nineteenth century. It displayed three main tendencies--the endeavour
to reproduce faithfully some real piece of past history or some phase
of modern life; the endeavour after perfection of form; and enthusiasm
for great religious or social reformatory ideas. These three tendencies
are traced out in the ideals and work of the brilliant authors of the
period; in George Sand, for instance, who proclaimed that the mission
of art is a mission of sentiment and love; and in Balzac, who views
society as the scientist investigates Nature--"he never moralises and
condemns; he never allows himself to be led by disgust or enthusiasm to
describe otherwise than truthfully; nothing is too small, nothing is
too great to be examined and explained."
The impressions which our author gives of Sainte-Beuve, Gautier,
George Sand, Balzac and Mérimée are vivid and concrete; they are high
achievements in literary portraiture, set in a real historic background.
_VI.--Young Germany_
The personality, writings, and actions of Byron had an extraordinary
influence upon "Young Germany," a movement initiated by Heine and
Börne, and characterised by a strong craving for liberty. "Byron,
with his contempt for the real negation of liberty that lay concealed
beneath the 'wars of liberty' against Napoleon, with his championship
of the oppressed, his revolt against social custom, his sensuality and
spleen, his passionate love of liberty in every domain, seemed to the
men of that day to be an embodiment of all that they understood by the
modern spirit, modern poetry."
The literary group known as Young Germany has no creative minds of the
highest, and only one of very high rank, namely, Heine. "It denied, it
emancipated, it cleared up, it let in fresh air. It is strong through
its doubt, its hatred of thraldom, its individualism." The Germany of
those days has been succeeded by a quite new Germany, organised to
build up and to put forth material strength, and the writers of the
first half of the nineteenth century, who were always praising France
and condemning the sluggishness of their own country, are but little
read.
The literary figures of this period who are painted by our author, are
Börne, Heine, Immermann, Menzel, Gutzkow, Laube, Mundt, Rahel Varnhagen
von Ense, Bettina von Arnim, Charlotte Stieglitz, and many others, to
whose writings, in conjunction with those of the French Romanticists,
Brandes ascribes the general revolt of the oppressed peoples of Europe
in 1848. Of the men of that date he says: "They had a faith that could
remove mountains, and a hope that could shake the earth. Liberty,
parliament, national unity, liberty of the Press, republic, were to
them magic words, at the very sound of which their hearts leaped like
the heart of a youth who suddenly sees his beloved."
ROBERT BURTON
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton was born on February 8, 1576, of an old family, at
Lindley, Leicestershire, England; was educated at the free school
of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, and at Brasenose College,
Oxford, and in 1599 was elected student of Christ Church. In
1616 he was presented with the vicarage of St. Thomas, Oxford,
and in 1636 with the rectory of Segrave, in Leicestershire, and
kept both these livings until his death. But he lived chiefly
in his rooms at Christ Church, Oxford, where, burrowing in the
treasures of the Bodleian Library, he elaborated his learned
and whimsical book. He died on January 25, 1639, and was buried
in Christ Church Cathedral. The "Anatomy of Melancholy" is
an enormous compendium of sound sense, sly humour, universal
erudition, mediæval science, fantastic conceits, and noble
sentiments, arranged in the form of a most methodical treatise,
divided, and subdivided again, into sections dealing with every
conceivable aspect of this fell disorder. It is an intricate
tissue of quotations and allusions, and its interest lies as
much in its texture as in its argument. The "Anatomy" consists
of an introduction, "Democritus Junior to the Reader," and
then of three "Partitions," of which the first treats of the
Causes of Melancholy, the second of its Cure, and the third
of Love-Melancholy, wherewith is included the Melancholy of
Superstition.
_I.--Democritus Junior to the Reader_
Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what
antic or personate actor this is that so insolently intrudes upon this
common theatre to the world's view, arrogating another man's name;
whence he is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say. Seek not after
that which is hid; if the contents please thee, suppose the man in the
moon, or whom thou wilt, to be the author; I would not willingly be
known.
