THE "HAVAMAL"
OLD NORTHERN ETHICS OF LIFE
Then from his lips in music rolled
The Havamal of Odin old,
With sounds mysterious as the roar
Of billows on a distant shore.
Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in Longfellow's "Saga of
King Olaf" have wished to know what was this wonderful song that the ghost
of the god sang to the king. I am afraid that you would be very
disappointed in some respects by the "Havamal." There is indeed a magical
song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow refers
to, a song of charms. But most of the "Havamal" is a collection of ethical
teaching. All that has been preserved by it has been published and
translated by Professors Vigfusson and Powell. It is very old--perhaps the
oldest Northern literature that we have. I am going to attempt a short
lecture upon it, because it is very closely related to the subject of
Northern character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything
else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt and thought
before they became Christians. Nor is this all. I venture to say that the
character of the modern English people still retains much more of the
quality indicated by the "Havamal" than of the quality implied by
Christianity. The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a very great
part of the world to-day.
The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about
them than any other kind of literature. And this sort of literature is
certainly among the oldest. It represents only the result of human
experience in society, the wisdom that men get by contact with each other,
the results of familiarity with right and wrong. By studying the proverbs
of a people, you can always make a very good guess as to whether you could
live comfortably among them or not.
Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the excellent
observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time of the terrible
sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of the old Northern
pirates, and find them exactly as they were one thousand or fifteen
hundred years ago, we should find them very much like the modern
Englishmen--big, simple, silent men, concealing a great deal of shrewdness
under an aspect of simplicity. The teachings of the "Havamal" give great
force to this supposition. The book must have been known in some form to
the early English--or at least the verses composing it (it is all written
in verse); and as I have already said, the morals of the old English, as
well as their character, differed very little from those of the men of the
still further North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both
before and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and
Sweden were one kingdom.
Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very terrible
thing in some ways. Every man carried his life in his hands; every farmer
kept sword and spear at his side even in his own fields; and every man
expected to die fighting. In fact, among the men of the more savage
North--the men of Norway in especial--it was considered a great disgrace
to die of sickness, to die on one's bed. That was not to die like a man.
Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old age or
sickness coming on. But these facts must not blind us to the other fact
that there was even in that society a great force of moral cohesion, and
sound principles of morality. If there had not been, it could not have
existed; much less could the people who lived under it have become the
masters of a great part of the world, which they are at the present day.
There was, in spite of all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature
among them; there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault
with--rules which still govern English society to some extent. And there
was opportunity enough for social amusement, social enjoyment, and the
winning of public esteem by a noble life.
Still, even in the "Havamal," one is occasionally startled by teachings
which show the darker side of Northern life, a life of perpetual vendetta.
As in old Japan, no man could live under the same heaven with the murderer
of his brother or father; vengeance was a duty even in the case of a
friend. On the subject of enemies the "Havamal" gives not a little curious
advice:
A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can
never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear.
A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all
the doorways (_so that he can find his way out quickly again_),
for he can never know where foes may be sitting in another man's
house.
Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody has three
enemies outside of his own door? But the meaning of the "Havamal" teaching
is much more sinister. And when the man goes into the house, he is still
told to be extremely watchful--to keep his ears and eyes open so that he
may not be taken by surprise:
The wary guest keeps watchful silence; he listens with his ears
and peers about with his eyes; thus does every wise man look about
him.
One would think that men must have had very strong nerves to take comfort
under such circumstances, but the poet tells us that the man who can enjoy
nothing must be both a coward and a fool. Although a man was to keep watch
to protect his life, that was not a reason why he should be afraid of
losing it. There were but three things of which a man should be
particularly afraid. The first was drink--because drink often caused a man
to lose control of his temper; the second was another man's
wife--repeatedly the reader is warned never to make love to another man's
wife; and the third was thieves--men who would pretend friendship for the
purpose of killing and stealing, The man who could keep constant watch
over himself and his surroundings was, of course, likely to have the
longest life.
Now in all countries there is a great deal of ethical teaching, and always
has been, on the subject of speech. The "Havamal" is full of teaching on
this subject--the necessity of silence, the danger and the folly of
reckless talk. You all know the Japanese proverb that "the mouth is the
front gate of all misfortune." The Norse poet puts the same truth into a
grimmer shape: "The tongue works death to the head." Here are a number of
sayings on this subject:
He that is never silent talks much folly; a glib tongue, unless it
be bridled, will often talk a man into trouble.
Do not speak three angry words with a worse man; for often the
better man falls by the worse man's sword.
