumble, never lose his footing, firm as a rock,\nfirm as his own name, Peter, Cephas; a rock on which the Church was to be\nbuilt. The protest of the apostle won no meed of thanks and assurance\nof conviction from his Lord. He who needed not that any should testify\nof man, for He knew what was in man\u2014and knew what was wanting in _this_\nman,\u2014waved aside, as absolutely worthless, the perfervid protestations\nof the impulsive son of Jonas. Thrice should Peter deny Him before dawn\nof another day. Deny Him? Had it come to that? The protester must become\nultra in his protests. \u201cThough I should die with Thee, yet will I not\ndeny Thee!\u201d It would be beside the mark here to take into account the\nother _voces et pr\u00e6terea nihil_, echoing the same thing\u2014protested notes\nat the best\u2014for likewise also said all the disciples. Peter is their\nrepresentative man, and ours.\n\nGertrude\u2019s comment in \u201cHamlet,\u201d on the accumulated asseverations of the\nstage-queen, \u201cThe lady doth protest too much, methinks,\u201d has passed into\na proverb. \u201cThe more vehemently they assert, the less credit they obtain\nfor sincerity,\u201d observes Hartley Coleridge, of some examples of impulsive\nwomankind. Racine\u2019s B\u00e9r\u00e9nice turns the tables on Titus in this regard,\nwhen she tells him,\n\n \u201cH\u00e9 quoi! vous me jurez une \u00e9ternelle ardeur,\n Et vous me la jurez avec cette froideur!\n Pourquoi m\u00eame du ciel attester la puissance?\n Faut-il par des serments vaincre ma d\u00e9fiance?\n Mon c\u0153ur ne pr\u00e9tend point, seigneur, vous d\u00e9mentir;\n Et je vous en croirai sur un simple soupir.\u201d\n\nHow fulsome and hollow, exclaims Marcus Antoninus, does that man look\nwho cries, \u201cI\u2019m resolved to deal clearly with you.\u201d Hark you, friend,\nthe philosophic emperor addresses him, \u201cwhat need of all this flourish?\nlet your actions speak.\u201d Mr. Disraeli, in his earliest book, has an\neloquent paragraph on \u201cthat eagerness of protestation which,\u201d in the man\ncharged with criminality, \u201cis a sure sign of crime.\u201d There is as much of\noveracting one\u2019s part on the great stage of life, as on the mimic boards;\nand that with graver issues and a drearier fate.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen the subtle and ambitious John of Gischala, pursuing his own dark\ncourse, as it is traced in the \u201cHistory of the Jews,\u201d joined outwardly\nthe party of Ananus, and was active beyond others in council and camp, he\nyet kept up a secret correspondence with the Zealots, to whom he betrayed\nall the movements of the assailants. \u201cTo conceal this secret he redoubled\nhis assiduities, and became so extravagant in his protestations of\nfidelity to Ananus and his party, that he completely over-acted his part,\nand incurred suspicion.\u201d His intended dupes began gradually, and none too\nsoon, to look with a jealous eye on their too obsequious, most obedient,\nand most devoted servant.\n\nDescribing the ten dreary years during which (A.D. 1198-1208), with but\nshort intervals of truce, Germany was abandoned to all the horrors of\ncivil war, Dean Milman observes that \u201cthe repeated protestations\u201d of\nPope Innocent III., that _he_ was not the cause of these fatal discords,\nbetray the fact that he was accused of the guilt, and that he had to\nwrestle with his own conscience to acquit himself of the charge. Sir\nThomas Overbury suggestively avers that\n\n \u201cHe that says oft that he is not in love,\n By repetition doth himself disprove.\u201d\n\nHawthorne remarks that Italian asseverations of any questionable\nfact, though uttered with rare earnestness of manner, never vouch\nfor themselves as coming from any depth, like roots drawn out of the\nsubstance of the soul, with some of the soil clinging to them. Their\nenergy expends itself in exclamation. The vaulting ambition of their\nhyperboles overleaps itself, and falls on the other side. Swift refers\nto oaths in the mouth of a gamester, as ever most used as their truth is\nmost questioned.\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis not the many oaths that make the truth,\n But the plain single vow, that is vowed true,\u201d\n\nsays Shakspeare\u2019s Diana of Florence. And though from Shakspeare to Wolcot\nis a descent indeed, Peter Pindar is for once quotable when he writes,\n\n \u201cTruth needs not, John, the eloquence of oaths,\n Not more so than a decent suit of clothes\n Requires of broad gold lace the expensive glare,\n That makes the linsey-woolsey million stare;\n Besides, a proverb, suited to my wish,\n Declares that swearing never catches fish.\u201d\n\nThat scapegrace guardian of George Canning\u2019s boyhood, Mr. Reddish, is\nsaid to have been significantly fond, on quite trivial occasions, of\nmaking affidavits,\u2014\u201cthe refuge of base and vulgar minds,\u201d Robert Bell\ncalls them,\u2014as if he, Reddish, felt that his word was not to be believed.\nCowper is caustic in his application of St. Paul\u2019s statement, that oaths\nterminate all strife, for \u201csome men have surely then a peaceful life!\u201d he\ninfers, in lines that go on to tell how\n\n \u201cAsseveration blustering in your face\n Makes contradiction such a hopeless case;\n In every tale they tell, or false or true,\n Well-known, or such as no man ever knew,\n They fix attention, heedless of your pain,\n With oaths like rivets forced into the brain;\n And e\u2019en when sober truth prevails throughout,\n They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.\u201d\n\nThe imprecation of Corneille\u2019s Dorante, _Que le foudre \u00e0 vos yeux\nm\u2019\u00e9crase si je mens!_ only evokes from Clarice the contemptuous rebuff,\n_Un menteur_ [which, and more than which, emphatically, Dorante is,\nfor he is _Le Menteur_,] _est toujours prodigue de serments_. So again\nRacine\u2019s Theseus: _Toujours les sc\u00e9l\u00e9rats ont recours au parjure_,\u2014when\nHippolytus begins to call heaven, and earth, and universal nature to\nwitness, etc. So, too, Chamont, in Otway\u2019s tragedy: \u201cWhen a man talks\nof love, with caution trust him; but if he swears, he\u2019ll certainly\ndeceive thee.\u201d Indeed, as Owen Feltham has it, wherever there is too\nmuch profession, there is cause for suspicion. \u201cReality cares not to be\ntricked out with too taking an outside; and deceit, when she intends to\ncozen, studies disguise. Least of all should we be taken with swearing\nasseverations. Truth needs not the varnish of an oath to make her\nplainness credited.\u201d Fielding\u2019s Pettifogger, on a certain occasion,\ncalling to mind that he had not been sworn, as he usually was, before he\ngave his evidence, \u201cnow bound what he had declared with so many oaths\nand imprecations, that the landlady\u2019s ears were shocked, and she put a\nstop to his swearing, by assuring him of her belief,\u201d inconsiderately\nenough, as the manner of the man might have proved. Scott\u2019s Jorworth,\nwhen heaping asseveration on asseveration, is cut short by the honest\nFleming he is striving to mislead: \u201cStop, good Jorworth; thou heapest\nthine oaths too thickly on each other, for me to value them to the\nright estimate; that which is so lightly pledged, is sometimes thought\nnot worth redeeming.\u201d So again Monkbarns tells the gaberlunzie, after\nhearing his story of the adept, \u201cI am strongly disposed to believe that\nyou have spoken the truth, the rather, that you have not made any of\nthose obtestations of the superior powers, which I observe you and your\ncomrades always make use of when you mean to deceive folks.\u201d The author\nof \u201cLondon Labour and the London Poor,\u201d recounts the redundance of \u201cGlory\nbe to God! it\u2019s the thruth I\u2019m telling of you, sir,\u201d etc., etc.; which he\nhad to hear from Irish mendicity, or mendacity, or both. \u201cThe dignity of\ntruth is lost with much protesting,\u201d the Cicero of Jonson\u2019s \u201cCatiline\u201d\nsays.\n\nTake up any ordinary history, and you are but too sure to come across\nexamples enough and to spare, of people who did protest too much, and did\nnot keep their word. Glance at Alison\u2019s big book, and on one page you\nread, of Napper Tandy, for instance, \u201cBut the conduct of this leader was\nfar from keeping pace with these vehement protestations; for no sooner\ndid he hear of the reverse sustained by the French corps which had landed\nin Killala Bay, than he re-embarked on board the French brig _Anacreon_,\nand got safe across the channel.\u201d On another we have Tippoo Saib striving\nto disarm the suspicions of the British Government by \u201cprofessions of\neternal gratitude and attachment,\u201d and considerably overacting his part.\nOn another we have Napoleon bidding Marmont \u201cspare no protestations of\nassistance to Turkey;\u201d and himself assuring the Turkish ambassador that,\n\u201chis right hand was not more inseparable from his left, than the Sultan\nSelim should ever be to him;\u201d in consequence of which protestations,\nTurkey threw herself into the breach against both Russia and England,\nonly to find the imperial ultra-protester, within one little month from\nthe protestations, arranging for the immediate partition, with the Czar,\nof the Turkish dominions. Look, again, at Benjamin Constant, launching\nhis vehement philippic against Napoleon, in the _Journal des D\u00e9bats_ on\nthe eve of the Emperor\u2019s return from Elba, and declaring, \u201cNever will\nI crawl, like a base deserter from power to power. Under Louis XVIII.\nwe enjoy a representative government. Under Bonaparte we endured a\ngovernment of Mamelukes. He is an Attila, a Gengis Khan!\u201d And then we\nread how, a few days after this fulmination, Constant, the _in_constant,\nbecame a councillor of state under this Attila, an active supporter of\nthis Gengis Khan. Another ground of indictment against Napoleon is found\nby Alison in the eagerness of his protestations to Russia, that he had no\nway connived at the election of Bernadotte to the throne of Sweden, when\nnext vacant. \u201cThe extreme anxiety which Napoleon evinced for some time\nafterwards to convince the court of St. Petersburg that he had taken no\nconcern in this election, only renders it the more probable that he was\nin reality at the bottom of the transaction.\u201d The asseverations commenced\nby the younger Pennyboy, in Jonson\u2019s \u201cStaple of News,\u201d are declined and\ndismissed, by the elder, who knows their worth, with this summary and\nsuggestive caution:\n\n \u201cNo vows, no promises; too much protestation\n Makes that suspected oft, we would persuade.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_FLEETING SHADOWS._\n\nJOB xiv. 2.\n\n\nAs man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble; as\nhe is said to come forth like a flower, only to be cut down, so is it\nfurther said of him, that \u201che fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth\nnot.\u201d His days are like a shadow that declineth. He himself is gone as a\nshadow that fleeteth away. For man is vanity, his days are as a shadow,\nsaith the psalmist. And the preacher, whose text is vanity of vanities,\nall is vanity, finds vexation of spirit in meditations on man, all the\ndays of whose vain life he spendeth as a shadow.\n\n_What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!_ The exclamation\nwas that of a great statesman, amid the excitement and the contests\nof public life, when there reached him news of the sudden death of a\nfellow-candidate and colleague. Shadow-hunted shadows. The pursued and\nthe pursuers\u2014the game and the sportsmen\u2014shadows all. Burke\u2019s exclamation\nwas often in the mind of the late Sir James Graham, and, towards the\nclose of his life, not unfrequently on his lips.\n\n \u201c\u1f49\u03c1\u1ff6 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f21\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72\u03bd \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf, \u03c0\u03bb\u1f74\u03bd\n \u0395\u1f30\u03b4\u03c9\u03bb\u2019, \u1f45\u03c3\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1 \u03b6\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u1f24 \u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c6\u03b7\u03bd \u03a3\u039a\u0399\u0391\u039d.\u201d\n\n_O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane!_ Men were ever of old,\nand they are found to be now, the willing victims of illusion in all\nstages of life: children, youths, adults, and old men, all, as Emerson\nputs it, are led by one bauble or another. \u201cThere are as many pillows of\nillusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another\ndream. The toys, to be sure, are various, and are graduated in refinement\nto the quality of the dupe.\u201d For instance, the intellectual man requires\na fine bait, while the sots are easily amused. \u201cBut everybody is drugged\nwith his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and\nbanner and badge.\u201d Shadows before, and shadows behind, and all fleeting.\nFalse glozing pleasures, to adopt George Herbert\u2019s diction, are the\nshadowy lure,\n\n ... \u201ccasks of happiness,\n Foolish night-fires, women\u2019s and children\u2019s wishes,\n Chases in arras, gilded emptiness,\n Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,\n Embroider\u2019d lies, nothing between two dishes,\u2014\n These are the pleasures here.\u201d\n\nMarcus Antoninus, in his \u201cMeditations,\u201d harps on the note of\nshadow-hunting or shadow-hunted shadows. You will soon be reduced to\nashes and a skeleton, he keeps telling himself; and even if you leave\na name,\u2014what is a name? what is in a name? _Vox et pr\u00e6terea nihil._ The\nshadows you, a shade, pursue, are miserably shadowy. The prizes of life\nare, he says, so paltry, that to scuffle for them is ridiculous, and puts\nhim in mind of a set of puppies snarling for a bone, or of the contests\nof children for a toy. Wherever he looks, the wide world over, and in\nwhatever age of its history, he sees abundance of people very busy, and\nbig with their projects, who presently drop off, and moulder to dust and\nashes. The freshest laurels wither apace, and the echoes of Fame are soon\nsilenced. The \u201cinsect youth\u201d that people the air and make it murmurous\nwith busy life,\u2014is not their close resemblance to the children of men one\nof poetry\u2019s common-places?\n\n \u201cTo Contemplation\u2019s sober eye,\n Such is the race of man;\n And they that creep, and they that fly,\n Shall end where they began.\n\n \u201cAlike the busy and the gay,\n But flutter through life\u2019s little day,\n In fortune\u2019s varying colours drest;\n Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,\n Or chilled by Age, their airy dance\n They leave, in dust to rest.\u201d\n\nHaving asked to be told her fortune by the Wise Wight of Mucklestane\nMoor, Miss Ildeston, in Scott\u2019s story, is told by the cynical recluse,\nthat it is a simple one; an endless chase through life after follies\nnot worth catching, and when caught, successively thrown away\u2014a chase,\npursued from the days of tottering infancy to those of old age upon his\ncrutches. \u201cToys and merry-making in childhood\u2014love and its absurdities in\nyouth\u2014spadille and basto in age, shall succeed each other as objects of\npursuit: flowers and butterflies in spring,\u2014butterflies and thistledown\nin summer,\u2014withered leaves in autumn and winter\u2014all pursued, all caught,\nall flung aside.\u201d _Que vont elles faire de si grand matin_, Cleopas asks\nhis demon-guide, concerning _ces personnes_ whose early rising and eager\nbustle have caught and fixed his attention. \u201cCe que vous souhaitez de\nsavoir, reprit le D\u00e9mon, est une chose digne d\u2019\u00eatre observ\u00e9e. Vous allez\nvoir un tableau des soins, des mouvements, des peines que les pauvres\nmortels se donnent pendant cette vie, pour remplir, le plus agr\u00e9ablement\nqu\u2019il leur est possible, ce petit \u00e9space qui est entre leur naissance et\nleur mort.\u201d _Telle est la vie_, as most of us live it.\n\n \u201cDream after dream ensues,\n And still they dream that they shall still succeed,\n And still are disappointed,\u201d\n\nwrites William Cowper. Not at all in the same measure or manner, but\npretty much to the same effect, writes the picturesque poet of Bells and\nPomegranates:\n\n \u201cIt is but to keep the nerves at strain,\n To dry one\u2019s eyes and laugh at a fall,\n And baffled, get up to begin again,\u2014\n So the chase take up one\u2019s life, that\u2019s all.\n While, look but once from your farthest bound,\n At me so deep in the dust and dark,\n No sooner the old hope drops to ground\n Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark\n I shape me\u2014ever removed.\u201d\n\nThere is much that is suggestive in the Abb\u00e9 Gerbet\u2019s discoursings in\nthe Catacombs at Rome. \u201cCe dernier calque de l\u2019homme,\u201d he says, in what\nhas been called a commentary on Bossuet\u2019s _mot_, that the corpse of\na man becomes a _je ne sais quoi_, for which there is no name in any\nlanguage\u2014\u201ccette forme si vague, si effac\u00e9e, \u00e0 peine empreinte sur une\npoussi\u00e8re \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s impalpable, volatile, presque transparente, d\u2019un\nblanc mat et incertain, est ce qui donne le mieux quelque id\u00e9e de ce que\nles anciens appelaient une _ombre_. Cette forme est plus fr\u00eale que l\u2019aile\nd\u2019un papillon, plus prompte \u00e0 s\u2019evanouir que la goutte de ros\u00e9e suspendue\n\u00e0 un brin d\u2019herbe au soleil; un peu d\u2019air agit\u00e9 par votre main, un\nsouffle, un son deviennent ici des agents puissants qui peuvent an\u00e9antir\nen une seconde ce que dix-sept si\u00e8cles, peut-\u00eatre, de destruction ont\n\u00e9pargn\u00e9. Voyez,\u2014vous venez de respirer, et la forme a disparu. Voil\u00e0 la\nfin de l\u2019histoire de l\u2019homme en ce monde.\u201d What shadows we are! Ashes to\nashes ends, even in Westminster Abbey, man\u2019s noblest story, and dust to\ndust concludes his noblest song.\n\n \u201cO death all-eloquent! you only prove\n What dust we doat on, when \u2019tis man we love.\u201d\n\nHawthorne\u2019s Gervayse Hastings is a type and symbol, when he describes\nhimself as depressed by a haunting perception of unreality; as one to\nwhom all things, all persons, are like shadows flickering on the wall.\n\u201cNeither have I myself any real existence,\u201d he says, \u201cbut am a shadow\nlike the rest.\u201d And the end\u2014not to say the moral\u2014of his story may serve\nto remind us of the Abb\u00e9 Gerbet\u2019s words. Gervayse Hastings is seated with\nother guests at a feast\u2014of very odd fellows\u2014over whom is suspended the\nskeleton of the oddest of all, the founder of the feast. As the speaker\nceased his confession of shadowy experiences, \u201cit so chanced that at this\njuncture the decayed ligaments of the skeleton gave way, and the dry\nbones fell together in a heap.... The attention of the company being thus\ndiverted for a single instant from Gervayse Hastings, they perceived on\nturning again towards him, that the old man had undergone a change. His\nshadow had ceased to flicker on the wall.\u201d The woe of this old man was,\nthat to him the world to come was all shadow too.\n\nMrs. Schimmelpenninck expresses her belief that in youth and middle age\nthere is often a real conviction of the transitory nature of the most\nestablished temporal things, but that in old age it is not merely a\nconviction, but a vivid palpable reality, and that the eternal mountains\ndo then indeed appear near at hand; while all the campaign around seems\nfaded into shadowy distance; and she inclines to say, like the monk, who\nfor forty years had exhibited the picture of the Last Supper, that he\nhad seen so many pass away, that himself and those he spoke to seemed a\nshadow, while the blessed institution of the Holy Supper stood before him\nalone a reality. But many are the young hearts that feel as Margaret Hale\nfelt, in Mrs. Gaskell\u2019s story, when to her life seemed a vain show, so\nunsubstantial, and flickering, and fleeting, and when \u201cit was as if from\nsome a\u00ebrial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there\nwas a bell continually tolling, \u2018All are shadows!\u2014all are passing!\u2014all is\npast!\u2019\u201d\n\n_Le tems m\u00eame sera detruit_, as La Bruy\u00e8re says: \u201cce n\u2019est qu\u2019un point\ndans les espaces immenses de l\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9, et il sera effac\u00e9. Il y a de\nl\u00e9g\u00e8res et frivoles circonstances du tems, qui ne sont pas stables,\nqui passent, et que j\u2019appelle des modes, la grandeur, la faveur, les\nrichesses, la puissance, l\u2019autorit\u00e9, l\u2019ind\u00e9pendance, le plaisir, les\njoies, la superfluit\u00e9. Que deviendront ces modes, quand le tems m\u00eame aura\ndisparu? La vertu seule, si peu \u00e0 la mode, va au-del\u00e0 des tems.\u201d\n\n \u201cBetween two worlds life hovers like a star\n \u2019Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon\u2019s verge:\n How little do we know that which we are!\n How less what we may be! The eternal surge\n Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar\n Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,\n Lash\u2019d from the foam of ages; while the graves\n Of empire heave but like some passing waves.\u201d\n\nSo writes Byron in the poem that contains perhaps his grandest and most\npowerful strains, interspersed among his wittiest and most wicked ones.\nIf ever man was haunted by the conviction that we are shadows all, and\nthat shadows are our pursuit, it was he. But with him there was nothing\nof a \u201csaving faith\u201d in this. As Shakspeare\u2019s Prince of Arragon reads on\nthe scroll at Belmont,\n\n \u201cSome there be that shadows kiss;\n Such have but a shadow\u2019s bliss;\u201d\n\nand of such was Byron. And he knew it. Not more alive to this philosophy\nwas Cowper himself, when he pictured men\n\n \u201cFor threescore years employed with ceaseless care\n In catching smoke and feeding upon air;\u201d\n\nor when he pointed with this moral his lines on the felled poplars that\nonce lent him a shade, beneath which he had so often been charmed by the\nblackbird\u2019s sweet flowing ditty:\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,\n To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;\n Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,\n Have a being less durable even than he.\u201d\n\nOne great amusement of the household in the Castle of Indolence, on the\ntestimony of its poet-laureate, was,\n\n \u201cIn a huge crystal magic globe to spy,\n Still as you turned it, all things that do pass\n Upon this ant-hill earth; where constantly\n Of idly busy men the restless fry\n Run bustling to and fro with foolish haste,\n In search of pleasures vain that from them fly,\n Or which, obtained, the caitiffs do not taste.\u201d\n\nIf, with Churchill, we stand as\n\n \u201cSpectators only on this bustling stage,\n We see what vain designs mankind engage:\n Vice after vice with ardour they pursue,\n And one old folly brings forth twenty new....\n Squirrels for nuts contend, and, wrong or right,\n For the world\u2019s empire, kings, ambitious, fight.\n What odds?\u2014to us \u2019tis all the selfsame thing,\n A nut, a world, a squirrel, and a king.\u201d\n\nIn other verses, and another measure, the same poet justifies his use of\nthe expression \u201cwhatever shadows we pursue,\u201d by the interpolated comment,\n\n \u201cFor our pursuits, be what they will,\n Are little more than shadows still;\n Too swift they fly, too swift and strong,\n For man to catch or hold them long.\u201d\n\nOf world-wide application is what Bernardin de Saint-Pierre said of\nhimself, by way of private interpretation: \u201cToutes mes id\u00e9es ne sont que\ndes ombres de la nature, recueillies par une autre ombre.\u201d Goldsmith was\nnot altogether in sport when he made Croaker in the comedy pronounce\nlife to be, at the greatest and best, but a froward child, that must be\nhumoured and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care\nis over; while Honeywood assents\u2014Good-natured Man that he is\u2014with a ready\n\u201cVery true, sir; nothing can exceed the vanity of our existence, but the\nfolly of our pursuits.\u201d For Goldsmith was in sad earnest when he wrote of\nhimself as one\n\n \u201cImpelled with steps unceasing to pursue\n Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view\n That like the circle bounding earth and skies,\n Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies.\u201d\n\nShadow-hunted shadows is the very text for Mr. Carlyle. World\u2019s memory\nis very whimsical now and then, he says, in recording the forgotten\nexploits of Johann, King of Bohemia, \u201call which have proved voiceless in\nthe World\u2019s memory; while the casual Shadow of a Feather he once more has\nproved vocal there.\u201d And a whole chapter is devoted to, and entitled,\na Kaiser hunting Shadows,\u2014Kaiser Karl with his Pragmatic Sanction to\nwit, and similar projects, aims, or hobbies, more or less shadowy\nand unsubstantial, all. \u201cThere was another vast Shadow, or confused\nhigh-piled continent of shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held with his\ncustomary tenacity. To procure adherences and assurances to this dear\nPragmatic Sanction, was even more than the shadow of the Spanish crown,\u201d\nthe one grand business of his life henceforth. \u201cShadow of Pragmatic\nSanction, shadow of the Spanish crown,\u2014it was such shadow-huntings of the\nKaiser in Vienna\u201d that thwarted the Prussian Double-marriage. Another\nobject which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence, and which \u201clikewise\nproved a shadow,\u201d was his Ostend East India Company, which gave much\ndisturbance to mankind. \u201cThis was the third grand shadow which the Kaiser\nchased, shaking all the world, poor crank world, as he strode after it.\u201d\nFoiled in this, as in another and another chase, no wonder he grew more\nand more saturnine, and \u201caddicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His\nPolitical \u2018Perforce Hunt (_Parforce Jagd_),\u2019 with so many two-footed\nterriers, and legationary beagles, distressing all the world by their\nbaying and their burrowing, had proved to be of Shadows; and melted into\nthin air, to a very singular degree!\u201d Many chapters later Mr. Carlyle\nrecurs to his picture of the \u201cKaiser in his Shadow-hunt, coursing the\nPragmatic Sanction chiefly, as he has done these twenty years past\u201d\u2014and\nso begins a chapter entitled, by a mixed metaphor, \u201cKaiser\u2019s Shadow-hunt\nhas caught Fire\u201d\u2014by contact, namely, with inflammable Poland. And a\nsubsequent chapter details the damages the poor Kaiser had to pay for\nmeddling in Polish elections,\u2014\u201cfor galloping thither in chase of\nShadows.... This may be considered as the consummation of the Kaiser\u2019s\nShadow-hunt; or at least its igniting and exploding point.... Shadow-hunt\nis now all gone to Pragmatic Sanction, as it were: that is now the one\nthing left in Nature for a Kaiser; and that he will love, and chase,\nas the summary of all things.\u201d From this point we see him go steadily\ndown, and at a rapid rate,\u2014getting into disastrous Turkish wars, \u201cwith\nas little preparation for War or Fact as a life-long Hunt of _Shadows_\npresupposes.\u201d\n\nOr let us take our stand, with the same philosopher, in that\n_\u0152il-de-B\u0153uf_, in the Versailles Palace Gallery\u2014through which what\nfigures have passed, and vanished! \u201cFigures? Men? They are fast-fleeting\nShadows; fast chasing each other: it is not a Palace, but a Caravansera.\u201d\n\nMacaulay has his Sermon in a Churchyard. To that spot the homilist\ninvites all and sundry, and he takes his standpoint for his text. Come\nto this school of his, he bids us, with the promise that there we shall\nlearn, \u201cin one short hour of placid thought, a stoicism more deep, more\nstern, than ever Zeno\u2019s porch hath taught:\u201d\n\n \u201cThe plots and feats of those that press\n To seize on titles, wealth, or power,\n Shall seem to thee a game of chess,\n Devised to pass a tedious hour.\n What matters it to him who fights\n For shows of unsubstantial good,\n Whether his kings, and queens, and knights,\n Be things of flesh, or things of wood?\n\n \u201cWe check and take, exult, and fret;\n Our plans extend, our passions rise,\n Till in our ardour we forget\n How worthless is the victor\u2019s prize.\n Soon fades the spell, soon comes the night:\n Say will it not be then the same,\n Whether we play the black or white,\n Whether we lost or won the game?\u201d\n\nThis may remind us of Mrs. Battle\u2019s apology for whist, or of the\nconcluding sentence in a characteristic confession by Benjamin\nConstant\u2014who, by the way, had said of himself in a previous letter, _Je\npasserai comme une OMBRE sur la terre entre le malheur et l\u2019ennui_\u2014he\nrecords his _sentiment profond et_ (like his name) _constant_ of the\nshortness of life\u2014a sentiment, he says, so deep and so constant that\nit makes the pen or the book drop from his hand whenever he takes to\nstudy: \u201cNous n\u2019avons pas plus de motifs pour acqu\u00e9rir de la gloire, pour\nconqu\u00e9rir un empire ou pour faire un bon livre, que n\u2019en avons pour\nfaire une promenade ou une partie de whist.\u201d Even so utterly different\na man in creed and character as Joseph de Maistre could exclaim, \u201cAh!\nle vilain monde! j\u2019ai toujours dit qu\u2019il ne pourrait aller si nous\navions le sens commun.... C\u2019est n\u00f4tre folie qui fait tout aller.\u201d Else\nwhen we see\u2014especially when death brings home to us, strikes home to\nus\u2014what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue, \u201cen v\u00e9rit\u00e9 chacun se\ncoucherait et daignerait \u00e0 peine s\u2019habiller.\u201d _N\u2019importe! tout marche et\nc\u2019est assez._ And readers of M. de Tocqueville\u2019s letters will remember\nhow often that philosophic writer confides to his correspondents his\nconviction that there is no one thing in the world capable of fixing and\nsatisfying him. He had attained a success unhoped for at the beginning of\nhis career, but was far from happy. Often, in imagination, he would fancy\nhimself at the summit of human greatness; and when there, the conviction\nwould force itself irrepressibly upon him, that the same painful\nsensations would follow him to that sublime altitude.\n\nSucceeding? What is the great use of succeeding? muses the master\nshowman of Vanity Fair. Failing? Where is the great harm? \u201cPsha! These\nthings appear as nought, when Time passes\u2014Time the consoler\u2014Time the\nanodyne\u2014Time the grey calm satirist, whose sad smile seems to say, Look,\nO man, at the vanity of the objects you pursue, and of yourself who\npursue them!\u201d\n\n \u201cDust are our frames; and, gilded dust, our pride\n Looks only for a moment whole and sound;\n Like that long-buried body of the king,\n Found lying with his urns and ornaments,\n Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven,\n Slipt into ashes and was found no more.\u201d\n\nThe professed cynic, remarks an essayist on the theme of Occasional\nCynicism, has reached the delightful conclusion that \u201cthe whole thing,\u201d\nby which he means life and all its interests, is a sheer mistake and\npiece of confusion. And as it presents itself to the grander and loftier\ntype of mind, this difficulty is held by the same writer to be the\n\u201cstarting-point of all systems of religion and philosophy, of which it\nis the object to show either that aims exist before men\u2019s eyes that are\nsolid realities worth pursuing, and not mere shadows, or else that even\nshadows are better worth pursuing in some one way than in all others.\u201d\n\nJeffrey\u2019s earlier letters abound in almost cynical reflections on the\nfolly of ambition and the \u201cridiculous self-importance\u201d implied in \u201cheroic\ntoils.\u201d The whole game of life seemed to him a little childish, \u201cand the\npuppets that strut and look lofty very nearly as ridiculous as those that\nvalue themselves on their airs and graces\u2014poor little bits of rattling\ntimber\u2014to be jostled in a bag as soon as the curtain drops.\u201d \u201cGod help\nus! it is a foolish little thing this human life at the best; and it is\nhalf ridiculous and half pitiful to see what importance we ascribe to it,\nand to its little ornaments and distinctions,\u201d etc. We are, as a modern\npoet of name and promise puts it, for ever at hide-and-seek with our\nsouls:\n\n ... \u201cNot in Hades alone\n Doth Sisyphus roll, ever frustrate, the stone,\n Do the Dana\u00efds ply, ever vainly, the sieve.\n Tasks as futile does earth to its denizens give.\u201d\n\nWhen we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable,\nexclaims David Hume, seem all our pursuits of happiness! And even if we\nwould extend our concern beyond our own life, he goes on to say, how\nfrivolous appear our most enlarged and most generous projects, when we\nconsider the incessant changes and revolutions of human affairs, by\nwhich laws and learning, books and governments, are hurried away by\ntime, as by a rapid stream, and are lost in the immense ocean of matter.\nIf such a reflection certainly tends to mortify all our passions, does\nit not, asks the essayist, thereby counterwork the artifice of nature,\nby which we are \u201chappily deceived into an opinion that human life is\nof some importance? And may not such a reflection be employed with\nsuccess by voluptuous reasoners, in order to lead us from the paths of\naction and virtue into the flowery fields of indolence and pleasure?\u201d\nThe Chinese have been pointed to, by a moral philosopher, to point his\nmoral, which is, the desolating tendency of secularism\u2014they having learnt\npractically, as well as theoretically, to think of themselves as mere\ntransitory beings, who have no future life to expect, and no present\nProvidence to reverence or fear; and the result he takes to be, that\nthey are the meanest, the most deceitful, and one of the most vicious\nnations in the world\u2014a people who literally sit in darkness, and whose\nlives are passed in the shadow of death. \u201cIn all the world there is no\nmore terrible or instructive example of the practical results of looking\nupon men as mere passing shadows, who have no superior and no hereafter.\u201d\nOnce succeed, this writer argues, in persuading men that they are mere\npassing phenomena, possessing no more distinctive qualities than the\nsuccessive waves of the sea, and the consequence is inevitable. \u201cThey\nwill cease\u2014gradually, imperceptibly, and with all sorts of moral, and\nperhaps religious, reflections on their lips\u2014to care for what is great,\npermanent, and noble, and they will become, in the fullest sense of the\nwords, beasts that perish.\u201d\n\nMany men, says Archdeacon Hare, spend their lives in gazing at their\nown shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof. And one of his\ncompanion guessers at truth remarks, that instead of watching the bird\nas it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and,\nfinding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing.\n\nIf a man be a reality, says John Sterling, no empty vision in the\ndreaming soul of nature, but inwardly substantial and personal, that\nwhich he most earnestly desires, which best satisfies his whole being,\nmust be real too. And here is a parallel passage from a later writer:\n\n \u201cYes, this life is the war of the False and the True,\n Yet this life is a truth, though so complex to view\n That its latent veracity few of us find....\n Ay, the world but a frivolous phantasm seems,\n And mankind in the mass but as motes in sunbeams;\n But when Fate, from the midst of this frivolous nature,\n Selects for her purpose some frail human creature,\n And the Angel of Sorrow, outstretching a wan\n Forefinger to mark him, strikes down from the man\n The false life that hid him, the man\u2019s self appears\n A solemn reality: Him the dread spheres\n Of heaven and hell with their forces dispute,\n And dare we be indifferent? Hence, and be mute,\n Light scoffer, vain trifler! Through all thou discernest\n A Greater than thou is at work, and in earnest;\n And he who dares trifle with man, trifles too\n With man\u2019s awful Maker.\u201d...\n\n\n\n\n_HARAN TAKEN: TERAH LEFT._\n\nGENESIS xi. 28.\n\n\nThere is a pathetic significance in what to the unobserving reader might\nseem a dry record of decease, commonplace among other commonplaces,\nin the fact mentioned concerning the house of Terah, the father of\nAbraham,\u2014that \u201cHaran died before his father Terah in the land of his\nnativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.\u201d\n\nIt is, as Canon Melvill says, like an inversion of the natural order,\nwhen we see parents performing the last office to their children: we feel\nit natural that children should close the eyes, and shroud the limbs\nof fathers and mothers, but unnatural that fathers and mothers should\nperform these sad duties for children. \u201cHaran should have followed Terah,\nand not Terah Haran.\u201d\n\nA great French moralist, in his exposition of the sublime intensity of\na father\u2019s love, goes on to say of the tie, the _lien_, which unites\ndevoted parent to endeared child, \u201cEt la nature brise ce lien. Elle jette\nau tombeau cette vie qui commence, et condamne le p\u00e8re \u00e0 rester vivant.\u201d\nA tender poet of our day was writing from such an experience\u2014not in his\ncase an isolated one\u2014when bewailing the gem of his hearth, his household\npride, who, could love have saved from death, would have found a father\u2019s\nlove, and a mother\u2019s, stronger than death:\n\n \u201cHumbly we bow to Fate\u2019s decree;\n Yet had we hoped that Time should see\n Thee mourn for us, not us for thee.\u201d\n\n_Les fun\u00e9railles des fils_, says another French author, _sont toujours\ncontre la nature quand les parents y assistant_. How often Edmund\nBurke harps on that tremulously vibrating string, in reference to the\nmaster-grief which overshadowed his closing period of life! In a letter\nto Dr. Lawrence, he expresses his thankfulness to God for dismissing him\n\u201cso gently from life,\u201d and being sent, he adds, \u201cto follow those who in\ncourse ought to have followed me.\u201d In his famous letter to the Duke of\nBedford, the bereaved old man utters the lament: \u201cI live in an inverted\norder. They who ought to have succeeded me have gone before me. They who\nshould have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors.\u201d\nShakspeare had anticipated the thought, and the expression of the\nthought, when he made old Lucretius exclaim:\n\n \u201cIf in the child the father\u2019s image lies,\n Where shall I live, now Lucrece is unlived?\n Thou wast not to this end from me derived.\n If children predecease progenitors,\n We are their offspring, and they none of ours.\u201d\n\nSo again he makes Capulet cry out, at the loss of his daughter Juliet, \u201cO\nthou untaught! what manners is in this, to press before thy father to a\ngrave!\u201d Writing to a kinsman on the birth of a son, Burke gives utterance\nto the wish, \u201cMay he live to be the staff of your age, and to close your\neyes in peace; instead of, like me, reversing the order of nature, and\nhaving the melancholy office to close _his_.\u201d And to his \u201cdear little\nniece,\u201d Mary, he thus writes after the birth of her son (Thomas Haviland\nBurke): \u201cMay you see your son a support to your old age; ... and at a\nvery long day may _he_ close _your_ eyes, not as I have done those of\nyour admirable cousin.\u201d His progeny may never be his posterity, muses Sir\nThomas Browne, in his meditations on man: \u201che may go out of the world\nless related than he came into it; and considering the frequent mortality\nin friends and relations, in such a term of time, he may pass away divers\nyears in sorrow and black habits, and leave none to mourn for himself;\norbity may be his inheritance.\u201d\n\nBitterly Mohammed bewailed the death of his four sons by Kadijah, who\ndied in their infancy; and especially that of one by Maria the Egyptian;\nfor not only was this fatal to his hopes of founding an hereditary\nreligious dynasty, but it affected his claims to pre-eminent favour with\nGod. \u201cAl-as Ebn Wayel, who was so cruel and so daring as to insult him on\nthe loss of his favourite boy, ... was accursed of heaven, and a special\nSura (the 108th) was revealed to console the Prophet.\u201d Bitterly Saint\nStephen, the first king of Hungary, bewailed the loss of his promising\nson Emeric\u2014the first of a series of shocks that hastened his own end.\nLike the desolate sire in Scott\u2019s poem who\n\n ... \u201cbeheld aghast,\n With Wilfrid all his projects pass,\n All turn\u2019d and centred on his son,\n On Wilfrid all\u2014and he was gone.\n \u2018And I am childless now,\u2019 he said.\u201d\n\nR\u00e9n\u00e9 of Anjou, in surviving his male offspring, was the last\nrepresentative of his race. Southey observes that _Pauli in domo pr\u00e6ter\nse nemo superest_, is a reflection passing melancholy in the speech of\nPaulus \u00c6milius; and applying it to his own emphatically good physician,\nhe says, that the speedy extinction of his family in his own person was\noften in the Doctor\u2019s mind, and that he would sometimes touch upon it, to\ndear friends, in moods of autumnal feeling.\n\nMichelet\u2019s record of the death of Charles le Bel, who leaving only a\ndaughter, was succeeded by a cousin, closes with the reminder, \u201cAll that\nfine family of princes who had sat near their father at the council of\nVienne, was extinct. In the popular belief, the curse of Boniface had\ntaken effect.\u201d So with Alexander III. of Scotland, whose eldest son died\nsoon after his marriage, leaving no issue, and whose second son died\nwhile a boy; other bereavements followed, and the king came to feel in\nfact as the patriarch felt by anticipation, that to be bereaved of one\u2019s\nchildren, was bereavement indeed. King James V., in like manner the\nsurvivor of both his sons, died a broken-hearted man.\n\nLaelio Torelli, the Florentine statesman and man of letters, survived all\nhis children. Shakspeare lost his only son some twenty years before his\nown decease. Vincentio Scamozzi, the architect, who died the same year as\nShakspeare, caused no little talk at the time, by the very singular will\nhe left, betokening a most extraordinary solicitude for the perpetuation\nof his name, as he had the grief of outliving his offspring. Sir Francis\nVere\u2019s three sons and two daughters all died before him. It was accounted\na signal calamity in the career of that true nobleman, the Duke of\nOrmond, that he outlived \u201cthe noble-minded Ossory,\u201d worthy son of such a\nsire.\n\n\u201cThe feeble wrap the athletic in his shroud; and weeping fathers build\ntheir children\u2019s tomb.\u201d Young\u2019s is that truism; and Pope\u2019s is the cognate\nquery, \u201cSay, was it virtue, more though Heaven ne\u2019er gave, lamented\nDigby, sunk thee to the grave?\n\n \u201cTell me, if virtue made the son expire,\n Why, full of days and honours, lives the sire?\u201d\n\nPassing in his Meditations from single persons to families, Marcus\nAntoninus refers to that of the Pompeys, for one instance, as wholly\nextinct. \u201cThis man was the last of his house,\u201d he says, is not an\nuncommon inscription upon a monument. As with Homer\u2019s Ph\u00e6nops, in feeble\nage, who lost his joy and hope in young Xanthus and Tho\u00f6n:\n\n \u201cVast was his wealth, and these the only heirs\n Of all his labours, and a life of cares.\n Cold death o\u2019ertakes them in their blooming years,\n And leaves the father unavailing tears.\n To strangers now descends his heapy store,\n The race forgotten, and the name no more.\u201d\n\nWho on his staff is this? we ask with Ossian; who is this whose head is\nwhite with age, whose eyes are red with tears, who quakes at every step?\n\u201cIt is thy father, O Morar!\u201d dead and gone Morar: \u201cthe father of no\nson but thee.... Weep, thou father of Morar; weep, but thy son heareth\nthee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead\u2014low their pillow of dust.\u201d This\nflies sure to the old man\u2019s heart, says Schiller\u2019s Illo of the elder\nPiccolomini,\n\n ... \u201cHe has his whole life long\n Fretted and toil\u2019d to raise his ancient house\n From a count\u2019s title to the name of prince;\n And now must seek a grave for his only son.\u201d\n\nPeter the Great, whether guilty or not of putting to death his elder son,\nAlexis, was inconsolable for the loss of the only remaining one. It was\nthe fate of Queen Anne to lose, at twelve years of age, the hopeful young\nprince who alone survived of all her very many children.\n\nSamuel Richardson was the saddened survivor of all his five sons\nand a daughter. The celebrated Dutch philosopher and mathematician,\n\u2019Sgravesande, who, by the way, was born within the same year with\nRichardson, lost his two sons within eight days of each other, and is\nhonoured for the Christian resignation with which he bore the sharp\ntrial. Sir John Vanbrugh lost his only son at the battle of Tournay.\nBishop Warburton died not long after his only son, who was carried off\nby a decline in the springtide of life. It is of a distinguished Swiss\nlitt\u00e9rateur, who died in his prime, that Sainte-Beuve somewhere says _que\nsa destin\u00e9e tranch\u00e9e avant l\u2019heure a pourtant \u00e9t\u00e9 compl\u00e8te, si un p\u00e8re\noctog\u00e9naire ne lui survivait_.\n\n \u201cI ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young,\u201d\n\nwails the aged mother in Mr. Tennyson\u2019s poem, all whose children have\ngone before her, she is so old.\n\nThe gathering sorrows which clouded the latter years of Bishop Percy,\n\u201cafter a life in the main prosperous and happy,\u201d commenced with the loss\nof an only son.\n\nLord Kenyon died in 1802, \u201csorrow-stricken by the loss of his eldest son,\nafter having accumulated a fortune of \u00a3300,000.\u201d Lord Stowell lost his\nson, aged forty-two, about two months only before he too fell on death.\nSprengel, the very learned German physician, never recovered the stroke\nof his son\u2019s loss. Cuvier\u2019s four children all died before him. \u201cWrite ye\nthis man childless:\u201d many a man of genius has felt his heart sink and his\nstrength fail under that blighting sentence. In his sixty-seventh year\nwe find Moore writing, \u201cThe last of our five children is now gone, and\nwe are left desolate and alone. Not a single relative have I now left in\nthe world.\u201d How Mr. Hallam was successively bereaved of sons so rich in\npromise, if not in performance, is too well known.\n\nThere is a seeming affectation of literary paternity in what\nChateaubriand writes of the death of Byron,\u2014as though it were Terah and\nHaran, with a difference. \u201cI preceded him in life; he preceded me in\ndeath. He was summoned before his time. My number came before his, and\nyet his was drawn first from the urn. It was Childe Harold who ought to\nhave remained.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE MOTE AND THE BEAM._\n\nST. MATTHEW vii. 5.\n\n\nAs easy is it to discern the mote in a brother\u2019s eye as to discern the\nface of the sky. Hypocrite is the term by which the facile discerner in\neither case is divinely stigmatised; in the one instance, because with\nall his discernment he cannot read the signs of the times; in the other,\nbecause with all his insight and microscopic nicety of perception, and\nexceptionally developed faculty of vision, he yet considers not the beam\nthat is in his own eye.\n\nWith our Lord\u2019s words concerning the mote and the beam, Archbishop\nTrench bids us compare the Chinese proverb, \u201cSweep away the snow from\nthine own door, and heed not the frost upon thy neighbour\u2019s tiles.\u201d The\nGreek and Latin classics are not wanting in various readings of the same\ntheme. Demosthenes meant much the same thing when he said that we must\nbeware of austerely scrutinizing the actions of others, unless first we\nare conscious of having acquitted ourselves aright: \u201c\u03bf\u1f50 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c2\n\u1f10\u03be\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c0\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bd \u03bc\u1f74 \u03c0\u03b1\u1fe4 \u1f51\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c5\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03be\u03b7 \u03c4\u1f70\n\u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1.\u201d \u201cMan is blind to his own faults, but keen-sighted to perceive\nthose of others,\u201d is a Latin adage: \u201cVitiis suis pervidendis c\u00e6cus est\nhomo, in alienis perspicax.\u201d \u201cIs it never your way to look at yourself\nwhen you are abusing another?\u201d is a question in Plautus: \u201cNon soles\nrespicere te, cum dicas injuste alteri?\u201d Cicero pronounces it to be of\nthe nature of folly to see the faults of others, and to forget one\u2019s own:\n\u201cProprium est stultiti\u00e6 aliorum vitia cernere, oblivisci suorum.\u201d Horace\nshrewdly submits that the man who is desirous that his friends should not\ntake offence at his own protuberances, will \u201cignore\u201d that friend\u2019s warts:\n\n \u201cQui, ne tuberibus propriis offendat amicum,\n Postulat, ignoscat verrucis illius.\u201d\n\nAnd at least as pointed and piquant is the passage beginning,\n\n \u201cQuum tua pervideas oculis male lippus inunctis,\n Cur in amicorum vitiis tam cernis acutum,\u201d etc.\n\nThe query Plautus puts, \u201cHow is it that no man tries to search into\nhimself, but each fixes his eyes on the wallet of the one who goes before\nhim?\u201d is in allusion to the fable of Jupiter having loaded men with a\ncouple of wallets; the one, filled with our own vices, being slung at our\nbacks,\n\n \u201cPropriis repletam vitiis post tergum dedit;\u201d\n\nthe other, heavy with our neighbour\u2019s faults, hung in front,\n\n \u201cAlienis ante pectus suspendit gravem.\u201d\n\nTo pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in\nothers, is neither better nor worse, says Dean Swift, than to be more\nwilling to be fools ourselves than to have others so. The proverbs\nof all nations show all nations to be alive to the ridiculous in this\nrespect. The kiln calls the oven, burnt house, says one. In Italy,\nthe pan says to the pot, Keep off, or you\u2019ll smutch me. In Spain, the\nraven bawls hoarsely to the crow, Get out, blackamoor! (_Qu\u00edtate all\u00e1,\nnegro!_) In Germany, one ass nicknames another, Long-ears. And Dr. Trench\nis rather taken with a certain originality in the Catalan version of\nthe proverb: \u201cDeath said to the man with his throat cut, \u2018How ugly you\nlook!\u2019\u201d They should be fair, hints Juvenal, who venture to deride the\ndisproportioned leg or sooty hide, _Loripedem rectus derideat, \u00c6thiopem\nalbus_. Yet, as the Ettrick shepherd once sang in his native Doric:\u2014\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s some wi\u2019 big scars on their face,\n Point out a prin scart on a frien\u2019;\n And some, black as sweeps wi\u2019 disgrace,\n Cry out, the whole warld\u2019s unclean.\u201d\n\nMoli\u00e8re\u2019s Chrysale twits her sister B\u00e9lise, who is a _femme savante_,\nwith snapping up everybody short who makes a slip with the tongue, while\nherself liable to graver censure for slips of conduct:\u2014\n\n \u201cLe moindre sol\u00e9cisme en parlant vous irrite;\n Mais vous en faites, vous, d\u2019\u00e9tranges en conduite.\u201d\n\nSappho, again, in Mademoiselle de Scud\u00e9ry\u2019s portentous romance\u2014once\nthe rage of readers in France, despite its plurality of volumes, as\n\u201cClarissa\u201d was in England, a century later\u2014ridicules the _bizarre_\northography of the fine-ladyism of the day, while amused at the fact\nthat the fine ladies in question, who perpetrated such gross errors in\nwriting, and who lost every particle of wit the moment they took up a\npen, would yet make game for days together of some poor foreigner who\nhappened to use one term for another. As if it were less a matter of\nmirth or marvel for a _grande dame_, claiming to be a woman of wit, too,\nand a power in society, to commit a thousand blunders in writing her\nnative language, than for a raw foreigner to make a few slips in speaking\nit.\n\nWe every day and every hour, observes Montaigne, say things of another\nthat we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but revert our\nobservation to our own concerns as well as extend it to others. And the\nold essayist has his fling at not a few authors of the day who, in this\nmanner, prejudiced their own cause by running headlong upon those they\nattacked, and darting those shafts against their enemies that might, with\nmuch greater propriety and effect, be hurled back at themselves.\n\nA stanza in the most elaborate of Shakspeare\u2019s poems that are not\nplays\u2014for are not all his plays poems?\u2014runs into this eloquence of\nremonstrant appeal:\u2014\n\n \u201cThink but how vile a spectacle it were\n To view thy present trespass in another.\n Men\u2019s faults do seldom to themselves appear;\n Their own transgressions partially they smother:\n This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.\n O, how are they wrapped in with infamies,\n That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!\u201d\n\nIt is of their common friend Breuning that Beethoven writes to Ferdinand\nRies,\u2014\u201cHe certainly possesses many admirable qualities, but he thinks\nhimself quite faultless, whereas the very defects that he discovers in\nothers are those which he possesses himself to the highest degree.\u201d One\nof the most natural and truthfully, as well as forcibly, drawn characters\nin Mrs. Inchbald\u2019s \u201cSimple Story,\u201d\u2014Sandford,\u2014a man of understanding, of\nlearning, and a complete casuist, yet all whose faults were committed for\nthe want of knowing better, is described as constantly reproving faults\nin others, and most assuredly too good a man not to have corrected and\namended his own, had they been known to him; but known to him they were\nnot. He had been, we are told, for so long a time the spiritual superior\nor preceptor of all with whom he lived, and so busied with instructing\nothers, that he had not once recollected that he needed instruction\nhimself; and in such awe did his habitual severity keep all about him,\nthat although he had numerous friends, not one of them told him of his\nfailing. \u201cWas there not then some reason for him to suppose he _had_ no\nfaults? His enemies, indeed, hinted that he had; but enemies he never\nhearkened to; and thus, with all his good sense, he wanted the sense to\nfollow the rule, \u2018Believe what your enemies say of you rather than what\nis said by your friends.\u2019\u201d He had yet to learn, and to learn by heart,\nthe wide and practical import of the prayer\u2014\n\n \u201cTeach me to love and to forgive,\n Exact my own defects to scan,\n What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.\u201d\n\nWell may the demoniac guide of Don Cleofas, in Le Sage\u2019s symbolical\nfiction, say, and well does he say, \u201cJ\u2019admire messieurs les hommes; leurs\npropres d\u00e9fauts leur paraissent des minuties, au lieu qu\u2019ils regardent\nceux d\u2019autrui avec un microscope.\u201d To their own faults more than a little\nblind, to those of others they are not a little unkind.\n\nGay begins his fable of the Turkey and the Ant with the smoothly-turned\ntruism, that\n\n \u201cIn other men we faults can spy,\n And blame the mote that dims their eye;\n Each little speck and error find;\n To our own stronger errors blind.\u201d\n\nOne of the most classical masters of modern English, whether in verse\nor prose, was employing the same metre\u2014of fatal facility, as it is\ncalled\u2014when he closed his address to a brother bard in a strain that must\nalso close this chapter of instances:\n\n \u201cWe, who surround a common table,\n And imitate the fashionable,\n Wear each two eye-glasses: _this_ lens\n Shows us our faults, _that_ other men\u2019s.\n We do not care how dim may be\n _This_ by whose aid our own we see;\n But, ever anxiously alert\n That all may have their whole desert,\n We would melt down the stars and sun\n In our heart\u2019s furnace, to make one\n Through which th\u2019 enlightened world might spy\n A mote upon a brother\u2019s eye.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS._\n\n1 PETER ii. 11.\n\n\nPeter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout\nAsia Minor, addressed the urgent appeal that _as_ strangers\u2014strangers and\npilgrims\u2014they should abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the\nsoul.\n\nConsider what you are, he seems to say, as his words are paraphrased\nby the greatest of all commentators on his first epistle: \u201cIf you were\ncitizens of this world, then you might drive the same trade\u201d with the\nmen of this world, \u201cand follow the same lusts; but seeing you are chosen\nand called out of this world, and invested into a new society, made free\nof another city, and are therefore here but travellers passing through\nto your own country, it is very reasonable that there be this difference\nbetwixt you and the world, that while they live at home your carriage be\nsuch as fits strangers, not glutting yourselves with their pleasures,\nnor surfeiting upon their delicious fruits, as some unwary travellers\ndo abroad; but as wise strangers living warily and soberly, and still\nminding most of all your journey homewards, suspecting dangers and snares\nin your way, and so walking with a holy fear, as the Hebrew word for a\nstranger imports.\u201d\n\nThe topic is one upon which Archbishop Leighton ever writes feelingly.\nAs again in his comment on the psalmist\u2019s profession of being a stranger\nwith God, and a sojourner as all his fathers were, the same devout\nexpositor observes that he who looks on himself as a stranger, and is\nsensible of the darkness round about him in this wilderness, will often\nput up that request with David, \u201cI am a stranger in the earth: hide not\nThy commandments from me.\u201d What, Leighton asks, is the joy of our life,\nbut the thoughts of that other life, our home before us? \u201cAnd certainly\nhe that lives much in these thoughts, set him where you will here, he is\nnot much pleased nor displeased; but if His Father call him home, that\nword gives him his heart\u2019s desire.\u201d\n\nOnce again, in the sixth of his lectures on the immortality of the soul,\nLeighton expatiates on the fact that this is not our rest, that we have\nno place of residence here below: \u201cit is the region of fleas and gnats;\nand while we search for happiness among these mean and perishing things,\nwe are not only sure to be disappointed, but also not to escape those\nmiseries which, in great numbers, continually beset us; so that we may\napply to ourselves the saying of the famous artist confined in the island\nof Crete, and truly say,\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2018Nec tellus nostr\u00e6, nec patet unda fug\u00e6,\n Restat iter c\u0153li, c\u0153lo tentabimus ire.\u2019\u201d\n\n(\u201cThe earth and the sea are shut up against us, and neither of them can\nfavour our escape; the way to heaven is alone open, and this way we will\nstrive to go.\u201d)\n\nIncidentally, it adds to the interest of every such passage in Leighton\u2019s\nwritings to remember a noteworthy circumstance respecting his death.\nHe had been used to say that if he were to choose a place to die in it\nshould be an inn\u2014for that would look so like a pilgrim\u2019s going home, to\nwhom this world was all as an inn. It was his opinion, also, as we read\nin the memoir of him by Aikman, that \u201cthe officious tenderness and care\nof friends was an entanglement to a dying man, and that the unconcerned\nattendance of those who could be procured in such a place would give less\ndisturbance.\u201d He had his wish. At the Bell Inn, Warwick Lane, Robert\nLeighton, in his seventy-fourth year, stranger and pilgrim, drew his last\nbreath.\n\n \u201cAn inn receives me, where, unknown,\n I solitary sit me down;\n Many I hear, and some I see\u2014\n I nought to them, they nought to me.\n\n Thus, in those regions of the dead,\n A pilgrim\u2019s wandering life I lead;\n And still at every step declare\n I\u2019ve no abiding city here.\n\n ...\n\n The world is like an inn; for there\n Men call and storm and drink and swear;\n While undisturbed the Christian waits,\n And reads and writes and meditates.\n\n Though in the dark ofttimes I stray,\n The Lord shall light me on my way;\n And to the city of the sun\n Conduct me, when my journey\u2019s done.\n\n There by these eyes shall He be seen,\n Who sojourned for me at an inn;\n On Sion\u2019s hill I those shall hail\n From whom I parted in the vale.\u201d\n\nOf him who walks by faith and not by sight, who places eternity by the\nside of time, and so regards the one as a mere path or stepping-stone to\nthe other, it is well said by Dr. Chalmers that he actually moves through\nlife in the spirit of a traveller, feels his home to be heaven, and all\nhis dearest hopes and interests to be laid up there; \u201cwalking therefore\nover the world with a more light and unencumbered step than other men,\njust because all its adversities to him are but the crosses of a rapid\njourney, and all its joys but the shifting scenery of the land through\nwhich he is travelling, and visions of passing loveliness.\u201d\n\nAs in the pilgrim\u2019s song of a contemporary clerical poet:\n\n \u201cMy rest is in heaven; my rest is not here:\n Then why should I murmur when trials are near?\n Be hushed, my dark spirit! the worst that can come\n But shortens thy journey, and hastens thee home.\n\n ...\n\n A scrip on my back, and a staff in my hand,\n I march on in haste through an enemy\u2019s land:\n The road may be rough, but it cannot be long;\n And I\u2019ll smooth it with hope, and I\u2019ll cheer it with song.\u201d\n\nThe second of Bishop Beveridge\u2019s Resolutions comprises this\nutterance,\u2014after the expression of a longing that he could be ever on\nthe mount, taking a view of the land of Canaan, for then what dreams and\nshadows would all things here below appear to be,\u2014\u201cWell! by the grace of\nGod, I am resolved no longer to tie myself to sense and sight, the sordid\nand trifling affairs of this life, but always to walk as one of the other\nworld; to behave myself in all places, and at all times, as one already\npossessed of my inheritance and an inhabitant of the New Jerusalem;\u2014by\nfaith assuring myself I have but a few more days to live below, a little\nmore work to do, and be admitted to a nearer vision and fruition of God,\nand see Him face to face.\u201d And thus, although at present here in the\nflesh, the believer\u2019s resolve is to look upon himself as more really an\ninhabitant of heaven than abiding (for here we have no continuing city)\nupon earth.\n\nIn the words of _l\u2019exil\u00e9_ of Lamennais, \u201cLa patrie n\u2019est point ici-bas;\nl\u2019homme vainement l\u2019y cherche; ce qu\u2019il prend pour elle n\u2019est qu\u2019un gite\nd\u2019une nuit.\u201d Happy they, exclaims Pascal in his _Pens\u00e9es_, whose tears\nare shed, not at the evanescence of all things earthly and perishable,\nbut when they remember Sion\u2014_dans le souvenir de leur ch\u00e8re patrie_\u2014the\nheavenly Jerusalem, after which they sigh continually in the weariness of\ntheir exile. But as Schiller\u2019s Thekla replies to Neubrunn\u2019s comment on\n\u201cthe journey\u2019s weary length,\u201d\u2014\n\n \u201cThe pilgrim, travelling to a distant shrine\n Of hope and healing, does not count the leagues.\u201d\n\nJohn Foster describes the Israelite indeed, who is a pilgrim indeed, as\nresembling a person whose eye, while he is conversing with you about an\nobject or a succession of objects, should glance every moment towards\nsome great obstacle appearing on the distant horizon. \u201cHe seems to\ntalk to his friends in somewhat of the manner of expression with which\nyou can imagine that Elijah spoke, if he remarked to his companion any\ncircumstance in the journey from Bethel to Jericho, and from Jericho\nto the Jordan; a manner betraying the sublime anticipation which was\npressing on his thoughts.\u201d To other pilgrims the vision of the land that\nis very far off may be, as Professor Maurice puts it, not so clear as\nthey wish; but it is more clear than their vision of anything which lies\nabout them; and without it all would be shadow and darkness. \u201cThere, in\nthat state, must lie all that they dream of and hope for.\u201d \u201cThere only\nthey must live, or have no life.\u201d \u201cWhen they pray \u2018Thy kingdom come,\u2019\nthey ask that the Great Shepherd will lead them and their brethren out of\na land of pits, a thirsty wilderness, a valley of the shadow of death,\nto a peaceable habitation and a sure dwelling-place.\u201d There is a bleak\ndesert, in the words of one who wrote sacred songs, though himself no\nsacred poet,\u2014\n\n ... \u201cwhere daylight grows weary\n Of wasting its smiles on a desert so dreary\u2014\n What may that desert be?\n \u2019Tis life, cheerless life, where the few joys that come\n Are lost like that daylight, for \u2019tis not their home.\n\n There is a lone pilgrim, before whose faint eyes\n The water he pants for but sparkles and flies\u2014\n Who may that pilgrim be?\n \u2019Tis man, hapless man, through this life tempted on\n By fair shining hopes, that in shining are gone.\u201d\n\nIn that essay of John Foster\u2019s, from which a citation has already been\nmade, the essayist protests against the care so many popular writers\nseem to take to guard against the inroad of ideas pertaining to another\nlife\u2014as much care as the inhabitants of Holland take against the\nirruption of the sea; and their writings, he adds, do really form a kind\nof moral dyke against the invasion from the other world. \u201cThey do not\ninstruct a man to act, to enjoy, and to suffer, as a being that may by\nto-morrow have finally abandoned this orb; everything is done to beguile\nthe feeling of his being \u2018a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth.