MY
COMMONPLACE
BOOK
J. T. HACKETT
“_Omne meum, nihil meum_”
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First publication in Great Britain, September, 1919._
_Second English Edition, September, 1920._
_Third English Edition, January, 1921._
_O Memories!_
_O Past that is!_
GEORGE ELIOT.
* * * * *
DEDICATED TO MY DEAR FRIEND
_RICHARD HODGSON_
WHO HAS PASSED OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE
_Of wounds and sore defeat_
_I made my battle-stay;_
_Wingèd sandals for my feet_
_I wove of my delay;_
_Of weariness and fear_
_I made my shouting spear;_
_Of loss, and, doubt, and dread,_
_And swift oncoming doom_
_I made a helmet for my head_
_And a floating plume._
_From the shutting mist of death,_
_From the failure of the breath_
_I made a battle-horn to blow_
_Across the vales of overthrow._
_O hearken, love, the battle-horn!_
_The triumph clear, the silver scorn!_
_O hearken where the echoes bring,_
_Down the grey disastrous morn,_
_Laughter and rallying!_[1]
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY.
* * * * *
_I cannot but remember such things were,_
_That were most precious to me._
MACBETH, IV, 3.
PREFACE[2]
A large proportion of the most interesting quotations in this book was
collected between 1874 and 1886. During that period I was under the
influence of Richard Hodgson, who was my close friend from childhood. To
him directly and indirectly this book is largely indebted.
Hodgson (1855-1905) had a remarkably pure, noble, and lovable character,
and was one of the most gifted men Australia has produced. He is known
in philosophic circles from some early contributions to _Mind_ and other
journals, but is mainly known from his work in psychical research, to
which he devoted the best years of his life. Apart from his great ability
in other directions, he was endowed, even in youth, with fine taste and
a clear and mature literary judgment. This will appear to some extent in
the quotations over his name, and the note on p. 208 will give further
particulars of his career. He was from two to three years older than
myself, and guided me in my early reading. Therefore, indirectly, he has
to do with most of the contents of this book.
But, more than this, about one-third of the main quotations (not
including the notes which I have only now added) came direct from
Hodgson. He left Australia in 1877, but we maintained a voluminous
correspondence until 1886. This correspondence contained most of the
quotations referred to, and the remainder Hodgson gave me in London
on the only occasion I met him after he left Australia. (After 1886 he
became so immersed in psychical research, and I in legal work, that our
correspondence ceased to be of a literary character.) Thus directly and
indirectly Hodgson has much to do with the book—and, if it had been
practicable, I would have placed his name on the title-page.
This book is simply one to be taken up at odd moments, like any other
collection of quotations. But there are two reasons why it may have
some special interest. One reason is that it includes passages from a
number of authors who appear to have become forgotten, or, at any rate,
to be passing Lethe-wards. We, who dwell in the underworld,[3] cannot,
of course, have a complete knowledge of what is known or forgotten in
the inner literary circles of England. We can depend only on the books
and periodicals that happen to come to our hands, and perhaps should not
rely too much on such sources of information. Yet I cannot but think
that Robert Buchanan, for example, has become largely forgotten, and
apparently this is the case also with a number of other authors from whom
I quote. Because of this, I have retained all the passages I had from
such authors.
It must be remembered that this book is not an anthology. A commonplace
book is usually a collection of _reminders_ made by a young man who
cannot afford an extensive library. There is no system in such a
collection. A book is borrowed and extracts made from it; another book by
the same author is _bought_ and no extract made from it. On the one hand
a favourite verse, although well known, is written out for some reason
or other; on the other hand hundreds of beautiful poems are omitted. So
far from this being an anthology, I have, as a matter of course, omitted
many poems that since the seventy-eighty period have become general
favourites; and, as regards the most beautiful gems of our literature,
they are almost all excluded. There are for example, only a few lines
from Shakespeare.
Some exceptions have, however, been made. In a series of word-pictures,
a few of the best-known passages will be found. A few others have been
included for reasons that will readily appear; they either form part of a
series or the reason is apparent from the notes. Apart from these I have
retained Blanco White’s great sonnet and “The Night has a thousand eyes,”
written by F. W. Bourdillon when an undergraduate at Worcester College,
Oxford, because with regard to these I had an interesting and instructive
experience. I accidentally discovered that of four well-read men (two at
least of them more thorough students of poetry than myself) two were
ignorant of the one poem and two of the other. Seeking an explanation, I
turned to the anthologies. I could not find in any of them Bourdillon’s
little gem until I came to the comparatively recent _Oxford Book of
Victorian Verse_ and _The Spirit of Man_. The Blanco White sonnet I could
find _nowhere_ except in collections of sonnets, which in my opinion are
little read. It will be observed that in anthologies alone can Blanco
White’s one and only poem be kept alive.
The second reason why this book may have a special interest is that it
may serve as a reminder to my contemporaries of our stirring thoughts and
experiences in the seventies and eighties. How interesting this period
was it is difficult to show in a few lines. In pure literature, books of
value simply poured from the press. In the closing year, 1889, “One who
never turned his back, but marched breast forward” died on the day that
his last book, _Asolando_, was published, leaving Tennyson, an old man of
eighty, the sole survivor of the poets of a great period. At almost the
same moment “Crossing the Bar” was published.
