interest whatever in spiritualism, permeated as it was with
childishness and fraud. But, nevertheless, it (together with
the so-called “Theosophy”) led to the happy result that the
Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. Although
spiritualism did good in this way, its unhappy associations
do harm to the Society and hamper it in the important work it
has carried on during the last thirty-eight years. Popular
prejudice continues to associate it with the old spiritualism,
and in consequence no proper attention is paid to its
_intensely interesting_ and most valuable investigations.
For example, there are, apart from Public Libraries and
Universities, only six members or associates in the whole of
Australia! And yet, besides important work in other directions,
it must be admitted by any open-minded person that the evidence
collected by the Society that the dead (by telepathy or
otherwise) communicate with the living is unanswerable.
* * * * *
He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than the
skin of a bear not yet killed.
THOMAS FULLER.
This refers to the French proverb, “_Il ne faut pas vendre la
peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué_,” or, as we say, “Do not
count your chickens before they are hatched.”
* * * * *
Habit dulls the senses and puts the critical faculty to sleep. The
fierceness and hardness of ancient manners is apparent to us, but the
ancients themselves were not shocked by sights which were familiar
to them. To us it is sickening to think of the gladiatorial show, of
the massacres common in Roman warfare, of the infanticide practised
by grave and respectable citizens, who did not merely condemn their
children to death, but often in practice, as they well knew, to what
was still worse—a life of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded
a gladiatorial show as we regard a hunt; the news of the slaughter of
two hundred thousand Helvetians by Cæsar or half a million Jews by Titus
excited in his mind a thrill of triumph; infanticide committed by a
friend appeared to him a prudent measure of household economy.
SIR J. R. SEELEY (_Ecce Homo_).
It is still more important to realize that the exposure of
children was a recognized practice also among the Greeks, and
that no one, not even Plato, their noblest philosopher, saw
anything wrong in it. It is only by letting the mind dwell
on such facts as these, until their significance is fully
appreciated, that we can realize the width and depth of the
great gulf that separates the Pagan and the Christian, the
ancient and the modern world. Take this one fact only: imagine
the Greek father looking at his helpless babe and coldly
deciding that to rear it will be inconvenient,[24] or that
there are already enough children to divide the inheritance,
or that the child is sickly or deformed, or that its person
offends his idea of beauty—and then consigning his own
offspring to slavery, prostitution, or death! (The child would
either die or be picked up to be reared for some such purpose.)
Even in the very imperfect state of our own civilization, we at
least have children’s hospitals and crèches, and are inflamed
with righteous rage when even an _unknown_ baby is ill-treated.
(We, indeed, go further, and have laws and societies for
prevention of cruelty to _animals_.)
The consideration of such a fact leads us also to inquire as
to the relations of husband and wife, seeing that the woman
would have at least the affection for her offspring that is
common among the lower animals. We then find that the modern
chivalrous idea of womanhood was unknown to the Greeks; the
wife was not educated, and was considered an inferior being;
she was married mainly in order to provide sons to carry out
certain ritual observances necessary for the father’s welfare
after death; she was kept in an almost Eastern seclusion (and
therefore had to improve her pallid complexion by paint); she
would associate mainly with the children and slaves. We also
find that fidelity of the husband to the wife was neither
required nor _esteemed_; and that there was little marital love
or family life. (Plato in his model Republic would abolish both
the latter, for there was to be promiscuity of women, and all
children were to be brought up by the State.)
Considering further this practice of exposing children, we
realize that it indicates _the want of pity for the helpless
and suffering_, which is seen among the lower animals (but
with exceptions even among them). From this we may reasonably
infer that the Greeks would show little humanity in treating
other helpless or suffering people, the sick or distressed,
dependents or slaves, conquered enemies or others in their
power. (In this respect, however, they, as an intellectual
people, would subject themselves to and be controlled by
necessary _social_ laws and _practical_ considerations; and
also, as a fact, they at times showed generosity to a valiant
foe.) Again we can infer that, where even the spirit of mercy
was so wanting, the gospel of _love_ could not possibly exist,
and that the Greeks lived on a far lower _moral_ plane than
ours. These questions are far too large to discuss in this
book, and I must leave them to be dealt with elsewhere.
