Piccolomini” is a portion) is considered a masterpiece.
Schiller was fortunate in having a finer poet than himself to
translate his drama. In the above passage Coleridge greatly
improved on the original; the seven splendid lines beginning
“The intelligible forms of ancient poets” are his and not
Schiller’s; and, therefore, this passage may fairly be ascribed
to him as author.
* * * * *
By rose-hung river and light-foot rill
There are who rest not; who think long
Till they discern as from a hill
At the sun’s hour of morning song.
Known of souls only, and those souls free,
The sacred spaces of the sea.
A. C. SWINBURNE (_Prelude—Songs before
Sunrise_).
The sea typifies the wider, nobler life of the soul.
* * * * *
Je prends mon bien où je le trouve.
(I take my property wherever I find it.)
MOLIÈRE (1622-1673).
This famous saying is quoted in French literature as though
Molière had said, “I admit plagiarism, but I so improve what
I borrow from others that it becomes my own” (see _Larousse_,
under “_Bien_”).
“Tho’ old the thought and oft expressed,
’Tis his at last who says it best.”
It is, however, an interesting question whether this was the
true meaning intended by Molière.
The story is told by Grimarest, the first biographer of the
great dramatist. In 1671 Molière produced _Les Fourberies de
Scapin_, in which he had inserted two scenes taken from _Le
Pedant Joué_, of Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655). (They are
the amusing scenes where Geronte repeatedly says, _Que diable
allait-il faire dans cette galère_, “What the deuce was he
doing in that Turkish galley?”) Grimarest says that Cyrano
had used in these scenes what he had overheard from Molière,
and that the latter, when taxed with the plagiarism, replied,
“Je _reprends_ mon bien où je le trouve” (“I _take back_ my
property, wherever I find it”). That is to say, he definitely
_denied_ the plagiarism.
Voltaire, in a “Life of Molière,” makes a general assertion
(not referring specially to this incident) that all Grimarest’s
stories are false. This must, of course, be far too sweeping
an assertion, and Grimarest is in fact quoted as an authority.
Voltaire himself (1694-1778) uses the saying in the sense given
by Grimarest (_La Pucelle_, Chant III.):
Cette culotte est mienne; et je prendrai
Ce que fut mien où je le trouverai.
(“These breeches are mine, and I shall take what was mine
wherever I find it.”) Agnès Sorel had been captured dressed
as a man and wearing the garment in question, which had been
previously stolen from the speaker.
It seems to me that Grimarest’s story must be accepted, that
Molière claimed the scenes as originally his and denied
plagiarism. There is no evidence to the contrary, and the
saying is given its obvious meaning. (It is word for word as
in the Digest, _Ubi rem meam invenio, ibi vindico_, “Where I
find my own property, I appropriate it.”) But the question then
arises, Why should so commonplace a statement have attained
such notoriety?
The explanation seems simple. Molière had many jealous and
bitter enemies, who laid every charge they could against
him. He was well known to have borrowed ideas, characters
and scenes in all directions—and his enemies constantly and
persistently attacked him on this ground. Then came his most
glaring plagiarism from a comparatively recent play, written
by a man whose dare-devil exploits had made him a perfect
hero of romance. Molière’s story that Cyrano had previously
stolen the scenes from him would not been have accepted for a
moment. Cyrano had never been known to plagiarize, nor would
it have been natural for a man of his character to do anything
clandestine. Also Molière would have had nothing to support
his statement—and Cyrano was not alive to contradict him.
The conclusion, therefore, seems to be that the dramatist’s
statement was received in Paris with such incredulity,
indignation, and ridicule that it became a byword.
But if this is so, why have the words been given an entirely
fictitious meaning? The answer seems to lie in the fact that
as Molière’s great genius became realized the desire arose
to remove a blemish from his character. His is the greatest
name in French literature, and almost anything would be
excused in him. (We ourselves pass lightly over plagiarisms
by Shakespeare.) Also, whether morally justified or not,
Molière enriched the world’s literature by his borrowings.
