Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways;
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the proud, majestical multitude.
Three types of men have made all beautiful things. Aristocracies have
made beautiful manners, because their place in the world puts them above
the fear of life, and the countrymen have made beautiful stories and
beliefs, because they have nothing to lose and so do not fear, and the
artists have made all the rest, because Providence has filled them with
recklessness. All these look backward to a long tradition, for, being
without fear, they have held to whatever pleased them. The others being
always anxious have come to possess little that is good in itself, and
are always changing from thing to thing, for whatever they do or have
must be a means to something else, and they have so little belief that
anything can be an end in itself, that they cannot understand you if
you say, 'All the most valuable things are useless.' They prefer the
stalk to the flower, and believe that painting and poetry exist that
there may be instruction, and love that there may be children, and
theatres that busy men may rest, and holidays that busy men may go on
being busy. At all times they fear and even hate the things that have
worth in themselves, for that worth may suddenly, as it were a fire,
consume their book of Life, where the world is represented by cyphers
and symbols; and before all else, they fear irreverent joy and
unserviceable sorrow. It seems to them, that those who have been freed
by position, by poverty, or by the traditions of Art, have something
terrible about them, a light that is unendurable to eyesight. They
complain much of that commandment that we can do almost what we will, if
we do it gaily, and think that freedom is but a trifling with the world.
If we would find a company of our own way of thinking, we must go
backward to turreted walls, to courts, to high rocky places, to little
walled towns, to jesters like that jester of Charles the Fifth who made
mirth out of his own death; to the Duke Guidobaldo in his sickness, or
Duke Frederick in his strength, to all those who understood that life is
not lived, if not lived for contemplation or excitement.
Certainly we could not delight in that so courtly thing, the poetry of
light love, if it were sad; for only when we are gay over a thing, and
can play with it, do we show ourselves its master, and have minds clear
enough for strength. The raging fire and the destructive sword are
portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man, wrote Blake, and it
is only before such things, before a love like that of Tristan and
Iseult, before noble or ennobled death, that the free mind permits
itself aught but brief sorrow. That we may be free from all the rest,
sullen anger, solemn virtue, calculating anxiety, gloomy suspicion,
prevaricating hope, we should be reborn in gaiety. Because there is
submission in a pure sorrow, we should sorrow alone over what is greater
than ourselves, nor too soon admit that greatness, but all that is less
than we are should stir us to some joy, for pure joy masters and
impregnates; and so to world end, strength shall laugh and wisdom mourn.