I have masked myself under this visard because, like Democritus,
I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life in the
university, penned up most part in my study. Though by my profession
a divine, yet, out of a running wit, an unconstant, unsettled mind, I
had a great desire to have some smattering in all subjects; which Plato
commends as fit to be imprinted in all curious wits, not to be a slave
of one science, as most do, but to rove abroad, to have an oar in every
man's boat, to taste of every dish, and to sip of every cup; which,
saith Montaigne, was well performed by Aristotle.
I have little, I want nothing; all my treasure is in Minerva's tower.
Though I lead a monastic life, myself my own theatre, I hear and see
what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil, in court and
country. Amid the gallantry and misery of the world, jollity, pride,
perplexities and cares, simplicity and villainy, subtlety, knavery,
candour, and integrity, I rub on in private, left to a solitary life
and mine own domestic discontents.
So I call myself Democritus, to assume a little more liberty of speech,
or, if you will needs know, for that reason which Hippocrates relates,
how, coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden
at Abdera, under a shady bower, with a book on his knees, busy at
his study, sometimes writing, sometimes walking. The subject of his
book was melancholy and madness. About him lay the carcasses of many
several beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomised; not that he did
contemn God's creatures, but to find out the seat of this black bile,
or melancholy, and how it is engendered in men's bodies, to the intent
he might better cure it in himself, and by his writings teach others
how to avoid it; which good intent of his Democritus Junior is bold to
imitate, and because he left it imperfect and it is now lost, to revive
again, prosecute, and finish in this treatise. I seek not applause; I
fear good men's censures, and to their favourable acceptance I submit
my labours. But as the barking of a dog I contemn those malicious and
scurrile obloquies, flouts, calumnies of railers and detractors.
Of the necessity of what I have said, if any man doubt of it, I shall
desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as Cyprian adviseth
Donate; supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high
mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering
world, he cannot choose but either laugh at, or pity it. St. Hierom,
out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived that he
saw them dancing in Rome; and if thou shalt climb to see, thou shalt
soon perceive that all the world is mad, that it is melancholy, dotes;
that it is a common prison of gulls, cheats, flatterers, etc., and
needs to be reformed. Kingdoms and provinces are melancholy; cities
and families, all creatures vegetal, sensible and rational, all sorts,
sects, ages, conditions, are out of tune; from the highest to the
lowest have need of physic. Who is not brain-sick? Oh, giddy-headed
age! Mad endeavours! Mad actions!
If Democritus were alive now, and should but see the superstition of
our age, our religious madness, so many professed Christians, yet so
few imitators of Christ, so much talk and so little conscience, so many
preachers and such little practice, such variety of sects--how dost
thou think he might have been affected? What would he have said to see,
hear, and read so many bloody battles, such streams of blood able to
turn mills, to make sport for princes, without any just cause? Men well
proportioned, carefully brought up, able in body and mind, led like
so many beasts to the slaughter in the flower of their years, without
remorse and pity, killed for devils' food, 40,000 at once! At once?
That were tolerable; but these wars last always; and for many ages,
nothing so familiar as this hacking and hewing, massacres, murders,
desolations! Who made creatures, so peaceable, born to love, mercy,
meekness, so to rave like beasts and run to their own destruction?
How would our Democritus have been affected to see so many lawyers,
advocates, so many tribunals, so little justice; so many laws, yet
never more disorders; the tribunal a labyrinth; to see a lamb executed,
a wolf pronounce sentence? What's the market but a place wherein they
cozen one another, a trap? Nay, what's the world itself but a vast
chaos, a theatre of hypocrisy, a shop of knavery, a scene of babbling,
the academy of vice? A warfare, in which you must kill or be killed,
wherein every man is for himself; no charity, love, friendship, fear of
God, alliance, affinity, consanguinity, can contain them. Our goddess
is Queen Money, to whom we daily offer sacrifice. It's not worth,
virtue, wisdom, valour, learning, honesty, religion, for which we are
respected, but money, greatness, office, honour. All these things are
easy to be discerned, but how would Democritus have been moved had he
seen the secrets of our hearts! All the world is mad, and every member
of it, and I can but wish myself and them a good physician, and all of
us a better mind.