It was, therefore, no serious matter to Frenchmen that he
should have borrowed from Cyrano, but it was a distinct
blemish on his character that he should have denied the fact
and also slandered a dead man. Ordinarily, in such a case,
the story is ignored and forgotten, just as the one improper
act of Sir Walter Scott, his borrowing from Coleridge of the
“Christabel” metre, is usually ignored or slurred over. But
the saying had become rooted in literature and this course
was not practicable. However, there is little that enthusiasm
cannot accomplish by some means or other, and the object in
this instance has been achieved by _reversing the meaning_
of Molière’s words. If this conjecture is correct, it is an
illustration of what has occurred on a far greater scale in
connection with the Greeks (see Index of Subjects).
As regards the meaning now given to the saying, Seneca claimed
the same right to borrow at will. _Quidquid bene dictum est
ab ullo, meum est_ (_Ep. XVI_). After advising his reader to
consider the Epistle carefully and see what value it had for
him, he says, “You need not be surprised if I am still free
with other people’s property. But why do I say ‘other people’s
property’? Whatever has been well said by anyone belongs to
me.”[13]
So also the late Samuel Butler said, “Appropriate things are
meant to be appropriated.”
* * * * *
Our finest hope is finest memory,
As they who love in age think youth is blest
Because it has a life to fill with love.
GEORGE ELIOT (_A Minor Poet_).
* * * * *
The disposition to judge every enterprise by its event, and believe in
no wisdom that is not endorsed by success, is apt to grow upon us with
years, till we sympathize with nothing for which we cannot take out a
policy of assurance.
JAMES MARTINEAU (_Hours of Thought I, 87_).
* * * * *
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and
Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once
begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop.
Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he
thought little of at the time.
DE QUINCEY (_Murder, as one of the Fine Arts_).
* * * * *
For when the mellow autumn flushed
The thickets, where the chestnut fell,
And in the vales the maple blushed,
Another came who knew her well,
Who sat with her below the pine
And with her through the meadow moved,
And underneath the purpling vine
She sang to him the song I loved.
N. G. SHEPHERD.
* * * * *
Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn’t room to swing a
cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the
foot of the bed, nursing his leg, “You know, Trotwood, I don’t want to
swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to
me!”
DICKENS (_David Copperfield_).
* * * * *
(After looking at his watch) “Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told
you butter would not suit the works!” he added, looking angrily at the
March Hare.
“It was the _best_ butter,” the March Hare replied.
LEWIS CARROLL (_Alice in Wonderland_).
* * * * *
“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, “and they drew all
manner of things—everything that begins with an M—”
“Why with an M?” said Alice.
“Why not?” said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
LEWIS CARROLL (_Alice in Wonderland_).
* * * * *
Perhaps, as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be thought
that two layers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake; and two
Barmecide banquets might be the square root of one poached egg.
AUTHOR NOT TRACED.
* * * * *
In a Dublin lunatic asylum, one of the inmates peremptorily ordered a
visitor to take off his hat. Deferentially obeying the order, the visitor
asked why he should remove his hat. The lunatic replied: “Do you not
know, sir, that I am the Crown Prince of Prussia?” Having duly made his
apologies, the visitor proceeded on his round; but, coming upon the
same lunatic, was met with the same demand. Again obeying the order, he
repeated the question: “May I ask why you wish me to take off my hat?”
The lunatic replied: “Are you not aware, sir, that I am the Prince of
Wales?” “But,” said the visitor, “you told me just now you were the
Crown Prince of Prussia.” The lunatic, after scratching his head and
deliberating for a moment, replied: “Ah, but that was by a different
mother.”
(Another Irish lunatic always lost himself and insisted on looking for
himself under the bed.)
AUTHOR NOT TRACED.
These are true stories but localized—another injustice to
Ireland!
* * * * *
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I
were married.
(_Much Ado About Nothing._)
* * * * *
_Pointz._ Come, your reason, Jack,—your reason.
_Falstaff._ Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plenty as
blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
(_1 Henry IV_, ii, 4.)
_Reason_ needs to be given its old pronunciation, “raison” (_or
raisin_) in order to understand Falstaff’s pun.
* * * * *
Still I cannot believe in clairvoyance—_because the thing is impossible_.
SAMUEL ROGERS, 1763-1855 (_Table Talk_).