Apart from literature, the seventies and eighties were an eventful
period in science and religion. Darwinism was still causing its
tremendous upheaval, and the supposed conflict between religion and
science exercised an enormous effect on the minds of men. Evolution had
explained so much of the processes in the history of life, that the
_majority_ of thinkers at that time imagined that no room was left for
the super-natural. Science was supposed to have given a death-blow to
religion, and the greatest wave of materialism ever known in the history
of the world swept over England and Europe. It is strange how many great
thinkers missed what now appears so obvious a fact, that causality still
stood behind all law, and that Darwin, like Newton, had merely helped to
show the method by which the universe is governed. (It seems to me that
James Martineau stood supreme at that time as a man of genius who saw
clearly the inherent defect of the whole materialist movement.)
However, agnosticism, materialism, positivism flourished and triumphed.
Science, whose dignity had been so long unrecognized, came into her
own, and, in her turn, usurped the same dogmatic superior attitude she
had resented in ecclesiasticism. On the one hand pessimistic literature
and philosophy poured from the press; on the other hand new religions
arose to take the place of the old. Theosophy and spiritualism were in
evidence everywhere (leading in 1882 to the happy result that the Society
for Psychical Research was founded). Harrison, Clifford, Swinburne and
others preached the deification of man. There were discords within, as
well as foes without the church. The severely orthodox fought against
the revelations of Colenso and the higher criticism; Seeley’s _Ecce
Homo_ and a host of other works aroused fierce antagonism; Pius IX, who
had in 1864 published his Syllabus which would have destroyed modern
civilization, proclaimed the infallibility of the Pope in 1870—and in
1872 was deprived of temporal power. Such questions as the literal
interpretation and inerrancy of the Bible were the subjects of intense
conflict—and especially strange is it to remember the dire struggle
of well-intentioned men to maintain the horrible doctrine of eternal
punishment. I imagine that this book will assist to some extent in
recalling the atmosphere and aroma of that remarkable period.
I have made very little attempt to arrange my quotations—and now wish I
had done less in that direction. The book is intended for casual reading,
and to arrange it under headings would tend to make it _heavy_. The
element of surprise is more calculated to make the book attractive.
I began the notes that are appended to some of the quotations with the
intention of giving only such short, necessary explanations as would
be of assistance to the inexperienced reader. When, however, I began
to write, I found my pen running away with me. Apart from the usual,
ineffectual efforts of one’s youth, I had never before attempted literary
work, and for the first time experienced the great pleasure there is in
such writing. With the immense variety of subjects in a collection of
quotations, one could continue to write over a series of years; but it
was necessary to keep the book within reasonable bounds, and, therefore,
I had arbitrarily to come to a stop. In these notes I do not claim that
there is much, if any, originality,[4] they are mostly recollections of
old reading. Still they may serve the important purpose of revivifying
old truths (see p. 78).
I have been astonished at the great deal of work this book has
involved—and also how much I have needed the assistance of my friends.
There were some sixty or seventy quotations in respect to which I had
neglected to give any reference to the authors (for the same reason
as one did not put the names on photographs of old friends—it seemed
impossible that the names could be forgotten). The difficulty of finding
even one such quotation is enormous, and we have no British Museum in
Adelaide, but only some limited public libraries. However, with the help
of my friends I have succeeded in tracing the paternity of most of these
“orphans.” In this and other directions I have had the kind assistance of
many gentlemen. Of these first and foremost comes Mr. G. F. Hassell, the
publisher of the Adelaide edition, who, in his devotion to literature as
well as to his own art of printing, is a worthy representative of the old
Renaissance printers. He has given me every assistance, has gone through
every line, and, as he is both an exceedingly well-read man and also of
a younger generation than myself, I have left it to him to decide what
should be omitted and what retained in this book. Professor Mitchell has
also been so kind as to revise and make suggestions concerning a number
of notes on philosophic and other subjects. Professor Darnley Naylor has
been uniformly good in revising any notes of a classical nature—though
he takes no responsibility whatever for the views I express. Dr. E.
Harold Davies has also helped me with two notes on music, in one instance
correcting a serious mistake I had made. Sir Langdon Bonython, my friend
of many years, has assisted me with practical as well as literary
suggestions, and has thrown open his library to me. Mr. Francis Edwards,
of High Street, Marylebone, has assisted in my search for references to
quotations. Mr. H. Rutherford Purnell, Public Librarian of Adelaide, and
his staff have helped me throughout, and Mr. E. La Touche Armstrong,
Public Librarian of Melbourne, has gone to great trouble on my account.
Miss M. R. Walker has assisted me in various ways, and especially in
preparing the very difficult Index of Subjects. Mr. Sydney Temple Thomas
has lent me a number of important books I specially required. Others
who have helped me in one way or another are two English friends, Mrs.
Caroline Sidgwick and Mrs. Rachael Bray, Messrs. J. R. Fowler, H. W.