\u2019\u201d They\nfail to recognise the _c\u2019est vrai_ of the Christian lyrist\u2019s avowal, the\u2014\n\n \u201c_\u2019Tis true_, we are but strangers\n And sojourners below;\n And countless snares and dangers\n Surround the path we go:\n\n Though painful and distressing,\n Yet there\u2019s a rest above;\n And onward still we\u2019re pressing,\n To reach that land of love.\u201d\n\nThe object of such a pilgrim is progress\u2014or, rather, progress is the\nmeans to an end; and the end is not yet, is not here, but will surely\ncome, and come quickly, and will not tarry. There is a wicket gate\ntowards which they are making progress, and it is the portal of a\ncity that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They who\nprofessedly sojourn here as in a strange country, who obey the call to go\nout into a place which they shall after receive for an inheritance; who\nconfess, and act on the confession, that they are strangers and pilgrims\non the earth; they that say and do such things declare plainly that they\nseek a country, a better country\u2014that is, a heavenly.\n\nChaucer\u2019s \u201cold style\u201d conveys a meaning the world can never be too old to\nlearn:\n\n \u201cHere is no home, here is but wyldyrnesse.\n Forth, pilgrime! forth, best out of thy stalle!\n Look up on hye, and thonke God of alle;\n Weyve thy lust, and let thy goste thee lede,[18]\n And trouthe shall thee delyver, it is no drede.\u201d\n\nWe are strangers and sojourners before God, as were all our fathers.\nBy faith it was that Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a\nstrange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs\nwith him of the same promise; in tabernacles, that bespeak the stranger\nand pilgrim upon earth; not in houses built to endure. For he confessed,\nand denied not, but confessed that here he had no continuing city. True,\na citizen he was of no mean city. But it was not of the earth, earthy.\nFor he looked for a city which hath foundations, more everlasting than\nthe hills. Meanwhile, God\u2019s statutes were his songs in the house of his\npilgrimage.\n\nThe Bird of God is Wordsworth\u2019s epithet for that \u201cresplendent wanderer\u201d\ncalled by Eastern islanders the Bird of Heaven, and by us of the West,\nBird of Paradise; and, as usual with the serenely meditative bard of\nRydal, there is moral, nay, religious teaching in the symbolism of his\nstrain:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe Bird of God! whose blessed will\n She seems performing as she flies\n Over the earth and through the skies,\n In never-wearied search of Paradise\u2014\n Region that crowns her beauty with the name\n She bears for us\u2014for us how blest,\n How happy at all seasons, could like aim\n Uphold our spirits urged to kindred flight\n On wings that fear no glance of God\u2019s pure sight,\n No tempest from His breath, their promised rest\n Seeking with indefatigable quest\n Above a world that deems itself most wise\n When most enslaved by gross realities!\u201d\n\nAn appalling pestilence raged in Carthage, and so gave deadly emphasis to\nthe exhortations of St. Cyprian, when he, a good shepherd, sought to lead\nthe sheep of his flock to green pastures and still waters of comfort;\nreminding them, as he stood between the living and the dead, while as yet\nthe plague was stayed not, that they had renounced the world, and were\nabiding here as strangers and pilgrims only. \u201cLet us,\u201d he besought them,\n\u201cembrace that time which gives to each one his home, which, delivering\nus from this world, and loosing us from worldly snares, restores us to\nparadise and the kingdom.\u201d Who, he asks, that is placed in a foreign\nland, would not hasten to return to his own country? Who that saileth\ntowards his own, would not eagerly desire a prosperous wind to bring him\nswiftly to the embrace of those he loves? \u201cOur country we believe to be\nparadise: the patriarchs we esteem our parents. Why, then, do we not\nspeed and run, that we may behold our country and salute our parents?\u201d\n\nSalutary though the sentiment be, however, it admits of one-sided\nexaggeration. There are good people who, for instance, exalt and\nexpatiate upon the death of godly infants, as though to quit this earth\nof ours at the very earliest date were the most blessed of privileges.\nThe idea of man being sent into the world for any definite purpose\nnever seems, it has been justly said, to enter the minds of these good\npeople. \u201cWith them life is but an irksome omnibus-journey\u2014the shorter\nthe better\u2014and to be got over by each without any regard to the comfort\nor requirements of his fellow-travellers.\u201d Only in part are these\nstrictures on \u201cthe shorter the better\u201d applicable, if at all, to the\ntheme and expression of Mrs. Browning\u2019s sonnet:\u2014\n\n \u201cI think we are too ready with complaint\n In this fair world of God\u2019s. Had we no hope\n Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope\n Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint\n To muse upon eternity\u2019s constraint\n Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope\n Must widen early, is it well to droop\n For a few days consumed in loss and taint?\n O pusillanimous heart! be comforted,\n And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road,\n Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread\n Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod\n To meet the flints?\u2014At least it may be said,\n \u2018Because the way is _short_, I thank thee, God!\u2019\u201d\n\nAddison devotes a paragraph in one of his _Spectators_ to the fact of\nmen being in Scripture called strangers and sojourners upon earth, and\nlife a pilgrimage. And he refers to several heathen as well as Christian\nauthors, who under the same kind of metaphor have represented the world\nas an inn, which was only designed to furnish us with accommodation in\nthis our passage. It is therefore very absurd, urges our moral essayist,\nto think of setting up our rest before we come to our journey\u2019s end; and\nnot rather to take care of the reception we shall there meet with, than\nto fix our thoughts on the little conveniences and advantages which we\nenjoy one above another in the way to it.\n\n\u201cThe Illusiveness of Life\u201d is the title of a sermon on the patriarchs\nas sojourners in a strange country, by the late F. W. Robertson, of\nBrighton; who with characteristic force and insight explains the\ndeception of life\u2019s promise, and the meaning of that deception. He shows\nhow our natural anticipations deceive us\u2014every human life being a fresh\none, bright with hopes that will never be realized. With our affections,\nhe goes on to say, it is still worse, because they promise more. \u201cMen\u2019s\naffections are but the tabernacles of Canaan\u2014the tents of a night\u2014not\npermanent habitations, even for this life.\u201d Where, he asks, are the\ncharms of character, the perfection and the purity and the truthfulness\nwhich seemed so resplendent in our friend? They were only the shape of\nour own conceptions\u2014our creative shaping intellect projected its own\nfantasies on him; and hence we outgrow our early friendships\u2014outgrow\nthe intensity of all: we dwell in tents; we never find a home, even in\nthe land of promise, any more than Abraham did. \u201cLife is an unenjoyable\nCanaan, with nothing real or substantial in it.\u201d But there is another\nbeside the sentimental way, trite enough, of considering this aspect of\nlife\u2014as a bubble, a dream, a delusion, a phantasm, and that other is the\nway of faith. \u201cThe ancient saints felt as keenly as any moralist could\nfeel the brokenness of life\u2019s promises: they confessed that they were\nstrangers and pilgrims here; they said that they had here no continuing\ncity; but they did not mournfully moralize on this; they said it\ncheerfully, and rejoiced that it was so.\u201d Strangers\u2014the very term implies\na distant home. Pilgrims\u2014the law of whose pilgrimage is to make progress.\nForgetting the things behind; rating at their true worth the things\naround; earnestly pressing forward to the things before. Keble\u2019s devout\nlyric on the escape to Zoar is pitched in this key:\u2014\n\n \u201cSweet is the smile of home; the mutual look\n When hearts are of each other sure;\n Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,\n The haunt of all affections pure;\n Yet in the world even these abide, and we\n Above the world our calling boast:\n Once gain the mountain-top, and thou art free:\n Till then, who rest, presume; who turn to look, are lost.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE FALSITY OF THE FAMILIAR FRIEND._\n\nPSALM xli. 9.\n\n\nThe psalmist\u2019s enemies were speaking evil of him: when should he die,\nand his name perish? All that hated him were whispering together against\nhim, and devising hurt. But this he could bear, on the part of declared\nfoes. What he could not bear was that his own familiar friend, in whom he\ntrusted, and who ate of his bread, should have lifted up his heel against\nhim.\n\nHengstenberg remarks that in Judas the expression, \u201cWhich did eat of my\nbread,\u201d receives its full, its frightful verification, in the fact of his\nparticipating in the Last Supper\u2014to say nothing of habitually sharing in\nprevious and everyday meals.\n\nEven a comparatively slight wound may be severe when dealt by a friend.\nDr. Colani thinks that never could the Son of man have felt so acutely\nthe pain caused by opposition and non-recognition as when He received\nthe message from John the Baptist, inquiring into the credentials of His\nDivine mission. That the rulers of the people, that one of the twelve,\nthat those of His own kin, should doubt or dispute His mission, was hard\nenough to bear, but perhaps easy to foresee. But when he who had baptized\nHim, who had, so to speak, revealed Him to Himself,\u2014when His \u201cspiritual\nfather\u201d took his stand among the doubters, \u201cJesus must have felt a\nheartrending surprise, a veritable consternation:\u201d for the Baptist was\nnot a reed shaken with the wind, and yet, if the Divine hand rested on\nthat support, what but a reed was it, to pierce, even while it gave way?\n\nThe _Et tu, Brute!_ of dying C\u00e6sar is a large utterance, hardly more\ndeep in reproachful pathos than wide of application. The bitterness of\nits import, varying in intensity, has sufficed to choke bad men and good\nand indifferent,\u2014as a pang more sharp than all. What stung Jugurtha to\nthe heart was the treachery of his confidential agent, Bomilcar, who\nintrigued to betray him to the Romans. What Cicero professes to have felt\nmost keenly, during the Clodian troubles, was the perfidious conduct to\nhim of that Serranus to whom, when consul, he had been so kind; nor was\nit the least bitter drop in the cup he had to drain at the last, that the\nleader of the band who took his life was one whose life Cicero had once\nsaved, as counsel for the defence. Antony in the tragedy is naturally\nmade to brood most resentfully on the being betrayed by one on whose\nbosom he had \u201cslept secure of injured faith.\u201d He can forgive a foe, but\nnot a friend:\n\n \u201cTreason is there in its most horrid shape,\n Where trust is greatest.\u201d\n\nHerod the Great felt the pang when that dark and horrible secret, as\nMilman calls it, came to light, that Antipater, the beloved son, for whom\nhe had imbrued his hands in the blood of his own children\u2014Antipater, the\nheir of his kingdom\u2014was \u201cclearly proved to have conspired with Pheroras\n(B.C. 5) to poison his old and doting father, and thus to secure and\naccelerate his own succession.\u201d Michelet\u2019s narrative of the decline and\ndeath of the Emperor Frederick II. comprises this record: \u201cFinally his\nchancellor, his dearest friend, Peter de Vine\u00e2, attempted to poison him.\nAfter this last blow it only remained for him to veil his face, like\nC\u00e6sar on the ides of March.\u201d And familiar to us all is the story of our\nHenry II., sick and bedridden, inquiring the names of the supporters\nof his rebellious son Richard. He was for declaring John, the youngest\nof his sons, and as he thought the most attached to him, heir to all\nhis continental dominions. But on hearing the name of his beloved John,\nhighest on the list of Richard\u2019s adherents, Henry was seized with a sort\nof convulsive agitation, sat up in bed, and gazing around with searching\nand haggard look, exclaimed, \u201cCan it be true that John, my heart, the\nson of my choice, on whom I doted more than on all the rest, and my love\nfor whom has brought on me all my woes, has fallen from me?\u201d Assured\nthat so it was, \u201cWell then,\u201d sighed Henry, falling back on his bed, and\nturning his face to the wall, \u201chenceforward let all go on as it may; I\nno longer care for myself nor for the world.\u201d And in this connection may\nbe mentioned the dying exclamation of Henry\u2019s murdered chancellor. \u201cWhat\nis this, Reginald?\u201d cried Becket to Fitzurse, when the latter made up to\nhim, bared sword in hand: \u201cI have loaded you with favours, and _you_ come\nto me armed, and in the church?\u201d The last stroke that broke down the aged\nPope Boniface VIII., bowed with the weight of eighty-six years, was the\ndefection of his favourite and favoured nephew. One may apply to such\ndefections the upbraidal in a latter-day poem on Old Pictures in Florence:\n\n \u201cGiotto, how, with that soul of yours,\n Could you play me false who loved you so?\n Some slight if a certain heart endures,\n It feels, I would have your fellows know.\n Well\u2014I perceive not why I should care\n To break a silence that suits them best;\n But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear\n When I find a Giotto join the rest.\u201d\n\nMost painful to Luther, in his last moments, was the controversy forced\nupon him by the defection of so dear a friend as Agricola, the leader of\nthe Antinomians. He had long before that expressed his \u201castoundment\u201d at\nthe secession of \u0152colampadius and Regius, and other intimate associates.\n\u201cWhy should I fret and fume against the papists?\u201d he wrote in 1531: \u201call\nthey have done against me has been in fair, open war; we are declared\nenemies, and act as such. They who hurt me are my own dear children. My\nbrothers, _fraterculi mei, aurei amiculi mei_.... I thought I had gone\nthrough, had exhausted all the adversities the evil one could inflict;\nbut it was not so. My Absalom, the child of my heart, had not deserted\nhis father, had not poured out ignominy upon David; my Judas, the traitor\nwho delivered up his master, had not sold me: he has done so now.\u201d\n\nIf Mary Stuart had any quarter to which, in her disastrous condition,\nshe might look for love and favour, it was, says the most popular of\nhistorians of Scotland, her brother Murray. _His_ kindness and compassion\nshe deserved, after loading him with favours, as well as pardoning him\nconsiderable offences. But his acceptance of the regency broke all\nremaining ties of tenderness betwixt him and his sister. Scott is not\nromancing when, in an historical romance, he describes her reception\nof the news. \u201cThe queen gave a sort of shriek, and clapping her hands\ntogether, exclaimed, \u2018Comes the arrow out of his quiver?\u2014out of my\nbrother\u2019s bow?\u2019\u201d When Elizabeth appointed commissioners to inquire into\nMary\u2019s case, the Regent Murray appeared before them, \u201cin the odious\ncharacter of the accuser of his sister, benefactress, and sovereign.\u201d\nTo adopt the sentiment of the most sententious of stage moralists, When\ningratitude barbs the dart of injury, the wound has double danger in it.\n\nWhat touched Cortez most nearly, at the time of the expulsion from\nMexico, was to find the name of his trusted friend, his _intimado_, his\n_privado_, the secretary Duero, at the head of the paper of remonstrance\npresented by his disaffected soldiers. We find Louis XVI., on the eve\nof his execution, inquiring with calm curiosity, and as though not\npersonally affected, how certain members of the convention whom he knew\nhad voted at his trial. Told that his cousin of Orleans had voted for\nhis death, \u201cAh!\u201d he exclaimed to Malesherbes, \u201cthat affects me more than\nall the rest.\u201d It was, remarks Lamartine, the comment of C\u00e6sar when he\nrecognised the face of Brutus amongst his murderers; he alone roused him\nto speak.\n\nSo spake the captain of Plymouth, but with more of anger in his sorrow,\nin the New England hexameters devoted by Longfellow to Miles Standish,\nwhen he charged John Alder with having supplanted, defrauded, betrayed\nhim:\u2014\n\n \u201cYours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to friendship!\n You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;\n You, who have fed at my board and drunk of my cup, to whose keeping\n I have entrusted my honour, my thoughts the most sacred and secret,\u2014\n You too, Brutus! ah, woe to the name of friendship hereafter!\u201d\n\nIt was the revolt of his beloved son Conrad which crushed to the earth\nthe emperor Henry IV. What Dean Milman calls \u201cthe almost fatal effect\u201d of\nhis conduct on his father, can only be ascribed to profound affection,\ndeeply, cruelly, wantonly wounded. \u201cThe revolt of Conrad seemed to crush\nthe aged Emperor to the earth. He had borne all the vicissitudes of his\nearlier life with unbroken courage, he had risen from his humiliation\nat Canosa with refreshed energy; he now abandoned himself to despair,\nthrew off the robes and insignia of royalty, and was hardly prevented\nby his friends from falling on his own sword.\u201d\u2014There is a spice of the\n_et tu Brute_ bitterness in Becket\u2019s exclamation to John of Poitiers,\nwhen even that most ardent of his admirers followed him to Etampes, and\nimplored him to yield. \u201cAnd you too,\u201d cried the primate, in a pang of\nwrath, \u201cwill you strangle us\u201d\u2014_ut quid nos et vos strangulatis_?\u2014The\ngreat Emperor Frederick II. reproached Pope Gregory IX., in the height of\ntheir contest, as having been, while in the lower orders of the Church,\nhis familiar friend; but that no sooner had he reached the height of\nhis ambition than he threw off all gratitude, and became his determined\nfoe.\u2014When Queen Elizabeth broke out on a party of the peers for urging\nher whither she would not, Norfolk she as good as called traitor and\nconspirator, and Pembroke she said talked like a foolish soldier; but to\nLeicester it was that she exclaimed, \u201cYou, my lord, you! If all the world\nforsook me I thought that you would be true!\u201d\u2014Charles I.\u2019s celebrated\nletter to Prince Rupert after the loss of Bristol, depriving him of his\ncommand, begins with assuring him that the surrender, in such a manner,\nand by his trusted, no longer trusty nephew, of that most important city,\nwas the greatest trial of his constancy that had yet befallen him: \u201cFor\nwhat is to be done, after one that is so near me as you are, both in\nblood and friendship, submits himself to so mean an action (I give it the\neasiest term)? such\u2014I have so much to say, that I will say no more of\nit.\u201d The tone is that of the duke in Mr. Browning\u2019s _Colombe\u2019s Birthday_:\n\n \u201cAh, the first bitterness is over now!\n Bitter I may have felt it to confront\n The truth, and ascertain those natures\u2019 value\n I had so counted on\u2014that was a pang.\u201d\n\nCorneille, in his historical tragedy of _Cinna_, treats in a like strain\nthe effect upon Augustus of the discovered conspiracy:\n\n \u201cQuoi! mes plus chers amis! quoi! Cinna! quoi! Maxime!\n Les deux que j\u2019honorais d\u2019une si haute estime,\n A qui j\u2019ouvrais mon c\u0153ur, et dont j\u2019avais fait choix\n Pours les plus importants et plus nobles emplois!\n Apr\u00e8s qu\u2019entre leurs mains j\u2019ai remis mon empire,\n Pour m\u2019arracher le jour l\u2019un et l\u2019autre conspire!\u201d\n\nBut a later scene proves that Augustus is not even yet aware of all the\naccomplices; and the conviction of \u00c6milie as one of them, wrings from\nhim, as Brutus from the elder C\u00e6sar, the upbraiding cry, _Et toi, ma\nfille, aussi!_\n\nOne touching incident marks the horror of the murder of the Czar Paul in\n1801. The dress of Ouvaroff, one of the conspirators, is said to have\ncaused him to be mistaken by the Emperor for his son Constantine; and,\naccording to Bignon, the last words which the unhappy monarch uttered\nwere, \u201cAnd you too, my Constantine!\u201d\n\nVery worthless objects have sometimes been very undeservedly\nEt-tu-Brutefied. The first Lord Holland, when forsaken by the selfish\nfriends, as they have justly been described, with whom he had jobbed and\nmade merry and laughed at principle, had yet retained enough belief in\nthe social virtues to be made seriously unhappy by the conduct of his\nworthless companions, particularly by that of Rigby, the most worthless\nof them all;\n\n \u201cWhite-liver\u2019d Grenville and self-loving Gower\n Shall never cause one peevish moment more; ...\n Slight was the pain they gave, and short its date;\n I found I could not both despise and hate;\n But, Rigby, what did I for thee endure?\u201d\n\nA man as pious as Henry Fox was otherwise, has declared that he knew\nfew things which so darken one\u2019s views of the moral government of God,\nas the experience of baseness and treachery in persons who have won our\nconfidence; that it tempts one to question the reality of human virtue,\nto suspect the hollowness of all appearance of truth and piety, whence\nthere is but a step to calling in question the moral purpose for which\nwe are placed on earth. Hawthorne somewhere intimates that the young and\npure are not apt to find out how actually sin is in the world, until that\nmiserable truth is brought home to them by the guiltiness of some trusted\nfriend. \u201cTrust ye not in a friend,\u201d\u2014but ah, the pity of it, for him who\nhas to take up with these words of the Morasthite,\u2014\u201cA man\u2019s enemies are\nthe men of his own house.\u201d\u2014How many variations on this general theme\nmight be played from Shakespeare\u2019s plays! Sir Valentine, for instance,\ndenouncing the falsity of that other, so-called, but so far mis-called,\nGentleman of Verona:\n\n ... \u201cNow I dare not say\n I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disprove me.\n Who should be trusted now, when one\u2019s right hand\n Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,\n I am sorry I must never trust thee more,\n But count the world a stranger for thy sake.\n The private wound is deepest: O time most curst!\n \u2019Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!\u201d\n\nPolixenes, again, argues touching the breach of amity between him\nand Leontes, that revenge is like to be all the more bitter for the\ncordiality of past confidence. Then, too, the implication of Lord Scroop,\nof Masham, in the conspiracy with Grey and Cambridge against Henry V.,\u2014\n\n \u201cNay, but the man that was his bedfellow,\n Whom he hath cloy\u2019d and graced with princely favours,\u2014\n That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell\n His sovereign\u2019s life to death and treachery!\u201d\n\nHenry reminds Scroop that he bore the key of all his counsels, and knew\nthe very bottom of his soul; and he wept for _him_,\u2014\u201cfor this revolt of\nthine, methinks, is like another fall of man.\u201d\u2014A later king of England,\nEdward IV., is made to despair when he sees his brother Clarence among\nthe supporters of the foe: \u201cYea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?\nNay, then, I see that Edward needs must down.\u201d\u2014And once again, there is\nthe _Et tu Brute_ cue from which we started, thus set forth in all its\nsuggestive force by Shakespeare\u2019s Antony:\n\n \u201cFor Brutus, as you know, was C\u00e6sar\u2019s angel:\n Judge, O you gods, how dearly C\u00e6sar loved him!\n This was the most unkindest cut of all:\n For when the noble C\u00e6sar saw _him_ stab,\n Ingratitude, more strong than traitor\u2019s arms,\n Quite vanquish\u2019d him: then burst his mighty heart.\u201d\n\nBut as we recur to this, as the first among these secular annotations on\na Scripture text, so we recur to Scripture, in conclusion, for a pathetic\nparallel, also from the Book of Psalms: \u201cFor it was not an enemy that\nreproached me; then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated\nme that did magnify himself against me: then I would have hid myself from\nhim. But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.\nWe took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in\ncompany.\u201d The companionship past intensifies the cruelty present.\nWithout so recent and vivid a remembrance of sweet counsel together, and\ncompanionship hallowed by the sanctuary itself, the present cruelty could\nhave been borne; but with them it hardly can.\n\n\n\n\n\u201c_JUDGE NOT._\u201d\n\nST. MATTHEW vii. 1.\n\n\nA stringent motive is adduced to enforce the strenuous monition, \u201cJudge\nnot,\u201d\u2014and it is, \u201cthat ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge,\nye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured\nto you again.\u201d There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy;\neven He who hath committed all judgment unto the Son: who art thou that\njudgest another?\n\n * * * * *\n\nAppalled were all who gazed on the last struggles of Cardinal Beaufort,\nrendered hideous by the tortures of agonizing remorse. Hope had he none.\nDespair was impersonated in the frenzied contortions of that dying man.\nKing and peers stood beside the death-bed, awe-stricken and shocked. The\nking prayed for the cardinal, that the Eternal mover of the heavens might\n\u201clook with a gentle eye upon this wretch:\n\n O beat away the busy meddling fiend\n That lays strong siege upon this wretch\u2019s soul,\n And from his bosom purge this black despair.\u201d\n\nSee, says a less gentle observer, Warwick, how the pangs of death do make\nhim grin. Royal Henry, on devouter thoughts intent, bids \u201cpeace to his\nsoul,\u201d in parting, \u201cif God\u2019s pleasure be.\u201d And then the monarch solemnly,\nurgently, importunes the moribund cardinal to give some token, ere he\nquite depart, that Despair has not made him all her own: \u201cLord cardinal,\nif thou think\u2019st on heaven\u2019s bliss, hold up thy hand, make signal of\nthy hope.\u201d But the cardinal\u2014dies, and makes no sign. The appeal is\nfruitless: no hand is held up; no signal of hope displayed. The baffled\nprince, cut to the heart, can but exclaim, \u201cHe dies, and makes no sign:\nO God, forgive him!\u201d Warwick again interposes a harsher voice, \u201cSo bad a\ndeath argues a monstrous life,\u201d he is sure. But his sovereign hushes his\ndamning criticism with a right royal veto:\u2014\n\n \u201cFORBEAR TO JUDGE, _for we are sinners all_.\n ...\n Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;\n And let us all to meditation.\u201d\n\nForbear to judge. And the Shakspearean Henry practises in person the\nmonition thus enforced. It is his rule to check in himself every tendency\nto uncharitable judgment. As when proof all but positive distresses him\nof his uncle Gloster\u2019s death being due to violence, he yet restrains the\nbent of his convictions by the prayer,\u2014\n\n \u201cO Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts:\n My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul\n Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey\u2019s life!\n If my susp\u00e8ct be false, forgive me, God;\n For judgment only doth belong to Thee!\u201d\n\nIt is by the deathbed of the man self-convicted of Duke Humphrey\u2019s death,\nthat Henry can yet say, even of him, when from so bad a death is argued a\nmonstrous life, Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.\n\nAre we to infer that Shakspeare was himself for backing to the full this\nroyal veto? That, perhaps, were going too far. The veto is dramatically\ntrue to character, and designedly characteristic of the royal speaker.\nBut if Shakspeare himself (we are assuming him to _be_ the author of this\ndisputed play) would or could scarcely in this particular instance have\nenforced such a lesson of charity, we may at least be assured, from\nthe large tolerance and subtle apprehension so patent in his own kingly\nnature, that he would in spirit have echoed the king\u2019s _forbear_. Perhaps\nhis own feeling might be as nearly as possible expressed in other words\nof his, put into the mouth of quite another character, and referring to\nquite another occasion:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven?\n But, in our circumstance and course of thought,\n \u2019Tis heavy with him.\u201d\n\nForbear to judge, is, nevertheless, the moral of this strain, as of the\nother. Human ignorance in the one case, human frailty in the other, ousts\nhuman nature from the judgment-seat.\n\nNo man, avers Sir Thomas Browne, can justly censure or condemn another;\nbecause, in fact, no man truly knows another. \u201cThis I perceive in myself;\nfor I am in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold me\nbut in a cloud.... Further, no man can judge another, because no man\nknows himself.\u201d In a former section of this his profession of faith, this\ngood physician warns those who, upon a rigid application of the law,\nsentence Solomon unto damnation,[19] that they condemn not only him, but\nthemselves, and the whole world; \u201cfor, by the letter and written word\nof God, we are without exception in the state of death: but there is a\nprerogative of God, and an arbitrary pleasure above the letter of His\nown law, by which alone we can pretend unto salvation, and through which\nSolomon might be as easily saved as those who condemn him.\u201d\n\nThe Vicar of Gravenhurst, in his position of parish priest, owns himself\ncompelled to confess that the best people are not the best in every\nrelation of life, and the worst not bad in every relation of life; so\nthat, with experience, he finds himself growing lenient in his blame, if\nalso reticent in his praise. \u201cAgain and again I say to myself that only\nthe Omniscient can be the equitable judge of human beings\u2014so complicated\nare our virtues with our failings, and so many are the hidden virtues,\nas well as hidden vices, of our fellow-men.\u201d If judge at all we dare, and\ndo, be it in the spirit and to the letter of Wordsworth\u2019s counsel:\u2014\n\n \u201cFrom all rash censure be the mind kept free;\n He only judges right who weighs, compares,\n And, in the sternest sentence which his voice\n Pronounces, ne\u2019er abandons Charity.\u201d\n\nWell and wisely said La Bruy\u00e8re, that \u201cLa r\u00e8gle de Descartes, qui ne\nveut pas que l\u2019on d\u00e9cide sur les moindres v\u00e9rit\u00e9s avant qu\u2019elles soient\nconnues clairement et distinctement, est assez belle et assez juste pour\ndevoir s\u2019\u00e9tendu au jugement que l\u2019on fait des personnes.\u201d Real character,\nas William Hazlitt says, is not one thing, but a thousand things: actual\nqualities do not conform to any factitious standard in the mind, but\nrest upon their own truth and nature. \u201cThe dull stupor under which we\nlabour in respect of those whom we have the greatest opportunities of\ninspecting nearly, we should do well to imitate, before we give extreme\nand uncharitable verdicts against those whom we only see in passing, or\nat a distance.\u201d\n\n \u201cWell\u2014after all\u2014\n What know we of the secret of a man?\n His nerves were wrong. What ails us; who are sound,\n That we should mimic this raw fool, the world,\n Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,\n As ruthless as a baby with a worm,\n As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows\n To pity\u2014more from ignorance than will.\u201d\n\nWho can say, asks Samuel Rogers, \u201cIn such circumstances I should have\ndone otherwise?\u201d Who, did he but reflect by what slow gradations, often\nby how many strange occurrences, we are led astray; with how much\nreluctance, how much agony, how many efforts to escape, how many sighs,\nhow many tears\u2014who, did he but reflect for a moment, would have the heart\nto cast a stone?[20]\n\nThe autobiographer of one of Mr. Wilkie Collins\u2019s earlier fictions\nproposes in an opening chapter to give a sketch of his character. But\nhe sensibly refrains from the execution of a too ambitious plan. For,\n\u201cwhat man can say: I will sound the depth of my own vices and measure the\nheight of my own virtues; and be as good as his word? We can neither know\nnor judge ourselves\u2014others may judge, but cannot know us\u2014God alone judges\nand knows too.\u201d\n\n \u201cWho made the heart, \u2019tis He alone\n Decidedly can try us;\n He knows each chord\u2014its various tone,\n Each spring, its various bias:\n Then at the balance let\u2019s be mute,\n We never can adjust it.\u201d\n\nDunsford the essayist\u2019s objection to all hasty judgment of our\nfellow-creatures is based on the ground of its being \u201csuch an\nunscientific proceeding.\u201d You comment, he says, upon another man\u2019s\nconduct, and attribute motives to him. Now an ingenious and imaginative\nperson\u2014a lawyer making a speech for him\u2014might show many different motives\nof equal probability. You fix upon one, perhaps because it is consonant\nto your own mind and nature, or because it is the uppermost or easiest\none to conjecture; but really you often ignore the doctrine of chances,\nand perhaps you will find upon strict calculation that the chances are\nfairly four to one against your having named the right motive. As the\nwinning horse is often \u201ca dark one,\u201d at any rate not the favourite, so\nafter all some obscure and improbable motive is often the true cause of\na man\u2019s actions. In short, Dunsford maintains that our condemnation of\nothers is often as unscientific as it is unchristian.\n\nWhen the Doge of Venice, Foscari, in Byron\u2019s tragedy, agitated by the\nsummons to judge his son, speculates somewhat wildly on the burden of the\nmystery of all this unintelligible world, Marina submissively suggests\nthat\n\n \u201cThese are things we cannot judge\n On earth.\u201d\n\nAnd how then, demands the old man,\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd how then shall we judge each other,\n Who are all earth?\u201d\n\nMr. Lockhart, in the closing chapter of his admirable Life of Scott,\nquoting Keble\u2019s lines,\u2014\n\n \u201cNot even the tenderest heart, and next our own,\n Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh,\u201d\n\ndeclares considerations of this kind to have always induced him to regard\nwith small respect any attempt to delineate fully and exactly any human\nbeing\u2019s character. He avows his distrust of our capacity for, even in\nvery humble cases, judging our neighbour fairly; and cannot but pity\nthe presumption that must swell in the heart and brain of any ordinary\nbrother of the race, when daring to pronounce, _ex cathedr\u00e2_, on the\nwhole structure and complexion of a great mind, from the comparatively\nnarrow and scanty materials which can by possibility have been placed\nbefore him.\n\nMen who see _into_ their neighbours, observes Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,\nare very apt to be contemptuous; but men who see _through_ them find\nsomething lying behind every human soul which it is not for them to sit\nin judgment on, or to attempt to sneer out of the order of God\u2019s manifold\nuniverse.\n\nThe same wise-hearted writer\u2014wise of heart as well as head\u2014has a dialogue\nbetween doctor and minister concerning a quasi-reprobate, to whom the\nformer has been kind, and about whose destiny the other is hardly more\nsevere than certain. \u201cBad enough, no doubt,\u201d Doctor Kittredge owns\nthis scampish half-breed to be; \u201cbut might be worse. Has some humanity\nleft in him yet. Let him go. God can judge him\u2014I can\u2019t.\u201d \u201cYou are too\ncharitable, doctor,\u201d objects the minister. \u201cHe has saved his neck\u2014but\nhis soul is a lost one, I am afraid, beyond question.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t judge\nmen\u2019s souls,\u201d the doctor replies. \u201cI can judge their acts, and hold them\nresponsible for those; but I don\u2019t know much about their souls. If you\nor I had found our soul in a half-breed body, and then been turned loose\nto run among the Indians, we might have been playing just such tricks\nas this fellow has been trying.\u201d What said a greater doctor when Boswell\nasked him whether, in the case of an aggressor forcing on a duel by\nill usage, and getting killed in it, there is not almost no \u201cground to\nhope that he is gone to a state of happiness\u201d? \u201cSir,\u201d said Johnson, \u201cwe\nare not to judge determinately of the state in which a man leaves this\nlife. He may in a moment have repented effectually.\u201d And then Johnson\nquoted, apparently with approval, at any rate with hopeful interest,\nan epitaph, from Camden\u2019s Remains, upon a very wicked man, who was\nkilled by a fall from his horse, in which epitaph he is supposed to say,\n\u201cBetween the stirrup and the ground, I mercy asked, I mercy found.\u201d On\nanother occasion Johnson appealed to Richard Baxter\u2019s avowed belief that\na suicide\u2014if hurried by sudden passion to self-slaughter\u2014may be saved.\nAnd \u201cif,\u201d says Baxter, \u201cit should be objected that what I maintain may\nencourage suicide, I answer, I am not to tell a lie to prevent it.\u201d Who,\nas Campbell asks, after surmising that the hand which smote its kindred\nheart, might yet be prone to deeds of mercy,\u2014\n\n ... \u201cWho may understand\n Thy many woes, poor suicide, unknown?\n He who thy being gave shall judge of thee alone.\u201d\n\n_Qualis vita, finis ita_, is a rhyming proverb not quite worthy of all\nacceptation. That Country Parson whose Recreations made him a name (such\nname, at least, as four initials may comprise) declares himself to have\nno look but one of sorrow and pity to cast on the poor suicide\u2019s grave,\nand thinks the common English verdict is right as well as charitable,\nwhich supposes that in every such case reason has become unhinged, and\nresponsibility is gone. \u201cNo doubt it is the saddest of all sad ends; but\nI do not forget that a certain Authority, the highest of all authorities,\nsaid to all human beings, \u2018Judge not, that ye be not judged.\u2019 The writer\nhas, in the course of his duty, looked upon more than one suicide\u2019s dead\nface; and the lines of Hood appeared to sketch the fit feeling with which\nto do so:\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2018Owning her weakness,\n Her evil behaviour;\n And leaving, with meekness,\n Her soul to her Saviour.\u2019\u201d\n\nA different spirit informs the Kirk from the day when Wishart complained\nthat, in their arrogance, her ministers, \u201cas if they had been privy to\nthe councils of God, or the dispensers of His vengeance to the world,\u201d\npresumed to pronounce upon the future state of their adversaries, and\n\u201cdoomed them, both body and soul, to eternal torments.\u201d Pity but the\npoet had been better man and Christian who wrote these strong lines on\ndamnatory sentences _de mortuis_, even when there remains nought to show\u2014\n\n ... \u201csave a life misspent,\u2014\n And soul\u2014but who shall answer where it went?\n \u2019Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they\n Who doom to hell, themselves are on the way,\n Unless those bullies of eternal pains\n Are pardoned their bad hearts for their worse brains.\u201d\n\nMore in a reverent spirit, and in a farther-seeing one, is the mystic\nfinale of the Laureate\u2019s memorable Vision of Sin, and its open verdict on\nthe obscure crime of a great criminal:\u2014\n\n \u201cAt last I heard a voice upon the slope\n Cry to the summit, \u2018Is there any hope?\u2019\n To which an answer pealed from that high land,\n _But in a tongue no man could understand_;\n And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn,\n God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.\u201d\n\nNever let it be forgotten, insists a Quarterly Reviewer, that there is\nscarcely a single moral action of a single human being of which other men\nhave such a knowledge\u2014its ultimate grounds, its surrounding incidents,\nand the real determining causes of its merits,\u2014as to warrant their\npronouncing a conclusive judgment.\n\nThe writings of Mr. Arthur Helps are honourably distinguished by an\noft-recurring plea for mutual tolerance, on the ground of the little we\nreally know one of another. In \u201cCompanions of my Solitude,\u201d for instance,\nthe author remarks that were it only considered how utterly incompetent\nmen are to talk of the conduct of others as they do, the talkers would\noften be silenced at once, and the sufferers as readily consoled. Take\nthe one question merely of difference of temperament\u2014which, amongst men,\nis probably as great as that amongst the different species of animals\u2014as\nbetween that, for example, of the lively squirrel and the solemn crane.\n\u201cNow, if only from this difference between them, the squirrel would be a\nbad judge of the felicity, or generosity, or the domestic conduct, of the\ncrane.\n\n\u201cProbably when we are thinking or talking of a person, we recall some\nvisual image of that person. I have thought what an instructive thing it\nwould be, if under some magic influence\u2014like that, for example, which\nwould construct a \u2018palace of truth\u2019\u2014it were arranged that as we gave out\nour comments on the character or conduct of any person, this image on the\nretina of memory should change according to the truth, or rather the want\nof it, in our remarks. Gradually, feature after feature would steal away\ntill we gazed at nonentity, or we should find another image glide into\nthe field of view,\u2014somebody we had never seen, perhaps, but to whom the\ncomments we were uttering really did apply.\u201d\n\nAccordingly, our author would have the sufferers from injurious and\nunjust comment treat the whole thing as one which lacked reality.\nNo thoughtful man, he urges, ought to be long vexed at such stuff,\nimmaterial in every sense: such stuff as dreams are made of.\n\nIn one of his Dialogues, again, he makes Dunsford declare the most\ncurious thing, as regards people living together, to be the intense\nignorance they sometimes are in of each other. And Milverton follows up\nthe remark by adding, that people fulfil a relation towards each other,\nand only know each other in that relation: they perform orbits round each\nother, each gyrating, too, upon his own axis, so that there are parts of\nthe character of each which are never brought into view of the other. In\nanother Dialogue, Milverton refers to the habit divines have of reminding\nus, that, in forming our ideas of the government of Providence, we should\nrecollect that we see only a fragment. The same observation, in its\ndegree, he holds to be true as regards human conduct. \u201cWe see a little\nbit here and there, and assume the nature of the whole. Even a very silly\nman\u2019s actions are often more to the purpose than his friends\u2019 comments on\nthem.\u201d\n\nIn yet another of his works, this popular essay-writer devotes an entire\nessay to the subject of our judgments of other men. Who does not feel, he\nasks, that to describe with fidelity the least portion of the entangled\nnature that is within him would be no easy matter? And yet the same man\nwho feels this, and who, perhaps, would be ashamed of talking at hazard\nabout the properties of a flower, of a weed, of some figure in geometry,\nwill put forth his guesses about the character of his brother-man, as if\nhe had the fullest authority for all that he was saying. It is shown in\ndetail how an opinion of some man\u2019s character and conduct gets abroad\nwhich is formed after a wrong method, by prejudiced persons, upon a\nfalse statement of facts, respecting a matter which they cannot possibly\nunderstand; and how this is then left to be inflated by Folly, and blown\nabout by Idleness.\n\nThere is among Wordsworth\u2019s Poems on the Naming of Places, one which is\nmemorable if only as containing one of the most admired lines he ever\nwrote, descriptive of Lady of the Mere\u2014\n\n \u201cSole-sitting by the shores of old romance,\u201d\n\n\u2014but which is also pertinent to the present occasion, as pointing a\nmoral, after the poet\u2019s wont to moralise his song. A man had been seen in\nthe distance by the poet and his friends, angling. No great harm in that,\nmy masters? Nay; but the angler was in peasant\u2019s garb, and the season was\nmid-harvest, and therefore, and on the spot, they voted him improvident\nand reckless. But when they came up to him, these over-hasty judges\nfound in the man they had summarily condemned, a poor mortal wasted by\nsickness, and all too weak to labour in the harvest-field, but using his\nbest skill to gain a pittance from the dead unfeeling lake that knew not\nof his wants:\u2014\n\n \u201cI will not say\n What thoughts immediately were ours, nor how\n The happy idleness of that sweet morn\n With all its lovely images, was changed\n To serious musing and to self-reproach.\n Nor did we fail to see within ourselves\n What need there is to be reserved in speech,\n And temper all our thoughts with charity.\n \u2014Therefore, unwilling to forget that day,\n My friend, myself, and she who then received\n The same admonishment, have called the place\n By a memorial name, uncouth indeed\n As e\u2019er by mariner was given to bay\n Or foreland on a new-discovered coast;\n And POINT RASH-JUDGMENT is the name it bears.\u201d[21]\n\nForbear to judge: for how pitifully little is the all we really know one\nof another! Mr. Froude has forcibly remarked\u2014even admitting the remark\nto be a truism\u2014that whoever has attended but slightly to the phenomena\nof human nature has discovered how inadequate is the clearest insight\nwhich he can hope to attain into character and disposition. \u201cEvery one is\na perplexity to himself and a perplexity to his neighbours; and men who\nare born in the same generation, who are exposed to the same influences,\ntrained by the same teachers, and live from childhood to age in constant\nand familiar intercourse, are often little more than shadows to each\nother, intelligible in superficial form and outline, but divided inwardly\nby impalpable and mysterious barriers.\u201d And yet how ready each \u201cweak\nunknowing hand\u201d to hurl the bolts of Heaven against whomsoever it deems\nto be Heaven\u2019s foe.\n\nSir James Stephen bids all hail to Rhadamanthus on his posthumous\njudgment-seat in the nether regions. But when Rhadamanthus comes\nabove ground, holds in his hand the historical pen, and resolves all\nthe enigmas of hearts which ceased to beat long centuries ago, more\nconfidently than most of us would dare to interpret the mysteries of\nown, Sir James for one wishes him back again at the confluence of Styx,\nPhlegethon, and Cocytus. For, \u201cit is, after all, nothing more than\nthe surface of human character which the retrospective scrutiny of the\nkeenest human eye is able to detect.\u201d It is in a subsequent portion of\nthe same instructive treatise, that the writer pronounces human justice\nto be severe, not merely because man is censorious, but because he\nreasonably distrusts himself, and fears lest his weakness should confound\nthe distinctions of good and evil; and Divine justice to be lenient,\nbecause there alone love can flow in all its unfathomable depths and\nboundless expansion, impeded by no dread of error, and diverted by no\nmisplaced sympathies.[22]\n\nIn the course of some remarks on the harshness with which man is disposed\nto regard the fellow-man whose doctrine, in matters of religious faith,\ndiffers from his own, the author of the \u201cCaxton Essays\u201d is impressive\non the fact that He who hath reserved to Himself the right of judging,\nhas imperatively said to man, whose faculty of judging must be, like\nman himself, erring and human, \u201cJudge not, that ye be not judged.\u201d Now,\nargues the essayist, of all our offences, it is clear that that offence\nof which man can be the least competent judge is an offence of defective\nfaith. \u201cFor faith belongs to our innermost hearts, and not to our overt\nactions. And religious faith is therefore that express tribute to the\nonly Reader of all hearts, on the value of which man can never, without\narrogant presumption, set himself up as judge.\u201d\n\nIf even-handed justice, says Mr. Anthony Trollope, were done throughout\nthe world, some apology would be found for most offences. Not that\nthe offences would thus be wiped away, and black become white; but\nmuch that is now very black would, he submits, be reduced to that\nsombre, uninviting shade of ordinary brown which is so customary to\nhumanity.\u201c[23] It is much the same humane thought which underlies\nPelayo\u2019s apology for Roderick, when we read how closely that generous\nprince would and did\n\n ... \u201ccherish in his heart the constant thought\n Something was yet untold, which, being known,\n Would palliate his offence, and make the fall\n Of one till then so excellently good,\n Less monstrous, less revolting to belief,\n More to be pitied, more to be forgiven.\u201d\n\nAs one of George Eliot\u2019s good parsons has it, God sees us as we are\naltogether, not in separate feelings or actions, as our fellow-men see\nus. We are always doing each other injustice, and thinking better or\nworse of each other than we deserve, he says, because we only hear and\nsee separate words and actions\u2014not each other\u2019s whole nature. Do not\nphilosophic doctors tell us, again, the reflective author in person\nelsewhere muses, that we are unable to discern so much as a tree,\nexcept by an unconscious cunning which combines many past and separate\nsensations; that no one sense is independent of another, so that in the\ndark we can hardly taste a fricassee, or tell whether our pipe is alight\nor not, and the most intelligent boy, if accommodated with claws or hoofs\ninstead of fingers, would be likely to remain on the lowest form? If\nso, it is easy to understand that our discernment of men\u2019s motives must\ndepend on the completeness of the elements we can bring from our own\nsusceptibility and our own experience. \u201cSee to it, friend, before you\npronounce a too hasty judgment, that your own moral sensibilities are\nnot of a hoofed or clawed character.\u201d For, as this penetrating writer\ninsists, in continuation of the metaphor, the keenest eye will not serve,\nunless you have the delicate fingers, with their subtile nerve filaments,\nwhich elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves in the invisible\nworld of human sensations.\n\nDeeds which, to quote another popular though less powerful penwoman,\nour acquaintance designate our follies, may at another tribunal be our\nvirtues\u2014our single redeeming points; who judges rightly, who can rightly\njudge, where so many of our efforts are bent to seem other than we are,\nand the universal conjuring trick of this world is to throw dust expertly\nin our neighbours\u2019 eyes?\n\nCenturies ago, well-nigh two score, it was written by the most\nphilosophic, and perhaps the best, of Roman emperors, that men\u2019s actions\nlook worse than they are; and, says he, \u201cone must be thoroughly informed\nof a great many things before one can be rightly qualified to give\njudgment in the case.\u201d The sceptic Bayle was a better Christian than\nScaliger, when he protested against the assertion of that peremptory\nscholar that Bellarmin did not believe a word of what he wrote, and\nwas at heart an atheist: besides the testimony of Bellarmin\u2019s life and\ndeathbed to the contrary, such judgments are, said Bayle (and no friend\nto the Jesuits he), a usurpation of the rights of One who alone is the\nJudge of hearts, and before whom there is no dissembling.\n\nAn apostle\u2019s reason given for the counsel, Speak not evil one of another,\nbrethren,\u2014is this: that whoso speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth\nhis brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law. Now, there\nis one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; who art thou that\njudgest another?\n\n \u201cOh what are we,\n Frail creatures as we are, that we should sit\n In judgment man on man! and what were we,\n If the All-merciful should mete to us\n With the same rigorous measure wherewithal\n Sinner to sinner metes!\u201d\n\nNo observant reader of Mr. Carlyle but will have noticed, if not (which\nwere better) laid to heart, his habitual abstention from that dogmatism\nof the judgment-seat in which smaller spirits delight. For instance, in\nhis moral estimate of so erring a genius as Hoffmann, if, in judging\nhim, Mr. Carlyle is forced to condemn him, it is with mildness, with a\ndesire to do justice. Let us not forget, urges the critic, that for a\nmind like Hoffmann\u2019s, the path of propriety was difficult to find\u2014still\nmore difficult to keep. \u201cMoody, sensitive, and fantastic, he wandered\nthrough the world like a foreign presence, subject to influences of which\ncommon natures have happily no glimpse.\u201d A good or a wise man we must\nnot call him; but among the ordinary population of this world, \u201cto note\nhim with the mark of reprobation were ungrateful and unjust.\u201d So, again,\nin the same author\u2019s review of the life and writings of Werner\u2014who,\nalways in some degree an enigma to himself, may well be obscure to us.\nFor \u201cthere are mysteries and unsounded abysses in every human heart; and\nthat is but a questionable philosophy which undertakes so readily to\nexplain them.\u201d Religious belief especially, Mr. Carlyle urges, at least\nwhen it seems heartfelt and well-intentioned, is no subject for harsh\nor even irreverent investigation. \u201cHe is a wise man that, having such a\nbelief, knows and sees clearly the grounds of it in himself; and those,\nwe imagine, who have explored with strictest scrutiny the secret of their\nown bosoms, will be least apt to rush with intolerant violence into that\nof other men\u2019s.\u201d Still more elaborate and emphatic is the exposition\nof this doctrine as applied to the case of Robert Burns. The world, it\nis alleged, is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men, since\nit decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes, and not positively\nbut negatively,\u2014less on what is done right, than on what is or is not\ndone wrong. Whereas, by Mr. Carlyle\u2019s doctrine, not the few inches of\ndeflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured,\nbut the _ratio_ of these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real\naberration. \u201cThis orbit may be a planet\u2019s, its diameter the breadth of\nthe solar system; or it may be a city hippodrome; nay, the circle of\na ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or paces. But the inches of\ndeflection only are measured; and it is assumed that the diameter of the\nginhorse, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when compared\nto them!\u201d Here, according to our author, lies the root of many a blind,\ncruel condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Rousseaus, which one never listens\nto with approval. \u201cGranted, the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and\ntackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; he has not been all-wise and\nall-powerful: but to know _how_ blameworthy, tell us first whether his\nvoyage has been round the globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of\nDogs.\u201d\n\nTo a very different style of sinners the same judgment\u2014rather the same\nrefusal to judge\u2014is accorded, when the doom of Chaumette, Gobel, and\nother reddest of red-republican reprobates, is rehearsed, in the history\nof France\u2019s reign of terror, while the revolution was devouring so\ngreedily her own children. \u201cFor Anaxagoras Chaumette, the sleek head now\n[April 1794] stript of its _bonnet rouge_ [and a traveller by tumbril to\nSainte Guillotine], what hope is there? Unless Death _were_ \u2018an eternal\nsleep\u2019? Wretched Anaxagoras! God shall judge thee, not I.\u201d\n\nOnce more: \u201cUnhappy soul! who shall judge him?\u201d is the historian\u2019s\ndeprecating query in the instance of August of Poland, the physically\nstrong,\u2014who dies, confessedly a _very_ great sinner, early in 1733. Who\nshall judge him?\n\n \u201cHereafter?\u2014And do you think to look\n On the terrible pages of that Book\n To find his failings, faults, and errors?\n Ah, you will then have other cares,\n In your own shortcomings and despairs,\n In your own secret sins and terrors!\u201d\n\nCorporal Trim was once moved to avow his belief\u2014rather hotly, for his\n_esprit de corps_ was piqued\u2014that when a soldier \u201cgets time to pray, he\nprays as heartily as a parson\u2014though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.\nThou shouldst not have said that, Trim, said my uncle Toby\u2014for God only\nknows who is a hypocrite, and who is not. At the great and general review\nof us all, Corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then)\u2014it will\nbe seen who have done their duties in this world, and who have not.\u201d\n\nIn a like spirit, another clerical novelist, of a more recent type,\nand whose distinctive evangel is Muscular Christianity, introduces a\n\u201cdouble-first\u201d candidate for orders who reminds him of Mr. Bye-Ends in\nBunyan: \u201cAnd yet,\u201d comes the charitable clause conditional, \u201cI believe\nthe man was really in earnest. He was really desirous to do what was\nright, as far as he knew it; and all the more desirous, because he saw,\nin the present state of society, what was right would pay him. God shall\njudge him, not I. Who can unravel the confusion of mingled selfishness\nand devotion that exist even in his own heart, much less in that of\nanother?\u201d\n\nIn Mr. Thackeray\u2019s instance, exception has been taken, on ethical\ngrounds, by no vulgar critic, to his habit of shrinking from moral\nestimate as well as moral judgment, in dealing with his characters.\nInto that distinction not without a difference, this is not the place\n(nor this the pen) to enter. But the critic in question\u2014for some years\na main support of the _National Review_\u2014recognises this avoidance of\nmoral judgment as springing from kindly feeling, from the just and humble\nsense we all should have that our own demerits make it unseemly for us to\nascend the judgment-chair, and from a wide appreciation of the variety\nand obscurity of men\u2019s real motives of action.[24]\n\n\n\n\n_PART-KNOWLEDGE._\n\n1 CORINTHIANS xiii. 9.\n\n\n\u201cWe know in part,\u201d said the apostle; who, therefore, prophesied in part;\nalways with the assurance that when that which is perfect is come, then\nshall that which is in part be done away. Meanwhile, we see through a\nglass darkly, through a medium obscurely\u2014\u201cnow I know in part.\u201d\n\nIf so it was with him that once was caught up into the third heavens,\nmuch more with his readers. For we are but of yesterday, and know\nnothing. \u201cBehold, God is great, and we know Him not.\u201d At the height of\nour knowledge we can but fall back upon the old saying, \u201cLo, these are\nparts of His ways; but how little a portion is heard of Him!\u201d And when\nwe consider the heavens, the work of His hands; the moon and the stars,\nwhich He hath ordained; the earth beneath, the ocean round about, the\nwaters under the earth, the pent-up fires within it,\u2014verily He is a God\nthat hideth Himself still, and that revealeth but a portion of His work,\nclouds and darkness covering the rest. His thoughts are very deep; and\nwhat is man that he should know them, or the son of man that he should\nfind them out unto perfection? From the topmost pinnacles attained by\nscience he can see but the utmost part of them, and cannot see them all.\n\nLocke argues the intellectual and sensible world to be in this perfectly\nalike: that the part which we see of them holds no proportion with\nwhat we see not; and that whatsoever we can reach with our eyes, or\nour thoughts, of either of them, is but a point, almost nothing, in\ncomparison with the rest. Shall he whose birth, maturity, and age, as\nBeattie has it, scarce fill the circle of one summer day\u2014shall the\npoor gnat conclude nature in collapse because of a passing cloud, not\ntransparent to the insect\u2019s vision?\n\n \u201cOne part, one little part, we dimly scan\n Through the dark medium of life\u2019s feverish dream;\n Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan,\n If but that little part incongruous seem.\n Nor is that part perhaps what mortals deem;\n Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise.\n Oh then renounce that impious self-esteem,\n That aims to trace the secrets of the skies;\n For thou art but of dust: be humble and be wise.\u201d\n\nFreethinking Lord Shaftesbury begins a section of his \u201cCharacteristics\u201d\nwith the remark, that when we reflect on any ordinary frame or\nconstitution, either of art or nature, and consider how hard it is to\ngive the least account of a particular _part_ without a competent\nknowledge of the _whole_, we need not wonder to find ourselves at a loss\nin many things relating to the constitution and frame of the universe.\nElsewhere he suggestively observes, that in an infinity of things\nmutually relative, a mind which sees not infinitely, can see nothing\nfully; \u201cand since each particular has relation to all in general, it can\nknow no perfect or true relation of anything in a world not perfectly and\nfully known.\u201d And supposing the case of an ignorant landsman presuming\nto question the details of a ship\u2019s rigging, his lordship breaks out\ninto the apostrophe, \u201cO my friend, let us not thus betray our ignorance,\nbut consider where we are, and in what a universe. Think of the many\nparts of the vast machine in which we have so little insight, and of\nwhich it is impossible we should know the ends and uses; when instead of\nseeing to the highest pennons, we see only some lower deck, and are in\nthis dark case of flesh, confined even to the hold and meanest station\nof the vessel.\u201d There is Mrs. Browning\u2019s usual energy of diction in the\nexclamation,\n\n \u201cAy, we are forced, so pent,\n To judge the whole too partially, confound\n Conclusions. Is there any common phrase\n Significant, when the adverb\u2019s heard alone,\n The verb being absent, and the pronoun out?\n But we, distracted in the roar of life,\n Still insolently at God\u2019s adverb snatch,\n And bruit against Him that His thought is void,\n His meaning hopeless.\u201d\n\nThe same good Providence, as Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9 writes, that governs all,\nshall one day unravel all; we poor mortals being, in the meanwhile, so\nmany all but stone-blind and utterly ignorant lookers-on. We suffer,\nas the author of \u201cThorndale\u201d says\u2014there is no doubt about that\u2014and we\nnaturally speak and think under the sharp pang of our present agony; but\nthe ultimate and overruling judgment which we form of human life, should\nbe taken from some calm, impersonal point of view. \u201cWe should command\nthe widest horizon possible. Of the great whole of humanity we see but a\nlittle at a time. We pause sometimes on the lights only of the picture,\nsometimes only on the shadows. How very dark those shadows seem! Yet if\nwe could embrace in our view the whole of the picture, perhaps the very\ndarkest shadows might be recognised as effective or inevitable portions\nof a grand harmonious whole.\u201d How closes Thomson his poem of \u201cThe\nSeasons,\u201d drear Winter then his cue?\u2014with the memorable lines:\u2014\n\n \u201cYe good distress\u2019d!\n Ye noble few! who here unbending stand\n Beneath life\u2019s pressure, yet bear up awhile;\n And what your bounded view, which only saw\n A little part, deemed evil, is no more:\n The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,\n And one unbounded spring encircle all.\u201d\n\nThe theme of our part knowledge, so strictly cabin\u2019d, cribb\u2019d, confined,\nis one to which Thomson repeatedly recurs. For instance, in an earlier\nbook:\u2014\n\n \u201cBut here the cloud,\n So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep.\n Enough for us to know that this dark state,\n In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits,\n This infancy of being, cannot prove\n The final issue of the works of God,\n By boundless love and perfect wisdom form\u2019d\n And ever rising with the rising mind.\u201d\n\nAgain, with emphasis and discretion (as Polonius says), he puts the query\u2014\n\n \u201cShall little haughty ignorance pronounce\n His works unwise, of which the smallest part\n Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?\n As if upon a full proportioned dome,\n On swelling columns heaved, the pride of art,\n A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads\n An inch around, with blind presumption bold,\n Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.\u201d\n\nHorace Walpole makes use of a similar figure in one of his three or four\nthousand published letters: \u201cWe are poor silly animals: we live for an\ninstant upon a particle of a boundless universe, and are much like a\nbutterfly that should argue about the nature of the seasons, and what\ncreates their vicissitudes, and does not exist itself to see one annual\nrevolution of them.\u201d\n\n \u201cEarth\u2019s number-scale is near us set;\n The total God alone can see;\n But each some fraction.\u201d[25]\n\nAddison, in one of his essays, comments on the body of an animal as an\nobject comparatively adequate to our senses, it being a particular part\nof Providence that lies within a narrow compass, so that the eye is able\nto command it, and by successive inquiries to search into all its parts.\nCould the body of the whole earth, he goes on to say, or indeed the whole\nuniverse, be thus subjected to the examination of our senses, were it\nnot too big and disproportioned for our inquiries, too unwieldy for the\nmanagement of the eye and hand, \u201cthere is no question but it would appear\nto us as curious and well-contrived a frame as that of a human body. We\nshould see the same concatenation and subserviency, the same necessity\nand usefulness, the same beauty and harmony, in all and every of its\nparts, as what we discover in the body of every single animal.