certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to
sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and, behold, I
saw a man clothed in rags standing in a certain place, with his face
from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his
back."
We wonder why the man had a burden on his back, and we wish we could
help him to get rid of it.
A man called Evangelist met the man with a burden on his back.
Evangelist pointed out to the man a wicket-gate, and asked him if he
could see a shining light. When the man answered that he did,
Evangelist told him to go straight to the gate and knock at it. Then
he would be told what he was to do. Now the man's name was Christian.
On the way to the gate, he fell into a muddy bog which was called the
Slough of Despond. Then a man called Help came and pulled him out.
After that, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman told him not to go to the gate, but
to a village where Mr. Legality lived. Christian turned aside from
his way, and presently came to some rocks which hung over so far he
was afraid they would fall on him, and fire {143} came out of the
rocks and he was very much afraid. But Evangelist found him again
and set him on the right way. Then Christian came to the gate and
knocked.
A man answered his knock and showed him how to go to the house of the
Interpreter. There he saw many wonderful things which you must read
about in _The Pilgrim's Progress_. Not long after Christian left the
house of the Interpreter, he came to a place where there was a Cross
and there his burden fell off.
After that he came to the Hill Difficulty, which was so steep that
sometimes he had to clamber up on his hands and knees. He got up the
hill; then he remembered that he had been told he would meet two
lions. He went on his way feeling very despondent, but presently he
looked up and saw a stately palace called Beautiful, so he hastened
to get to it.
He came first to a lodge, and there was a porter in the lodge who
helped him past the lions. After all, the lions were chained, but it
was a narrow place and they might have caught Christian if the porter
had not helped him.
Christian had a very happy holiday in the House Beautiful, and there
he made many friends. Before he left to continue his journey, they
showed him on a clear day the Delectable Mountains from which one can
see the gate of the Celestial City. The Celestial City was to be the
end of Christian's pilgrimage. After that he met another pilgrim
called Faithful, and he was not alone any more.
{144}
After a little while, Christian and Faithful came to the Valley of
Humiliation, and met in it a terrible monster called Apollyon. He
had scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and a
mouth like the mouth of a lion. Christian fought Apollyon. Apollyon
wounded Christian, and knocked his sword out of his hand. But
Christian caught his sword again and gave Apollyon a great wound.
"And, with that, Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped
him away, so that Christian saw him no more."
Then Faithful and Christian came to a town called Vanity, where the
people had a fair called Vanity Fair. In this town with the great
fair, Faithful and Christian were arrested, because of their
religion. They were tried by a judge and jury, and Faithful was put
to death. Christian was put back into prison, but he escaped. And
after that he had another companion on his pilgrimage who was called
Hopeful.
They came to a river and a beautiful meadow. But they lost their way
and when they were asleep, Giant Despair of Doubting-castle found
them and put them into a dungeon. Hopeful encouraged Christian, but
they had a very sad time in the dungeon, until Christian suddenly
remembered that he had a key which he had been told would open any
lock in Doubting-castle. And so they escaped.
Now they came to the Delectable Mountains, and there they met
shepherds who entertained them. From there they went on, and began
to feel that they were drawing near the end of their {145} journey.
They passed through the Enchanted Ground with some difficulty, and
came to the country of Beulah whose air is very sweet and pleasant,
and there they met some of the inhabitants of the Celestial City.
They could see the City, which was glorious. But before they could
get to it, they had to cross a river. Hopeful helped Christian.
"Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon, and so it
followed that the rest of the river was but shallow, thus they got
over." After that, they had no more difficulty. But shining ones
came to meet them, and trumpeters who welcomed them with shouting and
sound of trumpet.
"This done, they compassed them round on every side, some went
before, some behind, and some on the right hand, some on the left,
(as it were to guard them through the upper regions), continually
sounding as they went, with melodious noise, in notes on high; so
that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven
itself were come down to meet them. Thus, therefore, they walked on
together; and, as they walked, ever and anon these trumpeters, even
with joyful sound, would, by mixing their music with looks and
gestures, still signify to Christian and his brother how welcome they
were into their company, and with what gladness they came to meet
them. And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they
came at it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with
hearing their melodious notes. Here also they had the City itself in
view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to
welcome {146} them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful
thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there, with such
company, and that for ever and ever; oh! by what tongue, or pen, can
their glorious joy be expressed! Thus they came up to the gate."
A second part of The Pilgrim's Progress tells how Christiana,
Christian's wife, and their children, and Mercy, a friend, went on
the same pilgrimage, with Mr. Great-heart to take care of them. Mr.
Great-heart is one of the most splendid heroes in any book.
John Bunyan, who wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_, was the son of a
tinker. He was himself a tinker. He was a soldier in Cromwell's
army, and then he was a preacher. Only certain people were allowed
to preach at that time, and they arrested Bunyan. He was in prison a
number of years. They were willing to let him out, but he would not
promise not to preach. Brave John Bunyan! He had a brave wife too,
who did all she could to help him.
He was sentenced to prison twice, the second time only for a few
months when he was kept in the gaol in Bedford town in England.
Bunyan wrote _The Pilgrim's Progress_ in a room in Bedford gaol which
is built on the bridge that crosses the river Ouse, and while he
wrote he could hear the noise of the river flowing by. Perhaps this
is one reason why he writes so beautifully of rivers in the story.
{147}
CHAPTER XXII
THACKERAY--MEREDITH--HARDY
You remember David Copperfield, Peggoty, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller,
and scores of others, all of whom we found living so intensely and
abundantly in Dickens' novels.
Many other novelists, as well as Charles Dickens, have made
interesting, delightful characters for us to know and love. In this
chapter and the chapter following, we will learn something of a group
of writers, men and women, in whose novels we find wonderful
knowledge of human nature, not as wonderful as Shakespeare's
knowledge perhaps, but showing the same deep insight as Scott and
Dickens.
The writers spoken of are not very widely separated in time. Two of
them lived and wrote as recently as from the middle of the nineteenth
century down to the present. George Meredith died in 1909, and
Thomas Hardy in 1928. The whole group represents a very brilliant
period in English literature.
William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in India. Like the
children of other Anglo-Indian civil servants, he was sent home to
England when he was a very little boy, leaving his mother behind him
in India. Thackeray had a deeply affectionate nature. All his life
he was devoted to his own people. No one can rightly {148}
understand his novels who does not remember that Thackeray was
tender-hearted. We can read a letter that the little boy William
Makepeace wrote to his mother when he was seven years old. His
mother kept it carefully. Some years ago when his daughter, Mrs.
Ritchie, herself a novelist, was writing memories of her famous
father, she printed the little letter in her Introduction to _The
Newcomes_.
There is nothing in the letter to show that the boy was to be a great
writer, but as long as he lived he wrote these loving letters to his
mother. When he was a man with children of his own, his home was his
mother's home whenever she liked to come to stay with him. It was
his stepfather's home also, for his mother had married again. He
told his own children that when he was a boy at school, he sometimes
used to pray that he would dream of his mother in the night, for he
was lonely and not very happy.
_Vanity Fair_ is the name of one of Thackeray's great novels. You
know where Thackeray found the name,--in _The Pilgrim's Progress_.
His novel is intended as a picture of people who are interesting and
very real, but many of whom are selfish, false and hard-hearted.
Thackeray painted the world as he had experienced it, and he tried to
show what a difference there is between love and hate, selfishness
and unselfishness. _Vanity Fair_ has a famous opening chapter.
Becky Sharp, and Amelia Sedley, two girls, are leaving a boarding
school. Becky is clever, amusing and poor. Amelia is gentle, a
little dull perhaps, and her people are rich. The school-mistresses
make {149} a great fuss over Amelia, but are disagreeable to Becky.
So Becky throws the dictionary, which is Miss Pinkerton's parting
gift, out of the window of the coach as they are driving away.
_Vanity Fair_ is a famous novel. When you read it, as you will some
day, you will learn the story of Becky and Amelia, of George Osborne
whom Amelia marries, of Jos. Sedley, Amelia's brother, of Rawdon
Crawley, the man Becky married, and of splendid, faithful Major
Dobbin. There are chapters which tell of how George Osborne goes to
fight at the battle of Waterloo, and again of when the battle is
over, that we can never forget. Thackeray's style is so golden and
perfect that to read anything he has written is like listening to
strains of pure music.
Other novels by Thackeray which rank with _Vanity Fair_ are _Esmond_
and _The Virginians_, _Pendennis_ and _The Newcomes_. One of the
most famous characters in _Esmond_ is the exquisitely beautiful
Beatrix Esmond who turned away from love for ambition. Colonel
Newcome in _The Newcomes_ is one of the people who have been chosen
by the world to represent nobility of character, a man high-minded,
distinguished, brave, honest, pure and humble of heart.
There are scenes of great tenderness and nobility in Thackeray's
novels. Two, which may be mentioned, are in Esmond--Lady Castlewood
welcoming Henry Esmond home, Book II, chapter six, and again Lady
Castlewood vindicating Esmond, Book III, chapter four. Find _Esmond_
and read these chapters or ask someone to read them to you. When
Thackeray tells in _Vanity {150} Fair_ how George Osborne lies with
his face to the sky after Waterloo, every reader's heart is stilled
and touched. But many people think that the most famous instance of
Thackeray's genius is in the end of _The Newcomes_ when Colonel
Newcome, impoverished, living in Grey Friars Hospital, thinks that he
is a boy at school again, and answers the calling of the roll after
the fashion in his old school at Charterhouse.
Several biographies have been written of Thackeray, but you will find
the most interesting details of the life of this great writer in the
biographical notes written by his daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, for what is
called the Biographical Edition of Thackeray's works.
Meredith, unlike Thackeray, writes in a style which is difficult to
read; but he is brilliant, sparkling, and wonderfully clever. We
need to bring to his novels all the intelligence and powers of
application which we possess. But when difficulties are overcome,
there is great delight in reading Meredith. He is never dull. There
is always meaning, like precious gold, to find in his novels, and in
his poems too, for Meredith was a poet. Meredith shows us that our
minds, characters and wills have a conquering quality; we are not at
the mercy of impulses, instincts and intuitions. Not since
Shakespeare wrote, has any genius drawn such portraits of women as
appear in Meredith's novels. Three of his most brilliant and
fascinating women characters are Diana in _Diana of the Crossways_,
Clara Middleton and Laetitia Dale in _The Egoist_. There is also in
_The Egoist_ a splendidly drawn portrait {151} of a boy, Crossjay
Patterne. This boy and the beautiful, high-minded Clara Middleton
are friends and playmates; it is quite possible for a boy or a girl
to have a grown-up friend, who is at the same time a playmate.
_Diana of the Crossways_ and _The Egoist_ are perhaps the most
readable among the many novels Meredith has written. Sir Willoughby
Patterne in _The Egoist_ is a study of a man whose interests are
centered in himself. Diana is charming, brilliant, impulsive, and of
a noble nature. She is a very attractive heroine.
