THE vision of the seer who saw the Spirit of Man. A chariot he beheld speeding twixt earth and heaven drawn by wing'd horses, and the charioteer thereon upright with eyes upon the goal and mind alert controlling his strong steeds, that spurn'd the drifted cloud as now they sank now mounted in their heav'nward flight. Thus Plato recordeth—how Socrates told it to Phedrus on a summer morning, as they sat beneath a lofty plane-tree by the grassy banks 10of the Ilissus, talking of the passions of men. The Vision of the Seer is Truth's Apocalypse, yet needeth for our aid a true interpreter. The names of the two horses are Selfhood and Breed, the charioteer is Reason, and the whip in his hand is not to urge-on the steeds nor to incite their blood; their mettle is everlasting and they need no goad: He wieldeth it to make them ware of his presence and hold them obedient to the rein of his Will. But this picture drafted in Mind's creativ cave, 20and thence on the eye projected, thin is as the film of colour and shade on a canvas, ther is nought beneath: it telleth not who bred those wild horses, or broke their strong necks to the yoke, nor who builded the car, and harness'd them therto for its high heavenly flight; nor how Reason ever mounted it in full career and took the reins, nor of what stuff intangible they are woven, those reins pictured so taut in his grasp; nay, for not he himself kenneth well of these things: Yet truly is he portray'd fearless and glad of heart, 30his lash circling o'erhead, as smiling on his steeds he speaketh to them lovingly in his praise or blame.
Now these two horses, without which the wheels of Life would never hav had motion, and with them can hav no rest, are the animal instincts in the birthright of man; nor are they, as Plato fancied, one evil and one good: both are good, but of their wildness they are restiv both and wilful, nor wil yield mastery, unless they feel the hand of expert manage and good horsemanship. Selfhood is the elder and stronger; but Breed, once her foal 40is livelier and of limb finer and more mettlesome, her rival now, and both wil pull together as one. 'Tis first to tell of Selfhood, since the first one thing, if ever a first thing wer, was of the Essence of Self.
Consider a plant—its life—how a seed faln to ground sucketh in moisture for its germinating cells, and as it sucketh swelleth, til it burst its case and thrusting its roots downward and spreading them wide taketh tenure of the soil, and from ev'ry raindrop on its dribbling passage to replenish the springs 50plundereth the freighted salt, while it pricketh upright with its flagstaff o'erhead for a place in the sun, anon to disengage buds that in tender leaves unfolding may inhale provender of the ambient air: and, tentacles or tendrils, they search not blindly but each one headeth straightly for its readiest prey; and haply, if the seed be faln in a place of darkness roof'd in by men—if ther should be any ray or gleam how faint soe'er, 'twil crane and reach its pallid stalk into the crevice, pushing ev'n to disrupt the stones. 60'Tis of such absolute selfhood that it knoweth not parent nor offspring, and will abuse advantage of primogeniture, with long luxuriant boughs crowding in vain-glory to overshadow and quell its younger brethren; while, as for its own children that, cradled on its branches, fell from its fruitage, 'twil choke them when they strive to draw life at its feet. Look now upon a child of man when born to light, how otherwise than a plant sucketh he and clutcheth? how with his first life-breath he clarioneth for food! 70craving as the blind fledgelings in a thrush's nest that perk their naked necks, stiff as a chimney-stack, food-funnels, like as hoppers in a corn-mill gaping for what supply the feeder may shovel in their throats. How differeth the new-born child from plant or fledgeling? Among low organisms some are call'd animal for being unrooted, else inseparable from plants; yet each in his small motion is as a lion on prowl, or as a python gliding to seize and devour some weaker Self, whereby to fortify his own. 80And if Selfhood thus rule thru'out organic life 'tis no far thought that all the dumb activities in atom or molecule are like phenomena of individuat Selfhood in its first degrees.
This Autarchy of Selfhood, which we blame not at all in plants and scarcely in brutes, is by Reason denounced heartless, and outlaw'd from the noble temper of man, the original sin and cause of half his woes and shames; whence Natur again would seem at variance with herself, misdoubting the foundation whereon she had built all, 90and seeing too late the fault threating to split her house would buttress it with the outwork of an afterthought. But tho 'tis only Reason can govern this horse, correction awaited not the human charioteer; Selfhood had of itself begotten its own restraint— like as small plague-microbes generate their own toxin in antidote of their own mischief (so 'tis said): Even among beasts of prey the bloody wolves, who found some selfish betterment from their hunting in packs, had thereby learn'd submission to a controlling will, 100their leader being so far charioteer of their rage; while pastoral animals, or ever a drover came to pen them for his profit, had in self-defence herded together; and on the wild prairies are seen when threaten'd by attack, congregating their young within their midst for safety, and then serrying their ranks in a front line compact to face the dreaded foe. And this parental instinct, tho' it own cousinship with Breed, was born of Selfhood. A nursing mammal, since she must feel her suckling a piece of herself, 110wil self-preserve and shelter it as herself; and oft 'tis hard to wean. So birds, by long brooding inured, wil watch their chickens heedfully, and fearfully attend their early excursions, guiding aiding and at need defending against danger. It is pretty to mark a partridge, when she hath first led forth her brood to run among the grass-tussocks or hay-stubbles of June, if man or beast approach them, how to usurp regard she counterfeiteth the terror of a wounded bird draggling a broken wing, and noisily enticeth 120or provoketh the foe to follow her in a vain chase; nor wil she desist from the ruse of her courage to effect her own escape in loud masterful flight, untill she hav far decoy'd hunter or blundering hoof from where she has bid her little ones to scatter and hide.