\u201d To adopt\nan illustration of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s to the same purpose: imagine the letters\nof a sentence to be so enormous in size, that a man could only make out\none of them at a time; in that case he could not read, that is, collect\nthe letters together and discover the sense of them in combination. So\nit is, argues the benign prelate, with the _grands traits_ of Providence\nin the conduct of the world at large during the lapse of centuries. It\nis only the whole that is intelligible, and the whole is too vast to\nbe scrutinised near at hand. Each event in the process of ages is like\na separate letter or sign, which is too large for our petty organs,\nand which is without a meaning when taken apart from the rest. A more\nvigorous philosopher than the gentle F\u00e9n\u00e9lon compares the universe to\na picture, the beauty of which is then alone perceptible when the true\nstand-point of perspective is taken. There are certain inventions in\nperspective, or certain beautiful designs, he says, which look all\nconfusion until you either inspect them from the right point of view, or\nmake use of some kind of glass or mirror as the medium of observation. In\nthe same manner the apparent deformities of our fractional side-views,\nresolve themselves into harmonious unity when the eye is directed aright.\n\nDr. Johnson was in an unwontedly placid and benignant frame of mind, by\nBoswell\u2019s account, when the two stood together, one serene autumn night,\nin Dr. Taylor\u2019s garden, and the sage delivered himself, in meditative\nmood, of this noteworthy surmise: \u201cSir,\u201d said he, \u201cI do not imagine that\nall things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the\nways of Providence will be explained to us very gradually.\u201d Be that as it\nmay, few could have been found more ready than the melancholic Johnson to\nagree that meanwhile, until the day star arise and the shadows flee away,\n\n \u201cThe ways of Heaven are dark and intricate,\n Puzzled in mazes, and perplexed with errors:\n Our understanding traces them in vain,\n Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search;\n Nor sees with how much art the windings run,\n Nor where the regular confusion ends.\u201d\n\nIt was at a time of national and household tribulation, when darkness\nthat might be felt seemed to encompass altar and hearth, that Joseph\nde Maistre wrote to a friend in trouble: \u201cBe it enough for us to know,\nthat for everything there is a reason with which we shall one day become\nacquainted; let us not weary ourselves with seeking out the why and\nthe wherefore, even when possibly they might be discerned.\u201d He would\nhave his correspondent bear in mind that the epithet \u201cvery good\u201d is a\nnecessary adjunct to \u201cvery great;\u201d and that is sufficient. The inference\nis self-evident, that under the sway of the Being who combines in himself\nthose two qualities\u2014the _tr\u00e8s-bon_ and the _tr\u00e8s-grand_\u2014all the evils\nwe either suffer or witness must needs be acts of justice or means of\nreformation equally indispensable. In the declared love of God to man, M.\nde Maistre found a general solution of all the enigmas that can offend\n(_scandaliser_, in the New Testament sense of putting a stumbling-block\nin the way of) our ignorance. \u201cFixed to one little point of time and\nspace, we are insane enough to refer all to this point; and in so doing\nwe are at once blameworthy and absurd.\u201d If De Maistre\u2019s collation of the\n_tr\u00e8s-bon_ with the _tr\u00e8s-grand_ resembles the lines of Drummond\u2019s hymn\nbeginning,\n\n \u201cO King, whose greatness none can comprehend,\n Whose boundless goodness doth to all extend,\u201d\n\nso is the scope of his argument at one with what follows:\n\n \u201cHere, where, as in a mirror, we but see\n Shadows of shadows, atoms of Thy might,\n Still owly-eyed when staring on Thy light.\u201d\n\nWhat we call this life of men on earth, as Mr. Browning\u2019s island-poet has\nit, is, as he finds much reason to conceive,\n\n \u201cIntended to be viewed eventually\n As a great whole, not analysed to parts,\n But each part having reference to all.\u201d[26]\n\nPope\u2019s well-worked line is of perpetual application,\n\n \u201c\u2019Tis but a part we see, and not the whole.\u201d\n\nSo is the avowal of the present laureate:\n\n \u201cI see in part\n That all, as in some work of art,\n Is toil co-operant to an end.\u201d\n\nTo us, as Sir Benjamin Brodie remarks, in one of his psychological\ndiscussions, the universe presents itself as an assemblage of\nheterogeneous phenomena, some of which we can reduce to laws of limited\noperation, while others stand by themselves, bearing no evident relation\nto anything besides. We may well, he thinks, suppose that there are\nin the universe beings of a superior intelligence, and possessed of a\ngreater range of observation, who are sufficiently \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d to\nbe able to contemplate all the immense variety of material phenomena as\nthe result of one great general law. Their standpoint may enable them\nto see a Cosmos, a world of order, where to lower intelligences Chaos\nalone is discernible, a world comparatively without form and void, with\ndarkness upon the face of its deep. And as with the physical, so with the\nmetaphysical. As with the material, so with the moral.\n\n \u201cExperience, like a pale musician, holds\n A dulcimer of patience in his hand;\n Whence harmonies we cannot understand\n Of God\u2019s will in the worlds, the strain unfolds\n In sad perplex\u00e8d minors....\n\n \u201cWe murmur\u2014\u2018Where is any certain tune\n Of measured music, in such notes as these?\u2019\u2014\n But angels leaning from their golden seat,\n Are not so minded! their fine ear hath won\n The issue of completed[27] cadences,\u2014\n And, smiling down the stars, they whisper\u2014Sweet.\u201d[28]\n\n\n\n\n_RULING THE WAVES._\n\nPSALM cxiv. 1-5; ST. MARK iv. 39.\n\n\nWhen Israel went out of Egypt, it was under the guidance of One whose\nhand being mighty to save, the sea saw it, and fled; Jordan was driven\nback. \u201cWhat ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that\nthou wast driven back?\u201d The trembling was at the presence of Him who hath\nplaced the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it\ncannot pass it; and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can\nthey not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it. The\ncommotion, the fleeing, the driving back, was at the bidding of Him\nwho, and who alone, can say to the sea, Thus far shalt thou come, and no\nfarther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.\n\nThe men of Galilee marvelled when, at the storm that once arose on their\nsea, and the ship was in jeopardy, there arose One who rebuked the winds\nand the sea; and there was a great calm. What manner of man was this,\nthat even the winds and the sea obeyed Him?\n\nWhat manner of man? Be it legend or history, the story of royal Cnut\non the seashore, forbidding, at his flatterers\u2019 instigation, or by his\nown desire to rebuke their folly\u2014forbidding the farther approach of the\nincoming tide, is pregnant with instruction on this head. The royal Dane\nmight be a man of men, but the surging waves were not obedient unto his\nvoice. King though he was, the tide was responseless as deaf adder to\nany charming of his, charmed he never so wisely, enjoined he never so\nstraitly. What manner of man, then, but the Son of man? What manner of\nking but the King of kings?\n\nThe Dane might have enforced the lesson on his parasites by such a strain\nas that of a defeated monarch in Shakspeare:\u2014\n\n \u201cFarewell king!\n Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood\n With solemn reverence; throw away respect,\n Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,\n For you have but mistook me all this while:\n I live with bread, like you, feel want, taste grief,\n Need friends:\u2014subjected thus,\n How can you say to me I am a king?\u201d\n\nA king, that is, in _their_ sense of right Divine, and Divine extent.\nSo with poor, mad, discrowned Lear, drenched in that terrible storm\non the heath, and remembering soft speeches of cozening courtiership,\nonly of yesterday too. \u201cWhen the rain came to wet me, and the wind to\nmake me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there\nI found them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men of their\nwords: they told me I was everything; \u2019tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.\u201d\nMark, again, from the opening scene of the \u201cTempest,\u201d the rough, blunt,\nuncivil words with which the boatswain cuts short the addresses of his\nroyal passengers:\u2014\n\n \u201cHence! What care these roarers [the waves] for the name of\n king? To cabin: silence: trouble us not.\n\n \u201c_Gonzalo._ Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.\n\n \u201c_Boatswain._ None that I love more than myself. You are a\n counsellor; if you can command these elements to a silence,\n and work the peace of the present [instant], we will not hand\n a rope more: use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks\n you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin\n for the mischance of the hour, if so it hap. Cheerily, good\n hearts.\u2014Out of our way, I say!\u201d\n\nOf Antiochus Epiphanes, and his pride that had a fall, it is written in\nthe book of Maccabees: \u201cAnd thus he that a little afore thought he _might\ncommand the waves of the sea_ (so proud was he beyond the condition of\nman), and weigh the high mountains in a balance, was now cast on the\nground.\u201d\n\nAn elder king than Cnut, and not a wiser, not only lashed the winds that\nblew contrary to his will, but bound the sea with fetters, after a sort:\n\n \u201cIpsum compedibus qui vinxerat Ennosig\u00e6um.\u201d\n\nMuch good it did him: witness his return from his great expedition,\nin a poor skiff, wind-tossed across waves red with the blood of his\nslaughtered host, _cruentis fluctibus_. The stars in their courses\nonce fought against Sisera, and the fettered waves were little more\npropitious to speed the fortunes of Xerxes. He might have spared his\nchains. At any rate he lost his army. Archdeacon Hare practically applied\nthe extravagance of the Great King, as they of Persia were styled, in\ndesignating the present (or, rather, what was to him the present) as an\nage when men will scoff at the madness of Xerxes, yet themselves try to\nfling their chains over the ever-rolling, irrepressible ocean of thought;\nnay, they will scoop out a mimic sea in their pleasure-ground, he goes\non to say, and make it ripple and bubble, and spout up prettily into the\nair, and then fancy that they are taming the Atlantic; which, however,\nkeeps advancing upon them, until it sweeps them away with their toys.\n\nIt is edifying to read in the Diary of Mr. Pepys how, one July afternoon,\nsoon after the king had come back to enjoy his own again, that gentleman\nwent upon the river, but had to put ashore and shelter himself from the\nrain that rained so hard; during which time came by the king in his\nbarge, going down towards the Downs to meet the queen: \u201cBut methought it\nlessened my esteem of a king, that he should not be able to command the\nrain.\u201d\n\nInstructive, too, is the tenor of the legend of King Robert of Sicily,\nwhich has been so attractively treated in prose by Leigh Hunt, in his\nJar of Honey from Mount Hybla, and in verse by Professor Longfellow, in\nhis Tales of a Wayside Inn. There we read how the king with his nobles\nproudly sat at vespers, on St. John\u2019s Eve, and heard the priests chant\nthe Magnificat:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd, as he listened, o\u2019er and o\u2019er again\n Repeated, like a burden or refrain,\n He caught the words, \u2018_Deposuit potentes_\n _De sede, et exaltavit humiles_;\u2019\n And slowly lifting up his kingly head,\n He to a learned clerk beside him said,\n \u2018What mean these words?\u2019 The clerk made answer meet,\n \u2018He hath put down the mighty from their seat,\n And hath exalted them of low degree.\u2019\n Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully,\n \u2019Tis well that such seditious words are sung\n Only by priests, and in the Latin tongue;\n For unto priests and people be it known\n There is no power can push me from my throne!\u2019\u201d\n\nThe sequel teaches him a different lesson, which he learns by (and lays\nto) heart.\n\nIn those days, however, if any order of men might, or did, claim\nauthority over such turbulent subject-matter as the sea, it was not\nkings, but priests. Ecclesiastical history relates the calamitous\nvisitation of earthquake and inundations by which Epidaurus must once,\nand for ever, have been overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed\nSt. Hilarion, an Egyptian monk, on the beach. \u201cHe made the sign of the\ncross; the mountain-wave stopped, bowed, and returned.\u201d One\u2019s respect\nfor the great qualities of the fearless Akbah, traversing the wilds of\nAfrica, and at length penetrating to the verge of the Atlantic, is not\nlessened by what Gibbon relates of him:\u2014that his career, though not his\nzeal, being checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean, Akbah spurred\nhis horse into the waves, and raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed\nwith the tone of a fanatic, \u201cGreat God, if my course were not stopped\nby this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown kingdoms of the West,\npreaching the unity of Thy holy name.\u201d And the picture reminds us of\nanother, some eight centuries later, when Constantinople was besieged and\ntaken by Mahomet II., who, while his ships were engaged against those of\nthe Genoese, sat on horseback on the beach, to encourage by voice and\npresence the valour of the faithful: \u201cThe passions of his soul, and even\nthe gestures of his body, seemed to imitate the action of the combatants;\nand, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurred his horse with\na fearless and impotent effort into the sea.\u201d Sir Archibald Alison\nmoralises on the spectacle of Napoleon, in 1804, reviewing, or intending\nto review, the naval force by which he designed to crush the British\npower: the flotilla being tempest-tost when it hove in sight, and several\nvessels stranded\u2014an event \u201cdestined to teach the French Emperor, like\nCanute the Dane, that there were bounds to his power, and that his might\nwas limited to the element on which his army stood.\u201d The sea\u2014_c\u2019est autre\nchose_.\n\nIt is of Tiberius, absolute master of the vastest, richest empire ever\nseen under the sun, that an eminent French preacher is treating when\nhe says that an adulatory senator kept repeating to him in every tone\nand accent that his authority was without bounds. Tiberius would fain\nhave believed the assurance, if the illusion had been possible,\u2014if\nhe had not felt himself at every instant _heurt\u00e9 contre une barri\u00e8re\ninfranchissable_. The emperor\u2019s flatterers had forgotten, for one thing,\nto secure a peremptory decree against the inconvenient limitation called\ntime. His days were numbered. And in vain Tiberius essayed to trick and\nelude death, and dissembled with himself as to the stubborn fact of its\nresistless advance.\n\nKings, great nobles, and the like, as a popular essayist observes, have\nbeen known, even to the close of life, to violently curse and swear, if\nthings went against them; going the length of stamping and blaspheming\neven at wind and rain, and branches of trees and plashes of mud, for\ninsubordination and disrespect of persons. A popular novelist, again,\nhaving to describe a fashionable wedding in the country on a portentously\nwet and stormy day, makes the Lisford beadle, \u201cwho was a sound Tory of\nthe old school,\u201d almost wonder that the heavens themselves should be\naudacious enough to wet the uncovered head of the lord of Jocelyn\u2019s Rock.\n\u201cBut it went on raining nevertheless.\u201d It was in no such spirit that John\nBunyan once was all but resolved on putting to the test the reality of\nhis faith, by commanding some water puddles to be dry.\n\nMr. Carlyle made a picturesque application of the royal Dane\u2019s injunction\nto the waves, in his survey of the advancing tide of the French\nRevolution\u2014grim host marching on, the black-browed Marseillese in the\nvan, with hum and murmur, far-heard; like the ocean-tide, \u201cdrawn up,\nas if by Luna and Influences, from the great deep of waters, they roll\ngleaming on; no king, Canute or Louis, can bid them roll back.\u201d To quite\nanother effect is Judge Haliburton\u2019s application of the incident, in his\npanegyric on the capabilities of the Southampton docks. It was here, he\nsays, that Cnut sat in his arm-chair, to show his courtiers (after he\ngave up drinking and murder) that though he was a mighty prince, he could\nnot control the sea. \u201cWell, what Canute could not do, your dock company\nhas accomplished. It has actually said to the sea, \u2018Thus far shalt thou\ngo, and no farther:\u2019 and the waves have obeyed the mandate.\u201d\n\nBy poetical licence a Cornish poet of the present day ascribes to his\nrock-bound coast a _ne plus ultra_ control over an ever-aggressive sea:\nhe pictures the embattled advance of the waves, and their discomfiture\nand retreat:\n\n \u201cThey come\u2014they mount\u2014they charge in vain.\n Thus far, incalculable main;\n No more! Thine hosts have not o\u2019erthrown\n The lichen on the barrier stone.\n Have the rocks faith that thus they stand,\n Unmoved, a grim and stately band,\n And look, like warriors tried and brave,\n Stern, silent, reckless, o\u2019er the wave?\u201d\n\nOne, and one alone, is veritably the ruler of the waves. When the floods\nare risen, when the floods have lift up their voice, and lift up their\nwaves, to Him only it pertaineth to still their tumultuous clamour, and\nto level their aspiring crests. The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage\nhorribly; yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier. \u201cO Lord God of\nhosts, who is like unto Thee?... Thou rulest the raging of the sea: Thou\nstillest the waves thereof when they arise.\u201d\n\nWith a moral application we conclude, borrowed from one whose was ever\nthe pen of a ready writer to point a moral. Some dream, says Cowper, that\n\n ... \u201cthey can silence when they will\n The storm of passion, and say, \u2018Peace, be still:\u2019\n But \u2018Thus far and no farther,\u2019 when addressed\n To the wild wave, or wilder human breast,\n Implies authority that never can,\n That never ought to be the lot of man.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_IN DEADLY PERIL UNAWARES._\n\n1 SAMUEL xxvi. 8-25.\n\n\nSoundly the stalwart king of Israel slept within the trench, while David\nand Abishai gazed on him by stealth in the night-watches\u2014his spear stuck\nin the ground at his bolster, and Abner and the people lying round about\nhim. Abishai was for smiting him with the spear at once, promising that\nonce should be quite enough. Could David hesitate? Was it not a special\nProvidence? Had not God delivered his enemy into his hand? Let but David\ngive the word, the look, the nod, and Abishai would at one fell swoop\nsend Saul to his account, with all his imperfections on his head. \u201cNow,\ntherefore, let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear, even to the\nearth at once, and I will not smite him the second time.\u201d But David was\ninflexible in repudiating the regicide. Not for him was it to stretch\nforth a hand against the Lord\u2019s anointed. So Saul slept on, and the\nshadow of death passed away. Unaware of the peril that had approached\nhim, his awaking was an ordinary awaking. But, to convict the watchers\nof unwatchfulness, if not to convince the king of a narrow escape and a\ngenerous foe, David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul\u2019s\nbolster; and he and his companion gat them away unperceived\u2014for no man\nsaw it, nor knew it, neither awaked; for they were all asleep; because\na deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon them. Anon David roused the\nhost with the story of that narrow escape, charging Abner with criminal\nneglect worthy of death. And as he recited the story, Saul was touched;\nand there was emotion in his voice and in his words when he felt what the\nperil had been, and knew whom he had to thank for its harmless issue.\n\nHad we eyes sharp enough, observes Cowper in a letter to Hayley, we\nshould see the arrows of death flying in all directions, and account\nit a wonder that we and our friends escape them but a single day.\nMany years previously the poet had written to the same effect to\nUnwin,\u2014that could we see at a glance of the eye what is passing every\nday upon all the roads in the kingdom, we should indeed find reason\nto be thankful for journeys performed in safety, and for deliverance\nfrom dangers we are not perhaps even permitted to see. \u201cWhen in some of\nthe high southern latitudes, and in a dark tempestuous night, a flash\nof lightning discovered to Captain Cook a vessel which glanced along\nclose by his side, and which but for the lightning he must have run\nfoul of, both the danger and the transient light that showed it were\nundoubtedly designed,\u201d as Cowper is devoutly convinced, \u201cto convey to\nhim this wholesome instruction, that a particular Providence attended\nhim, and that he was not only preserved from evils of which he had\nnotice, but from many more of which he had no information or even the\nleast suspicion.\u201d It is noticeable, as Mr. de Quincey points out, that\na danger which approaches, but wheels away\u2014which threatens, but finally\nforbears to strike\u2014is more interesting by much on a distant retrospect\nthan the danger which accomplishes its mission. \u201cThe Alpine precipice,\ndown which many pilgrims have fallen, is passed without much attention;\nbut that precipice, within one inch of which a traveller has passed\nunconsciously in the dark, first tracing his peril along the snowy margin\non the next morning, becomes invested with an attraction of horror for\nall who hear the story.\u201d In another of his books, and the most celebrated\nof them all, the same impassioned master of English prose, recites the\nthoughts that arose within him, at a crisis in his youthful life, on the\nsuggestive opening of that beautiful collect, \u201cLighten our darkness,\nwe beseech thee, O Lord!\u201d in which the great shadows of night are made\nsymbolically significant\u2014those great powers, night and darkness, that\nbelong to aboriginal chaos, being made representative of the perils that,\nunseen, continually menace poor afflicted human nature. \u201cWith deepest\nsympathy I accompanied the prayer against the perils of darkness,\u2014perils\nthat I seemed to see, in the ambush of midnight solitude, brooding\naround the beds of sleeping nations; perils from even worse forms of\ndarkness shrouded within the recesses of blind human hearts; perils from\ntemptations weaving unseen snares for our footing.\u201d As Marcello has it,\nin Beddoes\u2019 tragedy,\n\n \u201cEach minute of man\u2019s safety he does walk\n A bridge, no thicker than his frozen breath,\n O\u2019er a precipitous and craggy danger\n Yawning to death!\u201d\n\nWith admirable subtlety and suggestiveness, Mr. Hawthorne illustrates\nthis subject in that _fantasiest\u00fcck_ of his, called \u201cDavid Swan.\u201d A young\nman of that name falls asleep on the roadside, of a summer\u2019s day, and\n_we_ see, what he sees not, nor dreams of happening to him, a series of\nincidents that go near to alter the current of his being, and very near,\nin one instance, to stop altogether its earthly course. When he awakes\nfrom that sound sleep, and hies him cheerily homeward, he knows not,\nnor ever will know, in this world at least, that while he slumbered, all\nin one brief hour, wealth was all but made over to him by one heirless\npasser-by, and death all but dealt him by two reckless ruffians. They\nwere interrupted, and left him, and he never was to know of the narrow\nescape. The moral of the fantasy is, that sleeping or waking, we hear\nnot the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen. And the\nmoralist\u2019s query ensues, Does it not argue a superintending Providence,\nthat while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves continually\nathwart our path, there should still be regularity enough in mortal life\nto render foresight even partially available?\n\nThe moral of \u201cDavid Swan\u201d is implicitly conveyed in that passage in\n\u201cWaverley\u201d which relates Colonel Gardiner\u2019s unconscious escape from the\nraised and pointed weapon of the Highlander, Callum Beg. An incident\nthat appeals to his superstition makes the intending slayer drop his\npiece; and \u201cColonel Gardiner,\u201d we read, \u201cunconscious of the danger he had\nescaped, turned his horse round, and rode slowly back to the front of his\nregiment.\u201d\n\nSo with Mrs. Hilyard, in \u201cSalem Chapel,\u201d on the evening of the secret\ninterview upon the chapel steps. A hidden witness there is of that\ninterview, who, however, sees not the gesture of her companion which\nbodes, and almost involves, a fatal, a murderous issue. \u201cBut even Mrs.\nHilyard herself never knew how near, how very near, she was at that\nmoment to the unseen world.\u201d\n\nOr glance, again, at the Azteca, in Southey\u2019s \u201cMadoc,\u201d gliding like a\nsnake to where Caradoc lay sleeping\u2014all unconscious of peril, as happy,\nand happily unconscious, David Swan:\u2014\n\n \u201cSweetly slept he, and pleasant were his dreams\n Of Britain, and the blue-eyed maid he loved.\n The Azteca stood over him; he knew\n His victim, and the power of vengeance gave\n Malignant joy. Once hast thou \u2019scaped my arm;\n But what shall save thee now? the Tiger thought,\n Exulting, and he raised his spear to strike.\n That instant, o\u2019er the Briton\u2019s unseen harp\n The gale of morning passed, and swept its strings\n Into so sweet a harmony, that sure\n It seemed no earthly tune. The savage man\n Suspends his stroke; he looks astonished round;\n No human hand is near:\u2014and hark! again\n The a\u00ebrial music swells and dies away.\n Then first the heart of Tialala felt fear:\n He thought that some protecting spirit watched\n Beside the stranger, and, abashed, withdrew.\u201d\n\nTo Cremona went together, in seeming amity, the Emperor Sigismund and\nPope John XXIII., and there an incident had nearly taken place, which,\nas the historian of Latin Christianity says, might, by preventing the\nCouncil of Constance, have changed the fortunes of the world. Gabrino\nFondoli, who from podest\u00e2 had become tyrant of Cremona, \u201centertained his\ndistinguished guests with sumptuous hospitality. He led them up the lofty\ntower to survey the rich and spacious plains of Lombardy. On his deathbed\nFondoli confessed the sin, of which he deeply repented, that he resisted\nthe temptation, and had not hurled pope and emperor down, and so secured\nhimself an immortal name.\u201d Pope and emperor on the tower-top were as\nlittle inclined to suspect how closely the shadow of death was then and\nthere overshadowing them, as they would have been able to comprehend the\nultimate repentance of the intending murderer, not for having intended\nmurder, but for having not carried his intention out.\n\nIt is one of Young\u2019s night thoughts that \u201cthe farthest from the fear,\nare often nearest to the stroke of fate.\u201d Often the stroke menaces them\nunawares, but after all is not dealt; and to the last they are unaware\nthat on such a day, and at such a minute, there was but a step between\nthem and death.\n\n_Quid quisque vitet_, says Horace, _nunquam homini satis cautum est, in\nhoras_. The ignorance of what is impending is bliss, in a certain sense.\nJust as\n\n \u201cThe kid from the pen, and the lamb from the fold,\n Unmoved may the blade of the butcher behold;\n They dream not\u2014ah, happier they!\u2014that the knife,\n Though uplifted, can menace their innocent life.\n It falls;\u2014the frail thread of their being is riven;\n They dread not, suspect not, the blow till \u2019tis given.\u201d\n\n_Mais qu\u2019il me soit permis de ne le savoir pas_, is the wish of some in\nregard even of escaped peril.\n\nScott vividly illustrates in \u201cRokeby\u201d the position of unconscious and\ntherefore unconcerned borderers on the grave; it is where Bertram creeps\non hands and knees through the spreading birch and hazels, and takes aim\nat Redmond, and twice Matilda comes between the carabine and Redmond\u2019s\nbreast, \u201cjust ere the spring his finger pressed;\u201d and the interruption of\nGuy Denzil\u2019s approach makes the ruffian retire, _r\u00ea infect\u00e2_:\n\n \u201cThey whom dark Bertram, in his wrath,\n Doomed to captivity or death,\n Their thoughts to one sad subject lent,\n Saw not nor heard the ambushment.\n Heedless and unconcerned they sate,\n While on the very verge of fate;\n Heedless and unconcerned remained,\n When Heaven the murderer\u2019s arm restrained;\n As ships drift darkling down the tide,\n Nor see the shelves o\u2019er which they glide.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_NO LEISURE._\n\nST. MARK vi. 31.\n\n\nThat must have been a busy time with the apostles, careful and troubled\nabout many things, cumbered with much serving, worn with many anxieties,\nand kept in unrest by continual demands on their services, when the\nDivine Master\u2014knowing their frame and remembering that they were\ndust\u2014bade them come by themselves \u201capart into a desert place, and rest a\nwhile; for there were many coming and going, and they had _no leisure_ so\nmuch as to eat.\u201d\n\nOur own age has been rightly described as one of stimulus and high\npressure: we live as it were our lives out fast; effect is everything;\nresults produced at once; something to show, and something that may\n_tell_. \u201cThe folio of patient years is replaced by the pamphlet that\nstirs men\u2019s curiosity to-day, and to-morrow is forgotten.\u201d Or as an\neminent reviewer puts it\u2014writing to the same effect as the eminent divine\njust quoted\u2014without grudging to contemporary productions the applause\nwhich they receive, or the interest which they excite, thoughtful minds\ncannot see them with complacency obscuring by their brilliance, or\nperhaps their \u201cglare,\u201d the more temperate and wholesome light of the\nelder classics of our land. \u201cAt no moment in the intellectual progress\nof England has repose ever been more needful, if the literature of the\npresent century be to take its place among its great antecessors.\u201d For\nwant of repose our prose is declared on the same authority to be growing\nturgid, our verse empty or inflated; and as a good cooling regimen\nis required to correct these exorbitances, nothing would rejoice our\ncensor more than to be assured, on the credit of sound publishers\u2019\nstatistics, that the number of new books was diminishing, while that of\nre-editions of old books was on the increase. Dr. Arnold, we are told,\nonce preached a sermon to the boys at Rugby against taking in the monthly\nnumbers of \u201cNicholas Nickleby,\u201d by way of protest against systematic and\nuninterrupted excitement. \u201cSociety keeps up as much excitement as it can.\nIt wants its new number of something to appear incessantly. There is no\nrest or repose, and one subject of thought succeeds another faster than\nwave succeeds wave.\u201d A rather ironical apology for dull sermons sets up\nat least this plea in their behalf: that so easy is it for a man who\nlives in such a society never to be alone with himself, that a compulsory\nhalf-hour of quietude at a wakeful time of the day, in a place which\nrecalls to him the most solemn thoughts, is no slight advantage.\n\nLa Bruy\u00e8re, two centuries ago, complained of French society in his day,\nthat there was no getting any one to abide quietly at home, and there in\npatience possess his soul, and make sure to himself that he had one. All\nwas hurry and flurry. Not to be excitedly busy was to be idle. But that\nthe philosopher denied. A wise man turns his leisure to account. He is\nnot idle who devotes his leisure to tranquil meditation, and converse\nand reading. Rather is this a species of work\u2014at any rate a means for\nworking with fresh energy and better effect when the working hour comes\nround again. There is such a thing as what Wordsworth wisely calls a wise\npassiveness.\n\nChateaubriand, again, more than a century afterwards, complained\u2014not\nindeed of Frenchmen alone, but of all men\u2014that all was done\nhelter-skelter and in haste, post-haste; that amid this din and\ndistraction of coming and going there was no leisure so much as to eat;\nor that if men did set about a meal, there was no such thing as sitting\ndown to it, but it was eaten by them with their loins girded, their shoes\non their feet, and their staff in their hand\u2014eaten in haste, as was the\nJewish passover.\n\nThe most eminent political economist of our day owns himself to be \u201cnot\ncharmed\u201d with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the\nnormal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on; that the\ntrampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on one another\u2019s heels,\nwhich form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable\nlot of human kind, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of\nthe phases of industrial progress. The town, complains one of the most\nthoughtful and influential of latter-day divines,\u2014the town, with its\nfever and its excitements, and its collision of mind with mind, has\nspread over the country, and there is no country, scarcely home. \u201cTo men\nwho traverse England in a few hours, and spend only a portion of the\nyear in one place, home is becoming a vocable of past ages.\u201d He echoes\nWordsworth\u2019s lament that\n\n \u201cPlain living and high thinking are no more;\u201d\n\nand in another place he declares our want to be the vision of a calmer\nand simpler beauty, to tranquillise us in the midst of artificial tastes,\nand the draught of a purer spring to cool the flame of our excited life.\nIt is many years ago since the most genial of essayists avowed his\npreference for \u201ccoaching it,\u201d and could have been well content to live\nupon the road, in those roomy antiques, instead of getting on at the\npresent rate, and being impatient to arrive at some town, only perhaps\nto be equally restless when arrived there. Not that he was insensible\nto the pleasure of driving fast\u2014stirring the blood as it does, and\ngiving a sense of power; but he complained that everything was getting a\nlittle too hasty and business-like, \u201cas though we were to be eternally\ngetting on, and never realizing anything but fidget and money\u2014the means\ninstead of the end.\u201d A distinction is duly recognised between haste and\nhurry\u2014hurry adding to rapidity the element of painful confusion; but\nin the case of ordinary people, as Dr. Boyd observes, haste generally\nimplies hurry, and very strenuously he dilates on \u201cwhat a horrible thing\u201d\nit must be to go through life in a hurry. The self-styled country parson\nmade a name (\u201cletters four do make that name\u201d) by his \u201cRecreations.\u201d\nAnd he has since then maintained its popularity by a series of\n\u201cLeisure Hours.\u201d In his essay concerning Hurry and Leisure he avows\nhis utter contempt for the idler\u2014the loafer, as Yankees term him\u2014who\nnever does anything, whose idle hands are always in his idle pockets,\nand who is always sauntering to and fro. Leisure, we are reminded,\nis the intermission of labour\u2014the blink of idleness in the life of a\nhard-working man; and it is only in the case of such a man that leisure\nis allowed to be dignified, commendable, or enjoyable. \u201cBut to him it\nis all these, and more. Let us not be ever driving on. The machinery,\nphysical and mental, will not stand it.\u201d Only in leisure, it is further\ncontended, will the human mind yield many of its best products. Calm\nviews, sound thoughts, healthful feelings, do not originate in a hurry or\na fever.\n\nIt was in wistful remembrance of the silence in heaven for the space\nof half an hour, as recorded by the Seer of Patmos, that Mrs. Browning\npenned a sonnet which expressed a prayer, suggestive in its earnestness\nand of wide application,\n\n \u201cVouchsafe us such a half-hour\u2019s hush alone,\n In compensation for our stormy years!\u201d\n\nNever to be forgotten amid the tranquillising sweets of leisure hours,\nwith healing on their wings, is the serene solemnity of that silent\nhalf-hour.\n\nProfessor Longfellow, in one of his earliest works, proclaimed to his\ncountrymen as the great want of the national character, that of the\n\u201cdignity of repose.\u201d \u201cWe seem,\u201d he said, \u201cto live in the midst of a\nbattle\u2014there is such a din, such a hurrying to and fro. In the streets\nof a crowded city it is difficult to walk slowly. You feel the rushing\nof the crowd, and rush with it onward. In the press of our life, it is\ndifficult to be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all professions\nseem to drag their anchors, and are swept out into the main.\u201d The\nfollowing stanza is so thoroughly conceived in the spirit and expressed\nin the style of the same author\u2014the author of the \u201cPsalm of Life\u201d\u2014that\nfew readers might have hesitated to attribute it to him, were it not\nknown to be from one of the \u201cPalm Leaves\u201d of Lord Houghton, who, a\nquarter of a century ago, as Richard Monckton Milnes, after contrasting\nthe din, and stir, and turmoil of the West with the reposeful air of the\nEast, counselled the poet of the West to wander eastward now and then:\n\n \u201cThere the calm of life comparing\n With his Europe\u2019s busy fate,\n Let him gladly homeward faring,\n Learn to labour and to wait.\u201d\n\nIt is perhaps the most gifted of American writers of fiction to whom we\nowe the avowal, that were he to adopt a pet idea, as so many people do,\nand fondle it in his embraces to the exclusion of all others, it would be\nthat the great want which mankind labours under at this present period\nis\u2014sleep. The world, he urges, should recline its vast head on the first\nconvenient pillow, and take a prolonged nap. It has gone distracted,\non his showing, through a morbid activity, and while preternaturally\nwide awake, is nevertheless tormented by visions that seem real to it\nnow, but would assume their true aspect and character were all things\nonce set right by an interval of sound repose. This he declares to be\nthe only method of getting rid of old delusions and of avoiding new\nones\u2014of restoring to us the simple perception of what is right, and the\nsingle-hearted desire to achieve it, both of which have long been lost\nin consequence of this weary activity of brain and torpor or passion\nof the heart that now afflict the universe. \u201cStimulants, the only mode\nof treatment hitherto attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but\nheighten the delirium.\u201d Sleep, therefore, is the panacea he prescribes\nfor the physical and metaphysical regeneration of our race, so that it\nmay in due time awake, as an infant out of dewy slumber.\n\nTo the like effect protests an able essayist of our day against\ntendencies to overrate the endless facilities of speedy locomotion now\nenjoyed, as if they were a boon without a drawback; and he professes not\nto regard as particularly attractive or elevating the sight of mankind\nscouring and bustling endlessly hither and thither over the face of the\nearth, like eager, energetic ants, with little bits of straw or other\nrubbish packed on their heads. Ought we not rather, it is asked, to look\non tranquillity, and equilibrium, and regularity, as the normal condition\nof things? and in the thousand encomiums which are poured forth upon\nsteam and speed, do we often take into account the waste and havoc which\nthey make in \u201cplain living\u201d\u2014how they practically shorten the days of a\nman?\n\nThe haste and hurry of modern English civilization, it has been elsewhere\nobserved, ever increasing and carrying us more impetuously forward, tend\nto deaden all capacity for simpler enjoyments, and all sense of the worth\nof a tranquil life on which the eyes of all the world are not fixed. And\nwhenever, as a reflective discourser remarks, people set their heads to\nconstant work, we may be perfectly certain that they are losing more than\nthey gain, and are sinking in the scale at once of meditative and social\nbeings. The accomplished author of an essay on Leisure\u2014the cultivation of\nwhich as an art is thought to be in danger of dying out amongst us\u2014says\nof that activity which never relaxes sufficiently to allow time for a\ncalm and more or less passive contemplation of life as a whole, that it\nis \u201capt to degenerate into mere hand-to-mouth fussiness or drudgery,\nand can be justified only by necessity.\u201d The very repose of leisure is\naccordingly pronounced a by no means purely selfish enjoyment\u2014it being\none of the most communicable, nay, contagious, of pleasures; for there\nare people, we are reminded, whose company is as restful as sleep, in\nwhose presence hurry seems like a bad dream when it is past, and whom\none leaves with a sense of refreshment and renewed energy such as is\nproduced by a good night\u2019s rest. And this writer contends that to afford\nsuch refreshment to others may often be turning time to better account\nthan to crowd it with self-chosen business. Not that the fact is not\nduly insisted upon that too little work is as fatal as too much to that\nlightness and alacrity of spirit which are needed for the conversion of\nspare time into hours of leisure worthy to be so called. Some natures,\nindeed, and they are of a high order, sometimes of the highest, find one\nleisure hour at a time as much as they can away with, and anon\n\n \u201cThe hour of rest is gone,\n And urgent voices round them cry,\n \u2018Ho, lingerer, hasten on!\u2019\n\n \u201cAnd has the soul, then, only gained,\n From this brief time of ease,\n A moment\u2019s rest, when overstrained,\n One hurried glimpse of peace?\u201d\n\nNay something better and more abiding than that.\n\nBut to conclude. The notion, as expounded by an essayist on \u201cShort\nCuts,\u201d that if a thing is to be done at all, \u201cthen \u2019twere well it were\ndone quickly,\u201d admirable as it may be on the Exchange, is justly said\nto rub the delicacy and bloom off life when it is made the ruling maxim\nin all other relations and positions: a life with leisure hours in it\nfor watching and examining all that we pass being a much more enviable\nand rational lot than a swift rushing from one goal to another, from one\nsort of fame or power or opulence to another and more remote. When the\nambitious hero in Sir Henry Taylor\u2019s dramatic poem declares in the storm\nand stress of his career,\n\n \u201cWe have not time to mourn,\u201d\n\n\u201cThe worse for us!\u201d is his good counsellor\u2019s rejoinder:\n\n \u201c_He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend._\n _Eternity mourns that._ \u2019Tis an ill cure\n For life\u2019s worst ills, to have no time to feel them.\n Where sorrow\u2019s held intrusive and turn\u2019d out,\n There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,\n Nor aught that dignifies humanity.\n Yet such the barrenness of busy life!\n From shelf to shelf Ambition clambers up\n To reach the naked\u2019st pinnacle of all,\n While Magnanimity, absolved from toil,\n Reposes self-included at the base.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_A PROPHYLACTIC KNIFE TO THE THROAT._\n\nPROVERBS xxiii. 2.\n\n\nKing Solomon\u2019s discreet counsel to him that feasts with royalty, to\nput a knife to his throat, if he be a man given to appetite, may be\nadvantageously enlarged in its application to diners-out, or for the\nmatter of that, to diners at home, all and sundry. Sitting to eat with a\nruler, the guest is admonished to consider diligently what is before him;\nand at the same time to be not desirous of the great man\u2019s dainties, for\nthey are deceitful meat. Any and every man given to appetite will do well\nto chew the cud of this bitter fancy; and the prophylactic application of\na knife to the throat, forbidding rash ingress and intemperate speed of\nswallow, is wholesome for all estates and degrees of men among us, and\nmight beneficially be a standing order for all times.\n\nAdam Smith, in his \u201cTheory of the Moral Sentiments,\u201d calls it \u201cindecent\u201d\nto express any strong degree of those passions which arise from a certain\nsituation or disposition of the body; because the company, not being\nin the same disposition, cannot be expected to sympathize with them;\nand he mentions violent hunger as being, though upon many occasions\nnot only natural, but unavoidable, yet \u201calways indecent; and to eat\nvoraciously is universally regarded as a piece of ill manners.\u201d There\nis, however, he allows, some degree of sympathy, even with hunger, and\nwe may add, even on the part of a ruler at whose table sits the man\ngiven to appetite. Lewis the Fourteenth, himself a gourmand, and, which\nis different, an enormous eater, liked to see a dinner guest disposing\nwholesale of the royal cates, if only by way of keeping himself in\ncountenance, while achieving the like result. Royalty has, indeed, again\nand again been addicted to surfeiting, and sometimes of a memorably\nfatal sort. Alexander Jann\u00e6us died of gluttony, during the siege of\nRagaba. Soliman, the seventh khalif of the race of the Ommiyades, died\nof a surfeit at Chalcis, in Syria, while preparing to lead an army to\nConstantinople.[29] Of the emperor Jovian, we read in Gibbon, that one\nnight, at the obscure town Dadastana, after indulging himself with a\nredundant supper, he retired to rest, and was next morning found dead\nin his bed\u2014an event ascribed by some, though not by all, to the quality\nof the mushrooms, _plus_ the quantity of wine, which he had swallowed\nin the evening. The same historian rather more than suspects that the\nmortal disease of Athanaric the Goth \u201cwas contracted amidst the pleasures\nof the imperial banquets,\u201d by Theodosius provided. Pope Benedict XI.\nis said to have died of a surfeit of fruit\u2014some beautiful fresh figs,\nof which he was very fond, being offered to him in a silver basin by a\nveiled novice, as if from the abbess of the convent of St. Petronilla,\nin Perugia: \u201cThe pope, not suspecting a gift from such a hand, ate them\neagerly, and without having them previously tasted.\u201d That he died of\npoison, few in that age, as Milman says, would venture to doubt, but\nthe poisoning power of arrears of undigested food has never been quite\nrated at its full value. The same hesitation between fruit surfeit and\npoison, obtains in the case of King John, whose death, by one account\ndue to the fatal drug administered by a Cistercian monk, by another is\nattributed to an intemperate indulgence at supper in fruit and new cider.\nThe Emperor Frederick III. contracted his last illness, some say, by a\nsurfeit of melons. And is there not, in the case of our Henry I., what\nhas been called that tale of royal excess so concisely and pathetically\ntold in nursery history? \u201cHe never smiled again, and died of a surfeit of\nlampreys.\u201d The _regicide_ lampreys, Moore calls them in one place; and\nin another, after citing Hume\u2019s remark on them, as \u201ca food which always\nagreed better with his [Henry\u2019s] palate than his constitution,\u201d a dish so\nindigestible, that a late novelist, at the end of his book, could imagine\nno more summary mode of getting rid of all his heroes and heroines\nthan by a hearty supper of stewed lampreys. In yet another the same\nsquib-writer has a cruel simile, \u201cjust as honest King Stephen his beaver\nmight doff to the fishes that carried his kind uncle off.\u201d To a surfeit\nof red herrings is ascribed the death of Robert Greene, the dramatist.\nThe trap for the life of the Emperor Antoninus Pius was baited, as De\nQuincey expresses it, with toasted cheese. Kaiser Karl VI. was the victim\nof a voracious repast on mushrooms stewed in oil.\n\nWhen Hadrian found his illness on the increase, and his end approaching,\nhe removed to Bai\u00e6, where, \u201cin spite of the prescriptions [or\nproscriptions?] of his physicians, he began to eat and drink according\nto his pleasure.\u201d The excesses of Charles V. in the same way are\nexceptionally notorious. Of that \u201clittle, spare, aguish, peevish,\nsupper-eating\u201d sovereign, Frederick the Great, who loved his dishes the\nmore they tormented him, it is on record, that on the approach of death,\n\u201cthis warrior full of courage and sage speculation,\u201d could not resist the\ncustomary pepper and sauce piquante, though he knew it would inevitably\nresult in a nightmare, \u201cturning his bed into a nest of monsters.\u201d So\nwith the Duke Augustus commemorated by Perthes: \u201cAll medical skill was\nin vain, for this half crazy prince could not deny himself the stimulus\nof the hottest spices.\u201d Mr. Tennyson\u2019s dying Northern Farmer is only too\ntrue a type of his kind:\u2014\n\n \u201cWhat atta stannin\u2019 theer for, an\u2019 doesn bring ma the ya\u00e4le?\n Doctor\u2019s a\u2019tottler, lass, an a\u2019s hallus i\u2019 the owd ta\u00e4le;\n I we\u00e4nt bre\u00e4k rules for doctor, a knaws naw more nor a floy;\n Git ma my ya\u00e4le I tell tha, an\u2019 gin I mun doy I mun doy.\u201d\n\nSwift is giving Pope a significant and not uncalled-for hint, when he\nwrites to express his uneasiness at ever hearing of the poet\u2019s being\nout to dinner: \u201cFor the least transgression of yours, if it be only two\nbits and one sup more than your stint, is a great debauch; for which\nyou certainly pay more than those sots who are carried dead drunk to\nbed.\u201d An entry in Mrs. Trench\u2019s diary begins, \u201cDined at the Duke of\nQueensberry\u2019s. He is very ill\u2014has a violent cough, but _will_ eat an\nimmense dinner, and then complains of a _digestion p\u00e9nible_.\u201d Another\nof his quality has been described as taking all sorts of pains to get\na little enjoyment which must produce for him a world of misery. \u201cOne\nof his passions which he _will_ not resist, is for a particular dish,\npungent, savoury, and multifarious, which sends him almost every night\ninto Tartarus.\u201d Mr. Thackeray\u2019s moribund old Madame Bernstein _will_ have\nher supper luxurious, \u201cnor could any injunction of ours or the doctor\u2019s\nteach her abstinence.\u201d The Sir Miles St. John of another popular fiction\ndoes himself to death after the same manner: \u201cHe would have his own\nway; and he contrived to coax or to force his doctor into an authority\non his side.\u201d For doctors are not all of the kind that Sancho Panza had\nto deal with when governor of Barataria. _The Doctor_ cites the case of\nan eminent member of \u201cthe faculty,\u201d who could never refrain from eating\ntoasted cheese, though he was subject to an alarming pulmonary complaint\nwhich was uniformly aggravated by it, and which terminated fatally at an\nage by no means advanced. Another he relates, of a physician who, at an\nautumnal dessert never ceased eating all the filberts he could lay his\nhands upon, while candidly acknowledging what indigestible and hurtful\nthings they were.\n\nNot a doctor apparently of medicine, but (_proh pudor!_) of divinity, was\nthat Cambridge don of whose end Gray makes memorable mention, as having\ngone to his grave with five fine mackarel (large and full of roe) in his\ninside. \u201cHe ate them all off at one dinner; but his fate was a turbot on\nTrinity Sunday, of which he left little for the company besides bones.\nHe had not been hearty all the week; but after this sixth fish he never\nheld up his head more.\u201d Like Milton\u2019s Eve, in one sense at least:\u2014\n\n \u201cGreedily he ingorged without restraint,\n And knew not eating death.\u201d\n\nDr. Johnson\u2019s friend, Thrale, is a noteworthy example, or warning, of the\nman of appetite, who _will not_ restrain it; will not put a knife to his\nthroat, but prefers sending a full laden fork in that direction. His wife\ndescribes his natural disposition to conviviality as degenerating into\na preternatural desire for food. \u201cNo one could control his appetite.\u201d\n\u201cBurney and I and Queeney tease him every meal he eats, and Mrs. Montagu\nis quite serious with him; but what _can_ one do? He will eat, I think;\nand if he does eat, I know he will not live.\u201d The lampreys that were one\ntoo many for Henry the king, were one too many for Thrale the brewer. He\nbegged some of an old friend, and the old friend complied, despite the\nfrowns and negative signals of the ladies of the house\u2014whom following\nout of the room, the too compliant visitor thus made his apology to Mrs.\nThrale, \u201cI understand you, Madam, but _must_ disobey. A friend I have\nknown thirty-six years shall not ask a favour of me in his last stage\nof life and be refused. What difference can it make?\u201d Tears stood in\n_his_ eyes, and Mrs. Thrale\u2019s own\u2014_les larmes dans la voix_\u2014prevented\nall reply. What difference did it make? That day was Mr. Thrale\u2019s last.\nThe tone of the apology reminds us of General Paoli\u2019s answer to Boswell,\nwhen whispering his fear lest Johnson, very aged and very ailing, might\nbe hurt by the amount and variety of what he was despatching at the\ngeneral\u2019s table, \u201cwhere he loved to dine.\u201d Boswell begged Paoli not to\npress him. Why urge a too willing horse? \u201cAlas!\u201d said the host, \u201csee\nhow very ill he looks: he can live but a very short time. Would you\nrefuse a slight gratification to a man under sentence of death?\u201d And the\ngeneral cited approvingly the \u201chumane custom\u201d in Italy, by which those\nin Johnson\u2019s position were indulged with having whatever they liked\nbest to eat and drink, even with expensive delicacies. A parallel case\nwe have in Sir Walter Scott, during his melancholy sojourn in Italy, as\nSir W. Gell describes his dining at a Roman palace, and his own fears\nlest, from the hospitality of the Torlonia family, and \u201cwith servants on\nall sides pressing him to eat and drink, as is their custom at Rome,\u201d\nSir Walter might be induced to eat more than was safe for his malady.\n\u201cColonel Blair, who sat next him, was requested to take care that this\nshould not happen. Whenever I observed him, however, Sir Walter appeared\nalways to be eating; while the duchess, who had discovered the nature of\nthe office imposed on the colonel, was by no means satisfied, and after\ndinner observed that it was an odd sort of friendship which consisted in\nstarving one\u2019s neighbour to death, when he had a good appetite, and there\nwas dinner enough.\u201d\n\nThe selfish club-man _par excellence_ has been depicted as earthing\nhimself from pursuit in the sanctuary of his club, there to eat his fill\nunmolested, with no remonstrant at hand to remind him of the gout when\nenjoying his turtle, or to talk of cupping when the glass of champagne is\nat his lips. \u201cThere he may eat his asparagus _tout \u00e0 l\u2019huile_\u2014there he\nmay pepper his cream-tart,\u201d and none to say him nay. Drawn with pitiless\nrealism from the life is Acton Bell (Anne Bront\u00e8)\u2019s picture of the dying\nmaster of Wildfell Hall, whose extreme dread of death, when and while it\nseems imminent, renders easy his wife\u2019s task of curbing his unruly greed,\nbut who becomes intractable as the danger to dear life seems receding.\n\u201cI watch and restrain him,\u201d she writes, \u201cas well as I can, and often get\nbitterly abused for my rigid severity; and sometimes he contrives to\nelude my vigilance, and sometimes acts in opposition to my will.\u201d William\nCollins, the painter, notes in his diary a certain \u201cdinner at C\u2e3a\u2019s,\u201d\nwhere he \u201csat next to H\u2e3a, who took some highly seasoned omelet. I asked\nhim how he could venture on such stuff; he said he could not resist it,\nthough he knew how much he should suffer from it. He took a great deal\nof wine, to overcome the effects of the omelet, and assured me he should\nbe ill for four days after such a dinner, and that he always suffered in\nthe same way after dining with C\u2e3a! How absurd such weakness appears, and\nyet how common it is!\u201d George Herbert\u2019s counsel is never out of date,\nany more than King Solomon\u2019s, in the matter of putting a knife to one\u2019s\nthroat, if edacious and a diner-out:\u2014\n\n \u201cLook to thy mouth: diseases enter there....\n ... Carve, or discourse; do not a famine fear.\n Who carves is kind to two, who talks to all.\n Look on meat, think it dirt, then eat a bit;\n Then say withal, Earth to earth I commit.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_HAZAEL\u2019S ABHORRENT REPUDIATION OF HIS FUTURE SELF._\n\n2 KINGS viii. 13.\n\n\nWhy wept Elisha in the presence of Hazael, when that envoy from the sick\nking of Syria courted the man of God, in his sovereign\u2019s behalf, with\na consignment of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels\u2019 burden?\nCourteous and gentle was Benhadad\u2019s messenger who came to inquire of\nthe Lord of Elisha, if the royal Syrian should recover of the disease\nwhich had brought him so low. Why wept the prophet, when his prophecy\nhad been uttered, ominously vague? \u201cGo, say unto him [Benhadad], Thou\nmayest certainly recover. Howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall\ncertainly die.\u201d And he settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was\nashamed.\n\n\u201cAnd Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know\nthe evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strongholds\nwilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword,\nand wilt dash their children,\u201d etc. And Hazael said, \u201cBut what! is thy\nservant a dog, that he should do this great thing?\u201d\n\nYet Hazael went home, and on the very morrow commenced his justification\nof the seer\u2019s previsionary tears, by spreading a thick wet cloth on the\nface of his master, so that Benhadad, who else would have recovered,\ndied, and Hazael reigned in his stead.\n\nWell might the man of God weep, nor could anything be more natural,\nor at least naturally assumed, than the shuddering repudiation, the\ndeprecating protest, of the envoy that now was, the king\u2014and dog\u2014that\nto-morrow should be.\n\n \u201cLui-m\u00eame, \u00e0 son portrait forc\u00e9 de rendre hommage,\n Il fr\u00e9mira d\u2019horreur devant sa propre image.\u201d\n\nThe man who is weak, observes Miss Lee in the \u201cCanterbury Tales,\u201d\nis always in danger of becoming a villain; and she exemplifies this\nliability in the instance of Villars, who, by indulging a passion\ncalculated to enfeeble his understanding and corrupt his heart, is\nsoon to be found touching that point which his high tone of romantic\nrefinement had once induced him to believe it impossible he should\neven approach. But he protests too much who strenuously protests, with\nprotestation heaped on protestation, against any such possible lapse and\ncollapse on his part; and there are cases of this kind, of which one may\nsay with Moli\u00e8re\u2014\n\n \u201cQue c\u2019est \u00eatre \u00e0 demi ce que l\u2019on vient de dire,\n Que de vouloir jurer qu\u2019on ne le sera pas.\u201d\n\nMartial is in the right in answering the inquiry of Priscus, how would\nhe live if he became rich and great all at once, with another query, Who\ncan say beforehand what his future conduct will be? _Quemquam posse putas\nmores narrare futuros?_ If Priscus were to become a lion, what sort of\none would he turn out to be? Perhaps like Hazael, a dog.\n\nIn sight of a corpse suspended to a tree, the \u201cmiserable remnant of a\nwretch that was hanged there for murder,\u201d Robert, in one of Tobin\u2019s\ndramas, protests to his mother that, robber though he be, _he_ is no\nmurderer; she replies:\u2014\n\n \u201cYou are a robber;\n And he who robs, by sharp resistance pressed,\n Will end the deed in blood: \u2019twas so with him;\n He once possessed a soul quick as your own\n To mercy, and would quake, as you do now,\n At the bare apprehension of the act\n That has consigned him to yon blasted tree.\u201d\n\nDr. Hamilton somewhere adverts to a sort of gambling in our large\ncities which does not look particularly repulsive\u2014not being carried on\nin \u201chells,\u201d and pleading the sanction of some titled names; the results,\nhowever, of which are hanging like a millstone round the neck of many\na once promising young man; while, to say nothing of those whom it\nhas reduced to beggary or blackguardism, numbers of its victims must\nbe sought in the Portland hulks or Dartmoor prison. \u201cThey went to the\nrace-course, or, without going there, they laid wagers on horses, and\nsooner or later they lost more than they could pay, and in dread of\ndishonour they took means to get the money at the very suggestion of\nwhich, once upon a time, they would indignantly have exclaimed, \u2018Is thy\nservant a dog?\u2019 and after a few miserable makeshifts, only adding sin to\nsin, there came detection and ruin and disgrace.\u201d It is of the riotous\nliving of prodigal sons that the same preacher is treating, when he\nshows, in his graphic way, how speedily riot, whether coarse or refined,\nwastes the reveller\u2019s substance\u2014not only sapping the constitution, and\nsoftening the brain, and shattering the nerves, and enfeebling the\nmind, but exhausting the estate, and soon bringing the spendthrift to\npoverty. And, as the discourser goes on to say, if the passion still\nurges, and the fear of God has departed, wild methods will be used to\nmeet the demand and assuage the frantic craving. \u201cKeepsakes will be sold\nor pledged, to part with which would, once upon a time, have looked like\nsacrilege.\u201d Perhaps money will be taken from the till, and so on and on,\nor rather downwards and downwards, deeper and deeper, till the lowest\ndeep is sounded, and darkness is the burier of the dead.\n\nIt has been remarked by one of the most reflective of our popular\nauthors, that there is a terrible coercion in our deeds which may first\nturn the honest man into a deceiver, and then reconcile him to the\nchange, for this reason\u2014that the second wrong presents itself to him\nin the guise of the only practicable right. \u201cThe action which before\ncommission has been seen with that blended common-sense and fresh\nuntarnished feeling which is the healthy eye of the soul, is looked\nat afterwards with the lens of apologetic ingenuity, through which\nall things that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made up of\ntextures very much alike.\u201d Europe, it is suggestively added, adjusts\nitself to a _fait accompli_; and so does an individual character\u2014until\nthe placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution.\n\nRecording the appointment of Bonaparte to succeed Scherer in command of\nthe French forces on Genoese territory, Southey observes that although\nthe former had given indications of his military talents at Toulon, and\nof his remorseless nature at Paris, \u201cthe extent either of his ability\nor his wickedness was at this time known to none, and perhaps not even\nsuspected by himself.\u201d Of all the lessons derived from the history\nof human passion, says Lavalette, the most important is the utter\nimpossibility which even the best men will always experience of stopping,\nif they are once led into the path of error. If, a few years before they\nwere perpetrated, the crimes of the first French Revolution, he goes on\nto surmise, could have been portrayed to those who committed them, \u201ceven\nRobespierre himself would have recoiled with horror.\u201d Men, in the case\nsuggested, are seduced at first by plausible theories, which their heated\nimaginations represent as beneficial and easy of execution: \u201cthey advance\nunconsciously from errors to faults, and from faults to crimes, till\nsensibility is destroyed by the habitual spectacle of guilt, and the most\nsavage atrocities come to be dignified by the name of state policy.\u201d\n\nThe world, and the spirit of the world, observes Sir Fowell Buxton in\none of his letters, are very insidious; \u201cand more than once I have\nseen a person who, as a youth, was single-eyed and single-hearted, and\nwho, to any one who supposed he might glide into laxity of zeal, would\nhave said, \u2018Am I a dog?\u2019 in maturer age become, if not a lover of the\nvices of the world, at least a tolerator of its vanities.\u201d But as M. de\nSainte-Beuve sententiously puts it, in one of his maxims after the manner\nof La Rochefoucauld, \u201cLa plupart des d\u00e9fauts qui \u00e9clatent dans la seconde\nmoiti\u00e9 de la vie existaient en nous tout form\u00e9s bien auparavant; mais\nils \u00e9taient masqu\u00e9s, en quelque sorte, par la pudeur de la jeunesse.\u201d\nThe faults of after-life were there, and only the modest reserve and\nself-restraint of youth kept them under cover. With riper years comes\nless regard for others, and the cover is taken off.\n\nA clerical essayist on \u201cFuture Years,\u201d \u201ccan well believe,\u201d he tells us,\n\u201cthat many a man, could he have a glimpse in innocent youth of what he\nwill be twenty or thirty years after, would pray in anguish to be taken\nbefore coming to _that_!\u201d \u201cMansie Wauch\u2019s glimpse of destitution was bad\nenough; but a million times worse is a glimpse of hardened and unabashed\nsin and shame.\u201d And it would be no comfort, we are reminded\u2014it would be\nan aggravation in that view\u2014to think that by the time you have reached\nthat miserable point, you will have grown pretty well reconciled to\nit\u2014_that_ being the worst of all.