CHAPTER VI

THE POETRY OF GEORGE MEREDITH

At the present time (1900) scarcely any English poet is more in vogue

than George Meredith. His popularity is comparatively new, but it is

founded upon solid excellence of a very extraordinary kind. George

Meredith is an exception to general rules--even to the rule that a

great poet is scarcely ever a great prose writer; for he was known

to the public as a novelist for half a century before he began to be

known as a poet. To-day he is so often quoted from, so often referred

to, that we cannot ignore him in the course of lectures upon English

literature.

He is now nearly seventy-two years old, having been born in 1828.

He studied mostly in Germany, and studied law, but he had scarcely

left his university when he resolved to abandon law and devote his

life to literature. Returning to England he published his first book,

a volume of poems, in 1851. It attracted no notice at all. In 1856

his next book appeared, called "The Shaving of Shagpat," a wonderful

fairy-tale, written in imitation of the Arabian Nights with Arabian

characters and scenery. It remains the best thing of the kind ever

done by any European writer, but the kind was not popular, and only

a few of the great poets and critics noticed what a wonderful book

it was. After that Meredith took up novel writing, studying English

life and character in an entirely new way. But he was not at first

able to attract much attention. His novels were too scholarly and too

psychological. Ten years from the date of his first volume of poems,

in 1862, he published another book of verses, entitled "Modern Love."

This attracted the notice of Swinburne, but of scarcely anybody else,

and Meredith went back to novel writing. Twenty years later, in 1883, a

third volume of poems appeared, "Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth."

This book obtained some critical praise, but only the cultivated men

of letters appreciated it. More novels followed, and in 1887 and 1888

appeared the last volumes of poems, "Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life,"

and "A Reading of Earth." Since then Meredith has chiefly written

novels, but occasionally he writes poems. Success came to him only in

old age--within the last twenty years. It is not within the purpose of

this lecture to speak of his novels at all; we shall deal only with his

poetry.

At the first sight of such poetry a good judge would naturally

exclaim, "How is it that I never heard of this wonderful poet before?"

But a further examination will easily furnish the reason. Meredith

is uncommonly difficult as well as uncommonly deep. He has the

obscurity of Browning, and yet a profundity exceeding Browning's; he

is essentially a psychological poet, but he is also an evolutional

philosopher, which Browning scarcely was. He did not study in Germany

for nothing, and he alone of all living Englishmen really expresses

the whole philosophy of the modern scientific age. Now such a man

necessarily found himself in a peculiar position. The older thinkers

of his own time could scarcely understand him; he was uttering new

thoughts, and uttering them often in a German rather than in an English

way. The younger thinkers of the period were still at school or in the

university when he began to express himself. His audience was therefore

extremely small at first. Now it is very large, and he is known as well

in France and Germany as at home, but we may say that he gave his whole

life for this success.

A word now about his philosophy. Meredith is a thinker of the broadest

and most advanced type, but he is essentially optimistic--that is, he

considers all things as an evolutionist, but also as one who believes

that the tendency of the laws which govern the universe is toward the

highest possible good. He believes the world to be the best possible

world which man could desire, and he thinks that all the unhappiness

and folly of men is due only to ignorance and to weakness. He proclaims

that the world can give every joy and every pleasure possible to those

who are both wise and strong. Above all else he preaches the duty of

moral strength--the power to control our passions and impulses. He has,

however, very little compassion in him; he is a terribly stern teacher,

never pitying weakness, never forgiving ignorance. He never talks of

any theological God--not at least as a God to believe in; but you

get from all his poetry the general impression that he considers the

working of the universe divine. It will not be necessary to say more

here about his opinions, because we shall find them better expressed

in his poems than they could be in any attempt at a brief _résumé._

I think that it will be better to take some of his simpler poems first,

for study; indeed the longer ones are very difficult and would require

much explanation as well as paraphrasing. The shorter ones will better

serve the first purpose of showing you how different this man's poetry

is from that of any other English poet of the time. The first example

will be from "Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life." I need not explain

to you the meaning of the word "Tragic." But the tragedies in which

Meredith is interested are never tragedies of mere physical pain. There

may be some killing in them, but the shedding of blood does not mean

the tragedy. "King Harald's Trance" is a good illustration of this.

Harald--a name common in Scandinavian history--we may suppose to be a

Norwegian Viking. The Vikings of old Norway were the most terrible men

that ever lived, but they were also among the grandest and noblest.

Their trade was war, their religion was war, their idea of happiness

after death was still war--eternal war in heaven, ghostly fighting

on the side of the gods. Such an idea of life requires many great

qualities as well as natural fearlessness and great physical strength.

These men had to learn from childhood not only how to fight, but how

to control their passions, for in fighting, you know that the man who

first gets angry is almost certain to get beaten. The Norse character

was above all things a character of great self-mastery, and the finer

qualities of it are those which have also made the finer qualities of

both the German and the English speaking races of the modern world.

It occurred to the poet Meredith to study such a character among its

ancient surroundings, and among the most trying possible circumstances.

What could break down such mighty strength? What could conquer such

iron hearts? We are going to see.

I

Sword in length a reaping-hook amain

Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank;

'Mid the swathes of slain

First at moonrise drank.

II

Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife,

Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach

Home and his young wife,

By the sea-ford beach.

III

After battle keen to feed was he:

Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast,

Like an angry sea

Ships from keel to mast.

IV

Name us glory, singer, name us pride

Matching Harald's in his deeds of strength;

Chiefs, wife, sword by side,

Foemen stretched their length!

V

Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed,

Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high,

Till a wink he bade

Wife to chamber fly.

Mightily Harald, as a reaper in a field of corn mows down the grain,

with his scythe-long sword moved down the enemy--standing in blood up

to his ankles. All day he slew, and when the battle was finished after

dark and the dead lay all about him, like the swathes of grain cut down

by reapers, then for the first time he was able to drink, as the moon

began to rise.

Then the great effort and excitement of the battle left him hungry. His

hunger pricked him like a knife--impelled him to mount his horse and

gallop straight home at full speed to where his young wife was waiting

for news of him.

He always ate prodigiously after fighting; to see him eating roast meat

and washing it down his great throat with drinks of ale after a battle,

made one think of the spectacle of a stormy sea swallowing ships.

Then came the customary banqueting and singing and drinking.

Professional singers sang songs in praise of his fighting that day,

while he sat enthroned among his warriors, with his sword by his side,

and his young wife seated at his right hand. All his enemies were dead.

For half the night the drinking and singing continued. Harald had to

sit there and hear himself praised, and drink whenever his own health

was drunk to--such was the custom. But when the strong men had begun

to show the influence of liquor too much, the king made a sign to his

wife to withdraw to her own room. When the warriors drank too much, it

was not a time for women to be present.

This is the substance of the first part of the poem. Observe that

Harald is never spoken of as having been fatigued by his battle;

fighting only makes him hungry. This is a giant and probably a kindly

giant in his way; we see that he is fond of his young wife. But he

cannot retire from the banquet according to the custom of his people.

He must drink with everybody after the great victory. And he drinks so

much that he remains like a dead man for three days. Only after that,

his great strength is to be tried.

VI

Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk,

Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead;

Mountain on his trunk,

Ocean on his head.

VII

Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked

Whispers that at heart made iron-clang;

Here fool-women clucked,

There men held harangue.

VIII

Burial to fit their lord of war,

They decreed him: hailed the kingling: ha!

Hateful! but this Thor

Failed a weak lamb's baa.

IX

King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare,

Weighted so, like quaking shingle-spume,

When his blood's own heir

Ripened in the womb!

Twice the sun had risen and had set, yet Harald had not stirred. His

hearing returned; but he could not move, could not speak, could not

open his eyes. Upon his breast there seemed to be a weight like the

weight of a mountain keeping him down; above his head it seemed to him

that there was a whole ocean--in his head there was the sound of it.

But soon other sounds came to his ears, as he lay upon his bed, as

if fixed to it with bands of iron. He heard whispers that made a

disturbance at his heart. He heard women cluttering like hens; he heard

also men making speeches.

What were they making speeches about? About him. He heard them say that

he was dead; that he must be grandly buried like a great warrior and

king. And he heard them talk of the new king--rather, of the kingling.

Why did they appoint so weak a man to be king? How quickly he could

stop all that with a word. But although he had been as strong and

terrible as the God Thor, he could not now even make a noise like the

bleat of a lamb.

Still he listened, he heard more. This king that was to be was only

very distantly related to him. Such a man never could have force of

will to rule the men of that country. He would have no more power than

sea foam on a beach of rocks. But why should a king have been elected

at all? Was not his own wife soon to become a mother? His child would

be a man fit to rule. While the child was still a child, the chiefs

could govern. Why did they elect that other?

He is going to learn why--and this is the beginning of the terrible

part of the poem.

X

Still he heard, and doglike, hoglike, ran

Nose of hearing till his blind sight saw:

Woman stood with man,

Mouthing low, at paw.

XI

Woman, man, they mouthed; they spake a thing

Armed to split a mountain, sunder seas:

Still the frozen king

Lay and felt him freeze.

