than the great Homeric story. The main features in the character of
Achilles are its intense desire of justice and its tenderness of
affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided
continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of
justice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most
unjust of men; and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes
yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike in
love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his friend;
for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his own
land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay down
his life for his friend? Yea, even for his _dead_ friend, this Achilles,
though goddess-born and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country,
and his life--casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into one
gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of his
adversaries.
Is not this a mystery of life?
But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of
hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered
over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than the Heathen's--is
his hope more near--his trust more sure--his reading of fate more happy?
Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in this--that he
recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that, by petty
chance--by momentary folly--by broken message--by fool's tyranny--or
traitor's snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their
ruin, and perish without word of hope. He indeed, as part of his
rendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual
devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine is bright
with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by his few
dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike by many or
by few. But observe that from those who with deepest spirit meditate, and
with deepest passion mourn, there are no such words as these; nor in their
hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the
helpful presence of the Deity, which through all heathen tradition is the
source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the
shadow of death, we find only, in the great Christian poet, the
consciousness of a moral law, through which "the gods are just, and of our
pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us"; and of the resolved
arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into precision of doom what we
feebly and blindly began; and force us, when our indiscretion serves us,
and our deepest plots do pall, to the confession that "there's a divinity
that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will."
Is not this a mystery of life?
Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, or that is, the wise
religious men tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise
contemplative men, nothing that can give us peace. But there is yet a
third class to whom we may turn--the wise practical men. We have sat at
the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their
dreams. We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have
chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of men
more--men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of
purpose; practised in business; learned in all that can be (by handling)
known. Men whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world; from
whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present,
conveniently to live in it. What will _they_ say to us, or show us by
example? These kings--these councilors--these statesmen and builders of
kingdoms--these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and
the dust of it, in a balance. They know the world, surely; and what is the
mystery of life to us is none to them. They can surely show us how to
live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is best.
I think I can best tell you their answer by telling you a dream I had
once. For though I am no poet, I have dreams sometimes. I dreamed I was at
a child's May-day party, in which every means of entertainment had been
provided for them by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately house, with
beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free in
the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their
afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed, know much about what was to
happen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little frightened,
because there was a chance of their being sent to a new school, where
there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their
heads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The house,
I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all kinds of
flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for play; and
pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the
children were happy for a little while; but presently they separated
themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a
piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have
anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which
pieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys
should do, "practically," and fought in the flower-beds till there was
hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other's bits
of the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no
more; and so they all lay down at last, breathless, in the ruin, and
waited for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening.[10]
Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy also
in their manner. For them there had been provided every kind of indoor
pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library was open,
with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full of the most
curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a workshop, with
lathes and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys; and there were
pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there were
microscopes, and kaleidoscopes, and whatever toys a child could fancy; and
a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat.
But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more
"practical" children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails
that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out.
Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a
fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly,
were spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails. With all
that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then, everybody
wanted some of somebody else's. And at last, the really practical and
sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real consequence, that
afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails; and that the books,
and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at all in themselves,
but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads. And at last they
began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for the bits of
garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, and
tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise; but
all the practical ones thought of nothing else but counting nail-heads all
the afternoon, even though they knew they would not be allowed to carry so
much as one brass knob away with them. But no--it was, "Who has most
nails? I have a hundred, and you have fifty"; or, "I have a thousand, and
you have two. I must have as many as you before I leave the house, or I
cannot possibly go home in peace." At last, they made so much noise that I
awoke, and thought to myself, "What a false dream that is, of _children_!"
The child is the father of the man; and wiser. Children never do such
foolish things. Only men do.
But there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated. The wise
religious men we have asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain;
the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is another group yet. In the
midst of this vanity of empty religion, of tragic contemplation, of
wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one
great group of persons, by whom all these disputers live--the persons who
have determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence determined for
them, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be prepared
for them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve
the food that God gives them by winning it honorably: and that, however
fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry
out the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and
dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the
garden.