In man this blind motherly attachment is the spring of his purest affection, and of all compassion,— the emotion most inimical to war: I deem its form of unimpeachable sincerity to be the mould wherein Friendship's full faith is cast. 130But richest fruits are tardy in ripening, and man's mind on the last topmost branch, fed from the deepest root, struggleth slowly to birth thru' long-enforced delay. See nature's habit now devolving upon man, and in his Reason her patience as virtue reborn. First wil be many months of bodily helplessness, then many years ere the fine budding spirit unclose. Wherewhile a new spiritual personality in its miraculous significance, the child is less the mother's own than a treasur entrusted, 140which she can never love too fondly of serve too well; Nay, rather is she possess'd by her own possession, and in her Vita nuovasuch things are reveal'd that all she hath thought or done seemeth to her of small worth. The unfathomable mystery of her awaken'd joy sendeth her daily to heaven on her knees in prayer: and watching o'er the charm of a soul's wondering dawn enamoureth so her spirit, that all her happiness is in her care for him, all hope in his promise; and his nobility is the dream-goal of her life. 150In the sunshine of her devotion, her peace and joy are mirror'd in the child's mind, and would leave thereon no place for sin, coud all be purified to attain; but in the most the mind is gross and the spirit bleak; and for a generation needing an outward sign of this transcendent mystery, 'twas well when Art fashioning a domestic symbol in worship of Christ pictured him as an infant in his Mother's arms, sharing with her his suffering and glory—it was well: Nor count I any scripture to be better inspired 160with eternal wisdom or by insight of man than the four words wherewith the sad penitent hymn calleth aloud on Mary standing neath the cross: Eia mater, it saith, mater fons amoris.
Leave Selfhood now in her fond sanctuary awhile with the unseen universe communing and entranced strangely:—As when a high moon thru' the rifted wrack gleameth upon the random of the windswept night; or as a sunbeam softly, on early worshippers at some rich shrine kneeling, stealeth thru' the eastern apse 170and on the clouded incense and the fresco'd walls mantleth the hush of prayer with a vaster silence, laden as 'twer with the unheard music of the spheres; —nay, incommunicable and beyond all compare are the rich influences of those moments of bliss, mocking imagination or pictured remembrance, as a divine dream in the vaulted slumber of life. Leave we Selfhood now secretly under thatt nimbus, fashioning by nurtur in a new selfhood of spirit whatever in the redemption of beauty and dignity 180ennobleth the society or the person of man— leave thatt nursery awhile, and ask how Nature wrought where she with-held from life the gift of Motherhood.
The teeming progeny of such egg-breeding insects as multiply their children a thousandfold a day must lie close on the zero of parental bondage; nor can they be debar'd by ignominy of rank or unlikeness of kind from vouching in this case: For among Bees and Ants are social systems found so complex and well-order'd as to invite offhand 190a pleasant fable enough: that once upon a time, or ever a man was born to rob their honeypots, bees wer fully endow'd with Reason and only lost it by ordering so their life as to dispense with it; whereby it pined away and perish'd of disuse, which, whether it wer or no, if men can judge of Bees, well might be in their strange manner of life—so like it is with what our economical bee-minded men teach as the first intelligential principle of human government welfare and happiness;— 200Nay, some I hav seen wil choose a beehive for their sign and gloss their soul-delusion with a muddled thought, picturing a skep of straw, the beekeeper's device, a millowner's workshop, for totem of their tribe; Not knowing the high goal of our great endeavour is spiritual attainment, individual worth, at all cost to be sought and at all cost pursued, to be won at all cost and at all cost assured; not such material ease as might be attain'd for all by cheap production and distribution of common needs, 210wer all life level'd down to where the lowest can reach: Thus generating for ever in his crowded treadmills, man's life wer cheap as bees'; and we may see in them how he likewise might liv, if each would undertake the maximum of toil that is found tolerable upon a day-doled minimum of sustenance; and stay from procrëation at that just number of men,; hard-workers and small-eaters, who coud crowd on earth under the shadow of this skeleton of happiness. And since life must lose value in diminution of goods, 220life-time must also itself be in due proportion abredged; and both diminishings must at some point be stay'd, lest by slow loss they come dwindling in the end to nought: then, when to each single life the allotted span is fix'd, the system wil be at balance, stable and perfected.
The ground-root folly of this pitous philanthropy is thinking to distribute indivisibles, and make equality in things incommensurable: forged under such delusions, all Utopias are castles in the air or counsels of despair. 230So Plato, on whose infant lips—as it is told— bees settled where he lay slumbering in his cradle, and honour'd with their augury man's loan of praise— ev'n Plato, when he in fear and mistrust of Selfhood denyeth family life to his republicans, fell, bruized; tho' cautiously depicting Socrates reluctant to disclose the offensiv absurdum of his pretentious premiss—when, being forced to admit that in his free community of women and children no child would ken its parent, no parent his child, 240he sought to twist the bull's horns with a sophistry— arguing that mother's love and home-life being the source of such inestimable good, 'twer wise that law should forbid privat property in their benefits: Nay, so 'twould set his state above all other states, wer suchlike indispensable privileges rescued from ownership, and for the general use distributed equally among the citizens. For surely (said he) a bastard nursed in a bureau must love and reverence all women for its mothers; 250and likewise every woman, being in like default, would love all babies as her only son. May-be Plato was pleased to launch his whole Utopia safely in absolute dreamland; but poor Socrates, on whom he father'd it, was left in nubibus where Aristophanes in good jest had set him some twenty years afore: and our sophists, who lack claim to any shred of great Plato's glorious mantle of wisdom, have secured a good lien on his bluff.