But, even from this very small portion of the available
evidence, we can arrive at three resulting facts: _First_,
that when in translations from the Greek we find such words as
“kindness,” “love,” “morality,” “purity,” “virtue,” “religion,”
etc., they have for us a far larger and higher content than the
Greek words in the original; _secondly_, that therefore, the
reader must get incorrect impressions of Greek literature and
thought; and, _thirdly_, that truly marvellous as the Greeks
were in art and literature, the current conception of them as a
noble-minded and refined people is erroneous.
In referring to the Greeks, one needs to limit the people and
period, and I am referring to the great age of the Attic or
Athenian Greeks, say the Fifth Century, B.C. There would, of
course, be gradations of character among them, and, no doubt,
some would be kind-hearted, others would have affection for
their wives, and so on. But this can only be assumption, for
there is little in their literature to support it. This will
be seen if the evidence adduced by Mr. Livingstone (“The Greek
Genius,” pp. 117-122) is carefully and critically examined.
(His references to Homer, who lived in a far distant age must
be omitted.) Also the fact that Herodotus, in the course of his
narrative, tells us that some men of another state had a moment
of compassion for a baby whom they were about to slay, does not
prove in the slightest degree that he was himself humane. The
wording of Mr. Livingstone’s translation, p. 118, “It happened
_by a divine chance_ that the baby smiled, etc.,” would appear
to confirm this view of his; but the Greek words simply mean
that a god by chance intervened. Knowing what we do of the
Greek gods, that intervention would certainly not be actuated
by any kindly feeling towards the infant—the object presumably
was that the child should live to fulfil the destiny prophesied
by the Delphic Oracle. (Herodotus was a typical Greek to whom
the world was peopled with gods, and he sees them constantly
interposing in human affairs.) As regards the exposure of
children, the point is that _it was a recognized and common
practice, duly sanctioned by law, and never condemned by any
writer_. Indeed Plato and Aristotle definitely approve of it,
and in Plato’s Ideal Republic the weakly and deformed children
were to be killed by the State.
As regards the current conception of the Greeks, Shelley in his
“Preface to Hellas” describes them as “those glorious beings
whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as
belonging to our kind.” Similar statements could be gathered
from innumerable English and European writers.
* * * * *
THE PACE THAT KILLS
The gallop of life was once exciting,
Madly we dashed over pleasant plains,
And the joy, like the joy of a brave man fighting,
Poured in a flood through our eager veins,
Hot youth is the time for the splendid ardour,
That stamps and startles, that throbs and thrills
And ever we pressed our horses harder,
Galloping on at the pace that kills!
So rapid the pace, so keen the pleasure,
Scarcely we paused to glance aside,
As we mocked the dullards, who watched at leisure
The frantic race that we chose to ride.
Yes, youth is the time when a master-passion,
Or love or ambition, our nature fills;
And each of us rode in a different fashion—
All of us rode at the pace that kills!
And vainly, O friends, ye strive to bind us;
Flippantly, gaily, we answer you:—
“Should _atra cura_[25] jump up behind us,
Strong are our steeds and can carry two!”
But we find the road, so smooth at morning,
Rugged at night ’mid the lonely hills;
And all too late we recall the warning
Weary at last of the pace that kills....
The gallop of life was just beginning;
Strength we wasted in efforts vain;
And now, when the prizes are worth the winning,
We’ve scarcely the spirit to ride again!
The spirit, forsooth! ’Tis our strength has failed us,
And sadly we ask, as we count our ills,
“What pitiful, pestilent folly ailed us?
_Why_ did we ride at the pace that kills?”
W. J. PROWSE.
* * * * *
Cato said ‘he had rather people should inquire why he had not a statue
erected to his memory, than why he had.’
PLUTARCH (_Political Precepts_).
* * * * *
CHAMOUNI AND RYDAL.
I stood one shining morning, where
The last pines stand on Montanvert,
Gazing on giant spires that grow
From the great frozen gulfs below.
How sheer they soared, how piercing rose
Above the mists, beyond the snows!
No thinnest veil of vapour hid
Each sharp and airy pyramid.
No breeze moaned there, nor cooing bird,
Deep down the torrent raved, unheard,
Only the cow-bells’ clang, subdued,
Shook in the fields below the wood.
The vision vast, the lone large sky,
The kingly charm of mountains high,
The boundless silence, woke in me
Abstraction, reverence, reverie.