\n\nHazael stands out in large type, black letter type, or red letter, if\nyou will\u2014the hue of blood\u2014a degraded instance of the degrading power of\nguilt\u2014a warning of the stealthy yet swift aggression of criminal impulse,\nor criminal policy, seducing, subduing, and transforming its subjects,\u2014\n\n \u201cTill creatures born,\n For good (whose hearts kind Pity nursed)\n Will act the direst crimes they cursed\n But yester-morn.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE OPEN RIGHT HAND\u2019S SECRET FROM THE LEFT._\n\nST. MATTHEW vi. 3.\n\n\nTo some of us, to very many, it may seem that the Sermon might well be on\na Mount, that set forth such a text as this: \u201cBut when thou doest alms,\nlet not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.\u201d The atmosphere is\nof other altitudes than here below. We may not sound a trumpet before\nus, as the hypocrites did in the synagogue and in the streets, to have\nglory of men; and verily, every man his own trumpeter, they had their\nreward. But as to keeping our open-handed doles and donations a secret,\nas it were, from our other self; as to concealing from the left hand\nthe furtive bounties and stealthy almsgiving of the right, that is a\npractical transcendentalism mostly undreamt of in our philosophy.\n\nYet are there, and ever will be, those\u2014else had this earth of ours lost\nthe salt of the earth, and wherewith then should it be salted?\u2014who\u2014\n\n \u201cDo good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.\u201d\n\nThe larger number of benefactors, who, as the caustic French wit,\nChamfort, puts it, pretend to conceal themselves after effecting a deed\nof kindness, betake themselves to flight and a hiding-place only as\nVirgil\u2019s Galatea did, with a decided wish to be seen first: _Et se cupit\nante videri._ Another of Chamfort\u2019s cynical _maximes et pens\u00e9es_ runs\nthus: \u201cIl y a peu de bienfaiteurs qui ne disent comme Satan, _Si cadens\nadoraveris me_.\u201d Whom the vulgar succour, they oppress, says Crabbe. They\nhave as little sympathy with, or interest in, the rule of keeping the\nright hand\u2019s largesse a secret from the left, as with Peter of Aragon\u2019s\nfamous refusal to let Pope Martin IV know what were his designs against\nthe infidel. Peter implored the blessing of the Holy Father on his scheme\nof action; \u201cbut if he thought his right hand knew his secret, he would\ncut it off, lest it should betray it to his left.\u201d And the vulgar mean\nthe commonalty, the many, the _polloi_. The doer of good, therefore, who\ndoes it by stealth, is the exception to a rule; and as an exception he is\ntreated in literature and life as what is called a \u201ccharacter.\u201d Goldsmith\nmakes a highly pronounced character of his man in black, whose hand is\nopen as day to melting charity, while he professes to keep it closed\ntight as wax and hard as steel. He bullies in words a petitioner for\naid, while he is but studying what method he shall take to relieve him\nunobserved. \u201cHe had, however,\u201d writes the Chinese citizen of the world,\n\u201cno easy part to act, as he was obliged to preserve the appearance of\nill-nature before me, and yet relieve himself by relieving the sailor.\u201d\nAnd by contrivance he gains his end. The mandarin\u2019s curiosity to know\n\u201cwhat could be his motives for thus concealing virtues which others take\nsuch pains to display,\u201d is natural, and finds natural expression; and\nthereby hangs the tale of the \u201creluctantly good\u201d Man in Black. Smollett,\nagain, makes one of his heroes, though young and pleasure-loving,\nretrench his expenses in order to help the needy: \u201cNumberless were the\nobjects to which he extended his charity in private. Indeed, he exerted\nthis virtue in secret, not only on account of avoiding the charge of\nostentation, but also because he was ashamed of being detected in such\nan awkward, unfashionable practice by the censorious observers of this\nhumane generation. In this particular he seemed to confound the ideas of\nvirtue and vice; for he did good as other people do evil, by stealth; and\nwas [like the man in black] so capricious in point of behaviour, that\nfrequently, in public, he wagged his tongue in satirical animadversions\nupon that poverty which his hand had, in private, relieved.\u201d It cannot be\naffirmed of him that he exemplified, in detail, all the attributes of a\nportrait from life, but after death, by Cowper; but some of them he did:\n\n \u201cYet was thy liberality discreet,\n Nice in its choice, and of a tempered heat;\n And though in act unwearied, _secret still_,\n As in some solitude the summer rill\n Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,\n And cheers the drooping flowers, _unheard_, _unseen_.\u201d\n\nWhen a biographer can accredit the subject of his narrative with a\ndisposition to hide his bounty, he is usually apt enough to catch at so\ncatching a quality. Wellington, we are told, though his name so rarely\nfigured on subscription lists, was very liberal in his charities, and was\nnot unfrequently victimized by impostors. During the Irish famine he is\nsaid to have distributed at least \u00a310,000 among the relief committees;\nbut \u201che never said a word about it at Exeter Hall.\u201d Free gifts by\nstealth are often characteristic of such natures as Byron\u2019s; of whom,\nfor instance, we read that, soon after Lord Falkland\u2019s death, the poet\nreminded the unfortunate widow that he was to be godfather to her infant\n[Byron a sponsor!\u2014but let that pass]; and that after the \u201cchristening\u201d he\ninserted a five-hundred pound note in a breakfast cup; but in so cautious\na manner that it was not discovered until he had left the house.\nMontesquieu was even hard and harsh in his repudiation of thanks from\nthose he helped; his kindness was accordingly (to speak by quibble) less\nthan kind; insomuch that one critic recognises in him \u201cun de ces dieux\nbienfaiteurs de l\u2019humanit\u00e9, mais qui n\u2019en partagent point la tendresse.\u201d\nGrimm is another example of a satirical tongue with an open hand, only\nthe hand was opened behind his own back: _il sut \u00eatre bienveillant en\nsecret_. Amid James Watt\u2019s donations in aid of sound and useful learning,\ntestifies one biographer, were not wanting others prescribed by true\nreligion, for the consolation of the poor, and relief of the afflicted;\nbut these works were done in secret, and with injunctions that his name\nshould not be made known. Goethe seems to have preserved profound secrecy\nwith respect to some signal exercises of his beneficence. Cowper tells\nUnwin, in one of his letters, that a recent endeavour of that good pastor\nto relieve the indigent of his flock would probably have succeeded better\n\u201chad it been an affair of more notoriety than merely to furnish a few\npoor fellows with a little fuel to preserve their extremities from the\nfrost.\u201d \u201cMen really pious delight in doing good by stealth;[30] but\nnothing less than an ostentatious display of bounty will satisfy mankind\nin general.\u201d The Olney bard, in after years, had pleasant dealings with\na signal exemplar of the benefactor by stealth. He was made the almoner\nof a charitable stranger, to whom he thus refers in a letter to John\nNewton: \u201cLike the subterraneous flue that warms my myrtles, he does good\nand is unseen. His injunctions of secrecy are still as rigorous as ever,\nand must therefore be observed with the same attention.\u201d A year later: \u201cI\nshall probably never see him,\u201d writes Cowper, in relating a fresh tide\nof benefactions; but \u201che will always have a niche in the museum of my\nreverential remembrance.\u201d Even without _that_, the Unknown had his reward.\n\n \u201cCharity ever\n Finds in the act reward, and needs no trumpet\n In the receiver.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_TO-MORROW._\n\nST. JAMES iv. 13, 14.\n\n\nThe rich man in the parable was self-complacently far-sighted in his\nforesight, when he took stock of his much goods laid up for many years;\nbut that very night his soul was to be required of him. Take thine ease;\neat, drink, and be merry, was his easy-going style of self-communing:\nmany are the years in store for thee, and all of these well stored\nwith whatever makes this life worth the living. And just in the same\neasy-going style is pitched the prospective self-assurance of the\nworldlings censured by St. James. \u201cGo to now, ye that say, to-day or\nto-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and\nbuy, and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the\nmorrow. For what is your life? it is even a vapour that appeareth for a\nlittle time, and then vanisheth away.\u201d Boast not thyself of to-morrow,\nfor thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. To-day, while it is\ncalled to-day,\u2014hardly this can be called thine. But to-morrow, whose is\nthat? Even the uttermost sensualist owns it to be none of his, when he\nsets up for his motto, at once a reminder to live fast and a _memento\nmori_,\u2014Let us eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow we die. So far he is\nat least verbally wiser than his brethren of the cup and the platter,\nwhose style is, \u201cCome ye, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves\nwith strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more\nabundant.\u201d Little reck they of the platitude that all flesh is grass,\nwhich to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.\n\nMacbeth\u2019s threefold To-morrow is a triplet that by no means goes\ntrippingly off the tongue:\u2014\n\n \u201cTO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW,\n Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,\n To the last syllable of recorded time;\n And all our yesterdays have lighted fools\n The way to dusty death.\u201d\n\nSo muses the usurper, besieged in his last fastness, while the cry is\nstill, _They come_\u2014even the enemy and the avenger; a cry varied by one\nof women bewailing their mistress dead. He has supped full of horrors;\nand the cry of \u201cThe queen, my lord, is dead,\u201d but elicits for response,\n\u201cShe should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a\nword.\u2014_To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow._\u201d...\n\nIn some such mood was usurping Gloster, on the eve of destruction,\npitching his tent on Bosworth Field, and meditating,\u2014\n\n ... \u201cHere will I lie to-night;\n [_Soldiers begin to set up the King\u2019s tent._\n But where to-morrow?\u2014Well, all\u2019s one for that.\u201d\n\nTo the meanest private in rank and file the to-morrow that shall bring on\na battle cannot but be a momentous thought. As his grace of York says, on\nthe eve of Hotspur\u2019s encounter with the king\u2019s forces at Shrewsbury,\u2014\n\n \u201cTo-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day\n Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men\n Must \u2019bide the touch.\u201d\n\nWhile there\u2019s life there\u2019s hope, and hope is, by the nature of it,\nintent on to-morrow. As with hopes, so with fears. And hopes and fears\ntogether make up the sum of what has interest in life. No wonder, then,\nif to-morrow is a frequent word with the poet-philosopher of human life;\nand that in comedy and in tragedy alike, it serves his turn. Be it a\nwedding for to-morrow or an execution for to-morrow, Shakspeare iterates\nand reiterates the phrase, with all the dramatic realism that informs\nand vivifies his creations. Is it the wedding of Hero with Claudio, for\ninstance? \u201cWhen are you married, madam?\u201d asks Ursula of the bride; who,\nwith affected levity, replies,\u2014\n\n \u201cWhy, every day; to-morrow. Come, go in;\n I\u2019ll show thee some attires; and have thy counsel,\n Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.\u201d\n\nLittle she recks of what is to betide her ere to-morrow dawn. Or is it an\nexecution? Hear Angelo\u2019s decree against another (quite another) Claudio:\n\n \u201cWere he my kinsman, brother, or my son,\n It would be thus with him;\u2014he must die to-morrow.\n\n _Isab._ To-morrow! O, that\u2019s sudden! Spare, him, spare him;\n He\u2019s not prepared for death.\u201d\n\nMany scenes later we have the Provost imparting his fate to the doomed\nman:\u2014\n\n \u201cLook, here\u2019s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:\n \u2019Tis now dead-midnight, and by eight to-morrow\n Thou must be made immortal.\u201d\n\nPresently the disguised duke comes in, and asks of the Provost,\u2014\n\n \u201cHave you no countermand for Claudio yet,\n But he must die to-morrow?\n\n _Prov._ None, sir; none.\u201d\n\nOne may wonder whether Macbeth, brooding on the vague and vasty gloom of\nthat word, bethought him of the fatal first use of it in his incipient\ndesigns against his sovran. The gracious Duncan, he tells his wife, on\nreaching home, is to become his guest to-night:\n\n \u201c_Lady M._ And when goes hence?\n\n _Macb._ To-morrow,\u2014as he purposes.\n\n _Lady M._ O, never\n Shall sun that morrow see!\u201d\n\nReason good, or rather, in a bad sense, reason of the worst, had Macbeth\nto brood in after-days, when the morrow that never came to Duncan,\nhad come blood-stained to _him_,\u2014on the far-reaching capacities of\nso memorable a phrase. But from Shakspeare turn to other sources of\nillustration.\n\nTruth as well as pathos has been justly ascribed to the following\nexpansion of a very natural sentiment\u2014\u201cthe fear of personal oblivion\nin one\u2019s own home\u201d\u2014artistically rendered by one of a gifted family of\nartists:\n\n \u201cI listened to their honest chat;\n Said one: \u2018To-morrow we shall be\n Plod, plod along the featureless sands\n And coasting miles and miles of sea.\u2019\n Said one: \u2018Before the turn of tide\n We will achieve the eyrie-seat.\u2019\n Said one: \u2018To-morrow shall be like\n To-day, but much more sweet.\u2019\n \u2018To-morrow,\u2019 said they, strong with hope,\n And dwelt upon the pleasant way;\n \u2018To-morrow,\u2019 cried they, one and all,\n While no one spoke of yesterday.\n Then life stood still at blessed noon,\n I, only I, had passed away:\n \u2018To-morrow and to-day,\u2019 they cried:\n I was of yesterday.\u201d\n\nIt is a critical point in Mr. Charles Reade\u2019s story of what he calls very\nhard cash, when Noah Skinner, the fraudulent banker\u2019s clerk, old and\ndying, proposes to himself, and resolves to deliver up, to-morrow, the\nreceipt for fourteen thousand pounds, his criminal possession and crafty\nretention of which has caused such profound and wide-spread misery.\n\u201cA sleepy languor now came over him; ... but his resolution remained\nunshaken; by-and-by waking up from a sort of heavy dose, he took, as it\nwere a last look at the receipt, and murmured, \u2018My head, how heavy it\nfeels.\u2019 But presently he roused himself, full of his penitent resolution,\nand murmured again brokenly, \u2018I\u2019ll\u2014take it to\u2014Pembroke-street to\u2014morrow:\nto\u2014mor\u2014row.\u201d Fool\u2014like other us fools of nature\u2014that night his soul was\nrequired of him. The to-morrow found him, and so did the detectives, dead.\n\nAmong other visitors and applicants at the mystical Intelligence Office\nthrown open to our gaze by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there totters hastily\nin a grandfatherly personage, so earnest in his uniform alacrity that\nhis white hair floats backwards as he hurries up to the desk, while his\ndim eyes catch a momentary lustre from his vehemence of purpose. This\nvenerable figure explains that he is in search of To-morrow.\n\n\u201cI have spent all my life in pursuit of it,\u201d adds the sage old gentleman,\n\u201cbeing assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or other in store\nfor me. But I am now getting a little in years, and must make haste, for\nunless I overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to be afraid it will finally\nescape me.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend,\u201d said the Man of\nIntelligence, \u201cis a stray child of Time, and is flying from his father\ninto the region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and you will\ndoubtless come up with him; but as to the earthly gifts which you expect,\nhe has scattered them all among a throng of Yesterdays.\u201d\n\nThe grandsire is obliged to content himself with this enigmatical\nresponse, and hastens forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the\nfloor; and as he disappears, a little boy scampers through the door in\nchase of a butterfly, which has got astray amid the barren sunshine of\nthe city. Had the old gentleman, suggests our ever-suggestive moralist,\nbeen shrewder, he might have detected To-morrow under the semblance of\nthat gaudy insect.\n\n_J\u2019ai v\u00e9cu_\u2014I managed to keep alive\u2014was the Abb\u00e9 Si\u00e9y\u00e8s\u2019 answer to those\nwho, in after days, asked him how he spent his time in the Reign of\nTerror. And it is in allusion to his position at that season of peril,\nwhen no one could reckon on a morrow\u2014_nul ne pouvait se promettre un\nlendemain_\u2014that he quotes the _vers charmants_ made in 1708 by Maucroix,\nthen fourscore and upwards:\u2014\n\n \u201cChaque jour est un bien que du Ciel je re\u00e7oi!\n Jouissons aujourd\u2019hui de celui qu\u2019il nous donne:\n Il n\u2019appartient pas plus aux jeunes gens qu\u2019\u00e0 moi,\n Et celui de demain n\u2019appartient \u00e0 personne.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?\u201d said Ducos, as the\nGirondins were whiling away their last evening here on earth. And each of\nthem replied as the humour took him, or the subject impressed him. The\nfavourite answer seems to have been, We shall sleep after the fatigues\nof the day. To some the feeling may have been, too literally and very\nbitterly, what Wordsworth versified as he gazed from Rydal Mount on a\nslowly-sinking star:\n\n \u201cWe struggle with our fate,\n While health, power, glory, from their height decline,\n Depressed; and then extinguished; and our state,\n In this, how different, lost Star, from thine,\n That no to-morrow shall our beams restore!\u201d\n\nTo-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. For some time had the Emperor\nFrancis\u2014Maria Theresa\u2019s consort\u2014been threatened with an apoplexy, when,\non the morning of the 18th of August, 1764, being pressed by his sister\nto be blooded, he answered, \u201cI am engaged this evening to sup with\nJoseph, and will not disappoint him; but I promise you I will be blooded\nto-morrow.\u201d At the opera in the evening he was taken ill. Retiring, he\nwas struck with apoplexy, and died at Joseph\u2019s feet, for he had fallen\nfrom Joseph\u2019s arms. At his feet\u2014like one of old time\u2014he bowed, he fell,\nhe lay down: at his feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell\ndown dead.\n\nBoast not thyself of to-morrow. Hardly less hackneyed in the ear of\nscholar and schoolboy, yet hardly less impressive as truisms with\never-living truth in them, are Horace\u2019s\n\n Quis scit an adjiciant hodiern\u00e6 crastina summ\u00e6\n Tempora Di superi?\n\n(who knows whether the powers above will add a morrow to the day that now\nis?), and Seneca\u2019s Never was man so in favour with the gods as to be able\nto promise himself a morrow:\n\n Nemo tam divos habuit faventes,\n Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri.\n\nWhen Archias, the polemarch at Thebes, dissolved in wine and pleasure,\nreceived from his pontifical namesake at Athens a full and particular\naccount by letter of the conspiracy of Pelopidas and the exiles, who were\neven then counting the minutes ere they struck the blow,\u2014although the\nmessenger expressly urged his excellency to read the missive forthwith,\nas the contents were of instant import, Archias only smiled a tipsy\nsmile, and said, \u201cBusiness to-morrow.\u201d Then he put the unopened letter\nunder the bolster of his couch, and resumed his colloquy with his host,\nPhilidias, who was in the plot, and who was taking good care to ply the\npolemarch with wine. Business to-morrow. To-morrow as he purposed! Oh,\nnever should sun that morrow see.\n\n_Si hodie non es paratus, quo modo cras eris? CRAS est dies incertus:\net qui scis si crastinum habebis_? To-morrow, in this its prospective,\nprocrastinating sense, is denounced by Mr. Sala, with all due asperity,\nas a wretched, cowardly, idiotic subterfuge and apology\u2014a \u201csuicidal\ndelusion and pitfall.\u201d Yes, to-morrow I will begin to learn Syro-Chaldaic\n(we overhear him saying): I will read the novel of the day to-day.\nTo-morrow I will dine on a mutton-chop and a glass of water. To-day I\nwill ask the _chef_ at the club to send me up a pretty little dinner,\nnot forgetting that irresistible _choufleur au gratin_, and bid the\nbutler bring me that curious pommard with the iron-grey seal. To-morrow\nI will finish my _magnum opus_, my \u201cTreatise on the Books of Job and\nEcclesiastes in their relation to Human Wisdom and Knowledge.\u201d To-day\nflippant rubbish or frothy egotism shall flow from my pen. To-morrow I\nwill pay my tailor. To-day I will order a new coat. In fine: \u201cTo-morrow I\nwill atone for the wrong, and pray for strength to continue in the right.\nTo-day I will follow my devices, and listen to the promptings of the\nworld, the flesh, and the devil. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.\u201d\n\nFor many years, the late Alfred de Vigny continued slowly amassing\npoetical materials, though publishing nothing, and murmuring always, like\nAndr\u00e9 Chenier,\u2014\n\n \u201cRien n\u2019est fait aujourd\u2019hui, tout sera fait _demain_.\u201d\n\nThe morrow has come, wrote the _Journal des D\u00e9bats_, in recording his\ndeath, and his artist hands are cold in the grave.\n\nSays the Cordelier to the condemned Thief in Mat Prior\u2019s derry-down\nballad,\u2014\n\n \u201cCourage, friend; to-day is your period of sorrow;\n And things will go better, believe me, to-morrow.\u201d\n\nBut what says the Thief in reply?\n\n \u201cTo-morrow? our hero replied in a fright:\n He that\u2019s hanged before noon, ought to think of to-night.\u201d\n\nBut Prior will supply us with more than one study of the subject. Here is\na variation, for instance, in matter, manner, and metre:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe hoary fool, who many days\n Has struggled with continued sorrow,\n Renews his hope, and blindly lays\n The desperate bet upon to-morrow.\n\n \u201cTo-morrow comes; \u2019tis noon, \u2019tis night;\n This day like all the former flies:\n Yet on he runs, to seek delight\n To-morrow, till to-night he dies.\u201d\n\nThe gaming allusion of the first stanza reminds us of the picture of\na certain devotee at the _roulette_ table at Hombourg, who kept his\nseat\u2014tranquil, immovable, vigilant,\u2014the Napoleon of _roulette_; in whose\nvictorious progress Marengos and Austerlitzes succeeded each other, as\nif Moscow and the Beresina were phantoms\u2014as if to-morrow would never\ncome. To-morrow; ay, that dread to-morrow that comes to all: the fateful\n_Demain_ of Victor:\n\n \u201cDemain est la sapin du tr\u00f4ne,\n Aujourd\u2019hui c\u2019en est le velours.\u201d\n\nYes, to-morrow is the coarse deal, with its ten sacks, that forms the\nframework of the throne, as to-day is its velvet and gilding.\n\n \u201cDemain c\u2019est le coursier qui s\u2019abat plein d\u2019\u00e9cume;\n Demain, O conqu\u00e9rant, c\u2019est Moscou qui s\u2019allume\n La nuit comme un flambeau:\n C\u2019est not\u2019 vieille garde qui jonche au lointain la plaine,\n Demain c\u2019est Waterloo! Demain c\u2019est Ste. Hel\u00e8ne!\n Demain c\u2019est le tombeau!\u201d\n\nAnd yet to-morrow was, for good or bad, for better for worse, a favourite\nphrase with Napoleon. His last words to Murat at nightfall, in the hope\nof battle with the Russians on the Dwina next day, were, \u201cTo-morrow, at\nfive, the sun of Austerlitz!\u201d After the combat of Reichenbach, which lost\nhim Duroc, he sat alone, in moody meditation, neither speaking nor to be\nspoken with; appealed to in vain for orders by Caulaincourt and Maret:\n\u201cTo-morrow\u2014everything,\u201d was the only answer their most urgent demands\ncould wring from him, in his hour of dejection and theirs of need. In\nanother mood was the emperor when, after Leipsic, he pressed the Austrian\ncabinet to side with him, and at once. If they were wise, he said, they\nwould do so forthwith. They could do so, he told their representative,\nthat evening. To-morrow it might perhaps be too late; for who could\nforetell the events of to-morrow?\n\nSo thought Sunderland, in that \u201cagony of terror,\u201d almost over-wrought\nor over-coloured, perhaps, by Macaulay, which impelled him to resign\noffice, in a sort of frenzied haste. He had asked some of his friends to\ncome to his house that he might consult them; they came at the appointed\ntime, but found that he had gone to Kensington, and had left word that he\nshould soon be back. When he joined them, they observed that he had not\nthe gold key which is the badge of the Lord Chamberlain, and asked where\nit was. \u201cAt Kensington,\u201d answered Sunderland. They found that he had\ntendered his resignation, and that it had been, after a long struggle,\naccepted. They blamed his haste, and told him that since he had summoned\nthem to advise him on that day, he might at least have waited till the\nmorrow. \u201cTo-morrow,\u201d he exclaimed \u201cwould have ruined me. To-night has\nsaved me.\u201d\n\nA signal contrast the despairing minister presents to the poet\u2019s picture\nof credulous hope which ever promises a morrow better than to-day (like\nthe voluptuaries branded by the Hebrew prophet, who hug themselves in the\nassurance that To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant):\n\n ... \u201cCredula vitam\n Spes fovet, ac melius cras fore semper ait.\u201d\n\nThey say that To-morrow never comes. The great Greek father with the\ngolden mouth seems to have based an ethical warning on this thought,\nwhen he bids us defer not till to-morrow, for to-morrow is a vanishing\nquantity. \u039c\u1f74 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b1\u1f54\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7 \u1f21 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03b1\u1f54\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03ad \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03b2\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\n\u03c4\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2. The moral is one with that of the Latin satirist\u2014though _he_ makes\nto-morrow come fast enough, one _per diem_,\u2014and go quite as fast as it\ncame:\n\n ... \u201cCum lux altera venit,\n Jam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras\n Egerit hys annos.\u201d\n\nMatter-of-fact people will tell you that To-morrow does come, and fix\nby their stop-watch the instant of its arrival. Nay, they can appeal to\nthe _primus inter poetas_ for poetical verification of their view. Says\nthe Messenger to the Provost, while it is yet dark, on the morning which\nis appointed to be Claudio\u2019s last, \u201cGood morrow; for, as I take it, it\nis almost day.\u201d And so with the peers who enter sleepless King Henry\u2019s\nchamber, at the hour they name:\n\n \u201c_Warwick._ Many good morrows to your majesty.\n\n _K. Hen._ Is it good morrow, lords?\n\n _War._ \u2019Tis one o\u2019clock, and past.\n\n _K. Hen._ Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.\u201d\n\nBut, in its own sense, the saying holds good, and is good sense too,\nthat To-morrow never comes. One might take for emblem of its import the\ntouching story told by Southey, of a lady on the point of marriage, whose\naffianced husband usually travelled by the stage-coach to visit her, and\nwho, going one day to meet him, found instead of her betrothed an old\nfriend, despatched to announce to her his sudden death. She uttered a\nscream, and piteously exclaimed, \u201cHe is dead!\u201d But then all consciousness\nof the affliction that had befallen her ceased. From that fatal moment\nshe had daily, for fifty years, at the time Dr. Uwins wrote, and \u201cin all\nseasons, traversed the distance of a few miles, where she expected her\nfuture husband to alight from the coach; and every day [adds the doctor,\nwriting in the then present tense] she utters in a plaintive tone, \u201cHe is\nnot come yet! I will return to-morrow.\u201d _To-morrow, and to-morrow, and\nto-morrow_\u2014that to her never was, but always was to be.\n\nWhy, and how, To-morrow never comes, might be discussed in a strain of\ntranscendental metaphysics. Mr. Carlyle, in a memorable chapter headed\nNatural Supernaturalism, expounds in his mystic suggestive way the\nphilosophic thesis, that Time and Space are but creations of God,\u2014with\nwhom as it is a universal HERE, so it is an everlasting Now. And as\nregards Man: is the Past annihilated, or only past? is the Future\nnon-extant, or only future? \u201cThe curtains of Yesterday drop down, and the\ncurtains of To-morrow roll up; but Yesterday and To-morrow both _are_.\nPierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal.\u201d\n\nIt is but a glance the strongest eye can take, in that direction. But\neven a glance may secure a glimpse of things which filmy, unpurged,\ndownlooking eye hath not seen, nor ear heard\u2014for they seem to involve\nunspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. To-morrow\nthou hast never seen; to thee it has never come. But it shall come.\nAnd it that shall come, will come; and will not tarry. Wait the great\nteacher, Death. _CRAS iterabimus \u00e6quor_: to-morrow we shall be sounding\nour dim and perilous way across the dark waters of that fathomless sea.\nIf the prospect appals, happy he that can adapt to his own hopes, in\nserenest confidence, yet eager anticipation,\u2014as he speculates on what a\nday, and the Better Land, may bring forth: To-morrow, to fresh woods and\npastures new.\n\n\n\n\n_THE DIVINE AUTHORSHIP OF ORDER._\n\n1 CORINTHIANS xiv. 33, 40.\n\n\nPractically, the amount of confusion prevalent in the church of Corinth,\narising from irregularities incident to the exercise of \u201ctongues,\u201d\nand to the undisciplined energies of a mixed congregation, appears to\nhave almost rivalled the disorder in the theatre of Ephesus, when the\nwhole city was filled with confusion, and some cried one thing, and\nsome another; for the assembly was confused, and the most part knew\nnot wherefore they were come together. So, when the whole church of\nCorinth were come together into one place, and all spoke with tongues,\nto outsiders that for the nonce stepped inside they must appear mad. All\nthings were done indecorously and in most admired disorder. Now, St. Paul\nwas for having all things done decently and in order. \u201cFor God is not the\nauthor of confusion, but of peace.\u201d Order is Heaven\u2019s first law. The same\napostle is prompt to remind the Thessalonians that he behaved himself not\ndisorderly among them; and this he did because he heard that there were\nsome among them which walked disorderly\u2014\u1f00\u03c4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2. The apostolic canon for\nboth Corinth and Thessalonica, and all other churches, is, \u03a0\u1f70\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70\n\u03c4\u03ac\u03be\u03b9\u03bd \u03b3\u03b9\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03c9. Let them all walk by this same rule, and all mind this\nsame thing.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs with the sect of Pythagoreans, virtue was defined to be a harmony,\nunity, and an endeavour to resemble the Deity,\u2014so the whole life of man,\nthey taught, should be an attempt to represent on earth the beauty and\nharmony displayed in the order of the universe. It was the doctrine of\nPythagoras himself, that by action as well as by thought the individual\nas well as the state should represent in themselves \u201can image of the\norder and harmony by which the world was sustained and regulated.\u201d But as\nPrior puts it, when he considers the heavens, the starry worlds of God\u2019s\nordaining, or ordering,\u2014\n\n \u201cHow mean the order and perfection sought\n In the best product of the human thought,\n Compared to the great harmony that reigns\n In what the Spirit of the world ordains!\u201d\n\nLord Lytton suggestively pictures to us one of his characters alone in\nthe streets by night, striding noiselessly on, under the gaslights, under\nthe stars; gaslights primly marshalled at equidistance; stars that seem\nto the naked eye dotted over space without symmetry or method\u2014\u201cMan\u2019s\norder, near and finite, is so distinct; the Maker\u2019s order, remote,\ninfinite, is so beyond man\u2019s comprehension of what _is_ order.\u201d Chauncy\nHare Townshend expresses the same idea in an address to the stars:\u2014\n\n \u201cDistance deceives the sight. Ye move and sway\n With life; yet are your hoverings on the brink\n Of ruin but the freedom and the play\n That binds your dance of beauty, link to link,\n In woven joy that shall not fail nor shrink.\n ... Thrones arise and sink,\n Earth is transformed beneath you: ye remain,\n Clasping distracted man with Order\u2019s sacred chain.\u201d\n\nSo Wordsworth, addressing as it were a deified idea of Duty, pays this\nhomage:\u2014\n\n ... \u201cThou dost preserve the stars from wrong,\n And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.\u201d\n\nWell may Hooker speculate on what would become of man, were Nature to\nintermit her course, and leave altogether, though but for a while, the\nobservation of her own laws; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected\nover our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres\nshould forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn\nthemselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of\nheaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it\nwere through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and rest himself;\nif the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of\nthe year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture\u2014\u201cSee we not\nplainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of Nature is the stay\nof the whole world?\u201d Again to quote from \u201cThe Mystery of Evil,\u201d the same\nstar-gazer speaking:\u2014\n\n \u201cDo I not climb in you, O bless\u00e8d host,\n The way of symbols, shining steps to God?\n When most man knows you, he is certain most\n One law unswerving reigns from star to clod.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf law,\u201d says Hooker, at the close of his first book of Ecclesiastical\nPolity, with an eloquence which has ever been most admired by the\nmost admirable masters of English prose,\u2014\u201cOf law there can be no less\nacknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the\nharmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the\nvery least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from\nher power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever,\nthough each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent,\nadmiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.\u201d Considering when he\nwrote, what he wrote, and to what purpose and in what spirit he wrote,\nthere seems to us a beautiful consistency in Richard Hooker\u2019s deathbed\nmeditations, as related in the familiar memoir by Izaak Walton. Found\nby his trustiest visitor, \u201cdeep in contemplation, and not inclinable to\ndiscourse,\u201d and asked what was the subject of his present thoughts, he\nreplied, \u201cThat he was meditating the number and nature of angels, and\ntheir blessed obedience and order, without which, peace could not be in\nheaven; and oh, that it might be so on earth!\u201d\n\nThere is not, affirms a modern divine, a corner of the world, nor\na process of nature, nor a piece of God\u2019s handiwork of any kind\nwhatever, on which His love of order is not written with a plainness\nnot to be mistaken. \u201cSystem and method, law and order, symmetry and\npunctuality, are conspicuous everywhere; indicating at once the value\nattached to these things in the mind of God, and his dislike for their\nopposites\u2014confusion, fitfulness, irregularity.\u201d Nor is the Divine love of\norder a quality that ever leads to stiffness, formality, or monotony; for\nit is shown to be constantly associated with beauty, variety, and freedom.\n\nM. Jules Simon interpolates into his argument for the vast preponderance\nof good over evil in the world, a casually expressed identification of\ngood with order: \u201cle bien, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire, l\u2019ordre, car dans le monde le\nbien et l\u2019ordre ne font qu\u2019un.\u201d\n\n \u201cSome think Disorder means God\u2019s moral plan;\n But Evil oscillates in certain bounds.\n Ten thousand causes check the rage of man:\n His utmost crimes a wall of brass surrounds;\n Mere weariness exhausts War\u2019s yelling hounds;\n And, if all fail, Death comes with his great wave,\n That levels all the hollows and the mounds\n Of human life. Who then shall be so brave\n As of Confusion found in God\u2019s large thoughts to rave?\u201d\n\nReaders familiar with the writings first and last of Mr. Carlyle, will\nreadily call to mind many a terse utterance in vindication of the Divine\nauthorship and Divine authority of order. _Dis_order he pronounces to be\na thing which \u201cveracious created Nature, even because it is not Chaos and\na waste-whirling baseless Phantasm,\u201d rejects and disowns. \u201c_Dis_order,\ninsane by the nature of it, is the hatefullest of things to man, who\nlives by sanity and by order.\u201d \u201cAll Anarchy, all evil, all injustice,\nis, by the nature of it, ... suicidal, and cannot endure.\u201d \u201cArrangement\nis indispensable to man; Arrangement, were it grounded only on that old\nprimary evangel of Force, with Sceptre in the shape of Hammer!\u201d Such\nsentences admit of almost infinite multiplication. \u201cAnarchy, hateful as\nDeath, is abhorrent to the whole nature of man; and so must itself soon\ndie.\u201d Hence this philosopher\u2019s partiality for \u201cheroes,\u201d even of the least\nestimable type, provided they have will and force to replace confusion\nby order. Cort\u00e8s is not among the specified Heroes of his special\nHero-worship; but he deserves a place by reason of the preamble to that\ncode of ordinances, as the conqueror of Mexico himself terms them, which\nhe set forth in restraint of his army: the essential purport of this\npreamble being, that in all institutions, whether Divine or human (if the\nlatter have any worth), order is the great law.\n\nIt was in support of the cause of social order that Luther took to\nexposing the dangers due to ignorant innovators, and strenuously declared\nthat \u201cGod Himself constituted certain authorities to direct the world;\nfor it is a great feature in His magnificent system, that there shall be\norder here below.\u201d Doctor Martin may, in this respect, be called a man\nafter our Hero-worshipper\u2019s own heart; such another as the one of whom\nhe wrote,\u2014\u201cWheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care;\nhere is the man that has declared war with it, that will never make peace\nwith it. Man is the Missionary of Order; he is the servant, not of the\nDevil and of Chaos, but of God and the universe.\u201d And Christian doctrine\nteaches that the order and beauty of the outward world are symbols of\nthat inward order and symmetry, that peace and purity of heart, that\nuniversal harmony between God\u2019s will and man\u2019s will, which it is one\ngreat object of Christianity to establish.\n\n \u201cThen quick I ran my glance about the globe,\n To find Religion link\u2019d with Order\u2019s aim,\n Ruling by love and light,\u201d\n\nsays the Christian poet, who has, however, to deplore the disappointments\nof his quest. Of all orderly things that are beautiful in God\u2019s eyes, it\nhas been said, there can be none so beautiful as an orderly or holy soul.\n\u201cOnce in this world the sight presented itself in spotless beauty and\nbrilliancy.\u201d Everything there seen was in its place: reason, conscience,\nwill, feeling, instinct, appetite, \u201call most beautifully arranged; each\nwas in perfect health, and all were in thorough harmony with the will of\nGod.\u201d But that was God manifest in the flesh. Order incarnate. Without\nHim, in the material world, was not anything made that was made. Apart\nfrom Him, the moral world is without form and void, and darkness covers\nthe face of its deep. Order, in fine, is the indispensable postulate of\nevery given cosmos. In the words of Schiller\u2014\n\n \u201cIt is the keystone of the world\u2019s wide arch;\n The one sustaining and sustained by all,\n Which, if it fall, brings all in ruin down.\u201d\n\nOf the Church as a family, George Herbert, ever quaint in his devotion,\nsings or says\u2014after a depreciation of his own unruly thoughts:\n\n \u201cBut, Lord, the house and family are Thine,\n Though some of them repine.\n Turn out these wranglers, which defile Thy seat:\n For where Thou dwellest all is neat.\n\n \u201cFirst Peace and Silence all disputes control,\n Then _Order_ plays the soul;\n And giving all things their set forms and hours,\n Makes of wild woods sweet walks and bowers.\u201d\n\nSo Dryden traces to harmony this universal frame\u2014a cosmos evolved from\nchaos, from a heap of jarring atoms that, at the Divine summons,\u2014\n\n \u201c_In order_ to their stations leap.\u201d\n\nShaftesbury contends that the admiration and love of order, in whatever\nkind, is \u201cnaturally improving to the temper, advantageous to social\naffection, and highly assistant to virtue\u2014which is itself no other than\nthe love of order and beauty in society.\u201d In the meanest subjects of the\nworld, he goes on to say, the appearance of order gains upon the mind,\nand draws the affections towards it. \u201cFor \u2019tis impossible that such a\nDivine order should be contemplated without ecstasy and rapture; since\nin the common subjects of science, and the liberal arts, whatever is\naccording to just harmony and proportion is so transporting to those\nwho have any knowledge or practice in the kind.\u201d In another place he\nelaborates the thesis, that whatever things have order, have unity of\ndesign, and concur in one, and are parts constituent of one whole\u2014just as\na symphony is a certain system of proportioned sounds. It is noteworthy\nthat Pythagoras deduced his celebrated theory of the music of the\nspheres from his assumption that everything in the great arrangement\n(\u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2) which he called the world must be harmoniously arranged (and\nthat, accordingly, the planets were at the same relative distance as the\ndivisions of the monochord, etc.) Divine as the philosophy of Plato is\ncommonly esteemed, there are, on the other hand, occasional glimpses in\nit of what one of his commentators calls the \u201cappalling doctrine\u201d that\nGod alternately governs and forsakes the world\u2014the world when he forsakes\nit, suddenly changing its orbit, so that all things are in disorder, and\nmundane existence is totally disarranged: \u201conly after some time do things\nsettle down to a sort of order, though of a very imperfect kind.\u201d Spinoza\ntakes order to be a thing of the imagination, as also he does right and\nwrong, useful and hurtful\u2014these being merely such, he argues, in relation\nto us. But this would not prevent him, from his stand-point, assenting to\nthe ethical import of order\u2014as expounded for instance by the Shakspearian\nUlysses:\n\n \u201cThe heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,\n Observe degree, priority, and place, ...\n Office, and custom, in all line of order....\n Take but degree away, untune that string,\n And hark, what discord follows! each thing meets\n In mere oppugnancy.\u201d\n\nOrder, writes Southey, is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body,\nthe peace of the city, the security of the State. Diogenes held with the\nDorian lawgivers, that order (\u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2) is the basis of civil government.\nAs the beams to a house, it has been said, as the bones to the microcosm\nof man, so is order to all things. Balzac is treating of _harmonie\npolitique_ when he says that harmony is the poetry of order, and that\n\u201cthe peoples\u201d have a keen need of order. The racy author of the \u201cBiglow\nPapers\u201d discourses in his shrewd, homely style, on the indispensableness\n(not that he uses such a word) of orderly established law:\u2014\n\n \u201cOnsettle _that_, an\u2019 all the world goes whiz,\n A screw is loose in everything there is.\u201d\n\nMr. Carlyle, in his apology for Knox in the act of pulling down\ncathedrals\u2014as if he were a seditious rioting demagogue\u2014urges that he was\nprecisely the reverse of that. Knox, he maintains, wanted no pulling down\nof stone edifices, but wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of\nthe lives of men. \u201cTumult was not his element; it was the tragic feature\nof his life that he was forced to dwell so much on that.\u201d Every such man,\non Mr. Carlyle\u2019s showing, is the born enemy of disorder\u2014hates to be in\nit; but what then? \u201cSmooth falsehood is not order; it is the general sum\ntotal of disorder. Order is truth\u2014each thing standing on the basis that\nbelongs to it. Order and falsehood cannot subsist together.\u201d And it is\nin treating of another of his heroes elect, that the same philosopher\ncontends on behalf of such others of them as seem to have worked as\nrevolutionary men, that nevertheless every great man, every genuine\nman, is by the nature of him a son of order, not of disorder\u2014a seeming\nanarchist, yet to his whole soul anarchy is hostile, hateful. \u201cHis\nmission is Order; every man\u2019s is. He is here to make what was disorderly,\nchaotic, into a thing ruled, regular. He is the missionary of Order.\u201d Is\nnot all work of man in this world, we are emphatically asked, a making of\nOrder?\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 Duval, writing to Mme. R\u00e9camier, as her spiritual counsellor,\nbids her engrave this elementary truth on her heart of hearts: \u201cGravez\nau-dedans de vous-m\u00eame cette premi\u00e8re v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que la religion veut\n_l\u2019ordre_ avant tout.\u201d Whatsoever doth make manifest is light, and it\nis light that reveals a cosmos where before, in the words of Thomson, a\nformless grey confusion covered all:\u2014\n\n \u201cAs when of old (so sung the Hebrew bard)\n Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged\n Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn\n His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.\u201d\n\nThat a scrupulous regard for order, in some sort, is nevertheless\ncompatible with a very low standard of moral worth, is recognised and\nillustrated by poet Crabbe\u2014prose-poet the good parson was, not quite in\nthe accepted sense\u2014in a series of pithy, if not pungent rhymes:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe love of order\u2014I the thing receive\n From reverend men, and I in part believe\u2014\n Shows a clear mind and clean, and whoso needs\n This love, but seldom in the world succeeds;\n And yet with this some other love must be,\n Ere I can fully to the fact agree;\n Valour and study may by order gain,\n By order sovereigns hold more steady reign;\n Through all the tribes of nature order runs,\n And rules around in systems and in suns:\n Still has the love of order found a place\n With all that\u2019s low, degrading, mean, and base,\n With all that merits scorn, and all that meets disgrace:\n In the cold miser, of all change afraid,\n In pompous men in public seats obeyed;\n In humble placemen, heralds, solemn drones;\n ...\n Order to these is armour and defence,\n And love of method serves in lack of sense.\u201d\n\nExceptions allowed for, as in every rule, yet is the rule sufficiently\napproved, that order is heaven\u2019s first law. The poet of \u201cThe Angel in\nthe House\u201d in style, and spirit, and sentiment, how salient a contrast\nto Crabbe, utters the conceit (_poetic\u00e8_) in one of his tender preludes,\nthat\u2014\n\n \u201cSweet Order has its draught of bliss\n Graced with the pearl of God\u2019s consent,\u201d\u2014\n\na conceit that allows of wide application, as do many of those of so\nsuggestive a writer.\n\nBut to conclude. When the judicious Hooker\u2014to call him by his\nconventional epithet\u2014lay a-dying, he expressed his joy at the near\nprospect of entering a World of Order. The author of \u201cThe Book of the\nChurch\u201d emphasises the import of holy Richard\u2019s \u201cplacid and profound\ncontentment,\u201d by reminding us that because he had been employed in\necclesiastical polemics, and because his life had been passed under the\nperpetual discomfort of domestic discord, the happiness of heaven must\nhave seemed in Hooker\u2019s estimation, to consist primarily in Order, as,\nindeed, in all human societies this is the first thing needful.\n\n\n\n\n_SWEET SLEEP, AND ITS FORFEITURE._\n\nPROVERBS iii. 24.\n\n\nTo him that keepeth sound wisdom and instruction is the promise given,\nnot only that he shall walk in his way safely, and his foot shall not\nstumble,\u2014this for daytime and its activities,\u2014but further, as regards\nnight-time and its contingencies, that when he lies down he shall not\nbe afraid; yea, he shall lie down, and his sleep shall be sweet. So He\ngiveth His beloved sleep, of whom the Psalmist said, \u201cI laid me down and\nslept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.\u201d Surely, in order that one\nmay pray with full purpose of heart the prayer, Let me die the death of\nthe righteous, and let my last end be like his! one should live the life\nthat may warrant the nightly petition, Let me sleep the sleep of the\njust, and let mine eyes close quietly in slumber even as his.\n\nMacbeth, within this minute a murderer, _ipso facto_ realizes the\nappalling truth, that between him and placid sleep there is, from\nhenceforth and for evermore, a great gulf fixed, as impassable as abysmal.\n\n \u201cMethought I heard a voice cry, \u2018Sleep no more!\n Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep;\n Sleep, that knits up the ravell\u2019d sleave of care,\n The death of each day\u2019s life, sore labour\u2019s bath,\n Balm of hurt minds, great nature\u2019s second course,\n Chief nourisher in life\u2019s feast,\u2e3a\u2019\n\n _Lady M._ What do you mean?\n\n _Macb._ Still it cried, \u2018Sleep no more!\u2019 to all the house:\n \u2018Glamis hath murder\u2019d sleep; and therefore Cawdor\n Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more!\u2019\u201d\n\nHow sleeps Lady Macbeth after that night? Ask her physician and\nwaiting-woman, and watch with them the sleep-walking scene. \u201cTo bed,\nto bed, to bed.\u201d But what avails _that_ to the somnambulist, ever in\nsemblance washing her hands, and complaining of the smell of blood\nupon them still, and that all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten\nthem? Now and then one meets with a sceptic as to lost sleep being the\ninevitable sequent upon crime; and no doubt there are exceptions. Mr.\nG. Wingrove Cooke, in his letters from Chinese waters, thus describes\nthe captive Mandarin, Yeh, whose fellow-passenger to Calcutta he was:\n\u201cHe goes to bed at eight o\u2019clock, and while we are reading or writing\nor playing chess, he sleeps the sleep of infancy\u2014an unbroken slumber,\napparently undisturbed by visions of widowed women and wailing orphans.\nThis man-killer, after slaying his hundred thousand human beings, enjoys\nsweeter sleep than an innocent London alderman after a turtle dinner.\u201d\nPerhaps that is not saying much,\u2014considering what a turtle dinner\ncomprehends and superinduces. But the next sentence says a good deal; it\nis to be hoped, a great deal too much: \u201cSo false are traditions; so false\nare the remorseful scenes of Greek and English tragedies.\u201d One would be\nsorry, for the dignity of human nature, to believe that all is fiction\nthe poets tell us of cases in which _non avium cithar\u00e6que cantus_, or any\nother aids and appliances, _somnum reducent_. \u201cWherefore to me,\u201d asks\nClytemnestra,\u2014\n\n ... \u201cis solacing sleep denied?\n And honourable rest, the right of all?\n So that no medicine of the slumbrous shell,\n Brimmed with divinest draughts of melody,\n Nor silence under dreamful canopies,\n Nor purple cushions of the lofty couch,\n May lull this fever for a little while.\u201d\n\nImpressive in history, not romance, as Plutarch tells it, is the story of\nPausanius as a haunted man, from the hour that Cleonice fell dead at his\nfeet, pierced by his sword. \u201cFrom that hour he could rest no more.\u201d Her\nspectre perturbed him every night. Henceforth, nor poppy, nor mandragora,\nnor all the drowsy syrups of the world, could ever medicine him to that\nsweet sleep which he owed yesterday. As a guilty spirit says of guilt, in\none of Landor\u2019s fragments,\u2014\n\n \u201cIt wakes me many mornings, many nights,\n And fields of poppies could not quiet it.\u201d\n\nModern fiction abounds with examples to the purpose. There is Colonel\nWhyte Melville\u2019s remorseful woman of the world bidding her young friend\ngood night, and meaning it all the more because her own good nights are\ndead and gone: \u201cWhat would I give to yawn as honestly as you do, and to\nsleep sound once again, as I used to sleep when I was a girl!\u201d There is\nMr. Trollope\u2019s Lady Mason, so wistfully, so vainly longing for rest\u2014to be\nable to lay aside the terrible fatigue of being ever on the watch. From\nthe burden of that necessity she has never been free since her crime was\nfirst committed. \u201cShe had never known true rest. She had not once trusted\nherself to sleep without the feeling that her first waking thought would\nbe one of horror, as the remembrance of her position came upon her.\u201d As\nwith the royal lady pictured by the laureate,\u2014\n\n \u201cMany a time for hours\n In the dead night, grim faces came and went\n Before her, or a vague spiritual fear\u2014\n Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,\n Heard by the watcher in a haunted house,\n That keeps the rust of murder on the walls\u2014\n Held her awake. Or if she slept, she dream\u2019d\n An awful dream ...\n ... and with a cry she woke.\n And all this trouble did not pass, but grew.\u201d\n\nThere is Donatello, in Hawthorne\u2019s \u201cTransformation,\u201d succumbing to a\nstupor, which he mistakes for such drowsiness as he has known in his\ninnocent past life. There is Albert Maurice, in \u201cMary of Burgundy,\u201d\ngazing on the Vert Gallant of Hannut as he lay in a deep, sweet sleep\u2014so\ncalm and tranquil, though within the walls of a prison, suffering from\ninjuries, and exposed to constant danger; gazing with a sense of envy and\nregret, \u201cwhich few, perhaps, can appreciate fully, who have not felt\nthe sharp tooth of remorse begin its sleepless gnawings on the heart. He\nwould not have disturbed such slumbers for the world; and, withdrawing\nagain with a noiseless step, he retired to his own chamber, and cast\nhimself down upon his bed, to snatch, at least, that heated and disturbed\nsleep, which was all the repose that he was ever more to know on earth.\u201d\nTo such as him can nothing bring back, in the hour and power of darkness,\nmore than an embittered memory of times\n\n \u201cWhen that placid sleep came o\u2019er him\n Which he ne\u2019er can know again.\u201d\n\nAn innocent comforter in a modern tragedy offers a disquieted spirit the\nassurance, as regards the object of his disquiet, that \u201c\u2019twill away in\nsleep.\u201d But his answer is,\u2014\n\n \u201cNo, no! I dare not sleep\u2014for well I know\n That then the knife will gleam, the blood will gush,\n The form will stiffen!\u201d\n\nFrom the night of the massacre of Glencoe, Glenlyon, as Macaulay tells\nus, was never again the man that he had been before that night. The\nform of his countenance was changed; and \u201cin all places, at all hours,\nwhether he waked or slept, Glencoe was for ever before him.\u201d As with a\ndistinguished foreigner of a later generation, _Depuis ce moment, point\nde sommeil, point de repos; il croyait toujours voir un glaive arr\u00eat\u00e9 sur\nsa t\u00eate_. In such cases, the sleepers start from broken slumbers, as if\nstarting back from the edge of a precipice; for,\u2014\n\n \u201cTheir whole tranquillity of heart is gone;\n The peace wherewith till now they have been blest\n Hath taken its departure. In the breast\n Fast following thoughts and busy fancies throng;\n Their sleep itself is feverish, and possest\n With dreams that to the wakeful mind belong.\u201d\n\n\u201cSomething like a stupid sleep oppresses me,\u201d writes one of Henry\nMackenzie\u2019s characters; \u201clast night I could not sleep. Where are now\nthose luxurious slumbers, those wandering dreams of future happiness?\nNever shall I know them again.\u201d Falkland avows to Caleb Williams, the\ninvoluntary master of his master\u2019s fatal secret, that \u201cfrom the hour the\ncrime was committed\u201d he has not had an hour\u2019s peace: \u201cI became changed\nfrom the happiest into the most miserable being that lives; sleep has\nfled from my eyes.\u201d And Caleb Williams himself testifies in an after\nchapter, \u201cThe ease and light-heartedness of my youth were for ever gone.\nThe voice of an irresistible necessity had commanded me to \u2018sleep no\nmore.\u2019\u201d They that do murder, says Roscoe\u2019s Violenzia,\u2014\n\n \u201cNever sleep more, never more taste of peace,\n Quaff poison in their drink, see knives in the dark,\n And ever at their elbow horror walks,\n Shaking them like a palsy.\u201d\n\nThe bitter contrast\u2014ah, for the change \u2019twixt now and then!\u2014is forcibly\nworded by Bosola in the \u201cDuchess of Malfi\u201d:\u2014\n\n \u201cO sacred innocence, that sweetly sleeps\n On turtle\u2019s feathers! whilst a guilty conscience\n Is a perspective that foreshows us hell.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_ONCE DENIED, THRICE DENIED._\n\nST. MATTHEW xxvi, 69, _sq._\n\n\nLie engenders lie. Once committed, the liar has to go on in his course of\nlying. It is the penalty of his transgression, or one of the penalties.\nTo the habitual liar, bronzed and hardened in the custom, till custom\nbecomes second nature, the penalty may seem no very terrible price\nto pay. To him, on the other hand, who, without deliberate intent,\nand against his innermost will, is overtaken with such a fault, the\ngenerative power of a first lie to beget others, the necessity of\nsupporting the first by a second and a third, is a retribution keenly to\nbe felt, while penitently owned to be most just.\n\nThough it was afar off that Peter followed his Master to the\nhigh-priest\u2019s house, yet he did follow; and, we may be sure, with little\nthought, and still less intention, of denying Him even once. But as he\nsat by the fire and warmed himself, the identification of him by a\ncertain maid as certainly a disciple of Christ was boldly met by the\naffirmation, or negation, \u201cWoman, I know Him not.\u201d The lie was uttered;\nthe winged word of falsehood was on its way. And there an end, he\nperhaps hoped. But after a little while, another bystander recognised\nhim, and asserted the damaging recognition, \u201cThou art also of them.\u201d\nAnother denial was the consequence: \u201cMan, I am not.\u201d An hour passed\naway, and Peter, in sullen misery and bewilderment, self-consciously an\nabject coward and confirmed liar, had to deny for the third time Him he\nhad denied once and again. \u201cOf a truth,\u201d affirmed another of the mixed\ncompany, \u201cthis fellow also was with Him; for he is a Galilean.\u201d And\nPeter said, \u201cMan, I know not what thou sayest.\u201d And then the cock crew.\nAnd then the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And at that look\u2014so\nupbraidingly expressive, so pathetically recalling recent protestations\nof unfaltering allegiance, and the concurrent prediction of lapse and\nabandonment\u2014what could Peter do, but with shame and confusion of face,\nand with a heart full to bursting, go out, and weep bitterly.\n\nWhen he thought thereon, he wept: thought of the Master\u2019s look, that\nrecalled to him the vehement assurance of loyalty met by the foretelling\nof his fall. Thought, too, of the graduation of his denials; a first\ninvolving a second, and the second exacting yet a third. The third was\nthe cost of the first. He had not counted the cost then. He had to pay it\nnow.\n\nIt was part of the prophet\u2019s burden of woes against the doomed city, that\nshe had \u201cwearied herself with lies.\u201d Easily uttered, they may multiply\nat a rate to trouble the teller of them, and weary him, if only with\nthe necessity of inventing new ones to back the old. He must ever be\ndevising fresh vouchers for his impaired and imperilled credit. He must\ncontinually be endorsing his forged notes, and forging fresh ones that\nwill stand inspection. _Fallacia alia aliam trudit._ And this is weary\nwork.\n\n \u201cEn quel gouffre de soins et de perplexit\u00e9\n Nous jette une action faite sans equit\u00e9.\u201d\n\nAnd as with actions, so with words. The same speaker of the foregoing\ncouplet utters elsewhere the lament,\u2014\n\n \u201cMa fourbe est d\u00e9couverte. Oh! que la v\u00e9rit\u00e9\n Se peut cacher longtemps avec difficult\u00e9!\u201d\n\nSo we read in Moli\u00e8re. And Corneille has a play (not original) entirely\ndevoted to the illustration of this subject, showing _qu\u2019il faut bonne\nm\u00e9moire acr\u00e8s qu\u2019on a menti_; the Menteur \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u1f10\u03be\u03bf\u03c7\u1f74\u03bd, being one who\n_entasse fourbe sur fourbe_, and is constrained by the law of his nature,\nat least of habit, which is second nature, to be ever adding to the\nheap of lies to which he has committed himself. A Spanish proverb\u2014and\n_Le Menteur_ is from the Spanish\u2014declares that \u201cfor an honest man half\nhis wits is enough, while the whole are too little for a knave;\u201d the\nways, that is, as Archbishop Trench expounds the adage, of truth and\nuprightness are so simple and plain, that a little wit is abundantly\nsufficient for those who walk in them; whereas the ways of falsehood and\nfraud are so perplexed and tangled, that sooner or later all the wit of\nthe cleverest rogue will not preserve him from being entangled therein\u2014a\ntruth often and wonderfully confirmed in the lives of evil men.\n\nAmong the aphorisms of Dean Swift we read: \u201cHe who tells a lie is not\nsensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent\ntwenty more to maintain that one.\u201d\n\nIt has been called the severe, but appropriate, punishment of historians\nwho desert the paths of truth for those of paradox, to be compelled to\ndefend the falsehood to which they have committed themselves against the\never-accumulating evidences of the truth. Mr. Robertson, of Brighton,\nfeelingly sketches the case of one who, being unprepared and accosted\nsuddenly, says hastily that which is irreconcileable with strict\ntruth; then to substantiate and make it look probable, misrepresents\nor invents something else; and so has woven round himself a mesh which\nwill entangle his conscience through many a weary day and many a\nsleepless night.[31] One burden laid on fault, he goes on to show, is\nthat chain of entanglement which seems to drag down to fresh sins. \u201cOne\nstep necessitates many others. One fault leads to another, and crime to\ncrime. The soul gravitates downward beneath its burden. It was profound\nknowledge which prophetically refused to limit Peter\u2019s sin to once.\n\u2018Verily I say unto thee ... thou shalt deny me thrice.\u2019\u201d\n\nMr. Froude shows us Queen Elizabeth stooping to \u201ca deliberate lie.\u201d At\ntimes, he says, writing of her embarrassed policy in 1565, she \u201cseemed\nto struggle with her ignominy, but it was only to flounder deeper into\ndistraction and dishonour.\u201d In October of that year she publicly denied\nthat she had encouraged the rebellion in Scotland. In November, we read,\n\u201cNever had Elizabeth been in greater danger; and the worst features of\nthe peril were the creations of her own untruths.\u201d Again, in May, 1566:\n\u201cMeanwhile Elizabeth was reaping a harvest of inconveniences for her\nexaggerated demonstrations of friendliness\u201d to the Queen of Scots. Mary\ntaking her at her word, \u201cVainly Elizabeth struggled to extricate herself\nfrom her dilemma; resentment was still pursuing her for her treachery\nin the past autumn.... She could but shuffle and equivocate in a manner\nwhich had become too characteristic.\u201d[32] She was but paying the price of\nlies\u2014the being constrained to go on lying still. It is certain, affirms a\npopular essayist, that nobody yet ever did anything wrong in this world\nwithout having to tell one or more falsehoods to begin with: the embryo\nmurderer has to tell a lie about the pistol or dagger, the would-be\nsuicide about the poison he purchases; and in fine, \u201cthe ways down which\nthe bad ship Wickedness slides to a shoreless ocean must be greased with\nlies.\u201d[33]\n\nEnglish reviewers not long since were prompt to recognise in Balzac\u2019s \u201cLa\nMar\u00e2tre,\u201d as revived to Parisian popularity, what they rightly accounted\nwonderful, a moral immaculate and beyond reproach. And what is that\nmoral? \u201cThe necessity of a life of lying as a punishment for the one\ngreat lie of a mercenary marriage.\u201d One great lie is put out to interest,\nand the interest is compound. One great lie involves a ramification of\nothers, great or small, if there be comparatives of magnitude in such\nmatters; and memory, if not conscience, is for ever on the stretch. The\nsad expedient of renewed issues is a necessity. As with the involved\nvictim in one of Crabbe\u2019s Tales:\u2014\n\n \u201cSuch is his pain, who, by his debt oppress\u2019d,\n Seeks by new bonds a temporary rest.\u201d\n\nTo another section, and with another starting-point from Holy Writ, may\nbe referred some remaining illustrations of the subject.\n\n\n\n\n_LINKED LIES._\n\nGENESIS xxvii. 19-24.\n\n\nJacob in Esau\u2019s goodly raiment, and his smooth skin overlaid with\ngoatskins, was duly prepared for a consistent course of deception.