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840, in a tiny village called Higher
Bockhampton, in the parish of Stinsford, Dorset, England. It is a
country of woods and heaths, lonely and silent. Old customs and
manners were maintained in this place in the heart of England, long
after they had disappeared in more populous centres. Hardy's novels
tell us of the quaint customs, and of the interesting and picturesque
characters that he knew in his youth. Three of his early novels,
_Under the Greenwood Tree_, _The Return of the Native_, and _The
Trumpet-Major_ seem to hold under a magic spell, for our enjoyment,
old England and the people of old England, not at a time as long ago
as when the fairies were supposed to live, but near the beginning of
the nineteenth century, when people were looking for Napoleon
Bonaparte to invade England from France across the Channel.
Hardy himself, his father and his grandfather were all fond of music,
and we read much of people singing and dancing in Hardy's early
novels, {152} of the members of the church choir, of glee and carol
singers. Thomas Hardy, when he was a lad, used to play the fiddle at
dances in the farm houses nearby where he lived. His mother did not
allow him to take any money for his playing, but once he broke the
rule and with the few shillings he had been given bought a copy of
the _Boys' Own Book_. This book was kept in Hardy's library all his
life. He played at weddings too. No doubt, the boy learned much of
his neighbours in this way of which afterwards his genius made use in
his novels.
Some of the most charming scenes that Hardy ever wrote you will find
in the first five chapters of _Under the Greenwood Tree_. Read these
chapters, and you will see the English landscape long ago on a
Christmas Eve. You will breathe the pure, chill air, and sing
Christmas carols with the other carollers. The story begins: "To
dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well
as its feature."
To the end of his life, Hardy was fascinated by the story of
Napoleon. In the country where he lived, there lived also older men
who had fought against Napoleon, and many who remembered the dread
with which people looked for his invasion of England. One of Hardy's
early novels, _The Trumpet-Major_, is a fine tale of country folk, of
soldiers and sailors who fought against Napoleon, and of the
press-gang that carried away men to serve in the Navy. But, proudest
recollection of all for the novelist, the Hardy who held the great
Nelson in his arms when he lay dying victorious in the cockpit of his
ship, _The Victory_, after {153} Trafalgar, belonged to the same
family as his own. You remember, Nelson whispered, "Kiss me, Hardy."
Little wonder that Thomas Hardy, who also was a poet besides being a
novelist, wrote what is perhaps his greatest work in a poetical drama
called _The Dynasts_, a drama of the Napoleonic wars.
This poetical drama is a great vision of war, of suffering, brave,
stout-hearted, jesting men, and of mighty spirits who from some vast
height view the battling world, and wonder what the future of mankind
may be. Such lines as the following stay in our memories and
convince us that Thomas Hardy was not only a great novelist, but a
great poet.
The systemed suns the skies enscroll
Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll,
Ride radiantly at Thy command,
Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!
And these pale panting multitudes
Seen surging here, their moils, their moods,
All shall "fulfil their joy" in Thee,
In Thee abide eternally!
Exultant adoration give
The Alone, through Whom all living live.
The Alone, in Whom all dying die,
Whose means the End shall justify!
{154}
CHAPTER XXIII
JANE AUSTEN--GEORGE ELIOT--THE BRONTES
Jane Austen is very much like herself, and like no one else. Most of
us find people of this description interesting. It is true, that the
more we know of Miss Austen, the more interesting we find her.
The characters in her novels are so real that no one has ever been
able to find any fault with the way in which she created them.
Is it possible for us to discover how it was that she made her
characters so real? Mr. Woodhouse is one of the people in Miss
Austen's novel called _Emma_. Emma is Mr. Woodhouse's daughter. He
is rather an invalid; at least, he thinks he is an invalid. Emma is
a kind, good-hearted, managing young lady, who takes good care of her
father, and who, since Mr. Woodhouse does not want to be troubled
about anything, has all the responsibility of a large household.
This arrangement suits Emma perfectly.
Emma often arranges a little tea party to amuse her father. He likes
company, and quiet, sociable conversation. He wants his guests to
eat, but he is afraid that what they eat will not be good for them.
On one occasion, Emma had provided minced chicken and scalloped
oysters, for their guests. Her father would take only a {155} little
thin gruel. Poor Mr. Woodhouse urges the ladies to partake of his
hospitality in this fashion.
"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An
egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling
an egg better than anybody. I would not recommend an egg boiled by
anybody else,--but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you
see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma
help you to a little bit of tart,--a very little bit. Ours are all
apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here.
I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a
glass of wine,--a small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I
do not think it could disagree with you."
But Emma took care that their guests had plenty to eat.
Mr. Woodhouse also was very particular about his horses. He kept
horses and a coachman, but he seldom thought that the horses ought to
be taken out.
With delicate, true touches such as these, and in easy conversation,
Miss Austen builds up her characters. By the time we have finished
the story, we know Mr. Woodhouse intimately, and Emma, and Mrs. and
Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, and many others. Is it not true that you
know a good deal about Mr. Woodhouse only from hearing him speak of
what food his guests should eat?
Mr. Bennet in _Pride and Prejudice_ is a father of a different
character. He has five daughters, but he is fondest of Elizabeth, or
Eliza as she is {156} often called. Mrs. Bennet, his wife, is
unfortunately rather a silly person. Miss Austen is able to explain
Mrs. Bennet's character just by letting her talk, and Mrs. Bennet
talks a great deal.
Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, for instance, that he has no
compassion on her poor nerves. Mr. Bennet answers: "You mistake me,
my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old
friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these
twenty years at least."
One would say that Mr. Bennet was, perhaps, not very considerate
himself, a little inclined to be satirical with his foolish wife.
But here is part of a conversation of his with Eliza, when she has
told him at the end of the second book that she was going to be
married, which shows Mr. Bennet in a better light.
"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more
to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have
parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy."
How easy and simple it all seems, and yet to write naturally and
simply, with such entire truth to nature, is one of the most
difficult arts for any novelist.
Miss Austen wrote six novels altogether, _Pride and Prejudice_,
_Sense and Sensibility_, _Emma_, _Persuasion_, _Mansfield Park_, and
_Northanger Abbey_. She lived and wrote a little more than a hundred
years ago, but her books are read and admired to-day perhaps more
than at any previous time. There is something very charming and
interesting in Miss Austen's reticence, truthfulness, strength of
character, crystal purity and delightful {157} humour. Her field is
narrow, she is not eloquent or sublime, but her work in its own way
is perfect.
When Miss Austen wrote, it was not the fashion for ladies to write,
and she often used to hide her manuscript beneath a bit of sewing, or
place it hastily in a drawer when a door near where she wrote creaked
on its hinges. We know from some letters written by her family that
there was such a creaking door.
Mr. Kipling has written a poem in praise of Jane Austen which you
will find in his book called _Debits and Credits_. He pictures Miss
Austen being met at heaven's gate by some of the great novelists:
Good Sir Walter, you know who that is; Henry, this is a great English
novelist whose name was Henry Fielding; Tobias, another English
novelist, Tobias Smollett; Miguel of Spain, this is Cervantes. From
this short poem you can judge how highly other writers rank Jane
Austen.
Tom and Maggie Tulliver are brother and sister. They appear in
George Eliot's novel _The Mill on the Floss_. Tom and Maggie serve,
perhaps, as the best known instance in fiction of a study of the
relations between brother and sister. Certainly, we often think of
Tom and Maggie, and always we think of them as boy and girl, brother
and sister.
Tom is very much of a boy. He is an important person in the family,
and he is to succeed his father at Dorlcote Mill, which is on the
river Floss.
{158}
Is not this a beautiful description of Dorlcote Mill? George Eliot
must have been writing of a mill that she knew and loved:
"And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the
bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is
far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing
February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill damp season
adds a charm to the trimly kept comfortable dwelling-house, as old as
the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The
stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation,
and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.
As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate
bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and
branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love
with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads
far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward
appearance they make in the drier world above."
Maggie Tulliver is a wonderful study of a girl, later of a young
woman. No one surely can help loving Maggie, who adored Tom with all
her heart, who was often in disgrace with her mother, as for
instance, when she cut off her hair, who spent a great part of her
time reading books, and who was her father's favourite. Tom was
rather hard on Maggie. When they grew up there was a sad time when
Tom refused to have anything to do with her. Yet Maggie always loved
Tom best. At the end of the story, there is a flood. {159} The
river rises so high that everyone's life is in danger. And Maggie
comes alone by herself in a boat to rescue Tom.
It is probable, indeed it is certain, that George Eliot was writing
of her own girlhood, and of her feelings for her brother, when she
created with the power of genius Maggie Tulliver. Such depth of
understanding, tenderness, and poignancy of feeling, are only
possible when one knows people very, very well. George Eliot knew
Maggie Tulliver perfectly.
George Eliot, of course, is only a pen name. The author's real name
was Mary Ann Evans. She lived in the country, like the Tullivers,
and her many novels abound with striking characters among country
people. One of the most successful of them is Mrs. Poyser in the
novel _Adam Bede_. Mrs. Poyser is famous for her clever sayings,
full of pithy truth and wit. It was she who said of some one for
whom she did not care, that it was a pity he could not be hatched
over again and hatched different. Sayings of this kind generally are
spoken by clever people who are not educated, as most of us
understand education, but who have learned a great deal about life
and human nature. This power of inventing wise, amusing sayings is
called mother wit.
George Eliot was a learned woman, and spent her later life in London.
But her country books are probably her best. She wrote a little
later than Jane Austen, and some time before Hardy. Another of her
stories that you are likely to enjoy is _Silas Marner_. Others,
besides _The Mill on {160} the Floss_, and _Adam Bede_, are _Romola_,
_Felix Holt_, _Middlemarch_, and _Daniel Deronda_.
We come now to the story of two of the most romantic figures in
English literature. Early in the nineteenth century, a clergyman who
was of Irish descent and whose name was Patrick Brontë, had a family
of children most of whom were remarkably gifted. Those whom we know
best are Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and a brother Branwell, who was born
after Charlotte and before Emily. Branwell might have been an
artist, but his life was not successful or happy. Anne wrote
pleasing stories, but Charlotte and Emily Brontë are sisters whom we
associate with an atmosphere of strange romance and rich endowment.
Most of their lives was spent in Yorkshire, amidst wild and romantic
scenery. They were poor and had few possessions. Charlotte was a
governess. She studied in Brussels in Belgium, and her younger
sister Emily was with her. Charlotte was influenced by French
literature, Emily by all that was strange and mysterious in German
literature. Charlotte's best known book is _Jane Eyre_. Emily's
masterpiece is _Wuthering Heights_. Wuthering Heights means a high
place where great winds blow most of the time.
_Jane Eyre_ is a romantic, extravagant story of a girl who was a
governess, and of the strange people she met. The story is not even
always well-written; yet it is exciting and thrilling. Few novels
had such depth of feeling, passion and elevated thought. No one can
read Charlotte Brontë's novels without tingling with a {161} feeling
that here one has met an extraordinary personality.
Emily Brontë was more highly gifted even than her sister Charlotte.