Uffindell, S. Talbot Smith and Dr. J. W. Browne, of Adelaide, Professor
Dettmann of New Zealand, Professor Hyslop of New York and Mr. F. C.
Govers of the State War Council, Sydney.
For permission to include quotations from their works I thank the
following authors: Rev. F. W. Boreham, Mr. F. W. Bourdillon, Mr.
A. J. Edmunds, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Thomas Hardy, O.M., Professor
Hobhouse, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. E. F. Knight, Mr. R. Le Gallienne,
Mr. W. S. Lilly, Mr. Robert Loveman, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch, Professor A. H. Sayce, Mrs. Cronwright Schreiner, Mr. J.
C. Squire, Mr. Herbert Trench, Mr. Samuel Waddington, Mrs. Humphry Ward,
Mr. F. A. Westbury, Mr. F. S. Williamson and Sir Francis Younghusband.
For extracts from the writings of their relatives I am grateful to Lady
Arnold, Sir Francis Darwin, Mr. Henry James, The Earl of Lytton, Dr.
Greville McDonald, Miss Martineau, Miss Massey, Mr. W. M. Meredith,
Mrs. F. W. H. Myers, the Rev. Conrad Noel, Mr. William M. Rossetti, Sir
Herbert Stephen and Lord Tennyson. Mr. Piddington has also given much
assistance.
I am indebted to the following for quotations from the works of the
authors named: of Ruskin to the Ruskin Literary Trustees and their
publishers, Messrs. George Allen and Unwin; of Brunton Stephens to
Messrs. Angus and Robertson; of C. S. Calverley to Messrs. G. Bell and
Sons; of George Eliot to Messrs. William Blackwood & Sons; of James
Kenneth Stephen to Messrs. Bowes and Bowes; of Francis Thompson to
Messrs. Burns and Oates; of R. L. Stevenson to Messrs. Chatto and Windus
and to Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons; of Robert Buchanan to Messrs.
Chatto and Windus and to Mr. W. E. Martyn; of James Thomson (B.V.) to
Messrs. P. J. and A. E. Dobell; of D. G. Rossetti to Messrs. Ellis; of
Swinburne to Mr. W. Heinemann; of Mr. Le Gallienne, H. D. Lowry, Stephen
Phillips and J. B. Tabb to Mr. John Lane; of R. Loveman to the J. B.
Lippincott Co.; of A. K. H. Boyd, R. Jeffries, W. E. H. Lecky and the
Rev. James Martineau, to Messrs. Longmans Green & Co.; of Alfred Austin,
T. E. Brown, Lewis Carroll, Edward Fitzgerald, F. W. H. Myers, Walter
Pater, Lord Tennyson and Charles Tennyson Turner to Messrs. Macmillan &
Co.; of V. O’Sullivan to Mr. Elkin Matthews; of Mrs. Elizabeth Waterhouse
to Messrs. Methuen & Co.; of Robert Browning to Mr. John Murray; of Dr.
Moncure Conway and Sir Alfred Lyall to Messrs. Paul (Kegan), Trench
Trubner & Co.; of George Gissing to Mr. James B. Pinker; of John Payne
to Mr. O. M. Pritchard, his executor, and to Mr. Thomas Wright; of Sir
Edwin Arnold, P. J. Bailey (Festus) and Coventry Patmore to Messrs.
George Routledge & Sons; of G. Whyte Melville to Messrs. Ward Lock & Co.
(songs and verses); of George MacDonald to Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son; Mr.
Rudyard Kipling’s “L’Envoi” is reprinted from Departmental Ditties, by
kind permission of the author and Messrs. Methuen & Co.; “To the True
Romance” is published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., to whom I am deeply
indebted, not only for this and the permissions mentioned above, but also
for much assistance in tracing copyrights. Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.,
Mr. John Murray and Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son have been most helpful in
this direction, as have also been Messrs. T. B. Lippincott, the Oxford
University Press and Messrs. Watts & Co. Messrs. Constable & Co. have
generously granted permission for the quotations from George Meredith
and, as the representatives in London of the Houghton Mifflin Co. of
Boston, Mass., have secured the quotations from the works of American
authors published by that Firm, viz., T. B. Aldrich, R. W. Gilder, W. V.
Moody, S. M. B. Piatt, E. M. Thomas, C. D. Warner and the Classics of
Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier. Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons
have also given much help; the lines from Anna Reeve Aldrich and R. C.
Rogers are published by their New York House. Mr. Martin Seeker joins
in the consent given by Mr. Squire for the extract from his poems. I
thank the Editor of the Contemporary Review for quotations from the
writings of Professor A. Bain and the Rev. R. F. Littledale; and the
Editor of the Nineteenth Century for some lines by W. M. Hardinge (Greek
Anthology) and an article on Multiplex Personality. I thank also the
Society for Psychical Research for an obituary article by F. W. H. Myers
on Gladstone, printed in the Journal of that Society.
For any unintentional omissions, oversights, or failures to trace
rights I beg to tender my apologies. The distance of Adelaide from the
centre of publication may, in some measure, serve as an excuse for such
shortcomings.
_All profits derived from the sale of this book will be paid to the Red
Cross Fund._
J. T. HACKETT.
Adelaide.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND ENGLISH EDITION.
