Two young lawyers had a difference as to the meaning of an obscure
passage in the “Christian Year,” and resolved to appeal to the author.
Mr. Keble wrote back that neither had hit upon the right interpretation,
but he really couldn’t now say exactly what he meant himself.
A story is told of Jacob Boehme, the cobbler, famous for his profound
philosophical works. On his death-bed his disciples came to him, eager
to obtain explanations of obscure passages in his writings before he was
taken away. One passage puzzled him, and he said: “My children, when I
wrote that I understood its meaning, and no doubt the omniscient God
did. He may still remember it, but I have forgotten.”
Some of Klopstock’s admirers made a journey from Gottingen to Hamburg to
ask him to explain a difficult passage in his works. Klopstock received
them graciously, read the passage, and said: “I cannot recollect what I
meant when I wrote it, but remember it was the finest thing I ever
wrote, and you cannot do better than devote your lives to the discovery
of its meaning.”
Robert Browning was similarly cornered more than once, to his own
confusion as well as to the discomfiture of his worshippers.
In the line of “advanced thought,” a Boston evening paper published the
following advertisement:
“A lady of Emersonian thought and sentiment would delight to assist as
far as is possible, unjoyous human lives through intuitional and other
suggestions, as also by importations of that healthful and invigorating
life which nature and the soul ever offer.”
It is not ungracious to say that a large majority of our citizens fail
to comprehend what the fair lady is driving at. “Emersonian thought” is
good. Ralph Waldo Emerson himself was interviewed on the subject, but he
could not throw any light on the mysterious object of the advertiser.
Emerson says there are no doubt not a few “unjoyous human lives,” but he
is not aware that any application of his usual style of diction to such
mortals could add any happiness to them, for the reason that the
“unjoyous” souls might not be able to comprehend the meaning of his
language.
Ogilvie, in his “Philosophical Essays,” gives some definitions, of which
the following is a specimen:
“A coincidence between the association of ideas, and the order or
succession of events or phenomena, according to the relation of cause
and effect, and in whatever is subsidiary, or necessary to realize,
approximate and extend such coincidence; understanding by the relation
of cause and effect, that order or succession, the discovery or
development of which empowers an intelligent being, by means of one
event or phenomenon, or by a series of given events or phenomena, to
anticipate the recurrence of another event or phenomenon, or of a
required series of events or phenomena, and to summon them into
existence, and employ their instrumentality in the gratification of his
wishes, or in the accomplishment of his purposes.”
The following passage is taken at random from Thomas Carlyle’s “Sartor
Resartus”:
“Gullible, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and gulled with the most
surprising profit. Towards anything like a Statistics of Imposture,
indeed, little as yet has been done; with a strange indifference, our
Economists, nigh buried under tables for minor Branches of Industry,
have altogether overlooked the grand allovertopping Hypocrisy Branch; as
if our whole arts of Puppery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and
the innumerable other crafts of that genus, had not ranked in productive
industry at all! Can anyone, for example, so much as say, what moneys in
literature and shoeblacking are realized by actual Instruction and
actual jet Polish; what by fictitious persuasive Proclamation of such;
specifying in distinct items the distributions, circulations,
disbursements, incoming of said moneys, with the smallest approach to
accuracy? But to ask, How far, in all the several infinitely complected
departments of social business, in government, education, in manual,
commercial, intellectual fabrication of every sort, man’s Want is
supplied by true Ware; how far by the mere Appearance of true Ware:—in
other words, To what extent, by what methods, with what effects, in
various times and countries, Deception takes the place and wages of
Performance; here truly is an Injury big with results for the future
time, but to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for
the present, in Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to appearance of
Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred (which considering the Wages of
a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English game preserver, is probably not far
from the mark),—what almost prodigious saving may there be anticipated
as the Statistics of Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing of
shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer distinction
therefrom) gradually declines, and at length becomes all but wholly
unnecessary!”
The characteristic feature of the paraphrase is verbosity. The professed
design of the paraphrast is to say in many words what his text expresses
in few; accordingly all the writers of this class must be at pains to
provide themselves with sufficient stock of synonyms, epithets,
expletives, circumlocution, and tautologies, which are, in fact, the
necessary implements of their craft. The following will serve as an
example. In Matthew vii, 24, 25, the words of Jesus Christ are:
“_Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I
will liken him to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock; and the
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
that house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock._” Now let
us hear the paraphrast, Adam Clarke: “Wherefore he that shall not only
_hear_ and _receive_ these my instructions, but also _remember_, and
_consider_, and _practice_, and _live according to them_, such a man may
be compared to one that builds his house upon a rock; for as a house
founded upon a rock stands _unshaken_ and _firm_ against all the
assaults of rains, and floods, and storms, so the man who, in his life
and conversation, _actually practices_ and _obeys_ my instructions, will
firmly resist all the temptations of the devil, the allurements of
pleasure, and the terrors of persecution, and shall be able to stand in
the day of judgment, and be rewarded of God.” Commenting on this
verbosity, Dr. Campbell, of Aberdeen, says: “It would be difficult to
point out a single advantage which this wordy, not to say flatulent,
interpretation has of the text. Is it more perspicuous? It is much less
so; although it is the chief, if not the sole end of this manner of
writing, to remove everything that can darken the passage paraphrased,
and to render the sense as clear as possible. A deficiency of words is
often the cause of obscurity, but this evil may also be the effect of
exuberance. By a multiplicity of words the sentiment is not set off and
accommodated, but like David equipped in Saul’s armor, it is encumbered
and oppressed.”
Mr. Ruskin gives an answer to the question often asked as to the meaning
of the title of his pamphlets that is just about as hazy and hard to
understand as the pamphlets themselves. With regard to the _Fors
Clavigera_, for example, he says: “That title means many things, and is
in Latin because I could not have given an English one that meant so
many. ‘Fors’ is the best part of three good English words—force,
fortitude, and fortune.... ‘Clavigera’ may mean either club bearer, key
bearer, or nail bearer.... ‘Fors,’ the club bearer, means the strength
of Hercules, or of deed; ‘fors,’ the key bearer, means the strength of
Ulysses, or of patience; ‘fors,’ the nail bearer, means the strength of
Lycurgus, or of law. Briefly, the first ‘fors’ is courage, the second
patience, the third fortune.”
In 1880 Dr. Greenhill, of Hastings, England, wrote to Cardinal Newman,
asking him to explain the meaning of the couplet in “Lead, Kindly
Light”:
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.
To this request the following characteristic reply was received:
“THE ORATORY, January 18, 1880.
“MY DEAR DR. GREENHILL,—
“You flatter me by your question, but I think it was Keble who, when
asked in his own case, answered that poets were not bound to be critics,
or to give a sense to what they had written; and, though I am not, like
him, a poet, at least, I may plead that I am not bound to remember my
own meaning, whatever it was, at the end of fifty years. Anyhow, there
must be a statute of limitations for writers of verse, or it would be
quite a tyranny if, in an art which is the expression, not of truth but
of imagination and sentiment, one were obliged to be ready for
examination on the transient state of mind which came upon one when
homesick or seasick, or any other way sensitive or excited. Yours most
truly,
“JOHN H. NEWMAN.”
One of the most remarkable of the Oxford sermons of the famous
ecclesiastic quoted in the foregoing paragraph, John Henry (afterwards
cardinal) Newman, entitled, “On the Development of Christian Doctrine,”
explains how science teaches that the earth goes round the sun, and how
Scripture teaches that the sun goes round the earth, and it ends by
advising the discreet believer _to accept both_.