Everything that is true of _Jane Eyre_ is more true of _Wuthering
Heights_. It is a stranger, and more romantic story. At times, one
would even say that there is something hard and cruel in _Wuthering
Heights_. But there is also natural genius. Emily wrote a few
remarkable poems which are more highly esteemed now than they were
when she died. One does not say that these two sisters were
possessed of the highest creative power. But Charlotte and Emily
Brontë are among the most interesting and unforgettable of English
novelists. Barrie said not long ago of Emily Brontë that she was our
greatest woman, meaning that he believed her to be the greatest among
English-speaking women writers. This sense of greatness you will
experience for yourselves in the words which end _Wuthering Heights_.
The story is tragic; but the ending is happy and tranquil, although
at first it may seem sad.
"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths
fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind
breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever
imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
{163}
PART VI
HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL
{165}
CHAPTER XXIV
WHAT IS HISTORY!
Most of us like true stories. Often, when we listen to a story which
seems interesting and surprising, perhaps even delightful, we say
when the story is ended, "But, is it true?" If the answer is no, or
even that the story is not all true, we are disappointed.
This feeling of wishing to know the truth about people and events,
about what the world is really like and what it used to be like,
belongs to human nature. It is born in our hearts when we are born.
From the beginning of the world, people have cared for true stories.
As you know, knowledge of remarkable events and people at first was
repeated by one generation to another by word of mouth. But
tradition, although interesting, is often inaccurate. It does not
tell the whole, exact true story. So people were willing to spend a
great deal of time, and to work very hard, to find out the truth
about past events and about people who lived in the past.
In this way was born the art and science of history. History is a
science, because writing true history requires careful, painstaking,
unwearied research. Writing history is also an art, since to make
events and human beings of long ago, or even of yesterday and to-day,
live in a book in such a way that we can understand {166} them, and
read of them with interest and enjoyment, requires imagination and
all other gifts which are needed to write true histories, or true
stories.
Herodotus, a Greek, who lived four hundred and eighty-four years
before the birth of Christ, is called the father of history. He is a
model, or pattern, still for historians. He was not only the first
great historian, he is one of the greatest among writers of history.
When he wrote history first, he used to recite what he had composed
to his friends. At one of these recitals of history by Herodotus, a
boy was present with his father. The boy's name was Thucydides. He
was so charmed and excited by what Herodotus said that he burst into
tears, as we do sometimes when we are greatly moved by a beautiful
thing. Thucydides afterwards, when he grew up, became a great
historian.
In another chapter, we shall try to learn of some interesting modern
histories, and some famous modern historians,--modern, that is, as
compared with Herodotus and Thucydides. But many of the books that
we have read for other reasons have told us a good deal about people
who lived long ago, and of their customs.
You remember the ballads of "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of
Otterbourne", which tell how the English and Scots fought with one
another. These ballads are not accurate history, but they are
undoubtedly historical. They take us, with a strange, thrilling
feeling that we can almost see what must have happened, as far back
as 1388.
{167}
At the time when Queen Philippa of Hainault was the wife of King
Edward III of England, a young Hainaulter, a fellow countryman of
hers, came from France to visit her and brought with him a copy of a
book of chronicles, written by himself about recent wars in France.
His name was Sir John Froissart. He was eager to write true
histories of his own time, medieval histories as we call them. You
will find Sir John Froissart's _Chronicles_ a delightful book to
read. Many of the stories which Froissart first wrote are in the
histories we read to-day. Queen Philippa was greatly pleased with
the visit of her young fellow-countryman and with his book.
Froissart stayed in England for some time, and while he was there
found out everything he could about the Battle of Otterbourne. The
story is told in one of his chronicles.
Here are two short extracts from the chronicle of the Battle of
Otterbourne. Froissart wrote in old French. His chronicles were
translated into English by Lord Berners in the time of King Henry
VIII. In these extracts the old English spelling has been modernized.
"At the beginning the Englishmen were so strong that they reculed
back their enemies: then the Earl Douglas, who was of great heart and
high of enterprise, seeing his men recule back, then to recover the
place and to shew knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands,
and entered so into the press that he made himself way in such wise
that none durst approach near him, and he was so well armed that he
bare well off such strokes as he received. Thus he went ever {168}
forward like a hardy Hector, willing alone to conquer the field and
to discomfit his enemies: but at last he was encountered with three
spears all at once, so that he was borne perforce to the earth and
after that he could not be again relieved. Some of his knights and
squires followed him, but not all, for it was night, and no light but
by the shining of the moon..."
"This battle was fierce and cruel till it came to the end of the
discomfiture; but when the Scots saw the Englishmen recule and yield
themselves, then the Scots were courteous and set them to their
ransom, and every man said to his prisoner: Sirs, go and unarm you
and take your ease: I am your master': and so made their prisoners as
good cheer as though they had been brethren, without doing to them
any damage."
You will notice that part of the battle must have been fought at
night, for the moon was shining. It is likely that Froissart was
told this story by some man who had been at the battle and remembered
well that there was no light but the light of the moon. The direct
account of an eyewitness is one of the most convincing forms of true
history. If you will turn to the Acts of the Apostles, you can read
in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters another account by an
eyewitness, telling how Paul, after he had been kept in prison two
years, was sent for by a new governor Festus, and of the speech he
made to Festus, and to King Agrippa and Queen Bernice. As you know,
some books of the Bible are histories. This splendid account of an
old trial is a fine example of historical writing.
{169}
Old books, old manuscripts, inscriptions, records of all kinds, old
and new, even buried cities, form part of the material which
historians study. A historian may find that the same event is
related in one manuscript after one fashion, and in another
manuscript in quite a different way. So it is that historians always
want to find corroboration, if possible, for facts which they wish to
use in their histories. Thus we see that the work of a historian is
difficult. But anyone who writes a history which is true, and well
authenticated, and interesting to read, has served mankind well. He
has increased our knowledge and understanding, and in this way has
made those who read his history more useful and capable men and women.
Let us take one or two of the easiest and most attractive books that
a historian might wish to consult, and see if we can find in them any
facts, or pictures, which might be useful in writing a true history.
Long ago, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, there lived
an English poet whose name was Geoffrey Chaucer. He wrote a poem
called _The Canterbury Tales_ which tells of a number of people who
were going as pilgrims to a shrine in the great Cathedral at
Canterbury. They met in the Tabard Inn in Southwark at London.
Chaucer describes these people one by one so accurately that we can
learn how people looked, and what they wore, these many hundred years
ago. He tells, too, of the landlord or host who kept the Inn. His
name was Harry Bayly. It seems from other records in the Public
Record {170} Office in London that the landlord of the Tabard Inn at
the time actually was a Harry Bayly. Chaucer, as well as being a
poet, had a post in the Custom House. There is a record of Harry
Bayly paying money into the Customs. It seems certain that Chaucer's
descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims are true and accurate
pictures of people who lived in his time.
Who were these people?
"A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,"--Later Chaucer says of
him that:
"He was a verray parfit gentil knyght." His son was there, a young
squire, and among the other pilgrims were a yeoman, a nun, a
prioress, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a clerk, a sergeant at law, a
franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a cook, a shipman or sailor, a
doctor, a goodwife, a ploughman, a reeve, a pardoner, and several
others.
The squire "was as fressh as in the monthe of May." The prioress was
very good-looking.
Hire nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful smal and ther-to softe and reed,
But sikely she hadde a fair forheed.
These words are easily changed into our modern spelling. The last
line, for instance is
"But certainly she had a fair forehead."
Chaucer describes exactly the way in which each one was dressed.
Then each of the pilgrims tells a story, and in these stories we find
more information of how people looked and how they lived in the
fourteenth century. Chaucer's poetry, {171} although somewhat
difficult to read on account of the old words, is fresh and beautiful
still.
Shakespeare's plays, especially his historical plays, throw a
wonderful light on the battles, life and customs of England at the
time of Agincourt, in the Wars of the Roses, and his own lifetime.
Besides the beauty and greatness of his plays, Shakespeare added
always to whatever he wrote his wonderful true knowledge of human
nature. Turn to Act iii, Scene ii of _King Henry V_, and you will
read what a boy, serving some of the soldiers, says in all the tumult
and excitement of the battle.
"Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for
a pot of ale and safety."
One of the most important subjects of which many historians write is
politics. Charles Dickens, as you know, was a humorist. In his
stories, he describes social conditions which existed in the early
part of the nineteenth century and which later have been somewhat
improved. Dickens, possibly, exaggerated a little, and made his
accounts somewhat of a burlesque of what actually existed. Yet when
we want to read a true and very amusing account of an election, which
might be of use to political historians when they write of the
earlier part of the nineteenth century, we will find it in chapter
thirteen of _Pickwick Papers_.
The town of Eatanswill is the scene of the election. Mr. Pickwick,
Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle, and Sam Weller are in
Eatanswill, and take a lively part in the proceedings. {172}
Dickens, as you know, helped to laugh away many abuses. Elections
are not carried on in the same way to-day. But the political
candidates and newspapers of Eatanswill, what they said, did, and
printed, make an amusing story which has at the same time not a
little historical truth.
Now we know a very little of how historians try to find out the truth
about what has happened in the past, so that they may write true
histories. Very long ago, people used to believe that each art had
its own muse, a beautiful being like a goddess, who helped and guided
followers of her art. They called the muse of history Clio. So if
it pleases us to do so, we can think of the beautiful spirit, or
muse, of history teaching, entertaining and helping us all.
{173}
CHAPTER XXV
THE MEANING OF POLITICS
We may learn from games a good deal of the nature of politics.
We know that the better the game is organized, the better it will be
played. In many games, there are two sides, two captains, and an
equal number of players on each side. Captains have duties, players
have duties. Captains should be able to think quickly, understand
quickly, make quick decisions, and not make mistakes any oftener than
they can help. They should understand other boys. Or if the game is
played by girls, the girl who is captain should understand other
girls. Players ought to be willing to obey the captain's word. Some
day, the player may be the captain; perhaps he has been a captain
already. The whole team, players and captain, should be loyal. A
game cannot be altogether successful unless it is played with good
feeling, generosity, keenness, sportsmanship and honour on both
sides. Each side should be on good terms with the other side and
behave with courtesy. These things are true in games. They are true
also in politics, although, possibly, not quite in the same way.
As soon as people began to live together in communities, some of the
people wanted the community properly organized and governed. They
{174} thought everything belonging to the place in which they lived
should be carried on in the best, most comfortable way, with justice
for everybody. But, unfortunately, there have always been some
people who want the best only for themselves, and are not willing to
be just to other people. In our own natures, many of us find a
conflict between desiring to be just to others, and yet wishing a
great deal for ourselves.
We can imagine what a long, long story, or history there is in
politics.
Politics have to do with the government of communities, towns and
cities and nations, and finally all nations, since all nations are
beginning to be willing to agree among themselves.
For a very long time, perhaps always, people have dreamed of perfect
organization and perfect government.
One of the most famous books ever written on the subject of this
hoped-for perfect government is the work of the Greek philosopher
Plato who had been taught by Socrates. The book is called _The
Republic of Plato_ and it contains the teaching of Socrates.