_II.--The Causes of Melancholy_
The impulsive cause of these miseries in man was the sin of our first
parent, Adam; and this, belike, is that which our poets have shadowed
unto us in the tale of Pandora's Box, which, being opened through
her curiosity, filled the world full of all manner of diseases. But
as our sins are the principal cause, so the instrumental causes of
our infirmities are as diverse as the infirmities themselves. Stars,
heavens, elements, and all those creatures which God hath made, are
armed against sinners. But the greatest enemy to man is man, his own
executioner, a wolf, a devil to himself and others. Again, no man
amongst us so sound that hath not some impediment of body or mind.
There are diseases acute and chronic, first and secondary, lethal,
salutary, errant, fixed, simple, compound, etc. Melancholy is the most
eminent of the diseases of the phantasy or imagination; and dotage,
phrensy, madness, hydrophobia, lycanthropy, St. Vitus' dance, and
ecstasy are forms of it.
Melancholy is either in disposition or habit. In disposition it is that
transitory melancholy which comes and goes upon every small occasion
of sorrow; we call him melancholy that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish,
ill-disposed, and solitary; and from these dispositions no man living
is free; none so wise, patient, happy, generous, or godly, that can
vindicate himself.
Melancholy is a cold and dry, thick, black, and sour humour, purged
from the spleen; it is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and
choler, preserving them in the blood and nourishing the bones. Such as
have the Moon, Saturn, Mercury, misaffected in their genitures; such as
live in over-cold or over-hot climates; such as are solitary by nature;
great students, given to much contemplation; such as lead a life out of
action; all are most subject to melancholy.
Six things are much spoken of amongst physicians as principal causes
of this disease; if a man be melancholy, he hath offended in one of
the six. They are diet, air, exercise, sleeping, and walking, and
perturbations of the mind.
Idleness, the badge of gentry, or want of exercise, the bane of body
and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the chief author of all mischief,
one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other
maladies, the devil's cushion and chief reposal, begets melancholy
sooner than anything else. Such as live at ease, and have no ordinary
employment to busy themselves about, cannot compose themselves to do
aught; they cannot abide work, though it be necessary, easy, as to
dress themselves, write a letter, or the like. He or she that is idle,
be they never so rich, fortunate, happy, let them have all that heart
can desire, they shall never be pleased, never well in body and mind,
but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping,
sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every
object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some
foolish phantasy or other.
Others, giving way to the passions and perturbations of fear, grief,
shame, revenge, hatred, malice, etc., are torn in pieces, as Actæon was
with his dogs, and crucify their own souls. Every society and private
family is full of envy; it takes hold of all sorts of men, from prince
to ploughman; scarce three in a company, but there is siding, faction,
emulation, between two of them, some jar, private grudge, heart-burning
in the midst. Scarce two great scholars in an age, but with bitter
invectives they fall foul one on the other. Being that we are so
peevish and perverse, insolent and proud, so factious and seditious,
malicious and envious, we do maul and vex one another, torture,
disquiet, and precipitate ourselves into that gulf of woes and cares,
aggravate our misery and melancholy, and heap upon us hell and eternal
damnation.
_III.--The Cure of Melancholy_
"It matters not," saith Paracelsus, "whether it be God or the devil,
angels or unclean spirits, cure him, so that he be eased." Some have
recourse to witches; but much better were it for patients that are
troubled with melancholy to endure a little misery in this life than
to hazard their souls' health for ever. All unlawful cures are to be
refused, and it remains to treat of those that are admitted.
These are such as God hath appointed, by virtue of stones, herbs,
plants, meats, and the like, which are prepared and applied to our use
by the art and industry of physicians, God's intermediate ministers.