In preparing this edition I have made a great number of more or less
important corrections, alterations and additions. Most of these occupy
only a few lines apiece and, although none call for special mention, they
should together add to the interest and usefulness of this book. For a
number of them I am indebted to Mr. Vernon Rendall, formerly editor of
the _Athenæum_ and _Notes and Queries_. With his wonderfully wide and
exact knowledge of English and classical literature, he gave me much
assistance and I am grateful to him.
The issue of a Second Edition enables me to thank my friend, Sir John
Cockburn, for his truly remarkable kindness to me. When I sent this
book home from Adelaide to be published, he undertook the heavy work of
seeking the consent of the numerous copyright owners, negotiating with
publishers, and seeing the book through the press. Only those who are
experienced in such matters can realize the _enormous_ amount of time
and labour that all this involved. It is impossible for me to express
adequately my obligations to my friend. He did not include any reference
to himself in the original Preface, in spite of my insistence by letter
and cable.
In associating his name with this book, I am bound to add that Sir John
disagrees with and, therefore, disapproves of much that I have said in
some notes on the Ancient Greeks.
J. T. HACKETT.
London, _September, 1920._
PREFACE TO THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION.
This has presumably to be called a new edition, rather than a new issue,
seeing that there are revisions and alterations. But these are not
numerous, and the only ones to which I need call special attention are
the substituted verses on pp. 153-5.
I am indebted to Mr. Denys Bray for permission to include his daughter’s
verses.
J. T. HACKETT.
Mentone, _December, 1920._
YOUTH AND AGE
_Verse, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying,_
_Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—_
_Both were mine! Life went a-maying_
_With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,_
_When I was young!_
_~When~ I was young?—Ah, woful When!_
_Ah! for the change ’twixt Now and Then!_
_This breathing house not built with hands,_
_This body that does me grievous wrong,_
_O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands_
_How lightly ~then~ it flashed along:—_
_Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,_
_On winding lakes and rivers wide,_
_That ask no aid of sail or oar,_
_That fear no spite of wind or tide!_
_Nought cared this body for wind or weather_
_When Youth and I lived in’t together._
_Flowers are lovely: Love is flower-like;_
_Friendship is a sheltering tree;_
_O! the joys, that came down shower-like,_
_Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,_
_Ere I was old!_
_~Ere~ I was old? Ah, woful Ere,_
_Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here!_
_O Youth! for years so many and sweet_
_’Tis known that Thou and I were one,_
_I’ll think it but a fond conceit—_
_It cannot be, that thou art gone!_
_Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d:—_
_And thou wert aye a masker bold!_
_What strange disguise hast now put on_
_To ~make believe~ that Thou art gone?_
_I see these locks in silvery slips,_
_This drooping gait, this alter’d size:_
_But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,_
_And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!_
_Life is but Thought: so think I will_
_That Youth and I are house-mates still._
_Dew-drops are the gems of morning,_
_But the tears of mournful eve!_
_Where no hope is, life’s a warning_
_That only serves to make us grieve_
_When we are old:_
_—That only serves to make us grieve_
_With oft and tedious taking-leave,_
_Like some poor nigh-related guest_
_That may not rudely be dismist,_
_Yet hath outstay’d his welcome while,_
_And tells the jest without the smile._
S. T. COLERIDGE.
My Commonplace Book
Our God and soldier we alike adore,
When at the brink of ruin, not before;
After deliverance both alike requited,
Our God forgotten, and our soldiers slighted.
FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644).
* * * * *
In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom’s fight?
...
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_,
The youth replies, _I can_.
R. W. EMERSON (_Voluntaries_).
* * * * *
ENGLAND
When I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
The student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed
I had, my Country—am I to be blamed?
Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,
Verily, in the bottom of my heart,
Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
For dearly must we prize thee; we who find
In thee a bulwark for the cause of men;
And I by my affection was beguiled:
What wonder if a Poet now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a lover or a child!
WORDSWORTH (1803).
* * * * *
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death struggle in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
J. R. LOWELL (_The Present Crisis_).
* * * * *
Many loved Truth, and lavished life’s best oil
Amid the dust of books to find her,
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,
With the cast mantle she hath left behind her.
Many in sad faith sought for her,
Many with crossed hands sighed for her;
But these, our brothers, fought for her,
At life’s dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her....
They saw her plumed and mailed,
With sweet, stern face unveiled,
And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.
J. R. LOWELL (_Ode at Harvard Commemoration,
1865_).
This Ode was written in memory of the Harvard University men
who had died in the Secession war. Our own brave men are also
fighting in the cause of Truth, against the hideous falsity of
German teaching and morals.
* * * * *
The future’s gain
Is certain as God’s truth; but, meanwhile, pain
Is bitter, and tears are salt: our voices take
A sober tone; our very household songs
Are heavy with a nation’s griefs and wrongs;
And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake
Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat.
The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet!
J. G. WHITTIER (_In War Time_).
* * * * *
PRIEST
“The glory of Man is his strength,
And the weak man must die,” said the Lord.
CHORUS
Hark to the Song of the Sword!
PRIEST
Uplift! let it gleam in the sun—
Uplift in the name of the Lord!