You may read in the last sentences of the ninth book of _The Republic
of Plato_, a description of the perfect city. Socrates had been
explaining to his pupils that the man of understanding will take part
in everything which will make him a better man, and will shun what
may make him less good. So he will take part in politics. _The
Republic_ is written in the form of question and answer. Finally
Socrates says that the pattern of the perfect city is perhaps laid up
in heaven, but that, {175} as far as he can, the man of understanding
will follow its practices.
It would scarcely be possible to make a complete list of famous men
who have been statesmen or politicians, because the list would be so
long. But in this chapter we can choose a few names of men who have
been political leaders in Great Britain, Canada, and the British
Empire.
A political leader generally is a speaker or orator. Nothing,
possibly, is more thrilling than to listen to a great speech. Read
carefully the few political sentences which follow here, and see if
you do not experience a thrill, a sense that here is something that
belongs to you.
The first sentences quoted were spoken by William Pitt, Earl of
Chatham, in the House of Lords, 1770. Pitt, before he became a
member of the British House of Commons, had been a soldier.
"I am now suspected of coming forward, in the decline of life, in the
anxious pursuit of wealth and power, which it is impossible for me to
enjoy. Be it so; there is one ambition at least which I ever will
acknowledge, which I will not renounce but with my life--it is the
ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which
I have received from my ancestors. I am not now pleading the cause
of an individual, but of every freeholder in England."
Edmund Burke, an Irishman, was a great orator. He laid down and
taught principles of government which have a great deal to do with
the way in which government in the British {176} Empire is organized
to-day. Here is one sentence which he spoke in the British House of
Commons in 1780.
"The service of the public is a thing which cannot be put to auction,
and struck down to those who will agree to execute it the cheapest."
Richard Cobden was an economist. He was the son of a farmer, and was
himself a manufacturer. His speeches are for the most part plain and
simple, and deal generally with the change in Great Britain from
protection to free trade. The following sentences were spoken in the
British House of Commons in 1845. The second half of the last
sentence contains teaching which is memorable.
"This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of
social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You
live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is
poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial
rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have
been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age."
D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian statesman, was born and educated in Ireland.
He spoke and laboured for the confederation of the Provinces which
was consummated in the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The sentences
that follow belong to a speech given before the Legislative Assembly
of Upper and Lower Canada in 1865:
"The principle of Federation is a generous one. It is a principle
that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the
same time {177} with general supervision, that excites a healthy
sense of responsibility and comprehension."
When we read over these sentences, we may obtain a sense of the
meaning of government, and of the greatness of politics. Notice that
the men who speak are in earnest. Their sentences are practical and
simple. Great politics and great statesmen, almost invariably, are
characterized by earnestness and sincerity; and great political
sayings, as a rule, are practical. Countless numbers of men have
devoted themselves to political government, not for their own gain,
but for the service of their country, and eventually of the world.
There are those who go into politics for their own gain solely, but
we do not call them patriots. The study of such sentences as are
quoted in this chapter will help us to understand something of the
government and history of Canada, Great Britain and the Empire. Boys
and girls and young people should be interested in government, for
every country needs the help of the younger generations in its
political affairs.
The greatest political sentence ever spoken is,--"Love your enemies."
Some day you should plan to visit a great library and ask to be shown
facsimiles of a few of the famous Acts by which liberties have been
won and our government has been assured. One of the greatest Acts in
the history of the English-speaking world is the Great Charter
obtained in King John's time, 1215, and signed by him and many of the
barons. Be sure to see a facsimile of this, if you can, and read
especially clause 40.
{178}
"To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse, or delay right or
justice."
The Confederation Act of the Dominion of Canada, or the British North
America Act, as it is properly called, is dated 1867. Its plainness,
simplicity and scrupulous fairness make it worthy of admiration.
In Charlottetown, the capital of the Province of Prince Edward
Island, set in the assembly hall of the Parliament Buildings, is a
tablet to mark the place where the Fathers of Confederation met and
deliberated. These are the words which you may read on the tablet,
as well as the names of the men who resolved that there should be a
Dominion of Canada:
In the Hearts and Minds of the
Delegates who Assembled
In this Room, Sept. 1st, 1864
Was born the Dominion of Canada.
------
Providence being Their Guide
They Builded Better than they Knew.
{179}
CHAPTER XXVI
HISTORIES
It will take us a little while even to imagine how many important
books there are in which famous historians have written of history
and politics.
Why should so many books need to be written about history?
Because in this way we are able to trace the long, fascinating story
of how mankind--men and women, your fathers and mothers, their
fathers and mothers, and so on back for a thousand generations--has
been gradually gaining in knowledge and growing, we trust, if even
only a very little, more kind and more just.
But let us forget all this for a few minutes. It is a good time to
look about our treasure house, and see, or reckon up, as it were,
what we have found in it.
If we had to write a fairy tale about books, we could easily imagine
that all the famous books in the world were kept in a great, very
beautiful palace, and that books of different kinds were arranged in
halls, galleries and great rooms which had been assigned to them.
There might very well be a special, beautiful, walled garden,
belonging to the palace, for fairy tales, myths, fables and such
books.
What a wonderful, great room, or rather series {180} of great rooms,
must be kept for stories and novels!
And exquisite galleries, with vaulted roofs, and open courts, where
fountains play,--the water falling with a pleasant sound into marble
basins,--and with beautiful statues in the courts, we will choose for
songs, ballads, and great poetry.
Famous books of history, political speeches, lives of great men,
books of travel and discovery, may be arranged in a stately hall,
with alcoves, stained glass windows, and marble busts of some of the
great men that we read about.
Shall we imagine that we will pay a visit to a few of the alcoves in
the great hall of history, and take down from the shelves, here one
book, and here another, reading their names, and learning the names
of those who wrote the books?
We do not learn very much about a book simply by taking it down from
a shelf, and turning over a few of the pages; but we do learn
something. Many of you will read a certain number of these books
some day. All of us may know something about them. At least we all
can remember that famous histories, as well as other books, have
helped to make this delightful, thrilling, difficult, very important
world in which we live.
Now what books shall we take down from the shelves?
Suppose we begin with a book written by someone you know,--Sir Walter
Raleigh.
When Sir Walter Raleigh came back from one of his sea expeditions, on
which, after the fashion of the times in which he lived, he had been
more or less of a buccaneer, he was put into prison in {181} the
Tower of London on account of a political quarrel in which he was
involved. Time spent in prison seems very long, especially for a man
like Raleigh. So he began to write a _History of the World_. He
never finished it, but he got as far on as B.C. 130. You can handle
to-day one of the great books in which Raleigh's _History of the
World_ is printed; but very few people ever read it.
But at the end of what Raleigh wrote of the _History of the World_,
he penned a noble sentence which people have never forgotten. Here
it is:
"O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou
hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all
the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and
despised. Thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched
greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered
it all over with these two narrow words, _Hic jacet_!"
We know that there is, or perhaps we should say that there used to
be, a sharp division between ancient and modern history. One of the
first writers to connect modern with ancient history was an
Englishman whose name was Edward Gibbon. He wrote a book called _The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. Do any of you
happen to remember that in Dickens' novel, _Our Mutual Friend_, Mr.
Boffin paid Silas Wegg to read aloud to him so that he might become a
little better educated? Mr. Boffin had chosen Gibbon's _Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire_ for Silas Wegg to read to him. It is a
{182} remarkable book, and it made a great impression on the
scholarship of the world. Gibbon himself was a clever, but somewhat
odd man. He chose to live and write a good part of his time, not in
his own country, but in Switzerland. Gibbon is an international
author. Not only the people of his own country, but those of other
countries as well, read his great work. He lived in the eighteenth
century, and he belonged to Dr. Johnson's club. We are going to hear
something of Dr. Samuel Johnson in another chapter. Certainly, we
should take down Gibbon's history from the shelves, and look at it.
Some of you probably will read it later with interest and pleasure.
Lord Macaulay, who wrote _The Lays of Ancient Rome_, was an able
historian. He lived from 1800 to 1859. Gibbon had died six years
before Macaulay was born. Macaulay was a graduate of Cambridge, a
lawyer and a writer. He was a member of Parliament, and lived for
several years in India, where he gave splendid governmental service.
His _History of England_ is a famous book. When it was first
published it was read with as much eagerness as if it had been a
thrilling novel. It still charms a multitude of readers. Take down
the first volume of his _History of England_ from the shelf, and read
in the first chapter two paragraphs that speak of Cromwell and of the
gallant bearing of Charles the First at his execution. Perhaps you
may remember reading a story by Dumas which tells of the same event.
Anyone who cares for history will find delight in Macaulay's famous
book.
Here is Napier's _History of the War in the {183} Peninsula_, in
which you may read of the campaigns of Wellington. If you will look
at his preface you will find noble praise of Wellington's army. Here
are John Richard Green's _Short History of the English People_, and
Miss Agnes Strickland's _Queens of England_. Here are histories by
Carlyle, and by Lecky, who was an Irishman, and many others, and here
is John Lothrop Motley's _Rise of the Dutch Republic_. Motley was an
American, who, like many other historians, chose a favourite hero of
whom to write. His hero was William the Silent. The last sentence
of Motley's history reads: "As long as he lived he was the
guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little
children cried in the streets."
One of the first writers who made plain to the world the entrancing
history of New France, which, as you know, is an earlier name for
Canada, was the historian Francis Parkman. Parkman was born in
Boston near the end of the eighteenth century. He devoted himself to
historical research, and wrote a long series of books, many of the
names of which are familiar to you.
Some of the titles of these volumes written by Parkman are _Pioneers
of France in the New World_, _The Jesuits in North America_, _The
Discovery of the Great West_, _The Old Régime in Canada_, _Frontenac
and New France Under Louis XIV_, and _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_.
Parkman begins _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_, which he completed in
1851, with the paragraph quoted below. It is interesting to note the
great changes which have come about on this continent {184} since
Parkman wrote this history, nearly eighty years ago.
"The Indian is a true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes
and solitudes of nature are his congenial home. His haughty mind is
imbued with the spirit of the wilderness, and the light of
civilization falls on him with a blighting power. His unruly pride
and untamed freedom are in harmony with the lonely mountains,
cataracts and rivers among which he dwells; and primitive America,
with her savage scenery and savage men, opens to the imagination a
boundless world, unmatched in wild sublimity."
Biography sometimes is closely related to history. When the life of
a famous public man is written in such a way as to tell the story of
how his actions have changed the history of his country, biography
and history seem practically identical. The story of Queen Elizabeth
is, one may say, the story, or history, of England during her reign.
The same statement is partly true of the biography of Queen Victoria.
It is true also of the life of any great public man in any country.
Books of biography are widely read in this twentieth century. Most
of the people you know read biographies.
If we find the alcove in which are kept the newest books in the hall
of history, we will discover on the shelves such volumes as Sir
Sidney Lee's _Life of King Edward VII_, Mr. Lytton Strachey's _Queen
Victoria_, his _Elisabeth and Essex_, and Mr. Philip Guedalla's _Life
of Palmerston_. These are all clearly written, easy to read,
condensed rather than long drawn out, based on sound historical {185}
research and so fascinating that thousands of people begin to read
them as soon as they are published.