Smile thou in the face of the man thou trusteth not, and speak
against thy mind.
This is of course a teaching of cunning; but it is the teaching, however
immoral, that rules in English society to-day. In the old Norse, however,
there were many reasons for avoiding a quarrel whenever possible--reasons
which must have existed also in feudal Japan. A man might not care about
losing his own life; but he had to be careful not to stir up a feud that
might go on for a hundred years. Although there was a great deal of
killing, killing always remained a serious matter, because for every
killing there had to be a vengeance. It is true that the law exonerated
the man who killed another, if he paid a certain blood-price; murder was
not legally considered an unpardonable crime. But the family of the dead
man would very seldom be satisfied with a payment; they would want blood
for blood. Accordingly men had to be very cautious about quarreling,
however brave they might personally be.
But all this caution about silence and about watchfulness did not mean
that a man should be unable to speak to the purpose when speech was
required. "A wise man," says the "Havamal," "should be able both to ask
and to answer." There is a proverb which you know, to the effect that you
can not shut the door upon another man's mouth. So says the Norse poet:
"The sons of men can keep silence about nothing that passes among men;
therefore a man should be able to take his own part, prudently and
strongly." Says the "Havamal": "A fool thinks he knows everything if he
sits snug in his little corner; but he is at a loss for words if the
people put to him a question." Elsewhere it is said: "Arch dunce is he who
can speak nought, for that is the mark of a fool." And the sum of all this
teaching about the tongue is that men should never speak without good
reason, and then should speak to the point strongly and wisely.
On the subject of fools there is a great deal in the "Havamal"; but you
must understand always by the word fool, in the Northern sense, a man of
weak character who knows not what to do in time of difficulty. That was a
fool among those men, and a dangerous fool; for in such a state of society
mistakes in act or in speech might reach to terrible consequences. See
these little observations about fools:
Open-handed, bold-hearted men live most happily, they never feel
care; but a fool troubles himself about everything. The niggard
pines for gifts.
A fool is awake all night, worrying about everything; when the
morning comes he is worn out, and all his troubles are just the
same as before.
A fool thinks that all who smile upon him are his friends, not
knowing, when he is with wise men, who there may be plotting
against him.
If a fool gets a drink, all his mind is immediately displayed.
But it was not considered right for a man not to drink, although drink was
a dangerous thing. On the contrary, not to drink would have been thought a
mark of cowardice and of incapacity for self-control. A man was expected
even to get drunk if necessary, and to keep his tongue and his temper no
matter how much he drank. The strong character would only become more
cautious and more silent under the influence of drink; the weak man would
immediately show his weakness. I am told the curious fact that in the
English army at the present day officers are expected to act very much
after the teaching of the old Norse poet; a man is expected to be able on
occasion to drink a considerable amount of wine or spirits without showing
the effects of it, either in his conduct or in his speech. "Drink thy
share of mead; speak fair or not at all"--that was the old text, and a
very sensible one in its way.
Laughter was also condemned, if indulged in without very good cause. "The
miserable man whose mind is warped laughs at everything, not knowing what
he ought to know, that he himself has no lack of faults." I need scarcely
tell you that the English are still a very serious people, not disposed to
laugh nearly so much as are the men of the more sympathetic Latin races.
You will remember perhaps Lord Chesterfield's saying that since he became
a man no man had ever seen him laugh. I remember about twenty years ago
that there was published by some Englishman a very learned and very
interesting little book, called "The Philosophy of Laughter," in which it
was gravely asserted that all laughter was foolish. I must acknowledge,
however, that no book ever made me laugh more than the volume in question.
The great virtue of the men of the North, according to the "Havamal," was
indeed the virtue which has given to the English race its present great
position among nations,--the simplest of all virtues, common sense. But
common sense means much more than the words might imply to the Japanese
students, or to any one unfamiliar with English idioms. Common sense, or
mother-wit, means natural intelligence, as opposed to, and independent of,
cultivated or educated intelligence. It means inherited knowledge; and
inherited knowledge may take even the form of genius. It means foresight.
It means intuitive knowledge of other people's character. It means cunning
as well as broad comprehension. And the modern Englishman, in all times
and in all countries, trusts especially to this faculty, which is very
largely developed in the race to which he belongs. No Englishman believes
in working from book learning. He suspects all theories, philosophical or
other. He suspects everything new, and dislikes it, unless he can be
compelled by the force of circumstances to see that this new thing has
advantages over the old. Race-experience is what he invariably depends
upon, whenever he can, whether in India, in Egypt, or in Australia. His
statesmen do not consult historical precedents in order to decide what to
do: they first learn the facts as they are; then they depend upon their
own common sense, not at all upon their university learning or upon
philosophical theories. And in the case of the English nation, it must be
acknowledged that this instinctive method has been eminently successful.