XII

Doglike, hoglike, horselike now he raced,

Riderless, in ghost across a ground

Flint of breast, blank-faced,

Past the fleshly bound.

Still the King listened in his trance, and he listened until his

hearing acted for him as a dog acts for the hunter, or as a wild hog

acts, following the scents of the roots that he wants even under the

surface of the ground. Alone by his hearing he perceived what was

going on; his eyes could not see, but his mind saw even more clearly

than eyes. His young wife had been false to him; she was talking to

another man even there within his own house; they were kissing each

other, they were touching each other, they were speaking wickedness,

such wickedness as would have power to split a mountain or to separate

the waters of the sea--crime as would destroy the world. But he, the

giant they betrayed, the King they betrayed, the husband, he could not

move. Coldness of death is about him; he feels his blood freezing. O!

for the days when he could renew his strength in a moment merely by

filling his great lungs with the sea winds. "If I could only breathe

the sea wind for one second," he thinks, "then I could rise up." And

the ghost of him really seeks the shore of the sea, the flint-breasted

naked rocks of the beach--racing like a horse in order to get strength

from the sea wind to awaken the great inert body. When the ghost gets

in, then the King can wake.

XIII

Smell of brine his nostrils filled with might,

Nostrils quickened eyelids, eyelids hand;

Hand for sword at right

Groped, the great haft spanned.

XIV

Wonder struck to ice his people's eyes;

Him they saw, the prone upon the bier,

Sheer from backbone rise,

Sword uplifting peer.

XV

Sitting did he breathe against that blade,

Standing kiss it for that proof of life:

Strode, as netters wade,

Straightway to his wife.

Here the scene has suddenly changed. We are on the sea shore. But you

will remember that in the last of the verses before paraphrased, we

were in the house, and the man imagined himself moving as a ghost on

the sea shore in search of strength. Before we paraphrase again, it is

necessary to understand this. First I must tell you that Meredith does

not believe in ghosts, and does not want us to imagine that the man's

spirit was really moving outside of his body. He has been describing

only the feeling and imagination of the warrior, in the state between

life and death. It was the custom to burn the dead body of a great

sea-king on the sea shore, and you must imagine that the body has been

carried down to the shore to be burnt. Then the smell of the sea really

revived him. And this explanation is further required by the fact that

later on, Harald is represented in full armour, with his helmet upon

his head and his sword laid by his side. It was a custom to burn the

warrior with his arms and armour. All we have been reading about the

ghost represents only what Harald felt, just before his awakening. Now

we will paraphrase: The smell of the sea came to him; he breathed the

sea wind, and, as he breathed it, it seemed to fill him with strength.

He opened his eyes, he saw; at once he felt at his right hand for his

sword, which he knew ought to be there. He felt the handle, grasped it.

Then he sat up on the bier, and his men were utterly astonished, for

they had thought him dead; but lo! he had risen up straight to a

sitting posture. They stared motionless, as if their eyes had been

frozen.

Sitting up, Harald still doubted whether he was really alive. He lifted

the blade of his sword to his lips, and breathed upon it. Seeing his

own breath on the great steel, he kissed the sword affectionately, out

of gratitude to find himself alive again. Then standing up he advanced

toward his wife--slowly, slowly,--as a fisherman or a bird catcher

advances, wading in water, against a current.

XVI

Her he eyed: his judgment was one word,

Foulbed!--and she fell; the blow clove two.

Fearful for the third,

All their breath indrew.

XVII

Morning danced along the waves to beach;

Dumb his chiefs fetched breath for what might hap,

Glassily on each

Stared the iron cap.

XVIII

Sudden, as it were a monster oak

Split to yield a limb by stress of heat,

Strained he, staggered, broke

Doubled at their feet.

He looked upon her face, judged her guilt, expressed that judgment by

the single word "Adulteress"--and struck. His blow killed two, for she

was about to become a mother. Whom would he kill next? Who was the

guilty man? Evidently he was not there; or perhaps Harald did not know

yet who he was. Everybody waited in silent terror.

The sun rose, sending his gold light dancing over the waves from

the East. And still the men stood there in silent fear. Harald said

nothing, did not move; but he looked at each man with a glassy stare,

with the look of one who does not find what he is waiting for.

Then suddenly, like a great oak tree, too large to be cut with the ax

and therefore possible only to split by the use of fire, the giant

seemed to make a sudden effort, he moved, he staggered, he fell dead at

their feet.

What is the deeper meaning of this terrible poem, founded upon an

historical fact? Simply that moral pain is much more powerful than

physical pain--that it is capable of breaking down any strength. Harald

could not be killed in battle under ordinary circumstances; fighting

could not even tire him, it only made him hungry and thirsty. No

physical excess could injure that body of iron. His vast eating and

drinking only gave him a heavy sleep. But when he was wounded in his

affections, by the treachery of the only being whom he could love and

trust, then his heart burst. He dies in the poem magnificently, even

like a moral hero, containing himself perfectly until death takes him

away. But the teaching of the story is very awful as well as very true.

The remarkable thing to notice about this poetry is its compression,

a compression that only seems to make the colour more vivid and the

emotion more forceful. In order to paraphrase it intelligibly one must

use two or three times as many words as the poet uses. Browning has

the same strange power, and in many ways Meredith strongly resembles

Browning. But he is much more philosophical, as we see later on.

Of ballads written in the true ballad form, there are not more than

three or four in the whole book, notwithstanding the title, "Ballads

and Poems." Another ballad more famous than that which I have quoted

is called "Archduchess Anne," a title which at once makes us think

of various episodes in Austrian history. It is a splendid piece of

psychological study, but less suitable for quotation than the poem on

King Harald, for it is very long. The object of the poet is to show

the consequences of a foolish act on the part of a person ruling the

destiny of a nation. Anne is practically a queen; and she is married.

But she takes a strong fancy to a handsome man among her courtiers,

Count Louis. In other words, she falls in love with him. He takes every

advantage of the situation, because he is both diplomatic and selfish.

The Archduchess rules her own cabinet; but the Count soon learns how

to rule her; consequently he gets all the power of the government into

his hands. And when he has done this, he shows his selfishness. She

immediately reassumes her power, and then there is a political quarrel.

The state is divided in two parties. Count Louis then does what no

gentleman under the circumstances could very well do, he marries a

young wife, and brings her to the court. Of course, when there is, or

has been, illegitimate love in high places, the fact can not be very

well concealed. Everybody knows it. The whole court knows that the

Queen has loved Count Louis, and that his marriage, and, above all,

the bringing of his wife to the court is a cruel insult. One of the

Queen's faithful servants, an old general, determines to avenge her

if he can ever get a chance. And the chance comes. Count Louis soon

afterwards incites a revolution, raises an army and advances to battle.

The old general meets him, captures him by a cunning trick, and writes

the Queen a letter, saying, "I have him." But the old general does not

quite understand a woman's heart. When a good woman--and by "good" I

mean especially affectionate--has once loved a man, it is scarcely

possible that anything could make her afterwards really hate him. There

was of course the extraordinary case of Christina of Sweden, who had

her lover stabbed to death before her eyes, but in such a case as that

we do not believe there was a real affection at any time. Anne is in a

very difficult position; she is very angry with the prisoner, but she

secretly loves him. How is she to answer the letter of her general? If

she says, "Do not kill him," the general will think that she is very

fond of him. If she says, "Kill him," the general will think that she

is revengeful and the whole world will think the same thing. If she

says, "Let him go free," that will only make the general despise her,

not to speak of all the political trouble that would follow. If she

says, "Send him to me that he may be imprisoned at once," that would

seem to the world as if she wished to make love to the prisoner by

force, to take him away from his wife. Whatever she does will seem in

some way wrong. She has placed herself in a false position to begin

with; and now she does not know what to do. What she really wishes is

a reconciliation with the man who has been so base to her, but she

dares not say that to the leader of her armies. Therefore she writes a

diplomatic letter to him, hoping that he can understand it. She says

that she does not want to be too severe; she speaks of religion, she

trusts that her general will know what to do. He determines that the

man shall die as quickly as possible.

Her words he took; her nods and winks

Treated as woman's fog,

The man-dog for his mistress thinks,

Not less her faithful dog.

She hugged a cloak old Kraken ripped;

Disguise to him he loathed.

--Your mercy, madam, shows you stripped,

While mine will keep your clothed.

That is, the old soldier determined to act exactly upon the words

of the letter; as for suggestions, he refused to pay any attention

to them. "Women," he thought, "are too weak. She wants to hide her

feelings from me. And she Wants to be merciful. By law the man is a

traitor, and ought to be hanged. But I shall shoot him instead--give

him the death of a soldier, that is mercy enough. My mercy will hide

the Queen's shame; her mercy would proclaim that shame to the whole

world." So Count Louis is shot. Before this, however, the young wife

of Count Louis goes to the Archduchess to beg for her husband's life,

and this is a very touching part of the poem. Of course this innocent

young wife does not know what has happened in the past, and can not

know what pain her presence is giving.

The Countess Louis from her head

Drew veil: "Great Lady, hear!

My husband deems you Justice dread,

I know you Mercy dear.