These--hewers of wood and drawers of water; these--bent under burdens, or
torn of scourges; these--that dig and weave that plant and build; workers
in wood, and in marble, and in iron--by whom all food, clothing,
habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves,
and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may
be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and
worthy of honor, be they never so humble--from these surely, at least, we
may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an instant,
into the mystery of life, and of its arts.
Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But I grieve to say,--or
rather, for that is the deeper truth of the matter, I rejoice to
say,--this message of theirs can only be received by joining them, not by
thinking about them.
You sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming.
But the main thing I have to tell you is, that art must not be talked
about. The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is
ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, or ever has
spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is no
exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, and was
utterly silent respecting all that he himself did.
The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it.
All words become idle to him--all theories. Does a bird need to theorize
about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is
essentially done that way--without hesitation, without difficulty, without
boasting; and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary
power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal--nay, I
am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does _not_
supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than
that of the lower animals; as the human body is more beautiful than
theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct than the
nightingale, but with more--only more various, applicable, and governable;
that a great architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver
or the bee, but with more--with an innate cunning of proportion that
embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all
construction.
* * * * *
And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labors of
life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their
lessons--that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the
work of the people who _feel themselves wrong_; who are striving for the
fulfillment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not
yet attained, which they feel even further and further from attaining, the
more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work of
people who know also that they are right. The very sense of inevitable
error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the
continued sense of failure arises from the continued opening of the eyes
more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth.
This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and greatly precious one:
namely--that, whenever the arts and labors of life are fulfilled in this
spirit of striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have to do
honorably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as seems
possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that happiness
is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction: for ambition and for
passion there is no rest--no fruition; the fairest pleasures of youth
perish in a darkness greater than their past light: and the loftiest and
purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire
of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of
human industry, that industry, worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the
laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient,
delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in
bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these,
who are true workmen, will ever tell you that they have found the law of
heaven an unkind one--that in the sweat of their face they should eat
bread, till they return to the ground; nor that they ever found it an
unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the
command, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do--do it with thy might."
These are the two great and constant lessons which our laborers teach us
of the mystery of life. But there is another, and a sadder one, which they
cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones.
"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads upon myriads of human
creatures who have obeyed this law,--who have put every breath and nerve
of their being into its toil,--who have devoted every hour, and exhausted
every faculty,--who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at
death,--who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and
strength of example. And, at last, what has all this "Might" of humanity
accomplished, in six thousand years of labor and sorrow? What has it
_done_? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one, and
count their achievements. Begin with the first,--the lord of them
all,--Agriculture. Six thousand years have passed since we were set to
till the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is tilled? How
much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief garden
of Europe,--where the two forms of parent Christianity have had their
fortresses,--where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the
noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless
ages, their faiths and liberties,--there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet
run wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could
redeem with a year's labor, still blast their helpless inhabitants into
fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe! While, on the near
coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a
few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures
of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not find a few
grains of rice for a people that asked of us no more; but stood by, and
saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger.
Then after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human
arts--Weaving; the art of queens, honored of all Heathen women, in the
person of their virgin goddess--honored of all Hebrew women, by the word
of their wisest king--"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands
hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not
afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed
with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her clothing is
silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth
girdles to the merchant." What have we done in all these thousands of
years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian matron? Six
thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave? Might not every
naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every feeble breast fenced
with sweet colors from the cold? What have we done? Our fingers are too
few, it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set
our streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn our
spinning-wheels--and--_are we yet clothed_? Are not the streets of the
capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not
the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while,
with better honor, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and
the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter's snow robe
what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every
winter's wind bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against you
hereafter, by the voice of their Christ,--"I was naked, and ye clothed me
not"?
Lastly--take the Art of Building--the strongest--proudest--most
orderly--most enduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in
the surest manner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced; but
if once well done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced
rocks--more prevalently than the crumbling hills. The art which is
associated with all civic pride and sacred principle; with which men
record their power--satisfy their enthusiasm--make sure their
defence--define and make dear their habitation. And in six thousand years
of building, what have we done? Of the greater part of all that skill and
strength, _no_ vestige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the
fields and impede the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of
time, and of rage, what _is_ left to us? Constructive and progressive
creatures that we are, with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of
fellowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with
the insects of the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea?