But yet to read the strange riddle of the hiving bees, 260their altruism and platonesque intelligence, 'tis enough to suppose that their small separat selves are function'd by the same organic socialism and vital telepathy as the corpuscles are whereof their little bodies are themselves composed: that this cell-habit, spredd thru'out to a general sense, inspireth them in their corporate community. Consider the tiny egg-cell whence the man groweth, how it proliferateth freely, as a queen-bee doth, and more surely than any animal or plant breedeth; 270how each new offspring cell is for some special work differentiated and functioneth spontaneously, and ev'n wil change its predetermin'd faculty when accidental environment maketh a call, leaving its proper sphere to amend what hath gone wrong: Consider then their task, those unimaginable infinit co-adaptations of function'd tissue correlated delicately in a ravel'd web of unknown sensibilities . . how 'tis a task incomparable in complexity with whatsoe'er 280the bees can boast: nor do the unshapely cells behave with lesser show of will, nor of purpose and skill: Pass by the rarer achievements, yea, forget all fames, all works all art all virtue and knowledge—set them by, and still the solved problems must exhaust our wonder; Reason can bring no more; and it addeth nothing that the complete insect should in some part possess some of the faculties of its constituent cells. Or if this thing be deem'd in Natur anomalous, that perfect organisms with sense and motion endow'd should still behave to each other as link'd constructiv cells, 291yet outwardly to our eyes this freedom affordeth machinery wherupon common purpose can work: To the insect, order and disorder are exposed to sight; and so we think to see the little emmets confer and locking their antenne immediately transmit the instinctiv calls which each and all can feel; whereas the mutual fellowship of distributed cells hath so confounded thought that explanation is fetch'd from chemic agency: because in that science 300the reaction of unknown forces is described and summ'd in mathematic formulæ pregnant of truth, and of such universal scope that, being call'd laws, their mere description passeth for Efficient Cause.
Sometimes when slowly from the deep sleep of fatigue a man awakeneth, he lyeth for awhile amazed, aware of self and of his rested body, and yet knowing not where he is, bewilder'd, unable to interpret sight or sound, because the slumbering guards in Memory's Castle hav lagg'd at his summons 310for to let down the drawbridge and to uplift the gate: Anon with their deliverance he cometh again to usual cognisance of the things about him, life, and all his old familiar concepts of home. So 'tis with any Manchild born into the world, so wondereth he awhile at the stuff of his home, So, tho' slowly and unconsciently, he remembereth.— The senses ministrant on his apperception are predisposed to the terrestrial influences, adapted to the environment where they took shape: 320With ease of long habit his lungs inhale the air, his eyes and skin welcome the sun, and his palate findeth assurance taking to the mother's milk: His muffling wraps, his frill'd and closely curtain'd cot and silken apparel of wealth are stranger things to him than the rough contacts wherefrom they are thought to shield him, the everlasting companionships of his lang syne; nor later wil he meet with any older acquaintance than Bees are; for his ancestors ere they wer men had pillaged the wild combs, and thru' untold ages 330hive-honey in cave and palace hath sweeten'd man's food: not all the flooding syrup from the East-Indian cane foster'd in the Antilles, Ohio and Illinois, in Java, Demerara or Jamaica can drown Hybla's renown, nor cheapen the honey of Narbonne: A jar of Hymettan from a scholar in Athens regaled our English laurel above all gifts to me, who hav come to wiser affection in my regard for bees, learning the secret purpose wherefor Nature plann'd their industry, and controll'd its fashion to subserve 340the beauty and fertility of her vegetant life, to enrich her blooms with colour and fructify her fruits, —which never a bee can guess, nor that the unwholesomeness of mixy pollen (a thing that so concerneth bees) was by the flowers contrived for their own benefit:— Nay, whether it be in the gay apple-orchards of May, when the pink bunches spread their gold hearts to the sun, nor yet rude winds hav snow'd their petals to the ground; or when a dizzy bourdon haunteth the sweet cymes that droop at Lammas-tide the queenly foliage 350of a tall linden tree, where yearly by the wall of some long-ruin'd Abbey she remembereth her of glad thanksgivings and the gay choral Sabbaths, while in her leafy tower the languorous murmur floateth off heav'nward in a mellow dome of shade;— or when, tho' summer hath o' erbrim'd their clammy cells the shorten'd days are shadow'd with dark fears of dearth, bees ply the more, issuing on sultry noons to throng in the ivy-blooms—what time October's flaming hues surcharge the brooding hours, till passionat soul and sense 360blend in a rich reverie with the dying year;— when and wherever bees are busy, it is the flowers dispense their daily task and determin its field; the prime motiv, may-hap, of all bee-energy, as of bee-industry they are surely the whole stuff. Unwitting tho' it is, this great labor of love in such kindly intimacy with nature's workings hath a genial beauty, the charm whereof lacketh to the hireling drudgery of our huge city hives. So for their happy demeanour and sweet ministry 370they wer ever admired of man, and won immortal place in divine story and in poetic fable and rhyme: Deem'd heavenly visitants wer they, children of the air of no earthly engendering, under celestial laws living a life of wisdom pleasur and diligence, a model for the polity and society of men.