Here is a little book of history called _Gallipoli_, which was
published in 1916. It was written by a poet, John Masefield, and it
tells the story of the Australians when they fought on the Gallipoli
Peninsula in the Great War. There are many notable histories of
different campaigns in the War, but none surely will last longer than
this small, noble book.
Now we know the names of a few histories by historians of
English-speaking countries. There are many other histories written
by Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, and others.
Before we leave books of history, shall we look at a history of
English literature, so that we may mark down for ourselves the names
of the periods, or times, when some of the great writers lived?
There was an Anglo-Saxon period before William the Conqueror came to
England. Poets and writers lived then, but only learned scholars
read now the works they composed. You are likely to read at some
time of Beowulf, who is supposed to have written about 520, and of
Cædmon, who is said to have been a servant at the monastery of Whitby
under the Abbess Hilda.
The first great English poet, who was the master of a period of
English poetry, was Chaucer. His work brings us to the fourteenth
century. He had a number of less famous contemporaries.
Many of the old ballads were made probably in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.
{186} Sir Thomas Malory wrote his book _Morte d'Arthur_ in the
fifteenth century.
The first book was printed in England by Caxton in 1477.
The Elizabethan Age, as you know, is one of the most famous periods
in English literature. It is generally divided into an earlier and a
later period. Spenser belonged to the earlier time; and Shakespeare
marked the later period, along with other notable writers. The
Elizabethan age is reckoned to have lasted longer than Elizabeth's
reign, because writers still wrote in the same fashion and spirit.
The authorized translation of the Bible into English was written at
this time.
In the time of the Commonwealth and later, when England was largely
puritan, the great poet Milton lived, and John Bunyan, who wrote _The
Pilgrim's Progress_.
Dryden, a poet, belongs to the second part of the seventeenth
century. Pope, another poet, lived most of his life in the
eighteenth century. A number of novelists, Defoe, who wrote
_Robinson Crusoe_, of an earlier date than the others, and
Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, all great novelists, come in
the late seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries.
A group of distinguished men, some of whom we will learn a little
about in the next chapter, lived in the eighteenth century. Their
names are Johnson; Goldsmith; Burke, the statesman; Gibbon, the
historian; Garrick, an actor; and Reynolds, the painter. Swift,
Addison, Steele, and other essayists, wrote earlier in the same
century.
{187}
You do not need to remember specially the various ages in which
writers lived. But we understand now that people often speak of
periods in English literature; it is interesting to fit into their
proper places great writers whose names we know.
Scott and Jane Austen belong to the end of the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
Dickens, Thackeray, and many others, lived and wrote in the
nineteenth century, and are great Victorians. Hardy is partly
Victorian and partly Georgian. Kipling and Barrie belong to the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century. We live now in the first
half of the twentieth century.
{188}
CHAPTER XXVII
BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON
A man called James Boswell, who lived in the eighteenth century,
chose as his hero a celebrated personage whose name was Samuel
Johnson. Boswell was willing, indeed eager and determined, to go
about with Johnson from place to place, to listen to what he said,
and then to make notes of Johnson's conversation. Boswell was a
devoted friend, and Johnson was worthy of his friendship, for he was
a truly great man. Boswell spared no pains to learn everything that
he could of Johnson's youth, of his family and friends, of his work
and character. In this way, James Boswell prepared himself to write
the life of Dr. Johnson.
Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is certainly one of the greatest
biographies ever written. Many people think that it is the greatest
of all biographies, because it tells us with truth, fidelity and
fullness what manner of man Dr. Johnson was.
There are many odd things about Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. One of
the oddest is that Johnson did not like Scotland, or the people of
Scotland, but Boswell was a Scot. Johnson, who was outspoken in an
extraordinary degree, and somewhat rough, rather what we call a bear
of a man, was often rude to Boswell, who, perhaps, was not a {189}
little tiresome. But Boswell never minded what happened, or what was
said, as long as he could be in Johnson's company.
Samuel Johnson's parents were very poor. He was not even a strong
boy, and was often ill. One of the reasons why we admire Johnson is
that he contended bravely with poverty and ill-health all his life.
He never put money first, or perhaps he might have been rich, in
which case, possibly, we might never have heard of him. He does not
seem to have thought it any particular hardship to suffer from
ill-health. He does not talk, or write, of being ill. What he did
put first in his life was scholarship, work, friendship,
companionship, and living in accordance with high principles.
How do we know all this, and how can we be certain that it is true?
We know because we find Johnson's character in Boswell's _Life_. No
one can read this _Life of Johnson_ by Boswell without being certain
that Boswell took great pains to write what was true, and that he
succeeded.
Johnson's father was a bookseller in a small way in the English city
of Lichfield, where there is a beautiful cathedral, which some day
you may see. Both Johnson's father and mother did everything they
could for their son. It soon was evident at home and at school that
the boy had an unusually fine intelligence. He went to Oxford as a
sizar. This means that he had not enough money to live on, so he
worked in the college to pay his way. There were few opportunities
then for students to earn money. Samuel Johnson had a fine, sturdy
self-respect. He was poor, but he was not ashamed of being poor.
When someone, who knew {190} that his clothes were shabby, put a pair
of boots outside his door, Johnson threw the boots out of the window.
He was not the kind of man to take help. There is something comical
about this story. We cannot help laughing, yet we like, and respect,
the shabby student who was independent. Johnson was not
good-looking, and he had odd tricks of manner, but his mind and
character impressed everyone.
One day, when he was a famous man, he performed what he considered an
act of penance in memory of his father. His father, whose business
was going very badly, had wanted him to stand beside a bookstall in
Uttoxeter, near Lichfield, and sell any books that he could. Johnson
was not willing to do this. Afterwards, he must have regretted his
refusal keenly. Many years later, when he visited Lichfield with
friends, they missed him one day from breakfast till night.
Presently he drove up in a post chaise; and when they inquired
urgently what he had been doing, he told them the story of how he had
been unwilling to help his father. To show his sorrow, he had gone
to Uttoxeter and had stood, bareheaded, beside the bookstall from
which his father used to sell books, for an hour at the busiest time
of day. Perhaps some people might think it was an odd thing for him
to do. But only a great and humble spirit can inspire anyone to
carry out such an action.
After he left Oxford, he was a tutor. But since his appearance and
manner were both odd, he had difficulty in finding and keeping
situations. All the while he wanted to be a writer, and we may be
sure that he practised writing. He married, when {191} he was a
comparatively young man, a widow much older than he was. He was
deeply attached to his wife. After her death, years later, he never
ceased to mourn for her, and he treasured every memory of their life
together.
Long before this happened, however, Johnson had gone to London, and
had become what is called a hack writer. He earned very little by
his writing. These were early days in journalism, when newspaper
writers suffered hardship, probably because the occupation was not
yet fully established, and work was ill-paid. Much has been written
of this period among men of letters in London, and of the straits to
which they were driven to keep alive. It was out of such conditions
as these that Johnson made himself famous, until every word he wrote,
or spoke, carried weight, and he himself had greater authority among
writers, and with his contemporaries, than, possibly, any other man
of letters has ever had.
You will find in an interesting novel, called _Midwinter_, written by
John Buchan, a delightful account of Johnson when he was a tutor and
later, before he had become famous.
Johnson wrote a great deal, but his Dictionary is often called his
most famous work. It took him years to complete the Dictionary, and
the task required all his scholarship, together with much toil,
carried on in poverty and privation. When the Dictionary was
finished, Johnson was a famous man. It is likely that he enjoyed
making his Dictionary. The work suited his temperament. One can
imagine how he would choose the words, as if he were a judge or
umpire, as indeed he was, {192} deciding that certain words were to
be included, and refusing others. Some of his definitions are
amusing. Dictionaries now are much more elaborate. The science of
words has grown greatly since Johnson's day. But he was a pioneer in
the making of a dictionary, and we greatly honour pioneers.
Then there was Dr. Johnson's club, which met at an eating house on a
famous street in London named the Strand. Great numbers of people
visit the Cheshire Cheese every year because it is generally believed
that Dr. Johnson and his friends used to dine there, and there
carried on discussions, some of which no doubt Boswell duly reported
in his biography.
It is a wonderful achievement to have kept for the world so perfectly
the looks, words, and characters of Dr. Johnson and his associates,
many of whom were famous men. But Dr. Johnson was the leader. He it
was who kept the club together; for, although he was arbitrary, odd,
and sometimes brusque and rude, he was astonishingly companionable,
affectionate, sincere and very able. His conversation was weighty,
full of pith and meaning. It was a highly esteemed privilege to
belong to Dr. Johnson's club.
The names of some of his associates are Garrick, the great actor, who
came to London from Lichfield with Johnson; Goldsmith, who was a
poet, and who wrote plays, as well as one wise and beautiful novel
called _The Vicar of Wakefield_; Reynolds, the great painter, and
others not as well known, and Boswell.
If you will find a copy of Boswell's _Life of {193}
Johnson_--remember, it is a large book, in four volumes--and turn to
the index at the end, you will discover under the heading Johnson,
His Character and Manners, numbers indicating the pages where are
printed some stories that you will enjoy reading. On pages 162 and
163 of the fourth volume, we read of his love for children, and his
affection for Hodge, his cat, for whom he used to buy oysters.
Almost every page contains good reading, as, for instance, beginning
at page 300, in the same volume, we may read of his conversation with
a young man whom he thought presumptuous, followed immediately by an
account of the plan of some of his friends to send him to Italy since
he was ill, and of how greatly touched Johnson was by their kindness.
Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is one of the books which the world has
enjoyed reading ever since it was written.
And now we come to something about this biography that may seem
curious. If Boswell had tried to describe Dr. Johnson as being
handsome, and polite, instead of unprepossessing and sometimes rude,
he likely would have made him seem not nearly as great a man as
Johnson really is. The biography would not have been a true picture
of Dr. Johnson. A true picture makes a far deeper impression than a
picture which is not true; and this is one of the very most important
things we can learn about a book.
{194}
CHAPTER XXVIII
READING FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO BE
Biography is not only interesting reading, it helps us to understand
other people. In this chapter we may discover that there are few
better ways of finding out what kind of work we want to undertake
than by reading biography.
First of all, let us think of a very few famous biographies, such
books as Plutarch's _Lives_, Boswell's _Johnson_, Lockhart's _Scott_,
Forster's _Dickens_, Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, Churchill's _Lord
Randolph Churchill_, Page's _Life and Letters_, Sir Sidney Lee's
_Shakespeare_.
Numberless people have read and used Plutarch's _Lives of Illustrious
Men_. We know that Shakespeare did. If you will turn to the last
life in Plutarch's book, the life of Brutus, you will find that
Shakespeare must have used this biography of Brutus when he wrote the
play _Julius Cæsar_.
Now we may think of biography as a magic key that will help you to
unlock the door behind which you may find what work you are going to
do. Let us ask ourselves what occupations these famous men followed
whose lives appear in the list given above.
Johnson was a journalist, and an author, and he made a dictionary.