The white surf rages in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of
scarcely nascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places
where once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth have cells
for each of their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in
homes that consume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners
of our streets, rises up the cry of the homeless: "I was a stranger, and
ye took me not in."
Must it be always thus? Is our life forever to be without profit--without
possession? Shall the strength of its generations be as barren as death;
or cast away their labor, as the wild fig tree casts her untimely figs? Is
it all a dream then--the desire of the eyes and the pride of life--or, if
it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and
prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing
about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They
have had--they also--their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have
dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and
good-will; they have dreamed of labor undisappointed, and of rest
undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in
store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of providence in law;
of gladness of parents, and strength of children, and glory of gray hairs.
And at these visions of theirs we have mocked, and held them for idle and
vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What have we accomplished with our
realities? Is this what has come of our worldly wisdom, tried against
their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against their impotent ideal?
or, have we only wandered among the spectra of a baser felicity, and
chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions of the Almighty; and
walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts, instead of after the
counsels of Eternity, until our lives--not in the likeness of the cloud of
heaven, but of the smoke of hell--have become "as a vapor, that appeareth
for a little time, and then vanisheth away"?
_Does_ it vanish, then? Are you sure of that?--sure that the nothingness
of the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the
coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the
smoke of the torment that ascends forever? Will any answer that they _are_
sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labor,
whither they go? Be it so: will you not, then, make as sure of the Life
that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come? Your hearts are
wholly in this world--will you not give them to it wisely, as well as
perfectly? And see, first of all, that you _have_ hearts, and sound
hearts, too, to give. Because you have no heaven to look for, is that any
reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite
earth, which is firmly and instantly given you in possession? Although
your days are numbered, and the following darkness sure, is it necessary
that you should share the degradation of the brute, because you are
condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the worm,
because you are to companion them in the dust? Not so; we may have but a
few thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only--perhaps tens; nay,
the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a moment,
as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are living
spirits, not passing clouds. "He maketh the winds His messengers; the
momentary fire, His minister"; and shall we do less than _these_? Let us
do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we snatch our
narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow inheritance
of passion out of Immortality--even though our lives _be_ as a vapor, that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
But there are some of you who believe not this--who think this cloud of
life has no such close--that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon
the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every eye
shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or twenty
years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books opened.
If that be true, far more than that must be true. Is there but one day of
judgment? Why, for us every day is a day of judgment--every day is a Dies
Irae, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its west. Think
you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It waits
at the doors of your houses--it waits at the corners of your streets; we
are in the midst of judgment--the insects that we crush are our
judges--the moments we fret away are our judges--the elements that feed
us, judge, as they minister--and the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as
they indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the
form of them, if indeed those lives are _Not_ as a vapor, and do _Not_
vanish away.
"The work of men"--and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very
quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us
are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we
are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is
a mortal one--we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually
talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the
_weight_ of it--as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to
be--crucified upon. "They that are His have crucified the flesh, with the
affections and lusts." Does that mean, think you, that in time of national
distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of
humanity--none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put
themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off
their footman's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that
they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds--yes, and life, if
need be? Life!--some of us are ready enough to throw that away, joyless as
we have made it. But "_station_ in Life,"--how many of us are ready to
quit _that_? Is it not always the great objection, where there is question
of finding something useful to do--"We cannot leave our stations in Life"?
Those of us who really cannot--that is to say, who can only maintain
themselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have already
something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that they do it
honestly and with all their might. But with most people who use that
apology, "remaining in the station of life to which Providence has called
them" means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and large
houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if ever
Providence _did_ put them into stations of that sort,--which is not at all
a matter of certainty,--Providence is just now very distinctly calling
them out again. Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and
Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High
Priest--which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.