Alas, we hav seen too near the poor life of the Bee, how of the swarming workers that cluster'd to found the springtide colony and project its waxen walls not one liveth to sing her nisi Dominus, 380nor to rest from her labour, nor to enjoy the fruits. Forty days, six unsabbath'd weeks of fever'd toil wasteth and wearieth out their little frames—in truth their eggs wer a mass-product, not design'd to endure, nor for themselves, but pennywise to serve a turn:— One by one they succumb on their lonely journeys, o'erladen above their strength, benighted or astray, entrapp'd by swooping beaks, or by hard hail laid low with broken wings, untill a frail remnant at last wearily welcoming the dim prescience of death 390seek their own cemetery, where their shriveling skins may lie together apart nor soil the hive; yet still ever and ever as they fail, perish and disappear, new shifts of younger workers, born of later eggs, take-up the unresting labour, each in their turn content to keep hive clean, eggs plenty, and storeroom full. Thus passeth summer, and with her draggled pageantry they too giv o'er, and stay all business in the hive, and huddling upon the foodstore in their dark den by numb stagnation husband the low flicker of life, 400sustain'd by an unheard promise that their prison again shall feel the sun, and they with the brave buds of March shall drink the valiance of his steepening rays, they too be hearten'd to revive, and venturing forth renew the well-worn round of toil; wherein ther is no one point of true accomplishment, since the sweet honeycomb for which man thanketh them, is but their furnishment, the larder and nursery and provisional shelter wherein their forlorn hope, their last shift may hold out thru' the long sleepless night of winter's starving gloom. 410And for their monarch Queen—an egg-casting machine, helpless without attendance as a farmer's drill, by bedels driven and gear'd and in the furrows steer'd, well-watch'd the while, and treated with respect and care so long as she run well, oil'd stoked and kept in trim; but if deranged she slacken in her depositing, she is dealt with as men scrap a worn-out seed-barrow, not worth the mending; new machines cost nought to bees.
Now when this story is with man's tender sentiment foolishly travestied, Nature wil seem malign: 420But bees—unless the Selfhood of the hive can feel— lack conscience of emotion, or hav no more than when, call'd by the sun to swarm in a bright morn of May, their agitated clamour and frolic flight would shew that some levity hath prick'd their cores: even as with us who feel the exhilaration of the voluptuous air that surgeth in our flesh to flood the soul, and ease our stiff behaviour; and to such happy influences swarming bees are responsiv and forget to sting: in which, as in their stranger mockeries of mankind, 430they are truly less like us than we are like to them. So all barbaric tyrants, who secure their throne by murder of rivals, hav their model in the Queen-bee; and the class-hate that kindleth in disorder'd times, when prosperity hath set envy and desire at war— 'tis like the workers' annual massacre of the Drones: And even if some faint rebel mote of pleasure lurk in these fly-puppetries of human crime, 'tis plain that bees in their short life can hav so little joy and so much toil,—I say 'tis plain, that (if the things 440be comparable) then with the beehive compared the New-world slave-plantations wer abodes of bliss. Me-seemeth in my poem these poor hive-bees fare as with an old black bear that hath climb'd on their tree in the American Adirondacks or Asian Himalya, and clawing their comb, eateth it in, grubs, bees and honey and all: it is all one to him, for the brute is omnivorous and hath a sweet tooth.
Conscient Reason, the channel of man's spiritual joy, hath such dominant function also in bodily feeling 450that 'tis the measur of suffering in all animals, in lower forms negligible, and in the lowest pain can be felt no more than mid the dancing waves a pleasure-boat feeleth the hand on her tiller that keepeth-up her head to th' wind and her sails full. And of spiritual pain the most cometh again thru' Reason, whether of frailty or of imperfection:— Savagery hath the throes; and ah! in tender years the mind of childhood knoweth torments of terror, fears incommunicable, unconsolable, 460vague shapes; tho' oft they be the dread boding of truth, against which man's full Reason at grips may wrestle in vain. Yet for the gift of his virgin intelligence a child is ever our nearest pictur of happiness: 'tis a delight to look on him in tireless play attentivly occupied with a world of wonders, so rich in toys and playthings that naked Nature wer enough without the marvelous inventary of man; wherewith he toyeth no less, and learning soon the lore of cypher and alphabet anon getteth to con 470the fair uncial comment that science hath penn'd glossing the mazy hieroglyph of Nature's book and as he ever drinketh of the living waters his spirit is drawn into the stream and, as a drop commingled therewith, taketh of birthright therein as vast an heritage as his young body hath in the immemorial riches of mortality. And now full light of heart he hath willingly pass'd out thru' the sword-gates of Eden into the world beyond: He wil be child no more: in his revel of knowledge 480all the world is his own: all the hope of mankind is sharpen'd to a spearpoint in his bright confidence, as he rideth forth to do battle, a Chevalier in the joyous travail of the everlasting dawn: There is nought to compare then, truly nought to compare: and wer not Fortune fickle in her lovingkindness, all wer well with a man—for his life is at flower, nor hath he any fear: πὀθεν θανάτου νῦν μνημονεύσειεν ἀν ἐν ἀκμῇ τοςαύτῃ? But since her favor is inscrutable and uncertain, 490and of her multiplicity she troubleth not at the interaction of diverse self-consequences, ther wil be blastings and blightings of hope and love, and rude shocks that affray; yet to the enamour'd soul evil is irrelevant and will be brush'd aside: rather 'tis as with Art, wherein special beauty springeth of obstacles that hav been overcome and to graces transform'd; so the lover in life will make obstructions serve, and from all resistance gain strength: his reconcilement with suffering is eased 500by fellow-suffering, and in pride of his calling good warriorship welcometh the challenge of death. Beneath the spaceless dome of the soul's firmament he liveth in the glow of a celestial fire, fed by whose timeless beams our small obedient sun is as a cast-off satellite, that borroweth from the great Mover of all; and in the light of light man's little works, strewn on the sands of time, sparkle like cut jewels in the beatitude of God's countenance. But heav'nward tho' the chariot be already mounted, 510'tis Faith alone can keep the charioteer in heart— Nay, be he but irresolute the steeds wil rebel, and if he looketh earthward they wil follow his gaze; and ever as to earth he neareth, and vision cleareth of all that he feareth, and the enemy appeareth waving triumphant banners on the strongholds of ill, his mirroring mind wil tarnish, and mortal despair possess his soul: then surely Nature hath no night dark as that black darkness that can be felt: no storm blind as the fury of Man's self-destructiv passions, 520no pestilence so poisonous as his hideous sins. Thus men in slavery of sorrow imagin ghastly creeds, monstrous devilry, abstractions of terror, and wil look to death's benumbing opium as their only cure, or, seeking proudly to ennoble melancholy by embracement, wil make a last wisdom of woe: They lie in Hell like sheep, death gnaweth upon them; whose prophet sage and preacher is the old Ecclesiast pseudo-Solomon, who cryeth in the wilderness, calling all to baptism in the Slough of Despond: 530Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas.
