to his side Edward, and said: Now, my dear son, sit down beside me and
I will deliver to you the true counsel. I feel that my hour is near: my
face is pale; my days are nearly run; we soon must part; I shall go to
another world and thou shalt be left alone with all my wealth. I pray
thee, for thy heart, my dear child, strive to be a father and a lord to
thy people. Be the children’s father, the widow’s friend, comfort the
poor, shelter the weak, and with all thy might do thou right whatever
is wrong. And, my son, govern thyself by law, and then the Lord shall
love thee, and God, above all things, shall be thy reward.
And so departed the peaceable, the truth-teller, England’s darling. His
bones are dust, his good sword rust, his soul is with the saints we
trust.
And Edward followed him, a truly great ruler. He held all the realm
south of the Humber. He claimed the lordship over Northumbria, Wales
and Scotland. That lordship came to be contested. For the first time
all the isle of Britain came to be united under one monarch. And he was
a West Saxon. Thus the unity of England was virtually established.
There were fierce struggles by the succeeding king, but one final
result was that the Scots gained some ground, some territory. Their
southern line was brought down to about here [pointing], that is from
the Solway to Berwick, where it remains, and where a new basis was
laid for Scottish civilization. In that portion of the country is the
border land so long renowned for many a story, for many a fight, for
many a poem. Walter Scott celebrates many of the marches in many of his
stories and songs.
Now a third thing: The incorporation of the Danes. If England would
retain her national character, she must have power of absorption and
a Christian spirit. What was to be done with the Danes—with all the
Danish element here in the Danelagh. That same Danish element was here
when you have the map even in this form. There were some other people
mingled with them, but the Danes held the controlling power, and those
Norse settlers, in some parts of it, may have been few, but still they
had the power. Now they gradually learned English, English manners, and
acquired the English spirit. They learned English Christianity, and
gradually conformed in everything. And here is one remarkable fact: the
Scandinavian people, the people of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, have
always been a people disposed to conform to the people with whom they
lived. In France they became Frenchmen; in Russia they became Russians;
in Italy they became Italians; in Ireland they became intensely Irish,
and so now in this country, they become Americans more readily and more
gracefully than the Germans.
About 911 a viking left Norway, left his two little isles, and sailing
about came down here [pointing]. Alfred warded him off. He sailed about
for some time and then he entered the Seine (911), got possession of
this valley, married a French princess, put on white robes and for a
few days acted as a Christian gentleman. He invited all sea-rovers into
this valley, and they made a splendid country of it. Still more and
more of these settlers came, and thus Normandy rose among the nations.
It became a tremendous power. Not so much at first with her sword as
with her civilization. It may seem rather strange that this Norse
colony should take the lead in western Europe, should take the lead in
civilization, in culture, learning, architecture, scholarship; yet that
is the fact. Norman will, both of the noble and weak kind, had its way
in enlarging this realm during the sway of four successive dukes.
Then we come to Robert the Magnificent, who wedded the sister of
Canute. He attempted to invade England and failed. He was father of
William. He would not fail, and the enterprise with which the father
had been unsuccessful remained as an inheritance for the son. His
father died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035. He was left ruler
over some of the most lawless and turbulent barons in Europe. He
was scarcely eight years old, and his record of thirty years while
reorganizing Normandy and in bringing the nobles to order is a proof of
his real greatness. He fought his way, he gained his dukedom, he broke
up nests of treason, he destroyed castles, he upset conspiracies, he
showed what one young man could do, when he had definite aims, wise
plans, fixed principles, and industry and resolution, courage and
firmness, and the ability to keep what he had gained.
William was a hard man, austere, exacting, persevering. His heavy
hand made the English themselves comprehend their own national unity
through a unity of suffering. If they had not perished for a moment,
they would not have survived for ages. My time is spent or we would
leap from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, and emphasize our
last points, _resistance to the Pope, and organization of the House of
Commons_. But these you can think of at your leisure.
