ideal John—never the real one, and often very unlike him.
Thomas’s ideal John—never the real John, nor John’s John, but
often very unlike either.
Three Thomases: The real Thomas. Thomas’s ideal Thomas. John’s
ideal Thomas.
Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a
platform balance; but the other two are just as important in the
conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and
ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift
of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives
himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point
of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful
rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as Thomas’s attitude in
the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and
stupid. The same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It follows that,
until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or
who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons
engaged in every dialogue between two. Of these the least important,
philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real person.
No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are six of them
talking and listening all at the same time.
(A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by
a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at
table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable little known to
boarding-houses, was on its way to me _via_ this unlettered Johannes. He
appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there
was just one apiece for him. I convinced him that his practical inference
was hasty and illogical, but in the meantime he had eaten the peaches.)
O. W. HOLMES (_Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_).
* * * * *
When aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die—
Remember me a little then, I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise_).
* * * * *
A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?—
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?—
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine, as He Shines now and heretofore;
And having done that, Thou hast done:
I fear no more.
JOHN DONNE (1573-1631).
In line (1) the reference is to the old doctrine that the guilt
of Adam and Eve’s “original sin” tainted all generations of
man; (3) “run,” ran; (8) his sin—the example he has set—is the
door which opened to others the way of sin.
In this fine poem there are _puns_. In the last verse one pun
is on the words “Son” and “Sun,” Christ being the “Sun of
righteousness who arises with healing in his wings” (_Malachi_
iv, 2). Also in the fifth, eleventh, and seventeenth lines,
the play is on the last word “done” and the poet’s name Donne,
which was pronounced _dun_.[17] (It was occasionally written
Dun, Dunne, or Done: see Grierson’s _Poems of John Donne_, Vol.
II, pp. lvii, lxxvii, lxxxvii, 8 and 12. Contrariwise, the
adjective “dun,” dull-brown, was spelt _donne_ in the poet’s
time.) We are accustomed only to the jocular use of puns, but
here there is a serious intention to give two meanings to one
expression. Such a use of puns was one of the “quaint conceits”
of that period of our literature, and it is found also in
serious Persian poetry.
* * * * *
Very likely female pelicans like so to bleed under the selfish little
beaks of their young ones: it is certain that women do. There must be
some sort of pleasure, which we men don’t understand, which accompanies
the pain of being scarified.
THACKERAY (_Pendennis_).
* * * * *
The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing
but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they
are gone.
GEORGE ELIOT (_Felix Holt_).
* * * * *
LET IT BE THERE.
Not there, not there!
Not in that nook, that ye deem so fair;—
Little reck I of the bright, blue sky,
And the stream that floweth so murmuringly,
And the bending boughs, and the breezy air—
Not there, good friends, not there!
In the city churchyard, where the grass
Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray
Of that self-same sun doth find its way
Through the heaped-up houses’ serried mass—
Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng,
And the clatter of wheels as they rush along—
Or the plash of the rain, or the wind’s hoarse cry,
Or the busy tramp of the passer-by,
Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air—
Good friends, let it be _there_!
I am old, my friends—I am very old—
Fourscore and five—and bitter cold
Were that air on the hill-side far away;
Eighty full years, content, I trow,
Have I lived in the home where ye see me now,
And trod those dark streets day by day,
Till my soul doth love them; I love them all,
Each battered pavement, and blackened wall,
Each court and corner. Good sooth! to me
They are all comely and fair to see—
They have _old faces_—each one doth tell
A tale of its own, that doth like me well,
Sad or merry, as it may be,
From the quaint old book of my history.
And, friends, when this weary pain is past,
Fain would I lay me to rest at last
In their very midst; full sure am I,
How dark soever be earth and sky,
I shall sleep softly—I shall know
That the things I loved so here below
Are about me still—so never care
That my last home looketh all bleak and bare—
Good friends, let it be _there_!
THOMAS WESTWOOD (1814-1888).
* * * * *
Every man hath his gift, one a cup of wine, another heart’s blood.
HAFIZ.
Some poets sing of wine or sensuous enjoyment, but Hafiz pours
out his heart’s blood in song. Presumably wine and blood are
contrasted because of their similar appearance.
* * * * *
The devil could drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot
drive the Paradise out of a woman.
G. MACDONALD (_Robert Falconer_).
* * * * *
THE PULLEY
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
“Let us,” said He, “pour on him all we can;
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.”