When the "Havamal" speaks of wisdom it means mother-wit, and nothing else;
indeed, there was no reading or writing to speak of in those times:
No man can carry better baggage on his journey than wisdom.
There is no better friend than great common sense.
But the wise man should not show himself to be wise without occasion. He
should remember that the majority of men are not wise, and he should be
careful not to show his superiority over them unnecessarily. Neither
should be despise men who do not happen to be as wise as himself:
No man is so good but there is a flaw in him, nor so bad as to be
good for nothing.
Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. Those who know
many things rarely lead the happiest life.
Middling wise should every man be; never overwise. No man should
know his fate beforehand; so shall he live freest from care.
Middling wise should every man be, never too wise. A wise man's
heart is seldom glad, if its owner be a true sage.
This is the ancient wisdom also of Solomon "He that increases wisdom
increases sorrow." But how very true as worldly wisdom these little
Northern sentences are. That a man who knows a little of many things, and
no one thing perfectly, is the happiest man--this certainly is even more
true to-day than it was a thousand years ago. Spencer has well observed
that the man who can influence his generation, is never the man greatly in
advance of his time, but only the man who is very slightly better than his
fellows. The man who is very superior is likely to be ignored or disliked.
Mediocrity can not help disliking superiority; and as the old Northern
sage declared, "the average of men is but moiety." Moiety does not mean
necessarily mediocrity, but also that which is below mediocrity. What we
call in England to-day, as Matthew Arnold called it, the Philistine
element, continues to prove in our own time, to almost every superior man,
the danger of being too wise.
Interesting in another way, and altogether more agreeable, are the old
sayings about friendship: "Know this, if thou hast a trusty friend, go and
see him often; because a road which is seldom trod gets choked with
brambles and high grass."
Be not thou the first to break off from thy friend. Sorrow will
eat thy heart if thou lackest the friend to open thy heart to.
Anything is better than to be false; he is no friend who
only speaks to please.
Which means, of course, that a true friend is not afraid to find fault
with his friend's course; indeed, that is his solemn duty. But these
teachings about friendship are accompanied with many cautions; for one
must be very careful in the making friends. The ancient Greeks had a
terrible proverb: "Treat your friend as if he should become some day your
enemy; and treat your enemy as if he might some day become your friend."
This proverb seems to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt in human
nature. We do not find this doubt in the Norse teaching, but on the
contrary, some very excellent advice. The first thing to remember is that
friendship is sacred: "He that opens his heart to another mixes blood with
him." Therefore one should be very careful either about forming or about
breaking a friendship.
A man should be a friend to his friend's friend. But no man should
be a friend of his friend's foe, nor of his foe's friend.
A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with
gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing
for lies.
Give and give back makes the longest friend. Give not overmuch at
one time. Gift always looks for return.
The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite sufficient to make
friends and to keep them, if wisely given. A costly gift may seem like a
bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly feeling. And as a mere
matter of justice, a costly gift may be unkind, for it puts the friend
under an obligation which he may not be rich enough to repay. Repeatedly
we are told also that too much should not be expected of friendship. The
value of a friend is his affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost
must always be returned.
I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but that
boon was boon to him--nor so generous as not to look for return if
he had a chance.
Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on
friendship--showing how little human wisdom has changed in all the
centuries. Here is another good bit of advice concerning visits:
It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on one's
road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even though he
live far out.
Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome becomes
wearisome if he sits too long at another's table.
This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is a further
caution on the subject of eating at a friend's house. You must not go to
your friend's house hungry, when you can help it.
A man should take his meal betimes, before he goes to his
neighbour--or he will sit and seem hungered like one starving, and
have no power to talk.
That is the main point to remember in dining at another's house, that you
are not there only for your own pleasure, but for that of other people.
You are expected to talk; and you can not talk if you are very hungry. At
this very day a gentleman makes it the rule to do the same thing.
Accordingly we see that these rough men of the North must have had a good
deal of social refinement--refinement not of dress or of speech, but of
feeling. Still, says the poet, one's own home is the best, though it be
but a cottage. "A man is a man in his own house."
Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are noteworthy in a
certain way:
Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all the
world knows.
Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou
shalt never get reward for thy sincerity.