THE Spartan General Brasidas, the strenuous man, who earn'd historic favour from his conquer'd foe, once caught a mouse foraging in his messbasket among the figs, but when it bit him let it go, praising its show of fight in words that Plutarch judged worth treasuring; and since I redd the story at school unto this hour I hav never thought of Brasidas and cannot hear his name, but that I straightway see a table and an arm'd man smiling with hand outstretch'd 540above a little mouse that is scampering away. Why should this thing so hold me? and why do I welcome now the tiny beast, that hath come running up to me as if here in my cantos he had spied a crevice, and counting on my friendship would make it his home? 'Tis such a pictur as must by mere beauty of fitness convince natural feeling with added comfort. The soldier seeth the instinct of Selfhood in the mouse to be the same impulse that maketh virtue in him. For Brasidas held that courage ennobleth man, 550and from unworth redeemeth, and that folk who shrink from ventur of battle in self-defence are thereby doom'd to slavery and extinction: and so this mouse, albeit its little teeth had done him a petty hurt, deserved liberty for its courage, and found grace in man. I had disliked Brasidas if he had kill'd the mouse: needless taking of life putteth Reason to shame, and men so startle at bloodshed that all homicide may to a purist seem mortal pollution of soul; a mystical horror of it may rule in him so strong, 560that rather than be slayer he would himself be slain: But fatherhood dispenseth with this vain taboo: the duty of mightiness is to protect the weak: and since slackness in duty is unto noble minds a greater shame and blame than any chance offence ensuing on right conduct, this hath my assent,— that where ther is any savagery ther wil be war: the warrior therefore needeth no apology.
Children, for all their innocency and gentleness, in their unreason'd Selfhood think no scorn of war, 570but practise mimicry of it in their merry games, like puppies that would learn their fighting tricks betimes; and a Duke's well-bred cubs win romantic escape from their palatial mansion, hiding in the woods where they may scream and weave their raw wigwams, and don the feathery tinsel and warpaint of the Cherokees. My little chorister, who never miss'd a note,— I mark'd him how when prayers wer ended he would take his Bible, and in his comer ensconced would sit and read with unassumed devotion. What was it fetch'd him? 580Matthew Mark Luke and John was it? The parables, the poetry and passion of Christ? Nay 'twas the bloody books of Jewish war, the story of their Judges and Kings; lured by those braggart annals, while he conn'd the page the parson's mild discourse pass'd o'er his head unheard. For Coverdale in his grand English truly built a temple fair as thatt Ionic fane, wherein neath his nine-column'd portico of all history Herodotus sitteth statued; and like the Jew the naive Greek chronicler discovereth God's purpose 590guiding his chosen race to terrestrial glory. Nor hath any other nation any better argument, whether it be forged or filch'd, invented or stolen; and their historians all are as children in this, and eagerly from battlefield to battlefield jaunt on their prancing pens after their man of war, who carveth the Earth into new kingdoms, as a cake is sliced for grabbing school-boys at a teaparty: and in their exaltation of dread and derringdo, prowess is magnified and cruelty condoned; 600whence smaller nations, as the Portuguese, require to multiply tenfold the tale of combatants, ere they deem any event worthy of their pictured pride. Parisian vanity reposeth thus today on Buonaparte's fame; for Alexander and he are kings of kings and lords of lords, the conquerors of conquerors all; dwarfing rude rivals whensoe'er, Alaric, Tamurlane, Attila and Zingis Khan, once names of terror and furious bombast, foremost men humbled, as wer the seventy kings who with their thumbs 610and their great toes cut off, finger'd the crumbs beneath Adonibezek's table, untill Jew Simeon came and did the same by him to my chorister's joy.
