most part, ultra-realists; but apparently we may search their writings
in vain for the cheerfulness which at times illumines the pages of their
English, or the light-hearted vivacity which sparkles in the pages of
their French counterparts. In Dostoïevsky's powerfully written _Crime
and Punishment_ all is gloom and horror; the hero of the tale is a
madman and a murderer. To a foreigner these authors seem to present the
picture of a society oppressed with an all-pervading sense of the misery
of existence, and with the impossibility of finding any means by which
that misery can be alleviated. In many instances, their lives--and still
more their deaths--were as sad and depressing as their thoughts. Several
of their most noted authors died violent deaths. At thirty-seven years
of age the poet Pouchkine was killed in a duel, Lermontof met the same
fate at the age of twenty-six. Griboïédof was assassinated at the age of
thirty-four. But the most tragic history is that of Dostoïevsky, albeit
he lived to a green old age, and eventually died a natural death. In
1849, he was connected with some political society, but he does not
appear, even at that time, to have been a violent politician.
Nevertheless, he and his companions, after being kept for several months
in close confinement, were condemned to death. They were brought to the
place of execution, but at the last moment, when the soldiers were about
to fire, their sentences were commuted to exile. Dostoïevsky remained
for some years in Siberia, but was eventually allowed to return to
Russia. The inhuman cruelty to which he had been subject naturally
dominated his mind and inspired his pen for the remainder of his days.
De Vogüé deals almost exclusively with the writings of Pouchkine, Gogol,
Dostoïevsky, Tourguenef, who was the inventor of the word Nihilism, and
the mystic Tolstoy, who was the principal apostle of the doctrine. All
these, with the possible exception of Tourguenef, had one characteristic
in common. Their intellects were in a state of unstable equilibrium. As
poets, they could excite the enthusiasm of the masses, but as political
guides they were mere Jack-o'-Lanterns, leading to the deadly swamp of
despair. Dostoïevsky was in some respects the most interesting and also
the most typical of the group. De Vogüé met him in his old age, and the
account he gives of his appearance is most graphic. His history could be
read in his face.
On y lisait mieux que dans le livre, les souvenirs de la maison des
morts, les longues habitudes d'effroi, de méfiance et de martyre.
Les paupières, les lèvres, toutes les fibres de cette face
tremblaient de tics nerveux. Quand il s'animait de colère sur une
idée, on eût juré qu'on avait déjà vu cette tête sur les banes
d'une cour criminelle, ou parmi les vagabonds qui mendient aux
portes des prisons. A d'autres moments, elle avait la mansuétude
triste des vieux saints sur les images slavonnes.
And here is what De Vogüé says of the writings of this semi-lunatic man
of genius:
Psychologue incomparable, dès qu'il étudie des âmes noires ou
blessées, dramaturge habile, mais borné aux scènes d'effroi et de
pitié.... Selon qu'on est plus touché par tel ou tel excès de son
talent, on peut l'appeler avec justice un philosophe, un apôtre, un
aliéné, le consolateur des affligés ou le bourreau des esprits
tranquilles, le Jérémie de bagne ou le Shakespeare de la maison des
fous; toutes ces appellations seront méritées; prise isolément,
aucune ne sera suffisante.
There is manifestly much which is deeply interesting, and also much
which is really lovable in the Russian national character. It must,
however, be singularly mournful and unpleasant to pass through life
burdened with the reflection that it would have been better not to have
been born, albeit such sentiments are not altogether inconsistent with
the power of deriving a certain amount of enjoyment from living. It was
that pleasure-loving old cynic, Madame du Deffand, who said: "Il n'y a
qu'un seul malheur, celui d'être né." Nevertheless, the avowed
joyousness bred by the laughing tides and purple skies of Greece is
certainly more conducive to human happiness, though at times even
Greeks, such as Theognis and Palladas, lapsed into a morbid pessimism
comparable to that of Tolstoy. Metrodorus, however, more fully
represented the true Greek spirit when he sang, "All things are good in
life" (πάντα γὰρ ἐσθλὰ βίῳ). The Roman pagan, Juvenal, gave a fairly
satisfactory answer to the question, "Nil ergo optabunt homines?"
whilst the Christian holds out hopes of that compensation in the next
world for the afflictions of the present, which the sombre and
despondent Russian philosopher, determined that we shall not find
enjoyment in either world, denies to his morose and grief-stricken
followers.
X
THE WRITING OF HISTORY[76]
_"The Spectator," April 26, 1913_
What are the purposes of history, and in what spirit should it be
written? Such, in effect, are the questions which Mr. Gooch propounds in
this very interesting volume. He wisely abstains from giving any
dogmatic answers to these questions, but in a work which shows manifest
signs of great erudition and far-reaching research he ranges over the
whole field of European and American literature, and gives us a very
complete summary both of how, as a matter of fact, history has been
written, and of the spirit in which the leading historians of the
nineteenth century have approached their task.