KAISER
Lo! how it gleams in the light,
Beautiful, bloody, and bright.
Yea, I uplift the Sword
Thus in the name of the Lord!
THE CHIEFS
Form ye a circle of fire
Around him, our King and our Sire—
While in the centre he stands,
Kneel with your swords in your hands,
Then with one voice deep and free
Echo like waves of the sea—
“In the name of the Lord!”
VOICES WITHOUT
Where is he?—he fades from our sight!
Where the Sword?—all is blacker than night.
Is it finish’d, that loudly ye cry?
Doth he sheathe the great Sword while we die?
O bury us deep, most deep;
Write o’er us, wherever we sleep,
“In the name of the Lord!”
KAISER
While I uplift the Sword,
Thus in the name of the Lord,
Why, with mine eyes full of tears,
Am I sick of the song in mine ears?
God of the Israelite, hear;
God of the Teuton, be near;
Strengthen my pulse lest I fail.
Shut out these slain while they wail—
For they come with the voice of the grave
On the glory they give me and gave.
CHORUS
In the name of the Lord? Of what Lord?
Where is He, this God of the Sword?
Unfold Him; where hath He His throne?
Is He Lord of the Teuton alone?
Doth He walk on the earth? Doth He tread
On the limbs of the dying and dead?
Unfold Him! We sicken, and long
To look on this God of the strong!
PRIEST
Hush! In the name of the Lord,
Kneel ye, and bless ye the Sword!
R. BUCHANAN (_The Apotheosis of the Sword,
Versailles, 1871_)
* * * * *
Short is mine errand to tell, and the end of my desire:
For peace I bear unto thee, and to all the kings of the earth,
Who bear the sword aright, and are crowned with the crown of worth;
But unpeace to the lords of evil, and the battle and the death;
And the edge of the sword to the traitor and the flame to the slanderous
breath:
And I would that the loving were loved, and I would that the weary should
sleep,
And that man should hearken to man, and that he that soweth should reap.
W. MORRIS (_Sigurd the Volsung, Book III_).
* * * * *
SACRIFICE
Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,—
“’Tis man’s perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die.”
R. W. EMERSON.
* * * * *
GREEKS OR GERMANS?
Do not imagine that you are fighting about a single issue, freedom or
slavery. You have an empire to lose, and are exposed to danger by reason
of the hatred which your imperial rule has inspired in other states. And
you cannot resign your power, although some timid or unambitious spirits
want you to act justly. For now your empire has become a _despotism_,
a thing which in the opinion of mankind has been unjustly acquired yet
cannot be safely relinquished. The men of whom I speak, if they could
find followers, would soon ruin the state, and, if they were to found a
state of their own, would just as soon ruin that.
(_Speech by Pericles._)
I have observed again and again that a democracy cannot govern an empire;
and never more clearly than now, when I see you regretting the sentence
you pronounced on the Mityleneans. Having no fear or suspicion of one
another, you deal with your allies on the same principle. You do not
realize that, whenever you yield to them out of pity, or are prevailed
on by their pleas, you are guilty of a weakness dangerous to yourselves
and receive no gratitude from them. You need to bear in mind that your
empire is a _despotism_ exercised over unwilling subjects who are ever
conspiring against you. They do not obey because of any kindness you show
them: they obey just so far as you show yourselves their masters. They
have no love for you, but are held down by force....
You must not be misled by pity, or eloquent pleading or by generosity.
There are no three things more fatal to empire.
(_Speech by Cleon_) THUCYDIDES, II, 63; III, 37, 40.
It will be seen that these odious sentiments are attributed
by the impartial Thucydides to his hero Pericles as well as
to the demagogue Cleon. The Greeks were fervent supporters of
Democracy and Equality, but not when it came to dealing either
with foreign states or with their own _women or slaves_. (See
also Socrates and Aristotle, p. 367.)
* * * * *
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
country; but he, that stands it _now_, deserves the love and thanks
of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we
have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly:
it is dearness only that gives anything its value. Heaven knows how to
put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so
celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
THOMAS PAINE (1776).
Outside the Bible and other books of religion, I think it
would be difficult to find any single passage in the world’s
literature that produced so wonderful a result as the above
passage of Tom Paine’s. It was the opening paragraph of the
first number of _The Crisis_, and was written by miserable,
flaring candle-light, when Paine was a private in Washington’s
ill-clad, worn-out army at Trenton. The soldiers, who were then
despairing from hardship and defeat, were roused by these words
to such enthusiasm that next day they rushed bravely in and won
the first American victory, which turned the tide of the war of
independence.
Previously to this, it was through Paine’s pamphlet, _Common
Sense_, that the Americans first saw that separation was the
only remedy for their grievances. Conway tells an amusing story
about _Common Sense_ and _The Rights of Man_. When the Bolton
town crier was sent round to seize these prohibited books, he
reported that he could not find any Rights of Man or Common
Sense anywhere!