So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
_Rest_ in the bottom lay.
“For if I should,” said He,
“Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
“Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.”
GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633).
“The Pulley” because by the desire for rest after toil and
tribulation God _draws man up_ to Himself.
* * * * *
(Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ was published in November, 1859.) At
the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860 Huxley had on
Thursday, June 28, directly contradicted Professor Owen’s statement that
a gorilla’s brain differed more from a man’s than it did from the brain
of the lowest of the Quadrumana (apes, monkeys, and lemurs). He was thus
marked out as the champion of evolution. On the Saturday, although the
public were not admitted, the members crowded the room to suffocation,
anxious to hear the brilliant controversialist, Bishop Wilberforce, take
part in the debate. An unimportant paper was read bearing upon Darwinism,
and a discussion followed. The Bishop, inspired by Owen, began his
speech. He spoke in dulcet tones, persuasive manner, and with well-turned
periods, but ridiculing Darwin badly and Huxley savagely. “In a light,
scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the
idea of evolution: rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been.
Then, turning to Huxley, with a smiling insolence, he begged to know,
_was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his
descent from a monkey_.”
As he said this, Huxley turned to his neighbour and said, “The Lord
hath delivered him into mine hands!” On rising to speak, he first
gave a forcible and eloquent reply to the scientific part of the
Bishop’s argument. Then “he stood before us and spoke those tremendous
words—words, which no one seems sure of now, nor, I think, could remember
just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away our breath,
though it left us in no doubt as to what it was. “He was not ashamed to
have a monkey for his ancestor: but he would be ashamed to be connected
with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth.” No one doubted
his meaning, and the effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and had
to be carried out; I, for one, jumped out of my seat.” (_Macmillan’s_,
1898.) There is no verbatim report of this incident, but the varying
accounts agree in outline.
(_Extracted from Life of Huxley._)
One object of this book is to bring back the memories of the
seventy-eighties—and of overwhelming interest at the time was
the alleged conflict between religion and science. Through
Darwin’s great discovery and Herbert Spencer’s world-wide
extension of the evolution theory, so much was found covered
by law that men were blinded to the fact that the essential
question of causality, lying behind all law, was still
untouched.
The important and thrilling incident referred to above took
place in 1860, when I was two years old, but it was still an
absorbing topic thirteen or fourteen years later, and is one of
my most vivid recollections.
Wilberforce (1805-1873) was a great Churchman and, indeed,
has been said to be the greatest prelate of his age, although
his nickname “Soapy Sam” led to a popular depreciation of his
merits. (This epithet originally meant that he was evasive
on certain questions, but it took a further meaning from his
persuasive eloquence.) In this instance he meddled with a
subject of which he was ignorant. Owen, who instigated him to
make this attack on Darwin and Huxley had at first welcomed
the theory of evolution, but quailed before the orthodox
indignation against the necessary extension of that theory to
the origin of man. Huxley (1825-1895) was thirty-five years of
age when he thus showed himself a strong debater and a power in
the scientific world.
* * * * *
On tracing the line of life backwards, we see it approaching more and
more to what we call the purely physical condition. We come at length
to those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil suspended in a
mixture of alcohol and water. We reach the _protogenes_ of Haeckel, in
which we have “a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only
by its finely granular character.” Can we pause here? We break a magnet
and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue the process
of breaking; but however small the parts, each carries with it, though
enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And when we can break no longer, we
prolong the intellectual vision to the polar molecules. Are we not urged
to do _something_ similar in the case of life?... Believing, as I do, in
the continuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes
cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively
supplements the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and
justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence,
and _discern in that Matter_ which we, in our ignorance of its latent
powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator,
have hitherto covered with opprobrium, _the promise and potency of all
terrestrial Life_.
(Referring to the question of inquiring into the mystery of our origin).
Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me to handle, but which will
assuredly be handled by the loftiest minds, _when you and I, like streaks
of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the past_.
JOHN TYNDALL.
The italics are mine.
As in the preceding quotation the subject is the alleged
conflict between religion and science, which occupied so large
a space in our life and thought in the seventies and eighties.