I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the advice
concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is praise. If you
have to be careful about blame, you must be very cautious also about
praise.
Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword when
it has been tried; a maid when she is married; ice when
you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk.
If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it is the
exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is essentially
Northern. The last people from whom praise can be expected, even for what
is worthy of all praise, are the English. A new friendship, a new ideal, a
reform, a noble action, a wonderful poet, an exquisite painting--any of
these things will be admired and praised by every other people in Europe
long before you can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time
is studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to find
fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. He has
inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard to mistakes. It
must be granted that his caution has saved him from a number of very
serious mistakes that other nations have made. It must also be
acknowledged that he exercises a fair amount of moderation in the opposite
direction--this modern Englishman; he has learned caution of another kind,
which his ancestors taught him. "Power," says the "Havamal," "should be
used with moderation; for whoever finds himself among valiant men will
discover that no man is peerless." And this is a very important thing for
the strong man to know--that however strong, he can not be the strongest;
his match will be found when occasion demands it. Not only Scandinavian
but English rulers have often discovered this fact to their cost. Another
matter to be very anxious about is public opinion.
Chattels die; kinsmen pass away; one dies oneself; but I know
something that never dies--the name of the man, for good or bad.
Do not think that this means anything religious. It means only that the
reputation of a man goes to influence the good or ill fortune of his
descendants. It is something to be proud of, to be the son of a good man;
it helps to success in life. On the other hand, to have had a father of
ill reputation is a very serious obstacle to success of any kind in
countries where the influence of heredity is strongly recognized.
I have nearly exhausted the examples of this Northern wisdom which I
selected for you; but there are two subjects which remain to be
considered. One is the law of conduct in regard to misfortune; and the
other is the rule of conduct in regard to women. A man was expected to
keep up a brave heart under any circumstances. These old Northmen seldom
committed suicide; and I must tell you that all the talk about
Christianity having checked the practice of suicide to some extent, can
not be fairly accepted as truth. In modern England to-day the suicides
average nearly three thousand a year; but making allowance for
extraordinary circumstances, it is certainly true that the Northern races
consider suicide in an entirely different way from what the Latin races
do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because
every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and
to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being
killed by others. In modern ethical training, quite apart from religious
considerations a man is taught that suicide is only excusable in case of
shame, or under such exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the
history of the Indian mutiny. At all events, we have the feeling still
strongly manifested in England that suicide is not quite manly; and this
is certainly due much more to ancestral habits of thinking, which date
back to pagan days, than to Christian doctrine. As I have said, the pagan
English would not commit suicide to escape mere pain. But the Northern
people knew how to die to escape shame. There is an awful story in Roman
history about the wives and daughters of the conquered German tribes,
thousands in number, asking to be promised that their virtue should be
respected, and all killing themselves when the Roman general refused the
request. No Southern people of Europe in that time would have shown such
heroism upon such a matter. Leaving honour aside, however, the old book
tells us that a man should never despair.
Fire, the sight of the sun, good health, and a blameless
life these are the goodliest things in this world.
Yet a man is not utterly wretched, though he have bad health, or
be maimed.
The halt may ride a horse; the handless may drive a herd; the deaf
can fight and do well; better be blind than buried. A corpse is
good for naught.
On the subject of women there is not very much in the book beyond the
usual caution in regard to wicked women; but there is this little
observation:
Never blame a woman for what is all man's weakness. Hues charming
and fair may move the wise and not the dullard. Mighty love turns
the son of men from wise to fool.
This is shrewd, and it contains a very remarkable bit of esthetic truth,
that it requires a wise man to see certain kinds of beauty, which a stupid
man could never be made to understand. And, leaving aside the subject of
love, what very good advice it is never to laugh at a person for what can
be considered a common failure. In the same way an intelligent man should
learn to be patient with the unintelligent, as the same poem elsewhere
insists.