"His error upon him may fall;

He will not breath a nay.

I am his helpless mate in all,

Except for grace to pray.

"Perchance on me his choice inclined,

To give his House an heir;

I had not marriage with his mind,

His counsel could not share.

"I brought no portion for his weal

But this one instinct true,

Which bids me in my weakness kneel,

Archduchess Anne, to you."

Now you can see that every word here innocently uttered would seem to

the Archduchess very cunning or very stupid. Did the young wife know

the secret, then every word would be like turning a knife in the heart

of the Archduchess. And if she did not know, how horribly stupid she

must be to say what, seems so wicked. Therefore she is driven away at

once. But after she has gone, the Archduchess has to think about what

was said, and she feels that after all the young wife really did the

very best thing that a woman could have done to save her husband.

Yet it is too late to save him. Presently the news comes that he has

been shot. And the result is a civil war; for the party of Count Louis

tries to avenge him. There is war also in the heart of the sovereign.

How unutterably she hates her faithful old general; yet she must trust

to him, for the kingdom is in danger. Pain and sorrow make Anne look

already like an old woman. When the war is over she treats her general

so ill that he is obliged to leave the country. By one fault, how much

unhappiness and destruction comes to pass--revolution, civil war, and

the ruin of many lives! And the poem ends with the quatrain often

quoted in other connections than the present:

And she that helped to slay, yet bade

To spare the fated man,

Great were her errors, but she had

Great heart, Archduchess Anne.

Of course, there is just a little bit of cruel irony in the statement,

for it obliges us to ask the question whether a great heart can

compensate for much foolishness, whether affection can excuse the

ruin of a government. I think that the poet here is quietly opposing

the moral of the beautiful old Bible story, about the woman forgiven

"because she loved much"-_quia multum amavit._ One would say that a

person holding the position of supreme ruler cannot be forgiven simply

because she loved much, although we may pity her with all our hearts.

Pity is not a virtue with Meredith. He reminds us often of the old

Jesuit doctrine, that pity is akin to concupiscence. For example,

Meredith takes a ground strongly opposed to all romantic precedents

when he treats of the question of adultery. From the time of the Middle

Ages it was the custom of poets to represent unhappy wives secretly

in love with strangers, or to paint the tragedies arising from the

consequence of sexual jealousy. Even in all the versions of the story

of King Arthur, our sympathies are invoked on behalf of illegitimate

love,--even in Tennyson. We sympathise a good deal with Lancelot and

with Guinevere. In Dante, most religious of the old poets, we have

a striking example of this appeal to pity in the story of Francesca

da Rimini. And I need scarcely speak of various modern schools of

poetry who have imitated the poets of the Middle Ages in this respect.

Meredith takes the opposite view--represents the erring woman always

as culpable, and praises the act of killing her. He gives evolutional

reasons for this. For example, he takes an old Spanish love story, and

tells it over again in a new way. There is a beautiful young wife alone

at home. There is a terrible rascal of a husband, a fellow who spends

all his time in drinking, gambling, fighting, and making love to other

women. His wife gets tired of his neglect and his brutality and his

viciousness. If he does not love her, somebody else shall. So she gets

a secret lover, while her husband is away. This young man visits her.

Suddenly her husband returns, and now we leave Meredith to moralise

the situation. I think that you will find it both new and interesting.

Thundered then her lord of thunders;

Burst the door, and flashing sword,

Loud disgorged the woman's title:

Condemnation in one word.

Grand by righteous wrath transfigured,

Towers the husband who provides

In his person judge and witness,

Death's black doorkeeper besides!

. . . . . . .

How though he hath squandered Honour!

High of Honour let him scold:

Gilding of the man's possession,

'Tis the woman's coin of gold.

She, inheriting from many

Bleeding mothers bleeding sense,

Feels 'twixt her and sharp-fanged nature

Honour first did plant the fence.

Nature, that so shrieks for justice;

Honour's thirst, that blood will slake;

These are women's riddles, roughly

Mixed to write them saint or snake.

Never nature cherished woman;

She throughout the sexes' war

Serves as temptress and betrayer,

Favouring man, the muscular.

. . . . . . .

Hard the task: your prison-chamber

Widens not for lifted latch

Till the giant thews and sinews

Meet their Godlike overmatch.

Read that riddle, scorning pity's

Tears, of cockatrices shed;

When the heart is vowed for freedom,

Captaincy it yields to head.

The point upon which the poet here insists is the evolutional

signification of female virtue and of all that relates to it. Evidently

he does not believe that either men or women were very virtuous in the

beginning--not at all; their knowledge of right and wrong had to be

developed slowly through great sufferings in the course of thousands

of years. In order that the modern woman may be virtuous as she is,

millions of her ancestors must have suffered the experience that

teaches the social worth of female honour. And a woman who to-day

proves unfaithful to her marriage duty is sinning, not simply against

modern society, but against the whole experience, the whole modern

experience, of the human race. This would make the fault a great one,

of course, but would not the fault of the man be as great? By what

right, except the right of force, can he punish her, if he himself be

guilty of unfaithfulness? I am not sure what answer religion would give

to these questions. But Meredith answers immediately and clearly. The

fault of the woman is incomparably worse than the fault of the man. It

is worse in relation to the injury done to society, to morality, to

progress. Society is founded upon the family; the strength of society

to defend itself against the enemy, to accumulate wealth, and to find

happiness, depends upon the care and the love given to the children.

It is in proportion to the love and care given to the young that a

nation becomes strong. Now it is especially the mother's duty to look

after the interests of the young. This requires no argument. And a

sexual weakness upon her part means an injury done to the family in the

sense of its very life. The whole interest of society depends upon the

chastity and tenderness and moral force of its women. Moral weakness

once begun among the women of the people, the decline of that race

begins. So indeed perished the finest race that ever existed in this

world--the old Greek race.

On the other hand, though unchastity on the part of the man be

certainly condemnable--from a purely moral point of view equally

condemnable--its consequences are not fraught with the same danger to

society, because they are not of a character to destroy the family.

Really the part of man in the great struggle of life is the part of

the fighter. The all important thing for the man is to be strong. If

he can be morally as well as physically strong, so much the better

for the race; but the all important thing is that he shall be able to

fight, to contend, to conquer. It is not through the man that the moral

progress of society is directly effected; it is through the woman and

the teaching of the young, it is through the tenderness and love of

the home--the only place where a man can rest from his constant battle

with the world. It is only in his own home that he can be as good

as he may wish to be. Every good home is a little nursing place of

morality, a little garden in which the plants of honour and truth and

courage and gentleness can be cultivated until they are strong enough

to bear the frosts and the cold winds of the great outside world. In

one generation home life may accomplish very little for the improvement

of a race, but in the course of thousands of years it accomplishes

everything. If men are kinder and wiser and better to-day than they

were thousands of years ago, it is because of the virtues which have

been cultivated in the family. Had the home of human history been a

struggle between men only, the result would have been very different

indeed, for competition and battle cultivate only the hard and fierce

and cunning side of character. Taking all these facts together, the

poet tells us very plainly that adultery is something which should

never be forgiven in a woman, however it might be forgiven in a man,

because the fault against human society is too great. And therefore he

has written this poem especially to condemn those old romances in which

illegitimate affection was the theme--in which, also, every effort was

made to excite the sympathy of the reader with the sin of the woman.

No sympathy has George Meredith; on the contrary, he praises the man

who kills, in the line where he speaks of the sword--where he says

that the good steel of the sword that killed was what every man ought

to be--hard and penetrating, hard and terrible to deal with social

wrong. It is very curious to compare this stern view of life with

the tenderness of Michelet, in his books entitled "L'Amour" and "Les

Femmes." Michelet actually says that in many cases the woman should be

forgiven. The two opposing kinds of views thus expressed by two great

men of different races do really suggest something of the difference of

character in the races. Both men are liberal thinkers, both men studied

the new philosophy. Yet how very antagonistic their teachings.

I do not wish to give you too much of the moral side of Meredith at

one time, for fear that it should become tiresome. So before we take

up another philosophical poem, I should like to speak of a poem which

is only emotional and descriptive--a tremendous poem, and certainly

the greatest thing in verse that Meredith has composed. I mean "The

Nuptials of Attila." In some parts it is very hard reading. In other

parts it is unmatched in the splendour and strength of its verse.

First we must say a few words about the subject chosen. Doubtless you

remember the apparition of Attila in Roman history. You have read how

he came from the East with his tempestuous cavalry and threatened to

destroy the whole of Western civilization. During his brief career

Attila probably wielded the greatest power that has ever been united

in the hands of one man. He controlled a larger portion of the earth's

surface than that to-day controlled by the Russians, and he might have

realized his dream of subduing all the West of Europe, had it not been

for one act of folly. That was his marriage to a young girl called

Ildico, whom he demanded from her parents against her will. On the

night of the wedding there was great drinking and feasting, and when

the King retired to the bridal chamber he had probably drunk to excess.

At all events he died suddenly in the night, through the bursting of

a blood-vessel; and his death saved Western civilisation. There was

not another leader in the vast army capable of keeping it together.