We must begin with prayer and then use physic; not one without the
other, but both together.
Diet must be rectified in substance and in quantity; air rectified;
for there is much in choice of place and of chamber, in opportune
opening and shutting of windows, and in walking abroad at convenient
times. Exercise must be rectified of body and mind. Hawking, hunting,
fishing are good, especially the last, which is still and quiet, and
if so be the angler catch no fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk and
pleasant shade by the sweet silver streams. But the most pleasant of
all pastimes is to make a merry journey now and then with some good
companions, to visit friends, see cities, castles, towns, to walk
amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, to disport in some pleasant plain.
St. Bernard, in the description of his monastery, is almost ravished
with the pleasures of it. "Good God," saith he, "what a company of
pleasures hast Thou made for man!" But what is so fit and proper to
expel idleness and melancholy as study? What so full of content as
to read, and see maps, pictures, statues, jewels, and marbles, so
exquisite to be beheld that, as Chrysostom thinketh, "if any man be
sickly or troubled in mind, and shall but stand over against one of
Phidias's images, he will forget all care in an instant?"
If thou receivest wrong, compose thyself with patience to bear it.
Thou shalt find greatest ease to be quiet. I say the same of scoffs,
slanders, detractions, which tend to our disgrace; 'tis but opinion;
if we would neglect or contemn them, they would reflect disgrace on
them that offered them. "Yea, but I am ashamed, disgraced, degraded,
exploded; my notorious crimes and villainies are come to light!" Be
content; 'tis but a nine days' wonder; 'tis heavy, ghastly, fearful
news at first, but thine offence will be forgotten in an instant. Thou
art not the first offender, nor shalt thou be the last. If he alone
should accuse thee that were faultless, how many executioners, how
many accusers, would thou have? Shall every man have his desert, thou
wouldst peradventure be a saint in comparison. Be not dismayed; it is
human to err. Be penitent, ask forgiveness, and vex thyself no more.
Doth the moon care for the barking of a dog?
_IV.--Love-Melancholy_
There will not be wanting those who will much discommend this treatise
of love-melancholy, and object that it is too light for a divine,
too phantastical, and fit only for a wanton poet. So that they may
be admired for grave philosophers, and staid carriage, they cannot
abide to hear talk of love-toys; in all their outward actions they are
averse; and yet, in their cogitations, they are all but as bad, if not
worse than others. I am almost afraid to relate the passions which this
tyrant love causeth among men; it hath wrought such stupendous and
prodigious effects, such foul offences.
As there be divers causes of this heroical love, so there be many good
remedies, among which good counsel and persuasion are of great moment,
especially if it proceed from a wise, fatherly, discreet person. They
will lament and howl for a while; but let him proceed, by foreshewing
the miserable dangers that will surely happen, the pains of hell, joys
of paradise, and the like; and this is a very good means, for love is
learned of itself, but hardly left without a tutor.
In sober sadness, marriage is a bondage, a thraldom, a hindrance to all
good enterprises; "he hath married a wife, and therefore cannot come";
a rock on which many are saved, many are cast away. Not that the thing
is evil in itself, or troublesome, but full of happiness, and a thing
which pleases God; but to indiscreet, sensual persons, it is a feral
plague, many times an hell itself. If thy wife be froward, all is in
an uproar; if wise and learned, she will be insolent and peevish; if
poor, she brings beggary; if young, she is wanton and untaught. Say
the best, she is a commanding servant; thou hadst better have taken a
good housewifely maid in her smock. Since, then, there is such hazard,
keep thyself as thou art; 'tis good to match, much better to be free.
Consider withal how free, how happy, how secure, how heavenly, in
respect, a single man is.
But when all is said, since some be good, some bad, let's put it to the
venture. Marry while thou mayest, and take thy fortune as it falls.
Be not so covetous, so distrustful, so curious and nice, but let's
all marry; to-morrow is St. Valentine's Day. Since, then, marriage
is the last and best cure of heroical love, all doubts are cured and
impediments removed; God send us all good wives!