Mr. Bryce, himself one of the most eminent of modern historians,
recently laid down the main principle which, in his opinion, should
guide his fellow-craftsmen. "Truth," he said, "and truth only is our
aim." The maxim is one which would probably be unreservedly accepted in
theory by the most ardent propagandist who has ever used history as a
vehicle for the dissemination of his own views on political, economic,
or social questions. For so fallible is human nature that the
proclivities of the individual can rarely be entirely submerged by the
judicial impartiality of the historian. It is impossible to peruse Mr.
Gooch's work without being struck by the fact that, amongst the greatest
writers of history, bias--often unconscious bias--has been the rule, and
the total absence of preconceived opinions the exception. Generally
speaking, the subjective spirit has prevailed amongst historians in all
ages. The danger of following the scent of analogies--not infrequently
somewhat strained analogies--between the present and the past is
comparatively less imminent in cases where some huge upheaval, such as
the French Revolution, has inaugurated an entirely new epoch,
accompanied by the introduction of fresh ideals and habits of thought.
It is, as Macaulay has somewhere observed, a more serious
stumbling-block in the path of a writer who deals with the history of a
country like England, which has through long centuries preserved its
historical continuity. Hallam and Macaulay viewed history through Whig,
and Alison through Tory spectacles. Neither has the remoteness of the
events described proved any adequate safeguard against the introduction
of bias born of contemporary circumstances. Mitford, who composed his
history of Greece during the stormy times of the French Revolution,
thought it compatible with his duty as an historian to strike a blow at
Whigs and Jacobins. Grote's sympathy with the democracy of Athens was
unquestionably to some extent the outcome of the views which he
entertained of events passing under his own eyes at Westminster.
Mommsen, by inaugurating the publication of the Corpus of Latin
Inscriptions, has earned the eternal gratitude of scholarly posterity,
but Mr. Gooch very truly remarks that his historical work is tainted
with the "strident partisanship" of a keen politician and journalist.
Truth, as the old Greek adage says, is indeed the fellow-citizen of the
gods; but if the standard of historical truth be rated too high, and if
the authority of all who have not strictly complied with that standard
is to be discarded on the ground that they stand convicted of
partiality, we should be left with little to instruct subsequent ages
beyond the dry records of men such as the laborious, the useful, though
somewhat over-credulous Clinton, or the learned but arid Marquardt,
whose "massive scholarship" Mr. Gooch dismisses somewhat summarily in a
single line. Such writers are not historians, but rather compilers of
records, upon the foundations of which others can build history.
Under the process we have assumed, Droysen, Sybel, and Treitschke would
have to be cast down from their pedestals. They were the political
schoolmasters of Germany during a period of profound national
discouragement. They used history in order to stir their countrymen to
action, but "if the supreme aim of history is to discover truth and to
interpret the movement of humanity, they have no claim to a place in the
first class." Patriotism, as the Portuguese historian, Herculano da
Carvalho, said, is "a bad counsellor for historians"; albeit, few have
had the courage to discard patriotic considerations altogether, as was
the case with the Swiss Kopp, who wrote a history of his country "from
which Gessler and Tell disappeared," and in which "the familiar
anecdotes of Austrian tyranny and cruelty were dismissed as legends."
Philosophic historians, who have endeavoured to bend facts into
conformity with some special theory of their own, would fare little
better than those who have been ardent politicians. Sainte-Beuve, after
reading Guizot's sweeping and lofty generalisations, declared that they
were far too logical to be true, and forthwith "took down from his
shelves a volume of De Retz to remind him how history was really made."
Second-or third-rate historians, such as Lamartine, who, according to
Dumas, "raised history to the level of the novel," or the vitriolic
Lanfrey, who was a mere pamphleteer, would, of course, be consigned--and
very rightly consigned--to utter oblivion. The notorious inaccuracy of
Thiers and the avowed hero-worship of Masson alike preclude their
admissibility into the select circle of trustworthy and veracious
historians. It is even questionable whether one of the most objectively
minded of French writers, the illustrious Taine, would gain admission.
His work, he himself declared, "was nothing but pure or applied
psychology," and psychology is apt to clash with the facts of history.
Scherer described Taine, somewhat unjustly, as "a pessimist in a
passion," whilst the critical and conscientious Aulard declared that his
work was "virtually useless for the purposes of history." Mr. Gooch
classes Sorel's work as "incomparably higher" than that of Taine.
Montalembert is an extreme case of a French historian who adopted
thoroughly unsound historical methods. Clearly, as Mr. Gooch says, "the
author of the famous battle-cry, 'We are the sons of the Crusades, and
we will never yield to the sons of Voltaire,' was not the man for
objective study."
