hedges: the eagle himself would be starved if he always soared aloft
and against the sun. The sweetest fruit grows near the ground, and the
plants that bear it require ventilation and lopping. Were this not to
be done in thy garden, every walk and alley, every {110} plot and
border, would be covered with runners and roots, with boughs and
suckers. We want no poets or logicians or metaphysicians to govern us:
we want practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men,
fearful to solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never to
betray one. Experimentalists may be the best philosophers; they are
always the worst politicians. Teach people their duties, and they will
know their interests. Change as little as possible, and correct as
much.
Philosophers are absurd from many causes, but principally from laying
out unthriftily their distinctions. They set up four virtues:
fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. Now a man may be a very
bad one, and yet possess three out of the four. Every cutthroat must,
if he has been a cutthroat on many occasions, have more fortitude and
more prudence than the greater part of those whom we consider as the
best men. And what cruel wretches, both executioners and judges, have
been strictly just! how little have they cared what gentleness, what
generosity, what genius, their sentence have removed from the earth!
Temperance and beneficence contain all other virtues. Take them home,
Plato; split them, expound them; do what thou wilt with them, if thou
but use them.
Before I gave thee this lesson, which is a better than thou ever gavest
any one, and easier to remember, thou wert accusing me of invidiousness
and malice against those whom thou callest the great, meaning to say
the powerful. Thy imagination, I am well aware, had taken its flight
toward Sicily, where thou seekest thy great {111} man, as earnestly and
undoubtingly as Ceres sought her Persephone. Faith! honest Plato, I
have no reason to envy thy worthy friend Dionysius. Look at my nose!
A lad seven or eight years old threw an apple at me yesterday, while I
was gazing at the clouds, and gave me nose enough for two moderate men.
Instead of such a godsend, what should I have thought of my fortune if,
after living all my lifetime among golden vases, rougher than my hand
with their emeralds and rubies, their engravings and embossments; among
Parian caryatides and porphyry sphinxes; among philosophers with rings
upon their fingers and linen next their skin; and among singing-boys
and dancing-girls, to whom alone thou speakest intelligibly,--I ask
thee again, what should I in reason have thought of my fortune, if,
after these facilities and superfluities, I had at last been pelted out
of my house, not by one young rogue, but by thousands of all ages, and
not with an apple (I wish I could say a rotten one), but with pebbles
and broken pots; and, to crown my deserts, had been compelled to become
the teacher of so promising a generation? Great men, forsooth! thou
knowest at last who they are.
_Plato_. There are great men of various kinds.
_Diogenes_. No, by my beard, are there not!
_Plato_. What! are there not great captains, great geometricians,
great dialecticians?
_Diogenes_. Who denied it? A great man was the postulate. Try thy
hand now at the powerful one.
_Plato_. On seeing the exercise of power, a child cannot doubt who is
powerful, more or less; for power is relative. All men are weak, not
only if compared to {112} the Demiurgos, but if compared to the sea or
the earth, or certain things upon each of them, such as elephants and
whales. So placid and tranquil is the scene around us, we can hardly
bring to mind the images of strength and force, the precipices, the
abysses--
_Diogenes_. Prythee hold thy loose tongue, twinkling and glittering
like a serpent's in the midst of luxuriance and rankness! Did never
this reflection of thine warn thee that, in human life, the precipices
and abysses would be much farther from our admiration, if we were less
inconsiderate, selfish, and vile? I will not however stop thee long,
for thou wert going on quite consistently. As thy great men are
fighters and wranglers, so thy mighty things upon the earth and sea are
troublesome and intractable incumbrances. Thou perceivedst not what
was greater in the former case, neither art thou aware what is greater
in this. Didst thou feel the gentle air that passed us?
_Plato_. I did not, just then.
_Diogenes_. That air, so gentle, so imperceptible to thee, is more
powerful not only than all the creatures that breathe and live by it;
not only than all the oaks of the forest, which it rears in an age and
shatters in a moment; not only than all the monsters of the sea, but
than the sea itself, which it tosses up into foam, and breaks against
every rock in its vast circumference; for it carries in its bosom, with
perfect calm and composure, the incontrollable ocean and the peopled
earth, like an atom of a feather.
To the world's turmoils and pageantries is attracted, not only the
admiration of the populace, but the zeal of {113} the orator, the
enthusiasm of the poet, the investigation of the historian, and the
contemplation of the philosopher: yet how silent and invisible are they
in the depths of air! Do I say in those depths and deserts? No; I say
at the distance of a swallow's flight,--at the distance she rises above
us, ere a sentence brief as this could be uttered.
What are its mines and mountains? Fragments welded up and dislocated
by the expansion of water from below; the most part reduced to mud, the
rest to splinters. Afterwards sprang up fire in many places, and again
tore and mangled the mutilated carcass, and still growls over it.
What are its cities and ramparts, and moles and monuments? Segments of
a fragment, which one man puts together and another throws down. Here
we stumble upon thy great ones at their work. Show me now, if thou
canst, in history, three great warriors, or three great statesmen, who
have acted otherwise than spiteful children.