\nBut the lie upon lie he had to tell before his end was gained,\nmust have sorely tried what of conscience he then had. The primary\nfalsehood,\u2014distinctly enounced in answer to his blind sire\u2019s \u201cWho\nart thou?\u201d \u201cI am Esau, thy firstborn,\u201d come back from the chase with\nthe venison Isaac had desired of his firstborn,\u2014this initial lie had\nimmediately to be backed by another. How had he found it so quickly?\nThere is something revolting in the style of the unfaltering fabrication\nat once ready to hand, \u201cBecause the Lord thy God brought it to me.\u201d Then\nensued that solution of the old man\u2019s misgivings by a manual examination\nof the disguised pretender; it was Esau\u2019s hirsute skin, sure enough,\nthough the voice was Jacob\u2019s. But the blessing was given. And even\nafter that eventful benediction, the patriarch, with a yet lingering\napprehension, renewed the pointed question, in its directest form, \u201cArt\nthou my very son Esau?\u201d And Jacob said, \u201cI am.\u201d Lie linked to lie, in a\nconcatenation accordingly.\n\n_Solent mendaces luere p\u0153nas malefici_, says Ph\u00e6drus: liars usually pay\nthe penalty of their guilt. And Mrs. Browning vigorously states one\ndistinctive penalty, where she speaks of those who\u2014\n\n ... \u201cPay the price\n Of lies, by being constrained to lie on still.\u201d\n\nThe author of \u201cRomola\u201d powerfully illustrates in that remarkable book\nthe embarrassments involved in one cowardly departure from truth. In\nthe chapter headed \u201cTito\u2019s Dilemma,\u201d the occasion arises for Tito to\nfabricate an ingenious lie; an occasion \u201cwhich circumstance never\nfails to beget on tacit falsity.\u201d Many chapters farther on we find him\nexperiencing the inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves\nfor sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually\ndetermines character; and it becomes a question whether all the resources\nof lying will save him from being crushed by the consequences of his\nhabitual choice. At another juncture we read: \u201cTito felt more and more\nconfidence as he went on; the lie was not so difficult when it was once\nbegun; and as the words fell easily from his lips, they gave him a\nsense of power such as men feel when they have begun a muscular feat\nsuccessfully.\u201d The penalty is enforced a few pages later. \u201cBut he had\nborrowed from the terrible usurer Falsehood, and the loan had mounted and\nmounted with the years, till he belonged to the usurer, body and soul.\u201d\nAgain: \u201cTo-night he had paid a heavier price than ever to make himself\nsafe.\u201d[34]\n\nIn the American story of \u201cThe Gayworthys,\u201d the like moral attaches to the\ncourse of one unhappy woman who lets herself slide, half involuntarily,\ninto deeper wrong: she holds her peace; she makes herself passive. \u201cHer\nvery soul lied to itself in its false, bewildered reasonings; that is\nthe inherent retribution of false souls.\u201d There are some acts of folly,\nremarks the most popular, probably, of contemporary English penwomen,\nwhich carry falsehood and dissimulation at their heels as certainly as\nthe shadows which follow us when we walk towards the evening sun; and we\nvery rarely swerve from the severe boundary-line of right without being\ndragged ever so much farther than we calculated upon across the border.\n\nCorneille\u2019s celebrated play, \u201cLe Menteur,\u201d\u2014but for reading which Moli\u00e8re\nasserts his belief that he would never have written a comedy himself,\u2014is\n\u201cconveyed\u201d from a Spanish original, and has itself been Englished by\nFielding; the ingenuity of the piece consisting in the manner in which\none lie is made to call for another, until their wholesale employer is\ninextricably caught in the toils.\n\n \u201cThis is the curse of every evil deed,\u2014\n That, propagating still, it brings forth evil,\u201d\n\nlaments the elder Piccolomini, in Schiller\u2019s trilogy. The commission of\none wrong, says Owen Feltham, puts a man upon a thousand wrongs, perhaps,\nto maintain that one: injury, with injury is defended; and we commit\na greater, to maintain a less. \u201cA lie begets a lie, till generations\nsucceed.\u201d Mr. Carlyle sternly moralises on the growth of accumulated\nfalsities,\u2014\u201csad opulence descending by inheritance, always at compound\ninterest, and always largely increased by fresh acquirement on such\nimmensity of standing capital.\u201d One lie, says Owen, must be thatched with\nanother, or it will soon rain through.\n\nBenvenuto Cellini records in his autobiography, the bitter experiences\nhe endured in being tempted to lie to the duke, his patron, lest he\nshould forfeit the favour of the duchess\u2014he who \u201cwas always a lover of\ntruth and an enemy to falsehood, being then under a necessity of telling\nlies.\u201d \u201cAs I had begun to tell lies, I plunged deeper and deeper into the\nmire,\u201d\u2014till a very Slough of Despond it became to him.\n\nFool that he was, exclaims Mr. Trollope, of one of his characters in\n\u201cFramley Parsonage:\u201d \u201cA man can always do right, even though he has done\nwrong before. But the previous wrong adds so much difficulty to the\npath\u2014a difficulty which increases in tremendous ratio, till a man at last\nis choked in his struggling, and is drowned beneath the waters.\u201d Mr.\nThackeray sermonises to the same effect: \u201cAnd so, my dear sir, seeing\nthat after committing any infraction of the moral laws, you must tell\nlies in order to back yourself out of your scrape, let me ask you whether\nyou had not better forego the crime, so as to avoid the unavoidable, and\nunpleasant, and daily-recurring necessity of the subsequent perjury?\u201d And\nthe cleverest character this master of social satire ever drew, confesses\nhow it jarred on her to begin telling lies to a confiding, simple friend:\n\u201cBut that is the misfortune of beginning with this kind of forgery. When\none fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the\nold acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably\nmultiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.\u201d\n\nJeremy Taylor quaintly says of the devil in the ancient oracles, \u201cWhen\nhe was put to it at his oracles, and durst not tell a downright lie, and\nyet knew not what was truth, many times he was put to the most pitiful\nshifts, and trifling equivocations, and acts of knavery, which, when they\nwere discovered, ... it made him much more contemptible and ridiculous\nthan if he had said nothing or confessed his ignorance.\u201d\n\nA lie has been called a two-edged sword without a hilt, which is sure\nto slip and cut the hand that holds it. \u201cAfter telling one lie, we\nare sure to tell another; and usually, after spinning a silly, very\ncomplicated, and disgusting web, which entangles and chokes us, we find\nout that if we had told the truth, it would have been much the easier and\nbetter plan.\u201d Lying is likened, again, to borrowing of money-lenders;\nfor the credit which we get by it we have always to pay heavily for;\nand at last we find that the interest by far exceeds the principal,\nand we get so inextricably involved that we never fully recover. \u201cHe\nwho tells a lie,\u201d says Pope, \u201cis not sensible how great a task he\nundertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain\nthat one.\u201d Johnson observes that nobody can live long without knowing\nthat falsehoods of convenience or vanity are very lightly uttered, and\nwhen once uttered are sullenly supported. He reminds us that Boileau,\nwho desired to be thought a rigorous and steady moralist, having told\na petty lie to Lewis the Fourteenth, continued it afterwards by false\ndates, thinking himself obliged in honour to maintain what, when he said\nit, was so well received. Pope himself is taxed with similar mendacity\nby Mr. de Quincey, who charges him, on a certain literary question,\nwith knowingly \u201cpreparing for himself a dire necessity of falsehood....\nOnce launched upon such a course, he became pledged and committed to\nall the difficulties which it might impose. Desperate necessities would\narise, from which nothing but desperate lying and hard swearing could\nextricate him.\u201d And at a subsequent stage in the _facilis descensus_\nhe is described, rather imaginatively, as feeling, and groaning as he\nfelt, that fresh falsehoods were in peremptory demand. \u201cThis comes of\ntelling lies,\u201d is supposed to be his bitter reflection: \u201cone lie makes a\nnecessity for another.\u201d\n\nThe Leucippus of Beaumont and Fletcher thus admonishes an intimate:\u2014\n\n \u201cMy sin, Ismenus, has wrought all this ill:\n And I beseech thee to be warned by me,\n And do not lie, if any man should ask thee\n But how thou dost, or what o\u2019clock \u2019tis now;\n Be sure thou do not lie, make no excuse\n For him that is most near thee; never let\n The most officious falsehood \u2019scape thy tongue,\n For they above (that are entirely Truth)\n Will make the seed which thou hast sown of lies,\n Yield miseries a thousand-fold\n Upon thine head, as they have done on mine.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_A TIME TO WEEP, AND A TIME TO LAUGH._\n\nECCLESIASTES iii. 4.\n\n\nAs to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the\nsun,\u2014for as Shakspeare words it, \u201cHow many things by season seasoned are\nto their right praise and true perfection!\u201d\u2014be sure that the Wise King\nincludes laughter and weeping in the list. \u201cA time to weep, and a time to\nlaugh.\u201d Acquainted with grief, he had also been familiar with merriment.\nHe had said in his heart, Go to, now, I will prove thee with mirth; but\nthe result was that he said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What\ndoeth it?\u2014For all this, he freely recognises a time to laugh, so that one\nkeep to the time. So much depends, here, on the due observance of times\nand seasons. It is with the frivolous habit of laughing out of season,\nand at all seasons, that the following notes are concerned.\n\nThe laureate\u2019s is a good keynote to begin with:\u2014\n\n \u201cPrythee weep, May Lilian!\n Gaiety without eclipse\n Wearieth me, May Lilian.\u201d\n\nSo with Barry Cornwall and his Hermione:\u2014\n\n \u201cSomething thou dost want, O queen!\n (As the gold doth ask alloy,)\n Tears,\u2014amidst thy laughter seen,\n Pity,\u2014mingling with the joy.\u201d\n\nSuch a conjunction as the courtier records of Cordelia in \u201cKing\nLear\u201d\u2014sunshine and rain at once: \u201cher smiles and tears were like a better\nday: those happy smiles that played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know\nwhat guests were in her eyes:\u201d \u201cin brief, sorrow would be a rarity most\nbeloved, if all could so become it.\u201d Nothing, we often hear it said, is\nso tedious as uniformity; and under the bright sky of Italy one sometimes\nsighs for a cloud. \u201cA gay writer, who,\u201d says Horace Walpole, \u201cshould only\nexpress satisfaction without variety, would soon be nauseous.\u201d Johnson\u2019s\nPapilius winds up his confession, in the \u201cRambler,\u201d with a whine on the\nmelancholy necessity of supporting that character by study, which he\ngained by levity; having learned too late that gaiety must be recommended\nby higher qualities, and that mirth can never please long but as the\nefflorescence of a mind loved for its luxuriance, but esteemed for its\nusefulness. There must be fruitage as well as blossomy \u201cefflorescence;\u201d\nas Cowper is fain to enforce, when in the closing lines of the \u201cTask,\u201d\nhe records how he once, when called to dress a sofa with the flowers of\nverse, played awhile with that light task, obedient to the fair:\u2014\n\n ... \u201cbut soon, to please her more,\n Whom flowers alone I knew would little please,\n Let fall the unfinished wreath, and roved for fruit.\u201d\n\nMark Mrs. Browning\u2019s picture of the Lady Geraldine:\u2014\n\n \u201cIn her utmost lightness there is truth\u2014and often she speaks lightly\u2014\n Has a grace in being gay, which even mournful souls approve,\n For the root of some grave earnest thought is understruck so rightly\n As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers above.\u201d\n\nSo with Lord Lytton\u2019s Helen Mainwaring, the sunny gladness of whose\nnature must have vent like a bird\u2019s, though he forbids us to fancy\nthat that gladness speaks the levity which comes from the absence of\nthought: \u201cit is rather from the depth of thought that it springs, as\nfrom the depth of a sea comes its music.\u201d Well and wisely Moli\u00e8re\u2019s\nCl\u00e9onte exclaims, \u201cVeux-tu de ces enjouements \u00e9panouis, de ces joies\ntoujours ouvertes? et vois tu rien de plus impertinent que des femmes qui\nrient \u00e0 tout propos?\u201d Such a _femme_ as the same author\u2019s Zerbinette, a\nself-convicted giggler in and out of season, yet whose confession may be\ntwisted into an example the other way, when she says, \u201cJ\u2019ai l\u2019humeur\nenjou\u00e9e, et sans cesse je ris: mais, tout en riant, je suis s\u00e9rieuse sur\nde certains chapitres.\u201d\n\nAmong the writings of M. de St. Evremond there is an essay on the Idea\nof a Woman that never was, nor ever will be found. Emilia he calls this\nall too perfect, impossible she. And amongst the foremost of Emilia\u2019s\nfine qualities he reckons the co-existence of seriousness _au fond_ with\nvivacity of mien. \u201cFor we find that the gayest humour doth, at length,\nbecome tiresome; ... the most effervescent liveliness either disgusts or\nwearies you.\u201d In the case of the celebrated Duchesse de Longueville, De\nRetz notices the exquisite effect of the sudden bursts of gaiety which\nwould at times dispel her habitual but not inexpressive languor. Mdlle.\nde Scud\u00e9ry, in her \u201cCl\u00e9lie,\u201d was painting a well-known, perhaps too\nwell-known, contemporary in the person of Clarice, when, \u201cparmi toute\ncette disposition qu\u2019elle a pour la joie,\u201d she ascribes to this charmer,\n_qui rit si ais\u00e9ment_, a facile faculty of tear-shedding: _elle sait\npleurer_, whenever occasion justifies weeping. As Lady Eastlake says, in\nher little treatise on Music, a change of key is the most powerful engine\nin the hands of a musician: we cannot bear the monotony of one key long,\neven the most joyful: \u201cGaiety without eclipse wearieth me, May Lilian.\u201d\nWe long for \u201ca mournful muse, soft pity to infuse.\u201d The Hon. Miss\nByron takes the liberty of telling the sister of Sir Charles Grandison\nthat \u201cYour brother has hinted, Charlotte, that he loves you for your\nvivacity, and should still more, if you consulted time and occasion.\u201d\nThe affections are justly said to be more readily called into play by a\nmixture of mirth and melancholy; ours being a twofold life, the union of\nmortal with immortal, we covet happiness, yet turn back anon to the more\nmajestic form of sorrow. There is a form of cheerfulness which, we are\nassured, nobody can stand:\u2014\n\n \u201cSend me hence a thousand miles\n From a face that always smiles;\u201d\n\npeople ostentatiously and pretentiously cheerful being not unfrequently\nfoolish people: their spirits of a brisk but thin quality\u2014nothing about\nthem in good working order. \u201cFor, in truth, the most fortunate existence\nhas cares enough to make gravity our normal condition.\u201d Roland Graeme, in\nthe \u201cAbbot,\u201d earnestly assures his vivacious companion, \u201cAy, but, fair\nCatherine, there are moments of deep and true feeling, which are worth\nten thousand years of liveliest mirth.\u201d Melancholy Minna is a fine relief\nby contrast to laughter-loving Brenda; and it is suggestively told us of\nthe old Udaller, their sire, that he liked his graver damsel better in\nthe walk without doors, and his merry maiden better by the fireside; and\nthat if he preferred Brenda after the glass circulated in the evening, he\ngave the preference to Minna before noon. So with Molly and Cynthia in\n\u201cWives and Daughters:\u201d Molly always gentle, but very grave and silent;\nCynthia merry, full of pretty mockeries, and hardly ever silent\u2014only this\nconstant brilliancy became a little tiresome in everyday life, being not\nthe sunshiny rest of a placid lake, so much as the \u201cglitter of the pieces\nof a broken mirror, which confuses and bewilders.\u201d The union of what can\nbe harmonized of the two distinctive characters, is sure to be engaging\nin no ordinary degree. As in the Beryl of \u201cGeorge Geith.\u201d \u201cYou imagine,\u201d\nsays Beryl, on one occasion, \u201cbecause it is necessary to my existence to\nlaugh at people\u2019s oddities, that I never feel for their woes. You think,\nbecause I have a quick sense of the ludicrous, that I have no eyes for\ngrief. And there you do me an injustice.\u201d Such as Beryl will be found\nto take exception to predominant levity in the masculine gender, after\nthe manner of the fair tenant of Wildfell Hall: \u201cI do wish he would be\nsometimes serious,\u201d she writes of her endeared Arthur: \u201cI cannot get him\nto write or speak in real, solid earnest. I don\u2019t mind it now, but if it\nbe always so, what shall I do with the serious part of myself?\u201d Tired\nout with such companionship, a complainant in one of Lovell Beddoes\u2019\ntragedies exclaims,\u2014\n\n \u201cI\u2019m weary of their laughter\u2019s empty din.\n Methinks, these fellows, with their ready jests,\n Are like to tedious bells, that ring alike\n Marriage or death.\u201d\n\nRather than have her uniformly saccharine and smiling, Ben Jonson\u2019s\nCurius avowedly would have his mistress \u201cangry sometimes, to sweeten off\nthe rest of her behaviour.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nSir Walter Scott, in one page of his Diary, noting the break-up of\na hilarious group of guests at Abbotsford, adds the avowal, \u201cI am\nnot sorry, being one of those whom too much mirth always inclines to\nsadness.\u201d Even the bright extremes of joy, as Thomas Hood the elder words\nit, bring on conclusions of disgust:\u2014\n\n \u201cThere is no music in the life\n That sounds with idiot laughter solely;\n There\u2019s not a string attuned to mirth\n But has its chord in melancholy.\u201d\n\nLeigh Hunt tenderly tells one of his grandchildren how, when _he_ was\na child, and in excessive spirits, his dear mother would sometimes say\nto him, \u201cLeigh, come and sit down here by me, and let us try to think a\nlittle.\u201d Better that than _riant sans cesse_, even for a child. When I\nwas a child, says the apostle, I thought as a child. Thinking was not\nout of the question even then, though it might, and by comparison with\nthe man\u2019s it must, be childish thinking. For children as for men, a time\nto laugh and a time to weep. True, there are differences of gifts and\ntemperaments:\u2014\n\n \u201cTo some men God hath given laughter; but tears to some men He hath\n given:\n He bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in Heaven;\n And tears and smiles, they are His gift: both good, to smite or to\n uplift.\n He knows His sheep: the wind and showers beat not too sharply the\n shorn lamb:\n His wisdom is more wise than ours: He knew my nature\u2014what I am:\n He tempers smiles with tears: both good, to bear in time the\n Christian mood.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_DISALLOWED DESIGNS._\n\nPROVERBS xix. 21.\n\n\n\u201cThere are many devices in a man\u2019s heart; nevertheless, the counsel of\nthe Lord, that shall stand.\u201d Even the counsels of the prudent He bringeth\nto nought. \u201cThere is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel, against\nthe Lord,\u201d nor any that prospers without Him. Without Him, where is the\nwise? where is the scribe? What, after all, is the wisdom of the children\nof this world, wiser in their generation than the children of light? Hath\nnot God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For it is written, \u201cI will\ndestroy the wisdom of the wise.\u201d Nay; unworldly wisdom, in its forming\nof plans, and elaboration of schemes, and devising of devices, enjoys no\nprivileged immunity from failure, at the veto of Him who chargeth His\nangels with folly. \u201cL\u2019homme propose, Dieu dispose.\u201d The Divine disposal\nof human proposals is ofttimes very summary and entire.\n\nThe proverb, \u201cMan proposes, God disposes,\u201d is believed by one learned in\nsuch lore to be naturalised in every nation of Europe:\u2014thus the Spanish,\n\u201cLa gente pone, y Dios dispone;\u201d the German, with its corresponding\njingle, \u201cDer Mensch denkt\u2019s, Gott lenkt\u2019s,\u201d etc., so deeply upon all men\nis impressed the sense of Hamlet\u2019s assertion of a Divinity that shapes\nour ends, rough-hew them how we will. Moli\u00e8re\u2019s shrewd-spoken Dorine\nenounces a truism when reminding Damis that,\u2014\n\n \u201cOn n\u2019ex\u00e9cute pas tout ce qui se propose;\n Et le chemin est long du projet \u00e0 la chose.\u201d\n\nA wise man endeavours, it has been said, by considering all\ncircumstances, to make conjectures and form conclusions: but the smallest\naccident intervening (and in the course of affairs it is impossible to\nforesee all) often produces such turns and changes, that at last he is\njust as much in doubt of events as the most ignorant and inexperienced\nperson. What Shakspeare in his sonnets calls \u201cmillioned accidents\u201d creep\nin between design and result, between plan and performance, between\nscheme and issue, and \u201cblunt the sharpest intents.\u201d As the old moralising\npoet, modernised by Dryden, puts it\u2014\n\n \u201cBut see how Fortune can confound the wise,\n And when they least expect it, turn the dice.\u201d\n\nFortune, or fate, is the popularly recognised agent in these reversals\nand collapses; and subtile philosophers speculate curiously on the\nplenipotent character of this agency. One such, for example, predisposed\nto paradox may-be, yet no heedless or hasty penman, affirms, that if you\nlook closely into the matter, it will be seen that whatever appears most\nvagrant, and utterly purposeless, turns out, in the end, to have been\nimpelled the most surely on a preordained and unswerving track. Chance\nand change, he goes on to remark, love to deal with men\u2019s unsettled\nplans, not with their idle vagaries. So that, as he argues the matter, if\nwe desire unexpected and unimaginable events, we should contrive an iron\nframework, such as we fancy may compel the future to take one inevitable\nshape; for then comes in the unexpected, and shatters our design in\nfragments.\n\nThe biographer of Columbus, narrating the story of his shipwreck in 1492,\ndescribes him as passing, with his usual excitability, from a state of\ndoubt and anxiety to one of sanguine anticipation, and thus coming to\nconsider his present misfortune as a providential event mysteriously\nordained by Heaven to work out the success of his enterprise. At once,\ntherefore, he began to look forward to glorious fruits to be reaped\nfrom this seeming evil, and laid his plans accordingly. \u201cSuch was the\nvisionary yet generous enthusiasm of Columbus, the moment that prospects\nof vast wealth broke upon his mind. What in some spirits would have\nawakened a grasping and sordid avidity to accumulate, immediately filled\nhis imagination with plans of magnificent expenditure. But how vain\nare our attempts to interpret the inscrutable decrees of Providence!\nThe shipwreck, which Columbus considered the act of Divine favour, to\nreveal to him the secrets of the land, shackled and limited all his\nafter-discoveries.\u201d For it is shown to have linked his fortunes, for the\nremainder of his life, to this island, which was doomed to be to him a\nsource of cares and troubles, to involve him in a thousand perplexities,\nand to becloud his declining years with humiliation and disappointment.\n\n \u201cLe ciel agit sans nous en ces \u00e9v\u00e9nements,\n Et ne les r\u00e9gle point dessus nos sentiments.\u201d\n\nIt is instructive to note in the memoirs of Gabriel Naud\u00e9, that great\nscholar\u2019s exultant anticipation of the public opening of the library he\nhad mainly helped to form. He must have reckoned on that day as a _beau\njour_ for him, the happiest day of his life; and he arranged a f\u00eate\naccordingly, to be celebrated with his most intimate friends. But that\nvery day broke out the public troubles of the Fronde; and barricades in\nthe streets of Paris ill accorded with Gabriel Naud\u00e9\u2019s cherished hopes.\n\u201cAinsi vont les projets humains sous l\u2019\u0153il d\u2019en haut qui les d\u00e9joue.\u201d The\nScotch ploughman-poet, eyeing the mouse and its \u201cwee bit housie, too, in\nruin,\u201d as turned up by his plough, gave racy utterance to but a trite\nreflection, when, apostrophising the \u201cwee sleekit, cow\u2019rin, tim\u2019rous\nbeastie,\u201d he thus moralised his song:\u2014\n\n \u201cBut, mousie, thou art no thy lane,\n In proving foresight may be vain:\n The best-laid schemes o\u2019 mice an\u2019 men\n Gang aft a-gley,\n And leave us nought but grief an\u2019 pain,\n For promised joy.\u201d\n\nAs the good friar in Shakspeare has it,\u2014\n\n \u201cA greater power than we can contradict\n Hath thwarted our intents,\u201d\n\nwell laid and discreetly devised as they seemed to be.\n\nAnd as with the seemingly laudable plans of the prudent, so with the\narrogant designs of the self-confident. The enemy said, \u201cI will pursue,\nI will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied\nupon them; I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.\u201d Thus said\nthe enemy, even Pharaoh\u2019s host, on the shores of the Red Sea. But then\nsang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord: \u201cThou\ndidst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the\nmighty waters.\u201d It is but an emphasised reading of the standard text,\nthat the Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought, and maketh\nthe devices of the people of none effect, and casteth out the counsel\nof princes. Whereas, turning from man proposing to God disposing, \u201cThe\ncounsel of the Lord shall endure for ever, and the thoughts of His heart\nfrom generation to generation.\u201d The same is He of whom it is written that\nHe turneth wise men backwards, and maketh their knowledge foolish.\n\nWordsworth, ever a moralist, moralised his song when, at a critical\njuncture in the legend of the \u201cWhite Doe of Rylstone,\u201d he interposed this\nreflection:\u2014\n\n \u201cBut quick the turns of chance and change,\n And knowledge has a narrow range;\n Whence idle fears, and needless pain,\n And wishes blind, and efforts vain.\u201d\n\nFor a closing variation on the present theme, a worse might be found than\nthis from the play within the play of \u201cHamlet:\u201d\u2014\n\n \u201cBut, orderly to end where I begun,\u2014\n Our wills, our fates, do so contrary run,\n That our devices still are overthrown;\n Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.\u201d\n\nBut, with a slight change of title and text, the same theme is pursued,\nin the section next ensuing, through another fugue-course of variations.\n\n\n\n\n_MAN DEVISING, GOD DIRECTING._\n\nPROVERBS xvi. 9.\n\n\n\u201cA man\u2019s heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.\u201d\nMan devises, God directs; man proposes, God disposes. There is a way\nthat seemeth right unto a man, and practicable, plausible, easy of\naccomplishment, and sure of success. But the counsel of the Lord puts a\nveto on the scheme; and the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.\n\nLuther charges it against princes and potentates in his day, that when\nthey take in hand an enterprise, they do not pray before they begin, but\nset to work calculating: three times three make nine, twice seven are\nfourteen\u2014so-and-so will do so-and-so\u2014in this manner will the business\ncome to a prosperous issue: \u201cbut our Lord God says unto them, For whom\nthen do ye hold me? for a cypher? Do I sit here above in vain, and to no\npurpose? Ye shall know, that I will twist your accounts about finely, and\nmake them all false reckonings.\u201d\n\nSays old Alice, in \u201cMary Barton,\u201d \u201cI sometimes think the Lord is against\nplanning. Whene\u2019er I plan over much, He is sure to send and mar all\nmy plans, as if He would ha\u2019 me put the future into His hands. Afore\nChristmas-time I was as full as full could be of going home for good\nand all; yo has heard how I\u2019ve wished it this terrible long time....\nMany a winter\u2019s night did I lie awake and think that, please God,\ncome summer, I\u2019d go home at last. Little did I think how God Almighty\nwould baulk me for not leaving my days in His hands, who had led me\nthrough the wilderness hitherto.\u201d It is very like Rousseau to say, in\nreference to a fully determined project of his, for the fulfilment of\nwhich nothing was wanting but \u201cce qui ne d\u00e9pend pas des hommes dans les\nprojets les mieux concert\u00e9s,\u201d\u2014that \u201con dirait qu\u2019il n\u2019y a que les noirs\ncomplots des m\u00e9chants qui r\u00e9ussissent; les projets innocents des bons\nn\u2019ont presque jamais d\u2019accomplissement.\u201d But who can hope for anything\nlike contentment, as Mr. Helps somewhere asks, so long as he continues\nto attach that ridiculous degree of importance to the events of this\nlife which so many people are inclined to do? Observe, he bids us, the\neffect which it has upon them: they are most uncomfortable if their\nlittle projects do not turn out according to their fancy\u2014nothing is to\nbe angular to them\u2014they regard external things as the only realities;\nand as they have fixed their abode here, they must have it arranged to\ntheir mind. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu assures one of her correspondents\nthat never had she been so little mistress of her own time and actions as\nsince she lived alone; and going on to account for this, she observes,\n\u201cMankind is placed in a state of dependency, not only on one another\n(which all are in some degree), but so many inevitable accidents thwart\nour designs and limit our best-laid projects.\u201d The poor efforts of our\nutmost prudence, and political schemes, she fancies must appear in the\neyes of some superior beings, like the pecking of a young linnet to break\na wire cage, or the climbing of a squirrel in a hoop. If to this bit of\nmorality from the greatest of lady letter-writers in England, a parallel\npassage may readily be cited from the greatest of lady letter-writers in\nFrance, there is a characteristic difference, in the tone of religious\nfeeling, conspicuous generally by its absence in Lady Mary\u2019s case, but\na pervading, though underlying, force in that of Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9. The\nlatter describes on one occasion the \u201ccruel derangement\u201d of her family\nplans, so nicely arranged, and so ripe for completion; then adds, if with\na sigh, with a sigh of gentle resignation, \u201cLa Providence le veut ainsi.\nElle est tellement maitresse de toutes nos actions, que nous n\u2019ex\u00e9cutons\nrien que sous son bon plaisir, et je tache de ne faire de projets que le\nmoins qu\u2019il m\u2019est possible, afin de n\u2019\u00eatre pas si souvent tromp\u00e9e; car\nqui compte sans elle compte deux fois.\u201d How vain, exclaims the author of\n\u201cDestiny,\u201d are all our schemes for futurity! Human wisdom exhausts itself\nin devising what a higher Power shows to be vanity. We decide for to-day,\nand a passing moment scatters our decisions as chaff before the wind. We\nresolve for to-morrow, to-morrow comes but to root up our resolutions.\nWe scheme for our works to remain monuments of our power and wisdom, and\nthe most minute, the most trivial event is sufficient to overturn all\nour purposes, and cast down to the dust the thoughts and the labours of a\nlife. Truly, \u201cit is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.\u201d\n\nWere the affairs of this world to be guided implicitly by human wisdom,\nsuggests one of Scott\u2019s sententious doctors of divinity, or were they\nuniformly to fall out according to the conjectures of human foresight,\nevents would no longer be under the domination of that time and chance\nwhich happen unto all men; since we should, in the one case, work out\nour own purposes to a certainty, by our own skill; and, in the other,\nregulate our conduct according to the views of unerring prescience.\n\u201cBut man is, while in this vale of tears, like an uninstructed bowler,\nso to speak, who thinks to attain the jack by delivering the bowl\nstraightforward upon it, being ignorant that there is a concealed bias\nwithin the spheroid, which will make it, in all probability, swerve away,\nand lose the cast.\u201d The future, in the words of a later fiction, is not\na blank sheet of paper, for us to write any story we please upon, but a\nwonderful chart, mapped out by a Divine and unerring hand.\n\n \u039f\u03cd\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c1\u03b3\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f10\u03bd \u03c6\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u1f76\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30\u03b4\u1f7c\u03c2\n \u1f18\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, \u03b5\u1f34\u03c4\u2019 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u1f78\u03bd \u03b3\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u1f34\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd.\n \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03ba\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b1\u03c1 \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd, \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u1f78\u03bd \u1f14\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5,\n \u039a\u03b1\u03af \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd, \u1f14\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd.\n \u1f48\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u1ff3 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f45\u03c3\u03c3\u2019 \u1f10\u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd.\n\nWhen Mr. Thackeray propounds the query, Who can foresee everything, and\nalways? and returns his own answer (a sufficiently safe one), Not the\nwisest amongst us,\u2014he does so in reference to the counsels of the worldly\nwoman who governed and directed the Newcome family; which counsels bore\nresults so different from what that elderly lady desired, and foresaw.\nAnd he proceeds to point his moral by the tale of a French king\u2019s fall.\n\u201cWhen his majesty, Louis XIV., jockied his grandson on to the throne of\nSpain (founding thereby the present revered dynasty of that country), did\nhe expect to peril his own, and bring all Europe about his royal ears?\nCould a late King of France, eager for the advantageous establishment\nof one of his darling sons, and anxious to procure a beautiful Spanish\nprincess, with a crown and kingdom in reversion, for the simple and\nobedient youth, ever suppose that the welfare of his whole august race\nand reign would be upset by that smart speculation?\u201d The master of irony\nprofesses to take only the most noble examples to illustrate the conduct\nof such a noble old personage as her ladyship of Kew, who brought a\nprodigious deal of trouble upon some of the innocent members of her\nfamily, whom no doubt she thought to better in life by her experienced\nguidance, and undoubted worldly wisdom. We may be as deep as Jesuits, he\ncontinues,\u2014may know the world ever so well, lay the best ordered plans,\nand the profoundest combinations,\u2014and by a certain not unnatural turn\nof fate, we, and our plans and combinations, are sent flying before\nthe wind. \u201cWe may be as wise as Louis Philippe, that many counselled\nUlysses whom the respectable world admired so; and after years of patient\nscheming, and prodigies of skill; after coaxing, wheedling, doubling,\nbullying wisdom, behold, yet stronger powers interpose: and schemes and\nskill and violence are nought.\u201d As Schiller\u2019s Wallenstein puts it, in his\nrather heathenish way\u2014\n\n \u201cFor jealous are the powers of destiny.\n Joy premature, and shouts ere victory,\n Encroach upon their rights and privileges.\n We sow the seed, and they the growth determine.\u201d\n\n\u201cIl y a,\u201d in the words of a masterly French moralist, \u201cje ne sais quelle\n_force cach\u00e9e_, a dit Lucr\u00e8ce (ce que d\u2019autres avec Bossuet nommeront\nProvidence), qui semble se plaire \u00e0 briser les choses humaines, \u00e0 faire\nmanquer d\u2019un coup l\u2019appereil \u00e9tabli de la puissance, et \u00e0 d\u00e9jouer la\npi\u00e8ce, juste au moment ou elle promettait de mieux aller.\u201d O fate of\nfools! exclaims Zara, in the \u201cMourning Bride,\u201d\u2014\u201cofficious in contriving;\nin executing, puzzled, lame, and lost;\u201d a rebuke which Selim deprecates\nin his reply:\u2014\n\n \u201cPrescience is Heaven\u2019s alone, not given to man.\n If I have failed in what, as being man,\n I needs must fail, impute not as a crime\n My nature\u2019s want.\u201d\n\nSo with the resolute undertaking of Argantes, in Tasso, to slay Tancred,\nthe slayer of his betrothed; all the people applauding his resolve, and\nrejoicing in the assurance that this\u2014\n\n \u201c... boaster stout\n Would kill the prince who late had slain his love.\n O promise vain! it otherwise fell out.\n Men purpose, but high gods dispose above;\n For underneath his sword this boaster died,\n Whom there he scorned and threatened in his pride.\u201d\n\nIn Homer, again, how grieves Achilles, and, impetuous, vents to all his\nmyrmidons his loud laments?\n\n \u201cBy what vain promise, gods! did I engage,\n When, to console Men\u00e6tius\u2019 feeble age,\n I vowed his much-loved offspring to restore;\n Charged with rich spoils to fair Opuntia\u2019s shore.\n But mighty Jove cuts short, with just disdain,\n The long, long views of poor designing man!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_A PURSEBEARER\u2019S PROTEST AGAINST PURPOSELESS WASTE._\n\nST. JOHN xii. 5.\n\n\nIt was very costly ointment of spikenard that Mary took and anointed\ntherewith the feet of Jesus, so that the house was filled with the\nodour of the ointment. So costly, that it set one of His apostles to\nwork, counting the cost. Judas Iscariot was this ready reckoner. He\nwas conversant with figures. He was the pursebearer of the apostolic\ncircle, and knew, it seems, how and when and why to keep a tight finger\non the purse-strings. The wasted contents\u2014waste he accounted it\u2014of that\nalabaster box might have been sold for three hundred denarii, and the\nproceeds given to the poor. As pursebearer he protested. And nominally\nhis protest was in behalf of the poor.\n\nReferring to that text in Exodus which tells how the people brought much\nmore than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded to\nmake, the question was put by a divine who, being dead, yet speaketh:\nWhen will the earth again hear that glad announcement? Yet, until we\nbring more than enough, he said, at least until there is kindled in\nus a spirit which will make us desire to do so, we shall never bring\nenough. \u201cAnd ought we not? Your economists will say _No._ They who would\nthink the sun a useful creature, if he would come down from the sky and\nlight their fires, will gravely reprehend such wasteful extravagance.\u201d\nThis last figure of speech has its parallel in Mr. Carlyle\u2019s estimate\nof \u201cthe uses of this Dante:\u201d he declines to say much about his \u201cuses;\u201d\nhe holds that an influence working, like Dante\u2019s, into the depths of\nour existence, and feeding through long times the life-roots of all\nexcellent things whatsoever, is not to be very satisfactorily computed\nby \u201cutilities.\u201d Dante shall therefore be invaluable, or of no value: \u201cWe\nwill not estimate the sun by the quantity of gas-light it saves us.\u201d\n\nJudas the pursebearer was, as a French divine characterizes him,\n_exact_, _positif_, _calculateur_; one who habituated himself to compute\neverything by a ready-money standard, and to appraise every action by\nthe rule of immediate utility. He might be accurate to a fraction in\nhis reckoning of what that \u201cwasted\u201d ointment would have fetched in the\nmarket; but, had not his heart been already in some sort ossified, he\nwould have comprehended that \u201cau dessus de l\u2019utile il y a le beau, et\nau dessus du calcul le d\u00e9vouement, et qu\u2019 \u00e0 une \u00e2me qui d\u00e9borde d\u2019une\njoie extraordinaire il faut des moyens extraordinaires aussi pour\nexprimer ce qu\u2019elle \u00e9prouve. Judas a perdu le sens des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s purement\nspirituelles, qui lui paraissent vagues, parce que, comme l\u2019infini, elles\nr\u00e9sistent aux chiffres.\u201d\n\nWhen Dr. Justus Jonas told Dr. Martin Luther of a certain potent\nlandholder, who said to Duke John Frederic, when commending to him the\ngospel of Christ, \u201cSir, the gospel pays no interest,\u201d\u2014\u201cHave you no\ngrains?\u201d was Luther\u2019s interrogative comment,\u2014citing the words of the\nswine at the lion\u2019s feast, when invited to feast on recondite dainties.\nEven so, said Dr. Martin, there are inveterate worldlings who, when\ninvited to the spiritual feast of fat things well refined, \u201cturn up their\nsnouts, and ask for guilders. Offer a cow nutmeg, and she will reject it\nfor old hay.\u201d\n\nIt is a too true bill of indictment against the mass of men, that,\nknowing that two and two make four, and that four is of a higher value\nthan three, they practically conclude, carrying out into practice the\nconclusion, that to amass is to become wealthy, and that to bestow is\nto become the poorer. With this arithmetic the children of this world\nare wise in their generation, and add field to field, house to house,\nto some purpose. But by what right, asks a voice from the sanctuary, do\nthey take upon themselves to pronounce on such qualities and realities\nas devotion and charity, as detachment from the \u201cgood things of this\nlife\u201d and renunciation of indulgence to the senses? If they witness a\ndeed of noble self-sacrifice, they can but wag their heads, in shocked\nsurprise and bewilderment at such a blunder in arithmetic, _une telle\nfaute de calcul_. \u201cIls ne comprennent pas qu\u2019on puisse soupirer apr\u00e8s\nd\u2019autres biens que ceux de la mati\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s d\u2019autres v\u00e9rit\u00e9s que celles\nde l\u2019arithm\u00e9tique.\u201d There are many, very many more things than are dreamt\nof in their philosophy; dreaming, indeed, is rather out of their way; and\nperhaps philosophy too, for the matter of that.\n\nColeridge, denouncing the \u201cmoral\u201d consequences of Napoleon\u2019s tyranny, as\nfar more to be dreaded than the worst of those outward and calculable\nevils, which chiefly shock the imaginations of men, is out of all\npatience with such objections as, \u201cWhat _good_ will the Tyrolese do\nthemselves by their heroic resistance?\u201d \u201cWhat are the Spaniards fighting\nfor?\u201d etc.,\u2014as if man were made only to eat above ground, and be\neaten; as if we had no dignity to preserve, no conscience to obey, no\nimmortality to expect.\n\nWhat good can it do him? demands the vulgar fine lady in \u201cCecil,\u201d who\nhears that a certain well-to-do man of genius has written a book. A man,\nshe argues, writes for money or distinction: what can be this man\u2019s\nobject? he don\u2019t want to be made a baronet, nor does he want to increase\nhis income. Where can be the _use_ of writing? And where, she is (by\ncross-questioning) answered, can be the use to the aloe of its flower,\nto the mine of its gold? Oldbuck of Monkbarns might have done worse than\nparody, as he did, the \u201cbrutal ignorance\u201d of your _cui bono_ querists of\nthe baser sort, in the strain of Gray\u2019s Bard,\u2014\n\n \u201cWeave the warp and weave the woof,\n The winding-sheet of wit and sense;\n Dull garment of defensive proof\n \u2019Gainst all that does not gather pence.\u201d\n\nThat a new machine, a new experiment, the discovery of a salt, or of a\nbone, should, in England, receive a wider homage, than the most profound\nspeculation from which no obvious results are apprehended,\u2014this way\nof contemplating affairs Mr. Buckle was prompt to own as certainly\nproductive of great good. But he also took care to declare it to be,\nwith equal certainty, a one-sided way, satisfying a part only of the\nhuman mind\u2014many of the noblest intellects craving for something which it\ncannot supply. There are mortals who, as a clerical essayist has said,\ncannot understand or sympathise with the gratification arising from a\nstudy of graceful and beautiful objects; who think that the supply of\nanimal necessities is all that any man (but themselves, perhaps) can\nneed. What more can he want? they exclaim, if the man be well-fed, and\nwell-dressed, and well-lodged. Why, if he had been a horse or a pig, is\nthe answer, he would have wanted nothing more; but the possession of a\nrational soul brings with it pressing wants which are not of a material\nnature, not to be supplied by material things, and not felt by pigs and\nhorses. And the craving for surrounding objects of grace and beauty is\nheld to be one of these. Mr. Emerson, in his far-going way, goes so far\nas to say, as regards the \u201cbase rate at which the highest mental and\nmoral gifts are held\u201d in his country,\u2014that let a man attain the highest\nand broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die\nby sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, \u201cand all America\nwill acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the\neducation has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the\nbest use to put a fine person to, is, to drown him to save his board.\u201d\nM. de Tocqueville somewhere observes, that to cross almost impenetrable\nforests, to swim deep rivers, to encounter pestilential marshes, to\nsleep exposed to the damp air of the woods,\u2014these are efforts which an\nAmerican easily conceives, if a dollar is to be gained by them\u2014that is\nthe point; but that a man should take such journeys from curiosity, he\ncannot understand. The German poet is often cited for his remark, that\nthe Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but\nthe milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. An\nEnglish sympathiser exclaims, \u201cO tendency of our age, to look on Isis as\nthe milch cow! Gaze on the goddess,\u201d he bids a sordid aspirant, \u201cand get\nready the churn and thy scales, and let us see what butter will fetch\nin the market.\u201d When Judge Haliburton\u2019s typical Yankee is asked by the\nold minister what he thinks of Niagara, and forthwith expatiates on the\n\u201cgrand spec\u201d it offers for factory purposes\u2014for carding mills, fulling\nmills, cotton mills, grain mills, saw mills, plaster mills, and never a\nwant of water for any or all of them, his pastor upbraids him with almost\nsacrilege in that style of talk; exclaiming, \u201cHow that dreadful thirst\nof gain has absorbed all other feelings in our people, when such an idea\ncould be entertained for a moment! It [Niagara] is a grand spectacle, it\nis the voice of nature in the wilderness, proclaiming to the untutored\ntribes there of the power and majesty and glory of God.... Talk not\nto me of mills, factories, and machinery, sir, nor of introducing the\nmoney-changers into the temple of the Lord.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_LIGHT AT EVENING-TIME._\n\nZECHARIAH xiv. 7.\n\n\nThe promise, or prediction, to be found in the words of the son of\nBerechiah, that \u201cat evening-time it shall be light,\u201d is gratefully\naccepted by devout souls in perhaps a strained and wrested sense; but\na sense so comforting, so full of tenderness and beauty, that one is\nfain to believe the words may favour, if they cannot be said to warrant,\nthis \u201caccommodation of Scripture.\u201d Divines are fain to give technical\ndivinity the go-by for the nonce, while, as they confess, the deepening\ntwilight seldom fails to suggest to them this cheering promise, a promise\nwhich \u201ctells how the Christian\u2019s day shall end, how the day of life may\nbe somewhat overcast and dreary, but light shall come on the darkened\nway at last.\u201d In the same spirit are welcome the words of Amos, the\nherdsman of Tekoa, concerning One who turneth the shadow of death into\nthe morning. To Him the darkness and the light are both alike; and at His\nbidding, when despondent sufferers are in a horror of great darkness, and\nsay surely the darkness shall cover them,\u2014even the night shall be light\nabout them; and in some sort to them, even as to Him, the night shineth\nas the day; or at least, in the language of Zechariah, there is light,\nwhich if not clear, is yet not dark; neither wholly day nor night, but\ntwilight\u2014soft, soothing, tranquillizing\u2014instead of the dreaded darkness\nwhich may be felt. Even thus He brings the blind by a way that they knew\nnot, making darkness light before them.\n\nEven thus, at the last, He delivers them who through fear of death were\nall their lifetime subject to bondage. Bunyan exemplifies such in Mr.\nFearing, the pilgrim, who at the entrance of the Valley of the Shadow\nof Death was \u201cready to die for fear.\u201d But the valley was quiet from\ntroublers. \u201cI suppose those enemies here had now a special check from our\nLord, and a command not to meddle until Mr. Fearing had passed over it.\u201d\n\u201cAnd here also I took notice of what was very remarkable\u2014the water of\nthat river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life; so\nhe went over at last, not much above wetshod.\n\n\u201c_Honesty_: Then it seems he was well at last?\u201d\n\n\u201c_Greatheart_: Yes, yes; I never had a doubt about it.\u201d\n\nOften, observes Schleiermacher in one of his letters, the last radiant\nmoment is called rapidly into being, even in souls wherein the eternal\nLight has not always shone with bright effulgence.\n\nBiographers of Dr. Johnson tell us how, when at length the moment,\ndreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away\nfrom his mind; how his temper became unusually patient and gentle, and\nhe ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lieth beyond\ndeath, and spoke much of the mercy of God and of the propitiation of\nChrist. One might apply to him in effect the lines of the poet of the\nSeasons.\n\n \u201cJoy seized his withered veins, and one bright gleam\n Of setting life shone on her evening hours.\u201d\n\nMeditating on various senses in which the words of the promise of light\nat evening-time speak truly, in which its great principle holds good, the\nsignal blessing shall come when it is needed most and expected least,\nDr. Boyd, thinks mainly how sometimes, at the close of the chequered and\nsober day, the Better Sun has broken through the clouds and made the\nflaming west all purple and gold. He pictures the chamber of death, while\nhushed and mournful gazers see also the summer sun in glory going down.\n\u201cBut it is only to us who remain that the evening darkness is growing,\nonly for us that the sun is going down.\u201d As the evening falls on us, but\nnot on the departing believer; as the shadows deepen on us, but not on\nhim; as the darkness gathers on us, but not on him; the \u201cglorious promise\nhas found its perfect fulfilment, that \u2018at the evening-time there shall\nbe light.\u2019\u201d\n\nSecular literature has its analogous instances. Dr. Holmes describes\nElsie Venner\u2019s storm-tossed, vagrant spirit as composed and serene at\nthe last; the cold glitter died out of the diamond eyes, and the stormy\nscowl disappeared from the dark brows. \u201cIt seemed to her father as if\nthe malign influence\u2014evil spirit it might almost be called\u2014which had\npervaded her being had at last been driven forth or exorcised,\u201d and that\nthe tears she now shed were \u201cat once the sign and the pledge of her\nredeemed nature. But now she was to be soothed and not excited. After her\ntears she slept again, and the look her face wore was peaceful as never\nbefore.\u201d And the devoted father, to whom her life-long career had been\nuntil now a perturbing trial, now thanked God for the brief interval of\npeace which had been granted her, and for the sweet communion they had\nenjoyed in these last days. There are those of whom it may be said that\nit comes to pass, when midday is over, and they cast wistful glances, and\nperhaps even reproachful petitions heavenwards, until evening-time, that\nthere is from above neither voice, nor any to answer, nor seemingly any\nthat regardeth; but with evening-time comes an answer and comes light.\nApplicable to the subject, in this sense, are the lines in \u201cParacelsus,\u201d\non one who lived without God in the world:\u2014\n\n \u201cThen died, grown old; and just an hour before\u2014\n Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes\u2014\n He sate up suddenly, and with natural voice\n Said, that in spite of thick air and closed doors\n God told him it was June.\u201d\n\nOf Margaret Arundel, in \u201cThe Gordian Knot,\u201d we read, in her hour of\nhousehold desolation and distress, that could we have seen her fair face,\nnow pale with pain, now flushed with emotion, we should have pitied her;\nbut \u201cit may be that some superior intelligence witnessed her suffering,\nand pitied her not; knowing that all she was to undergo was but the\nfiery trial destined for those for whom in the evening there is light.\u201d\nStephen Blackpool, in \u201cHard Times,\u201d who has found life \u201caw a muddle,\u201d\nand meets with his death in the pit, is tranquillized with light at the\nlast\u2014light which he identifies with the star that shone upon him while he\nlay mangled in the old shaft. \u201cOften as I coom to myseln, and found it\nshinin\u2019 on me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the very star as\nguided to our Saviour\u2019s home. I awmost think it be the very star.\u201d His\nrescuers lift him up, and he is overjoyed to find they are about to take\nhim in the direction whither the star seems to him to lead. Very gently\nthey carry him along the fields and down the lanes; but it is soon a\nfuneral procession. \u201cThe star had shown him where to find the God of the\npoor; and through humility and sorrow and forgiveness, he had gone to\nhis Saviour\u2019s rest.\u201d It is not every life the early prime of which has\nbeen blissful enough to warrant the exclamation,\u2014\n\n \u201cNe\u2019er tell me of glories serenely adorning\n The close of our day, the calm eve of our night:\n Give me back, give me back, the wild freshness of morning,\n Its smiles and its tears are worth evening\u2019s best light.\u201d\n\nFor sometimes the light comes at evening-time that has never come before.\n\nCellini opens his autobiography with a placid record of the enjoyment\nof his present lot, in life\u2019s decline, in contrast with the storms and\nturmoil of his previous course. We read of James Watt, that not until he\nhad reached what is termed the grand climacteric of man\u2019s life did he\nknow real freedom from bodily infirmities; and that his spirits became\nmore equable as the principal causes of his anxiety and occasional\ndepression were removed; so that although he was destined to be one of\nthose \u201cwho are so strong that they come to fourscore years,\u201d his strength\neven then, while it could scarcely be termed \u201clabour,\u201d was certainly\nvery far from \u201csorrow.\u201d The cloud which had so long hung over him was\ngently lifted up, and the curtain parted, to disclose a happier scene.\n\u201cIt is curious that even physical ease and enjoyment should come so\nlate; but so it was. The term which commenced with his release from the\nevils of active business was a serene and golden time, in which he found\nrepose\u201d\u2014with the softening retrospect of a struggle past and a victory\nwon. John Galt, in \u201cThe Entail,\u201d exemplifies a kindred experience in the\nwidow Walkinshaw, whose deliverance from an all but lifelong thraldom,\nlate in the day as it came, yet came in time enough to \u201callow the\noriginal brightness of her mind to shine out in the evening with a serene\nand pleasing lustre.\u201d\n\nDr. Boyd quotes the dying speech of a poor English day labourer, than\nwhich, he affirms, few sentences ever touched him more with their\nhopeless pathos: \u201cWut wi\u2019 faeth, and wut wi\u2019 the earth goin\u2019 round the\nsun, and wut wi\u2019 the railways all a-whuzzing and a-buzzing, I\u2019m clean\nmuddled, confoozled, and bet!\u201d It is Stephen Blackpool again in spirit,\nand to the letter. With that sentence the dying man is said to have\nfeebly turned to the wall, and spoken no more. \u201cWell, let us hope that\nlight came at the evening-time upon that blind, benighted way.\u201d\n\nAmong the dying words of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, honourably known by\nher \u201cMemoirs of Port Royal,\u201d and other works, the remark is preserved\nthat she had often in her life been inclined to occupy herself with the\nprospect close at hand, from finding the bleak, hard outline of the\neternal hills cold and barren to her sight; but that, as she drew nearer,\nGod\u2019s mercy made His light to shine full upon them, so that she could now\nperceive they were covered with magnificent trees of the forest, and were\nrich in fruit and flowers far more pleasant than those close at hand, and\nyet a continuation of them.\n\nA commentator on the text of \u201cpromised light at evening-time,\u201d explains\nthat by evening is understood the gradual withdrawal of the light; it is\nthe lessening light that makes the evening-time: because of _that_ the\ndaisies close, and the birds fly to their nests, and a hush comes over\nnature. And it is just because evening is the time when, in the ordinary\ncourse of things, the light is going and the darkness is coming, that\nthere is found to be anything remarkable in the text of _um den Abend\nwird es licht seyn_, as Luther\u2019s version runs. The promise, or prophecy,\nis that \u201clight shall come at a time when it is not natural, when in the\ncommon course of things it is not looked for.\u201d It would be no surprise,\nas this divine proceeds to remark, that light should come at noonday: we\nexpect it then, it is just what we are accustomed to see. \u201cBut if, when\nthe twilight shadows were falling deeper and deeper, ... with a sudden\nburst the noonday light were to spread around,\u2014that would be a surprise.\u201d\nOne of his personal illustrations of its import is the instance of\nthe Christian poet who passed away almost in despair,\u2014the gloom that\novershadowed his spirit enduring almost to the end: \u201cbut even in the\nlast moment there came a wonderful change\u201d\u2014and they tell us how even on\nhis dead face there remained, till it was hidden for ever, a look of\nbright and beautiful and sudden surprise; the reflection of that light at\nevening that had been long in coming, but had come at last. At eventide\nlight may break forth as the morning; light rising in obscurity, and\ndarkness becoming as the noonday.\n\nLight in darkness\u2014light springing up out of darkness\u2014the blessedness of\nthis is emphatically recognised both by signal example and in special\npromise, in Holy Writ. When the hand of Moses was stretched out toward\nheaven, and darkness fell over the land of Egypt, even darkness which\nmight be felt\u2014a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three\ndays\u2014the Egyptians saw not one another, neither rose any from his place\nfor three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their\ndwellings. \u201cWhen I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto\nme.\u201d \u201cFor thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my\ndarkness.\u201d In the same Psalm that tells how clouds and darkness are round\nabout Him, the Father of lights, is contained the exulting assurance,\nthat \u201clight is sown for the righteous.\u201d The light of the righteous\nrejoiceth, when the lamp of the wicked hath been put out. Well may\nspiritual aspirations be fervent for light to be sent forth, to lead and\nto guide to His holy hill and tabernacle, lest the feet of the wayfarer\nslip in a way that he knows not; and, above all, when they stumble on the\ndark mountains, or lose their footing in the swelling of Jordan.\n\n_Lux \u00e8 tenebris_\u2014who will not prize it? who does not need it? For\u2014\n\n \u201cWhat am I?\n An infant crying in the night,\n An infant _crying for the light_,\n And with no language but a cry.\u201d\n\nAn exceeding bitter cry this crying for the light sometimes is, in such\nas those, for instance, whom Robertson of Brighton describes as \u201cturning\nfrom side to side,\u201d feeling with horror the old, and all they hold dear,\ncrumbling away\u2014the ancient light going out\u2014more than half suspecting\nthe falsehood of the rest, and with an earnestness amounting to agony,\nleaving their home, like the Magians, and inquiring for fresh light.\n\nTurning from side to side, with the wailing note of interrogation, \u201cWho\nwill show us any good?\u201d And then, more earnestly than ever, \u201cLord, lift\nThou up the LIGHT of Thy countenance upon us.\u201d In vain we turn from side\nto side. To whom should we go but unto Thee? Turn us again, O Lord God of\nhosts; show the LIGHT of Thy countenance, and we shall be saved.\n\nObservable for special application is what Locke makes observable as a\ngeneral fact, that new-born children always turn their eyes to that part\nwhence the light comes, lay them how you please.\n\nWhen the blind are operated on for the restoration of sight, it is\nsuggestively remarked by an eminent author, that the same succouring\nhand which has opened to them the visible world, immediately shuts out\nthe bright prospect again for a time, a bandage being passed over the\neyes, lest in the first tenderness of their recovered sense, they should\nbe fatally affected by the sudden transition from darkness to light.\nBut, as he goes on to say, between the awful blank of total privation of\nvision, and the temporary blank of vision merely veiled, there lies the\nwidest difference. \u201cIn the moment of their restoration the blind have\nbut one glimpse of light, flashing on them in an overpowering gleam of\nbrightness, which the thickest, closest veiling cannot extinguish. The\nnew darkness is not like the void darkness of old: it is filled with\nrapid, changing visions of brilliant colours and ever-varying forms,\nrising, falling, whirling hither and thither with every second.\u201d And thus\nis it made evident that even when the handkerchief is passed over them,\nthe once sightless eyes, though bandaged fast, are yet not blinded as\nthey were before. All the more, however, they now dread the blankness\nof that total eclipse, now that, as it were, to them that walked in the\nshadow of death, light is sprung up. Light, how much the more precious\nfor that background of blackness of darkness, darkness that still may be\nfelt!\n\nLight that may be felt, is the theme of blind old \u0152dipus, in Sophocles,\nat the hour of his mysterious departure\u2014the hour and the power of\ndarkness. Farewell he bids to\u2014\n\n \u201cLight, sweet Light!\n Rayless to me\u2014mine once, and even now\n I feel thee palpable, round this worn form\n Clinging in last embrace.\u201d\n\nImmortal as Homer is the prayer of his Ajax to die, if die he must, in\nthe light. Contrast with this the _modus moriendi_ of Pompey the Great,\nas pictured in Corneille:\u2014\n\n \u201cD\u2019un des pans de sa robe it couvre son visage,\n A son mauvais dentin en aveugle ob\u00e9it,\n Et d\u00e9daigne de voir le ciel qui le trahit.\u201d\n\nSo with the Greek wife in Landor\u2019s Hellenics, who resists the bidding to\nfall not on her knees, but to look up:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe hand\n That is to slay me, best may slay me thus.\n I dare no longer see the light of heaven.\u201d[35]\n\nBut to die in the light is the almost universal craving. \u201cAs a matter of\nfact, nothing,\u201d it has been remarked, \u201cis more common than the craving\nand demand for light a little before death;\u201d a remark confirmed by the\nsad experience of many who have tended and watched the last moments of\na friend. \u201cWhat more frequent than a prayer to open the shutters, and\nlet in the sun? What complaint more repeated, and more touching than\nthat \u2018it is growing dark\u2019?\u201d We are told of a sufferer who did not seem\nin immediate danger, suddenly ordering the sick room to be lit up as for\na gala. When this was mentioned to the physician, he said, gravely, \u201cNo\nworse sign.\u201d We all remember the tenor of the last words of Dr. Adam, of\nthe High School, Edinburgh, as recorded (however variously) by Scott and\nLord Cockburn and others. It was in his bed-chamber, and in the forenoon,\nthat he died; and finding that he could not see, the old schoolmaster,\nbelieving himself in the familiar school-room, exclaimed, \u201cIt is getting\ndark, boys; we must put off the rest till to-morrow.\u201d It was the darkness\nof death. And to the living, to-morrow, above all, _that_ to-morrow,\nnever comes.\n\nM. de Lescure, dying of the wounds he had received at the battle\nof Chollet, awaited with his usual serenity the advent of his last\nhour. \u201cOpen the windows,\u201d said he to his wife, who was watching by\nhis bedside, \u201cis it clear?\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d she said, \u201cthe sun is shining.\u201d \u201cI\nhave, then,\u201d replied the dying general, \u201ca veil before my eyes.\u201d A\nveil that no man could raise. Chateaubriand, in describing the last\nhours of his sister, Madame de Beaumont\u2014the Lucile of his \u201cMemoires\nd\u2019outre-tombe\u201d\u2014incidentally relates that \u201cshe begged of me to open the\nwindow.... A ray of sunshine rested upon her bed, and seemed to rejoice\nher spirit.