The fate of some of the most distinguished American and British
historians would be even more calamitous than that of their Continental
brethren. If the touchstone of impartiality were applied, Prescott might
perhaps pass unscathed through the trial. But few will deny that Motley
wrote his very attractive histories at a white heat of Republican and
anti-Catholic fervour. He, as also Bancroft, are classed by Mr. Gooch
amongst those who "made their histories the vehicles of political and
religious propaganda." Washington Irving's claim to rank in the first
class of historians may be dismissed on other grounds. "He had no taste
for research," and merely presented to the world "a poet's appreciation"
of historical events.
But perhaps the two greatest sinners against the code of frigid
impartiality were Froude and Carlyle. Both were intensely convinced of
the truth of the gospel which they preached, and both were careless of
detail if they could strain the facts of history to support their
doctrines. The apotheosis of the strong man formed no part of Carlyle's
original philosophy. In 1830, he wrote: "Which was the greatest
benefactor, he who gained the battles of Cannae and Trasimene or the
nameless poor who first hammered out for himself an iron spade?" He
condemned Scott's historical writings: "Strange," he said, "that a man
should think he was writing the history of a nation while he is
describing the amours of a wanton young woman and a sulky booby blown up
with gunpowder." After having slighted biography in this
characteristically Carlylese utterance, he straightway set to work, with
splendid inconsistency, to base his philosophy of history mainly on the
biographies of men of the type of Cromwell and Frederic.
The invective levelled against Froude by Freeman is now generally
recognised as exaggerated and unjust, but it would certainly appear, as
Mr. Gooch says, that Froude "never realised that the main duty of the
historian is neither eulogy nor criticism, but interpretation of the
complex processes and conflicting ideals which have built up the
chequered life of humanity."
Yet when all is said that can be said on the necessity of insisting on
historical veracity, it has to be borne in mind that inaccuracy is not
the only pitfall which lies in the path of the expounder of truth.
History is not written merely for students and scholars. It ought to
instruct and enlighten the statesman. It should quicken the intelligence
of the masses. Whilst any tendency to distort facts, or to sway public
opinion by sensational writing of questionable veracity, cannot be too
strongly condemned, it is none the less true that it requires not merely
a touch of literary genius, but also a lively and receptive imagination
to tell a perfectly truthful tale in such a manner as to arrest the
attention, to excite the wayward imagination and to guide the thoughts
of the vast majority of those who will scan the finished work of the
historian. It is here that some of the best writers of history have
failed, Gardiner has written what is probably the best, and is certainly
the most dispassionate and impartial history of the Stuart period. "With
one exception," Mr. Gooch says, "Gardiner possessed all the tools of his
craft--an accurate mind, perfect impartiality, insight into character,
sympathy with ideas different from his own and from one another. The
exception was style. Had he possessed this talisman his noble work would
have been a popular classic. His pages are wholly lacking in grace and
distinction." The result is that Gardiner's really fine work has proved
an ineffectual instrument for historical education. The majority of
readers will continue to turn to the brilliant if relatively partial
pages of Macaulay.
The case of Freeman, though different from that of Gardiner, for his
style, though lacking in grace and flexibility was vigorous, may serve
as another illustration of the same thesis. Freeman was a keen
politician, but he would never have for a moment entertained the thought
of departing by one iota from strict historical truth in order to
further any political cause in which he was interested. Mr. Gooch says,
"He regarded history as not only primarily, but almost exclusively, a
record of political events. Past politics, he used to say, were present
history." Why is it, therefore, that his works are little read, and that
they have exercised but slight influence on the opinions of the mass of
his countrymen? The answer is supplied by Mr. Gooch. Freeman ignored
organic evolution. "The world of ideas had no existence for him.... No
less philosophic historian has ever lived." For one man who, with
effort, has toiled through Freeman's ponderous but severely accurate
Norman and Sicilian histories, there are probably a hundred whose
imagination has been fired by Carlyle's rhapsody on the French
Revolution, or who have pored with interested delight over Froude's
account of the death of Cranmer.
Much the same may be said of Creighton's intrinsically valuable but
somewhat colourless work. "He had no theories," Mr. Gooch says, "no
philosophy of history, no wish to prove or disprove anything." He took
historical facts as they came, and recorded them. "When events are
tedious," he wrote, "we must be tedious."
The most meritorious, as also the most popular historians are probably
those of the didactic school. Of these, Seeley and Acton are notable
instances. Seeley always endeavoured to establish some principle which
would capture the attention of the student and might be of interest to
the statesman. He held that "history faded into mere literature when it
lost sight of its relation to practical politics." Acton, who brought
his encyclopaedic learning to bear on the defence of liberty in all its
forms, "believed that historical study was not merely the basis of all
real insight into the present, but a school of virtue and a guide to
life."