Take this for a corollory and conclusion; as thou tenderest thine own
welfare in love-melancholy, in the melancholy of religion, and in all
other melancholy; observe this short precept--Be not solitary; be not
idle.
THOMAS CARLYLE
On Heroes and Hero-Worship
This is the last of four series of lectures which Carlyle (see
Vol. IX, p. 99) delivered in London in successive years, and is
the only series which was published. The "Lectures on Heroes"
were given in May, 1840, and were published, with emendations
and additions, from the reporter's notes in 1841. The preceding
series were on "German Literature," 1837; "The Successive Periods
of European Culture," 1838; and "The Revolutions of Modern
Europe," 1839. Carlyle's profound and impassioned belief in the
quasi-divine inspiration of great men, in the authoritative
nature of their "message," and in their historical effectiveness,
was a reaction against a way of writing history which finds the
origin of events in "movements," "currents," and "tendencies"
neglecting or minimising the power of personality. For Carlyle,
biography was the essential element in history; his view of
events was the dramatic view, as opposed to the scientific
view. It is idle to inquire which is the better or truer view,
where both are necessary. But Carlyle is here specially tilting
against a prejudice which has so utterly passed away that it
is difficult even to imagine it. This was to the effect that
eminent historical figures have been in some sense impostors.
This work suffers a good deal from its origin, but, like others
of Carlyle's writings, it has had great effect in discrediting a
barren and flippant rationalism.
_I.--The Hero as Divinity_
We have undertaken to discourse on great men, their manner of
appearance in our world's business, how they shaped themselves in the
world's history, what ideas men formed of them, and what work they did.
We are to treat of hero-worship and the heroic in human affairs. The
topic is as wide as universal history itself, for the history of what
man has accomplished in this world is, at bottom, the history of the
great men who have worked here.
It is well said that a man's religion is the chief fact with regard to
him. I do not mean the Church creed which he professes, but the thing
that he does practically believe, the manner in which he feels himself
to be spiritually related to the unseen world. Was it heathenism, a
plurality of gods, a mere sensuous representation of the mystery of
life, and for chief recognised element therein physical force? Was it
Christianism; faith in an Invisible as the only reality; time ever
resting on eternity; pagan empire of force displaced by the nobler
supremacy of holiness? Was it scepticism, uncertainty, and inquiry
whether there was an unseen world at all, or perhaps unbelief and flat
denial? The answer to these questions gives us the soul of the history
of the man or nation.
Odin, the central figure of Scandinavian paganism, shall be our emblem
of the hero as divinity. And in the first place I protest against the
theory that this paganism or any other religion has consisted of mere
quackery, priestcraft, and dupery. Quackery gives birth to nothing;
gives death to all. Man everywhere is the born enemy of lies, and
paganism, to its followers, was at one time earnestly true. Nor can
we admit that other theory, which attributed these mythologies to
allegory, or to the play of poetic minds. Pagan religion, like every
other, is indeed a symbol of what men felt about the universe, but a
practical guiding knowledge of this mysterious life of theirs, and not
a perfect poetic symbol of it, has been the want of men. The "Pilgrim's
Progress" is a just and beautiful allegory, but it could never have
preceded the faith which it symbolises. Men never risked their soul's
life on allegories; there was a kind of fact at the heart of paganism.
To the primitive pagan thinker, who was simple as a child, yet had
a man's depth and strength, nature had as yet no name. It stood
naked, flashing in on him, beautiful, awful, unspeakable; nature was
preternatural. The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was
then divine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. Still more was the
body of man, and the mystery of his consciousness, an emblem to them of
God, and truly worshipful.
How much more, then, was the worship of a hero reasonable--the
transcendent admiration of a great man! For great men are still
admirable. At bottom there is nothing else admirable. Admiration for
one higher than himself is to this hour the vivifying influence in
man's life, and is the germ of Christianity itself. The greatest of all
heroes is One whom we do not name here.