\u201d The same circumstance is related of the dying Emperor\nAlexander. So it is of Dr. Channing. Karl Ludwig Sand, on the scaffold,\nbegged that the bandage over his eyes might be so placed that he could,\nuntil his last moment, see the light. And it was so. Turner\u2019s biographer\ntells us that almost at the very hour of the old painter\u2019s death, his\nlandlady wheeled his chair to the window, that he might see the sunshine\nhe had loved so much, mantling the river, and glowing on the sails of the\npassing boats. \u201cThe old painter died with the winter-morning sun shining\nupon his face, as he was lying in his bed. The attendant drew up the\nwindow-blind, and the morning sun shone on the dying artist\u2014the sun he\nhad so often beheld with such love and such veneration,\u201d and painted, at\nsundry times and in divers manners, with such force.\n\nRousseau\u2019s wish, when in a dying state, to be carried into the open\nair, that he might have \u201ca parting look at the glorious orb of day,\u201d is\nreferred to by one of the many biographers of Robert Burns, in recording\nthat poet\u2019s remark one beautiful evening, when the sun was shining\nbrightly through the casement. The hand of death was then upon him, and a\nyoung friend rose to let down the window-blinds, fearing the light might\nbe too much for him. Burns thanked her, with a look of great benignity,\nbut prayed her to let the sun shine on: \u201che will not shine long for me.\u201d\n\nTender and true is the pathos in one of Mrs. Richard Trench\u2019s letters,\ntouching the death of her endeared child, Bessy, where we read: \u201cThe\nlast phrase she uttered, except those expressive of her latest wants and\npain, was a desire the window-curtain might be withdrawn, that she might\nlook at the stars.\u201d Sunlight or starlight, it is light we cherish, and\nthat cherishes us. Light from the first, light to the last. Happy, if the\nlight we cherish is the shining light, that shineth more and more unto\nthe perfect day.\n\nAnother set of variations on the same theme will form the section next\nensuing.\n\n\n\n\n_WISHED-FOR DAY._\n\nACTS xxvii. 29.\n\n\nIt was in a ship of Alexandria, sailing into Italy, when sailing was now\ndangerous, because of the advanced season; it was during a voyage which\nPaul, a passenger, foresaw and foretold would be with hurt and much\ndamage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of lives two hundred\nthreescore and sixteen; it was after there had arisen against the ship\na tempestuous wind called Euroclydon, before which the vessel became a\nhelpless drift; then it was that the crew and passengers, exceedingly\ntossed with the tempest, and not comforted\u2014except the apostle, gave up,\nwith the same exception, all hope of escape, and gloomily awaited the\nbitter end. On the third day they cast out the tackling of the ship. And\nwhen neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest\nlay on them, all hope that they should be saved was then taken away. The\nfourteenth night was come, and they were driven up and down in Adria, and\nabout midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country,\nand sounded once and again, and found reason to fear lest they should\nhave fallen upon rocks. So they cast four anchors out of the stern, and\n_wished for the day_\u2014\u03b7\u1f54\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf \u1f21\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9. If \u2019tis double death to\ndie in sight of shore, as Shakspeare says, it is also, or nearly, double\ndeath to die in the dark. Some would almost say, Surely the bitterness of\ndeath is past, if light be vouchsafed to the dying, and so the shadows\nflee away. Well can they understand a pregnant symbolism in that incident\nof patriarchal days, when a deep sleep fell upon Abram as the sun was\ngoing down; and, lo, a horror of a great darkness fell upon him. With\nsomething of a shuddering sympathy can they connect the fact that, on the\nday whence all Good Fridays take their name, there was darkness over all\nthe land unto the ninth hour, with that other fact that about the ninth\nhour there was heard a wailing cry, whose echo reverberates through all\nspace and time, _Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?_\n\nEver memorable in classical lore is the supplication of the Greek warrior\nin Homer, not to die in the dark. Let him see his foe, and see his end,\nhowever imminent, however inevitable. King Edward II., in Christopher\nMarlowe\u2019s historical tragedy, left alone in the Berkeley Castle dungeon\nwith Lightborn, a murderer, exclaims:\u2014\n\n \u201cI see my tragedy written in thy brows;\n Yet stay awhile, forbear thy bloody hand,\n And let me see the stroke before it comes,\n That even then, when I shall lose my life,\n My mind may be more steadfast on my God.\u201d\n\nFrequent in historical narrative are instances like that of Labedoy\u00e8re,\nwho when brought out to be shot, refused to have his eyes bandaged, and\nlooking straight at the levelled muskets, exclaimed in a loud voice,\n\u201cFire, my friends!\u201d Marshal Ney, a week or two later, also refused to\nhave his eyes bandaged. \u201cFor five-and-twenty years,\u201d he said, \u201cI have\nbeen accustomed to face the balls of the enemy.\u201d Then taking off his hat\nwith his left hand, and placing his right upon his heart, he too said in\na loud voice, fronting the soldiers, \u201cMy comrades, fire on me.\u201d Murat\nfell in a like manner, after a like request,\u2014but gazing to the last on a\nmedallion which contained portraits of his wife and four children.\n\nWhat mainly tends to pile up the agony of Goisvintha, in the historical\nromance of \u201cAntonina,\u201d when alone in the vaults with the madman Ulpius,\nis the distracting absence of light. \u201cBewildered and daunted by the\ndarkness and mystery around her, she vainly strained her eyes to look\nthrough the obscurity, as Ulpius drew her on into the recess.... Suddenly\nhe heard her pause, as if panic-stricken in the darkness, and her voice\nascended to him, groaning, \u2018Light, light! oh, where is the light?\u2019\u201d She\nis held forth at this crisis, as a terrible evidence of the debasing\npower of crime, as she now stands, enfeebled by the weight of her own\navenging guilt, and \u201cby the agency of darkness, whose perils the innocent\nand the weak have been known to brave.\u201d It is only your melodramatic\nvillain that flings forth his flourish in the style of Velasquez in\n\u201cBraganza,\u201d\u2014addressing the duke, his judge:\u2014\n\n \u201cYes, in your gloomiest dungeons plunge me down.\n Welcome, congenial darkness! horrors, hail!\n No more these loathing eyes shall see that sun\n Whose irksome beams light up thy pageant triumph.\u201d\n\nAnd thus Sir Walter Scott has full warranty for proving the exceptional\ncourage of his captive Englishman, when subjected to a midnight trial\nin the vaults of the _Vehmgericht_, by showing him unappalled by even\nthe utter darkness of that terrible court. \u201cEven in these agitating\ncircumstances, the mind of the undaunted Englishman remained unshaken,\nand his eyelid did not quiver nor his heart beat quicker, though he\nseemed, according to the expression of Scripture, to be a pilgrim in the\nvalley of the shadow of death, beset by numerous snares, and encompassed\nby total darkness, where light was most necessary for safety.\u201d It is only\nin an oblique sense that what Euripides says is true, of the coward\nbeing very valiant in the dark\u2014\u1f10\u03bd \u1f44\u03c1\u03c6\u03bd\u1fc3 \u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9.\n\nDr. Croly applies the Homeric prayer of Ajax to an incident in the long\nwar with France, when twenty-seven thousand British were eager, under\nAbercrombie and the Duke of York, to attack the French lines, and at the\nfirst tap of the drum a general cheer was given from all the columns.\nBut the day, we read, had scarcely broke when a dense fog fell suddenly\nupon the whole horizon, and rendered movement almost impossible. \u201cNothing\ncould exceed the vexation of the army at this impediment, and if our\nsoldiers had ever heard of Homer there would have been many a repetition\nof his warrior\u2019s prayer, that \u2018live or die, it might be in the light of\nday.\u2019\u201d One is reminded of the lines in Racine:\u2014\n\n \u201cEnfin toute l\u2019horreur d\u2019un combat t\u00e9n\u00e9breux;\n Que pouvait la valeur dans ce trouble funeste?\u201d\n\nIt has been observed of a certain railway catastrophe, where the crash\nand collision occurred in a tunnel\u2014in that very place which nobody, even\non ordinary occasions, passes through without a slight shudder and an\nundefined dread of some such disaster as the one in question\u2014that \u201cAjax\u2019s\nprayer has been muttered by many who never heard of Ajax; and if we are\nto die, it is at least a mitigation of the hour of fate when it overtakes\nus in daylight.\u201d\n\nIn tracing, psychologically, the development within us of the sense\nof awe, Professor Newman attributes to the gloom of night (_deadly\nnight_, as Homer terms it), more universally perhaps than to any other\nphenomenon, the first awakening of an uneasy sense of vastness. A young\nchild, as he says, accustomed to survey the narrow limits of a lighted\nroom, wakes in the night, and is frightened at the dim vacancy. \u201cNo\nnurse\u2019s tales about spectres are needed to make the darkness awful.\u201d\nNor, he adds, is it from fear of any human or material enemy: it is the\nnegation, the unknown, the unlimited, which excites and alarms; and\nsometimes the more if mingled with glimpses of light.\n\nThe last words audible of Goethe were, \u201c_More light!_\u201d The final darkness\ngrew apace, in the words of his ablest biographer; and he whose eternal\nlongings had been for more light, gave a parting cry for it as he was\npassing under the shadow of death.\n\n\u201cLight! give me more light,\u201d is the cry of the dying woman in \u201cThe Dead\nSecret,\u201d\u2014whereby hangs that tale. How often Lord Lytton remarks, is\n\u201clight!\u201d the last word of those round whom the shades are gathering. And\nhe says it in reference to the last hours of one of the characters he\nhas described with most success as well as elaboration, John Burley, who\ndiscourses of what is precious in light, as the darkness closes about\nhim. When he lies down, and the attendant would withdraw the light, he\nmoves uneasily. \u201cNot that,\u201d he murmurs, \u201clight to the last!\u201d And putting\nforth a wan hand, he draws aside the curtain, so that the light may\nfall full on his face. When his only friend returns, and steals back to\nBurley\u2019s room on tiptoe, it is to see light stream through the cottage\nlattice\u2014not the miserable ray lit by a human hand\u2014but the still and holy\neffulgence of a moonlit heaven. Burley has died in sleep\u2014calmly, and\nthe half open eyes have the look of inexpressible softness which death\nsometimes leaves; \u201cand still they were turned towards the light; and the\nlight burned clear.\u201d Which things are an allegory.\n\nMr. Dickens intensifies the wretchedness of his prisoner at Marseilles\nby the deprivation of light in a prison that, like a well, like a vault,\nlike a tomb, had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have\nkept its polluted atmosphere intact, in one of the spice islands of the\nIndian Ocean. What light he does get comes languishing down a square\nfunnel that blinds a window in the staircase wall, through which the sky\nis never seen\u2014nor anything else. What he does see of the \u201clight of day\u201d\nhe calls the light of yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the\nlight of six years ago: so slack and dead. Bitter indeed is the import of\nthe curse, \u201cLet it look for light and have none.\u201d Piteous indeed is the\nimport of the pathetic remonstrance, \u201cWherefore is light given to him in\nmisery?\u201d Graphic indeed is the description of a place \u201cwhere the light is\nas darkness.\u201d Darkness and light are both alike to One only.\n\nThe record of the last day in the life of Patrick Fraser Tytler opens as\nfollows:\u2014\u201cOn Sunday, the 23rd, he grew confused in memory, experienced\ndifficulty in swallowing, and complained of darkness. The curtain was\ndrawn, and the light of the winter morning was suffered to stream on his\nbed; but in vain. He folded his hands, and exclaimed, \u2018I see how it is.\u2019\u201d\n\nJohn Foxe relates this incident in his narrative of the martyrdom of\nWilliam Hunter, apprentice to a silk weaver in London, but discharged\nfrom his master\u2019s employment for refusing to attend mass, and finally\ncondemned to the stake as an incorrigible heretic. \u201cThen said William,\n\u2018Son of God, shine upon me!\u2019 and immediately the sun in the element shone\nout of a dark cloud so full in his face that he was constrained to look\nanother way, whereat the people mused, because it was dark a little time\nbefore.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE MORE THAN BROTHERHOOD OF A BOSOM FRIEND._\n\nPROVERBS xviii. 24.\n\n\nIn the last book of the Pentateuch we meet with a verse which,\nincidentally, seems to recognise how much more vitally close and intimate\nmay be the affinity between a man and his bosom friend, than between\nthe same man and his own brother. The brother is spoken of without\ndescriptive epithet or adjunct of any kind; while of the friend it is\nadded, \u201cwhich is as thine own soul.\u201d[36] An ever memorable verse in the\nbook of Proverbs has immortalized the truth, that \u201cthere is a friend that\nsticketh closer than a brother.\u201d\n\nNone too many are the testimonies on record of brotherly attachment such\nas Columbus signalizes in his correspondence. To his elder son, Diego,\nthe affectionate father writes concerning the younger, Fernando, then a\nstripling midway in his teens, \u201cTo thy brother conduct thyself as the\nelder brother should unto the younger. Thou hast no other, and I praise\nGod that this is such a one as thou dost need. Ten brothers would not be\ntoo many for thee. Never have I found a better friend to right or left\nthan my brothers.\u201d General testimony points the other way. Cicero, who,\nhimself a good brother, in one place moots the question whether it is\njust to prefer our friends to our relations\u2014_qu\u00e6ritur sitne \u00e6quum amicos\ncognatis anteferre_,\u2014in another decides that friendship is better than\nrelationship: _pr\u00e6stat amicitia propinquitati_. It has been remarked\nby Samuel Bailey, of Sheffield, that parents and children, husbands\nand wives, brothers and sisters, reciprocally complain of each other\u2019s\ndeficiency of affection, and think it hard that the tie of relationship\nshould not secure invariable kindness and indestructible love: expecting\nsome secret influence of blood, some physical sympathy, some natural\nattraction, to retain the affection of their relatives, without any\nsolicitude on their part to cherish or confirm it; and forgetting that\nman is so constituted as to love only what in some way or other, directly\nor indirectly, immediately or remotely, gives him pleasure,\u2014that even\nnatural affection is the result of pleasurable associations in his mind,\nor at least may be overcome by associations of an opposite character,\nand that the sure way to make themselves beloved is to display amiable\nqualities to those whose regard they wish to obtain.[37] Crabbe has a\nterse couplet on\u2014\n\n ... \u201cthose\n Who are called friends because they are not foes;\u201d\n\nmeaning by friends, kinsfolk; but such as, though not more than kin, are\nless than kind. Dr. Croly\u2019s hero, Marston, soldier and statesman, on\nreceiving, in his isolation, three letters from three proved friends,\nyet comparative strangers, describes himself as feeling, \u201cwhile holding\ntheir letters in my hand, and almost pressing them to my heart, how much\nmore strongly friendship may bind us than the ties of cold and negligent\nrelationship.\u201d So Mr. Thackeray is bitter on what it is to have sham\nfriends and no sympathy; ties of kindred which bind one, as it were, to\nthe corpse of friendship, and oblige one to bear through life the weight\nand the embraces of this lifeless, cold connection.\n\nNoteworthy among the avowals of Sir Thomas Browne, in his \u201cReligio\nMedici,\u201d is this: \u201cI confess I do not observe that order that the schools\nordain our affections,\u2014to love our parents, wives, children, and then\nour friends; for, excepting the injunctions of religion, I do not find\nin myself such a necessary and indissoluble sympathy to all those of my\nblood. I hope I do not break the fifth commandment, if I conceive I may\nlove my friend before the nearest of my blood, even those to whom I owe\nthe principles of life.\u201d The father and the son may, as Montaigne says,\nbe of quite contrary humours, and brothers be without any sympathy with\nbrothers. So Feltham asserts it to be likeness which makes the true\nlove-knot of friendship. When we find another of our own disposition,\nwhat is it, he asks, but the same soul in a divided body? \u201cWe are then\nintermutually transposed into each other; and nature, which makes us\nlove ourselves, makes us for the same reason love those who are like us;\nhence a friend is a more sacred name than a brother.\u201d What avails it, he\nfurther asks, to have bodies of the same original, when the souls within\nthem differ?\n\nThe autobiographer in a modern work of fiction, having occasion to\nacknowledge, after being thrust amongst strangers to sicken, and all\nbut die, that among strangers he received as much sympathy and kindness\nas he should have done among his own people, and in his father\u2019s\nhouse,\u2014characterizes this sort of confession as one which people are apt\nto make as a reflection upon their relations, \u201cwhereas it disgraces only\nthemselves.\u201d It is a case of rare misfortune, he contends, when we are\nnot loved by our nearest of kin, in proportion as we desire and deserve\nto excite affection. Nevertheless, there is a too ample _consensus_ of\nauthorities whose testimony affirms, and confirms, the often slight and\nslender tenure of mere family ties, as such. \u201cNone of your family parties\nfor me,\u201d quoth one of Justice Haliburton\u2019s shrewd spokesmen; \u201cconnections\nat best are poor friends, and commonly bitter enemies. If you want\nnothing, go to them, and you are sure to get it; if you are in want of\nany assistance, go to a stranger friend you have _made for yourself_, and\nthat\u2019s the boy that has a heart and a hand for you.\u201d The Earl of Dudley,\nBishop Copleston\u2019s correspondent, in one of his always interesting\nletters to that prelate, adverting to the death of an uncle who had never\ntaken the smallest interest in him, or showed him the smallest kindness,\nmakes the avowal: \u201cAnd, though I flatter myself that there is no person\nmore capable of returning affection than myself, yet I fairly own that\nI am wholly unable to bestow it quite gratuitously even upon a near\nrelation.\u201d Richardson harps on this note again and again in his history\nof Clarissa. How much more binding and tender, that young lady writes\u2014and\nthe writing comes of bitter experience\u2014are the ties of pure friendship\nand the union of like minds, than the ties of nature! And her chief\ncorrespondent, in commenting on the terms of a kinsman\u2019s assurance, that\nhe will not see Clarissa \u201cimposed on either by friend or foe,\u201d\u2014interposes\nthe verbal amendment: \u201cBy _relation_ or foe, should he not have said? For\na friend will not impose upon a friend.\u201d Elsewhere the same writer has\nto put the home-question: \u201cWould you side with a false brother against a\ntrue friend? A brother may not be a friend; but a friend will be always a\nbrother.\u201d\n\nIt was one of the aphorisms\u2014or call them paradoxes\u2014of M. de Stendhal\n(Henri Beyle) that our next of kin are our natural enemies when we enter\nthe world; the simple matter of fact being, as an Edinburgh reviewer\nalleges, that his own character, tendencies, and aspirations had been\ninvariably opposed to the plans, wishes, and modes of thinking of his\nfamily. Mr. Froude has depicted in Edward Fowler a young man who in his\ndealings with every one except with his own family, was frank, generous,\nand unselfish; and whose affections, naturally very strong, finding\nthemselves forced out of their proper channel, poured themselves out on\nany one that happened to attract him. A few kind words from his father,\nnow and then, implying real sympathy and inviting confidence, might,\nwe are given to understand, have averted in this case, as in so many\nothers, a bitter result of estrangement and desolation. Perhaps, as Mr.\nDisraeli somewhere intimates, with all their anxiety and opportunities\nfor observation, the parent and tutor are rarely skilful in discovering\nthe character of their child or charge. \u201cCustom blunts the fineness\nof psychological study: those with whom we have lived long and early,\nare apt to blend our essential and our accidental qualities in one\nbewildering association.\u201d Strange, exclaims Hamilton A\u00efde, how little we\noften know of those who are next us in the battle-ranks through this long\nmarch of life! Our daily familiar life, as George Eliot has remarked,\nis but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial\nwords and deeds; and those who sit with us at the same hearth are often\nthe farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken\nevil and unacted good. \u201cStrangers yet,\u201d as Lord Houghton has it:\u2014\n\n \u201cAfter childhood\u2019s winning ways,\n After care, and blame, and praise,\n Counsel asked, and wisdom given,\n After mutual prayers to heaven,\n Child and parent scarce regret\n When they part\u2014are strangers yet.\u201d\n\nOr as Chauncy Hare Townshend expresses the same relative truth, too\nabsolutely true:\u2014\n\n \u201cKindred are oft but kin by name,\n Our thoughts they never knew.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_MANY YEARS TO ENJOY LIFE: THIS NIGHT TO DIE._\n\nST. LUKE xii. 19, 20.\n\n\nThe rich man was getting richer to his heart\u2019s content. So plentiful was\nthe produce of his land, that he must needs enlarge his premises. There\nwas not room enough in his barns for those golden harvests; the barns\nmust be pulled down, and greater ones built, wherein to bestow all his\nfruits and his goods. Happy man he accounted himself that day; happy in\na prosperous present, happier still in a promising future. A future of\nhappiness not less prolonged than assured. So he would say to his soul\nthat day, \u201cSoul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine\nease, eat, drink, and be merry.\u201d That day he said it. Fool! that night\nhis soul was required of him.\n\nWoe was denounced by one of old on another of the Dives family, who said,\n\u201cI will build me a wide house, and large chambers,\u201d and who cut him out\nwindows, and ceiled his house with cedar, and painted it with vermilion.\n\u201cShalt thou reign because thou closest thyself in cedar?\u201d Man\u2019s sanguine\nand sure \u201cI will\u201d\u2014how little of the future tense there sometimes is about\nit after all!\n\n \u201cTu secanda marmora\n Locas sub ipsum funus; et sepulchri\n Immemor, struis domos.\u201d\n\nIn Homer we see from his tall ship the king of men descend, there fondly\nthinking the gods conclude his toil, where, in fact, awaits him murder\nmost foul and most unnatural. In Homeric figure\u2014\n\n \u201cSo, whilst he feeds luxurious in the stall,\n The sovereign of the herd is doomed to fall.\u201d\n\nBitterly the shade of Atrides repeats his tragic story to Odysseus,\ntelling how, \u201cAlas! he hoped, the toils of war o\u2019ercome, to meet soft\nquiet and repose at home. Delusive hope!\u201d for at home the hand was\nalready upraised to smite him.\n\nThe Turkish prince, Alp Arslan, dying of Joseph\u2019s dagger-stroke,\nbequeathed an admonition to the pride of kings, which Gibbon has\npreserved. \u201cYesterday, as from an eminence I beheld the numbers, the\ndiscipline, and the spirit of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble\nunder my feet; and I said in my heart, \u2018Surely thou art the king of the\nworld, the greatest and most invincible of warriors.\u2019 These armies are no\nlonger mine; and in the confidence of my personal strength, I now fall by\nthe hand of an assassin.\u201d The inscription on his tomb invited those who\nhad seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, to meditate on\nits present burial in the dust.\n\nMichelet moralises with trenchant irony on the fate which overtook our\nHenry V. on French soil. It is to the \u201cDance of Death\u201d he refers in the\nexclamation, \u201cWhat sport for death, what a malicious pastime to have\nbrought the victorious Harry within a month\u2019s reach of the crown of\nFrance! After a life of unremitting toil for that end, he wanted but one\nlittle month added to his existence to be the survivor of Charles VI....\nNo! not a month, not a day more was to be his.\u201d\n\nSplendid was that festival at C\u00e6sarea at which Herod Agrippa, in the\npomp and pride of power, entered the theatre in a robe of silver, which\nglittered, says the historian, with the morning rays of the sun, so as to\ndazzle the eyes of the assembly, and excite general admiration. Some of\nhis flatterers set up the shout, \u201cA present god!\u201d Agrippa did not repress\nthe impious adulation which spread through the theatre. At that moment he\nlooked up, and saw an owl perched over his head on a rope, and Agrippa\nhad been forewarned that when next he saw that bird, \u201cat the height of\nhis fortune,\u201d he would die within five days. The fatal omen, according\nto Josephus, pierced the heart of the king, who, with deep melancholy,\nexclaimed, \u201cYour god will soon suffer the common lot of mortality.\u201d He\nwas immediately struck, in the language of the sacred volume, by an\nangel. Seized with violent pains, he was carried to his palace, lingered\nfive days in extreme agony, being \u201ceaten of worms,\u201d and so died.\n\nFielding forcibly presents a certain sanguine projector, lusty and\nstrong, in the heyday of middle age, who reckons confidently on becoming\nheir to the estate of a senior of immense wealth, and has all his plans\nelaborately prepared for his disposal of the same. Nothing is wanting to\nenable him to enter upon the immediate execution of these plans, but the\ndeath of the elder man, in calculating which he has studied every book\nextant that treats of the value of lives, reversions, etc.; from all\nwhich he has satisfied himself, that as he has every day a chance of this\nhappening, so has he more an even chance of its happening before long.\n\u201cBut while the captain was one day busied in deep contemplations of this\nkind, one of the most unlucky, as well as most unseasonable, accidents\nhappened to him. The utmost malice of fortune could, indeed, have\ncontrived nothing so cruel, so _mal-\u00e0-propos_, so absolutely destructive\nto all his schemes.\u201d It was, that just at the very instant when his heart\nwas exulting in meditations on the happiness which would accrue to him\nby the other\u2019s death, he himself was cut off by an apoplexy. As L\u00e9ontine\ncomplains in \u201cHeraclius,\u201d\u2014\n\n \u201cEt lorsque le hasard me flatte avec exc\u00e8s,\n Tout mon dessein avorte au milieu du succ\u00e8s.\u201d\n\nIt was just when Kleber was beginning to reap the fruits of his\nintrepidity and discretion, that he was cut off by the obscure assassin,\nSouliman. One is reminded of Thomson on the massacre of the bees,\u2014\n\n \u201cAt evening snatched,\n Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,\n And fixed o\u2019er sulphur; while not dreaming ill,\n The happy people in their waxen cells,\n Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes\n Of temperance, for winter poor,\u201d etc.\n\nA tory historian, recording the close of the parliamentary session in\nJuly 1827, takes occasion to observe that Mr. Canning now saw every wish\nof his heart gratified, having raised himself to the highest position\nin the State, and being looked up to in every part of the world as the\nprotector of the oppressed and the advocate of freedom. In the prime of\nlife, \u201chis sway in Parliament was unbounded, and he might hope for a\nlong career of fame, fortune, and usefulness.\u201d _Vanitas vanitatum!_ The\nhand of fate was already upon him, and he was to be suddenly snatched\nfrom the scene of his glory, at the very moment when he seemed to have\nattained the summit of earthly felicity. Even, however, when death is not\nconcerned, as in his memorable case, in the sudden and final collapse of\na great career, and the abrupt extinction of exuberant promise, how often\nis Cowper\u2019s picture realized, where\u2014\n\n \u201cRuns the mountainous and craggy ridge\n That tempts ambition. On the summit, see,\n The seals of office glitter in his eyes;\n He climbs, he pants, he grasps them. At his heels,\n Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,\n And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,\n And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.\u201d\n\nThe picture is, in some sort, and for moral uses, a pendent to that by\nanother poet, of those who are pushing hard up hill the cumbrous load of\nlife; just as they trust to gain the farthest steep, and put an end to\nstrife,\u2014\n\n \u201cDown thunders back the stone with mighty sweep,\n And hurls their labours to the valley deep,\n For ever vain.\u201d\n\nBut this is diverging farther and farther from the direct import of our\ntheme. More to the purpose is the same poet\u2019s description of Celadon\nassuring his betrothed of perfect safety, and triumphantly asserting\nher absolute immunity from the perils of the storm, and as exultingly\ninferring his own, from his relationship to her; when,\u2014\n\n \u201cFrom his void embrace,\n Mysterious heaven! that moment to the ground,\n A blackened corse, was struck the beauteous maid.\u201d\n\nSome innocents, as Cleopatra has it, escape not the thunderbolt.\nInnocence, as well as iniquity, may know something of that breach ready\nto fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at\nan instant.\n\nThe loving friends of Charlotte Bront\u00e8, after her marriage, are described\nby one among them as catching occasional glimpses of brightness, and\npleasant peaceful murmurs of sound, telling to them who stood outside,\nof the gladness within; and they said among themselves, \u201cAfter a long\nand a hard struggle\u2014after many cares and bitter sorrows\u2014she is tasting\nhappiness now.\u201d Remembering her trials, they were glad in the idea that\nGod had seen fit to wipe away the tears from her eyes. \u201cBut God\u2019s ways\nare not as our ways,\u201d Mrs. Gaskell adds. Just as Currer Bell\u2019s happiness\nseemed beginning, and her goodness ripening, came fever, delirium, death.\nMrs. Gaskell\u2019s own career was similarly cut short, just when she was\nfinishing, but ere yet she had finished, the completest and ablest of her\nworks; just when public recognition of her merits was growing earnest as\nwell as general. It is the old, old story. For what, as the old ballad\nsays,\u2014\n\n \u201cis this worldys bliss,\n That changeth as the moon!\n My summer\u2019s day in lusty May\n Is darked before the noon.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_GREAT BABYLON BUILT: A BUILDER\u2019S BOAST._\n\nDANIEL iv. 29-33.\n\n\nWalking in the palace of his kingdom of Babylon\u2014that Babylon of which the\nfoundations, indeed, had been laid ages ago, but which he had so enlarged\nand adorned as to make it one of the world\u2019s wonders\u2014Nebuchadnezzar the\nking, elate with pride at the pomp of architectural results, flushed with\nthe triumph of enterprises so costly, and achievements so manifest to the\neye, gave utterance, in complacent soliloquy perhaps, to the exultant\nsense of being a master builder indeed, and of seeing his power reflected\nin so gorgeous a form. The king spake and said, \u201cIs not this great\nBabylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of\nmy power, and for the honour of my majesty?\u201d\n\nWhile the word was in the king\u2019s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven,\nsaying, \u201cO king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: The kingdom is\ndeparted from thee.\u201d And the sequel we know. How that same hour was the\nthing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from men, and did\neat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till\nhis hairs were grown like eagles\u2019 feathers, and his nails like birds\u2019\nclaws,\u2014is it not written in the book of the prophecies of Daniel, whose\nname was Belteshazzar, and whom the king made ruler over the whole\nprovince of that same Babylon the Great?\n\nThe royal builder\u2019s boast was on the instant reproved by a degradation\nliterally brutal in its extremity. While the word of complacent\nself-glorification was in the king\u2019s mouth, the sentence of bestial doom\nwent forth against him. Just when he was resting on his laurels, a taint\novertook them. Just when he rejoiced in asserting himself a king of\nkings, commenced the working of a curse which levelled him with grazing\nflocks and herds.\n\nThe lesson is for all time, and for all sorts and conditions of men.\nVerifications of it\u2014varying, of course, in kind, and still more in\ndegree\u2014are rife in records historical and biographical, and in the\nunrecorded experiences, the moving accidents, of everyday life. Just when\na man is apt to set up his rest, the fiat goes forth against him which\nshatters to its base the structure he has reared. The house he has just\nfinished building tumbles to pieces like a house of cards. The castle in\nwhose defences, at last completed, he felt so secure, dislimns like a\ncastle in the air.\n\n \u201c... The engineer\n Who lays the last stone of his sea-built tower,\n It cost him years and years of toil to raise,\u2014\n And, smiling at it, tells the wind and waves\n To roar and whistle now\u2014but, in a night,\n Beholds the tempest sporting in its place\u2014\n May look aghast.\u201d\n\nBelshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and\ndrank wine before the thousand, and displayed the golden vessels which\nhis father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple at Jerusalem,\nand was jubilant with the excitement of revelry, and joyously confident\nin the stability of his realm; when, in the same hour, there came forth\nfingers of a man\u2019s hand, and wrote over against the plaster of the wall\nof the king\u2019s palace; and what they wrote was, that God had numbered his\nkingdom, and finished it. And in that night was Belshazzar the king of\nthe Chaldeans slain.\n\nA noble chamber had Pope John XXI. built for himself in the palace of\nViterbo; and by the falling in of the roof he so admired, he was crushed\nto death. \u201cJohn XXI.,\u201d writes Dean Milman, \u201cwas contemplating with too\ngreat pride the work of his own hands, and burst out into laughter; at\nthat instant the avenging roof came down on his head.\u201d The catastrophe\nwas held at the time to be a special judgment on a reprobate pontiff.\nNebuchadnezzar\u2019s boast, and worse than Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s doom. The mention\nof Babylon the Great will serve, with some, to eke out a parallel.\n\nThe historian of Mexico tells us of Montezuma, while exacting from his\npeople the homage of an adulation worthy of an oriental despot, and the\nprofuse expenditure of whose court was a standing marvel, that \u201cwhile the\nempire seemed towering in its most palmy and prosperous state, the canker\nhad eaten deepest into its heart.\u201d Ruin was at hand. The hour was come,\nand the man; and that man was Hernando Cort\u00e8s.\n\nSignificantly opens a fifth act\u2014for a fifth act is the last\u2014of Ben\nJonson\u2019s \u201cSejanus,\u201d with the joyous exultations of that prosperous\nupstart, in the confidence of power: \u201cSwell, swell, my joys,\u201d he\nexclaims,\u2014\n\n \u201cI did not live till now; this my first hour;\n Wherein I see my thoughts reached by my power.\n ...\n My roof receives me not; \u2019tis air I tread;\n And, at each step, I feel my advanced head\n Knock out a star in heaven!\u201d\n\nand so forth, with other hyperboles of frantic arrogance. His soliloquy\nis interrupted by messengers of ill news. Destruction dogs his path; and\nvery soon the magniloquent braggart has to subdue his tone, and his cue\nis then to upbraid the higher powers whom alone he recognises:\u2014\n\n \u201cIf you will, Destinies, that after all,\n I faint now ere I touch my period,\n You are but cruel.\u201d\n\nOf constant recurrence among the commonplaces of biography are such\n\u201cbuts,\u201d inopportune and inevitable, as Cicero\u2019s biographer prefixes\nto a critical paragraph: \u201cBut while all things were proceeding very\nprosperously in his favour, and nothing seemed wanting to crown his\nsuccess, ... all his hopes and fortunes were blasted at once, by an\nunhappy rencounter with his old enemy Clodius.\u201d\n\nThere is a popular historical fiction in which we see the Cardinal\nAlberoni musing on the greatness he has achieved for Spain and for\nhimself, only to find himself overtaken by ruin and disgrace. The rope\nwhich he has twisted so carefully, proves to be of sand. In another we\nsee a successful adventurer at the culminating point of his success.\nThere seems nothing wanting to him in \u201cthat supreme moment,\u201d as the\nphrase goes. He is in \u201ca tumult of gratified ambition and selfish joy.\u201d\n\u201cThis glory and grandeur\u201d repay a thousand-fold his patient endeavours\nand strenuous schemings. But at this very moment a dark shadow overlays\nthe sunshine on his pathway; and we look on a changed countenance\u2014\u201cno\nlonger full of triumph and pleasure, but ghastly pale\u201d at a sudden but\nvery present and very pressing sense of impending disaster. _Fortuna\nvitrea est, tum cum splendet frangitur._\n\nAt the opening of the twelfth century all was prosperity with the Emperor\nHenry IV.; his turbulent and agitated life seemed, in the words of Dean\nMilman, \u201cas if it would close in an august and peaceful end.\u201d But, as an\nafter page in the history of Latin Christianity is prompt to prove, this\nmost secure and splendid period in the life of Henry was one calm and\nbrilliant hour of evening before a night of utter gloom.\n\nColumbus had just welcomed tranquillity in exchange for the troubles and\ndangers of his island, when intelligence arrived of the discovery of a\nlarge tract of country rich in mines. He now anticipated the prosperous\nprosecution of his favourite enterprise, and was exultant at the turn\nof the tide. \u201cHow illusive were his hopes!\u201d exclaims his biographer.\n\u201cAt this moment events were maturing which were to overwhelm him with\ndistress, strip him of his honour, and render him comparatively a wreck\nfor the remainder of his days.\u201d Who, the chronicler of the conquest of\nGranada may well ask, who can tell when to rejoice in this fluctuating\nworld? \u201cEvery wave of prosperity has its reacting surge, and we are often\noverwhelmed by the very billow on which we thought to be wafted into the\nhaven of our hopes.\u201d _Et subito casu, qu\u00e6 valuere, ruunt._\n\nOlivarez was requested by his royal master to resign, just at the moment\nwhen the death of Richelieu (1643) opened to him an almost royal road, it\nmight seem, to success.\n\n \u201cO momentary grace of mortal men,\n Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!\n Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,\n Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\n Ready, with every nod, to tumble down\n Into the fatal bowels of the deep.\u201d\n\nSuch is the state of man, as Shakspeare\u2019s Hastings feels it. And this\nis the state of man, as Shakspeare\u2019s Wolsey finds it: to-day he puts\nforth the tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, and next day comes\na frost, a killing frost, and,\u2014when he thinks, good easy man, full\nsurely his goodness is a ripening,\u2014nips his root, and then he falls.\nShakspeare\u2019s Belarius again, will furnish us with another text, of\npractical application:\u2014\n\n \u201c... Then was I as a tree,\n Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,\n A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,\n Shook down my yellow hangings, nay, my leaves,\n And left me bare to weather.\u201d\n\nAnd as with the pride and pomp and circumstance of life, so with life\nitself. Typical for all time is the fate of Lycidas:\u2014\n\n \u201cFame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise\n (That last infirmity of noble mind)\n To scorn delights, and live laborious days;\n But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,\n And think to burst out into sudden blaze,\n Comes the blind fury with the abhorr\u00e8d shears,\n And slits the thin-spun life.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_INVOCATION AND INACTION._\n\nEXODUS xiv. 15.\n\n\nWith the Red Sea close before them, and with Pharaoh and his host close\nbehind them, what were the children of Israel to do? Was it for this\nthat Moses had brought them out of the house of bondage, which yet had\nits fleshpots and creature comforts after all? What were they to do?\nThey lifted up their eyes, and saw the sea in front, and the enemy in\nthe rear; and then they lifted up their voice in querulous fear and\nexpostulation. Should they go back? Then Moses lifted up his voice, and\nbade them stand still, and they should see a great deliverance. But the\nwill of God was not that they should either go back, or stand still and\nmerely look on. For \u201cthe Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto\nme? speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.\u201d Invocation\nmay be excellent in itself, but, as a concomitant, inaction mars it. A\nhallowed thing is prayer; but to pray and sit still, when the need is to\ngo forward and push on, is the sign or stigma of feeble folk.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen Nelson told the King of Naples, in plain terms, that he had his\nchoice\u2014either to advance, trusting to God for His blessing on a just\ncause, and prepared to die sword in hand; or to remain quiet, and be\nkicked out of his kingdom; the king made answer that he would go on, and\ntrust in God and Nelson. Of the same stuff as Nelson, but his superiors\nin moral character and in practical recognition of Him that is Holy,\nHoly, Holy, as well as Lord God Almighty, were those early English\nnavigators, characterized by a modern pen as \u201cindomitable God-fearing\nmen, whose life was one great liturgy.\u201d \u201cThe ice was strong, but God\nwas stronger,\u201d says one of Frobisher\u2019s men, after grinding a night and\na day among the icebergs; not waiting for God to come down and split\nthem, but toiling through the long hours, himself and the rest fending\noff the vessel with poles and planks, with death glaring at them out of\nthe rocks, and so saving themselves and it. We read in Turell\u2019s Life of\nDr. Benjamin Colman, \u201cthat reverend father in our New England Israel,\u201d\nas Mr. Lowell calls him, that when the vessel in which he had taken\npassage for England was attacked by a French privateer, he \u201cfought like\na philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged\nand fired.\u201d His the practice was, if not on his lips the maxim, to pray\nto God and keep his powder dry. It is expressly noted of the Maid of\nOrleans, in the _Proc\u00e8s_ on record, that while she rather evaded the\nquestion of resorting to miraculous aids and appliances, and of affecting\nsupernatural power, she \u201cused the Gallic proverb, _Ayde-toi, Dieu te\naydera_.\u201d\n\n \u201cIn daily toil, in deadly fight,\n God\u2019s chosen found their time to pray;\n And still He loves the brave and strong,\n Who scorn to starve, and strive with wrong,\n To mend it, if they may.\u201d\n\nForcible is the portrait drawn in a recent work of fiction, of a man now\nsteeped in moral degradation, who had once tried to be honest, and prayed\nto God to prosper his honesty; but then he only tried to do right in a\nspasmodic, fitful kind of way, and expected his prayers to be granted\nas soon as uttered, and was indignant with a Providence that seemed\nregardless of his entreaties.\n\nBentley is held to have happily ridiculed the helpless Chorus of Greek\ntragedy, who, when a deed of violence was to be acted, instead of\ninterfering to prevent the atrocity to which the perpetrator had made\nthem privy, could only, by the rules of the theatre, exhaust their sorrow\nand surprise in dithyrambics. He burlesqued this characteristic by\nintroducing into \u201cThe Wishes\u201d a Chorus after the manner of the ancient\nGreeks, who are informed by one of the _dramatis person\u00e6_, that a madman\nwith a firebrand has just entered the vaults beneath the place which they\noccupy, and which contain a magazine of gunpowder. The Chorus, instead\nof stirring from the dangerous vicinity, immediately commence a long\ncomplaint of the hardship of their fate, exclaiming pathetically, \u201cO\nunhappy madman\u2014or rather unhappy we, the victims of this madman\u2019s fury\u2014or\nthrice, thrice unhappy the friends of the madman, who did not secure him,\nand restrain him from the perpetration of such deeds of frenzy\u2014or three\nand four times hapless the keeper of the magazine, who forgot the keys in\nthe door,\u201d etc., etc.\n\nThe cry of Charles and his Paladins at Arles, \u201cHelp us, oh blessed martyr\nSt. Trophimus!\u201d is thus disposed of by Torfrid, Hereward\u2019s forefather,\nin the story of the Wake, \u201cWhat use in crying to St. Trophimus? A tough\narm is worth a score of martyrs here,\u201d in the thick of the fight for dear\nlife.\n\nWhen Lord Rea, in 1630, as recorded in a well-known passage from\nRushworth, uttered the pious conventionalism or devout platitude, \u201cWell,\nGod mend all!\u201d his companion, Sir David Ramsay, impatiently exclaimed,\n\u201cNay,\u201d with an undevout expletive, \u201cNay, Donald, we must help him to mend\nit!\u201d One is reminded of what Mr. Froude says of the Protestant leaders\nin Scotland, during the autumn of 1559, when the Queen Regent returned\nto Holyrood, once more absolutely victorious: \u201cNotwithstanding all their\ntalk about God, it had come to this. God had as much interest in them\nas they had themselves courage, energy, capacity, understanding, and\nperseverance\u2014so much precisely, and not more.\u201d Or again of that homely\nthrust in the \u201cBiglow Papers,\u201d where one of the interlocutors, on a\ncritical occasion, avowing a wish to know where and when to strike, is\nthus answered by his plain-spoken mate:\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2018Strike soon,\u2019 sez he, \u2018or you\u2019ll be deadly ailin\u2019,\u2014\n Folks thet\u2019s afear\u2019d to fail are sure o\u2019 failin\u2019;\n God hates your sneakin\u2019 creturs thet believe\n He\u2019ll settle things they run away an\u2019 leave.\u2019\u201d\n\nThere is something to be said\u2014indeed in our present sense there is more\nto be said, for the farmer than for the clergyman in the story of the\nlatter congratulating the former on the state of his crops, and finding\nhim not free from apprehensions, in regard of former bad years\u2014\u201cMy\nfriend,\u201d urged the rector, \u201ctrust in Providence.\u201d \u201cProvidence! Yes, yes,\u201d\nreplied the other; \u201cthat\u2019s all very well: but give me the doong cart.\u201d\nDr. John Brown relates with zest how one of his faculty was attending\na poor woman in labour\u2014a desperate case, that required a cool head and\na firm will, while the good man, \u201cfor he _was_ good,\u201d had neither of\nthese,\u2014and losing his presence of mind, gave up the poor woman as lost,\nand retired into the next room to pray for her. \u201cAnother doctor, who\nperhaps wanted what the first one had, and certainly had what he wanted,\nbrains and courage, meanwhile arrived, and called out, \u2018Where is Dr. \u2e3a?\u2019\n\u2018Oh, he has gone into the next room to pray.\u2019 \u2018Pray! Tell him to come\nhere this instant, and help me; he can work and pray too;\u2019\u201d and by the\nnew-comer\u2019s, the _snell_ working doctor\u2019s, assistance the woman\u2019s life\nwas saved.\n\nSir Robert Peel, in his reply to certain suggestions offered by\nLord Kenyon in reference to the potato-disease, coupled with the\nrecommendation of a \u201cspecial public acknowledgment of our dependence on\nGod\u2019s mercy in our present distressed state,\u201d was mildly sarcastic on the\nseeming inconsistency of making such an acknowledgment, while at the same\ntime leaving \u201cin full operation the restraints which man has imposed on\nthe import of provisions.\u201d\n\nNot likely to be soon forgotten, on either side the Tweed, is Lord\nPalmerston\u2019s reply as Home Secretary, to the Presbytery of Edinburgh,\ntouching the national attitude pending a visitation of Asiatic cholera.\nHe advised them that it was better to cleanse than to fast. Let them\nsee to purifying the foul wynds and overcrowded flats tenanted by the\npoor, and so get rid of \u201cthose causes and sources of contagion which, if\nallowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence, and be fruitful in\ndeath, in spite of all the prayers and fastings of a united, but inactive\nnation.\u201d To apply what a north country bishop says in Shakspeare:\u2014\n\n \u201cThe means that Heaven yields must be embraced,\n And not neglected; else, if Heaven would,\n And we will not, Heaven\u2019s offer we refuse;\n The proffered means of succour and redress.\u201d\n\nA recent apologist for the captain of a lost steamship submitted that the\ndestruction of that fine vessel was what is called in the old-fashioned\nlanguage of a charter-party, \u201cthe act of God.\u201d Less partial critics, on\nthe other hand, affirmed it to be the act of the folly and madness of\nman,\u2014the term quoted belonging to an age when they who go down to the sea\nin ships had not learned the irreverent practice of imputing to the Deity\nthe direct consequences of human rashness. \u201cLet us, if we can, amend\nthis folly; or, if we will persist in it, let us at least take the blame\nupon ourselves.\u201d They that go down to the sea in ships have, however,\nin all ages, though not so much one people as another (English for\ninstance as Italians), been prone to waste in wailing outcries to patron\nsaints the energy that, in peril of wreck, they might have expended to\nbetter purpose. The \u201cColloquies\u201d of Erasmus give a lively sample of this\nrun-to-waste invocation. The last of the heroes of La Vend\u00e9e, Charette,\nwhile still a youth, sailed from Brest in a cutter which lost its mast,\nand was in imminent jeopardy of going down; the sailors, on their knees,\nwere praying to the Virgin, and had entirely given up all notion of\nexertion, \u201ctill Charette, by killing one, succeeded in bringing the\nothers to a sense of their duty, and thereby saved the vessel.\u201d Lord\nBroughton describes a scene of the kind, in a Turkish ship of war: the\nGreeks on board called on all the saints, the Mussulmans on Allah; the\ncaptain burst into tears and ran below deck, telling his passengers to\ncall on God: he rung his hands, and wept aloud, and being asked what\nhe could do, said he could do nothing. \u201cCould he get back to the main\nland?\u201d \u201cIf God chooses,\u201d was his answer. \u201cCould he make Corfu?\u201d \u201cIf\nGod chooses.\u201d One thinks of the testy old patrician\u2019s rejoinder in\n\u201cCoriolanus\u201d to the tribune\u2019s exclaimer, \u201cThe gods be good unto us!\u201d \u201cNo;\nin such a case the gods will not be good unto us.\u201d In Scott\u2019s tale of\nthe Crusaders, \u201cI will vow a golden candlestick to the Holy Sepulchre\u2014a\nshrine of silver to our Lady of Engaddi\u2014a pall, worth one hundred bezants\nto Saint Thomas of Orthez,\u201d cries the Queen in extremity.\u2014\u201cUp, up,\nmadam,\u201d says Edith; \u201ccall on the saints an you list, but be your own\nbest saint.\u201d In \u201cIvanhoe,\u201d again, when the Grand Master forbodes the\ncontingent extinction of his order (the Templars), \u201cNow may God avert\nsuch a calamity!\u201d says the Preceptor. \u201cAmen!\u201d rejoins the Grand Master,\nwith solemnity, \u201cbut we must deserve His aid.\u201d\n\nIt is all in keeping with the practical character of the man, the\nprayer which on one critical occasion Benvenuto Cellini records his\noffering: \u201cAlmighty God, favour my cause, for Thou knowest it is a just\none, and that I am not on my part wanting in my utmost efforts to make\nit succeed.\u201d On another he tells us how he \u201ctold Lionardo, who was\nincessantly crying out, \u2018Jesus, Jesus!\u2019 that Jesus would assist him, if\nhe strove to help himself.\u201d Elsewhere again Cellini emphatically asserts\nhis systematic habit of \u201calways exerting his utmost efforts to extricate\u201d\nhimself from difficulty, as well as of devoutly recommending himself to\nGod, by whom alone those efforts could achieve success, and who so often\nhad delivered him when the best of these had clearly and entirely failed.\n\nSaintly as well as Saint Francis of Sales bids his brethren, \u201cEn toutes\nvos affaires, appuyez-vous totalement sur la providence de Dieu, par\nlaquelle seule tous vos desseins doivent r\u00e9ussir; travaillez n\u00e9anmoins de\nvotre c\u00f4t\u00e9 tout doucement pour co-op\u00e9rer avec icelle.\u201d The counsel is at\none, _au fond_, with that of the heathen stoic in the old play:\u2014\n\n \u201cI am plain, fathers. Here you look about\n One at another, doubting what to do,\n With faces, as you trusted to the gods,\n That still have saved you; and they can do it: but\n They are not wishings, or base womanish prayers,\n Can draw their aids; but vigilance, counsel, action;\n Which they will be ashamed to forsake.\n \u2019Tis sloth they hate, and cowardice.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_CO-OPERANT UNITS._\n\nEPHESIANS iv. 16.\n\n\nThe universal Church is designated by the apostle a body, which whole\nbody is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint\nsupplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every\npart. And every part in its measure, and according to its imparted power.\nVery little are some of the joints and fibres; but every little helps.\nWho shall despise the whole of small things? But for the accumulated\natoms, the aggregated littles, where were the body?\n\n \u201cLet me not deem that I was made in vain,\n Or that my Being was an accident,\n Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,\n Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign.\n _Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain_\n _Hath its own mission_, and is duly sent\n To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent\n \u2019Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main.\n The very shadow of an insect\u2019s wing,\n For which the violet cared not while it stayed,\n Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,\n Proved that the sun was shining by its shade:\n Then can a drop of the eternal spring,\n Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?\u201d[38]\n\nAs the author of \u201cFelix Holt\u201d says, we see human heroism broken into\nunits, and are apt to imagine, this unit did little\u2014might as well not\nhave been. But in this way we might break up a great army into units;\nin this way we might break the sunlight into fragments, and think that\nthis and the other might be cheaply parted with. \u201cLet us rather raise a\nmonument to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken,\nand met death\u2014a monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who\nare precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some\nof them fall unseen and on barrenness.\u201d Suppose but a solution of that\ncontinuity; the sequel is, darkness that may be felt.\n\nThere is a latter-day apologue of a gimlet that grew exceedingly\ndiscontented with its vocation, envying all the other tools in the\ncarpenter\u2019s basket, and thinking scorn of its own mean duty of\nperpetually boring and picking holes everywhere. \u201cThe saw and the axe had\ngrand work to do; and the plane got praise always; so did the chisel for\nits carving; and the happy hammer was always ringing merrily upon the\nclenching nail.\u201d But for _it_, a wretched, poking, paltry, gimlet, its\nwork was hidden away, and very little seemed its recognised use. But the\ngimlet is assured, on the best authority, that nothing could compensate\nfor its absence, and is therefore bidden be content, nay happy; for\nthough its work seems mean and secret, it is indispensable. To its good\noffices, the workman is said to look chiefly for coherence without\nsplitting; and to its quiet influences, the neatness, the solidity, the\ncomfort of his structure may greatly be ascribed. The apologue has, of\ncourse, its practical application. \u201cAre there not many pining gimlets\nin society, ambitious of the honour given to the greater-seeming tools\nof our Architect, but unconscious that in His hands they are quite as\nuseful? The loving little child, the gentle woman, the patience of many\na moral martyr, the diligence of many a duteous drudge, though their\nworks may be unseen and their virtues operate in obscurity, yet are these\nmain helpers to the very joints and bands of our body corporate, the\nquiet home influences whereby the great edifice, Society, is so nicely\nwainscoted and floored without split-boards.\u201d\n\nTo recognise one\u2019s being entrusted with but one talent, after all, and\nnot with five or with ten, as one\u2019s vanity had previously taken for\ngranted, has even been hailed as, in some sort, a soothing sensation.\nWhen one of us who has been led by native vanity or senseless flattery,\nsays Dr. Holmes, to think himself or herself possessed of talent,\narrives at the full and final conclusion that he or she is really dull,\nit is one of the most tranquillizing and blessed convictions that can\nenter a mortal\u2019s mind: \u201cAll our failures, our short-comings, our\nstrange disappointments in the effect of our efforts, are lifted from\nour bruised shoulders, and fall, like Christian\u2019s pack, at the feet of\nthat Omnipotence which has seen fit to deny us the pleasant gifts of\nhigh intelligence,\u2014with which one look may overflow us in some wider\nsphere of being.\u201d That the one talent be employed, is the one thing\nneedful. So feels the girl in one of Charlotte Bront\u00e8\u2019s tales, whose\nexclamation is, \u201cMother, the Lord who gave each of us our talents will\ncome home some day, and will demand from all an account. The tea-pot,\nthe old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern tureen, will\nyield up their barren deposit in many a house: suffer your daughters, at\nleast, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may be enabled\nat the Master\u2019s coming to pay His own with usury.\u201d A man is accepted\naccording to that he hath, not condemned in respect of what he never\nhad. Whatsoever his hand findeth to do, that is what a man is to do with\nhis might, to do with a will,\u2014be it to govern a nation, or to dust a\nwarehouse. To apply a passage in Ben Jonson\u2019s \u201cCatiline,\u201d\n\n \u201cThey are no less part of the commonwealth\n That do obey, than those that do command.\u201d\n\nJohn Newton said that if two angels came down from heaven to execute\na Divine command, and one was appointed to conduct an empire, and the\nother to sweep a street in it, they would feel no inclination to change\nemployments. So again, the same robust divine affirmed that a Christian\nshould never plead spirituality for being a sloven; \u201cif he be but a\nshoe-cleaner, he should be the best in the parish.\u201d As the old servant\ntells Ruth, in Mrs. Gaskell\u2019s story, \u201cThere\u2019s a right and a wrong way\nof setting about everything\u2014and to my thinking, the right way is to\ntake a thing up heartily, if it is only making a bed. Why, dear ah me!\nmaking a bed may be done after a Christian fashion, I take it, or else\nwhat\u2019s to come of such as me in heaven, who\u2019ve had little enough time on\nearth for clapping ourselves down on our knees for set prayers?\u201d This\nquaint speaker had laid to heart the lesson once for all enforced upon\nher, to do her duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to\ncall her; her station was that of a servant, and, looked at aright, as\nhonourable as a king\u2019s: she was to help and serve others in one way, just\nas a king is in another. Her parting counsel to Ruth runs thus: \u201cJust try\nfor a day to think of all the odd jobs as to be done well and truly in\nGod\u2019s sight, not just slurred over any how, and you\u2019ll go through them\ntwice as cheerfully,\u201d besides doing them more efficiently. John Brown,\nof Haddington, being waited on by a lad of excitable temperament, who\ninformed him of his desire to become a preacher, and whom the shrewd\npastor saw to be as weak in intellect as he was strong in conceit,\nadvised him to continue in his present vocation. The young man said,\n\u201cBut I wish to preach and glorify God.\u201d The old commentator replied,\n\u201cMy young friend, a man may glorify God making broom besoms; stick to\nyour trade, and glorify God by your life and conversation.\u201d As it was\nsaid of Bossuet, in the seventeenth century, that he could not walk,\nor sit down, or even pluck a currant, without your recognising in him\nthe great bishop (so asserts a modern French divine, not of Bossuet\u2019s\nchurch), just so the workman and the domestic servant who are animated\nby their Master\u2019s spirit, distinguish themselves among their fellows\nby a certain air of nobility; under their blouse or their livery may\nbe seen to shine the signal light of their _aristocratie spirituelle_,\nthe image of the Most High Himself. However mean their employment,\nthey go about it with neither disgust nor indifference; but with an\nintelligent interest, because, in the sight of God, and indeed in their\nown eyes, their occupation is on a level with that of king or emperor.\nWhat constitutes the difference between man and man, is not, urges M.\nColani, the wielding a sceptre or plying a needle, but the being loyal\nto the trust, be it great or small, committed to us. This, he contends,\nis the only true point of view from which men and women should regard\ntheir occupations,\u2014they should consider themselves as _collaborateurs\ndu Tout-Puissant_. If their work seem the reverse of noble, let them\nennoble it by this thought, in Wordsworth\u2019s phrase,\u2014\n\n \u201cAnd with the lofty sanctify the low.\u201d\n\nA Christian nursemaid is pictured, forgetting the thousand _d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ments_\nof her humble functions, and reminding herself that in reality she is\nin charge of souls, as much as pastor or preacher is, and this _grande\nconviction_ suffices to save her from servile dejection. So, again, the\nartisan and day labourer may be sustained by the Spirit from on high,\nand taught to magnify their calling, in a deep and a wide sense, because\nit is what they are called to, and because they respond to the call, in\nthe spirit of it. They are toilers co-operant to an end; and the end,\nthe result, is with God. \u201cThey also serve who only stand and wait.\u201d But\nthe whole sonnet of Milton\u2019s which closes with that grand line, is too\ngermane to the matter, and too largely suggestive in its main issue,\nto be omitted here; the sonnet which the blind poet wrote touching his\nblindness:\u2014\n\n \u201cWhen I consider how my light is spent,\n Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,\n And that one talent which is death to hide,\n Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent\n To serve therewith my Maker, and present\n My true account, lest He, returning, chide;\n \u2018Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?\u2019\n I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent\n That murmur, soon replies, \u2018God doth not need\n Either man\u2019s work, or His own gifts; who best\n Bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state\n Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,\n And post o\u2019er land and ocean without rest;\n They also serve who only stand and wait.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_SUBORDINATE, NOT SUPERFLUOUS; OR, DEPRECIATED MEMBERSHIP._\n\n1 CORINTHIANS xii. 22.\n\n\nStrenuously St. Paul insists on the importance of not overlooking\nthe feebler members of the body\u2014be it physical, politic, or\necclesiastical,\u2014and of upholding their rights to due consideration, on\nthe mere score of membership. Subordinate they may be, but superfluous\nthey are not. The body would not be a body without them. \u201cNay, much more,\nthose members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary.\u201d\n\u201cNow ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.\u201d If all were\none member, where were the body? But now are they many members, but one\nbody. And one member differeth from another in honour; yet, without the\nseeming minor and meaner ones, for all the abundant honour of the greater\nones, where were the body?\n\n * * * * *\n\nHuman society, it has been said, is a vast and intricate machine,\ncomposed of innumerable wheels and pulleys:\u2014every one has his special\nhandle to grind at; some with great and obvious effects, others with\nlittle or no assignable result; but if the object ultimately produced\nby the combined efforts of all is in itself a good one, it is not to\nbe denied that whatever is essential to its production is good also.\nHuman society is thus regarded as a body corporate, made up of different\nmembers, each of which has its own special function: one class tilling\nthe ground, another combining and distributing its produce, a third\nmaking, and a fourth executing laws, and so on, through every class of\nsociety. \u201cIf all these functions are properly discharged, the whole\nbody corporate is in a healthy condition; and thence it follows that\nwhoever contributes to the full and proper discharge of any one of these\nfunctions, is contributing to the general good of the whole body; so that\na person occupied in them is doing good in the strictest sense of the\nwords.