Scott was a lawyer, an officer of the Crown, and a novelist; one
might {195} almost add that he was something of a farmer. You
remember how he loved the land he owned at Abbotsford, and used to
ride over it and talk with his men about their work. Dickens was a
reporter, a novelist, and, towards the end of his life, he gave
public readings from his works. Gladstone was a statesman; he had
great skill in finance; and on account of his associations at home,
he had somewhat of the training of a business man. He also was
interested in the land. You may read in his biography how he used to
employ himself cutting down trees, that needed to be felled, on his
estate. Lord Randolph Churchill was a statesman. Page was an
editor, and a diplomatist. Shakespeare was an actor, the manager of
a theatre, and a dramatist. Already you know how to find in
biography some knowledge of a good many different occupations.
A great many of you will be farmers. The well-being and health of
the world depend directly on farming; and the life of a farmer and of
a farmer's family may be happy, independent and wonderfully useful
and interesting. To learn about the life of a farmer, one must read
other books as well as biography. Three of the novels that we have
enjoyed reading contain vivid, true pictures of the life of people
who live on a farm. The first of these novels is Scott's _Guy
Mannering_. You remember the farm called Charlies-hope, and Dandie
Dinmont and his wife and children. Scott dearly loved and thoroughly
understood country life, and there is no more charming picture in a
book of the natural, happy life of the farmer and his wife and
children than in this {196} novel by Scott. The second novel is
George Eliot's _Adam Bede_. Mr. and Mrs. Poyser had much skill in
their occupation. It is interesting to discover how well Mrs. Poyser
understands farming, especially dairy farming. _Lorna Doone_ is
another novel about farm people. A Scottish poet, Robert Burns, was
the son of a tenant farmer, and was himself a ploughman and a farmer.
He has written much that is exquisite about country life. Ask
someone to read aloud to you "The Cotter's Saturday Night", a
wonderful picture of family affection and good living. You may find
some of the words hard to understand. But whoever it is that reads
the poem aloud to you will likely find the difficult words explained
in a glossary. These are all English and Scottish writers. Hamlin
Garland has written a good deal about the life of an American farmer,
moving to new settlements, in his book called _A Son of the Middle
Border_. In Will Carleton's verse and James Whitcombe Riley's verse
we find songs and stories of farm life. Peter McArthur's books, _In
Pastures Green_, _The Red Cow and Her Friends_, and _Around Home_,
contain true, intimate, delightful pictures of farming in the older
provinces of Canada.
And so we see how interesting reading about occupations may be. In
the list that follows most of the books are biographies, lives of
sailors, soldiers, architects, teachers, clergymen, business men,
bankers, lawyers, actors, doctors, painters, craftsmen, journalists,
nurses, musicians, explorers, scientists, workmen. There are other
books, as well, about animals, and plants, nature and country walks,
flying, mountain climbing, inventions, {197} hobbies, and science,
about some of the many wonderful pursuits in which you are interested
already, or in which you will be interested soon.
If you look in the list for the name of some particular book and do
not find it, whether it is the name of a biography belonging to some
occupation, or of a book telling about some recreation of which you
want to learn, you may go to a library and ask for help in finding
the book. Or if you cannot go to the library, write to the librarian
and ask him to tell you.
Some day you may make a list of your own favourite books. No one
person needs to read all the books named here, but boys and girls may
choose from the list a few of the books they want to read. In the
case of birds, flowers, and the study of nature, each neighbourhood
or district of country needs to be classified according to its
latitude and longitude. Birds, flowers and plants vary according to
climate; look for their descriptions in books belonging to your own
district of country.
Life of Nelson Robert Southey
Sir John Franklin A. H. Markham
Life and Voyages of Washington Irving
Christopher Columbus
My Mystery Ships Gordon Campbell
There Go the Ships Archibald MacMechan
The Life of Marlborough Viscount Wolseley
James Wolfe, Man and Soldier W. T. Waugh
Life of Gordon Sir Wm. Francis Butler
(English Men of Action)
{198}
Life of Lord Kitchener Sir George Arthur
Personal Memoirs U. S. Grant
Lee the American Gamaliel Bradford
Life of St. Francis St. Bonaventura (Everymans)
Life of Dean Stanley R. E. Prothero
Life of Alexander White, G. F. Barber
D.D., of Free St.
George's Edinburgh
Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893 A. V. G. Allen
Margaret Ogilvy, by her son J. M. Barrie
Bonnet and Shawl Philip Guedalla
The Life of Florence Nightingale Sir E. T. Cook
Sister Dora M. Lonsdale
Life of Sophia Jex-Blake Margaret Todd, M.D.
Mary Slessor of Calabar W. P. Livingstone
In the House of My Pilgrimage Lilian Faithfull, J.P.
The Heart of Ellen Terry Ellen Terry
Louisa May Alcott, her Ednah D. Cheney
life, letters and journals
The Life of Alice Freeman Palmer G. H. Palmer
Life and Correspondence A. P. Stanley
of Thomas Arnold
Life of Charles W. Eliot E. H. Cotton
Life and Correspondence Ernest Hartley Coleridge
of Lord Coleridge
Richard Burdon Haldane,
An Autobiography
Reminiscences of Sir Ed. by Richard Harris
Henry Hawkins
Life of Joseph H. Choate E. S. Martin
{199}
A Memoir of Sir James Prof. J. Duns, D.D.
Young Simpson
Lord Lister Sir Rickman J. Godlee
Life of Sir William Osler H. W. Cushing
The Beloved Physician, Sir R. McNair Wilson
James MacKenzie
Pierre Curie Marie Curie
Life and Letters of Charles Francis Darwin
Robert Darwin
The Voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin (Everymans)
Life and Letters of Thomas Leonard Huxley
Henry Huxley
The Life of Louis Pasteur René Vallery-Radot
Autobiography Benjamin Franklin (Everymans)
From Immigrant to Inventor Michael I. Pupin
Alexander Graham Bell Catherine MacKenzie
Delane of The Times E. T. Cook
Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin R. Ogden
Abraham Lincoln Lord Charnwood
Our Inheritance Stanley Baldwin
Memoirs of Sir John Alexander Sir Joseph Pope
Macdonald
Sir Wilfrid Laurier and J. S. Willison
the Liberal Party
Self-Help Samuel Smiles
The Rise of the House of Count Corti
Rothschild
From Workhouse to Westminster, George Haw
The Life of Will Crooks.
Sir Christopher Wren Sir Lawrence Weaver
{200}
Life of Michelangelo J. A. Symonds
Buonarroti
Valasquez R. A. M. Stevenson
Life of Sir Edward Burne-Jones Lady Burne-Jones
Life of William Morris J. W. Mackail
William de Morgan and his Wife A. M. D. W. Stirling
Life of Purcell W. H. Cummings
Beethoven Romaine Holland
Life of Felix Mendelssohn W. A. Lampadius
Bartholdy
Life of Sir Henry Irving Austin Brereton
Empty Chairs Squire Bancroft
The Compleat Angler Isaak Walton (Everymans)
Natural History of Selborne Gilbert White (Everymans)
Walden H. D. Thoreau (Everymans)
Afoot in England W. H. Hudson
Rambles of a Canadian S. T. Wood
Naturalist
The Outline of Science J. Arthur Thomson
Scenery of Scotland Sir Archibald Geikie
Elementary Geology A. P. Coleman
Introduction to Geology W. B. Scott
Stories of Starland Mary Procter
Astronomy for Amateurs C. Flammarion
Conquest of the Air C. L. M. Brown
14,000 Miles Through the Air Sir Ross MacPherson Smith
Winged Warfare Col. W. A. Bishop, V.C.
The Ascent of Mount Everest Sir Francis Younghusband
{201}
The Canadian Rockies A. P. Coleman
Handbook of Birds of Frank M. Chapman
Eastern North America
Field Book of American F. Schuyler Mathews
Wild Flowers
Garden Cities of Tomorrow E. Howard
A Book About Roses Dean Hole
The Little Garden Mrs. Francis King
The Canadian Garden Mrs. Annie L. Jack
The Boys' Own Book of Morley Adams
Pets and Hobbies
Models to Make A. Duncan Stubbs
Model Airplanes Elmer Adam
Health, Strength and Happiness C. W. Saleeby
{202}
CHAPTER XXIX
TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY
Marco Polo, a famous traveller, was born in the City of Venice in
1254, eleven years before the birth of Dante. Dante belonged to
Florence: so Marco Polo and Dante both were Italians. Marco Polo's
father and uncle were trading merchants. They travelled by ship and
overland to sell their goods, and they were probably among the first
Europeans to visit the kingdom of China, even yet a mysterious,
strange part of the world to us. When Marco was seventeen years old,
his father and uncle took him with them on one of their expeditions.
He was away from Italy twenty-six years. In that time, he saw many
marvels, became a favourite of the great emperor Kublai Khan, and had
more astonishing adventures, almost, than we can imagine. He came
back safely to Italy, but was thrown into prison in Genoa; you
remember that these cities of what is now Italy were often at war
with one another. When Marco Polo was in prison, he told some of his
adventures to a fellow-prisoner, and this man induced Marco Polo to
write a book. Polo dictated what he wished to say, and Rustician
wrote it down.
Marco Polo's book, _The Travels of Marco Polo_, has had a
considerable effect on the history of the world. Columbus used to
read it, and often quoted {203} what Marco Polo said. It is likely,
almost certain, that Polo's example and success helped to inspire
Columbus to make his great voyage to the Western hemisphere.
We can judge how interesting and delightful Marco Polo's book is from
a brief extract which contains the description of a hill that the
Emperor Kublai Khan had had made and planted with trees:
"Moreover, on the north side of the Palace, about a bow-shot off,
there is a hill which has been made by art from the earth dug out of
the lake; it is a good hundred paces in height and a mile in compass.
This hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their
leaves, but remain ever green. And I assure you that wherever a
beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor gets news of it, he sends
for it and has it transported bodily with all its roots and the earth
attached to them, and planted on that hill of his. No matter how big
the tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants; and in this way
he has got together the most beautiful collection of trees in all the
world. And he has also caused the whole hill to be covered with the
ore of azure, which is very green. And thus not only are the trees
all green, but the hill itself is all green likewise; and there is
nothing to be seen on it that is not green."
Cook's _Voyages_ is another famous book of exploration. James Cook
was born in 1728 and was the son of a farm labourer. As a boy, he
was apprenticed first to a shopkeeper, then to a shipowner. He
entered the King's service in 1755. The accounts of his voyages, or
explorations, to {204} the North and West, South and East, in the
days when comparatively little was known of the seas in which he
sailed, are as interesting and exciting as a story. His first
expedition South was to observe the transit of Venus, when he was in
command of the _Endeavour_. On this expedition he visited New
Zealand and Australia. His next voyage, when he also visited the
Pacific, was with the _Resolution_ and the _Adventure_. On his
second expedition he discovered the Sandwich Islands. He sailed for
nearly four thousand miles along the western coast of North America,
searching for a north-west passage, on his third expedition. His
ships were the _Resolution_ and the _Discovery_. The _Discovery_ is
perhaps the best known ship in which Cook sailed. The purpose of all
his expeditions was largely scientific. On his last voyage, Cook
lost his life. It has been said that his best memorial is the map of
the Pacific.