The above are the two passages from Tyndall’s presidential
address at the Belfast meeting of the British Association in
1874, which caused an immense sensation. The Belfast Address,
like Huxley’s smashing reply to Bishop Wilberforce, was useful
in showing that all scientific questions must be considered
with an open mind, free of theological bias, and also in
adding testimony to the importance and value of Darwin’s
investigation. Although fifteen years had passed since _The
Origin of Species_ was published, this was still necessary. (At
that very time Professor McCoy, afterwards Sir Frederick McCoy,
F.R.S., when lecturing at the Melbourne University to his
students, of whom I was one, was still making inane jokes about
evolution and our monkey cousins.)
But, while the world was in ferment over the question of
man’s alleged kinship with the monkey, there came the further
startling fact that the President of the British Association
also proclaimed his belief in _materialism_ and, inferentially,
that there was no life after death. Englishmen had not before
realized how widely materialism had spread through England
and Europe. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that
a _majority_ at least of the leading thinkers had become
materialists.
In travelling outside science into metaphysics, Tyndall
betrayed a lamentable ignorance of the latter—a parallel case
to that of Bishop Wilberforce when he attempted to meddle with
science. Martineau, referring to the first quotation above,
wrote: “There is no magic in the superlatively little to draw
from the universe its last secret. Size is but relative,
magnified or dwindled by a glass, variable with the organ of
perception: to one being, the speck which only the microscope
can show us may be a universe; to another, the solar system but
a molecule; and in the passing from the latter to the former
you reach no end of search or beginning of things. You merely
substitute a miniature of nature for its life-size without at
all showing whence the features arise.”
* * * * *
THE NEW GOSPEL
_HAECKELIUS loquitur_:
The ages have passed and come with the beat of a measureless tread
And piled up their palace-dome on the dust of the ageless dead,
Since the atom of life first glowed in the breast of eternal time,
And shaped for itself its abode in the womb of the shapeless slime;
And the years matured its form with slow, unwearying toil.
Moulded by sun and storm, and rich with the centuries’ spoil,
Till the face of the earth was fair, and life grew up into mind,
And breathed its earliest prayer to its god in the dawn or wind,
And called itself by the name of man, the master and lord,
Who conquers the strength of flame and tempers the spear and sword;
For the world grows wiser by war, and death is the law of life,
The lowermost rock in the scar is red with the stains of strife.
Burst thro’ the bounds of sight, and measure the least of things,
Plummet the infinite and make to thy fancy wings;
From crystal, and coral, and weed, up to man in his noblest race,
The weaker shall fail in his need, and the stronger shall hold his place!
_RENANUS loquitur_:
Ah! leave me yet a little while, to watch
The golden glory of the dying day,
Till all the purple mountains gleam and catch
The last faint light that slowly steals away.
Too soon the night is on us; aye, too soon
We know the cloud is born of blinding mist:
The throne, whereon the gods sate crowned at noon
With ruby rays and liquid amethyst,
Is but a vapour, dim and grey, a streak
Of hollow rain that freezes in its fall,
A dull, cold shape that settles on the peak,
Icy and stifling as a dead man’s pall.
The world’s old faith is fairest in its death,
For death is fairer oftentimes than life;
No vulgar passion quivers in the breath:
The dead forget their weariness and strife.
Say not that death is even as decay,
A hideous charnel choked with rotting dust;
The cold white lips are beautiful as spray
Cast on an iceberg by the northern gust.
The memories of the past are diadem’d
About the brow and folded on the eyes;
The weary lids beneath are bent and gemm’d
With charmèd dreams and mystic reveries.
Once more she sits in her imperial chair,
And kings and Cæsars kneel before her feet,
And clouds of incense fill the heavy air,
And shouts of homage echo thro’ the street.
Or yet, again, she stretches forth the hand,
And men are done to death at her desire;
The smoke of burning cities dims the land,
And limbs are torn or shrivelled in the fire.
Once more the scene is shifted, and the gleam
Of eastern suns about her brow is curled;
Once more she roams a maiden by the stream,
Despised of men, the Magdalen of the world.
So scene on scene floats lightly, as a haze
That comes and goes with sudden gust and lull:
Limned with the sunset hues of other days,
They are but dreams; yet dreams are beautiful.
ARCHIBALD HENRY SAYCE (_Academy, Dec. 5, 1885_).
As in the two preceding quotations, the subject is the
supposed conflict of religion and science. Haeckel (born 1834,
recently dead) was the most ruthless of all the biologists in
accounting for evolution and all progress by a struggle for
existence. Renan (1823-1892), the French writer, whose love of
Christianity survived his belief in it, speaks of the passing
away of the old faith as “the golden glory of the dying day,”
and says that in its death it will be more beautiful than in
its life, when it led to passion, persecution and war. The
penultimate verse refers to the time when temporal power was
removed from the church, and she reverted to the humility, and
also the beauty, of primitive Christianity when it came in its
morning glory from the East.