And since all earthly Empire hath taken origin from bloody invasion, man for himself would fashion his sanction and examplar in the kingdom of heav'n; Thus legendary Titans, swarming from chaos to exalt the glory of Zeus, barricaded his throne, uprooting mountains in gigantic rebellion. So hath the Church utter'd like false moneys for Christ 620with Godhead's image stamp'd, and pass'd it on the folk who, shadow'd in the murk of vulgar vainglories, wil prick their ears to hear how "Ther was war in Heav'n, and Michael and his Angels (like knights of romance) fought with the Dragon": tho' Almight hath nought to gain, and by sovran oppression exalteth only his foe in tragic sympathy, as with Milton's great devil, against infinit odds confronting undismay'd inevitable ruin; or old Methusalah who when the flood rose higher swam from peak to peak 630til, with the last wild beasts tamed in their fear, he sat watching the whelm of water on topmost Everest, as thatt too was submerged; while in his crowded ark Noah rode safely by: and sailors caught by storm on the wide Indian Ocean at shift of the monsoon, hav seen in the dark night a giant swimmer's head that on the sequent billows trailing silvery hair at every lightning flash reappeareth in place, out-riding the tempest, as a weather-bound barque anchor'd in open roadstead lifteth at the seas.
640And Poetry in her task of adorning spirit, trustful also and faithful to the instincts of man, honoureth ever the steeds above the charioteer. She once would favour Selfhood, but 'tis now the foal; and learning sapphic languor in the labour of love, the Muse hath doff'd her armour for a silken robe: yet in her swooning luxury she hath never match'd nor disthroned bearded Homer's great epic of war; altho' thatt siege of Troy was in the beginning wrath and concupiscence, and in the end thereof 650tragedy so tearful that no mind can approve, nor any gentle heart take comfort in the event. But these and all old tales of far-off things, bygones of long-ago whereof memory still holdeth shape, Time and the Muse hav purged of their unhappiness; with their bright broken beauty they pervade the abyss, peopling the Solitude with gorgeous presences: as those bare lofty columns, time-whiten'd relics of Atlantein adoration, upstanding lone in Baalbec or Palmyra, proudly affront the waste 660and with rich thought atone the melancholy of doom. Vet since of all, whatever hath once been, evil or good, tho' we can think not of it and remember it not, nothing can wholly perish; so ther is no birthright so noble or stock so clean, but it transmitteth dregs, contamination at core of old brutality; inchoate lobes, dumb shapes of ancient terror abide: tho' fading still in the oceanic deeps of mind their eyeless sorrows haunt the unfathom'd density, dulling the crystal lens of prophetic vision, crippling the nerve that ministereth to trembling strength, 671distorting the features of our nobility: And we, living at prime, what is it now to us how our forefathers dream'd, suffer'd, struggled, or wrought? how thru' the obliterated sons of man's ordeal unnumber'd personalities separatly endured? Think not to explore, estimate and accumulate those infinit dark happenings into a single view that might affect feeling with true judgment of thought: Imagination, that would set science that task, 680is as the astronomer who, with peduncled eye screw'd here or there at some minutest angle-space of the wide heav'ns, thinketh by piecemeal reckoning to pictur and comprehend the illimitable worlds thronging eternity; his highest fantasy is like an athlete's dream that he hath lept off the globe, when all his waking power is to jump-up and fall the height of his own head—all that the best can do. Wer it not then well to enquire of Reason, ere we admit her condemnation of War, seeing it so firmly entrench'd 690in the immemorial practice and good favour of man, whence hath she fetch'd her high authority, her right of spiritual judgment? Whence then cometh wisdom?
But I was anger'd with myself to hav said this thing, seeing that my thought had wander'd; for Reason reply'd "This question is wrongly ask'd. Who is it that putteth "this question into my mouth, and biddeth me answer him?— "I who hav never doubted of my authority, "who am the consciousness of things judging themselves— "Hav I not learn'd that Selfhood is fundamental 700"and universal in all individual Being; "and that thru' Motherhood it came in animals "to altruistic feeling, and thence-after in men "rose to spiritual affection? What then am I "in my conscience of self but very consciousness "of spiritual affection upgrown to life in me? "Truly inscrutable and dark is the Wisdom of God, "but no man cometh unto wisdom but by me." Then was I shamed: but still my thought went harking back on its old trail, whence Reason learn'd its troublous task 710to comprehend aright and wisely harmonise the speechless intuitions of the inconscient mind; which, though a naked babe (as men best pictured Christ) is yet in some sort nearer to the Omniscient than man's unperfect Reason, baulk'd as thatt must be by the self-puzzledom of introspection and doubt. Thatt dark mind with its potency is the stuff of life, nature's immutable provision: in some maybe, stagnant and poor, in some activ and rich, in each a given unique quantum of personality, 720a loan of so-much (as 'tis writ to one he gave five talents, to another two and to another one); a treasure that can be to good fortune assured by Reason, its determinant and inexplicable coefficient, that varieth also in power and worth. For I think not of Reason as men thought of Adam, created fullgrown, perfect in the image of God; but as a helpless nursling of animal mind, as a boy with his mother, unto whom he oweth more than he ever kenneth or stayeth to think, language, 730knowledge, grace, love and those ideal aims whereby his manly intelligence cometh to walk alone. But how, in this independence and pride, I ask, how can this younger born stand off so far apart, clear of all else, that by the mere conscience of things he can be judge of all and of himself to boot? For that I find him oftentimes servant and drudge: as 'tis seen in the true hermeneutic of art, whereof all excellence upspringeth of itself, like a rare fruit upon some gifted stock, ripening 740on its arch-personality of inborn faculty, without which gift creativ Reason is barren; altho' it will collaborate activly and eagerly with various governance, which appeareth in some as happy selection and delighted approval of spiritual nativities, that teem i' the mind, surging to escape, like to wild bubbles in a pot when the red fire beneath bristleth, and tortureth the water to airy ebullience;—or in another as toilsom evolution of larval germs, which yet 750transform while confidently it laboreth thereat slowly as a modeller in clay. How in its naked self Reason wer powerless showeth when philosophers wil treat of Art, the which they are full ready to do, having good intuition that their master-key may lie therein: but since they must lack vision of Art (for elsewise they had been artists, not philosophers) they miss the way; and ev'n the Greeks themselves, supreme in making as in thinking, never of their own art found the true hermeneutic; and the first insight 760of the twin-gifted Plato was to Aristotle a crude offence; for Plato said that earthly things, whether material objects or abstract notions, wer shadows of Ideas laid up in God's house, —a dainty dish for the sophistic banqueters. And yet this delicat doctrin, that held no shield to Zeno's lancing logic, took not hurt at heart from any mortal assault, but liveth in the schools with flourish'd head serene, high and invulnerable;— because the absurdity of indefinable forms 770is less than the denial of existence to thought: and truly if all existence is expression of Mind, ideas must themselves be truer existences than whatever else, and in such thought their nearest name.