The host broke up. The chiefs returned to their several countries, and

the great empire of Attila melted away almost as suddenly as frost

disappears in the morning sun. What became of Ildico nobody knows.

It is the scene of the wedding night, and the scene of the morning

following, that the poet describes.

First we have a few lines describing the power of Attila and the hunger

of his army for more war:

Flat as to an eagle's eye,

Earth hung under Attila,

Sign for carnage gave he none.

In the peace of his disdain,

Sun and rain, and rain and sun,

Cherished men to wax again,

Crawl, and in their manner die.

On his people stood a frost.

Like the charger cut in stone,

Rearing stiff, the warrior host,

Which had life from him alone,

Craved the trumpet's eager note,

As the bridled earth the Spring.

Rusty was the trumpet's throat.

He let chief and prophet rave;

Venturous earth around him string

Threads of grass and slender rye,

Wave them, and untrampled wave.

O for the time when God did cry,

Eye and have, my Attila!

You must remember that Attila was called the Scourge of God. So

terrible was the destruction that he wrought, that the Western world

of the fifth century thought that he had been sent by God to destroy

them as a punishment for sin. He himself accepted this name, and also

called himself the Hammer of the World. His own words, translated

into Latin, are said to have been "_Stella cadit, tellus fremit, en

ego Malleus Orbis_" (the star falls, the earth shudders; lo! I am the

hammer of the world). But why this peace? Why does not Attila continue

to destroy?

Scorn of conquest filled like sleep

Him that drank of havoc deep

When the Green Cat pawed the globe:

When his horsemen from his bow

Shot in sheaves.

This scorn of conquest was only induced by Attila's sudden love for

a woman. Perhaps the girl Ildico would rather have died than have

been given to Attila; but she had to obey the will and words of the

master, and there was no opportunity given her to express her likes

or dislikes--no opportunity even to kill herself, for she was well

watched. White as death she appeared in her wedding robes upon the

night of her awful marriage, and the wedding guests did not like to see

her looking so white. Why should she not have been glad? Why should she

not have blushed as a bride blushes? Some said that she loved another

man; some said that she was frightened; but nobody knew and nobody was

pleased, and the wedding ceremony went on. It was a strange banquet

that she had to attend, for these terrible men lived upon horse-back,

drank upon horse-back, ate upon horse-back. The wedding guests entered

the hall in all the panoply of war, all mounted upon their battle

steeds--not to sit down, but to ride furiously round the table.

Round the banquet-table's load

Scores of iron horsemen rode;

Chosen warriors, keen and hard;

Grain of threshing battle-dints;

Attila's fierce body-guard,

Smelling war like fire in flints.

Grant them peace be fugitive!

Iron-capped and iron-heeled

Each against his fellow's shield

Smote the spear-head, shouting, Live

Attila! my Attila!

Eagle, eagle of our breed,

Eagle, beak the lamb, and feed!

Have her, and unleash us! live!

Attila! my Attila!

Now to understand how fearful a scene this must have appeared to the

bride, you must understand that Ildico was a German girl of noble

family representing the highest refinement and delicacy of the old

civilisation. To have given her to these savage people was, of course,

a monstrous cruelty. She did not enjoy the wonderful displays of power

and barbaric luxury about her; she must have felt as one seated alone

in the midst of an earth-quake.

Fair she seemed surpassingly;

Soft, yet vivid as the stream

Danube rolls in the moonbeam

Through rock barriers; but she smiled

Never, she sat cold as salt:

Open-mouthed as a young child

Wondering with a mind at fault.

Make the bed for Attila!

Under the thin hoop of gold

Whence in waves her hair outrolled,

'Twixt her brows the women saw

Shadows of a vulture's claw

Gript in flight; strange knots that sped

Closing and dissolving aye;

Such as wicked dreams betray

When pale dawn creeps o'er the bed.

They might show the common pang

Known to virgins, in whom dread

Hunts their bliss like famished hounds;

While the chiefs with roaring rounds

Tossed her to her lord, and sang

Praise of him whose hand was large,

Cheers for beauty brought to yield,

Chirrups of the trot afield,

Hurrahs of the battle-charge.

Here we suffer with her, so plainly does the figure of the girl appear

before us, silent and white with little shadows of pain coming and

going upon her young forehead, while all about her shakes the ground

under the hoofs of the battle-horses, under the thunder roar of the

songs and the clashing of steel on steel. These roaring horsemen

are singing of other things than the past and the present; they

are clamouring for the future, for more war, more slaughter, more

destruction; they are shouting that even their horses are hungry for

war.

Whisper it (the war signal), you sound a horn

To the grey beast in the stall!

Yea, he whinnies at a nod.

O, for sound of the trumpet-notes!

O, for the time when thunder-shod,

He that scarce can munch his oats,

Hung on the peaks, brooded aloof,

Champed the grain of the wrath of God,

Pressed a cloud on the cowering roof,

Snorted out of the blackness fire!

Scarlet broke the sky, and down,

Hammering West with print of his hoof,

He burst out of the bosom of ire,

Sharp as eyelight under thy frown,

Attila! my Attila!

Ravaged cities rolling smoke

Thick on cornfields dry and black,

Wave his banners, bear his yoke.

Track the lightning, and you track

Attila. They moan: 'tis he!

Bleed: 'tis he! Beneath his foot

Leagues are deserts charred and mute;

Where he passed, there passed a sea.

Attila! my Attila!

The splendid and terrible description of the war horse, the Tartar

horse, descending over the mountains into Europe, not frightened by

things of flesh and bone, but like a thunder-cloud descending upon

the cities below--reminds one of the description of Death in the

Apocalypse--"I saw a pale horse; and he that sat upon him was called

Death, and all hell followed after him." In the fifth century this

scriptural text was not forgotten; Attila was often compared, with very

good reason, to the rider of the pale horse. Where he conquered, there

was nothing left; the ground became a desert, a waste of death, dry

like the bed of a vanished sea. It is for another devastation, such

another ride, that the warriors are clamouring at the wedding feast.

But suddenly these men observe that Ildico never smiles, that she is

terribly white like a ghost, and they do not like this.

Who breathed on the king cold breath?

Said a voice amid the host,

He is Death that weds a ghost,

Else a ghost that weds with Death?

The barbarian idea of beauty is the red-faced, full-fleshed woman. They

see no beauty in the fair, pale girl; she seems to them like a phantom.

But Attila only laughs at the ominous exclamation; he knows that she is

beautiful, and he orders her to fulfil her part of the wedding ceremony

by pledging the guests in a cup of wine.

Silent Ildico stood up.

King and chief to pledge her well,

Shocked sword sword and cup on cup,

Clamouring like a brazen bell.

Silent stepped the queenly slave.

Fair, by heaven! she was to meet

On a midnight, near a grave,

Flapping wide the winding sheet.

The last three lines of course are ironical--they represent the

criticism of the warriors. Perhaps one may have said, "How beautiful

she is! How fair." "Pair!" observes another, "she might seem beautiful

in a graveyard at night, wrapped in a white shroud!" To the speaker,

such beauty as that is the beauty of the dead; there is something

sinister about it. He is hot all wrong; for in a little while the

mightiest king in the world will die in the woman's arms. It is time

for the bride to go to the bridal chamber; see how the women bow down

to her as she passes by, not because they love her, but because she has

become their queen!

Death and she walked through the crowd,

Out beyond the flush of light.

Ceremonious women bowed

Following her; 'twas middle night.

. . . . . . .

Attila remained.

He remains, as the master of the feast, to speak a few last words to

his faithful chiefs, but even while talking to them he feels impatient

to visit his bride, not knowing that she is Death.

. . . . . as a corse

Gathers vultures, in his brain

Images of her eyes and kiss

Plucked at the limbs that could remain

Loitering nigh the doors of bliss.

Make the bed for Attila!

A more terrible comparison could not have been used than this of the

dead body attracting vultures. But the warriors want to talk to him

a little longer; they want a promise of war; they want to feel sure

that, after this wedding, the King will lead them again to battle.

They want to capture and sack Rome. And one of them cries out to the

King in Latin, "Lead us to Rome!" He answers, he pledges them in wine,

he promises that they shall have Rome to sack and burn; and they are

happy--they bid him farewell with roars of joy. In the morning he will

lead them to Rome, that is enough.

In the morning what a tumult is in the camp, myriads and myriads of

squadrons of cavalry, assembling for battle, chanting, cheering,

roaring in the gladness of their expectation! But in the pavilion of

Attila all is still silent. The chiefs know that their king is seldom

late in rising; they are surprised that he does not appear. They make

jests about the charm of his new bride, but they do not dare to call

him, not for another hour, two hours, three hours, not until midday. At

midday the chiefs lose patience, but still all is silent. At last, and

only in the evening, after much calling in vain, they break in the door.

'Tis the room where thunder sleeps.

Frenzy, as a wave to shore

Surging, burst the silent door,

And drew back to awful deeps,

Breath beaten out, foam-white. Anew

Howled and pressed the ghastly crew,

Like storm-waters over rocks.

Attila! my Attila!