Rogers mentions some remarkable facts about the clairvoyant,
Alexis, and ends with this convincing argument. Apart from
clairvoyance (of which I know nothing), Rogers would no doubt
have made a similar reply if some prophet had foretold that
men would one day communicate with each other by wireless
telegraphy; and the same effective argument is to-day opposed
by many to the evidence that the dead communicate with the
living.
I might follow the eight preceding quotations (which illustrate
“the art of reasoning”) with the well-known story of Charles
Lamb, who, when blamed for coming late to the office, excused
himself on the ground that he always left early. (He also said,
“A man could not have too little to do and too much time to do
it in.”) There is also the reply of Lord Rothschild, when the
cabman told him that his son paid better fares than he did,
“Yes, but He has a rich father, and I haven’t.”
* * * * *
TO THE TRUE ROMANCE
_Thy face is far from this our war,_
_Our call and counter-cry,_
_I shall not find Thee quick and kind,_
_Nor know Thee till I die._
_Enough for me in dreams to see_
_And touch Thy garments’ hem:_
_Thy feet have trod so near to God_
_I may not follow them._
Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E’en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.
Since spoken word Man’s Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee.
Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee
To gild his dross thereby,
And knowledge sure that he endure
A child until he die—
For to make plain that man’s disdain
Is but new Beauty’s birth—
For to possess in loneliness
The joy of all the earth.
As thou didst teach all lovers speech
And Life all mystery,
So shalt Thou rule by every school
Till love and longing die,
Who wast or yet the Lights were set
A whisper in the Void,
Who shalt be sung through planets young
When this is clean destroyed.
Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,
Across the pressing dark,
The children wise of outer skies
Look hitherward and mark
A light that shifts, a glare that drifts
Rekindling thus and thus,
Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne
Strange tales to them of us.
Time hath no tide but must abide
The servant of Thy will;
Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme
The ranging stars stand still—
Regent of spheres that lock our fears
Our hopes invisible,
Oh! ’twas certés at Thy decrees
We fashioned Heaven and Hell!
Pure Wisdom hath no certain path
That lacks thy morning-eyne,
And captains bold by Thee controlled
Most like to God’s design;
Thou art the Voice to kingly boys
To lift them through the fight.
And Comfortress of Unsuccess,
To give the dead good-night.
A veil to draw ’twixt God, His law,
And Man’s infirmity,
A shadow kind to dumb and blind
The shambles where we die;
A rule to trick th’ arithmetic
Too base of leaguing odds—
The spur of trust, the curb of lust,
Thou handmaid of the Gods!
O Charity, all patiently
Abiding wrack and scaith!
O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats
Yet drops no jot of faith!
Devil and brute Thou dost transmute
To higher, lordlier show,
Who art in sooth that lovely Truth
The careless angels know!
_Thy face is far from this our war,_
_Our call and counter-cry,_
_I may not find Thee quick and kind,_
_Nor know Thee till I die._
_Yet may I look with heart unshook_
_On blow brought home or missed—_
_Yet may I hear with equal ear_
_The clarions down the List;_
_Yet set my lance above mischance_
_And ride the barrière—_
_Oh, hit or miss, how little ’tis,_
_My Lady is not there!_
RUDYARD KIPLING.
All attempts to define poetic imagination, to determine its
scope or prescribe its limits, leave us cold and unsatisfied,
for the simple reason that its variety and range are unlimited.
The aesthetic, moral and spiritual faculties are all in essence
identical, so that no definition of the aesthetic can exclude
the spiritual, and art and poetry spring from the same root as
religion. They all have what Wordsworth calls the “Spirit of
Paradise.”[14] Imagination[15] in its larger sense includes
all those higher faculties of man, all that lifts him above
his material existence. The “True Romance” in this fine poem
is imagination in this complete sense. By our lower perceptive
faculties we see the world of Nature in its material form;
by our higher powers we apprehend its aesthetic, moral and
spiritual beauty. (Man with his consciousness, will, reason,
and also his higher imaginative faculties, is as much part of
_Nature_ as any star or clod, crystal or gas, fly or flower.)
Hence imagination gives us the vision of glory in earth and
sky, the sense of wonder and worship, the emotions of sympathy
and love; it teaches us duty and self sacrifice; it awakens in
us a sense of the mystery of birth, life and death, directing
our thoughts from the finite and material world to the infinite
realm of the spiritual.