Powers unseen and unknown are the fountains of life: no animal but kenneth that sunlight is warm; no dog but shifteth posture with the shifting shade reasonably as we: but man maketh a dial for it to measur his day, and by his abstract intellect hath taken it for the source and very cause of life 780then by science unraveling its physical rays he hath separated some, and found some properties; but of the whole he knoweth that his analysis hath not approach'd the secret of their living power. Nor hath man ever a doubt that mere objects of sense affect his mental states, nor that the mind in turn promoteth the action and function of his animal life in its organs and bones. The Greek astronomer, gazing with naked eye into the starry night, forgat his science and, in transport of spirit, 790his mortal lot. Then seem'd it to him as if his feet touch'd earth no longer: ἀλλὰ παρ᾽ αὐτῷ Ζανί, said he, in the treasur'd words that keep his joy from death, θεοτρεφέος πίμπλαμα: ἀμβροσίης. Now this imagination of awe and ecstasy, being proper and common in Man, and where lacking or dull so ready to suggestion, it seemeth as tho' the eye had some spiritual vision—as if the idea of Space and also of God existed in the midnight skies; and thus men came to think that their corporeal sense 800encounter'd reality in the appearance of things; and, stirr'd by influences that outreaching Reason kindled unknown desires, their awed souls fell to prayer that the great Maker of All would reveal his Being. If so be then that Reason, our teacher in all the schools, owneth to existences beyond its grasp, whereon its richer faculties depend, and that those powers are ever present influencing the unconscious mind in its native function to inspire the Will, 'twould seem that as the waken'd mind fashion'd to'ard intellect 810so the dark workings of his animal instincts faced in a new perspectiv to'ard spiritual sight; and thus man's trouble came of their divergency. For spiritual perception vague and uncontroll'd, being independent of the abstract intelligence, he is disconcerted twixt their rival promises, and doubtful of his road he wavereth following now one now the other: and thus I stand where I conclude that man's true wisdom were a reason'd harmony and correlation of these divergent faculties: 820this wer the bridge which all men who can see the abyss hav reasonably and instinctivly desired to build; and all their sacraments and mysteries whatsoe'er attempt to build it; from devout Pythagoras to th' last psychologist of Nancy or of Vienna. And between spiritual emotion and sensuous form the same living compact maketh our Art, wherein material appearances engage the soul's depth; and if in men untrain'd without habit of thought the ear is more æsthetic than the eye is, this cometh 830from thatt sense being the earlier endow'd in animals who, tho' they be all vacant in a picture-gallery nor see themselves in a mirror, attend to music and yield to fascination or vague wonder thereat. So if we, changing Plato's old difficult term, should rename his Ideas Influences, ther is none would miss his meaning nor, by nebulous logic, wish to refute his doctrin that indeed ther are eternal Essences that exist in themselves, supreme efficient causes of the thoughts of men.
840What is Beauty? saith my sufferings then.—I answer the lover and poet in my loose alexandrines: Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences, the quality of appearances that thru' the sense wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man: And Art, as it createth new forms of beauty, awakeneth new ideas that advance the spirit in the life of Reason to the wisdom of God. But highest Art must be rare as nativ faculty is, and her surprise of magic winneth favor of men 850more than her inspiration: most are led away by fairseeming pretences, which being wrought for gain pursue the ephemeral fashion that assureth it; and their thin influences are of the same low grade as the unaccomplish'd forms; their poverty is exposed when they would stake their charm on ethic excellence; for then weak simulations of virtues appear, such as convention approveth, but not Virtue itself, tho' not void of all good: and (as I read) 'twas this that Benvenuto intended, saying that not only 860Virtue was memorable but things so truly done that they wer like to Virtue; and thus prefaced his book, thinking to justify both himself and his works. The authority of Reason therefor relieth at last hereon—that her discernment of spiritual things, the ideas of Beauty, is her conscience of instinct upgrown in her (as she unto conscience of all upgrew from lower to higher) to conscience of Beauty judging itself by its own beauteous judgment. And of War she would say: it ranketh with those things 870that are like unto virtue, but not virtue itself: rather, in the conscience of spiritual beauty, a vice that needeth expert horsemanship to curb, yet being nativ in the sinew of selfhood, the life of things, the pride of animals, and virtue of savagery, so long as men be savage such it remaineth; and mid the smoke and gas of its new armoury still, with its tatter'd colours and gilt swords of state, retaineth its old glory untarnish'd—heroism, self-sacrifice, disciplin, and those hardy virtues 880of courage honour'd in Brasidas, without which man's personality were meaner than the brutes.