One long shaft of sunset red

Laid a finger on the bed.

. . . . . . .

Square along the couch and stark,

Like the sea-rejected thing

Sea-sucked white, behold their King.

Attila! my Attila!

The King is dead! The warriors cannot believe it, do not want to

believe. They see, and are struck with horror also because of the

incalculable consequence of his death. But certainly he is dead. The

red light of the setting sun illuminates his bloodless body lying in a

pool of blood, for an artery burst. But what has become of Ildico--the

wife?

Name us that

Huddled in the corner dark,

Humped and grinning like a cat,

Teeth for lips!--'tis she! she stares,

Glittering through her bristled hairs.

There is something there, in a dark corner of the room--something

crouching like an animal, like a terrified cat, showing its teeth,

raising its back, as in the presence of an attacking dog. Is it an

animal? It is a woman, with her hair hanging down loose over her face,

a woman, laughing horribly, because she is mad. They can see her eyes

and her teeth glittering through her long hair. Did she kill him? Some

think she did; others know that she did not. Some wish to kill her;

cooler heads have resolved to defend her.

Rend her! Pierce her to the hilt!

She is Murder: have her out!

What! this little fist, as big

As the southern summer fig!

She is Madness, none may doubt.

Death, who dares deny her guilt!

Death, who says his blood she spilt!

. . . . . . .

Each at each, a crouching beast,

Glared, and quivered for the word,

Each at each, and all on that,

Humped and grinning like a cat.

Head bound with its bridal wreath.

. . . . . . .

Death, who dares deny her guilt!

Death, who says his blood she spilt!

Traitor he who stands between!

Swift to hell, who harms the Queen!

She, the wild, contention's cause,

Combed her hair with quiet paws.

Make the bed for Attila!

Notice the horror of the effect caused by the use of certain simple

words in these verses. The beautiful Ildico is no longer spoken of as

a woman, but as an insane animal or a thing. First we notice that "it"

and "its" have been substituted for "she" and "hers" or "her"; then

we have the word "paws," making a very horrible impression. The woman

is so mad that she knows nothing of her danger, knows nothing of what

has happened; through some old habit of womanly instinct, she tries

to arrange her poor tossed hair, but with her fingers, as a cat combs

itself with its paws.

Then begins the mighty breaking of that tremendous army: First Attila

must be buried; and, according to custom, no one must know where the

King is buried. A party of slaves are ordered to make the grave; when

they have made it, they are killed and buried, in order that none

of them may be able to say to strangers where the corpse of Attila

reposes. It is not impossible, it is even probable that Ildico was

killed and buried with her king, for the barbarians were accustomed

to slaughter the attendants of a dead prince, and even his horses, in

order that he might have shadowy company and shadowy steeds in the

other world. But we do not know. History has nothing to say as to what

became of Ildico. The poem closes with a wonderful description of the

breaking up of the army, which is likened to the breaking up of the ice

in a great river at the approach of spring.

Lo, upon a silent hour,

When the pitch of frost subsides,

Danube with a shout of power

Loosens his imprisoned tides:

Wide around the frighted plains

Shake to hear the riven chains,

Dreadfuller than heaven in wrath,

As he makes himself a path:

High leaps the ice-cracks, towering pile

Floes to bergs, and giant peers

Wrestle on a drifted isle;

Island on ice-island rears;

Dissolution battles fast:

Big the senseless Titans loom,

Through a mist of common doom

Striving which shall die the last:

Till a gentle-breathing morn

Frees the stream from bank to bank.

So the Empire built of scorn

Agonised, dissolved, and sank.

Of the queen no more was told

Than of leaf on Danube rolled.

Make the bed for Attila!

I have said that this poem is emotional rather than didactic; yet

there is a moral suggestion in it, the suggestion of what one foolish

indulgence in lust may cause. For in the case of Attila, who had

already scores and scores of wives, the marriage with Ildico was a mere

piece of brutal indulgence and cruelty, and it proved his death. Then

again, of course, it was a good thing for the world that Attila died

when he did. It would seem as if nature tahes very good care that men

who are only brutal and cunning shall not be allowed to rule human life

for a great length of time. Their own passions or their own follies

eventually destroy them.

There is yet another suggestion in the poem, which Meredith is very

fond of making, both in his novels and in his verse. He thinks that an

old man should never marry a young woman, no matter how great the merit

of the old man may be. Here and there will be many to disagree with

Meredith, and to quote such cases as that of the great French engineer,

De Lesseps, who married only when he was more than sixty years old, and

thereafter raised a very numerous family of remarkably fine children.

But in a general way, Meredith is probably right. He expounds his ideas

very clearly in a little poem called "The Last Contention." In this

"last contention" the poet addresses an old man who wants to marry a

young girl. He represents the mind of the man as that of a captain,

directing a ship, and the ship is the body, the constitution, the

physical part of the individual. With this explanation we may quote a

few verses of the poem. It is cruel; but it is very moral and perhaps

very just.

Young captain of a crazy bark!

O tameless heart in battered frame!

Thy sailing orders have a mark,

And hers is not the name.

For action all thine iron clanks

In cravings for a splendid prize;

Again to race or bump thy planks

With any flag that flies.

Admires thee Nature with much pride;

She clasps thee for a gift of morn.

Till thou art set against the tide.

And then beware her scorn.

This lady of the luting tongue,

The flash in darkness, billow's grace.

For thee the worship; for the young

In muscle the embrace.

Soar on thy manhood clear for those

Whose toothless Winter claws at May,

And take her as the vein of rose

Athwart an evening grey.

I have left out the most cruel verses; but these are significant

enough. The person addressed might be one of those old generals or

admirals who figure so often in the novels of Meredith, some brave old

man, with a great reputation for courage and skill and the arts of

courtesy. Such men may be able to win a young wife, rather by help of

their wealth, social position, and reputation than by real love. The

poet says that one should not try to do this. And he says that the man

who does it, or wishes to do it, is like a skilful captain who trusts

too much to his seamanship, forgetting that his vessel is in a state

of decay. The heart may be young enough, but that is not sufficient.

Nature seems to love and favour grand old men, but not if they do what

is not according to Nature's laws. Therefore if marriages between old

and young prove to be unfortunate, the fault is in most cases with the

old. The old man may admire, may reverence a beautiful young person;

but only as we admire a work of art, at a distance, or beautiful

colours in the sunset sky. Let me call your attention to the use of

the phrases "flash in darkness" and "billow's grace." The Greeks said

that life was like a flash between two darknesses--the darkness of the

mystery out of which we come, and the darkness of the mystery into

which we go. It is a very beautiful and a very profound comparison; the

poet here uses it especially in reference to the beautiful period of

youth, which is short. He suggests that an old man should have wisdom

enough to think of youth and of beauty as passing illusions. "Billow's

grace" is a very striking simile. The charm of movement in a graceful

person is something which no art can reproduce. It is beauty of motion,

and the instant that the motion stops, the charm is not. The beauty of

water, flowing water, is of this kind. Even while you admire the motion

of a wave, gilded by the sunlight, the wave has passed.

And now we shall turn to a very important division of Meredith's

poems--those dealing with the philosophy of life as a whole. On this

subject most of the great English poets are apt to be a little didactic

in the religious sense. Meredith is also didactic--but not in a

religious sense. One peculiarity of his work is the total absence of

theological doctrine of any kind. He talks to you about the laws of the

universe, the laws of life, the laws of nature--never about the laws

of any God or any religion. When he does mention the word God or the

word religion, it is always in such a way that you feel he considers

such things only as symbols--useful symbols, perhaps, but symbols only.

I shall speak only of two remarkable poems of this kind. The first,

called "The Woods of Westermain," considers especially the struggle of

human life, and the duties of man in that struggle. The other poem,

entitled "Earth and Man," treats more largely of the problem of the

universe--the great mystery of the questions, Where do we come from?

Why do we exist? Whither are we going? Let us first take the "Woods of

Westermain."

Why the poem should be called by the name of "The Woods of Westermain,"

I am not able to tell you; but I think that the name contains a

suggestion about occidental life as contrasted with oriental life.

However, I am not sure, but, at all events, the subject of the poem

is not a real forest, but the forest of human existence, the place

in which the struggle of life goes on--therefore, in the true sense,

Nature.

The great teaching of this poem is that Nature has given us powers and

senses not for pleasure, not for the obtaining of selfish enjoyment,

but for battle. All that we know at present about the reason of life

is summed up in that fact. The great natural duty of every man is to

fight, morally and physically, and though he has a perfect right to

enjoy himself, to seek pleasure at proper times and places, he must

never allow pleasure to interfere with the supreme duty of struggle in

battle; the first requisite, therefore, is courage, the first thing

necessary is never to be afraid. In the ancient fairy-tales of Europe,

we find many stories about enchanted forests, goblin forests. The

knight, the hero of the story, enters a great wood, which seems very

green and pleasant to the eye. As he lies down under a tree, however,

he sees strange shapes looking at him--shapes of fairies, shapes of

demons, shapes of giants. But he rides on, and they do not do him

any harm. After a while he arrives safely at his destination. Quite

otherwise in the case of the cowardly knight. When he finds himself

in the forest he becomes afraid, and terrible shapes rise up about

him, come close to him, at last attack him and tear him to pieces.