For trying to save the life of Louis XVI during the revolution,
Paine was thrown into the Bastille, and only escaped death by a
curious accident. It was customary for chalk-marks to be made
on the cell-doors of those to be guillotined the following
morning, and these doors opened outwards. When Paine’s door
was marked, it happened to be open, and the mark was made on
the inside, so that, when the door was shut, the mark was not
visible. If Paine had not been a sceptic, this would have
been described in those days as a wonderful interposition of
Providence!
Conway lays a terrible indictment against Washington. When
Paine, whose services to America, and to Washington himself,
had been so magnificent, was thrown into the Bastille,
Washington could have saved him by a word—but remained silent!
This was no doubt the reason why Paine, after his liberation,
was led to make an unjust attack on Washington’s military and
Presidential work. It was due to this attack on Washington
and the bigotry of the time against the author of _The Age of
Reason_, that Paine fell utterly into disrepute.
When the Centenary of American independence was celebrated by
an Exhibition at Philadelphia, a bust of Paine was offered to
the city by his admirers, but was promptly declined! And yet
Conway says that on the day, whose centenary was then being
celebrated, Paine was idolized in America above all other men,
Washington included.
The foregoing notes were made on reading an article on Paine by
Moncure D. Conway in _The Fortnightly_, March, 1879. I think
the fact mentioned in the last paragraph and the town-crier
story do not appear in Conway’s subsequent _Life of Paine_.
Even at the present day bigotry seems to prevent any proper
recognition of Paine’s fine character and important work.
(The unpleasant flippancy[5] with which he dealt with serious
religious questions is no doubt partly the cause of this.) I
find very inadequate appreciation of him in _The Americana_
and _The Biographical Dictionary of America_—and also in our
own _Dictionary of National Biography_. The general impression
among the public still probably is that Paine was an atheist;
as a matter of fact, he was a Theist, and his will ends with
the words, “I die in perfect composure and resignation to the
will of my Creator, God.”
Carlyle’s reference to Paine is amusing: “Nor is our England
without her missionaries. She has her Paine: rebellious
staymaker; unkempt; who feels that he, a single needleman, did,
by his _Common-Sense_ Pamphlet, free America—that he can and
will free all this World; perhaps even the other.” (_French
Revolution._)
* * * * *
Buy my English posies!
You that will not turn—
Buy my hot-wood clematis,
Buy a frond o’ fern
Gather’d where the Erskine leaps
Down the road to Lorne—
Buy my Christmas creeper
And I’ll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin—
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn—
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main—
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!
Ye that have your own
Buy them for a brother’s sake
Overseas, alone.
Weed ye trample underfoot
Floods his heart abrim—
Bird ye never heeded,
O, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land—
Masters of the Seven Seas, O, love and understand!
RUDYARD KIPLING (_The Flowers_).
Of the verses in this fine poem which speak for the various
British Dominions I take only the one that represents my own
country. At the time Kipling wrote, the inhabitants of our
beloved mother-country did not seem to fully realize that we
were their kindred—that our fern and clematis made _English
posies_—but no doubt their feeling has altered since we have
fought side by side in mutual defence. However, to us England
was always “home,” and when Kipling wrote this poem he entered
straight into our hearts.
* * * * *
FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY
RUFINUS
Here lilies, here the rosebud, and here too
The windflower with her petals drenched in dew,
And daffodillies cool, and violets blue.
MELEAGER
It’s oh! to be a wild wind—when my lady’s in the sun—
She’d just unbind her neckerchief and take me breathing in,
It’s oh! to be a red rose—just a faintly blushing one—
So she’d pull me with her hand and to her snowy breast I’d win.
PLATO TO ASTER
Thou gazest on the stars—a star to me
Thou[6] art—but oh! that I the heavens might be
And with a thousand eyes still gaze on thee!
PALLADAS
Breathing the thin breath through our nostrils, we
Live, and a little space the sunlight see—
Even all that live—each being an instrument
To which the generous air its life has lent.
If with the hand one quench our draught of breath,
He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death.
We, that are nothing on our pride are fed,
Seeing, but for a little air, we are as dead.
AESOPUS
Is there no help from life save only death?
“Life that such myriad sorrows harboureth
I dare not break, I cannot bear”—one saith.
“Sweet are stars, sun, and moon, and sea, and earth,
For service and for beauty these had birth,
But all the rest of life is little worth—
“Yea, all the rest is pain and grief” saith he
“For if it hap some good thing come to me
An evil end befalls it speedily!”[7]
PHILODEMUS
I loved—and you. I played—who hath not been
Steeped in such play? If I was mad, I ween
’Twas for a god and for no earthly queen.
Hence with it all! Then dark my youthful head,
Where now scant locks of whitening hair instead,
Reminders of a grave old age, are shed.
I gathered roses while the roses blew,
Playtime is past, my play is ended too.
Awake, my heart! and worthier aims pursue.
W. M. HARDINGE (_Nineteenth Century_, Nov. 1878).
My notes tell me nothing of Hardinge, except that he was the
“Leslie” in Mallock’s _New Republic_. Another version of
Plato’s beautiful epigram (which was addressed to “Aster,” or
“Star”) is the following by Professor Darnley Naylor:
Thou gazest on the stars, my Star;
Oh! might I be
The starry sky with myriad eyes
To gaze on thee!