Days dawned that felt as wide away
As the far peaks of silvery grey,
Life’s lost ideal, love’s last pain
In those full moments throbbed again.
And a much differing scene was born
In my mind’s eye on that blue morn;
No splintered snowy summits there
Shot arrowy heights in crystal air:
But a calm sunset slanted still
O’er hoary crag and heath-flushed hill,
And at their foot, by birchen brake
Dimpled and smiled an English lake.
I roamed where I had roamed before
With heart elate in years of yore,
Through the green glens by Rotha side,
Which Arnold loved, where Wordsworth died.
That flower of heaven, eve’s tender star,
Trembled with light above Nab Scar;
And from his towering throne aloft
Fairfield poured purple shadows soft.
The tapers twinkled through the trees
From Rydal’s bower-bound cottages,
And gentle was the river’s flow,
Like love’s own quivering whisper low.
One held my arm will walk no more
On Loughrigg steeps by Rydall shore,
And a sweet voice was speaking clear—
Earth had no other sound so dear.
Her words were, as we passed along,
Of noble sons of truth and song—
Of Arnold brave, and Wordsworth pure.
And how their influences endure.
“They have not left us—are not dead”
(The earnest voice beside me said,)
“For teacher strong and poet sage
Are deeply working in the age.
“For aught we know they now may brood
O’er this enchanted solitude,
With thought and feeling more intense
Than we in the blind life of sense.”...
Those tones are hushed, that light is cold,
And we (but not the world) grow old;
The joy, “the bloom of young desire,”
The zest, the force, the strenuous fire,
Enthusiasms bright, sublime,
That heaven-like made that early time:—
These all are gone: must faith go too?
Is truth too lovely to be true?
In nature dwells no kindling soul?
Moves no vast life throughout the whole?
Are not thought, knowledge, love’s sweet might,
Shadows of substance infinite?
Shall rippling river, bow of rain,
Blue mountains, and the bluer main.
Red dawn, gold sundown, pearly star
Be fair, _nor something fairer far_?
That awful hope, so deep, that swells
At the keen clash of Easter bells
Is _it_ a waning moon, that dies
As morn-like lights of science rise?
By all that yearns in art and song,
By the vague dreams that make men strong,
By memory’s penance, by the glow
Of lifted mood poetic,—No!
No! by the stately forms that stand
Like angels in yon snowy land;
No! by the stars that, pure and pale,
Look down each night on Rydal-vale.
J. TRUMAN.
Wordsworth lived at Rydal Mount. These verses were published in
_Macmillan’s_, 1879.
“_Nor something fairer far._” In Sir F. Younghusband’s
_Kashmir_ (1911) there is another suggestion, supplementary to
this: “There came upon me this thought, which doubtless has
occurred to many another besides myself—why the scene should so
influence me and yet make no impression on the men about me.
Here were men with far keener eyesight than my own, and around
me were animals with eyesight keener still.... Clearly it is
not the eye, but the soul that sees. But then comes the still
further reflection: what may there not be staring _me_ straight
in the face which I am as blind to as the Kashmir stags are to
the beauties amidst which they spend their entire lives? The
whole panorama may be vibrating with beauties man has not yet
the soul to see. Some already living, no doubt, see beauties
that we ordinary men cannot appreciate. It is only a century
ago that mountains were looked upon as hideous. And in the
long centuries to come may we not develop a soul for beauties
unthought of now? Undoubtedly we must. And often in reverie
on the mountains I have tried to imagine what still further
loveliness they may yet possess for men.”
* * * * *
He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot
blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind,
fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth best avert the dolours of
death.
BACON.
* * * * *
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
BEN JONSON (_Epigram_ CXXIV).
As Dr. Johnson said; “In lapidary inscriptions a man is not
upon oath.”
* * * * *
“En Angleterre,” said a cynical Dutch diplomatist, “numéro deux va chez
numéro un, pour s’en glorifier auprès de numéro trois.”
(In England, Number Two goes to Number One’s house in order to boast
about it to Number Three.)
LAURENCE OLIPHANT (_Piccadilly_).
* * * * *
Lord Jesus Christ, I know not how—
With this blue air, blue sea,
This yellow sand, that grassy brow,
All isolating me—
Thy thoughts to mine themselves impart,
My thoughts to thine draw near;
But thou canst fill who mad’st my heart,
Who gay’st me words must hear.