Now the forest of life is just like the enchanted forest of the old

fairy-tales. If you are afraid, you are destroyed. If you are not

afraid, all is bright and beautiful.

Enter these enchanted woods,

You who dare.

Nothing harms beneath the leaves

More than waves a swimmer cleaves.

Toss your heart up with the lark,

Float at peace with mouse and worm,

Fair you fare.

Only at a dread of dark

Quaver, and they quit their form:

Thousand eyeballs under hoods

Have you by the hair.

Enter these enchanted woods,

You who dare.

Here the snake across your path

Stretches in his golden bath;

Mossy-footed squirrels leap

Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep.

. . . . . . .

Each has business of his own;

But should you distrust a tone,

Then beware!

Shudder all the haunted roods,

All the eyeballs under hoods

Shroud you in their glare.

I am not sure that this imagery can appeal to you as it was intended to

appeal to the Western reader, because it partly depends for effect upon

the knowledge of the old fairy-tale pictures. In Western ghost stories

and fairy stories, goblins and other phantoms are usually represented

in long robes with hoods over their faces, and very big, wicked eyes.

That is why the poet speaks so often of the hoods and the eyeballs. The

meaning is that, in this world, just so soon as you begin to suspect

and to be afraid, everything really becomes to you terrible--even as in

the old fairy-tales a tree was only a tree to the sight of a brave man,

but to the cowardly man its roots became feet and its branches horrible

arms and claws, and its crest a goblin face.

Then follows a wonderful description of wood life--the life of insect,

reptile, bird and little animals--the poet taking care to show how each

and all of these represent something of human life and moral truth.

But it is one of the most difficult poems in English literature to

read; and I shall not try to quote much from it. Enough to say that

the same lesson is taught all the way through the poem, the lesson of

what Nature means. She must not be thought of as a cruel Sphinx: she is

cruel only if you imagine her to be cruel. Nature will always be what

you think her to be. Think of her as beautiful and good; then she will

be good and beautiful for you. Think of her as cruel; then she will be

cruel to you. Do not think of her as pleasure; if you do, she will give

you pleasure, but she will destroy you at the same time. She is the

spirit and law of Eternal Struggle; and it is thus only that you should

think of her, as a divinity desiring you to be brave, active, generous,

ambitious. Above all things, you must not hate. Hate Nature, and you

are instantly destroyed. You must not allow even a thought of hate to

enter your mind.

Hate, the shadow of a grain;

You are lost in Westermain:

Earthward swoops a vulture sun

Nighted upon carrion:

Straightway venom winecups shout

As to One whose eyes are out:

Flowers along the reeling floor

Drip henbane and hellebore;

Beauty, of her tresses shorn,

Shrieks as nature's maniac:

Hideousness on hoof and horn

Tumbles, yapping in her track:

Haggard Wisdom, stately once,

Leers fantastical and trips.

. . . . . . .

Imp that dances, imp that flits,

Imp o' the demon-growing girl,

Maddest! whirl with imp o' the pits

Round you, and with them you whirl

Fast where pours the fountain--rout

Out of Him whose eyes are out.

The foregoing must seem to you very difficult verse; and it is really

very difficult for the best English readers. But at the same time

it is very powerful; and I think that you ought to have at least

one example of the difficult side of Meredith. This is a picture--a

horrible picture, such as old artists used to make in the fifteenth or

sixteenth century to illustrate the temptations of a saint by devils,

or the terrors of a sinner about to die, and surrounded by ghastly

visions. Really if you hate Nature, the universe will at once for you

become what it seemed to the superstitious of the past ages and to the

disordered fancies of insane fanatics. The very sun itself will no

longer appear as a glorious star, but as a creature of prey, devouring

the dead. Perhaps the poet here wishes also to teach us that we must

not think too much about the ugly side of death as an appearance--the

corruption, the worms, the darkness of the grave. To think about

those things, as the monks of the Middle Ages did, is to hate Nature.

Everything seems foul to the man whose imagination is foul. Everything

which should be nourishing becomes poison, everything which should seem

beautiful becomes hideous. The reference to "One whose eyes are out,"

is, you know, a reference to the old fashioned pictures of death, as a

goblin skeleton, seeing without eyes. In some frightful pictures death

was represented also as an eyeless corpse, out of which all kinds of

goblins, demons, and bad dreams were swarming, like maggots. Of course

such are the pictures referred to here by the poet. Believe in goblins

and devils, and you will see them; believe that all men are wicked, and

you will find them wicked; believe that Nature is evil, and Nature will

certainly destroy you, just as the demons in the mediæval story tore to

pieces the magician who had not learned the secret of making them obey.

Very much more easy to understand are the stanzas upon "Earth and Man."

These attempt to explain the real problem of man's existence. The poet

represents the earth as a person, a mother, a nurse. But this mother,

this nurse, this divine person is not able to do everything for man.

She can give him life; she can feed him; but she cannot help him

otherwise, except upon the strange condition that he helps himself. She

makes him and embraces him, but that is all. Otherwise he must make his

own future, his own happiness or misery.

For he is in the lists

Contentious with the elements, whose dower

First sprang him; for swift vultures to devour

If he desists.

His breath of instant thirst

Is warning of a creature matched with strife,

To meet it as a bride, or let fall life

On life's accursed.

That is, man in this world is like an athlete, or a warrior in the

lists--in the place of contests. With what must he contend? First of

all, he must contend with the very elements of nature, with the very

same forces which brought him into being, or as the poet says "sprang

him." And if he hesitates to fight with those forces, then quickly the

vultures of death seize upon him. The condition of his existence is

struggle. Even the first cry of the child, the cry of thirst for the

mother's milk, signifies that man is born to desire and to toil and to

contend. He must either meet the duty of struggle as gladly as he would

meet a bride, or he must acknowledge himself unfit to live, and cursed

by his own mother, Nature. Nature is not to be thought of as a mother

that pets her child and weeps over its small sorrows; no, she is a good

mother, but very rough, and she loves only the child that fights and

conquers.

She has no pity upon him except as he fights and wins. She cannot do

certain things for him; she cannot develop his mind--he must do that

for himself. She makes him do it by pain, by terror, by punishing him

fearfully for his mistakes. By the consequence of mistakes only does

she teach him. She urges him forward by hunger and by fear, but there

is no mercy for him if he blunders. I want you to remember that the

poet is not speaking of the separate individual man, but of mankind and

of the history of the human race. According to modern science, man was

at the beginning nothing more than an animal; he has become what he is

through knowledge of suffering, and the poet describes his sufferings

in the beginning:

By hunger sharply sped

To grasp at weapons ere he learns their use,

In each new ring he bears a giant's thews,

An infant's head.

And ever that old task

Of reading what he is and whence he came,

Whither to go, finds wilder letters flame

Across her mask.

That is to say, man first is impelled by hunger to use weapons, in

order to kill animals, and these weapons he at first must use very

clumsily. You must understand the word "ring" to mean an age or cycle.

The poet wishes to say that through many past ages in succession, man

had the strength of a giant, but his brain, his mind, was feeble and

foolish like that of a little child--not even a child in the common

meaning of the word, for the poet uses the term "infant," signifying

a child before it has yet learned how to speak. It is supposed that

primitive man had no developed languages. But, as time goes on, man

learns how to express thought by speech, and presently he begins to

think about himself--to wonder what he is, where he came from, and

where he is going. Then he invents religious theories to account for

his origin. But the mystery always remains. There are ancient stories

about a magical writing. When you looked at this writing, at first it

seemed to be in one language, and to have one meaning, but when you

looked at it a second time, the letters and the meaning had changed,

and every succeeding time that you looked at it, again it changed. Like

this magical writing is the mystery of Nature, of the Universe; so that

poet represents Nature as wearing a mask upon which such ever-changing

characters appear in letters of fire. No matter how much we learn

or theorise, the infinite riddle cannot be read. And one factor of

this terrible riddle is Death. Death of all things most puzzles and

terrifies man. He sometimes suspects that Nature herself is Death, and

purely evil. He began by worshipping her through fear, but his worship

did not change his destiny in the least.

The thing that shudders most

Within him is the burden of his cry.

Seen of his dread, she is to his blank eye

The eyeless Ghost.

. . . . . . .

Once worshipped Prime of Powers,

She still was the Implacable; as a beast,

She struck him down and dragged him from the feast

She crowned with flowers.

. . . . . . .

He may entreat, aspire,

He may despair, and she has never heed.

She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need,

Not his desire.

She prompts him to rejoice,

Yet scares him on the threshold with the shroud.

He deems her cherishing of her best-endowed

A wanton's choice.