The Greek Anthology is a collection of about 4,500 short poems
by about 300 Greek writers, extending over a period of one
thousand seven hundred years, from, say, 700 B.C. to 1000 A.D.
At first these poems were epigrams—using the word “epigram”
in its original sense, as a verse intended to be inscribed on
a tomb or tablet in memory of some dead person or important
event. Later they included poems on any subject, so long as
they contained one fine thought couched in concise language.
Still later any short lyric was included.
This wonderful collection forms a great treasure-house of
poetry, which gives much insight into the Greek life of the
time, and it also largely influenced English and European
literature. For instance, the first verse of Ben Jonson’s
“Drink to me only with thine eyes,” is taken direct from the
Anthology (Agathias, _Anth. Pal._, V., 261). I may add that
the second verse, in which the poet sends the wreath, not as
a compliment to the lady but as a kindness to the roses which
could not wither if worn by her, is also borrowed from a Greek
source. (Philostratus, _Epistolai Erotikai_.)
Numberless English and European scholars have attempted the
difficult task of translating or paraphrasing these little
poetic gems into correspondingly poetic and concise language,
but the beauty of the original can never be fully retained.
* * * * *
PLATO TO STELLA
Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled:—
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
SHELLEY’S VERSION.
* * * * *
PTOLEMY
I know that we are mortal, the children of a day;
But when I scan the circling spires, the serried stars’ array,
I tread the earth no longer and soar where none hath trod,
To feast in Heaven’s banquet-hall and drink the wine of God.
H. DARNLEY NAYLOR’S VERSION.
Although there cannot be absolute certainty, this Ptolemy is no
doubt the great Greek astronomer; and the epigram would date
from about 140 A.D.
* * * * *
HERACLEITUS.
They told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
WILLIAM (JOHNSON) CORY (1823-1892).
This is a paraphrase of verses written by Callimachus on
hearing of the death of his friend, the poet Heracleitus (not
the philosopher of that name).
Francis Thompson (_Sister Songs_) hoped that his “nightingales”
would continue to sing after his death, just as light would
come from a star long after it had ceased to exist:
Oh! may this treasure-galleon of my verse,
Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme,
Set with a towering press of fantasies,
Drop safely down the time,
Leaving mine islèd self behind it far
Soon to be sunk in the abysm of seas,
(As down the years the splendour voyages
From some long ruined and night-submergèd star).
* * * * *
When I consider the shortness of my life, lost in an eternity before
and behind, “passing away as the remembrance of a guest who tarrieth
but a day,” the little space I fill or behold in the infinite immensity
of spaces, of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me—when I
reflect this, I am filled with terror, and wonder why I am _here_ and not
_there_, for there was no reason why it should be the one rather than the
other; why _now_ rather than _then_. Who set me here? By whose command
and rule were this time and place appointed me? How many kingdoms know
nothing of us! The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me.
PASCAL (_Pensées_).
* * * * *
Ye weep for those who weep? she said,
Ah, fools! I bid you pass them by.
Go weep for those whose hearts have bled
What time their eyes were dry.
Whom sadder can I say? she said.
E. B. BROWNING (_The Mask_).
See also Seneca (_Hipp._), _Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes
stupent_, “Light sorrows speak, but deeper ones are dumb.”
* * * * *
Star unto star speaks light.
P. J. BAILEY (_Festus, Scene 1, Heaven_).
* * * * *
O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death’s imperishable wing!
D. G. ROSSETTI (_Lovesight_).
* * * * *
Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart
from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they
have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.
GEORGE ELIOT (_Romola_).
* * * * *
Room in all the ages
For our love to grow,
Prayers of both demanded
A little while ago:
And now a few poor moments,
Between life and death,
May be proven all too ample
For love’s breath.
RODEN NOEL (_The Pity of It_).
* * * * *
There! See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining
Under those spider-webs lying!...
Is it your moral of Life?
Such a web, simple and subtle,
Weave we on earth here in impotent strife,
Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle,
Death ending all with a knife?
Over our heads truth and nature—
Still our life’s zigzags and dodges,
Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature—
God’s gold just showing its last where that lodges,
Palled beneath man’s usurpature.
So we o’ershroud stars and roses,
Cherub and trophy and garland;
Nothings grow something which quietly closes
Heaven’s earnest eye; not a glimpse of the far land
Gets through our comments and glozes.
R. BROWNING (_Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_).
Hugues of Saxe-Gotha is an imaginary name, but it probably
indicates the great Sebastian Bach, who came from that part of
Germany. The “masterpiece, hard number twelve,” referred to
in the poem, may be (Dr. E. Harold Davies tells me) the great
Organ Fugue in F Minor, which is in “five part” counter-point.
This very interesting poem is written in a half-humorous
fashion, but its intention is quite serious. In a wonderfully
imitative manner,[8] it describes the wrangling and disputing
in a five-voiced fugue (where five persons appear to be taking
part):
One is incisive, corrosive;
Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant;
Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive;
Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant:
Five ... O Danaïdes, O Sieve!
(For killing their husbands the fifty Danaïdes were doomed to
pour water everlastingly into a sieve.)