Thou mad’st the hand with which I write,
The eye that watches slow
Through rosy gates that rosy light
Across thy threshold go,
Those waves that bend in golden spray,
As if thy foot they bore:
I think I know thee, Lord, to-day,
Shall know thee evermore.
I know thy father, thine and mine:
Thou the great fact hast bared:
Master, the mighty words are thine—
Such I had never dared!
Lord, thou hast much to make me yet—
Thy father’s infant still:
Thy mind, Son, in my bosom set,
That I may grow thy will.
My soul with truth clothe all about,
And I shall question free:
The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt,
In that fear doubteth thee.
G. MACDONALD (_The Disciple_).
* * * * *
Our ideas, like the children of our youth, often die before us, and our
minds represent to us those tombs to which we are fast approaching—where,
though the brass and marble may remain, the inscriptions are effaced by
time and the imagery moulders away.
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704).
What makes such a passage attractive is its use of poetic
imagery; and yet Locke had no regard for poetry. See next
quotation.
* * * * *
If these may be any reasons against children’s making Latin themes at
school, I have much more to say, and of more weight, against their making
verses—verses of any sort. For if he has no genius to Poetry, ’tis the
most unreasonable thing in the world to torment a child and waste his
time about that which can never succeed; and if he have a poetic vein,
’tis to me the strangest thing in the world that the father should desire
or suffer it to be cherished or improved. Methinks the parents should
labour to have it stifled and suppressed as much as may be; and I know
not what reason a father can have to wish his son a poet, who does not
desire to have him bid defiance to all other callings and business....
For it is very seldom seen that any one discovers mines of gold or silver
in Parnassus.... Poetry and Gaming usually go together.... If, therefore,
you would not have your son the fiddle to every jovial company, without
whom the Sparks could not relish their wine, nor know how to pass an
afternoon idly; if you would not have him to waste his time and estate to
divert others, and contemn the dirty acres left him by his ancestors, I
do not think you will very much care he should be a Poet.
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) (_Some Thoughts Concerning Education_, 1693).
Locke was writing during the dreary Dryden period, when poetry
had so greatly degenerated since the brilliant Elizabethan
epoch. He himself evidently had no interest in poetry. We
know that he did not appreciate Milton (whose _Paradise Lost_
appeared in 1667, when Locke was in his prime).
Compare with the above quotation p. 357.
* * * * *
Weeping, we hold Him fast, who wept
For us, we hold Him fast,
And will not let Him go, except
He bless us first or last.
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
* * * * *
INDWELLING.
If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say, “This is not dead,”
And fill thee with Himself instead:
But thou art all replete with very _thou_.
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says, “This is enow
Unto itself—’Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.”
T. E. BROWN (1830-1897).
* * * * *
Oh! ever thus from childhood’s hour,
I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower,
But ’twas the first to fade away.
I never nursed a dear gazelle
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die!
THOMAS MOORE (_Lalla Rookh_).
As in other cases mentioned in the Preface, I find that these
lines, so familiar in my day, appear to be unknown to younger
men.
* * * * *
ON BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES.
In taking leave of our Author (Sir William Blackstone) I finish gladly
with this pleasing peroration: a scrutinizing judgment, perhaps, would
not be altogether satisfied with it; but the ear is soothed by it, and
the heart is warmed.
JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832) (_A Fragment of Government_).
I think it worth while quoting from my notes this amusing piece
of sarcasm aimed by a young man of twenty-eight at the most
renowned legal writer of the time. _A Fragment of Government_
(1776), the first of Bentham’s works, not only showed the utter
folly of Blackstone’s praise of the English constitution, but
also laid the foundation of political science. (The passage,
which the quotation refers to, is in Sec. 2 of the Introduction
to the _Commentaries_, “Thus far as to the right of the supreme
power to make law ... public tranquillity.”)
Not only was the English constitution a subject of eulogy in
Bentham’s day, but also English law, then in a most barbarous
state, was alleged to be the perfection of human reason!
Through the efforts of this great and original thinker
many dreadful abuses were removed, but it is a remarkable
illustration of the blind strength of English conservatism that
his wise counsel has not yet been followed in many exceedingly
important directions.
In the seventy-eighty period, with which this book mainly deals
there was a strong agitation for law reform, which had some
results.