If man thought of the spirit of Nature as the cruel spirit of death and

destruction, surely he had reason to do so in the time of his primitive

ignorance. Pleasure seemed to him of Nature--offered to him by Nature,

and yet to indulge it often brought upon him destruction. Joy seemed to

him natural, yet whenever he most rejoiced, the shadow of death would

appear somewhere near him. Always this Nature seemed to be putting out

temptations to joy and pleasure, only as a bird hunter scatters food

on the ground to attract birds into his snare. And again this Nature

would never listen to man's prayer. He found out that by working hard

he could obtain food enough to live upon; thus Nature seemed to allow

him the right of life, or as the poet says, "to soothe his needs"; but

never would she grant him his "desire," his prayer for supernatural

help. When it came to the matter of help, he found out that he must

help himself. But why was it, again, that the wicked and the cruel were

permitted to succeed and to become prosperous, while the good and the

gentle perished from the face of the earth? To ancient mankind this was

indeed a most terrible problem, a problem which has not been perfectly

solved even at this day. Was Nature a wanton--that is, a wicked woman,

preferring the evil characters, the murderer, the thief, the robber, to

the upright and just? Such was the question which millions of men must

have asked themselves in the past. Evidently the poet does not think

so; he calls the successful, "the best endowed." What does this mean?

It means that the choice of Nature in her favours, however immoral that

choice may seem to us, is really a choice of the best, according to

her judgment. You may say, if you like, that these or those successful

men are bad, that they have broken all moral rules, that they have

sinned against all the ethics of society, that they are scoundrels

who ought to be in prison. But Nature says, "No, those are my best

children. You may not like them, and doubtless they are not good to

your thinking, but they are very much more clever and much stronger

than you. I want my children to be cunning and to be strong." Are we to

suppose, therefore, that Nature wishes to cultivate only wicked cunning

and brutal strength? No, but cunning and strength are the foundations

upon which intellect and moral power are eventually built. It is like

the statement of Herbert Spencer, that the first thing necessary for

success in life is "to be a good animal." If you can be both a good

animal and a moral and kind person, so much the better. But while the

development is going on, the chances always are that Nature will favour

the animal man at the expense of the moral man who has no strength and

no cleverness. For those who have neither strength nor cunning must

disappear from the face of the earth. Nature does not want to help

weakness; she prefers strong wickedness to helpless goodness. And if we

reflect upon this, we shall find that the whole tendency is not to evil

but to good. It is by considering the past history of man that we can

learn how much he has gained through this cruel policy of Nature.

. . . Thereof he has found

Firm roadway between lustfulness and pain;

Has half transferred the battle to his brain,

From bloody ground;

He will not read her good,

Or wise, but with the passion Self obscures;

Through that old devil of the thousand lures,

Through that dense hood:

Through terror, through distrust;

The greed to touch, to view, to have, to live;

Through all that makes of him a sensitive

Abhorring dust.

Which means that, if we will really think about the matter from an

evolutional standpoint, we shall find that it has been through the

destruction of the weak that mankind has become strong. At first he

knew only desire, like an animal; his wants were only like those of

an animal. But gradually nobler desires came to him, because they were

forced upon him by his constant struggle against death. He learns that

one must be able to control one's desire as well as to fight against

other enemies. From the day man discovered that the greatest enemy was

Self, he became a higher being, he was no longer a mere animal. When

the poet speaks of him as "transferring the battle to his brain from

bloody ground," he means that the struggle of existence to-day has

become a battle of minds, instead of being, as it used to be, a trial

of mere physical strength. We must every one of us fight, but the fight

is now intellectual. Notwithstanding this progress, we are still very

stupid, for we try to explain the laws of the Universe according to

our little feeble conceptions of moral law. Or, as the poet says, we

insist on thinking about Nature "with the passion Self obscures"--with

that selfishness in our hearts which judges everything to be bad that

gives us pain. Until we can get rid of that selfishness, we shall never

understand Nature.

Now the question is, shall we ever be able to understand Nature? I

shall let the poet answer that question in his own way. It is an

optimistic way, and it has the great merit of being quite different

from anything else written upon the subject by any English poet.

But that the senses still

Usurp the station of their issue mind,

He would have burst the chrysalis of the blind:

As yet he will;

As yet he will, she prays,

Yet will when his distempered devil of Self;--

The glutton for her fruits, the wily elf

In shifting rays;--

That captain of the scorned;

The coveter of life in soul and shell,

The fratricide, the thief, the infidel,

The hoofed and horned;--

He singularly doomed

To what he execrates and writhes to shun;--

WHEN FIRE HAS PASSED HIM VAPOUR TO THE SUN,

AND SUN RELUMED.

Here we might well imagine that we were listening to a Buddhist, not

to an English poet, for the thought is altogether the thought of an

Oriental philosopher, though it happens also to be in accord with the

philosophy of Western science. The lines which I put in capital letters

seem to me the most remarkable and the most profound that any Western

poet has yet written about the future of mankind. Let us loosely

paraphrase the verses quoted:

The end to which the senses of man have been created is the making of

Mind. If man were not blinded and deceived by his senses, he would know

what Nature is, because the divine sight, perhaps the infinite vision,

would be opened to him. But the time will come when he shall be able to

know and to see.

What time?

The time when the selfishness of man shall have ceased, when he shall

no longer think of life as given to him only for the pursuit of

pleasure; when he shall have learned that he must not desire to live

too much, and that the body is only the shell of the mind; when crime

and cruelty shall have become impossible--when this world shall have

come to an end.

But when the world shall have come to an end, will there still be

man? Yes, in the poet's faith; for man is part of the eternal, and

the destruction of the universe cannot affect his destiny. It is not,

however, when this world shall have come to an end that man will know.

The earth will go back to the sun, out of which it came, and the sun

itself will burn out into ashes, and the universe will disappear, and

there will thereafter be another universe, with other suns and worlds,

and only then, after passing through the fires of the sun, perhaps of

many suns, will man obtain the supreme knowledge. Never in this world

can he become wise enough and good enough to be perfectly happy. But in

some future universe, under the light of some sun not yet existing, he

may become an almost perfect being.

It may seem strange to you to hear such a prediction from an English

poet, though the thought of the poem is very ancient in Indian

philosophy. Yet Meredith did not reach this thought through the

study of any Oriental teaching. He obtained it from the evolutional

philosophy of the present century, adding, indeed, a little fancy of

his own, but nothing at all in antagonism to the opinions of science,

so far as fact is concerned.

What is the teaching of science in regard to the future and the past of

the present universe? It is that in the course of enormous periods of

time this universe passes away into a nebulous condition, and out of

that condition is reformed again. Mathematically it has been calculated

that the forces regulating the universe must have in the past formed

the same kind of universes millions of times, and will do the same

thing in the future, millions of times. Every modern astronomer

recognizes the studies upon which these calculations are based. It is

certainly curious that when science tells us how the universe with its

hundreds of millions of suns, and its trillions of worlds, regularly

evolves and devolves alternately--it is curious, I repeat, that this

science is telling us the very same thing that Indian philosophers were

teaching thousands of years ago, before there was any science. They

taught that all worlds appear and disappear by turns in the infinite

void, and they compared these worlds to the shadows of the dream of

a god. When the Supreme awakens from his sleep, then all the worlds

disappear, because they were only the shapes of his dream.

Herbert Spencer would not go quite so far as that. But he would

confirm Indian philosophy as to the apparition and disparition of the

universes. There is another point upon which any Western man of science

would also confirm the Oriental teaching--that the essence of life does

not cease and cannot cease with the destruction of our world. Only the

form dies. The forces that make life cannot die; they are the same

forces that spin the suns. Remember that I am not talking about a soul

or a ghost or anything of that kind; I am saying only that it is quite

scientific to believe that all the life which has been in this world

will be again in some future world, lighted by another sun. Meredith

suggests perhaps more than this--only suggests. Take his poem,

however, as it stands, and you will find it a very noble utterance

of optimism, inspiring ideas astonishingly like the ideas of Eastern

metaphysicians.

I am going to conclude this lecture upon Meredith with one more example

of his philosophy of social life. It is a poem treating especially of

the questions of love and marriage, and it shows us how he looks at

matters which are much closer to us than problems about suns and souls

and universes.

The name of the poem is "The Three Singers to Young Blood--that

is to say, the three voices of the world that speak to youth. In order

to understand this composition rightly, you must first know that in

Western countries generally and in England particularly, the most

important action of a man's early life is marriage. A man's marriage

is likely to decide, not only his future happiness or misery, but his

social position, his success in his profession, his ultimate place

even in politics, if he happens to enter the service of the state. I

am speaking of marriage among the upper classes, the educated classes,

the professional classes. Among the working people, the tradesmen and

mechanics, most of whom marry quite young, marriage has not very much

social significance. But among the moneyed classes it is all important,

and a mistake in choosing a wife may ruin the whole career of the most;

gifted and clever man. This is what Meredith has in mind, when he

speaks of the three voices that address youth. The first voice, simply

urges the young man to seek happiness by making a home for himself.

The second voice is that of society, of worldly wisdom and calculating

selfishness. The third voice is the voice of reckless passion, caring

nothing about consequences. Which of the three shall the young man

listen to? Let us hear the first voice.

As the birds do, so do we,

Bill our mate, and choose our tree.

Swift to building work addressed,

Any straw will help a nest.

Mates are warm, and this is truth,

Glad the young that come of youth.