“Where in all this is the music?” asks Browning. And, although
he is writing humorously, yet, however rank the heresy, he
finds that the fugue, with its elaborate counterpoint, is
wanting in the essentials of true art. He prefers Palestrina’s
simpler and more emotional mode of expression:
Hugues! I advise _meâ poenâ_[9]
(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)
Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena!
Say the word, straight I unstop the full-organ,
Blare out the _mode Palestrina_.
In the poem, where occurs the passage quoted, one can vividly
follow the poet’s thought. Music is essentially the language of
feeling, of _emotion_; the fugue is a triumph of _invention_,
and, therefore, the result of _intellect_. Feeling is
elemental, simple, and unanalysable. The subtleties of pure
harmony are the expression of deepness and richness of feeling;
the intricacies of the fugue are artificially constructed and,
therefore, unsuited to the expression of pure emotion. They
represent intellect as against feeling. And essentially in the
moral world, but also in our general outlook upon truth and
nature, the spiritual perception is derived from simple human
emotion rather than intellect; “Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” (The
whole of Browning’s poetry teaches that love, not intellect,
is the solution of all moral problems, and the goal of the
universe.)
In the poem the organist has been playing on the organ in
an old church; and Browning suddenly sees an illustration
of his thought in the fine gilded ceiling covered by thick
cobwebs. The cobwebs that obscure the gold of the ceiling
are the intellectual wranglings that destroy music in the
fugue—and both are symbolical of what occurs in our lives.
Truth and Nature, “God’s gold”—the pure, simple truths of the
higher life—are over us, bright and clear as the noon-day
sun. But by doubts and disputations, warring philosophies and
contending creeds, by strife over non-essentials, casuistries,
self-deceptions, by questions of dogma (often as fine as any
spider’s web), by endless “comments and glozes,” we lose sight
of the elemental truths and clear principles that should guide
our lives. The pure and simple-hearted reach the Mount of
Vision: to them comes the clear sense of Love and Duty. Those
of us who turn our intellects to a perverse use and exclude
the spiritual perception of the soul are like the spiders who
cover up “stars and roses, Cherub and trophy and garland.”
We obscure and forget all noble ideals, abolish God’s high
“legislature,” and follow a lawless life of selfish passion
and sordid ambitions. The Good and Beautiful and True have
been obliterated and forgotten; “God’s gold” is tarnished, His
harmonies lost in discord; and we become morally dead.
So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.
Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air;
Cold plashing past it, crystal waters roll;
We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!...
Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,
Upon our life a ruling effluence send;
And when it fails, fight as we will, we die,
And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.
MATTHEW ARNOLD (_Palladium_).
* * * * *
(Referring to the Gorham case) The future historian of opinion will write
of us in this strain: “The people who spoke the language of Shakespeare
were great in the constructive arts: the remains of their vast works
evince an extraordinary power of combining and economizing labour: their
colonies were spread over both hemispheres, and their industry penetrated
to the remotest tribes: they knew how to subjugate nature and to govern
men: but the weakness of their thought presented a strange contrast to
the vigour of their arm; and though they were an earnest people, their
conceptions of human life and its Divine Author seems to have been of
the most puerile nature. Some orations have been handed down—apparently
delivered before one of their most dignified tribunals—in which the
question is discussed: ‘In what way the washing of new-born babes
according to certain rules prevented God’s hating them.’ The curious
feature is, that the discussion turns entirely upon the manner in which
this wetting operated; and no doubt seems to have been entertained by
disputants, judges, or audience, that, without it, a child or other
person dying would fall into the hands of an angry Deity, and be kept
alive for ever to be tortured in a burning cave. Now, all researches
into the contemporary institutions of the island show that its religion
found its chief support among the classes possessing no mean station or
culture, and that the education for the priesthood was the highest which
the country afforded. This strange belief must be taken, therefore, as
the measure, not of popular ignorance, but of their most intellectual
faith. A philosophy and worship embodying such a superstition can present
nothing to reward the labour of research.”
JAMES MARTINEAU (_Essay on “The Church of England”_).
In the Gorham case, which went on appeal to the Privy Council,
it was decided that Mr. Gorham’s beliefs, although unusual,
were not repugnant to the doctrines of the Church of England.
His views were that baptism is generally necessary to
salvation, that it is a sign of grace by which God works in
us, but only in those who worthily receive it. In others it is
not effectual. Infants baptized who die before actual sin are
certainly saved, but regeneration does not necessarily follow
on baptism.
In such matters one question stands out very prominently.
The priest is consecrated to the high office of teaching the
eternal truths of Christ—Love and Duty and Moral Aspiration.
How can he keep those truths in due perspective when his
intellect is engaged in warfare over miserable casuistries.
And as the strife waxes fiercer among the priests of the Most
High, they call in the aid of hired mercenaries. Think of
the lawyers paid by one side or the other to argue questions
of baptism and prevenient grace! It was precisely this
introduction into religion of legal formalism and technicality,
the arguing from texts and ancient commentaries, the verbal
quibbling and hair-splitting, the “letter” that “killeth” as
against the “spirit” that “giveth life,” which led to Christ’s
bitter invectives against the “Scribes” or lawyers of His day.