Captain Cook wrote in a very simple, natural style. Here is a
description of some of the people he saw, on the way to the place
which he named Poverty Bay. We can almost imagine that we might have
been on the ship with Captain Cook, or venturing ashore, not at all
certain what the unknown inhabitants of unknown islands might not do
to us. The paragraph is taken from the account of his first
expedition:
"In the evening, the weather having become fair and moderate, the
boats were again ordered out, and I landed, accompanied by Mr. Banks
and Dr. Solander. We were received with great expressions of
friendship by the natives, who behaved with a scrupulous attention
not to give {205} offence. In particular, they took care not to
appear in great bodies: one family, or the inhabitants of two or
three houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of
fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children. These
little companies sat upon the ground, not advancing towards us, but
inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the
breast. We made them several little presents; and in our walk round
the bay found two small streams of fresh water. This convenience,
and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay at
least a day, that I might fill some of my empty casks, and give Mr.
Banks an opportunity of examining the natural produce of the country."
Captain Cook and his people were often in danger from the anger of
the strange tribes they met, but we can have only admiration for the
gentle behaviour of the people whose home Cook visited on this
occasion, as described in his account of the expedition. There are
many dramatic scenes in Cook's _Voyages_. Captain Cook was not only
brave, he had extraordinary perseverance.
Many of us find stories of travels, discoveries and explorations
among the most interesting books in the world. We travel, too, with
the great explorers, by means of these books, and have a share in
their dangers, escapes, and discoveries. Explorers are always
courageous, and often men of noble character. A few women have been
noted explorers, but only a few, partly because travelling alone and
in danger, is more difficult for a woman than for a man. Miss Mary
Kingsley is {206} one of these notable exceptions. Here are the
names of a few books of travel and discovery, old and new: _How I
Found Livingstone in Central Africa_, by Henry M. Stanley; Sir
Richard Burton's _Pilgrimage to Mecca_; _Travels in West Africa_, by
Mary H. Kingsley; the _Journals_ of Captain R. F. Scott, the explorer
who reached the South Pole to find that the Danes, led by Amundsen,
had been a few days before him, the account is often called _Scott's
Last Expedition_, a very noble book; and a fascinating volume by T.
E. Lawrence, _Revolt in the Desert_. The discoverer of the
Mississippi was La Salle. We may read of him in Parkman. Two books
of early travels in Canada are Sir Alexander Mackenzie's _Voyages
from Montreal Through the Continent of North America_, and Alexander
Henry's _Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_.
{207}
PART VII
ESSAYS, CRITICISMS, LETTERS, DIARIES
{209}
CHAPTER XXX
CHARLES LAMB AND HAZLITT: ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS
Charles Lamb is a friend of yours whom you may not know yet; but,
when you meet him, you will soon find yourself thinking of Charles
Lamb as a friend. He is one of the rare persons who attract and
deserve everybody's love. Charles Lamb lived all his life in London,
where he was born; he went to a famous school, often called the
Bluecoat School, because the boys were dressed after that fashion.
His first home was in the Temple. "I was born and passed the first
seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its
gardens, its fountain, its river, I had almost said--for in those
young years what was this king of rivers to me but a stream that
watered our pleasant places?--these are my oldest recollections."
When he grew up he entered the service of the East India Company and
worked there as a clerk all his working life. The offices belonging
to the East India Company were known as the South Sea House. People
think of this building with interest and affection, because Charles
Lamb worked in it. Besides being a clerk, he wrote in his leisure
time a series of papers, or essays, which deal with many different
subjects in a whimsical, gentle, beautiful style. The manner {210}
of writing which Lamb used expressed his nature and abilities
perfectly. His work is full of sweet laughter, great penetration,
unselfishness, and nobility. No wonder we love Charles Lamb. The
essays are known as _The Essays of Elia_. Lamb is supposed to have
taken Elia as a pen name from the name of a fellow-clerk in the South
Sea House.
Only one sister and one brother out of a rather large family grew up
to maturity with Charles Lamb. This sister, whose name was Mary,
suffered often from a serious illness, and her brother Charles
devoted himself to her care. Mary Lamb also was gifted and lovable.
Neither of them married. Charles and Mary Lamb wrote together a book
for young people, called _Tales from Shakespeare_.
The history of the attachment between this brother and sister is one
of the most beautiful stories we know of family affection. Charles
was a gay, happy person, chivalrous and tender-hearted. He loved
jokes, but there were sad happenings in his life which he met with
great courage. He stammered a little, but he was excellent company,
and gathered about him many friends, themselves men of genius, such
men as Coleridge and Wordsworth, both great poets; Hazlitt, who was a
writer and critic; Crabb Robinson, Procter and Talfourd, whose tastes
were the same as his own. Charles Lamb lived from 1775 to 1834. A
great deal has been written about him; two especially delightful
biographies of Lamb are those written by Canon Ainger and by Mr. E.
V. Lucas. {211} One or other of these you should read when you have
time.
But, first of all, there are his essays. You will soon discover that
you have favourites among these essays. It is likely that you will
find much to your liking "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years
Ago"---this is written about his old school--"Mrs. Battle's Opinions
on Whist", "Mackery End, in Hertfordshire", "The Old Benchers of The
Inner Temple", "Blakesmoor in H--shire", but above all "A
Dissertation Upon Roast Pig", and "Dream Children". You will enjoy
almost any of Lamb's essays read aloud by someone who reads well.
But begin by reading "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" yourself, if you
cannot find someone who will read it to you. In this essay Charles
Lamb is, of course, writing humorously, such amusing, whimsical
humour. It tells how a small Chinese boy, Bo-bo, discovered by
accident that roasted meat tastes a great deal better than meat which
has not been cooked at all.
Essays, or papers, are short articles which deal with one subject
only. They often, but not always, by reason of their style, tell us
a great deal about the nature of the man or woman who has written the
essay. No one can read Lamb's essays without learning that the
writer was lovable, tender-hearted and upright.
Another famous essayist is Francis Bacon, a very able man who lived
as long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His essays are famous;
they are not as much concerned with the study of human nature as the
essays of Charles Lamb, but are compact with learning, observation
and {212} thought. One of his best known and most likable essays is
"On Gardens".
Other famous essayists are: Addison, whose Sir Roger de Coverley you
may know already; Steele; Swift; a great Frenchman, Montaigne, who
lived in the sixteenth century and whose essays people generally read
with pleasure when they are middle-aged or older; and Robert Louis
Stevenson, who wrote _Treasure Island_. Many of his essays are
especially beautiful; read "The Lantern-Bearers" when you have an
opportunity.
Essays, and books, often contain what is called criticism. Criticism
is an explanation, an appreciation, sometimes an analysis, of what
has been written in poetry, verse, fiction, history, biography, and
other published work; criticism deals as well with art and music.
But we can understand better what criticism is if we read one or two
extracts which have been written by critics. Two of Lamb's friends,
Coleridge and Hazlitt, were famous critics. Lamb himself was one of
the most discerning among English critics. He did not always care
for work which was really great, but when he did care for a great
piece of work, no one had more perfect understanding than Charles
Lamb.
What follows is part of a paragraph written by Coleridge, a poet, of
Shakespeare and Milton. We feel an enthusiasm in what Coleridge has
written which makes our own hearts glow. This feeling of elevation
and happiness, given to us through reading, is one of the tests of
great work.
"What then shall we say? even this; that {213} Shakespeare, no mere
child of nature; no _automaton_ of genius; no passive vehicle of
inspiration, possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first
studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till
knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his
habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power,
by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class;
to that power which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten
summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not
rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the
forms of human character and passion...; the other attracts all forms
and things to himself, into the unity of his own ideal. All things
and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton;
while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining
himself." Some of this we can understand. Shakespeare and Milton
both had great genius. But Shakespeare understood all kinds of human
beings and showed them as they really were. Milton changed what he
wrote about to be like himself. What Shakespeare did, of course, is
the greater work of the two.
It is pleasant to read what the critic William Hazlitt wrote in
praise of the essays of his friend Charles Lamb, not for friendship's
sake merely, but because he loved and valued the essays. Notice,
while Hazlitt seems to write easily and simply, he succeeds in
explaining to us at the same time the charm and lasting quality of
Charles Lamb as a writer. It is a fine, brief example of one kind of
criticism and of the work of a critic.
{214}
"With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the inns and courts of law, the
Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last
two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with the person of
Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings! ... He
(Lamb) haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; ... and
Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his
description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination
for Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily
forgave a certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his
hands. The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with
wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance, as it did
to the eager eye of childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest
traditions into a bright and endless romance!" The quotation from
Coleridge is taken from his _Biographia Literaria_, and Hazlitt's
writing from his book called _The Spirit of the Age and Lectures on
English poets_.
Other famous or eminent critics whose writings you may read some day
are: Matthew Arnold, a poet as well as critic, whose father was the
Dr. Arnold of Engby School that you have read about in _Tom Brown's
School Days_; a Frenchman, Sainte-Beuve, one of the clearest, and
most delightful of critical writers; another Frenchman, H. A. Taine;
and a Dane, Georg Brandes, a learned writer, who was one of the first
to show how close the connection is between one literature and
another, especially in European literatures.
{215}
CHAPTER XXXI
LETTERS AND LETTER WRITERS: PEPYS AND OTHER DIARISTS
Cowper, the poet, who wrote _John Gilpin_, is a delightful letter
writer. He had a number of pets living with him, and these little
friends of his, goldfinches, pigeons, a cat and a kitten, often make
their appearance in Cowper's letters to his correspondents. Part of
one of his letters contains a description of the kitten.
"I have a kitten, the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a
cat's skin. Her gambols are not to be described, and would be
incredible, if they could. In point of size she is likely to be a
kitten always, being extremely small of her age, but time, I suppose,
that spoils everything, will make her also a cat. You will see her,
I hope, before that melancholy period shall arrive, for no wisdom
that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will
compensate the loss of her present hilarity. She is dressed in a
tortoise-shell suit, and I know that you will delight in her."
Sometimes Cowper used to write his letters in rhyme. The paragraph
that follows will make anyone who reads it feel like dancing:
"I have heard before of a room with a floor laid upon springs, and
such like things, with so {216} much art in every part, that when you
went in you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a
grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a
figure of eight, without pipe, or string, or anything such thing; and
now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as
you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing
away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penn'd,
which that you may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out with
jigging about I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound,
down to the ground, from your humble me--W.C."