\u201d An able discourser on social subjects, arguing against a current\ncrotchet, utterly denies that a girl in a respectable family does not\nearn the honourable title of a worker, though she be only employed in\nassisting in house-keeping and at the family work-table, just as fairly\nand as completely as if she walked to a solicitor\u2019s office for an eight\nhours\u2019 daily task of copying briefs and making out bills of costs.\n\n \u201cThey work in spirit who for service wait.\u201d\n\nFrederick Robertson glowingly expatiates on the glory of womanhood, as\nsurely one which, if woman rightly comprehended her place on earth, might\nenable her to accept its apparent humiliation unrepiningly; the glory,\nas he defines it, of unsensualizing coarse and common things, sensual\nthings, the objects of mere sense, meat and drink and household cares,\nelevating them by the spirit in which she ministers them, into something\ntransfigured and sublime. \u201cThe humblest mother of a poor family, who is\ncumbered with much serving, or watching over a hospitality which she is\ntoo poor to delegate to others, or toiling for love\u2019s sake in household\nwork, needs no emancipation in God\u2019s sight. It is the prerogative and the\nglory of her womanhood to consecrate the meanest things by a ministry\nwhich is not for self.\u201d What hundreds and thousands of female invalids\nhave felt, and almost in the same words said, with Lucy Aikin, when\nenfeebled with age and other ailments, \u201cThe thought which sits heavy\non my mind is that of my own inutility. Alas! what important end of\nexistence do I fulfil? To whom is it of any real consequence whether or\nnot I continue to fill a place in the world? I hope that involuntary\nuselessness will not be imputed, and that we may say, \u2018They also serve\nwho only stand and wait.\u2019\u201d A fellow-worker of the same sex, but made of\nsterner stuff, in the dedication of a book written in illness, tells her\nfriend, \u201cYou know, as well as I, how withering would be the sense of\nour own nothingness, if we tried to take comfort from our own dignity\nand usefulness.\u201d And she goes on to say how ridiculous, if it were not\nshocking, would be any complacency on the ground of having followed the\ninstincts of her nature to work, while work was possible,\u2014the issues of\nsuch divinely appointed instrumentality being wholly brought out and\ndirected by Him who framed and actuated her. To apply the words of Aurora\nLeigh:\u2014\n\n ... \u201cThough we fail indeed,\u2014\n You, I, a score of such weak-workers,\u2014He\n Fails never. If He cannot work by us,\n He will work over us. Does He want a man,\n Much less a woman, think you? Every time\n The star winks there, so many souls are born,\n Who all shall work too. Let our own be calm:\n We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars,\n Impatient that we\u2019re nothing.\u201d\n\nSo Mrs. Browning. And pitched in the self-same key is this stanza of her\nhusband\u2019s:\u2014\n\n \u201cAll service ranks the same with God:\n If now, as formerly He trod\n Paradise, His presence fills\n Our earth, each only as God wills\n Can work\u2014God\u2019s puppets, best and worst,\n Are we; there is no last nor first.\u201d\n\nWordsworth is eloquently suggestive in those prefatory lines of his,\nwhich weave a moral and infer a solace, from the fact, that the stars\npre-eminent in magnitude, and they that from the zenith dart their beams,\nare yet of no diviner origin, no purer essence, than the one he watched\nfrom Rydal Mount, burning like an untended watch-fire on the ridge of\nsome dark hill-top; or than those which seem\n\n \u201cHumbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps,\n Among the branches of the leafless trees;\n All are the undying offspring of one Sire.\n Then, to the measure of the light vouchsafed,\n Shine, poet, in thy place, and be content.\u201d\n\nIf we weave a yard of tape in all humility, says Emerson, and as well\nas we can, long hereafter we shall see that it was \u201cno cotton tape at\nall, but some galaxy which we braided, and that the threads were Time\nand Nature.\u201d Without number, as Archdeacon Hare puts it, are the sutlers\nand pioneers, the engineers and artisans, who attend the march of\nintellect; many of them busied in building and fitting up and painting\nand emblazoning the chariot; others in lessening the friction of the\nwheels; while others move forward in detachments, and level the way\nit is to pass over, and cut down the obstacles which would impede its\nprogress. And these too, he proceeds to say, \u201chave their reward. If so be\nthey labour diligently in their calling, not only will they enjoy that\ncalm contentment which diligence in the lowliest task never fails to win;\nnot only will the sweat of their brows be sweet, and the sweetener of\nthe rest that follows; but, when the victory is at last achieved, they\ncome in for a share of the glory; even as the meanest soldier who fought\nat Marathon or at Leipsic became a sharer in the glory of those saving\ndays.\u201d Remember, with Owen Meredith,\u2014\n\n \u201cRemember, every man God made\n Is different: has some deed to do,\n Some work to work. Be undismay\u2019d\n Though thine be humble: do it too.\u201d\n\nAn elder teacher would qualify the Remember by a Do not forget, that \u201cit\nmatters infinitely less what we _do_ than what we _are_.\u201d If we cannot\npursue a trade or a science\u2014says a memorable voice from a sick-room,\u2014if\nwe cannot keep house, or help the state, or write books, or earn our own\nbread or that of others, we can do the work to which all this is only\nsubsidiary; \u201cwe can cherish a sweet and holy temper; we can vindicate\nthe supremacy of mind over body; we can, in defiance of our liabilities,\nminister pleasure and hope to the gayest who come prepared to receive\npain from the spectacle of our pain; we can, here as well as in heaven\u2019s\ncourts hereafter, reveal the angel growing into its immortal aspect,\nwhich is the highest achievement we could propose to ourselves, or that\ngrace from above, could propose to us, if we had a free choice of all\npossible conditions of human life.\u201d\n\nTo all those possible conditions, so manifold in their potentialities,\nthe doctrine applies. The membership is a constant quantity. _Nil me\nofficit unquam_, says Horace, _Ditior hic, aut est quia doctior; est\nlocus uni Cuique suus_. And we have Shakspeare\u2019s word for it, that nought\nso vile upon the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth\ngive; and though he is speaking of stones and the like, are there not\nsermons in stones, as well as good in everything?\n\nHoly George Herbert shall furnish us with a versicle to the purpose. As\never, he is looking upwards when he says,\u2014\n\n \u201cIndeed the world\u2019s Thy book\n Where all things have their leaf assign\u2019d:\n Yet a meek look\n Hath interlined.\n Thy board is full, yet humble guests\n Find nests.\u201d\n\nBut more pertinent, and less quaintly obscure, is that stanza from\nanother little lyric of his, in which the Country Parson exalts the\nexalting power of a simple trust in God and devotion to His service:\n\n \u201cA servant with this clause\n Makes drudgery divine:\n Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,\n Makes that and the action fine.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_THE WRATH-DISPELLING POWER OF A SOFT ANSWER._\n\nPROVERBS xv. 1.\n\n\nWhile it is the effect, if not the end and aim, of grievous words to\nstir up anger,\u2014\u201ca soft answer turneth away wrath.\u201d Though \u201cthe wrath of\na king is as messengers of death, a wise man will pacify it.\u201d \u201cBy long\nforbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone.\u201d\n\nWhen the men of Ephraim, enraged at Gideon\u2019s failing to invoke their aid\nwhen he went to fight with the Midianites, chided with him sharply, his\nsoft answer was of instant avail to turn away their wrath. What had he\ndone now in comparison of them? the champion deferentially exclaimed; and\nwhat was he able to do in comparison of them? Was not the mere gleaning\nof the grapes of Ephraim better than the entire vintage of Abi-ezer?\n\u201cThen their anger was abated toward him, when he had said that.\u201d What\nthreatened to be a very bone of contention,\u2014well, so soft a tongue as\nthat of Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, breaketh the bone.\n\nDiscussing Lord Aberdeen\u2019s settlement of the vexed question of the right\nof search, in 1843, the historian of Europe observes that never was\nthere a truer maxim than that it requires the consent of two persons to\nmake a quarrel; a soft word, a seasonable explanation, often turns aside\nwrath, and sometimes prevents the most serious wars that threaten to\ndevastate the world. \u00c6sop Smith says he never knew a downright quarrel\nyet, where two people were not in the wrong; \u201cdrop your battledore, and\nthe shuttlecock will fall. \u2018A soft answer turneth away wrath.\u2019 No doubt\nit does, in nine cases out of ten,\u201d\u2014but not quite always, this authority\naffirms; there being some unreasonable quarrellers, who will batter\nthe peacemaker when he drops his battledore. But as a rule, and on the\nauthority of an older and still more widely recognised maker of proverbs,\nthe mere fact of yielding pacifieth great offences.\n\nThe historian of the conquest of Peru tells us how Gasca was assailed by\nreproaches and invectives which, however, had no power to disturb his\nequanimity; he patiently listened, and replied to all in the mild tone of\nexpostulation best calculated to turn away wrath. \u201cBy this victory over\nhimself,\u201d says Garcilasso, \u201che acquired more real glory, than by all his\nvictories over his foes.\u201d As Spenser has it,\u2014\n\n \u201cWords well-disposed\n Have secret power t\u2019 appease inflam\u00e8d rage.\u201d\n\nSir Matthew Hale\u2019s celebrated letter of advice includes this counsel,\u2014if\na person be passionate, and give you ill language, rather to pity him\nthan be moved to anger. We shall find, the pious judge asserts, that\nsilence, or very gentle words, are the most exquisite revenge for\nreproaches; they will either cure the distemper in the angry man, and\nmake him sorry for his passion, or they will be a severe reproof and\npunishment to him. \u201cBut at any rate,\u201d adds Sir Matthew, \u201cthey will\npreserve your innocence, give you the deserved reputation of wisdom and\nmoderation, and keep up the serenity and composure of your mind. Passion\nand anger make a man unfit for everything that becomes him as a man or as\na Christian.\u201d\n\nThe fact is, maintains the author of \u201cThe Gentle Life,\u201d all hard words\nare a mistake: most of our quarrels arise from a total misunderstanding\nof each other; and at any rate, hard words will not mend the matter.\nOne might as well, he says, try to mend glass windows by pelting them\nwith stones. Soft words, on the other hand, fall like a healing balm on\nthe hearts of all. \u201cSuch power,\u201d in the words of one who loved to be\nwritten, if not to write himself, Leontius, \u201csuch power has the least\nshadow of a pleasant speech, to do away an ill-feeling of the moment, in\nthe complacency it produces, both in the giver and receiver.\u201d To apply,\nagain, a passage from Spenser, descriptive of a damsel\u2019s success in\ndeterring two doughty knights from mortal encounter, so effective was her\nspeech to\n\n ... \u201ccalm the sea of their tempestuous spite:\n Such power have pleasing words! Such is the might\n Of courteous clemency in gentle heart!\u201d\n\nWe are all of us fond of gentle words, once more to quote an _ex titulo_\nauthority on all that concerns gentle living; and he denies the truth\nof the common rough proverb, \u201cSoft words butter no parsnips,\u201d which is\nshown to be, after all, an apologetic proverb, meaning that the hearer\nis tickled with the politeness, albeit real satisfaction is not yet\nmade. \u201cSoft words do butter parsnips; and many an oily fellow, whose\ntalent, industry, and conscientiousness are small, owes his position and\nadvancement in life to the soft words which drop continually from his\nmouth.\u201d The soft answer that avails to dispel wrath, comes of practised\npatience; and when patience has its perfect work, it works miracles, as\ndetailed by that fine old forgotten poet, Decker:\u2014\n\n \u201cIt is the greatest enemy to law\n That can be, for it doth embrace all wrongs,\n And so chains up lawyers and women\u2019s tongues;\n ...\n And last of all, to end a household strife,\n It is the honey \u2019gainst a waspish wife.\u201d\n\nThis reminds us of a passage in \u201cThe Gordian Knot,\u201d where the gentle\nlaying of a husband\u2019s hand in an irritated wife\u2019s, or _vice vers\u00e2_, is\nrecommended (by example) as a good plan to adopt in conjugal discussions\nwhen differences arise. The tongue, says our author, is very proud,\nabominably proud and sulky, and often refuses to say what the heart\ndesires should be said; but the fingers know their duty, and are ready\nto convey an apologetic or forgiving pressure, which, he makes bold to\nassert, \u201cwill stop ninety-nine quarrels out of a hundred, if the parties\nlove one another.\u201d\n\nThe greatest, widest, deepest of all observers of human nature puts into\nthe mouth of one of the sagest of kings this counsel to a younger son, in\nrespect to his bearing towards the elder:\u2014\n\n ... \u201cBlunt not his love; ...\n For he is gracious, if he be observed;[39]\n Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he\u2019s flint:\n As humorous as winter, and as sudden\n As flaws[40] congealed in the spring of day.\n His temper, therefore, must be well observed:\n Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,\n When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth:\n But being moody, give him line and scope;\n Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,\n Confound themselves with working.\u201d\n\nIn a later one, again, of his noble series of English history\nplays\u2014indeed the latest\u2014Shakspeare makes a ducal politician, astute in\npractical psychology as well as in politics, utter this apophthegm, of\nhis own coinage:\u2014\n\n \u201cAnger is like\n A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way,\n Self-mettle tires him.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_A TWICE-TOLD TALE OF YEARS._\n\nECCLESIASTES vi. 6.\n\n\nThe preacher, whose text was Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, pictures\nin one section of his homily a man who has lived many years, \u201cso that\nthe days of his years be many,\u201d but whose soul is not filled with good,\nbut aches rather with a gnawing sense of emptiness, so that his many\nyears, gloomy as they have been, are all too few. \u201cYea, though he live a\nthousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one\nplace?\u201d What more tedious than such a twice-told tale of years? Yet, to\nlook back upon, how fleet their transit, how imperceptible their lapse,\nhow petty the sum of them! That tale is soon told, even if told twice.\n\nThe days of our life are threescore years and ten, and though men be so\nstrong that they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength then but\nlabour and sorrow; nor do the fourscore seem longer to the retrospective\nreviewer than do to the sexagenarian his sixty years, or to the\nseptuagenarian his threescore and ten. The most popular of contemporary\nauthors describes a man of seventy-eight, of whom a loveless,\nsad-hearted questioner asks whether his seventy-eight years would not be\nseventy-eight heavy curses, if he could say to himself, as the questioner\ncan, \u201cI have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or\nrespect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no\nregard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by.\u201d The\nRoyal Preacher would apply context as well as text to such a retrospect,\nwith an \u201cI say, that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh\nin with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered\nwith darkness. Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known anything:\nthis hath more rest than the other. Yea, though he live a thousand years\ntwice told, yet hath he seen no good.\u201d\n\nThe same questioner, already cited, asks the same old man if his\nchildhood seems far off,\u2014if the days when he sat at his mother\u2019s knee\nseem days of very long ago? To which the experience of threescore and\neighteen years gives this reply: \u201cTwenty years back, yes: at this time\nof my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel\nin the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning.\u201d But he is not one\nto feel and say with the French cynic, \u201cMais enfin la vie se passe, et\nmourir apr\u00e8s s\u2019\u00eatre amus\u00e9 ou s\u2019\u00eatre ennuy\u00e9 dix ou vingt ans, c\u2019est la\nm\u00eame chose.\u201d He has not so learned life, and the meaning of life, and its\npurpose, and its end.\n\nInfinite is the swiftness of time, says Seneca, as seen by those who\nare looking back at time past. _Infinita est velocitas temporis, qu\u00e6\nmagis apparet respicientibus._ Looked forward to, it is another matter\naltogether. As Cowper has it, when retracing the windings of his way\nthrough many years,\u2014\n\n \u201cShort as in retrospect the journey seems,\n It seemed not always short; the rugged path,\n And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,\n Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.\u201d\n\nBut as Cowper elsewhere draws the contrast, in the Latin motto he wrote\nfor the king\u2019s clock,\u2014\n\n \u201cQu\u00e6 lenta accedit, quam velox pr\u00e6terit hora!\u201d\n\n(Slow comes the hour; its passing speed how great!\u2014so Hayley Englished\nthe line.) \u201cSince this new epoch in my life,\u201d writes Schleiermacher on a\ncertain occasion, \u201ctime seems to fly twice as quickly as before, and I\ncan quite fancy that when Jatte and I are grown old and grey, we shall\nstill feel as if only a few days had gone by.\u201d Moore was in his sixtieth\nyear when Lord John Russell talked with him of the speed with which time\nseems to fly; and Moore records in his Diary the question he put, \u201cIf you\nfind it so now, what will you say of it when you are as old as I am?\u201d\nThe \u201cpeculiar melancholy\u201d of the answer given is emphasised in the same\njournal.\n\nAnother retrospective reviewer pictures our race as struggling ever\nonward, toiling up towards some air-built goal never to be attained\u2014while\nthe past crumbles instantly away behind our steps, like the staircase of\nthe Epicurean, as we advance in our progress; and every step, which was\nof such magnitude when we passed it, is forgotten in the \u201ccollectiveness\nof retrospection,\u201d insomuch that at times a passing thought would compass\nthe events of years.\n\nFew and evil the patriarch declares the days of the years of his\npilgrimage to have been, when, in answer to Pharaoh\u2019s \u201cHow old art\nthou?\u201d the answer is, A hundred and thirty years. Man that is born of a\nwoman is of few days, said another patriarch, and full of trouble. His\ndays are swifter than a post, they flee away, they see no good. They\nare passed away as the swift ships; they are swifter than a weaver\u2019s\nshuttle. _Festinat enim decurrere velox Flosculus angust\u00e6 miser\u00e6que\nbrevissima vit\u00e6 Portio._ And thus in Juvenal\u2019s pregnant phrase, _obrepit\nnon intellecta senectus_. Or, as with the ageing subject of the Three\nWarnings,\u2014\n\n \u201cOld Time whose haste no mortal spares,\n Uncalled, unheeded, unawares,\n Brought him on his eightieth year.\u201d\n\nWe bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told.\n\nIn one of his letters to his old friend Mrs. Hughes, Southey commences\na paragraph with the truism, \u201cThe last twenty years, to you and me, are\nbut as yesterday;\u201d and he adds, that if we could but bring ourselves\nto feel, as truly as we know, that the next twenty years are but as\nto-morrow, that feeling, with a trust in God\u2019s mercy, would be sufficient\nconsolation under all sorrows. Half a year later we find him writing\nto her in the same strain: \u201cIt seems but as yesterday when I look back\ntwenty, thirty, forty, and even more years; the end, therefore, of my\nmortal term would seem but as to-morrow if it were rightly looked on to.\nA little while, and we shall be young again, beyond all power of time\nand change, with those whom we love, and to continue with them for ever\nand ever.\u201d Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9 utters her pure French h\u00e9las! over the like\nretrospect of twenty years: \u201cH\u00e9las! est-il possible qu\u2019il y ait vingt-un\nans? il me esembleque ce fut l\u2019ann\u00e9e pass\u00e9e; mais je juge, par le peu que\nm\u2019a dur\u00e9 ce temps, ce que me para\u00eetront les ann\u00e9es qui viendront encore.\u201d\nHome, straight home to every heart comes the homely moral of the bard\naddressing the busy, curious, thirsty fly he freely welcomed to his cup,\nand whose little life he compared with his longer yet little own:\u2014\n\n \u201cBoth alike are mine and thine,\n Hastening quick to their decline:\n Thine\u2019s a summer, mine no more,\n Though repeated to threescore;\n Threescore summers, when they\u2019re gone,\n Will appear as short as one.\u201d\n\nIf for threescore we read fourscore, it would not mar the metre, or the\nrhyme or reason.\n\nMan is never so deluded as when he dreams of his own duration, says\nCowper; and he goes on to cite Jacob\u2019s retrospective reviewal of years\nelapsed: \u201cThe answer of the old patriarch to Pharaoh may be adapted by\nevery man at the close of the longest life. \u2018Few and evil have been the\ndays of the years of my pilgrimage.\u2019 Whether we look back from fifty or\nfrom twice fifty, the past equally appears a dream; and we can only be\nsaid truly to have lived while we have been profitably employed.\u201d And as\nthe sovereign lady of French letter-writers has her H\u00e9las! so one of the\nprinces among English letter-writers has his Alas! to utter on this trite\ntopic, \u201cAlas, then, making the necessary deductions, how short is life!\u201d\nThough the life be made up of a thousand years twice told, the tale is\ntold so soon, and the teller seems to himself but as a dreamer, and his\nlittle life is rounded with a sleep; like as a dream when one awaketh.\n\nThe good emperor Marcus Antoninus, one of those whom a broad\nchurchmanship is free and fain to recognise as Seekers after God, is\ntaken to intimate that the difference between a so-called long and a\nshort life is insignificant, in regard of Eternity, when he indites this\naphorism, among his Meditations: \u201cWhen frankincense is thrown upon the\naltar, one grain usually falls before another; but then the distance of\ntime is of no moment.\u201d The moments, so to speak, of difference, are not\nmomentous. Do not all go to one place?\n\nBut in the issue, all depends on the using. Happy the few and evil years\nof a patriarch, if a patriarch indeed, of a pilgrim going home. Be they\nfew and evil in one sense, or in another very many,\u2014\n\n \u201cThey will appear like moments when he soars\n Beyond those sunbreaks.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nDAYBREAK NO SOLACE: NIGHTFALL NO RELIEF.\n\nDEUTERONOMY xxviii. 36, 37.\n\n\nNot the least impressive of the afflictions denounced against a disloyal\npeople, in the book Deuteronomy, is that which should make day and night\na fear and a trouble to them; so that in the morning they should say,\n\u201cWould God it were even!\u201d and at even, \u201cWould God it were morning!\u201d\nThere is at once terrible realism and suggestiveness in words but too\nfamiliar to most who have themselves suffered, or watched by the couch\nof sleepless suffering. Job utters a complaint of wearisome nights as\nappointed to him; so that when he lay down, he said, \u201cWhen shall I arise,\nand the night be gone?\u201d and thus was he full of tossings to and fro unto\nthe dawning of the day. Like the Psalmist, he cried in the daytime, but\nit seemed that God heard not; and in the night season he was not silent,\nbut it seemed as though from above there was neither voice, nor any to\nanswer, nor any that regarded. In such cases, one day telleth another of\nseeming desolation; and one night certifieth another almost of despair.\nAnd the eventide is longed for in broad daylight, if haply, with mere\nchange, it may bring relief. But when it has set in, and eve has saddened\ninto night, there is wearying for daybreak, as possibly the bringer of a\nboon that, however, it fails to bring.\n\nA stanza in one of Shakspeare\u2019s poems contains an example to the purpose:\u2014\n\n \u201cThus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,\n And time doth weary time with her complaining:\n She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow;\n And both she thinks too long with her remaining:\n Short time seems long in sorrow\u2019s sharp sustaining.\n Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;\n And they that watch, see time how slow it creeps.\u201d\n\nAnd thus runs one of Landor\u2019s imitations from the Greek, of an address to\nHesperus:\u2014\n\n \u201cI have beheld thee in the morning hour,\n A solitary star, with thankless eyes,\n Ungrateful as I am! who bade thee rise\n When sleep all night had wandered from my bower.\u201d\n\nOne of, and not the least fearful of, the curses denounced against\nByron\u2019s Manfred is, that to him shall Night deny all the quiet of her\nsky; and the day shall have a sun which shall make him wish it done.\nCrabbe\u2019s Tale of Edward Shore has to tell how, at one stage of that\nsombre career,\u2014\n\n \u201cStruck by new terrors, from his friends he fled,\n And wept his woes upon a restless bed;\n Retiring late, at early hour to rise,\n With shrunken features, and with bloodshot eyes;\n If sleep one moment closed the dismal view,\n Fancy her terrors built upon the true;\n And night and day had their alternate woes,\n That baffled pleasure, and that mocked repose.\u201d\n\nThe hero of one popular prose fiction describes himself as lying awake\nnight after night, quivering with his great sorrow\u2014wishing that the\nfirst dull grey of morning would appear at the window; and when it came,\nlonging for night and darkness once more. Of the heroine in another we\nread that \u201cthe terrible \u2018demon of the bed,\u2019 that invests our lightest\nsorrows with such hopeless and crushing anxiety, reigned triumphant\nover its gentle victim; and yet, when the daylight crept through her\nuncurtained windows, she shrunk from it, as though in her broken spirit\nshe preferred to hide her distress in the gloom of night, fearful and\nunrelieved as was its dark dominion.\u201d How sickening, how dark, exclaims\nKeats, in the fantastic diction of \u201cEndymion,\u201d \u201cthe dreadful leisure\nof weary days, made deeper exquisite by a foreknowledge of unslumbrous\nnight!\u201d Mr. Tennyson pictures to us the simple maid Elaine, who went half\nthe night repeating, Must she die?\n\n \u201cAnd now to right she turned, and now to left,\n And found no ease in turning or in rest\u201d\u2014\n\nlike one of those depicted by Keble\u2014\n\n \u201c... who darkling and alone,\n Would wish the weary night were gone,\n Though dawning morn should only show\n The secret of their unknown woe.\u201d\n\nShelley sings of the desire \u201cof the night for the morrow\u201d when expressing\nthe devotion to something afar from the sphere of our sorrow. Gray\nvividly depicts the state of mind of one who\u2014\n\n \u201c... starts from short slumbers, and wishes for morning\u2014\n To close his dull eyes when he sees it returning.\u201d\n\nOf Mrs. Gaskell\u2019s Jemima we read, that \u201cthe night, the sleepless night,\nwas so crowded and haunted by miserable images, that she longed for day;\nand when day came, with its stinging realities, she wearied and grew sick\nfor the solitude of night.\u201d So with Shenstone\u2019s Jessie:\u2014\n\n \u201cAmid the dreary gloom of night I cry,\n When will the morn\u2019s once pleasing scenes return?\n Yet what can morn\u2019s returning ray supply,\n But foes that triumph, or but friends that mourn?\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_BUYER\u2019S BARGAIN AND BOAST._\n\nPROVERBS xx. 14.\n\n\nConsidering what goes to make up a proverb, it would be strange if,\nin the book of Proverbs, part though it be of holy writ, there should\nbe no touches of the humorous, however restrained and dignified its\nmanifestation. Shrewd insight into character, finding expression\nin phrases of homely vigour, or tranquil irony, or two-edged\nsarcasm,\u2014without much of this, what were a book of proverbs? Assuredly\nthe collected proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, are\nnot careful to eschew a touch of humour when the subject invites, or\nallows of, not to say requires it. Such a subject we have, and such a\ntouch of the jocose, in a verse which sets forth so tersely the tactics\nof traffickers and bargain-makers; how the bidder depreciates the wares\nhe is bidding for, until they are his; and how he alters his tone then,\nand brags at once of their superior worth, and of his own superior skill\nin effecting a purchase. He haggles, and beats them down, and pooh-poohs\nthem, as all but unsaleable, while yet they are on sale; but so soon as\nthe bargain is struck, he goes on his way rejoicing, and perhaps calls\nhis kinsfolk and acquaintance together, to rejoice with him, for he has\nbought dirt cheap what was worth its weight in gold. \u201cIt is naught, it is\nnaught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.\u201d\n\nThe Paris of \u201cTroilus and Cressida\u201d compliments, or, as may be, upbraids\na subtle Greek with his dexterity in this line of policy:\u2014\n\n \u201cFair Diomede, you do as chapmen do,\n Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy.\u201d\n\nIn measure with the intending buyer\u2019s dispraise, is kept up by the\nwould-be seller a song of praise. As Horace has it, _Laudat venales\nqui vult extrudere merces_; and the laudation is apt to be in inverse\nproportion to the intrinsic worth of his wares. Good wine may need no\nbush; but bad wine, on that showing, may need one as big as a tree; and\nthe wine merchant is equal to the occasion.\n\nA. K. H. B. has said of men in towns, aware of the value of time, that\nby long experience they are assured of the uselessness of trying to\noverreach a neighbour in a bargain, because he is so sharp that they\nwill not succeed. But in agricultural districts such practical essayists\nin the art of overreaching are declared to be common enough and to\nspare; and it is one of the Recreations of the Country Parson aforenamed\n(initially at least) to mark out in detail the course which these\nbargain-makers are alleged invariably to follow. \u201cIf they wish to buy a\ncow or rent a field, they begin by declaring with frequency and vehemence\nthat they don\u2019t want the thing,\u2014that in fact they would rather not have\nit,\u2014that it would be inconvenient for them to become possessors of it.\nThey then go on to say that still, if they can get it at a fair price,\nthey may be induced to think of it. They next declare that the cow is\nthe very worst that ever was seen, and that very few men would have such\na creature in their possession.\u201d And so on,\u2014till the strenuous haggler,\nafter wasting two hours, telling sixty-five lies, and stamping himself\nas a cheat, ends the negotiation, without taking anything at all by his\npetty trickery, so complicated and so clumsy withal in its convolutions.\n\nIt is in his estimate of the real merits of English horses, that\nFuller discreetly observes, in meting out temperate but cordial praise\nof their good points, \u201cAnd whilst the seller praiseth them too much,\nthe buyer too little, the indifferent stander-by will give them their\ndue commendation.\u201d What was true of horseflesh and its breeders and\npurchasers, in old Fuller\u2019s day holds good still. Type of a large class\nis that man\u0153uvring major in a popular fiction, of whom, and of his,\n\u201cbargains\u201d in the stable\u2014mostly sedate, elderly animals\u2014we read, that\ncertainly, if the animals could have spoken, they would have expressed\ntheir surprise at the difference in the language used by the major when a\nbuyer and when a seller; for while, as a buyer, he made them out to be,\nlike Gil Blas\u2019 mule, all faults, as a seller he suddenly came round to\nbelieve in them as paragons of perfection.\n\nLeigh Hunt records as his experience of the Italians at home, that to\ncheat you through thick and thin was the universal endeavour\u2014so that a\nperpetual warfare was inevitable, in which you were obliged to fight in\nself-defence. \u201cIf you paid anybody what he asked you, it never entered\ninto his imagination that you did it from anything but folly. You were\npronounced a _minchione_ (a ninny), one of their greatest terms of\nreproach. On the other hand, if you battled well through the bargain,\na perversion of the natural principle of self-defence led to a feeling\nof respect for you.\u201d Dispute might increase, it is added; the man might\ngrin, stare, threaten; might pour out torrents of argument and of\n\u201cinjured innocence,\u201d as they always do; but be firm, and he went away\nequally angry and admiring. \u201cDid anybody condescend to take them in,\nthe admiration as well as the anger was still in proportion, like that\nof the gallant knights of old when they were beaten in single combat.\u201d\nSuch chaffering, or \u201cprigging,\u201d as Burns calls it (in his satiric touch\nat town councillors waddling down the street, in all the pomp of ignorant\nconceit,\u2014\n\n \u201cMen wha grew wise prigging owre hops and raisins),\u201d\n\nsuch haggling, and stickling, and demurring, and deferring, are too truly\nsaid to distinguish the British system of arranging settlements\u2014in which,\nembodying completely the Oriental theory of marriage, a woman is dealt\nwith \u201cas a valuable security, to be exchanged for due consideration.\u201d\nA marriage conducted according to the approved principles is therefore\n\u201ca matter of sharp, close bargaining. No sooner is the romantic part\nof it over, than it is surrendered to the lawyers, who proceed to\nchaffer over it and cheapen their adversary\u2019s claim, as they might do\nif they were purchasing a cow.\u201d A self-styled Oriental student of the\nmodern Syrians, in a book bearing that title, graphically sketches\na representative bargaining scene in a caf\u00e9 at Damascus, between a\nChristian indigo-dealer, in Beyrout costume, and a Jewish dyer; the\nformer pretending to feel insulted at being offered so low a price, and\nthe latter pretending to get into a passion at having his time taken\nup with a fruitless negotiation. Captain Marryat\u2019s Travels in North\nAmerica supply a plurality of parallel passages; now of two misses\n\u201cswopping\u201d bonnets, with an assumed indifference and a suppressed ardour\nalmost ridiculous enough to verge on the sublime; and now of a couple\nof Down-Easters, whittling all the while they are bargaining, and doing\nboth with all their might and main. Fiction-writers who make a study\nof character and manners are fond of introducing scenes of this kind.\nScott\u2019s Antiquary chuckles over his feats in cheapening old curiosities,\nand delights to tell how often he has stood haggling on a halfpenny,\nlest, by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer\u2019s first price, he should\nbe led to suspect the value Mr. Oldbuck sets upon the article: \u201cAnd then,\nMr. Lovel, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration,\nand pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is\ntrembling with pleasure!\u201d The bargaining match with Maggie, the Fairport\nfishwife, is one of the gems of the story. Mr. Charles Reade offers a\nracy pendant in his trafficking encounter between Christie Johnstone,\nthe pride of Newhaven, and the four Irish merchants who have agreed to\nwork together, and to make a show of competition, the better to keep\nthe price down within bounds, but who are no match for woman\u2019s wit and\nwoman\u2019s tongue, as exercised by Christie. The author of \u201cDoctor Jacob\u201d\ndepicts in Herr Schmidt a rosy, round man, with eyes that were never in\ntune with his mouth; the former being sharp, Jewish, and speculative;\nthe latter, supine, commercial, and conservative: \u201cHe made use of his\neyes when he bought, and of his mouth when he sold, giving his customers\nto understand that he was the easiest going man in the world, only\ndesirous of small profits, and by no means miserable if a gold watch or\nany other article went for half its value.\u201d Canon Kingsley enlivens the\nadventures of \u201cHereward\u201d with a certain Dick Hammerhand, the richest man\nin Walcheren, who tries to overreach the hero, and fails to his cost; one\nstage of the transaction taking this turn: \u201cThe less anxious the stranger\nseemed to buy, the more anxious grew Dick to sell; but he concealed his\nanxiety, and let the stranger turn away, thanking him for his drink,\u201d but\nanon renewing the treaty with as much semblance of disregard as he could\nput on. The author of \u201cThe Gayworthys\u201d works up a clever bit of homely\nchaffering between Mrs. Vorse and Widow Horke the strawberry-dealer.\nAnd we find ourselves between a couple of horse-dealers again in \u201cSilas\nMarner:\u201d \u201cBryce of course divined that Dunstan wanted to sell the horse,\nand Dunstan knew that he divined it (horse-dealing is only one of many\nhuman transactions carried on in this ingenious manner); and they both\nconsidered that the bargain was in its first stage, when Bryce replied\nironically, [to the other\u2019s boast of a recent high bid,] \u2018I wonder at\nthat now, I wonder you mean to keep him; for I never heard of a man who\ndidn\u2019t want to sell his horse, getting a bid of half as much again as\nthe horse was worth,\u2019\u201d etc. Trust Bryce to boast of that horse, and of\nthat bargain, so soon as he is gone his way, the horse his, and the\nbargain made. It must be a distorted type of human nature that resembles\nthe discontented man of Theophrastus, who, after taking a great deal\nof pains to beat down the price of a slave, and after he has paid his\nmoney for him,\u2014instead of boasting, breaks out into the grumble, \u201cI am\nsure thou art good for nothing, or I should not have had thee so cheap.\u201d\nA companion picture, in its way, but with the difference between an\ninveterate grumbler and an impenetrable oaf, is that by Plautus of a fool\nwith an old grange to sell, of which property he advertises the singular\nattractions to draw buyers to bid and buy. Nothing ever thrived on it, he\nsays; no owner of it ever died in his bed; the trees were all blasted;\nthe swine died of the measles, the cattle of the murrain, the sheep\nof the rot; nothing was ever reared there, not a duckling, or goose.\n_Hospitium fuit calamitatis._ It is naught, it is naught, saith the\nbuyer? No, the seller, in this case.\n\n\n\n\n_GRAY-HAIRED UNAWARES._\n\nHOSEA vii. 9.\n\n\nAmong the reminders and remonstrances which it was the mission of the\nprophet, the son of Beeri, in the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah, to deliver\nto Ephraim, there was this significant passage, expressive of a reckless\npeople\u2019s unconscious decline, whose lapses were taken account of on high,\nand Ephraim knew it not\u2014\u201cYea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet\nhe knoweth not.\u201d\n\nWho, asks Hartley Coleridge, ever saw their first gray hairs, or marked\nthe crow feet at the angle of their eyes, without a sigh or a tear, a\nmomentaneous self-abasement, a sudden sinking of the soul, a thought that\nyouth is fled for ever? \u201cNone but the blessed few that, having dedicated\ntheir spring of life to Heaven, behold in the shedding of their vernal\nblossoms a promise that the season of immortal fruit is near.\u201d Gray\nhairs, in an advancing stage of the plural number, may be here and there\nupon us before we know of it. But the actual discovery of the first is a\nbit of an epoch in one\u2019s life; and if one exclaims Eureka! it is hardly\nin the most jubilant of tones or the most exultant of tempers.\n\nFalstaff was surprised into a full purpose of amendment of life when he\nlighted on the first white hair on his chin; but only to keep on renewing\nthe purpose weekly, long after chin and head, too, must have been covered\nwith silver or snow.\n\nWith some the humour is to pass off the discovery in seeming glee; and\nperhaps it is the saturnine, melancholy temperament that is likeliest to\ndo this. For instance, Gerbier relates of Charles the First, that one\nmorning \u201cas the King was combing his head, he found a white hair, which\nhe sent to the Queen in merriment. Henrietta Maria immediately wrote\nback that Don Carlos would cause many more to come up before the Emperor\ngave up the Palatinate.\u201d Had the King not been himself combing his head\non this not too auspicious occasion, the probability is, as courts and\ncourtiers go, that his first white hair would not thus have been allowed\nto attract and invite attention. A courtly dresser would have been\nshocked to reveal what he saw, and would have kept the secret with _ex\nofficio_ conscientiousness. Many and many are the uncrowned heads upon\nwhich gray hairs are gathering here and there\u2014a familiar sight enough to\noverseeing (and not overlooking) attendants or friends, but by the owners\nthemselves unsuspected as yet. Mrs. Browning lets Aurora Leigh espy one\nsuch straggler, which even the neat-handed maid-in-waiting overlooks, at\nLady Waldemar\u2019s toilet:\u2014\n\n \u201cHer maid must use both hands to twist that coil\n Of tresses, then be careful lest the rich\n Bronze rounds should slip:\u2014she missed, though, a gray hair,\n A single one,\u2014I saw it; otherwise\n The woman looked immortal.\u201d\n\nIt is among the graver of his Recreations that a clerical essayist\npictures to himself man or woman, thoughtful, earnest, and pious,\nsitting down and musing, at the sight of the first gray hairs. Here is\nthe slight shadow, he puts it, of \u201ca certain great event which is to\ncome;\u201d the earliest touch of a chill hand which must prevail at length.\n\u201cHere is manifest decay: we have begun to die. And no worthy human being\nwill pretend that this is other than a very solemn thought. And we look\nbackward as well as forward: how short a time since we were little\nchildren, and kind hands smoothed down the locks now grown scanty and\ngray.\u201d So in Mrs. Southey\u2019s (Caroline Bowles\u2019) tender, simple verses on\nthe same trite theme:\u2014\n\n \u201cSome there were took fond delight,\n Sporting with these tresses bright,\n To enring with living gold\n Fingers now beneath the mould\n (Woe is me!) grown icy cold.\n ...\n Now again a shining streak\n \u2019Gins the dusky cloud to break;\u2014\n Here and there a glittering thread\n Lights the ringlets, dark and dead\u2014\n Glittering light!\u2014but pale and cold\u2014\n Glittering thread!\u2014but _not_ of _gold_.\n\n Silent warning! silvery streak!\n Not unheeded dost thou speak.\n Not with feelings light and vain,\n Not with fond, regretful pain,\n Look I on the token sent\n To declare the day far spent.\u201d\n\nMr. Thackeray makes his youngish widow, Amelia Osborne, take tranquilly\nenough this sort of revelation. \u201cIn these quiet labours and harmless\ncares the gentle widow\u2019s life was passing away, a silver hair or two\nmarking the progress of time on her head, and a line deepening ever so\nlittle on her fair forehead. She used to smile at these marks of time.\u201d\nWhich accords with her placid temperament. Quite otherwise constituted\nis Currer Bell\u2019s Madame Beck. \u201cA loud bell rang for morning school. She\ngot up. As she passed a dressing-table with a glass upon it, she looked\nat her reflected image. One single white hair streaked her nut-brown\ntresses; she plucked it out with a shudder.\u201d That is an early phase of\nthe decadence of which Mr. Robert Browning graphically depicts a later\nstage:\u2014\n\n \u201cOne day, as the lady saw her youth\n Depart, and the silver thread that streaked\n Her hair, and, worn by the serpent\u2019s tooth,\n The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked\u2014\n She wondered who the woman was,\n So hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked.\u201d\n\nMr. Trollope\u2019s Captain Cutwater is the representative of a large\nconstituency in at least this one salient particular, that he \u201chad no\nidea that he was an old man. He had lived for so many years among men\nof his own stamp, who had grown gray and bald and rickety and weak\nalongside of him,\u201d that when he moved into a younger circle, and settled\nthere, he ignored the disparity of ages. In Juvenal\u2019s emphatic phrase,\nold age steals upon us unawares,\u2014unperceived, unrecognised: _obrepit non\nintellecta senectus_. This stealthy in-coming, or on-coming, of old age\nis an iterated topic in the classics. Cicero, indeed, had been beforehand\nwith Juvenal, almost word for word: _non intelligitur quando obrepit\nsenectus_. There is Ovid, again, with his \u201cstealthy lapse\u201d of age,\nbeguiling as it wears away: _labitur occulte, fallitque volubilis \u00e6tas_;\nand with his elsewhere reminder, that time glides on, and with noiseless\nyears we grow older till we grow old: _Tempora labuntur, tacitisque\nsenescimus annis_. Without, as Hazlitt says, our in the least suspecting\nit, the mists are at our feet, and the shadows of age encompass us.\nLeigh Hunt somewhere comments feelingly on the difficulty of learning\nhow narrow and dim a boundary separates mature from old age; and quoting\nhis own personal experience, says, that a single illness made the line\nof demarcation clear to him. So M. de Ste.-Beuve: _Rien n\u2019est p\u00e9nible \u00e0\nd\u00e9m\u00ealer comme les confins des ages: il faut souvent que quelque chose\nvienne du dehors et coupe court_.\n\nThere is all the more force in the kindly wish of Mr. Tennyson\u2019s Will\nWaterproof, that the plump object of it may live long, ere from his\ntopmost head the thickset hazel dies; long, ere the hateful crow shall\ntread the corners of his eyes; all the more force as coming from one who\nhas to own of himself\u2014\n\n \u201cFor I had hope, by something rare,\n To prove myself a poet;\n But, while I plan, and plan, my hair\n Is gray before I know it.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_RESTRAINED ANGER._\n\nPROVERBS xvi. 32.\n\n\n\u201cHe that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth\nhis spirit than he that taketh a city.\u201d To be ruled by one\u2019s angry spirit\nis cruel bondage indeed, for that taskmaster never spares the lash. To\nrule or to be ruled,\u2014that is the question.\n\n \u201cIra furor brevis est: animum rege; qui, nisi paret,\n Imperat: hunc frenis, hunc tu compesce caten\u00e2.\u201d\n\nMarcus Antoninus, in his Meditations, calls rage and resentment marks of\nan unmanly disposition; mildness and temper being not only more humane,\nbut, he contends, more masculine too. And the philosophic emperor wrote\nand spoke as one of, what Mr. Matthew Arnold calls, those\n\n \u201c... milder natures, and more free,\n Whom an unblamed serenity\n Hath freed from passions, and the state\n Of struggle these necessitate.\u201d\n\nFrom that state of struggle many a victor emerges with honourable scars,\nbut deep. Famous and significant is the story of the physiognomist who\ndetected in the features of Socrates the traces of that fiery temper\nwhich for the most part he kept in severe control, but which, when it\ndid break loose, is described by those who witnessed it as absolutely\nterrible, overleaping both in act and language every barrier of the\nordinary decorum of Grecian manners. Le Clerc\u2019s _\u00e9loge_ of John Locke\nincludes the remark that if he had any defect, it was the being somewhat\npassionate; \u201cbut he had got the better of it by reason, and it was very\nseldom that it did him or any one else any harm.\u201d Of Rudolf of Hapsburg\nwe are told that he was by nature warm and choleric, but that as he\nadvanced in years he corrected this defect. To some of his friends,\nexpressing their wonder that since his elevation to the imperial dignity\nhe had restrained the vehemence of his temper, the founder of the House\nof Austria replied, \u201cI have often repented of being passionate, never\nof being mild and humane.\u201d One of Cromwell\u2019s biographers reports his\n\u201ctemper exceeding fiery; but the flame of it kept down for the most\npart, or soon allayed with those moral endowments he had.\u201d The admirable\nFrederick Borromeo was admired for a placability, a sweetness of manner\nnearly imperturbable, which, however, as Manzoni reminds us, was not\nnatural to the devout prelate, but was the effect of continual combat\nagainst a quick and hasty disposition. Lord Clarendon more than once in\nhis autobiography, plumes himself on having mastered and \u201csuppressed\nthat heat and passion he was naturally inclined to be transported with.\u201d\n\u201cThey who knew the great infirmity of his whole family, which abounded\nin passion, used to say he had much extinguished the unruliness of that\nfire.\u201d Lord Macaulay turns to the advantage of his favourite chancellor\nthe assertion of his detractors, that the disposition of the great\nSomers was very far from being so gentle as the world believed, that he\nwas really prone to the angry passions, and that sometimes, while his\nvoice was soft, and his words kind and courteous, his delicate frame was\nalmost convulsed by suppressed emotion. His brilliant advocate is fain to\naccept this reproach as the highest of all eulogies. Again: Sir Archibald\nAlison assures us of Sir Robert Peel, that he was by nature afflicted\nwith a most violent temper, and that so extreme were his paroxysms of\nanger, when a young man, that he used, while they were coming on, to shut\nhimself up alone till the dark fit was over. \u201cBy degrees, however, he\nobtained the mastery of this infirmity, and this at length so effectually\nthat he passed with the world, at a distance, as a man of a singularly\ncold and phlegmatic temperament.\u201d Lady Holland reports her distinguished\nfather to have been naturally choleric,\u2014prefacing the statement by a\nreflection, that, although it is not the part of a daughter to reveal\nfaults, yet a fault nobly repaired, or repented of, adds to the respect\nand interest which a character inspires. By her showing, then, Mr. Sydney\nSmith was by nature quick and hasty, but always struggled against the\nfailing, and made many regulations to avoid exciting any such emotions;\nand when he did give way, it often excited his biographer\u2019s admiration\nto see him gradually subduing his chafed spirit, and to observe his\ndissatisfaction with himself till he had humbled himself and made his\npeace, it mattered not with whom, groom or child. \u201cHe could not bear the\nreproaches of his own heart.\u201d So Mr. Henry Rogers observes of Locke,\nand his success, by dint of \u201cimmense pains\u201d taken, in subjugating his\ncholeric propensity, that his anxiety for its complete subjugation\nappears in his never being so angry with another as he always was with\nhimself\u2014for being angry. Those who are conversant with the journal and\nletters of Dr. Chalmers, may remember how often that good man takes\nhimself to task for infirmities of temper, and how strenuously he\nresolves to strive to keep down every tendency to irritation when in\ncompany, to \u201ctry to maintain a vigorous contest with this unfortunate\npeculiarity of my temper,\u201d to \u201cschool down every irritable feeling;\u201d and\nhow remorsefully he records such instances as getting \u201cinto a violent\npassion with Sandy,\u201d and getting \u201cruffled with Jane,\u201d in a manner and to\na degree \u201cquite unchristian.\u201d Passages abound such as, \u201cNow is the time\nfor reflecting on the evils of intemperate passion;\u201d \u201cerred egregiously\nthis evening in venting my indignation;\u201d \u201cI may at least ward off the\nassaults of anger;\u201d \u201cerred in betraying my anger to my servant and wife;\u201d\n\u201cconstant visitations of indignancy; this exceedingly wrong: there is not\na greater foe to spirituality than wrath.\u201d \u201cO my God, deliver me from\nall rancour and much irritableness,\u201d[41] etc., etc. \u201cHere,\u201d to apply the\nlines of Wordsworth\u2019s son-in-law,\u2014\n\n \u201cHere was a temper less by nature tuned\n Than harmonized by discipline to rule,\n And by religion sanctified to peace.\u201d\n\nThe pen is too truly said to be a fruitful source of regrets to some of\nus, in regard of the outbreaks of temper we allow it to put on paper; and\nnever is the sting sharper, says one essayist, than when we realize that\nour imprudence is in black and white, beyond our reach, irrevocable. \u201cWe\nsend off our letter, to repent sometimes how bitterly!\u201d _Litera scripta\nmanet._ Hence the advice of another, never to write in anger, or, at\nany rate, to keep your letter till you are cool. We are recommended,\nwhen indignant at any one\u2019s conduct, to write a letter couched in the\nstrongest terms possible, as satirical and cutting as we can make it,\nand having done this, to direct, seal, and put it in our desk for a few\nhours, then read it for our own satisfaction, and tear it up. Another\npopular authority, earnestly deprecating angry letters, lays down as a\nrule to be observed throughout the letter-writing world, that no angry\nletter be posted till four and twenty hours shall have elapsed since it\nwas written. \u201cWe all know how absurd is that other rule, of saying the\nalphabet when you are angry. Trash! Sit down and write your letter; write\nit with all the venom in your power; spit out your spleen at the fullest;\nit will do you good: you think you have been injured; say all that you\ncan say with all your poisoned eloquence, and gratify yourself by reading\nit while your temper is still hot. Then put it in your desk, and, as a\nmatter of course, burn it before breakfast the following morning. Believe\nme that you will then have a double gratification.\u201d _Loquitur_ the\nperhaps most widely read, and without a perhaps the most prolific, writer\nof the day.\n\nWhen C\u0153ur-de-Lion, in Scott\u2019s \u201cTalisman,\u201d incensed and mortified at the\nTemplar\u2019s tactics, yet foresaw the penalty of giving way to his headlong\nresentment, with a strong effort he remained silent till he had repeated\na pater noster, that being the course which \u201chis confessor had enjoined\nhim to pursue when anger was likely to obtain dominion over him.\u201d The\nfamiliar \u201ccount five-and-twenty, Tattycoram,\u201d in one of Mr. Dickens\u2019\nlater stories is but another practical application of the selfsame text.\n\nGibbon adds to his account of the public penance inflicted by Ambrose on\nTheodosius, for the massacre of Thessalonica, this remark: \u201cand the edict\nwhich interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence\nand the execution, may be accepted as the worthy fruits of his [the\nemperor\u2019s] repentance.\u201d For it was by a hasty resolve that Theodosius\nswore in his wrath to expiate the blood of his lieutenant, Botheric,\nby the blood of a guilty people; his fiery and choleric temper being\nimpatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry. In hot haste he\ndespatched the messengers of death; but attempted, when it was too late,\nto prevent the execution of his own orders. Avenging furiously in haste,\nhe had to repent at leisure; and he did repent.\n\nIt is impossible, perhaps, observed Dean Swift, for the best and wisest\namong us to keep so constant a guard upon our temper but that we may\nat some time or other lie open to the strokes of fortune. Incensed on\none occasion, \u201cit was natural for me to have immediate recourse to my\npen and ink; but before I would offer to make use of them, I resolved\ndeliberately to tell over a hundred; and when I came to the end of\nthat sum, I found it more advisable to defer drawing up my intended\nremonstrance till I had slept soundly on my resentments.\u201d We are told\nof the celebrated Macklin, that although so particular in drilling the\nperformers at rehearsals, he was scrupulous in keeping his temper down,\nthe irritability of which he knew too well; and that on one occasion he\ninterposed an hour by his stop-watch, all retiring together from the\nstage to the green-room, at the end of which time all were in good humour\nagain, and the rehearsal was resumed. \u201cWhen the evil effects of hasty\nanger approach, the consequences of which may be irretrievable,\u201d\u2014thus\nmoralizes a fellow-craftsman, John O\u2019Keeffe,\u2014\u201cit would be no harm if all\nof us could suppress our own feelings, even for Macklin\u2019s green-room\nhour.\u201d His mighty master, Shakspeare, would have supplied him with a\nprecedent, in the case of good Duke Humphrey, who says as he re-enters,\u2014\n\n \u201cNow, lords, my choler being overblown\n With walking once about the quadrangle,\n I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.\u201d\n\nSir Thomas Fowell Buxton\u2019s secretary, Mr. Nixon, on his own showing,\ncould not refrain from blurting out just what he felt at the moment,\nwhen differences arose between the two. This used to vex Sir Thomas,\nwho however would say nothing till the next day, and then, when the\nsecretary thought that the whole matter had passed off (having perhaps\nreceived great kindness in the meantime), the remonstrance would come\nout, \u201cWhat a silly fellow you were, Nixon, to put yourself in such a\npassion yesterday! If I had spoken then, we should most probably have\nparted. Make it a rule never to speak when you are in a passion, but wait\ntill the next day.\u201d And we are assured that, if at any time he happened\nto transgress this rule himself, he was seriously vexed and grieved,\nand could not rest till he had in some way made amends for his want of\nself-restraint.\n\nMoli\u00e8re\u2019s Arnolphe propounds the prophylactic rule with emphasis and\ndiscretion:\n\n \u201cUn certain Grec disait \u00e0 l\u2019empereur Auguste,\n Comme une instruction utile autant que juste,\n Que lorsqu\u2019une aventure en col\u00e9re nous met,\n Nous devons, avant tout, dire n\u00f4tre alphabet,\n Afin que dans ce temps la bile se temp\u00e8re,\n Et qu\u2019on ne fasse rien que l\u2019on ne doive faire.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_EVANESCENCE OF THE EARLY DEW._\n\nHOSEA vi. 3.\n\n\nBy the word of the prophet Hosea, the Divine reproach fell on Ephraim and\non Judah, that their goodness was as a morning cloud, and that as the\nearly dew it passed away. Bright was the promise of innocent dawn, but\nthe promise was unfulfilled. A stern moral application lies in the words\nof Dante:\n\n \u201c... The will in man\n Bears goodly blossoms; but its ruddy promise\n Is, by the dripping of perpetual rain,\n Made mere abortion: faith and innocence\n Are met with but in babes; each taking leave\n Ere cheeks with down are sprinkled.\u201d\n\nAdam Smith observes, in his \u201cTheory of Moral Sentiment,\u201d that, in the eye\nof nature, it would seem, a child is a more important object than an old\nman, and excites a much more lively, as well as a much more universal\nsympathy. \u201cIt ought to do so,\u201d he adds. \u201cEverything may be expected, or\nat least hoped, from the child. In ordinary cases, very little can be\neither expected or hoped from the old man.\u201d It is regretful, remorseful\neld that is supposed to utter the lament, in gazing on childish faces and\nforms, heaven-encompassed infancy,\u2014\n\n \u201cO little souls! as pure and white\n And crystalline as rays of light\n Direct from heaven, their source divine;\n Refracted through the mist of years,\n How red my setting sun appears,\n How lurid looks this soul of mine!\u201d\n\nMrs. Trench writes to the poet of the \u201cPleasures of Memory,\u201d and with\ndirect reference to that poem, \u201cIn looking back, the only days I\nearnestly desire to recall, are those which glided away while I was\n\u2018girt with growing infancy,\u2019 and read in the eyes and the smiles of my\nchildren, who were affectionate and beautiful, a promise of happiness,\nsuch as this world can never fulfil.\u201d A more vigorous poet than Samuel\nRogers, has a vigorous but gloomy stanza on the kindling emotions of\nyoung motherhood, when the wife\u2014\n\n \u201cBlest into mother, in the innocent look,\n Or even the piping cry of lips that brook\n No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives\n Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook\n She sees her little bud put forth its leaves\u2014\n What may the fruits be yet?\u2014I know not\u2014Cain was Eve\u2019s.\u201d\n\nThe fallen young mother in Mrs. Gaskell\u2019s story hails in her child a new,\npure, beautiful, innocent life, which she fondly imagines, in the early\npassion of maternal love, she can guard from every touch of corrupting\nsin by ever watchful and most tender care. \u201cAnd _her_ mother had thought\nthe same, most probably; and thousands of others think the same, and pray\nto God to purify and cleanse their souls, that they may be fit guardians\nfor their little children.\u201d\n\nJuvenal asks, \u201cwhat morn\u2019s so holy but its sun betrays theft, perfidy,\nand fraud.\u201d The thief, the betrayer, the cheat, was once a child. Ovid\nurges the dissimilitude between such a man and such a child: _dissimiles\nhic vir, et ille puer_. The Abb\u00e9 Delille expatiates on the attractions of\neach Spring-tide, and, by affinity, of each new-born Day, as consisting\nin its refreshing redolence of promise\u2014\u201c_qui ne nous fait que des\npromesses_.\u201d Fraught with feeling in every line is the following sonnet\naddressed by the late Baron Alderson to one of his children on her second\nbirthday:\n\n \u201cSweet is the fragrance of the morning hour,\n Sweet is the sun\u2019s first radiance, sweet the year,\n In the spring\u2019s early promise, sweet the flower,\n Seen in its buds, ere yet its leaves appear\u2014\n But sweeter far, my angel babe, to me\n Is that blue eye that speaks thy opening mind,\n That beams with new quick thoughts, yet undefined,\n That tell of what is now and what may be.\n O may the God who taught us that, like thee,\n We should be pure and spotless, bless thee still;\n Lay on thy infant head His hand, to free\n Thine heart from sin, and form thee to His will,\n Cleanse thee from aught that\u2019s evil or defiled,\n And keep thee as thou art, my darling child.\u201d\n\nGeorge Eliot somewhere speaks of a promise void, like so many other\nsweet, illusory promises of our childhood; void as promises made in\nEden before the seasons were divided, and when the starry blossoms grew\nside by side with the ripening peach\u2014impossible to be fulfilled when\nthe golden gates had been passed. Mr. Dickens says of the faint image\nof Eden which is stamped upon our hearts in childhood, that it \u201cchafes\nand rubs in our rough struggles with the world, and soon wears away; too\noften to leave nothing but a mournful blank remaining.\u201d Elia, the essay\nwriter, is no way backward to own the demerits and even delinquencies\nof himself as Elia, the middle aged man; but for the child Elia, that\n\u201cother me,\u201d there, in the background,\u2014he must take leave to cherish the\nremembrance of that young master\u2014with as little reference, he protests,\nto this stupid changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child\nof some other house, and not _his_ father\u2019s son. \u201cI know how it shrank\nfrom any the least colour of falsehood. God help thee, Elia, how art thou\nchanged! Thou art sophisticated. I know how honest, how courageous (for a\nweakling) it was\u2014how religious, how imaginative, how hopeful. From what\nhave I not fallen, if the child I remember was indeed myself!\u201d\n\nStupid changelings of forty-five, their name is Legion, for they are\nindeed many. Glance with Shenstone at the shiny row of plump promissory\nfaces in the dame school:\u2014\n\n \u201cEven now sagacious foresight points to show\n A little bench of heedless bishops here,\n And there a chancellor in embryo,\n Or bard sublime, if bard may e\u2019er be so,\n As Milton, Shakspeare, names that ne\u2019er shall die!\u201d\n\nSo, to apply the words of Hazlitt, if we look back to past generations\n(as far as eye can reach), we see the same fears, hopes, wishes, followed\nby the same disappointments, throbbing in the human heart; and so we may\never see them (if we look forward) rising up for ever, and disappearing\nlike vapourish bubbles. Capable of application even are Joanna Baillie\u2019s\nlines assimilating the stupid changelings aforesaid to a dull cat in\ncontrast with its sprightly, mercurial kittenhood:\u2014\n\n \u201cAh! many a lightly sportive child,\n Who hath like thee our wits beguiled,\n To dull and sober manhood grown,\n With strange recoil our hearts disown.\u201d\n\n_Il y a en chacun de nous_, writes Sainte-Beuve, _un \u00eatre primitif,\nid\u00e9al, que la nature a dessin\u00e9 de sa main la plus maternelle, mais\nque l\u2019homme trop souvent \u00e9toffe ou corrompt_. Mr. Kingsley, in a\ntouching reflection\u2014literally reflection, looking back\u2014on the \u201clong\nlost might-have been,\u201d adverts to that personal idea which every soul\nbrings with it into the world, which shines dim and potential in the\nface of every sleeping babe, before it has been scarred, and distorted,\nand encrusted in the long tragedy of life. Dr. Caird has said of the\nbirthday of the worst of men, that although it ushered a new agent of\nevil into existence, and was a day fraught with more disastrous results\nto the world than the day in which the pestilence began to creep over\nthe nations, or the blight to fasten on the food of man, or any other\nphysical evil to enter on a career of world-wide devastation,\u2014yet might\nthis day, when the vilest of humanity first saw the light, be in some\naspects of it regarded as better (despite Solomon\u2019s text) than the day\nof his death. \u201cFor, to take only one view of it, when life commenced,\nthe problem of good or evil, to which death has brought so terrible a\nsolution, was, in his case, as yet unsolved. The page of human history\nwhich he was to write was yet unwritten, and to that day belonged,\nat all events, the advantage of the uncertainty whether it was to be\nblurred and blotted, or written fair and clean.