(_Imaginary Conversations_.)
JANE AUSTEN 1775-1817
AN INVITATION
It was now the middle of June and the weather fine, and Mrs Elton was
growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr Weston as to
pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw everything
into {114} sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few
days, before the horse were useable, but no preparations could be
ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs Elton's
resources were inadequate to such an attack.
"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?" she cried; "and such weather
for exploring! these delays and disappointments are quite odious. What
are we to do? The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done.
Before this time last year, I assure you, we had had a delightful
exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston."
"You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr Knightley. "That may
be done without horses. Come and eat my strawberries; they are
ripening fast."
If Mr Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so;
for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should
like it of all things," was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell
was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the
invitation; but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been
enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She
promised him again and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and
was extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a
distinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it.
"You may depend upon me," said she; "I certainly will come.--Name your
day, and I will come.--You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?"
"I cannot name a day," said he, "till I have {115} spoken to some
others, whom I would wish to meet you."
"Oh, leave all that to me; only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady
Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me."
"I hope you will bring Elton," said he; "but I will not trouble you to
give any other invitations."
"Oh, now you are looking very sly; but consider,--you need not be
afraid of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her
preferment. Married women, you know, may be safely authorized. It is
my party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests."
"No," he calmly replied, "there is but one married woman in the world
whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and
that one is----"
"Mrs Weston, I suppose," interrupted Mrs Elton, rather mortified.
"No,--Mrs Knightley; and till she is in being, I will manage such
matters myself."
"Ah, you are an odd creature!" she cried, satisfied to have no one
preferred to herself. "You are a humourist, and may say what you like.
Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her
aunt. The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting
the Hartfield family. Don't scruple, I know you are attached to them."
"You certainly will meet them, if I can prevail; and I shall call on
Miss Bates in my way home."
"That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day;--but {116} as you
like. It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a
simple thing. I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little
baskets hanging on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink
ribbon. Nothing can be more simple, you see. And Jane will have such
another. There is to be no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We
are to walk about your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves,
and sit under trees; and whatever else you may like to provide, it is
to be all out of doors; a table spread in the shade, you know.
Everything as natural and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?"
"Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have the
table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of
gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is
best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating
strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house."
"Well, as you please; only don't have a great set-out. And, by the
bye, can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?
Pray be sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs Hodges, or
to inspect anything----"
"I have not the least wish for it, I thank you.'"
"Well,--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is
extremely clever."
"I will answer for it that mine thinks herself full as clever, and
would spurn anybody's assistance."
"I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on
donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me, {117} and my _caro sposo_ walking
by. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country
life I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have
ever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up
at home; and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in
winter there is dirt."
"You will not find either between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane
is never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey,
however, if you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs Cole's. I would wish
everything to be as much to your taste as possible."
"That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend.
Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the
warmest heart. As I tell Mr E., you are a thorough humourist. Yes,
believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in
the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please
me."
Mr Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He
wished to persuade Mr Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party;
and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to eat
would inevitably make him ill. Mr Woodhouse must not, under the
specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at
Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.
He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him
for his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell
for two years. "Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet
{118} could go very well; and he could sit still with Mrs Weston while
the dear girls walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could
be damp now, in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old
house again exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr and Mrs
Elton, and any other of his neighbours. He could not see any objection
at all to his, and Emma's, and Harriet's going there some very fine
morning. He thought it very well done of Mr Knightley to invite them;
very kind and sensible; much cleverer than dining out. He was not fond
of dining out."
Mr Knightley was fortunate in everybody's most ready concurrence. The
invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like
Mrs Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment
to themselves.
(_Emma_.)
WILLIAM HAZLITT 1778-1830
COLERIDGE AS PREACHER
It was in January of 1798 that I rose one morning before daylight, to
walk ten miles in the mud to hear this celebrated person preach.
Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walk
as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798.
When I got there the organ was playing the 100th Psalm, and when it was
done Mr Coleridge rose and gave out {119} his text, "And he went up
into the mountain to pray, _himself, alone_." As he gave out this text
his voice "rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes," and when he
came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and
distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had
echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might
have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St
John came into my mind, "of one crying in the wilderness, who had his
loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey." The
preacher then launched into his subject like an eagle dallying with the
wind. The sermon was upon peace and war; upon church and state--not
their alliance but their separation--on the spirit of the world and the
spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another.
He talked of those who had "inscribed the cross of Christ on banners
dripping with human gore." He made a poetical and pastoral
excursion--and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking
contrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield, or
sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, "as though he should
never be old," and the same poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped,
brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretched
drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a
long cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the
profession of blood:
"Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung."
And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the
music of the spheres. Poetry and {120} Philosophy had met together.
Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of
Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well
satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the
sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and
the cold, dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard of the
thistle had something genial and refreshing in them; for there was a
spirit of hope and youth in all nature that turned everything into good.
(_Winterslow_.)