* * * * *
It was the boast of Augustus, that he found Rome of brick and left it
of marble. But how much nobler will be our Sovereign’s boast when he
shall have it to say that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found
it a sealed book—left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the
rich—left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword
of craft and oppression—left it the staff of honesty and the shield of
innocence!
LORD BROUGHAM (1778-1868) (_Speech in Parliament_, 1828).
It would indeed be a proud boast—but not one of these objects
has yet been achieved.
* * * * *
When Lord Ellenborough was trying one of the Government charges against
Horne Tooke, he found occasion to praise the impartial manner in which
justice is administered. “In England, Mr. Tooke, the law is open to all
men, rich or poor.” “Yes, my lord,” answered the prisoner, “and so is the
London Tavern.”
HENRY S. LEIGH (_Jeux d’Esprit_).
The same story is told in Rogers’ _Table Talk_, but a
different judge is named. (Probably both are wrong, but it
is immaterial.) The London Tavern was where Horne Tooke’s
Constitutional Society met, and must have been often referred
to during the trial; but of course the meaning simply is that
the throne of justice cannot be approached with an empty purse.
* * * * *
Revenons à nos moutons.
(Let us return to our sheep.)
(_La Farce de Maistre Pierre Patelin_, Anon. 15 Cent.).
In the farce, a cloth merchant, who is suing his shepherd for
stolen sheep, discovers also that the attorney on the other
side is a man who had robbed him of some cloth. Dropping the
charge against the shepherd, he begins accusing the lawyer
of his offence; and, to recall him to the point, the judge
impatiently interrupts him with _Sus revenons à nos moutons_,
“Come, let us get back to our sheep.”
Compare Martial VI, 19: “My suit has nothing to do with
assault, or battery, or poisoning, but is about three goats,
which, I complain, have been stolen by my neighbour. This the
judge desires to have proved to him; but you, with swelling
words and extravagant gestures, dilate on the Battle of Cannae,
the Mithridatic war, and the perjuries of the insensate
Carthaginians, the Syllae, the Marii, and the Mucii. It is
time, Postumus, to say something about my three goats.”
The reference to the French play I owe to _King’s Classical and
Foreign Quotations_.
* * * * *
(The wife of a poor man deserted him for another man, and he married
again. On being convicted for bigamy Mr. Justice Maule sentenced him as
follows:) Prisoner at the bar: You have been convicted of the offence
of bigamy, that is to say, of marrying a woman while you had a wife
still alive, though it is true she has deserted you and is living in
adultery with another man. You have, therefore, committed a crime against
the laws of your country, and you have also acted under a very serious
misapprehension of the course which you ought to have pursued. You
should have gone to the ecclesiastical court and there obtained against
your wife a decree _a mensa et thoro_. You should then have brought an
action in the courts of common law and recovered, as no doubt you would
have recovered, damages against your wife’s paramour. Armed with these
decrees, you should have approached the legislature and obtained an Act
of Parliament which would have rendered you free and legally competent to
marry the person whom you have taken on yourself to marry with no such
sanction. It is quite true that these proceedings would have cost you
many hundreds of pounds, whereas you probably have not as many pence.
_But the law knows no distinction between rich and poor._ The sentence
of the court upon you, therefore, is that you be imprisoned for one day,
which period has already been exceeded, as you have been in custody since
the commencement of the assizes.
SIR W. H. MAULE (1788-1858).
This fine piece of irony, well known to lawyers, materially
helped to end the old bad state of the law of divorce. We need
more men of the same stamp to draw attention to other abuses.
* * * * *
Is this pleading causes, Cinna? Is this speaking eloquently to say nine
words in ten hours? Just now you asked with a loud voice for four more
clepsydrae.[26] What a long time you take to say nothing, Cinna!
MARTIAL VIII, 7.
In Racine’s comedy, _Les Plaideurs_, Act III, Sc. III, a prolix
advocate begins his speech by referring to the Creation of the
world. “_Avocat, passons au déluge_” (Let us get along to the
Deluge), says the judge. See also _The Merchant of Venice_, Act
I, Sc. I:—
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man
in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in
two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them;
and, when you have them, they are not worth the search.
* * * * *
“There’s nae place like hame,” quoth the de’il, when he found himself in
the Court o’ Session.
SCOTTISH PROVERB.