Now what is the general result of this little study, the general
impression that it leaves upon the mind? Certainly we feel that the life
reflected in these sentences was a life in which caution was above all
things necessary--caution in thought and speech and act, never ceasing, by
night or day, during the whole of a man's life. Caution implies
moderation. Moderation inevitably develops a certain habit of justice--a
justice that might not extend outside of the race, but a justice that
would be exercised between man and man of the same blood. Very much of
English character and of English history is explained by the life that the
"Havamal" portrays. Very much that is good; also very much that is
bad--not bad in one sense, so far as the future of the race is concerned,
but in a social way certainly not good. The judgment of the Englishman by
all other European peoples is that he is the most suspicious, the most
reserved, the most unreceptive, the most unfriendly, the coldest hearted,
and the most domineering of all Western peoples. Ask a Frenchman, an
Italian, a German, a Spaniard, even an American, what he thinks about
Englishmen; and every one of them will tell you the very same thing. This
is precisely what the character of men would become who had lived for
thousands of years in the conditions of Northern society. But you would
find upon the other hand that nearly all nations would speak highly of
certain other English qualities--energy, courage, honour, justice (between
themselves). They would say that although no man is so difficult to make
friends with, the friendship of an Englishman once gained is more strong
and true than any other. And as the battle of life still continues, and
must continue for thousands of years to come, it must be acknowledged that
the English character is especially well fitted for the struggle. Its
reserves, its cautions, its doubts, its suspicions, its brutality--these
have been for it in the past, and are still in the present, the best
social armour and panoply of war. It is not a lovable nor an amiable
character; it is not even kindly. The Englishman of the best type is much
more inclined to be just than he is to be kind, for kindness is an
emotional impulse, and the Englishman is on his guard against every kind
of emotional impulse. But with all this, the character is a grand one, and
its success has been the best proof of its value.
Now you will have observed in the reading of this ancient code of social
morals that, while none of the teaching is religious, some of it is
absolutely immoral from any religious standpoint. No great religion
permits us to speak what is not true, and to smile in the face of an enemy
while pretending to be his friend. No religion teaches that we should "pay
back lesing for lies." Neither does a religion tell us that we should
expect a return for every kindness done; that we should regard friendship
as being actuated by selfish motives; that we should never praise when
praise seems to be deserved. In fact, when Sir Walter Scott long ago made
a partial translation of the "Havamal," he thought himself obliged to
leave out a number of sentences which seemed to him highly immoral, and to
apologize for others. He thought that they would shock English readers too
much.
We are not quite so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own time would
scarcely deny that English society is very largely governed at this moment
by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter Scott thought to be so bad. But
here we need not condemn English society in particular. All European
society has been for hundreds of years conducting itself upon very much
the same principles; for the reason that human social experience has been
the same in all Western countries. I should say that the only difference
between English society and other societies is that the hardness of
character is very much greater. Let us go back even to the most Christian
times of Western societies in the most Christian country of Europe, and
observe whether the social code was then and there so very different from
the social code of the old "Havamal." Mr. Spencer observes in his "Ethics"
that, so far as the conduct of life is concerned, religion is almost
nothing and practice is everything. We find this wonderfully exemplified
in a most remarkable book of social precepts written in the seventeenth
century, in Spain, under the title of the "Oraculo Manual." It was
composed by a Spanish priest, named Baltasar Gracian, who was born in the
year 1601 and died in 1658; and it has been translated into nearly all
languages. The best English translation, published by Macmillan, is called
"The Art of Worldly Wisdom." It is even more admired to-day than in the
seventeenth century; and what it teaches as to social conduct holds as
good to-day of modern society as it did of society two hundred years ago.
It is one of the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever
published--unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which it often
displays--interesting because of the frightful perspicacity of the author.
The man who wrote that book understood the hearts of men, especially the
bad side. He was a gentleman of high rank before he became a priest, and
his instinctive shrewdness must have been hereditary. Religion, this man
would have said, teaches the best possible morals; but the world is not
governed by religion altogether, and to mix with it, we must act according
to its dictates.
These dictates remind us in many ways of the cautions and the cunning of
the "Havamal." The first thing enjoined upon a man both by the Norse
writer and by the Spanish author is the art of silence. Probably this has
been the result of social experience in all countries. "Cautious silence
is the holy of holies of worldly wisdom," says Gracian. And he gives many
elaborate reasons for this statement, not the least of which is the
following: "If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse
expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the
object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the
very mystery arouses veneration." A little further on he gives us exactly
the same advice as did the "Havamal" writer, in regard to being frank with
enemies. "Do not," he says, "show your wounded finger, for everything will
knock up against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where
weakness can be injured.... Never disclose the source of mortification or
of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to endure." About secrets
the Spaniard is quite as cautious as the Norseman. He says, "Especially
dangerous are secrets entrusted to friends. He that communicates his
secret to another makes himself that other man's slave." But after a great
many such cautions in regard to silence and secrecy, he tells us also that
we must learn how to fight with the world. You remember the advice of the
"Havamal" on this subject, how it condemns as a fool the man who can not
answer a reproach. The Spaniard is, however, much more malicious in his
suggestions. He tells as that we must "learn to know every man's
thumbscrew." I suppose you know that a thumbscrew was an instrument of
torture used in old times to force confessions from criminals. This advice
means nothing less than that we should learn how to be be able to hurt
other men's feelings, or to flatter other men's weaknesses. "First guess
every man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by
temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of
will." The term "give checkmate" is taken from the game of chess, and must
here be understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of
advice is "keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them." Indeed he
tells us that this is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse.
"Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the
closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors, which intimacy could not be
in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or
private malevolence." In other words, you can more quickly destroy a man's
friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of intrigue. Does not
this read very much like sheer wickedness? Certainly it does; but the
author would have told you that you must fight the wicked with their own
weapons. In the "Havamal" you will not find anything quite so openly
wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the secret,
though they might not have put it into words. As for the social teaching,
you will find it very subtly expressed even in the modern English novels
of George Meredith, who, by the way, has written a poem in praise of
sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now see what the Spanish author has to
tell us about friendship and unselfishness.
The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek "him," but
"their advantage in him and by him." That is to say, a shrewd man does not
believe in disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in
the "Havamal." And it is diabolically elaborated. What are we to say about
such teaching as the following: "A wise man would rather see men needing
him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is
diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good
memory, gratitude a bad one"? There is much more of this kind; but after
the assurance that only a boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and
vulgar man) can believe in gratitude, the author's opinion of human nature
needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been shocked at
such a statement. But he might have approved the following: "When you hear
anything favourable, keep a tight rein upon your credulity; if
unfavourable, give it the spur." That is to say, when you hear anything
good about another man, do not be ready to believe it; but if you hear
anything bad about him, believe as much of it as you can.
I notice also many other points of resemblance between the Northern and
the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The "Havamal" says that you
must not pick a quarrel with a worse man than yourself; "because the
better man often falls by the worse man's sword." The Spanish priest gives
a still shrewder reason for the same policy. "Never contend," he says,
"with a man who has nothing to lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal
conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything,
including shame, he has no further loss to fear." I think that this is an
immoral teaching, though a very prudent one; but I need scarcely to tell
you that it is still a principle in modern society not to contend with a
man who has no reputation to lose. I think it is immoral, because it is
purely selfish, and because a good man ought not to be afraid to denounce
a wrong because of making enemies. Another point, however, on which the
"Havamal" and the priest agree, is more commendable and interesting. "We
do not think much of a man who never contradicts us; that is no sign he
loves us, but rather a sign that he loves himself. Original and
out-of-the-way views are signs of superior ability."
I should not like you to suppose, however, that the whole of the book from
which I have been quoting is of the same character as the quotations.
There is excellent advice in it; and much kindly teaching on the subject
of generous acts. It is a book both good and bad, and never stupid. The
same man who tells you that friendship is seldom unselfish, also declares
that life would be a desert without friends, and that there is no magic
like a good turn--that is, a kind act. He teaches the importance of
getting good will by honest means, although he advises us also to learn
how to injure. I am sure that nobody could read the book without benefit.
And I may close these quotations from it with the following paragraph,
which is the very best bit of counsel that could be given to a literary
student:
Be slow and sure. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an
eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence
counts. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for
immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the
heaviest.
But so far as the question of human conduct is concerned, the book of
Gracian is no more of a religious book than is the "Havamal" of the
heathen North. You would find, were such a book published to-day and
brought up to the present time by any shrewd writer, that Western morality
has not improved in the least since the time before Christianity was
established, so far as the rules of society go. Society is not, and can
not be, religious, because it is a state of continual warfare. Every
person in it has to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it
is not fought with swords. Indeed, I should think that the time when every
man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as kindly
and much more honest than they are now. The object of this little lecture
was to show you that the principles of the ancient Norse are really the
principles ruling English society to-day; but I think you will be able to
take from it a still larger meaning. It is that not only one form of
society, but all forms of society, represent the warfare of man and man.
That is why thinkers, poets, philosophers, in all ages, have tried to find
solitude, to keep out of the contest, to devote themselves only to study
of the beautiful and the true. But the prizes of life are not to be
obtained in solitude, although the prizes of thought can only there be
won. After all, whatever we may think about the cruelty and treachery of
the social world, it does great things in the end. It quickens judgment,
deepens intelligence, enforces the acquisition of self-control, creates
forms of mental and moral strength that can not fail to be sometimes of
vast importance to mankind. But if you should ask me whether it increases
human happiness, I should certainly say "no." The "Havamal" said the same
thing,--the truly wise man can not be happy.