It is surprising to learn how many books contain interesting letters,
letters which are gay, amusing, witty, touching, affectionate, wise,
and very skilfully written. Some of the most famous letter writers
you will know already from their books. Others are famous wholly on
account of their letters. One of the latter is Madam de Sévigné, a
charming, gifted Frenchwoman who lived in France as long ago as the
seventeenth century. When her daughter married and left home, Madame
de Sévigné, who was a devoted mother, used to write gay, fascinating
letters to the child she loved. She told of the happenings at court,
or intrigues and politics, and of everyday, domestic affairs. In
this way, it has come about that although in her lifetime Madame de
Sévigné's letters were comparatively little known, all the years
since then her reputation for wit, wisdom and charm has been growing,
until to-day the Marquise de Sévigné is regarded as one of the most
brilliant and perfect letter writers, possibly the {217} most skilful
and delightful letter writer that the world knows.
The following is part of one of her letters, translated from the
French, which tells of the despair of a cook who could not get
sufficient of what he considered proper food to serve to the King and
his following, who were the guests of his master.
"I meant to tell you that the King arrived at Chantilly last evening.
He hunted the stag by moonlight, the lanterns were very brilliant;
and altogether the evening, the supper, the play,--all went off
marvellously well.....
"The King arrived on Thursday evening, the promenade, the
collation,--served on a lawn carpeted with jonquils--all was perfect.
At supper there were a few tables where the roast was wanting, on
account of some guests whose arrival had not been expected. This
mortified Vatel, who said several times, 'My honour is gone: I can
never survive this shame.' He also said to Gourville, 'My head
swims. I have not slept for twelve nights. Help me give the
orders.' Gourville encouraged him as well as he could.... Gourville
told M. le Prince, who went immediately to Vatel's room, and said to
him, 'Vatel, everything is going on well. Nothing could be finer
than the King's supper.' He replied, 'My lord, your goodness
overwhelms me. I know that the roast was missing at two tables.'
'Not at all,' said M. le Prince. 'Don't disturb yourself: everything
is going on well.' Midnight came; the fireworks, which cost sixteen
thousand francs, did not succeed, on account of the fog. At four
o'clock in {218} the morning, Vatel, going through the chateau, found
every one asleep. He met a young steward, who had brought only two
hampers of fish: he asked, 'Is that all?'--'Yes, Sir.' The lad did
not know that Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waited some
time; the other purveyors did not arrive: his brain reeled; he
believed no more fish could be had: and finding Gourville, he said,
'My dear sir, I shall never survive this disgrace....'"
The names of a number of English letter writers, whose letters most
people find delightful, are: Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary
Wortley-Montagu, Thomas Gray, Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats, Jane Welsh
Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, Frances Anne Kemble, William Makepeace
Thackeray, Charles Dickens, the Brownings, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
We feel about journals and diaries in much the same way as we do
about letters. Such writings admit us to the intimate companionship
of those whose words we read. Journals and diaries, indeed, are more
intimate than letters. There are a number of remarkable English
diarists:--John Evelyn, Fanny Burney, Charles Greville, Benjamin
Haydon, Lord Shaftesbury and Thomas Moore, but the most famous of all
is Samuel Pepys. Pepys was an official at the Admiralty. He was
born in 1632 and died in 1703. During his lifetime, he was a much
respected man, a good official, interested to a certain extent in
art, music and writing. But he scarcely would be remembered to-day
if he had not kept a diary in which {219} he wrote every day for a
number of years. He wrote his diary in shorthand, a kind of cipher,
and what he wrote filled six volumes. These books are now kept in
Magdalene College, Oxford, in the Pepysian Library. They lay
unnoticed at Magdalene for more than a hundred years. Then part of
the diary was deciphered, written out in longhand, and published in
1825. The complete edition of Pepys, by H. B Wheatley, was not
published until 1899. And so the world has come to know Samuel Pepys
from his diaries as well as it is possible to know anyone.
When Pepys sat down to write in his diary at night he told all the
little things he did, what he thought and how he felt. It does not
seem likely that he expected what he had written ever to be read by
anyone, but wrote only for the pleasure of going over the day's
events. We come so close to Samuel Pepys when we read his diary that
he seems almost to be living in the pages that we touch with our
fingers.
Pepys was fond of fine foods and wine, and enjoyed giving dinners and
entertaining. But sometimes the entry in the diary contains no more
than an account of an expedition like the following: ... "took coach,
it being about seven at night, and passed and saw the people walking
with their wives and children to take the ayre, and we set out for
home, the sun by and by going down, and we in the cool of the evening
all the way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasing ourselves
with the pleasure of this day's work.... Anon it grew dark, and as
it grew dark we had the pleasure to see several glow-worms which was
{220} mighty pretty." This was on the way home from Epsom Downs,
Sunday, July 14, 1667.
One of the most lovable diaries is Sir Walter Scott's _Journal_. He
wrote it, like Pepys, for his own pleasure. In the Journal we may
enjoy the companionship of Sir Walter, who is so simple, unaffected
and good that old and young will find themselves all equally welcome.
There is one book that should be kept nearby for reference, so that
we may use it when we need help with words. This book, as you have
guessed, is a dictionary. The use of a dictionary which you will
think of first, is for correct spelling. To find out how to spell a
word correctly is a good use to which to put a dictionary. But it is
by no means the only help that a dictionary can give us. Perhaps you
are fond of words, which may be beautiful, amusing, curious,
interesting, startling, exquisitely appropriate, and by means of
which we are able to express the finest shades of meaning. If you do
care for words, then in a little spare time, let us turn to a
dictionary; any page of a dictionary will do. Read what is printed
on the page concerning four or five English words.
Notice carefully the different meanings for the same word. Above
all, read with attention the quotations which illustrate how these
words may be used. Standard and classic writers are the most helpful
teachers when we wish to learn how to use words. The English tongue
is a noble language; it is one of our greatest possessions. To use
it correctly, skilfully, and with grace, is something that we can
learn. Other books which will {221} help us, besides a well-chosen
dictionary of the English language, are dictionaries of synonyms, and
such a book as Mr. H. W. Fowler's _Dictionary of Modern English
Usage_, a recent publication by a scholar whose work is not only
learned, but delightfully interesting and helpful because of its keen
wit and enthusiasm.
{223}
PART VIII
POETRY
{225}
CHAPTER XXXII
POETRY AND BEAUTY
Let us gather in this chapter a few of the most beautiful lines in
poetry.
The youngest of the great English poets is John Keats. When he was
little more than a boy, early in the nineteenth century, he wrote
poetry. One of his poems is called "Ode to a Nightingale". Keats
had been listening to the voice of the bird, which sings at night a
song considered more beautiful than that of any other bird, and he
began to imagine how often the nightingale had sung to people who
lived long ago, and how often in far away, beautiful lands. As he
thought, he could see these other lands, where people lived in faery
palaces, with open windows looking on the sea. Keats' words, which
we can read to-day, keep the song of the bird, and the picture of the
countries where it sang, in perfect beauty.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
{226}
Wordsworth, whose poetry at times may seem dull and uninspired, again
and again has the power to write lines which have a beauty that is
inexplicable.
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
. . . . .
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
. . . . .
Hence, in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
These lines are taken from Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of
Immortality". In another poem he describes a great mountain, Mont
Blanc, which is snow-capped, so high that the sun when it rises
shines on the mountain's summit long before the sun's rays reach the
country below. One line of seven words tells us how at night the
mountain peak seems to be in the company of the moving stars:--
"Visited all night by troops of stars."
Shakespeare has many of these magic lines, but one which seems to
have come from nowhere, and for which Shakespeare offers no
explanation is:
"Child Rowland to the dark tower came."
{227}
We ask ourselves who Child Rowland was, and where was the dark tower.
Then, perhaps, we begin to weave a story about Child Rowland and the
tower, for poetry often stirs in us something which makes us think
and feel more intensely, and awakens in us the desire to create
beauty ourselves.
It was Thomas Nash, a poet living at the same time as Shakespeare,
who wrote in his poem "In Time of Pestilence", lines which many other
poets agree are among the most enthralling and beautiful ever
written,--
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye;
George Meredith, the novelist, who also was a poet, in his "Love in
the Valley" has magical lines.
Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
Robert Louis Stevenson told the Irish poet, Mr. Yeats, that when he
first read "Love in the Valley" he went about the country where he
was shouting the lines for joy in them.
And so we finally understand that this power of creating strange
beauty which stirs and thrills us all may come to any poet, sometimes
to great poets, sometimes to poets not so great. Shakespeare and
Nash had it, Keats and Wordsworth, Meredith who belongs almost to our
own times, and a young poet of a later time even than {228} Meredith,
James Elroy Flecker, in whose play _Hassan_, are many beautiful
songs. The last song is "The Golden Road to Samarkand".
We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men are born: but surely we are brave,
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
. . . . . . . .
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
Coleridge, the Samuel Taylor Coleridge who was Charles Lamb's friend,
wrote a story, a ballad, following the fashion of the old ballads,
which he called "The Ancient Mariner". You probably know this poem
already. But if you do not, find time to read it; or, possibly,
someone may read parts of it to you. "The Ancient Mariner" is a
story of the sea, of wanderings, of shipwreck, of strange sights, of
learning that we must love every thing, not only men and women, but
birds and beasts, and then of the glad returning to the place which
was the sailor's home:
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
. . . . . . . .
The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
{229}
The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside--
. . . . . . . .
O dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
No matter how familiar such lines may become, we should never forget
to realize their beauty.
Ben Jonson, who lived in the seventeenth century, wrote, with other
poems, a lyric, wise as well as beautiful, in which we may find
life-long companionship.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.
No one can change these lines and express the same idea as perfectly
as Jonson has given it to us. For great poetry has some magic power
by which it conveys to us truth and beauty which we are not able to
discover for ourselves.
{230}
CHAPTER XXXIII
POETRY AND TIME
It is good to know the names of the great English poets and the order
of time in which they come; we may write out such a list for
ourselves if we hope to enjoy poetry. Many of you will find no
difficulty in learning by heart the names of the poets, or in
remembering the centuries to which they belong. The question mark
after the first date in the case of Chaucer and Spenser means that
there is no exact record of the year in which either of these poets
was born.
Chaucer 1340 ? -- 1400
Spenser, 1552 ? -- 1599
Shakespeare, 1564 -- 1616
Milton, 1608 -- 1674
Dryden, 1631 -- 1700
Pope, 1688 -- 1744
Wordsworth, 1770 -- 1850
Coleridge, 1772 -- 1834
Byron, 1788 -- 1824
Shelley, 1792 -- 1822
Keats, 1795 -- 1821
Tennyson, 1809 -- 1892
Browning, 1812 -- 1889
We do not enjoy the work of all these poets equally; in any case,
boys and girls, men and {231} women, have individual preferences.
Some people find greater enjoyment in the work of Byron than in the
work, let us suppose, of Tennyson. Others greatly prefer Tennyson to
Browning; and again these may not care for Byron. But many people
find delight in reading Browning's poetry. Still, we should remember
that all these writers are great poets, and that each has had power
over his own generation and other generations as well.
Chaucer, as you know, is difficult to read because he lived so many
hundreds of years ago, and the English language has changed
considerably since the time when he wrote poetry. The same may be
said of Spenser, although in a less degree. Dryden and Pope helped
to perfect the style of English poetry, and this, possibly, is their
outstanding claim to greatness.
It may help us to know and enjoy poetry if we choose one or two of
the poems written by these great poets.