Limitations of space preclude any adequate treatment of the illuminating
work done by Ranke, whom Mr. Gooch regards as the nearest approximation
the world has yet known to the "ideal historian"; by Lecky, who was
driven by the Home Rule conflict from the ranks of historians into those
of politicians; by Milman, whose style, in the opinion of Macaulay, was
wanting in grace and colour, but who was distinguished for his
"soundness of judgment and inexorable love of truth"; by Otfried Müller,
Bérard, Gilbert Murray, and numerous other classical scholars of divers
nationalities; by Fustel de Coulanges, the greatest of
nineteenth-century mediaevalists; by Mahan, whose writings have
exercised a marked influence on current politics, and who is thus an
instance of "an historian who has helped to make history as well as to
record it," and by a host of others.
At the close of his book Mr. Gooch very truly points out that "the scope
of history has gradually widened till it has come to include every
aspect of the life of humanity." Many of the social and economic
subjects of which the historian has now to treat are of an extremely
controversial character. However high may be the ideal of truth, which
will be entertained, it would appear that the various forms in which the
facts of history may be stated, as also the conclusions to be drawn from
these facts, will tend to divergence rather than to uniformity of
treatment. It is not, therefore, probable that the partisan
historian--or, at all events, the historian who will be accused of
partisanship--will altogether disappear from literature. Neither, on the
whole, is his disappearance to be desired, for it would almost certainly
connote the composition of somewhat vapid and colourless histories.
The verdicts which Mr. Gooch passes on the historians whose writings he
briefly summarises are eminently judicious, though it cannot be expected
that in all cases they will command universal assent. In a work which
ranges over so wide a field it is scarcely possible that some slips
should not have occurred. We may indicate one of these, which it would
be as well to correct in the event of any future editions being
published. On p. 435 the authorship of _Fieramosca_ and _Nicolo dei
Lapi_, which were written by Azeglio, is erroneously attributed to
Cesare Balbo.
[Footnote 76: _History and Historians of the Nineteenth Century_. By
G.P. Gooch. London: Longmans and Co. 10s. 6d.]
XI
THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY[77]
_"The Spectator," May 10, 1913_
Shelley, himself a translator of one of the best known of the epigrams
of the Anthology, has borne emphatic testimony to the difficulties of
translation. "It were as wise," he said, "to cast a violet into a
crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and
odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations
of a poet."
The task of rendering Greek into English verse is in some respects
specially difficult. In the first place, the translator has to deal with
a language remarkable for its unity and fluency, qualities which,
according to Curtius (_History of Greece_, i. 18), are the result of the
"delicately conceived law, according to which all Greek words must end
in vowels, or such consonants as give rise to no harshness when
followed by others, viz. _n_, _r_, and _s_." Then, again, the translator
must struggle with the difficulties arising from the fact that the
Greeks regarded condensation in speech as a fine art. Demetrius, or
whoever was the author of _De Elocutione_, said: "The first grace of
style is that which results from compression." The use of an inflected
language of course enabled the Greeks to carry this art to a far higher
degree of perfection than can be attained by any modern Europeans. Jebb,
for instance, takes twelve words--"Well hath he spoken for one who
giveth heed not to fall"--to express a sentiment which Sophocles (_Œd.
Tyr._ 616) is able to compress into four--καλῶς ἔλεξεν εὐλαβουμένῳ
πεσεῖν. Moreover, albeit under the stress of metrical and linguistic
necessity the translator must generally indulge in paraphrase, let him
beware lest in doing so he sacrifices that quality in which the Greeks
excelled, to wit, simplicity. Nietzsche said, with great truth, "Die
Griechen sind, wie das Genie, einfach; deshalb sind sie die
unsterblichen Lehrer." Further, the translator has at times so to
manipulate his material as to incorporate into his verse epithets and
figures of speech of surpassing grace and expressiveness, which do not
readily admit of transfiguration into any modern language; such, for
instance, as the "much-wooed white-armed Maiden Muse" (πολυμνήστη
λευκώλενε παρθένε Μοῦσα) of Empedocles; the "long countless Time"
(μακρὸς κἀναρίθμητος Χρόνος), or "babbling Echo" (ἀθυρόστομος Ἀχώ) of
Sophocles; the "son, the subject of many prayers" (πολυεύχετος υἱός) and
countless other expressions of the Homeric Hymns; the "blooming Love
with his pinions of gold" (ὁ δ' ἀμφιθαλής Ἔρος χρυσόπτερος ἡνίας) of
Aristophanes; "the eagle, messenger of wide-ruling Zeus, the lord of
Thunder" (αἰετός, εὐρυάνακτος ἄγγελος Ζηνὸς ἐρισφαράγου) of Bacchylides;
or mighty Pindar's "snowy Etna nursing the whole year's length her
frozen snow" (νιφόεσς' Αἴτνα πανετες χιόνος ὀξείας τιθήνα).