THOMAS DE QUINCEY 1785-1859
A DREAM
Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the
dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored
to some familiar shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking;
and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl, adorned
with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival,
running along the solitary strand in extremity of haste. Her running
was the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful
enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps
to warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from another
peril, and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead.
Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rocks she {121}
wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only
to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already her
person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of white
roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of
all, was visible one white marble arm. I saw by early twilight this
fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness--saw this marble
arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing,
faltering, rising, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretched
out from the clouds--saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and
then uttering her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm--these
all had sunk; at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed;
and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own
solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that,
rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried
child, and over her blighted dawn.
I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the
memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of
earth, our mother. But suddenly the tears and funeral bells were
hushed by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great
king's artillery, advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar
by echoes from the mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my ear
earthwards to listen--"hush!--this either is the very anarchy of
strife, or else"--and then I listened more profoundly, and whispered as
I raised my head--"or else, oh heavens! it is _victory_ that is final,
victory that swallows up all strife."
(_The English Mail-coach_.)
{122}
JOHN KEATS 1795-1821
THE USE OF POETRY
I had an idea that a Man might pass a very pleasant life in this
manner--Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy or
distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and
reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream
upon it: until it becomes stale--But when will it do so? Never--When
Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and
spiritual passage serves him as a starting-post towards all "the
two-and-thirty Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception,
what delicious diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinder
it, and a nap upon Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings--the
prattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle-age a
strength to beat them--a strain of music conducts to "an odd angle of
the Isle," and when the leaves whisper it puts a girdle round the
earth.--Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverence
to their Writers--for perhaps the honours paid by Man to Man are
trifles in comparison to the benefit done by great works to the "spirit
and pulse of good" by their mere passive existence. Memory should not
be called Knowledge--Many have original minds who do not think it--they
are led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may,
like the spider, spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel--the
points of leaves and twigs on which {123} the spider begins her work
are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man should
be content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul, and
weave a tapestry empyrean--full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of
softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wandering, of
distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different
and bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear
impossible for any common taste and fellowship to exist between two or
three under these suppositions. It is however quite the contrary.
Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each
other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the
journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together and the old
man be led on his path and the child left thinking. Man should not
dispute or assert, but whisper results to his Neighbour, and thus, by
every germ of spirit sucking the sap from mould ethereal, every human
might become great, and humanity instead of being a wide heath of furze
and briars, with here and there a remote Oak or Pine, would become a
grand democracy of forest trees. It has been an old comparison for
urging on--the bee-hive--however it seems to me that we should rather
be the flower than the Bee--for it is a false notion that more is
gained by receiving than giving--no, the receiver and the giver are
equal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair
guerdon from the Bee--its leaves blush deeper in the next spring--and
who shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Now
it is more noble to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury:--let us not
therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, {124} bee-like,
buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be
arrived at. But let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive
and receptive; budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking
hints from every noble insect that favours us with a visit--Sap will be
given us for meat, and dew for drink.
(_Letters_.)
THOMAS CARLYLE 1795-1881
THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES
One finds that in the second week in June Colonel de Choiseul is
privately in Paris; having come "to see his children." Also that
Fersen has got a stupendous new Coach built, of the kind named
_Berline_; done by the first artists; according to a model: they bring
it home to him, in Choiseul's presence; the two friends take a
proof-drive in it, along the streets; in meditative mood; then send it
up to "Madame Sullivan's, in the Rue de Clichy," far north, to wait
there till wanted. Apparently a certain Russian Baroness de Korff,
with Waiting-woman, Valet, and two Children, will travel homewards with
some state: in whom these young military gentlemen take interest? A
Passport has been procured for her, and much assistance shewn, with
Coachbuilders and such-like;--so helpful-polite are young military
men. . . These are the Phenomena, or visual Appearances, of this
wide-working terrestrial world: which truly is all phenomenal, what
they call spectral; and never rests at any moment; one never at any
moment can know why.
On Monday night, the Twentieth of June 1791, about eleven o'clock,
there is many a hackney-coach and {125} glass-coach still rumbling or
at rest on the streets of Paris. But of all glass-coaches we recommend
this to thee, O Reader, which stands drawn up in the Rue de l'Echelle,
hard by the Carrousel and outgate of the Tuileries; in the Rue de
l'Echelle that then was, "opposite Ronsin the saddler's door," as if
waiting for a fare there. Not long does it wait: a hooded Dame, with
two hooded Children has issued from Villequier's door, where no sentry
walks, into the Tuileries' Court-of-Princes; into the Carrousel; into
the Rue de l'Echelle; where the Glass-coachman readily admits them; and
again waits. Not long; another Dame, likewise hooded or shrouded,
leaning on a servant, issues in the same manner; bids the servant
good-night; and is, in the same manner, by the Glass-coachman,
cheerfully admitted. Whither go so many Dames? 'Tis his Majesty's
_Couchée_, Majesty just gone to bed, and all the Palace-world is
retiring home. But the Glass-coachman still waits; his fare seemingly
incomplete.