\u201d Life, even in the most\nunfavourable circumstances, it is urged, has ever some faint gleams of\nhope to brighten its outset. The preacher owns that the simplicity, the\ntenderness, the unconscious refinement that more or less characterize\ninfancy, even among the lowest and rudest, soon indeed pass away,\nand give place to the coarseness of an unideal, if not the animal\nrepulsiveness of a sensual or sinful life. But he insists that at least\nat the beginning, for a little while, there is something in the seeming\ninnocency, the brightness, the unworldliness, the unworn freshness of\nchildhood, that gives hope room to work. Is there not, he asks, for every\nchild, not in the dreams of parental fondness only, but in reality,\nand in God\u2019s idea, the possibility of a noble future? \u201cThe history of\neach new-born soul is surely in God\u2019s plan and intention a bright and\nblessed one. For the vilest miscreant that was ever hounded out of life\nin dishonour and wretchedness, there was, in the mind of the All-Good, a\nDivine ideal, a glorious possibility of excellence, which might have been\nmade a reality.\u201d The most hardened ruffian, the most obdurate criminal,\nthe most impenetrable reprobate, was once a child.\n\nIf it be a philosophical truth that the child is father of the man\u2014all\nthat is now broadly emblazoned in the man having been once latent\u2014seen\nor not seen\u2014as a vernal bud in the child; it is not therefore true\nuniversally, as Mr. de Quincey points out, that all which pre-exists in\nthe child finds its development in the man. \u201cRudiments and tendencies,\nwhich _might_ have found, sometimes by accident, _do_ not find, sometimes\nunder the killing frost of counter forces, _cannot_ find, their natural\nevolution.\u201d Most of what he has, the grown-up man is shown to inherit\nfrom his infant self; but it does not follow that he always enters upon\nthe whole of his natural inheritance. Childhood has been passionately\napostrophized as\n\n \u201c... thou vindication\n Of God\u2014thou living witness against all men\n Who have been babes\u2014thou everlasting promise\n Which no man keeps!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_EARS TO HEAR._\n\nST. LUKE viii. 8.\n\n\n\u201cHe that hath ears to hear, let him hear.\u201d These words cried Jesus,\nat the close of His parable of the Sower. And He went on to say that\nto some, to the many, He spake in parables, that seeing they might\nnot see\u2014not having eyes to see; and that hearing they might not\nunderstand\u2014not having ears to hear in the Gospel sense. Nor in the\nOld Testament sense; for these very words are cited from Isaiah; in\nDeuteronomy too we read of those to whom the Lord hath not given ears to\nhear; and in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, of those who have ears to hear,\nand hear not. One apostle laments the destiny of those to whom God hath\ngiven the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that\nthey should not hear. And to another was entrusted the appeal, \u201cHe that\nhath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.\u201d For\nonly the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. The unwise is like the deaf\nadder that stoppeth her ear. The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the\nLord hath made even both of them.\n\nGive but interest in the theme, and the listener\u2019s ear fulfils its\nnatural function, that of hearing. \u201cMine ears hast Thou opened.\u201d\nIntensify the interest, and the listener is all ears, all ear. Milton\npictures a time\u2014\n\n \u201cwhen, Adam first of men,\n To first of women, Eve thus moving speech,\n Turn\u2019d him, all ear.\u201d\n\nSo again the attendant spirit in his \u201cComus\u201d:\u2014\n\n \u201c... I was all ear,\n And took in strains that might create a soul\n Under the ribs of Death.\u201d\n\nWebster\u2019s ill-starred Duchess of Malfi assures her brother, \u201cI will plant\nmy soul in my ears to hear you.\u201d _Je t\u2019\u00e9coute sans cligner la paupi\u00e8re_,\nexclaims Marillac, in \u201cGerfaut,\u201d _d\u00fbt ta narration durer sept jours et\nsept nuits_. \u201cAlarmed nature starts up in my heart, and opens a thousand\nears to listen,\u201d cries Colonel Talbot in an old play. Perplexed in the\nextreme, and cut to the heart, by a revelation of household treachery and\nwrong, an incredulous husband is described in a modern romance, with his\nhands clasped together, and with his head bent to catch every syllable\nof the harrowing news,\u2014listening \u201cas if his whole being were resolved\ninto that one sense of hearing.\u201d That reads like a literal translation of\nBalzac\u2019s description of one whose whole _vie se concentra dans le seul\nsens de l\u2019ou\u00efe_. On another page he is not forgetful of _certains hommes_\nwho _se bouchent les oreilles pour ne plus rien entendre_. None so deaf\nas those who will not hear. Next to them may rank those who do not care\nto. The familiar narrative of \u201cEyes and No Eyes\u201d might easily have its\npendent and parallel, point by point, and paragraph by paragraph, in one\nto be called _Ears and No Ears_.\n\nIt is with hearing as with seeing. The eye is not satisfied with seeing,\nnor the ear filled with hearing. Mendelssohn, in one of his letters from\nabroad, rapturous with gazing on his \u201cfavourite Titian,\u201d declares that\none \u201cmight well wish for a dozen more eyes to look one\u2019s fill at such\na picture.\u201d \u201cHad I three ears I\u2019d hear thee!\u201d exclaims Macbeth, when\nsummoned to attend by the apparition of an Armed Head, in the witches\u2019\ncave. Just as one of Plato\u2019s epigrams expresses a wish for the thousand\neyes of the starry sky, that he might gaze his fill on the star of his\nlife:\n\n \u03b5\u1f34\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03af\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\n \u039f\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2, \u1f61\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f44\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03af\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9.\n\nHorace uses the expressive phrase, _bibit aure_, in one of his\nodes\u2014literally, \u201cdrink in with the ear\u201d\u2014a phrase admired by the\ncommentators for its lyric boldness. \u201cI was all fixed to listen,\u201d says\nDante, in the tenth gulf of _l\u2019Inferno_. \u201cO speak your counsel now,\nfor Saturn\u2019s ear is all a-hungered,\u201d entreats the Titan, in Keats\u2019s\n_Hyperion_. D\u2019Artagnan, in the ante-chamber of M. de Treville, is\ndescribed as looking with all his eyes and listening with all his ears,\nstretching his five senses so as to lose nothing. The same author tells\nhow Mazarin listened, dying as he was, to Anne of Austria, as ten living\nmen could not have listened. \u201cWill you listen?\u201d asks a prince in the same\nstory; and is answered, \u201cCan you ask me? You speak of a matter of life or\ndeath to me, and then ask if I will listen.\u201d\n\nWhen Falstaff asks the prince, \u201cDost thou hear me, Hal?\u201d \u201cAy, and mark\nthee too,\u201d is the reply; and that there is a difference between hearing\nand marking, between lending one ear and giving both, Falstaff knew as\nwell as most men. And could practise what he knew, if occasion prompted.\nWitness his wilful deafness when taken to task by the Lord Chief\nJustice. \u201cBoy, tell him I\u2019m deaf,\u201d he bids his page say. So, \u201cYou must\nspeak louder, my master\u2019s deaf,\u201d says the boy. \u201cI am sure he is, to the\nhearing of anything good,\u201d rejoins the Chief Justice. And when, anon,\nhis lordship taxes the incorrigible knight with being deaf to what he\nis saying, Sir John assures him, with that consummate assurance of his,\nthat he hears him very well: \u201cRather, an\u2019t please you, it is the disease\nof not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.\u201d\nQuite capable is that witty profligate of entering into the import of\neach phrase in the collect on the Holy Scriptures, which prays that we\nmay in such wise hear them, as to mark and learn, and inwardly digest\nthem.\n\nA late divine, treating of \u201canimal men\u201d in the \u201canimal\u201d sense of St.\nPaul, as those who cannot discern spiritual things, but are absorbed in\nanimalism as their being\u2019s end and aim, affirmed that unavailing as it\nseems to be to talk to them of religion, it avails no more talking of\npoetry, and art, or speculative science, or the nobler things of the\nsoul: \u201cHow can such men discern the things of the Spirit? They understand\nTennyson as little as they understand St. Paul.\u201d Having ears they hear\nnot anything so far away as the music of the spheres. Of _that_, and such\nas that, the animal man might say, by self-application of a couplet of\nCowper\u2019s,\n\n \u201cFor which, alas! my destiny severe,\n Though ears she gave me two, gave me no ear.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_NOT ALONE IN THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS._\n\nPSALM xxiii. 4.\n\n\nNo good thing will He, from whom cometh every good gift, withhold from\nthem that love Him, and that walk uprightly; least of all then His\npresence when most that presence is indispensable,\u2014as a _very_ present\nhelp in trouble. And when so indispensable as in the valley of the\nshadow of death\u2014darkening more and more unto the perfect night? We must\ndie alone. It is a truism, in its natural sense. But in what the devout\nmind refuses to call or consider a non-natural sense, the righteous hath\ncompanionship as well as hope in his death. He who can say, The Lord is\nmy shepherd, I shall not want, confines not his reliance to the range\nof green pastures and still waters, but extends it to the glooms of the\ngrave and the swellings of Jordan. Not alone at the last, for the Good\nShepherd knoweth His sheep, and is known of them. And how known? For one\nthat will not let them want. \u201cYea, though I walk through the valley of\nthe shadow of death I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod\nand Thy staff they comfort me.\u201d\n\nPascal said that the solitude of death was the bitterest pang of\nhumanity; and because one must die alone, the end of life is its heaviest\ntrial. Some Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, very French, have essayed, in\ntheir peculiar fashion, to elude the disaster, simply by dying in public.\nPeople in Paris died in public in the seventeenth century. Death, as\nMr. Herman Merivale puts it, was but the last scene of the play, to\nbe performed with a theatrical bow and exit. He shows us the young\nbeauty, perishing of dissipation, who made her adieux to the world in\nappropriate costume and sentiments; and the worn-out statesman, who\nmight not turn his face to the wall in peace, but was surrounded by a\nwhole court in full dress, and talked on till his husky accents could\nno longer convey the last of his smart sayings to the listeners.[42]\nWith all his fribbles and frivolities Horace Walpole was not quite\nFrenchified enough to willingly face death in a French hotel, with all\nits noise and excitement, \u201cand, what would be still worse, exposed to\nreceive all visits; for the French, you know,\u201d he writes to Conway, \u201care\nnever more in public than in the act of death. I am like animals, and\nlove to hide myself when I am dying\u201d\u2014which refers to his periodical, and\nprolonged, and always perilous attacks of gout. \u201cIf,\u201d says the author of\n\u201cLife in the Sick-room,\u201d \u201cI could not trust my friends to save me from\ninvoluntary encroachment at the last, I had rather scoop myself a hole\nin the sand of the desert, and die alone, than be tended by the gentlest\nhands, and soothed by the most loving voices in the choicest chamber.\u201d\nWordsworth\u2019s Marmaduke exclaims,\u2014\n\n \u201cGive me a reason why the wisest thing\n That the earth knows shall never choose to die,\n But some one must be near to count his groans.\n The wounded deer retires to solitude,\n And dies in solitude: all things but man,\n All die in solitude.\u201d\n\nSpecial note has been taken of the exceptional characteristic in the\naltogether exceptional career of the prophet Elijah, that, in his last\nhour, when he was on his way to a strange and unprecedented departure\nfrom this world\u2014when the whirlwind and flame chariot were ready, he\nasked for no human companionship. \u201cThe bravest men are pardoned if one\nlingering feeling of human weakness clings to them at the last, and\nthey desire a human eye resting on them\u2014a human hand in theirs\u2014a human\npresence. But Elijah would have rejected all. In harmony with the rest\nof his lonely severe character, he desired to meet his Creator alone.\u201d\nOne hears of such preferences now and then, in oddly constituted natures.\nSir Walter Scott, in a letter to his sister-in-law, appears to indicate\na disposition of this kind as prevalent in his father\u2019s family. \u201cPoor\naunt Curle,\u201d he tells her, \u201cdied like a Roman, or rather like one of the\nSandy-Knowe bairns, the most stoical race I ever knew. She turned every\none out of the room, and drew her last breath alone. So did my uncle,\nCaptain Robert Scott, and several others of that family.\u201d Affectation\nwas so inherent in Chateaubriand\u2019s confessions and professions, that\none knows not how far genuine may have been his plea for what he calls\nthe \u201cnecessity of isolation,\u201d and its advantages in death as in life.\n\u201cAny hand is good enough to reach us the glass of water that we call for\nin the fever of death. Ah! may that hand not be too dear to us!\u201d The\n\u201cnecessity of isolation\u201d reminds us of Keble\u2019s query:\u2014\n\n \u201cWhy should we faint and fear to live alone,\n Since all alone, so Heaven has will\u2019d, we die,\n Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,\n Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh?\u201d\n\nAnd that again reminds us, with a difference\u2014the difference between\nMadame de Sta\u00ebl and the sweet singer of the \u201cChristian Year,\u201d\u2014of Corinne\non her death-bed, saying to Castel Forte: \u201cBut for you, I should die\nalone. There is no help for such a moment; friends can but follow us to\nthe brink; there begin thoughts too deep, too troublous, to be confided.\u201d\n_Mon sort est de mourir seul_, writes Rousseau\u2019s bereaved Solitaire;\n_et la seule Providence me fermera les yeux_. Scott was not of mere\nimagination all compact when he made Edie Ochiltree say, in the cave that\nforms the old mendicant\u2019s favourite retreat, \u201cI hae had mony a thought,\nthat when I found myself auld and forfairn, and no able to enjoy God\u2019s\nblessed air ony langer, I wad e\u2019en streek mysell out here, and abide my\nremoval, like an auld dog that trails its useless ugsome carcass into\nsome bush or bracken.\u201d Montaigne says that, might he have his choice,\nhe thought he should like best to die out of his own house, and away\nfrom his own people. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, on the seventh day\nof his last illness, admitted none but his unworthy son (Commodus) to\nhis chamber, and after a few words dismissed him, \u201ccovered his head for\nsleep, and\u201d\u2014in Dean Merivale\u2019s words\u2014\u201cpassed away alone and untended.\u201d\nEpigrammatic historians love to tell of Catherine the Great, who had\nreigned over five hundred and forty towns, over forty-two governments,\nover a multitude of isles of the sea from Kamschatka to Japan, and over\neighty millions of slaves, that she died alone, entirely alone, without\na single slave at hand to support her drooping head. The picture is\nmeant to be sensational, and as written in French and for the French,\nit may be telling enough. It tells, for instance, upon such a nature as\nMadame Sophie Gay, who used to promise her friends to come and die among\nthem, when it was her turn and her time; adding, in her very French\nstyle, \u201cJe ne veux pas que cette demoiselle\u201d\u2014meaning _la mort_\u2014\u201cme\ntrouve seule.\u201d Upon others, the grand climax of supreme solitude fails\nof effect. \u201cIt has always been my wish,\u201d writes Southey, for example,\n\u201cto die far from my friends, to crawl like a dog into some corner and\nexpire unseen. I would neither give nor receive unavailing pain.\u201d When\ndeath overtook St. Francis Xavier, he was on board of a vessel bound\nfor Siam, and at his own request he was removed to the shore, that he\nmight die with the greater composure. Stretched on the naked beach,\nwith the cold blasts of a Chinese winter aggravating his pains\u2014thus Sir\nJames Stephen describes his last moments\u2014he contended alone with the\nagonies of the fever which wasted his vital power. \u201cIt was an agony and\na solitude for which the happiest of the sons of men might well have\nexchanged the dearest society, and the purest of the joys of life.... It\nwas a solitude thronged by blessed ministers of peace and consolation,\nvisible in all their bright and lovely aspects to the now unclouded eye\nof faith; and audible to the dying martyr through the yielding bars of\nhis mortal prison-house, in strains of exulting joy till then unheard and\nunimagined.\u201d\n\n \u201cThou must go forth alone, my soul, thou must go forth alone,\u2014\n To other scenes, to other worlds, that mortal hath not known,\n Thou must go forth alone, my soul, to tread the narrow vale;\n But He, whose word is sure, hath said His comforts shall not fail.\n His rod and staff shall comfort thee across the dreary road,\n Till thou shalt join the blessed ones, in Heaven\u2019s serene abode.\u201d\n\nMr. de Quincey has finely said of solitude, that, although it may be\nsilent as light, it is, like light, the mightiest of agencies; for\nsolitude is essential to man. \u201cAll men come into this world _alone_;\nall leave it _alone_. Even a little child has a dread, whispering\nconsciousness, that, if he should be summoned to travel into God\u2019s\npresence, no gentle nurse will be allowed to lead him by the hand,\nnor mother to carry him in her arms, nor little sister to share his\ntrepidations.\u201d King and priest, we are further reminded, warrior and\nmaiden, philosopher and child, all must walk those mighty galleries\nalone. The solitude, therefore, which this author describes as in this\nworld appalling or fascinating a child\u2019s heart,[43] is but the echo of a\nfar deeper solitude, through which already he has passed, and of another\nsolitude, deeper still, through which he _has_ to pass: reflex of one\nsolitude\u2014prefiguration of another.\n\nCrabbe says of man that, feeling his weakness, it is his habit to run to\nsociety, to numbers,\u2014\n\n \u201cHimself to strengthen, or himself to shun;\n But though to this our weakness may be prone,\n Let\u2019s learn to live, for we must die, alone.\u201d\n\nAmong the pangs which belong to death is emphatically reckoned by F. W.\nRobertson, in his sermon on Victory over it, the sensation of loneliness\nwhich attaches to that transit through the valley of shadows. Have we\never, he asks, seen a ship preparing to sail with its load of pauper\nemigrants to a distant colony? for that is keenly suggestive of the\ndesolation which comes from feeling unfriended on a new and untried\nexcursion. He dilates on all beyond the seas being to the ignorant poor\nman a strange land\u2014away from the helps and friendships and companionships\nof life, scarcely knowing what is before him; and it is in such a moment,\nwhen a man stands upon a deck, taking his last look of his fatherland,\nthat there comes upon him what the preacher calls \u201ca sensation new,\nstrange, and inexpressibly miserable\u2014the feeling of being alone in the\nworld. Brethren, with all the bitterness of such a moment, it is but a\nfeeble image when placed by the side of the loneliness of death. We die\nalone. We go on our dark mysterious journey for the first time in all our\nexistence, without one to accompany us. Friends are beside our bed, they\nmust stay behind. Grant that a Christian has something like familiarity\nwith the Most High, _that_ breaks this solitary feeling; but what is\nit with the mass of men? It is a question full of loneliness to them.\u201d\nSays the elder Humboldt (Wilhelm), in one of his letters: \u201cHowever many\ncompanions a man may have in the active sympathising world, he must ever\nmake the journey which leads across the boundaries of earthly things\nalone; no one may accompany him.\u201d Not but that in some moods, and in some\nsense, this contemplative philosopher might have assented to the protest\nof Paul Flemming, that had we spiritual organs, to see and hear things\nnow invisible and inaudible to us, we should behold the air thronged with\nthe departing souls of that vast multitude which every moment dies. For,\n\u201ctruly the soul departs not alone on its last journey, but spirits of its\nkind attend it, when not ministering angels; and they go in families to\nthe unknown land. Neither in life nor in death are we alone.\u201d But then\nas we have _not_ the spiritual organs in question, the fact of conscious\nisolation _in articulo mortis_ is not affected; and their character,\nafter all, pertains rather to spiritualism than to spirituality.\n\nA latter-day Christian lyrist expatiates on the sense of loneliness one\nhas at midnight, in the dread calmness of the dark,\u2014or again, on pathless\nhills, when the sun is set, and the ear listens in vain for some social\nsound from afar. But,\u2014\n\n \u201cIf this be solitude, while life retains her healthful tone,\n How shall I feel when, faint with pain,\u2014I die alone?\n\n \u201cOf all the happy things that live in ocean, earth, or air,\n Not one with kindred sympathy my lonely lot shall share.\n My friend shall vainly scan the glance that speaks no language now;\n My dog shall lick the languid hand that falters on his brow:\n But none shall venture forth with me, to meet the dread unknown,\n And I between two living worlds\u2014must die alone!\u201d\n\n_Je mourrai seul._ Pascal\u2019s words are continually cited, though only to\nbe forgotten. Mrs. Browning feelingly and earnestly expands into a sonnet\nwhat she entitles \u201cA Thought for a Lonely Death-bed. Inscribed to my\nfriend E. C.\u201d\n\n \u201cIf God compel thee to this destiny,\n To die alone,\u2014with none beside thy bed\n To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said,\n And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,\u2014\n Then pray alone\u2014\u2018O Christ, come tenderly!\n By Thy forsaken Sonship in the red\n Drear wine-press,\u2014by the wilderness outspread,\u2014\n And the lone garden where Thine agony\n Fell bloody from Thy brow,\u2014by all of those\n Permitted desolations, comfort mine!\n No earthly friend being near me, interpose\n No deathly angel \u2019twixt my face and Thine,\n But stoop Thyself to gather my life\u2019s rose,\n And smile away my mortal to Divine.\u2019\u201d\n\nOne can hardly quit this subject without recalling the awful significance\nof a cry that once expressed, if one may say it, inexpressible\nanguish,\u2014anguish indescribable, incommunicable,\u2014\u201cMy God, my God, why hast\nThou forsaken Me!\u201d Penultimate words, these were; and appalling in their\nsuggestiveness of uttermost desolation. But not the last words of all. He\nwas not alone, consciously not alone, at the very last. Later than these,\nand triumphant over these\u2014however subdued and serene the triumph\u2014came\nthose other words, Divinely calm, as became the Speaker,\u2014\u201cFather, into\nThy hands I commend my spirit.\u201d And it was when He had _this_ said, that\nHe gave up the ghost.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] \u201cWave your hand; the motion which has apparently ceased is taken\nup by the air, from the air by the walls of the room, etc., and so\nby direct and re-acting waves, continually comminuted, but never\ndestroyed.\u201d\u2014_Grove\u2019s Correlation of Physical Forces._\n\n[2] The Candidate, Lord Sandwich.\n\n[3] See on the scope of the words \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 (St. Luke xvi.\n21), _Analecta Theologica_ (Rev. W. Trollope\u2019s) _in loc._\n\n[4] Earlier in the tale there is a touch to remind us of Lear on the\nheath:\n\n \u201c\u2018Know you his conduct?\u2019 \u2018Yes, indeed, I know,\n And how he wanders in the wind and snow;\n Safe in our rooms the threatening storm we hear,\n But he feels strongly what we faintly fear.\u2019\u201d\n\n[5] Plentiful illustrations might be drawn from Plutarch to the same\neffect. There is Mutius Sc\u00e6vola, for instance, addressing Porsenna: \u201cYour\nthreatenings I regarded not, but am subdued by your generosity.\u201d There\nis Porsenna himself, who, as Publicola found, could not be quelled by\ndint of arms, but whom he converted into a friend to Rome, by \u201cthe gentle\narts of persuasion.\u201d There is young Alexander, afterwards to be, or to be\ncalled, the Great, whose astute father saw that he did not easily submit\nto authority, because he would not be forced to anything, but that he\nmight be led to his duty by the gentler hand of reason; and therefore, as\na wise father, who knew his own son, Philip took the method of persuasion\nrather than of command.\n\nWhat Plutarch says of the gentler hand of reason, reminds us of Swift\u2019s\naccount of the _Houyhnhnms_, that \u201cthey have no conception how a rational\ncreature can be compelled, but only advised or exhorted.\u201d And by the\nway, Swift remarks in a letter on England\u2019s harsh rule over the Irish,\n\u201cSupposing even the size of a native\u2019s understanding just equal to that\nof a dog or a horse, I have often seen these two animals civilized by\nrewards at least as much as by punishments.\u201d\n\nBut to return to Plutarch. There is his Flaminius, again, whose\nappointment to the command in the war with Macedon, he calls very\nfortunate for Rome, since what was required was \u201ca general who did not\nwant to do everything by force and violence, but rather by gentleness and\npersuasion.\u201d As Claudian says, _Peragit tranquilla potestas quad violenta\nnequit_.\n\nFear, observes Adam Smith, is in almost all cases a wretched instrument\nof government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any\norder of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency. \u201cTo\nattempt to terrify them, serves only to irritate their bad humours, and\nto confirm them in an opposition which more gentle usage perhaps might\neasily induce them, either to soften, or to lay aside altogether.\u201d\n\n[6] The history of Latin Christianity supplies abundant examples, more or\nless pertinent. Columban and his disciples are characterized as having\nhad little of the gentle and winning perseverance of missionaries:\nthey had been accustomed to dictate to trembling sovereigns; and their\nhaughty and violent demeanour provoked the pagans, instead of weaning\nthem from their idolatries (iii. 106). So of Boniface (v. 167): it was\nin the tone of a master that he commanded the world to peace, a tone\nwhich provoked resistance. \u201cIt was not by persuasive influence, which\nmight lull the conflicting passions of men, and enlighten them as to\ntheir real interests.\u201d Contrast with these the temper and policy of Pope\nEugenius III. (iii. 407), whose \u201cskilful and well-timed use of means more\nbecoming the head of Christendom than arms and excommunications, wrought\nwonders in his favour;\u201d and who, by his gentleness and charity, gradually\nsupplanted the senate in the attachment of the Roman people: \u201cthe fierce\nand intractable people were yielding to this gentler influence.\u201d On a\nlater page we come across the able portraiture of our Henry II., as drawn\nby a churchman who was warning Becket as to the formidable adversary he\nhad undertaken to oppose: \u201cHe will sometimes be softened by humility and\npatience, but will never submit to compulsion,\u201d etc. Ariste _a raison_\nwhen he counsels Geronte, in Gresset\u2019s \u201cLe M\u00e9chant,\u201d as the _bien plus\nsage_ course of dealing with a difficult subject,\n\n \u201cQue vous le rameniez par raison, par douceur,\n Que d\u2019aller opposer la col\u00e8re \u00e0 l\u2019humeur.\u201d\n\n[7] \u201cSuch access as Protestantism has gained to the minds of the\nCatholics in Ireland, it owes, not to the thunders of any missionary\nBoanerges, but to men like the [late] Archbishop of Dublin [Whately],\nand the Dean of Elphin, who have taken a very different course, and\npresented Protestant Christianity to their neighbours in a very different\nform.\u201d\u2014_Saturday Review_, xi. 71.\n\n[8] Gently soothing.\n\n[9] Another type of mind, deficient in the higher attributes of\nindependence, is often feverishly eager to sink its sense of individual\nresponsibility by seeking what is called \u201crest in the Church.\u201d Dr.\nBungener represents his Julian, when committed to the Bastile, as rather\nrejoicing at than terrified by the despotism of the hand laid upon him;\nand in the same way, on taking holy orders, he, being \u201csubdued in heart,\nenslaved in mind, tired of being his own master, only to create his own\ntorments,\u201d flatters himself that he gives the Church complete power over\nhis faculties at the same time that he gives her plenary power over his\nactions.\n\nTo the baser sort, remarks Sir James Stephen, no yoke is so galling\nas that of self control, no deliverance so welcome as that of being\nhandsomely rid of free agency. \u201cWith such men mental slavery readily\nbecomes a habit, a fashion, and a pride. To the abject many the\nabdication of self-government is a willing sacrifice.\u201d\n\nOne of our acutest essayists on social subjects comments on the readiness\nof a man to exult in the fact that he has done something which he cannot\nundo, and has pledged himself to a course from which he cannot draw back,\nas more commonly the sign of a weak than of a strong nature. \u201cThe comfort\nof plunging right into the stream is unspeakable to anybody who has been\naccustomed to stand shivering and irresolute on the bank.\u201d When a person\nof this sort, it is justly observed, has brought himself to take the\nplunge, his exultation and fearlessness are wonderful: the knowledge that\nthe Rubicon is crossed, and the die cast, seems to relieve him from the\nnecessity of further resolution. \u201cHe has set in motion a machine which\nwill of itself wind off results and consequences for him without more\nado on his own part; and this is an order of release from the demands of\ncircumstances upon his will, for which he cannot be too thankful.\u201d\n\n[10] When at Bologna he used to visit the Campo Santo, the sexton of\nwhich was a favourite of his, and the \u201cbeautiful and innocent face\u201d of\nwhose daughter of fifteen, he used to contrast with the skulls that\npeopled several cells there\u2014and particularly with that of one skull dated\n1766, \u201cwhich was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely\nfeatures of Bologna\u2014noble and rich.\u201d\n\n[11] Not to be forgotten, however, is the suggestive rejoinder of\nMercury, that Menippus would have been as easily fooled as the rest of\nthem, had he but seen, not that grinning skull, but the living face that\nonce concealed it.\n\n[12] In the book called \u201cGod\u2019s Acre; or, Historical Notices relating to\nChurchyards,\u201d there is a loathsome story of a Mr. Thompson, of Worcester,\nwho baited his angling-hook with part of the corrupted form of King John,\nand carried the fish he caught with it in triumph through the streets.\n\n[13] \u201cEt puisque le monde n\u2019est qu\u2019une com\u00e9die, il faut prendre la queue\nlapin et l\u2019\u00e9p\u00e9e de bois comme les autres.\u201d\u2014Lettres de Chaulieu, ed. 1850.\n\n[14] Boswell\u2019s \u201cLife of Johnson,\u201d April 29, 1783.\n\n[15] In the etymological sense, now practically obsolete, of misbeliever.\n\n[16] Perhaps a better version of perhaps the same story is that of the\nyoung Dauphin exclaiming to his right reverend preceptor, when some book\nmentioned a king as having died, \u201cQuoi donc, les rois meurent-ils?\u201d\n\u201cQuelquefois, monseigneur,\u201d was the reply\u2014ironical, or parasitical, as\nmay be.\n\n[17] John Asgill distinguished himself by maintaining in a treatise now\nforgotten, that death is no natural necessity, and that to escape it is\nwithin the range of the humanly practicable. But Asgill\u2019s biography, like\nevery other, has for a last page the inevitable \u201cAnd he died.\u201d\n\n[18] That is, \u201cLet thy spirit (goste), not thy appetite, lead thee.\u201d In\nSt. Peter\u2019s words, \u201cAbstain from fleshly lusts.\u201d\n\n[19] St. Augustine, Lyra, Bellarmine, and others, are chargeable with\nthis judgment and sentence.\n\n[20] \u201cFortunately these things are known to Him, from whom no secrets are\nhidden; and let us rest in the assurance that His judgments are not as\nours.\u201d\u2014_Rogers\u2019s Italy._\n\n[21] The friends spoken of were Coleridge and Miss Wordsworth. The scene\nwas the eastern shore of Grasmere. The date of the poem is 1800.\n\n[22] On the \u201cfalse humility\u201d which shrinks from all censure or\nreprobation of what is evil, under cover of the text \u201cjudge not, that ye\nbe not judged,\u201d\u2014as if it were the intent of that text, not to warn us\nagainst rash, presumptuous, and uncharitable judgments, but absolutely to\nforbid our taking account of the distinction between right and wrong,\u2014see\nSir Henry Taylor\u2019s essay on Humility and Independence in his valuable\n\u201cNotes from Life.\u201d The man of true humility, we are there taught, will\ncome to the task of judgment, on serious occasions, not lightly or\nunawed, but praying to have \u201ca right judgment in all things;\u201d and whilst\nexercising that judgment in no spirit of compromise or evasion, he will\nfeel that to judge his brother is a duty and not a privilege; and he will\njudge him in sorrow, humbled by the contemplation of that fallen nature\nof which he is himself part and parcel. (See \u201cNotes from Life\u201d (1847),\npp. 46, _sqq._)\n\n[23] Were we all turned inside out, however, Mr. Trollope elsewhere\nsurmises, some of us might find \u201cour shade of brown to be very\ndark.\u201d\u2014_The Bertrams_, chap. xix.\n\n[24] The avoidance of moral _estimate_, on the other hand, is imputed\nto an insufficient sense of the duty incumbent on all of us to form\ndeterminate estimates of men and actions, if only as bearing on our own\nconduct in life. (See \u201cW. C. Roscoe\u2019s Essays,\u201d vol. ii., p. 308.)\n\n[25] Owen Meredith: \u201cThe Artist.\u201d\n\n[26] \u201cCleon,\u201d by Robert Browning.\n\n[27] Completed. _Finis coronat opus._ Children and fools, it has been\nobserved, should not see a work that is half done, they not having the\nsense to make out what the artist is designing. \u201cThe whole of this world\nthat we see, is a work half done; and thence fools are apt to find fault\nwith Providence.\u201d\u2014ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.\n\n[28] Sonnets, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: \u201cPerplexed Music.\u201d\n\n[29] He is said to have emptied two baskets of figs and of eggs, which\nhe swallowed alternately, and the repast was concluded with marrow and\nsugar. In one of his pilgrimages to Mecca, Soliman is asserted to have\neaten, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a kid, six fowls, and a\nhuge quantity of the grapes of Tayaf. \u201cIf,\u201d says Gibbon, \u201cthe bill of\nfare be correct, we must admire the appetite rather than the luxury of\nthe sovereign of Asia.\u201d\u2014_Hist. Rom. Empire_, ch. lii.\n\n[30] A broken-down old schoolmaster bore witness to Dr. Chalmers\u2019 _modus\noperandi_. \u201cMany a pound-note has the doctor given me, and he always did\nthe thing as if he were afraid that any person should see him. May God\nreward him!\u201d\u2014Hanna\u2019s \u201cLife of Chalmers,\u201d chap. i.\n\n[31] The case of St. Peter was expressly within the preacher\u2019s view. \u201cIt\nis shocking, doubtless, to allow ourselves even to admit that this is\npossible; yet no one knowing human nature from men and not from books,\nwill deny that this might befall even a brave and true man. St. Peter\nwas both; yet this was his history. In a crowd, suddenly, the question\nwas put directly, \u2018This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth?\u2019 Then a\nprevarication\u2014a lie: and yet another.\u201d\u2014_Sermon on the Restoration of the\nErring._\n\n[32] Froude, \u201cHistory of Reign of Elizabeth,\u201d vol. ii., pp. 126, 215,\n226, 277, 278.\n\n[33] Mr. Thackeray incidentally opposes the quasi-apologists for\nsmuggling on the ground that it is a complicated tissue of lying. In his\nvery last and unfinished work, he makes a good old rector allow that to\nrun an anker of brandy may seem no monstrous crime; but when men engage\nin these lawless ventures, who knows how far the evil will go? \u201cI buy\nten kegs of brandy from a French fishing-boat, I land it under a lie\non the coast, I send it inland ever so far, and all my consignees lie\nand swindle. I land it, and lie to the revenue officer. Under a lie\n(that is, a mutual secrecy), I sell it to the landlord of the Bell at\nMaidstone, say.... My landlord sells it to a customer under a lie. We\nare all engaged in crime, conspiracy, and falsehood; nay, if the revenue\nlooks too closely after us, we out with our pistols, and to crime and\nconspiracy add murder. Do you suppose men engaged in lying every day\nwill scruple about a false oath in a witness-box? Crime engenders crime,\nsir.\u201d\u2014_Denis Duval_, chap. vii.\n\n[34] From Sir Walter Scott we might gather numerous examples and\naphorisms to the purpose. \u201cIt\u2019s a sair judgment on a man,\u201d says\nRatcliffe, in the \u201cHeart of Mid-Lothian,\u201d \u201cwhen he has once gane sae\nfar wrang as I hae dune\u201d\u2014the present thief-taker being in fact an\nex-thief\u2014that never a bit \u201che can be honest, try\u2019t whilk way he will.\u201d\nThe career of Effie Deans, anon Lady Staunton, in the same story, is a\npractical sermon on the same text. \u201cI drag on,\u201d she owns, \u201cthe life of\na miserable impostor, indebted for the marks of regard I receive to a\ntissue of deceit and lies, which the slightest accident may unravel.\u201d\nHer sister, on perusing the letter which contains these confessions, is\nimpressed with such an instance of the staggering condition of those who\nhave risen to distinction by undue arts, and the \u201coutworks and bulwarks\nof fiction and falsehood, by which they are under the necessity of\nsurrounding and defending their precarious advantages.\u201d\n\nThen again there is old Caleb Balderstone, querulous at being what he\ncalls \u201cforced\u201d to imperil his soul \u201cwi\u2019 telling ae lee after another\nfaster than I can count them,\u201d\u2014and elsewhere at the \u201ccost\u201d of \u201ctelling\ntwenty daily lees to a wheen idle chaps and queans, and, what\u2019s waur,\nwithout gaining credence.\u201d\n\nAnd for another instance we have the titular Earl of Etherington, in \u201cSt.\nRonan\u2019s Well,\u201d in the position as of a spider when he perceives that his\ndeceitful web is threatened with danger, and sits balanced in the centre,\nwatching every point, and uncertain which he may be called upon first to\ndefend. \u201cSuch is one part, and not the slightest part, of the penance\nwhich never fails to wait on those, who, abandoning the \u2018fair play of the\nworld,\u2019 endeavour to work out their purposes by a process of deception\nand intrigue.\u201d\n\nIn one of Mr. Disraeli\u2019s earlier fictions, there is a young man whose\nfrankness is proverbial, but who finds himself involved in a course of\nprevarication\u2014due effect being given to its preliminary process, though\n\u201conly the commencement of the system of degrading deception which awaited\nhim.\u201d\n\nBut perhaps the most direct and forcible illustration of the subject in\nmodern fiction, is to be found in the \u201cWhite Lies\u201d of Mr. Charles Reade,\na work the title of which declares its didactic scope. Rose Beaur\u00e9paire\nin an unguarded moment equivocates, or tells a white lie, and thereby\nhangs the tale. Soon we have her bitterly bewailing the imbroglio in\nwhich she has involved herself and others, and the necessity of fresh\nfibs to maintain the meaning and credit of the first. \u201cThere is no end to\nit,\u201d she sobs despairingly. \u201cIt is like a spider\u2019s web: every struggle\nto be free but multiplies the fine yet irresistible thread that seems to\nbind me.\u201d In the next chapter a significant paragraph intimates, \u201cThis\nwas the last lie the poor entangled wretch had to tell that morning.\u201d\nAnd the penultimate chapter opens with a notice anew of the \u201cfatal\nentanglement\u201d into which two high-minded sisters had been led, through\nyielding to a natural foible: the desire, namely, to hide everything\npainful from those they loved, even at the expense of truth. The author\nlays stress on the inextricable complications due to their \u201camiable\ndishonesty,\u201d and he importunes the reader to take notice that after the\nfirst White Lie or two, circumstances overpowered them, and drove them\non against their will. It was no small part, he insists, of all their\nmisery, that they longed to get back to truth and could not.\n\n[35] In apposition, or opposition, to which, note the bidding and the\ndemur in Talfourd\u2019s tragedy of \u201cIon\u201d:\u2014\n\n \u201c_Adrastus._ No; strike at once; my hour is come: in thee\n I recognise the minister of Jove,\n And, kneeling thus, submit me to his power.\n\n _Ion._ Avert thy face.\n\n _Adras._ No; let me meet thy gaze,\u201d etc.\n\n[36] Deut. xiii. 6. Observe too the seeming climax,\u2014ascending from \u201cthy\nbrother, the son of thy mother,\u201d through the successive stages of \u201cthy\nson, thy daughter,\u201d and \u201cthe wife of thy bosom,\u201d to \u201cthy friend, which is\nas thine own soul.\u201d As though\n\n \u201cThe force of Nature could no further go.\u201d\n\n[37] \u201cIf our friends appear to look upon us with little interest, if\nour arrival is seen without pleasure, and our departure without regret,\ninstead of charging them with a deficiency of feeling, we should turn our\nscrutiny upon ourselves.\u201d\u2014_Essays on the Formation and Publication of\nOpinions_, v. i.\n\n[38] Hartley Coleridge, Sonnets.\n\n[39] That is, if attention be shown him.\n\n[40] Gusts of wind.\n\n[41] See Hanna\u2019s Life of Chalmers, Journal of 1810 and of 1825-6,\n_passim_.\n\n[42] \u201cSee the well-known print of Mazarin\u2019s death-bed, surrounded by\nladies at cards. According to Grimm, the Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg and\ntwo of her friends played at loto by that of Madame du Deffand till\nshe expired. But at that time the proceeding was at least thought\nsingular.\u201d\u2014\u201cHistorical Studies,\u201d by Herman Merivale.\n\n[43] \u201cGod speaks to children, also, in dreams, and by the oracles that\nlurk in darkness. But in solitude, above all things, ... God holds with\nchildren \u2018communion undisturbed.\u2019\u201d\u2014\u201cAutobiographic Sketches,\u201d by Thomas\nde Quincey, i. 24.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n Answer, a soft, wrath-dispelling, 357;\n most exquisite revenge for reproaches, 358;\n like healing balm, 359;\n comes of practised patience, 359;\n Illustrations from Alison, Sir Matthew Hale, Spenser, Decker, and\n others, 357-360.\n\n Anticipations of the future, delusive, 333;\n often crushed when nearest realization, 334;\n when seeming fulfilled, extinguished by death, 336;\n Illustrations from Homer, Michelet, Cowper, Mrs. Gaskell, and\n others, 333-337.\n\n Anxious foreboding, forbidden by Scripture, 47;\n deprecated by pagan philosophy, 48;\n no preparation for coming ills, 48;\n only causes a depression of spirits, 49;\n and cripples energy, 50;\n destroys present enjoyment, 51;\n cannot see into the future, 52;\n indulged in, breeds despair, 54;\n remedy for, 54;\n Illustrations from Hume, Swift, Schleiermacher, Longfellow, and\n others, 48-55.\n\n Appetite, indulgence in, indecent, 249;\n cause of death to royalty, 250;\n inability of some to resist, 251;\n allowed in Italy, in case of fatal sickness, 253;\n a common weakness, 254;\n Illustrations from Adam Smith, Gibbon, Tennyson, Gray, George\n Herbert, and others, 242-255.\n\n\n Bargains, makers of, their tactics, 367;\n depreciate when buying, 368;\n exaggerate when selling, 369;\n customs of different countries, 370;\n horse-dealers, their tactics, 371;\n an exception to the general rule of, 372;\n Illustrations from A. K. H. B., Fuller, Leigh Hunt, Capt. Marryat,\n Kingsley, Plautus, and others, 367-372.\n\n Beauty, but a clothed skeleton, 101;\n all lost in the grave, 102;\n only food for worms, 133;\n Illustrations from Byron, Southey, Blair, Macaulay, and others,\n 100-104.\n\n Beneficence, secret, an exception to the rule, 259;\n dislike of, to thanks, 260;\n of Wellington and Byron, 261;\n finds a reward in itself, 262;\n Illustrations from Chamfort, Goldsmith, Smollett, Cowper, and\n others, 259-262.\n\n\n Childhood, everything may be hoped from, 382;\n evanescence of promise in, 383;\n retrospect of, shows how we have fallen, 384;\n possibility of a noble future for all, 385;\n much of the good in, checked from development, 386;\n Illustrations from Dante, Adam Smith, Samuel Rogers, Baron\n Alderson, Charles Lamb, Dr. Caird, and others, 381-386.\n\n Children, dying before their parents, an inversion of natural order,\n 182;\n one of the greatest sorrows to man, 183;\n the case of Mohammed cited, 184;\n ruins the hopes of the parents, 186;\n Citations from Canon Melvill, Edmund Burke, Moore, and others,\n 182-187.\n\n Co-workers, all human beings, 348;\n each in his place or degree, 349;\n all required to account for their performance of their part, 350;\n the difference in, not position, but how duties performed, 351;\n all to one end, and that is with God, 352;\n Illustrations from Coleridge, John Newton, Mrs. Gaskell, Colani,\n Milton, and others, 348-352.\n\n\n Darkness, increases the sense of danger, 223;\n and the bitterness of death, 324;\n power of, over the guilty, 324;\n natural dread of, in mankind, 326;\n of coming death, rouses a longing for light, 327;\n the concomitant of misery, 327;\n Illustrations from Marlowe, Scott, Croly, Professor Newman, Lord\n Lytton, Dickens, and others, 323-328.\n\n Death, sum and story of all humanity, 156;\n the inevitable fate of all, 157;\n a leveller of all distinctions and grades, 160;\n even in Arcadia, 163;\n the actions of the just blossom in, 165;\n Illustrations from Addison, Barry Cornwall, James Montgomery,\n Gibbon, Warton, Prior, George Herbert, and others, 156-165.\n\n\n Elements, the, God only can control, 233;\n the folly of man commanding, 232;\n all men subject to, 232;\n folly of Xerxes cited, 233;\n legends of power of priests over, 234;\n the greatest conquerors, impotent against, 235;\n moral application, 237;\n Illustrations from Pepys, Longfellow, Gibbon, Carlyle, Cowper, and\n others, 231-237.\n\n\n Falsity of friends, the sharpest pang of all, 201;\n darkens man\u2019s views of the moral government of God, 206;\n shakes confidence in the whole world, 206;\n David\u2019s lament over, 208;\n Illustrations from Colani, Milman, Longfellow, Corneille,\n Shakspeare, and others, 200-208.\n\n Faults in others, more easily discerned than in ourselves, 187;\n we should mend our own, before looking for those of others, 188;\n we often possess those, that we attribute to others, 190;\n Illustrations from Trench, Horace, Hogg, Moli\u00e8re, Mrs. Inchbald,\n and others, 187-191.\n\n Flowers, not to be considered in a utilitarian light, 109;\n awaken finer sensibilities, 110;\n akin to the poetic faculty in man, 111;\n the teaching of, lost on the dull, 112;\n woman compared to, 113;\n Illustrations from Tennyson, Leigh Hunt, Isaac Taylor, Shenstone,\n and others, 109-113.\n\n Freedom, from righteousness, a service to sin, 60;\n true, only found in God\u2019s service, 61;\n sweetened by constraint, 61;\n without law, pernicious, 62;\n at times a relief to give up, 63;\n too much, in art and literature, hurtful, 64;\n obedience nobler than, 65;\n Illustrations from Gray, Wordsworth, Goethe, Mrs. Gaskell, and\n others, 60-66.\n\n Freedom, the service of, 66;\n from self-control, a bane, 67;\n not idleness, 67;\n may be enjoyed in a prison, 68;\n maintained by law, 70;\n Illustrations from Keble, Cowper, Johnson, Hawthorne, and others,\n 66-70.\n\n Friendship, closer than relationship, 328;\n want of with relatives, arises from lack of sympathy, 329;\n or of knowledge of each other, 332;\n Illustrations from Samuel Bailey, Thackeray, Sir Thos. Browne,\n Montaigne, Richardson, and others, 328-332.\n\n Futurity, prying into brings a penalty, 76;\n ignorance of, an advantage and happiness, 77;\n a knowledge of, would cloud our life, 78;\n hidden from us by God, 79;\n could we foresee, we should suffer by anticipation, as well as\n reality, 80;\n and lose hope, 81;\n visionary previsions of, vanity, 82;\n ignorance of, a source of content, 84;\n and deprives death of part of its gloom, 85;\n Illustrations from Cicero, Froude, De Quincey, Scott, La Bruy\u00e8re,\n and others, 76-86.\n\n\n Gray hairs, first notice of decline, 372;\n various ways, first discovery of, met, 373;\n a shadow of the end, 374;\n come unawares, 375;\n Illustrations from Coleridge, C. Bowles, Thackeray, Trollope,\n Tennyson, and others, 372-376.\n\n Greatness and affluence, sometimes productive of selfishness, 15;\n loss of, awakens sympathy with poor and afflicted, 16;\n peculiar sin of, carelessness rather than inhumanity, 17;\n this often the result of early education, 18;\n sympathy with poverty need not destroy natural joy of, 18;\n one object of suffering, to re-unite poverty with, 19;\n of some, not a cause of poverty in others, 20;\n oft performs its charity by commission, 21;\n desirable for, to make personal acquaintance with misery and\n suffering, 22;\n case of the Pretender cited, 26;\n causes an isolation from the poor, 28;\n shows best when engaged in works of mercy, 28;\n results of want of thought in, 29-31;\n benefit of proper use of, 32;\n Illustrations from Shakspeare, 17;\n La Bruy\u00e8re, Hannah More, and others, 18-32.\n\n Guilt, first thoughts of, abhorrent, 255;\n case of Hazael, 255;\n mere protestation against, no safeguard against, 256;\n familiarity with, breeds apologies for, 257;\n one step in, speedily induces others, unsuspected, 258;\n transforms those subject to it, 259;\n Illustrations from Miss Lee, Tobin, Dr. Hamilton, Southey,\n Sainte-Beuve, and others, 255-259.\n\n\n Hearing, with the mind as well as ears, 386;\n interest in theme, creates attentive, 387;\n compared with seeing, 388;\n difference between, and marking, 388;\n some have no, for spiritual things, 389;\n Illustrations: Milton, Webster, Balzac, Dumas, Shakspeare, and\n others, 386-389.\n\n Human body, the, reduced to its lowest terms, 104;\n Hamlet\u2019s speculation on, 105;\n as Mummy, a merchandise, 106;\n turned to animal black, 106;\n suggestion to use bones as a manure, 107;\n used for earthworks, 108;\n Illustrations from Sydney Smith, Chateaubriand, Xenophon, Dicey,\n and others, 101-109.\n\n Human Knowledge, imperfection of, 224;\n in things of this world, 226;\n in the workings of providence, 226;\n imperfect, because we cannot see the end of all, 229;\n Illustrations from Locke, Mrs. Browning, Thomson, Addison, Le\n Maistre, and others, 224-231.\n\n Hurry and Excitement, the characteristic of the present age, 242;\n its effect on current literature, 243;\n destructive of calm thought, 244;\n different from haste, 245;\n hinders clearness of perception, 246;\n deadens capacity for simpler enjoyments, 247;\n too little work as fatal as, 248;\n Illustrations from Chateaubriand, Dr. Boyd, Longfellow, Sir Henry\n Taylor, and others, 242-249.\n\n\n Joy\u2014human, mostly overshadowed, 87;\n of success, overclouded by the thought of the future, 88;\n of hope, by thought of others\u2019 present suffering, 89;\n present, by the thought of death, 90;\n soon fades, 91;\n Illustrations from Gibbon, R. Browning, Lord Lytton, Hannay, and\n others, 86-91.\n\n Judgment, Man\u2019s, of his fellow, deprecated, 208;\n wrong, because he knows not himself, 210;\n nor the secrets of others, 211;\n nor their motives, 212;\n the habit of, presumptuous, 213;\n God\u2019s, the only just, 214;\n God\u2019s, more merciful than man\u2019s, 215;\n man\u2019s necessarily imperfect, 216;\n human, severe, 219;\n of the heart, belongs only to God, 221;\n should be charitable, because of our own failings, 224;\n Illustrations from Shakspeare, Sir Thomas Browne, La Bruy\u00e8re,\n Arthur Helps, O. W. Holmes, Anthony Trollope, Carlyle, and\n others, 208-224.\n\n\n Lies, lead to further lies, case of Jacob, 290;\n carry their punishment, in necessity of further lies, 291;\n inextricably entangle those who use them, 293;\n injurious to those who tell them, 294;\n one makes a necessity for others, 295;\n Illustrations from Mrs. Browning, Scott, Corneille, Cellini, Jeremy\n Taylor, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others, 290-296.\n\n Light\u2014\u201cat evening time\u201d\u2014the promise of, a comfort, 313;\n a deliverance from the fear of death, 314;\n often clears up the end of a life of trial, 315;\n disperses all darkness and difficulties, 316;\n a relief from troubles in declining years, 317;\n appears sometimes unexpectedly, 318;\n _Light_\u2014a longing of the human soul, 319;\n to die in, almost a universal craving, 321;\n the comfort of dying moments, 322;\n Illustrations from Bunyan, O. W. Holmes, Dickens, Shirley Brooks,\n Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, Sophocles, Landor, and others, 313-323.\n\n Love and Gentleness more powerful agents than force, 33;\n illustrations from Plutarch, 33;\n children more easily governed by, than fear, 34;\n this also the case with nations, 35;\n natures not amenable to, exceptional, 35;\n the means usually employed by women to gain their ends, 36;\n the best method for missionaries, 37;\n used by Queen Elizabeth and Empress Catherine towards their people,\n 38;\n when rulers fail with, they employ worse means, 39;\n best means of eliciting truth, 40;\n works even on the most depraved natures, 40;\n Illustrations from Ben Jonson, Mr. Freeman, Scott, Dr. Beattie, and\n others, 32-41.\n\n Lying, engenders lying, 286;\n the case of St. Peter, 287;\n demands a good memory, 288;\n leads to hopeless entanglement, 289;\n first step in all wrong doing, 289;\n Illustrated by Trench, Swift, Robertson, Froude, and others,\n 286-290.\n (See also pp. 290-296.)\n\n\n Mirth, good in due season, 296;\n must be recommended by higher qualities, 297;\n too much is wearisome, 298;\n deep and true feeling of more real value than mere, 299;\n in some, always inclines to sadness, 300;\n Illustrations from Tennyson, St. Evremond, Richardson, Scott, Mrs.\n Riddell, Hood, and others, 296-300.\n\n Music\u2014its power to dispel evil humours, 55;\n gives ease in various nervous disorders, 56;\n used by Luther to repel his visions of Satan, 57;\n removed the melancholy of a king of Spain, 57;\n wakes up feelings of the past, 58;\n studied by the Jewish priesthood, 58;\n effect of, on lunatics, 59;\n soothes grief, 60;\n Illustrations from Beveridge, Burton, Sir James Stephen, Schiller,\n and others, 55-60.\n\n\n Order, Heaven\u2019s first law, 273;\n human not to be compared with Divine, 274;\n obedience to, the stay of the world, 275;\n to be found in all God\u2019s handiwork, 276;\n man should be the servant of, 277;\n love of, improving to the mind, 278;\n the basis of civil government, 279;\n truth is, 280;\n a love of, may subsist with a low mental standard, 281;\n the happiness of heaven, 281;\n Illustrations from C. H. Townshend, Hooker, Carlyle, Shaftesbury,\n Lowell, George Herbert, Crabbe, Patmore, Southey, 273-282.\n\n\n Plans, of Man, overruled by God, 305;\n for the future, vain, 306;\n often bring but trouble, 308;\n Illustrations from Helps, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Thackeray,\n Schiller, Congreve, Tasso, 305-309.\n\n Praise, of self, unseemly, 96;\n productive of ridicule, 96;\n common among savages, 97;\n a mark of vanity, 98;\n fault of Cato and Cicero, 98;\n true merit disdains, 99;\n degrading, 100;\n Illustrations from Plutarch, Swift, Chateaubriand, Barrow, Feltham,\n Carlyle, 96-100.\n\n Prayer, without action, the mark of feebleness, 342;\n with action, shows trust in God, 343;\n for help, must be accompanied by self-help, 345;\n only when in danger, the folly of some, 346;\n of Benvenuto Cellini, 347;\n Illustrations from Bentley, Kingsley, Froude, John Brown, Lord\n Broughton, and others, 342-347.\n\n Prayers\u2014at times made for what would be our own hurt, 147;\n made in ignorance of true needs, 148;\n the best, for those things which God sees needful for us, 149;\n instances of ruin, by granted, 150;\n real answer to, opposite of what we expect, 152;\n granted, by seeming to be rejected, 154;\n Illustrations from Plato, Juvenal, Montaigne, Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9,\n Carlyle, Walpole, Jane Taylor, De Quincey, Tennyson, 147-156.\n\n Present despair, succeeded by comfort, 92;\n anger, by joy, 92;\n joy, by grief, 92;\n pleasure, mixed with pain, 93;\n triumph, with anxiety for the future, 94;\n prosperity bears within it decay, 95;\n Illustrations from Shakspeare, Byron, Mrs. Browning, Johnson,\n Tennyson, Pope, 91-95.\n\n \u201cProphet, no man one in his own country,\u201d 143;\n few admired by their own domestics, 144;\n mankind apt to underrate those they are familiar with, 145;\n some exceptions to the rule, 146;\n Illustrations from Montaigne, Ben Jonson, Scott, Mrs. Oliphant,\n Milman, 143-147.\n\n Protestation, fervid, case of Peter\u2019s, 165;\n too much, a mark of insincerity, 166;\n over, awakens suspicion, 167;\n over, the refuge of base minds, 168;\n not needful to truth, 168;\n seldom to be trusted, 169;\n fails of its purpose, 170;\n Illustrations from Racine, Disraeli, Milman, Hawthorne, Wolcot,\n Corneille, Feltham, Fielding, B. Jonson, Alison, 165-170.\n\n Purposes of man, often frustrated by God, 301;\n confounded by the smallest accident, 302;\n often end as least expected, 302;\n Illustrations from Moli\u00e8re, Dryden, W. Irving, Burns, Wordsworth,\n 301-304.\n\n\n Repentance and Relapse, in the case of Pharaoh, 125;\n in sickness, and falling back in health, a mark of weak minds, 126;\n made in fear of death, usually vanishes on removal of cause, 127;\n the irreligious, prompt with in trouble, 128;\n Infidels in health, repentant in sickness, 130;\n at times, but want of power to sin, 131;\n may in some, be measured by their health, 132;\n when in danger, no repentance, 134;\n Illustrations from Boileau, Lady M. W. Montagu, Scott, Le Sage,\n Crabbe, Montesquieu, Butler, Wolcot, Gibbon, Whately, 125-134.\n\n Retributive Justice, in the case of Haman, 41;\n that of Daniel, and his accusers, 42;\n the delight of early ballads, 42;\n popular history teaches, by examples, 43;\n examples of, from ancient history, 44;\n Illustrations from Hamlet, 47.\n\n Retrospect of Human Life, vanity, 361;\n in, swiftness of time seems infinite, 302;\n in, past seems as a dream, 364;\n nothing in regard to eternity, 364;\n Illustrations from Seneca, Moore, Southey, Mde. de S\u00e9vign\u00e9, Cowper,\n and others, 361-365.\n\n\n Saints considered as Strangers and Pilgrims, 192;\n to them, this world but as an inn, 193;\n looking to their home, lightens their earthly troubles, 194;\n this world as a wilderness, 196;\n their home on high, 197;\n look there for their rest, 198;\n this, to them, a subject of rejoicing, 200;\n Illustrations: Leighton, Beveridge, Lamennais, John Foster,\n Chaucer, Mrs. Browning, Robertson, Keble, 192-200.\n\n Scripture, often quoted, by the vicious, to excuse their faults, 10,\n 13;\n by divines to support their own peculiar tenets, 11;\n used in election squibs, 12;\n sometimes quoted for self-deceit, 14;\n misused quotations, 14;\n Illustrations from Bunyan, Shakspeare, Carlyle, Dickens, and\n others, 10-16.\n\n Self-control, the greatest victory, 276;\n the effort of all noble minds, 377;\n constant practice of, subdues the most violent tempers, 377;\n strengthened by religion, 378;\n should be exercised in letter writing, 379;\n failure of, causes the greatest mischief, 380;\n Illustrations from Marcus Antoninus, Clarendon, Macaulay, Dr.\n Chalmers, Scott, Gibbon, Swift, Buxton, Moli\u00e8re, 376-381.\n\n Shadow a, man\u2019s life compared to, 170;\n earthly pursuits and pleasures, but, 171;\n man\u2019s corpse becomes, 173;\n some waste their life in hunting, 175;\n reality to be sought above, and hereafter, 181;\n man\u2019s soul a reality, 182;\n Illustrations: Burke, Emerson, G. Herbert, Scott, R. Browning, Abb\u00e9\n Gerbert, Hawthorne, La Bruy\u00e8re, De Tocqueville, Hare, Sterling,\n Rob. Lytton, Churchill, Carlyle, 170-182.\n\n Silence, discreet in a fool, 70;\n a virtue in wise men, 71;\n when it breaks, ignorance shows itself, 72;\n by keeping, fools acquire respect, 73;\n often taken as a mark of wisdom, 75;\n Illustrations: Sir Thomas Browne, Montaigne, Ben Jonson, C. Lamb,\n W. Irving, Jewsbury, Goldsmith, and others, 70-76.\n\n Sin of One Man, consequences of felt by whole nations, cases of\n Achan and David, 1;\n results of, felt in distant lands and by future generations, 2;\n affects others by force of example, 4;\n remote consequences of, even greater than present, 5;\n the effects of, often show when deed forgotten by sinner, 5;\n Illustrations from South, G. Eliot, Robert Browning, and others,\n 1-6.\n\n Sleep, Death compared to, in Scripture, 134;\n and Death as twin brothers, 135;\n a counterfeit of death, 136;\n Sancho Panza\u2019s apostrophe to, 136;\n a daily death, 137;\n of a child, as death of a Christian, 138;\n Illustrations from Homer, Warton, Byron, Sir Thomas Browne, George\n Herbert, Mrs. Browning, and others, 134-139.\n\n Sleep, peaceful, destroyed by crime, 282;\n exceptions to the rule, 283;\n disturbed by feelings of remorse, 284;\n only enjoyed by an innocent mind, 286;\n Illustrations from \u201cMacbeth,\u201d G. W. Cooke, R. Lytton, Hawthorne,\n Godwin, Roscoe, Webster, 282-286.\n\n Society, regarded as a body, 353;\n each member in, has his peculiar functions, 353;\n subordination in, no degradation, 354;\n all service in, the same in God\u2019s sight, 355;\n contentment to be found by each member of, in doing his duty, 356;\n Illustrations: F. W. Robertson, Mrs. Browning, R. Browning,\n Wordsworth, J. C. Hare, R. Lytton, G. Herbert, 353-357.\n\n Solitude, in death, 389;\n in a spiritual sense, not to the Christian, 390;\n the bitterest pang of humanity, 390;\n the choice of the animal creation, 391;\n a preference for, in some natures, 391;\n in a natural sense, a necessity, 393;\n our Lord, the highest example of, 396;\n Illustrations from Pascal, Wordsworth, Scott, Merivale, De Quincey,\n Crabbe, Robertson, W. Humboldt, Mrs. Browning, 389-396.\n\n Stage, this world considered as a, 114;\n man an actor on, 115;\n human life in its varieties, like a play, 116;\n one man plays many parts, 118;\n man of the world, only first-class actor, 118;\n Mary Stuart, an actress on the political, 119;\n every man spectator as well as actor, 120;\n players the representatives of human nature, 121;\n an epitome of this world, 121;\n necessity for each to act his part well, on, 123;\n Illustrations from Shakspeare, Sir Thomas Browne, Cervantes, Dr.\n Maginn, Sainte-Beuve, Chamfort, Hazlitt, Overbury, R. Hall,\n 114-125.\n\n Sympathy, as first shown by Job\u2019s friends, 6;\n often best proved by silence, 7;\n moralizing no evidence of, 8;\n more strongly evidenced by deeds, 8;\n Illustrations from Steele, Rousseau, and others, 6-9.\n\n\n To-morrow, cannot be calculated upon, 263;\n hopes and fears intent on, 264;\n penitence deferred till, too late, 266;\n vain the pursuit of, 266;\n the refuge of fools, 268;\n a favourite phrase with Napoleon, 270;\n a vanishing quantity, 271;\n one, will come to all, 273;\n Illustrations: Shakspeare, C. Rossetti, Charles Reade, Hawthorne,\n Prior, Macaulay, Southey, and others, 263-273.\n\n\n Unconscious peril\u2014the case of Saul, 237;\n surrounds man, 238;\n retrospect of, more interesting than that of positive danger, 239;\n escape from, proof of superintending Providence, 240;\n often nearest when least suspected, 241;\n Illustrations: Cowper, De Quincey, Hawthorne, Scott, Southey,\n Milman, Young, 237-242.\n\n Unrest, one of the woes denounced against the Jews, 365;\n one of the greatest afflictions of man, 366;\n Illustrations: Shakspeare, Landor, Crabbe, Keats, Keble, Mrs.\n Gaskell, Shenstone, 365-367.\n\n Utilitarianism, of the crass, pur-blind sort, 309;\n has no sympathy with the beautiful as such, 310;\n or self-sacrifice, 311;\n only a one-sided and degrading way of satisfying the mind, 312;\n sees nothing beyond money-making, 313;\n Illustrations from Hare, Carlyle, Coleridge, Buckle, De\n Tocqueville, Haliburton, 309-313.\n\n\n Vain-glory, punishment of, in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, 337;\n of Belshazzar, 338;\n mostly the forerunner of a fall, 339;\n founded on the favour of man, 341;\n Illustrations from Prescott, Ben Jonson, Milman, Shakspeare, and\n others, 337-342.\n\n\n Worth, unrecognized, by one\u2019s kindred, case of David cited, 139;\n Pythagoras said to have borrowed his learning, etc., 140;\n familiarities of common life hinder appreciation of, 141;\n one\u2019s family most difficult to convince of, 142;\n Illustrations from Euripides, Gibbon, David Hume, Swift, Horace\n Walpole, and others, 139-143.\n\n\nButler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London\n\n\n\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON\u2019S WORKS IN THEOLOGY & RELIGIOUS LITERATURE.\n\n LONDON, _October, 1870_.\n\n\n=The Church of the Restoration.= By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D. 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