They have bloom i' the blood and sap

Chilling at no thunder-clap.

Man and woman on the thorn,

Trust not Earth, and have her scorn.

They who in her lead confide,

Wither me if they spread not wide!

Look for aid to little things,

You will get them quick as wings,

Thick as feathers; would you feed,

Take the leap that springs the need.

In other words, the advice of this first voice is, Do not be afraid.

Choose your companion as the bird does; make a home for yourself; do

not be afraid to try, simply because you have no money. Do not wait

to become rich. If you know how to be contented with little, you will

find that you can make a small home very easily. A wife makes life more

comfortable, and the children of young parents are the strongest and

the happiest. Such children are healthy, and they grow up brave and

energetic. You must confide in Nature. Men and women who are afraid

to trust to Nature, because they happen to be poor, lose all chance

of ever finding real happiness. Nature turns from them in scorn. But

those who trust to Nature--how they increase and multiply and prosper!

Do not wait for somebody to help you. Watch for opportunities; and you

will find them, quickly, and in multitude. If you want anything in this

world, do not wait for it to come to you; spring for it, as the bird

springs from the tree to seize its food.

There is nothing very bad about this advice, though it is opposed to

the rules of social success. The majority of young people act pretty

much in the way indicated, and it is interesting to observe in this

connection that both Mr. Galton and Mr. Spencer have declared that

if it were required to act otherwise, the consequences would be

very unfortunate for the nation. It is not from cautious and long

delayed marriages that a nation multiplies; on the contrary, it is

from improvident marriages by young people. Yet there is something to

be said on the other side of the question. No doubt a great deal of

unhappiness might be avoided if young men and women were somewhat less

rash than they now are about entering into marriage.

But let us listen to the second voice. Each of the three speaks in

exactly the same number of lines--sixteen.

Contemplate the rutted road;

Life is both a lure and goad.

Each to hold in measure just,

Trample appetite to dust.

Mark the fool and wanton spin:

Keep to harness as a skin.

Ere you follow nature's lead,

Of her powers in you have heed;

Else a shiverer you will find

You have challenged humankind.

Mates are chosen marketwise:

Coolest bargainer best buys.

Leap not, nor let leap the heart:

Trot your track, and drag your cart.

So your end may be in wool,

Honoured, and with manger full.

This is the voice of worldly wisdom, of hard selfishness, and, I am

sorry to say, of cunning hypocrisy; but it sounds very sensible indeed,

and thousands of very successful men act upon the principles here laid

down. Let us paraphrase:

Take a good look at the road of life--see how rough it is! Understand

that there are two opposite principles of life; there are things that

attract to danger, and there are powers that compel a man to make

the greatest effort of which his strength is capable. Consider all

pleasure as dangerous; if you want to be safe and sure, kill your

passions, and master all your desires. Observe how hard foolish people

and sensual people find life. Wrap yourself up in self-control, keep

always on your guard against pleasure, keep on distrust as a suit of

armour--no, rather as a skin, never to be taken off. Before you allow

yourself to follow any natural impulse, remember how dangerous natural

impulses are. Beware of Nature! Otherwise you will soon find out, with

trembling, that the whole world is against you, that human experience

is against you, that you have become an enemy of society. And as for

a wife, remember that you should choose a wife exactly as you would

buy a horse, or as you would make any business purchase. In business

bargaining, it is the man who keeps his temper the longest and conceals

his feelings the most cunningly, that gets the best article.. Never

allow an impulse to guide you. Never follow the guidance of your heart.

Life is hard, make up your mind to go steadily forward and bear your

burden, and if you will do this while you are young, you will become

comfortably rich when you get old, and will have the respect of society

and the enjoyment of everything good in this world. I have said that

this advice is very immoral, although it is in one way very sensible.

I say that it is immoral only for this reason, that it tells people to

act sensibly, not for the love of what is good and true, but merely

for the sake of personal advantages. I cannot believe that a man is

good who lives virtuously only because he finds virtue a profitable

business. All this is pure selfishness, but there is no doubt that

a great many successful men live and act exactly according to these

principles. Now let us consider the third voice, the voice of mere

passion, esthetic passion, which is especially strong with generous

minds. It is not usually the dullard nor the hypocrite nor the egotist

who goes to his ruin by following the impulses of such a passion as

that here described. It is rather the man of the type of Byron, or

still more of the type of Shelley. It is against danger of this voice

that the artist and the poet must especially be on guard.

O the rosy light! it fleets,

Dearer dying than all sweets.

That is life: it waves and goes;

Solely in that cherished Rose

Palpitates, or else 'tis death.

Call it love with all thy breath.

Love! it lingers: Love! it nears:

Love! O Love! the Rose appears,

Blushful, magic, reddening air.

Now the choice is on thee: dare!

Mortal seems the touch, but makes

Immortal the hand that takes.

Feel what sea within thee shames

Of its force all other claims,

Drowns them. Clasp! the world will be

Heavenly Rose to swelling sea.

This will need a good deal of explanation, though I am sure that

you can feel the general meaning without any explanation. The poet

is making a reference to the rose of the alchemist's dream--the

strange old fairy-tale of the Rosicrucians. It was believed in the

Middle Ages and even later, that an Elixir of Life might be formed by

chemistry--that is to say, a magical drink that would make old men

young again, or prolong life through hundreds of years. It was said

that whenever this wonderful drink was made in a laboratory, there

would appear in the liquid the ghostly image of a luminous Rose. It

would take much too long to go into the history of this curious and

very poetical fancy. Suffice to say that the poet here uses the symbol

of the rose of the alchemist to signify life itself--the essence of

youth, and the essence of passion and the worship of beauty. Now we

can attempt to paraphrase:

How wondrous beauty is! How wondrous life and love! Yet quickly these

must pass away. Of what worth is life without love? Better to love

and die quickly. The desire of the lover is, in its way, a desire

for sacrifice; he is willing to give his life a thousand times over

for the being he adores. He thinks that love is life, that there is

nothing else worth existing for. His passion gives new and strange

colour to all his thoughts, new intensity to all his senses; the world

becomes more beautiful for him. Even as if the colour of the sunlight

were changed, so do all things appear changed to the vision of the

man who is then bewitched. But, even during the bewitchment, he is

faintly conscious of duty, of right and wrong, of a voice within him

warning against dangers. He knows, he fears, but he will not heed. He

reasons against his conscience. Is not this attraction really divine?

She is only a woman, yet merely to touch her hand gives a shock, as

of something supernatural. Then the very strength of passion itself

makes it seem more natural. The poet compares it to a sea--the tide of

impulse could not be better described, because of its depth and force.

And always the urging of this passion is "Take her! Do not care! That

will be heaven for you!"

The last stanza has a strange splendour, as well as a strange power;

reckless passion has never been more wonderfully described in sixteen

lines. And to which of the three voices does the poet give preference?

Not to any of them. He says that all of them are deficient in true

wisdom. The first he calls "liquid"--meaning sweet, like the cry of

a dove. But that does not mean that it is altogether commendable. The

second voice he calls a "caw"--meaning that it is dismal and harsh,

like the cry of a black crow. As for the last, he says only that it is

"the cry that knows not law!" By this he means that which suffers no

restraint, and which therefore is incomparably dangerous. Yet I suppose

that it is better than the caw. What the poet thinks is that the three

different voices united together, so that each makes harmony with the

others, so that the good which is in each could make accord--would be

"music of the sun!"

Hark to the three. Chimed they in one,

Life were music of the sun.

Liquid first, and then the caw,

Then the cry that knows not law.

This utterance is not nearly so common-place as we might think at first

reading. There is a great deal of deep philosophy in it. Meredith means

that all our impulses, all our passions, all our selfishness, and

even our revolts against law, have their value in the eternal order

of things. In a perfect man all these emotions and sentiments would

still exist, but they would exist only in such form that they would

beautifully counterbalance each other. But there is no such thing

as human perfection, and the individual is therefore very likely to

be dominated by selfishness if he acts cautiously, and dominated by

passion when he acts without judgment.

I think I have quoted enough of Meredith to give you some notion

of his particular quality. At all events I hope that you may become

interested in him. He is especially the poet of scholars; the poet of

men of culture. Only a man of culture can really like him--just as only

a man long accustomed to good living can appreciate the best kinds of

wine. Give fine wine to a poor man accustomed only to drink coarse

spirits, and he will not care about it. So the common reader cannot

care about Meredith. He is what we call a "test-poet"--your culture,

your capacity to think and feel, is tested by your ability to like such

a poet. The question, "Do you like Meredith?" is now in English and

even in French literary circles, a test. But remember that Meredith has

great faults. If he did not have, he would rank at the very top of the

Victorian poets. But he has the fault of obscurity, like Browning, he

often tortures language into the most amazing forms, and he is about

the most difficult of all English poets to read. His early work is much

better than his later in this respect. But the difficulty of Meredith

is not only a difficulty of language. No one can understand him who

does not also understand the philosophical thought of the second half

of the nineteenth century. He is especially the poet of a particular

time, and for that reason it is very much to be regretted that he is

less clear than almost any literary artist of his period.