Who hath not known this pictur?—on a hot afternoon of our high summer in August at the country-seat of some vext politician, if in their flashing cars the county-folk gather to his holiday garden, where for their entertainment he hath outspredd the lawns with tents and furnish'd tables, flags and tennis-nets,— if haply he hav set up to dignify his grounds a classic statue of marble, fetch'd by ship from Greece, 890that standeth there in true ideal nakedness mid parasols and silks, how with blank shadow'd eyes it looketh off from all those aimless idlers there that flaunt around, now and again blurting perchance a shamefast shallow tribute to its beauteous presence! —'tis very like among common concourse of men, who twixt care of comfort and zeal in worldly affairs hav proved serving two masters the vanity of both, when a true soldier appeareth, one compact at heart of sterner virtues and modesty of maintenance, 900mute witness and martyr of spiritual faith, a man ready at call to render his life to keep his soul. All virtue is in her shape so lovely, that at sight her lover is enamour'd even of her nativ face. And here I part from Aristotle, agreeing else that a good disposition is Goddes happiest gift, without which, as he addeth, Virtue is unteachable, but in minds well-disposed may be by Reason upbuilt: "no man cometh (said she) unto wisdom but by me"; But when he would exalt this guiding principle 910to be thatt part whereby we are in likeness with God, whose Being (saith he) lieth in the unbroken exercise of absolute intellect—which for their happiness mankind should strive to attain—I halt thereat: and this marreth my full accord where, in a famous text he hath made Desire to be the Prime Mover of all: because the arch-thinker's heav'n cannot move my desire, nor doth his pensiv Deity make call on my love. I see the emotion of saints, lovers and poets all to be the kindling of some Personality 920by an eternizing passion; and that God's worshipper looking on any beauty falleth straightway in love; and thatt love is a fire in whose devouring flames all earthly ills are consumed, and at least flash of it, be it only a faint radiancy, the freed soul glimpseth, nay ev'n may think to hav felt, some initiat foretaste of that mystic rapture, the consummation of which is the absorption of Selfhood in the Being of God.
Ideas and influences spiritually discern'd are of their essence pure: but in the lot of man 930nothing is wholly pure; yet all hindrance to good —be good and evil two in love or one in strife— maketh occasion for it, by contrast heightening, by challenge and revelly arousing Virtue to act. Hence 'twill not be with men only of contention and hate, nor only with the ambitious and disorderly that combat findeth favor; honest men good and true who seek peace and ensue it, seeing war as the field for exercise of spirit that else might fust unused, embrace the good, and cavil not the inherent terms, 940rather welcoming hardship; which by affraying cowards purgeth heroic ranks: and battle rallieth all keen-hearted sportsmen and the brave gamesters of life, adventurers whose joy danceth on peril's edge, for whom life hath no relish save in danger of death; who love sport for its hazard, and of all their sports where hazard is at highest look to find the best there on the field where hourly they may stake their all. And 'tis because they feel their spirit's ecstasy is owing in nought to Reason, but exultantly blendeth with the old Selfhood wherefrom it sprang—'tis thus 951they can be friendly at heart with nature's heartlessness, nor heed the wrongs and cruelties that come and pass, overlook'd as by men who hav suffer'd not nor seen.
But we who hav seen, condemn'd in savage self-defence to train our peaceful folk in the instruments of death, and of massacre and mourning hav suffer'd four years— we hav no need to recount in vindication of peace, sorrows which no glory of heroism can atone, horrors which to forget wer cowardice and wrong, 960dishonesty of heart and repudiation of soul,— yet gladly might forget in the passing of pain; and memory is so complacent that we well may fear lest our children forget;—and see Nature already, regardless how her fractious babe had scratch'd her cheek, hath with her showy Invincibles retaken amain the trenches, and reclothed the devastated lands. See with how placid mien Athena unhelmeted rëentering hath possess'd her desolated halls; how her musical temples and grave schools are throng'd with fresh youth eager as ever with the old books and games, 971their live abounding mirth rëechoing from the walls, where among antique monuments their brothers' names in long death-roll await the mellowing touch of time. And why not we forget? How is't that we dare not wish to forget and cut this canker of memory from us, as men diseased in one part of their flesh find health in mutilation: as if our agony wer a boon to keep, when in its own happy riddance 'twould die off in the natural oblivion of things, 980and with our follies fade: so, each one for himself disbanding his self-share, Reason would dissipate its own delusion, and lay that spectre of our dismay, the accumulation of griefs; to which War hath no right prior or prerogative: miseries lay as thick and horrors worse when Plague invaded the cities, Athens or London, raging with polluted flood in every house, and with revolting torture rack'd the folk to loathsom deaths; nor men kenn'd as they fell, desperatly unrepentant to the "scourge of God", 990how 'twas the crowded foulness of their own bodies punish'd them so:—alas then in what plight are we, knowing 'twas mankind's crowded uncleanness of soul that brought our plague! which yet we coud not cure nor stay; for Reason had lost control of his hot-temper'd steed and taken himself infection of the wild brute's madness; so when its fire slacken'd and the fierce fight wore out, our fever'd pulse show'd no sober return of health. Amid the flimsy joy of the uproarious city my spirit on those first jubilant days of armistice 1000was heavier within me, and felt a profounder fear than ever it knew in all the War's darkest dismay.