The fact that these fine verses are by the great philologist
and archæologist, Professor Sayce, who has not publicly
appeared in the rôle of a poet, adds greatly to their interest.
The few verses he has published have mostly appeared over the
initials “A.H.S.” in the old _Academy_ (the present periodical
is a different concern), and he was not known to the public as
the author.
Anything about Professor Sayce must be interesting to the
reader, and I, therefore, need not apologize for mentioning
the following incidents, which, I imagine, are known only
among his friends. In 1870, during the Franco-German War, Mr.
Sayce was ordered to be shot at Nantes as a German spy, and
only escaped “by the skin of his teeth.” It was just before
Gambetta had flown in his balloon out of Paris, and there was
no recognized Government in the country. Nantes was full of
fugitives, and bands of Uhlans were in the neighbourhood. Mr.
Sayce was arrested when walking round the old citadel examining
its walls—not realizing that it was occupied by French troops.
Fortunately, some ladies of the garrison came in during his
examination to see the interesting young prisoner and, after
Mr. Sayce had been placed against the wall and a soldier told
off to shoot him, they prevailed upon the Commandant to give
him a second examination, which ended in his acquittal.
Mr. Sayce was also among the Carlists in the Carlist war of
1873, and was present at some of the so-called battles which,
he says, were dangerous only to the onlookers. He also once had
a pitched battle with Bedouins in Syria.
Professor Sayce (he became Professor in 1876) has also the
proud distinction of being the only person known to have
survived the bite of the Egyptian cerastes asp, which is
supposed to have killed Cleopatra. He accidentally trod on
the reptile in the desert some three or four miles north of
Assouan and was bitten in the leg. Luckily, he happened to
be just outside the dahabieh in which he was travelling with
three Oxford friends, one of them the late Master of Balliol.
The cook had a small pair of red-hot tongs, with which he had
been preparing lunch, and Professor Sayce was able to burn
the bitten leg down to the bone within two minutes after the
accident; thus saving his life at the expense of a few weeks’
lameness.
* * * * *
But hark! a sound is stealing on my ear—
A soft and silvery sound—I know it well.
Its tinkling tells me that a time is near
Precious to me—it is the Dinner Bell.
O blessed Bell! Thou bringest beef and beer,
Thou bringest good things more than tongue may tell:
Seared is, of course, my heart—but unsubdued
Is, and shall be, my appetite for food.
I go. Untaught and feeble is my pen;
But on one statement I may safely venture:
That few of our most highly gifted men
Have more appreciation of the trencher.
I go. One pound of British beef, and then
What Mr. Swiveller called a “modest quencher”;
That, “home-returning,” I may “soothly say,”
“Fate cannot touch me: I have dined to-day.”
C. S. CALVERLEY (_Beer_).
These are the two last verses of a parody on Byron. In each of
the last three lines there is a literary reference. The first,
of course, is to the happy-go-lucky Dick Swiveller of Dickens’s
_Old Curiosity Shop_.
The next reference is to the amusing story about Sir Walter
Scott that became known about the time Calverley was writing
(1862). Scott, in his description of Melrose Abbey by moonlight
(“Lay of the Last Minstrel”) says:
If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey....
Yet there can be no doubt that _he himself had never seen_ the
Abbey by moonlight! He further tells his readers that they can
_Home returning, soothly_ swear
Was never scene so sad and fair.
They, having seen it, can “soothly” (_i.e._, _truthfully_)
swear to its beauty, which was more than he himself could!
Calverley’s last line is from Sydney Smith’s “Recipe for a
Salad”:
Oh, herbaceous treat!
’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl;
Serenely full the epicure would say,
“Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day.”
This again is an adaptation of Dryden’s “Imitation of Horace”
(Book III, Ode 29):
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv’d to-day.
* * * * *
We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart:
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man can not live without cooks.
He may live without books—what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope—what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love—what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
EARL OF LYTTON, “OWEN MEREDITH” (1831-1891)
(_Lucile_).
* * * * *
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed—
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”
LEWIS CARROLL (_The Walrus and the Carpenter_).
* * * * *
That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell.
BYRON (_Don Juan_).
* * * * *