_Verse 4, lines 5, 6._ Our faculties develop, and we realize,
for example, the beauty of Nature which was not apparent to
the Greeks of Plato’s time (see p. 379; see also p. 283).
_Verse 9, l. 5, 6._ Imagination teaches us heroism. In the
italicized verses, “our war” is, of course, the strife of our
material existence: we can face with courage the mischances
of life, seeing that “My Lady Romance,” the soul which is our
higher nature, must persist through life and after death.
(“_Barrière_,” barrier.)
* * * * *
We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future
selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid
misdoing and shabby achievement.
GEORGE ELIOT (_Middlemarch_).
* * * * *
The stars make no noise.
IRISH PROVERB.
* * * * *
WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT
Who fancied what a pretty sight
This rock would be if edged around
With living snow-drops? circlet bright!
How glorious to this orchard ground!
Who loved the little rock, and set
Upon its head this coronet?
Was it the humour of a child?
Or rather of some gentle maid,
Whose brows, the day that she was styled
The Shepherd-queen, were thus arrayed?
Of man mature, or matron sage?
Or old man toying with his age?
I asked—’twas whispered, “The device
To each and all might well belong:
It is the Spirit of Paradise
That prompts such work, a Spirit strong
That gives to all the self-same bent
Where life is wise and innocent.”
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men
are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the
heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common obedience to an
external law. All that man sees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be
without an intermundane relationship. The community of the centre of
all creation suggests an inter-radiating connection and dependence
of the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable than that which is
already embodied. The blank, which is only a forgotten life lying behind
the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped
life lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other
connections with the worlds around us than those of science and
poetry. No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a
self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a
man’s soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well.
They are portions of the living house within which he abides.
G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_).
* * * * *
O weary time, O life,
Consumed in endless, useless strife
To wash from out the hopeless clay
Of heavy day and heavy day
Some specks of golden love, to keep
Our hearts from madness ere we sleep!
W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise_).
To an Australian, a metaphor taken from alluvial gold-mining is
interesting.
* * * * *
(Dr. Slop has been uttering terrible curses against Obadiah) I declare,
quoth my Uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself
with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses, replied Dr. Slop.—So
am not I, replied my uncle.—But he is cursed and damned already to all
eternity, replied Dr. Slop.
I am sorry for it, quoth my Uncle Toby.
LAURENCE STERNE (_Tristram Shandy_).
* * * * *
_Faust._ If heaven was made for man, ’twas made for me.
_Good Angel._ Faustus, repent; yet heaven will pity thee.
_Bad Angel._ Thou art a spirit, God cannot pity thee.
_Faust._ Be I a devil, yet God may pity me.
MARLOWE (_Doctor Faustus_).
* * * * *
But fare-you-well, Auld Nickie-Ben!
O, wad ye tak a thought and men’!
Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken—
Still hae a stake:
I’m wae to think upo’ yon den,
Ev’n for your sake!
ROBERT BURNS (_Address to the Deil_).
* * * * *
“Shargar, what think ye? Gin the deil war to repent, wad God forgie him?”
“There’s no sayin’ what folk wad dae till ance they’re tried,” returned
Shargar cautiously.
GEORGE MACDONALD (_Robert Falconer, ch. xii._)
There is a passage, I think in one of MacDonald’s novels, where
the question is again put, “Gin the de’il war to repent?” The
reply is to the effect, “Do not wish even him anything so
dreadful. The agony of his repentance would be far worse than
anything he can suffer in hell.”
Scotus Erigena, a very able Irish theologian and philosopher of
the 9th century, believed that Satan himself must ultimately be
reclaimed, since otherwise God could not in the end conquer and
extinguish sin. He cites Origen and others in support of his
contention. These old and very serious discussions seem more
remote than Plato, but the belief in a personal devil was not
uncommon even in my young days.
* * * * *
Hope, whose eyes
Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies
Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see
What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea
Hear not, and speak what all these crying in one
Can speak not to the sun.
SWINBURNE (_Thalassius_).
* * * * *
AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITIE
In Virgo now the sultry sun did sheene, shine
And hot upon the meads did cast his ray;
The apple reddened from its paly green,
And the soft pear did bend the leafy spray;
The pied chelándry sang the livelong day; goldfinch
’Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year,
And eke the ground was decked in its most deft aumere. apparel
The sun was gleaming in the midst of day.
Dead-still the air, and eke the welkin blue,
When from the sea arose in drear array
A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue,
The which full fast unto the woodland drew,
Hiding at once the sunnès festive face,
And the black tempest swelled, and gathered up apace.
Beneath a holm, fast by a pathway-side holm-oak
Which did unto Saint Godwin’s convent lead,
A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide,
Poor in his view, ungentle in his weed, clothing
Long brimful of the miseries of need.
Where from the hailstorm could the beggar fly?
He had no houses there, nor any convent nigh.
Look in his gloomèd face, his sprite there scan;
How woe-begone, how withered, dwindled, dead!
Haste to thy church-glebe-house, accursed man! grave
Haste to thy shroud, thy only sleeping bed.
Cold as the clay which will grow on thy head
Are Charity and Love among high elves;
For knights and barons live for pleasure and themselves.
The gathered storm is ripe; the big drops fall,
The sunburnt meadows smoke, and drink the rain;
The coming ghastness doth the cattle ’pall, gloom, appal
And the full flocks are driving o’er the plain;
Dashed from the clouds, the waters fly again;
The welkin opes; the yellow lightning flies,
And the hot fiery steam in the wide flashings dies.
List! now the thunder’s rattling noisy sound
Moves slowly on, and then full-swollen clangs,
Shakes the high spire, and lost, expended, drowned,
Still on the frighted ear of terror hangs;
The winds are up; the lofty elmtree swangs; swings
Again the lightning, and the thunder pours,
And the full clouds are burst at once in stony showers.
Spurring his palfrey o’er the watery plain,
The Abbot of Saint Godwin’s convent came;
His chapournette was drenched with the rain, small round hat
His painted girdle met with mickle shame;
He aynewarde told his bederoll at the same; told his beads
The storm increases, and he drew aside, backwards,
With the poor alms-craver near to the holm to bide. i.e., cursed
His cope was all of Lincoln cloth so fine,
With a gold button fastened near his chin,
His autremete was edged with golden twine, robe
And his shoe’s peak a noble’s might have been;
Full well it shewèd he thought cost no sin.
The trammels of his palfrey pleased his sight,
For the horse-milliner his head with roses dight.
“An alms, sir priest!” the drooping pilgrim said,
“Oh! let me wait within your convent-door,
Till the sun shineth high above our head,
And the loud tempest of the air is o’er.
Helpless and old am I, alas! and poor.
No house, no friend, nor money in my pouch,
All that I call my own is this my silver crouche.” crucifix
“Varlet!” replied the Abbot, “cease your din;
This is no season alms and prayers to give.
My porter never lets a beggar in;
None touch my ring who not in honour live.”
And now the sun with the black clouds did strive,
And shot upon the ground his glaring ray;
The abbot spurred his steed, and eftsoons rode away.
Once more the sky was black, the thunder rolled,
Fast running o’er the plain a priest was seen;
Not dight full proud, nor buttoned up in gold.
His cope and jape were grey, and eke were clean; short surplice
A Limitor he was of order seen; Begging Friar
And from the pathway-side then turnèd he,
Where the poor beggar lay beneath the holmen tree.
“An alms, sir priest!” the drooping pilgrim said,
“For sweet Saint Mary and your order’s sake.”
The Limitor then loosened his pouch-thread,
And did thereout a groat of silver take:
The needy pilgrim did for gladness shake,
“Here, take this silver, it may ease thy care,
We are God’s stewards all, naught of our own we bear.
“But ah! unhappy pilgrim, learn of me.
Scarce any give a rent-roll to their lord;
Here, take my semicope, thou’rt bare, I see. short cloak
’Tis thine; the saints will give me my reward.”
He left the pilgrim, and his way aborde. went on his way
Virgin and holy Saints, who sit in gloure, glory
Or give the mighty will, or give the good man power!
THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770).
The sun would conventionally be said to be in Virgo in August.