FOOTNOTE:
[F] Held in the Amphitheater, at Chautauqua, August 4, 1882.
REASONS FOR THE STUDY OF GREEK.
By PROF. H. LUMMIS.
By those best qualified to judge, the thorough study of Greek is
conceded to be the very highest kind of mental discipline and culture.
George P. Marsh, in his lectures on the English language, thus speaks:
“Let me repeat, that so far from dissuading from the study of Greek,
as a branch of general education, I do but echo the universal opinion
of all persons competent to pronounce on the subject, in expressing
my own conviction that the language and literature of ancient Greece
constitute the most efficient instrument of mental training ever
enjoyed by man: and that a familiarity with that wonderful speech, its
poetry, its philosophy, its eloquence, and the history it embalms, is
incomparably _the most valuable of intellectual possessions_.” Such
testimony from so eminent a scholar, and from so critical a mind is
decisive in regard to the value of the study of Greek as a discipline,
as well as in respect to the richness of the literature which it
contains.
In the field of art we admit that he who would be great must study the
great models, and be directed by competent masters. Even a Raphael
owes something of his high renown to the patient diligence with which
he studied the best pieces of his master Pietro Vanucci, the most
noted artist of his day. So he who aspires to become a master in the
expression of thought will wisely seek the masterpieces of those
who have embalmed great thought in the most finished and excellent
language. That the writers of Greece are preëminently the writers who
have done this as profound and widely read a linguist as Max Müller
testifies. He says: “What the inhabitants of the small city of Athens
achieved in philosophy, in poetry, in art, in science, in politics,
is known to all of us; and our admiration for them increases tenfold
if, by a study of other literatures, such as the literatures of India,
Persia, and China, we are enabled to compare their achievements
with those of other nations of antiquity. The rudiments of almost
everything, with the exception of religion, we, the people of Europe,
the heirs to a fortune accumulated during twenty or thirty centuries of
intellectual toil, owe to the Greeks; and strange as it may sound, but
few, I think would gainsay it, that to the present day the achievements
of these, our distant ancestors and earliest masters, the songs of
Homer, the dialogues of Plato, the speeches of Demosthenes, and the
statues of Phidias, stand, if not unrivalled, at least unsurpassed
by anything that has been achieved by their descendants and pupils.
Like their own goddess, Athene, the people of Athens seem to spring
full armed into the arena of history; and we look in vain to Egypt,
Syria, or India for more than a few of the seeds that burst into such
marvellous growth on the soil of Attica.”
He belittles human nature who thinks the practical value of commercial
arithmetic to be greater than such a mastery of language as shall
enable one to express himself correctly in his own tongue. To study
an instrument for the expression of thought, so wonderfully flexible,
so admirably exact, so widely comprehensive, so astonishingly
strong, is to the student of his native tongue what training in a
great international exposition of machinery, like that exhibited
in Philadelphia in our centennial year, would be to a bright young
mechanic, a schooling of incalculable worth. What an insight it gives
into the subtle changes in the forms of words; what a comprehension of
the root meanings of words, what an idea of the power of arrangement in
words, what a conception of the music and beauty in the sounds of words.
Coleridge has admirably characterized the excellence of this queen
of languages: “Greek—the shrine of the genius of the old world,
as universal as our race; as individual as ourselves; of infinite
flexibility; of indefatigable strength; with the complication and
distinctness of Nature herself; with words like pictures; with
words like the gossamer film of summer, at once the variety and
picturesqueness of Homer; the gloom and intensity of Æschylus; not
compressed to the closest by Thucydides, nor fathomed to the bottom
by Plato; not sounding with all its thunders nor lit up with all
its ardors under the Promethean touch of Demosthenes.” The thorough
drill of a competent teacher in introducing the student to the Greek
tongue, is a most valuable discipline to the memory; the acquisition
of multitudes of roots and affixes is of high importance to a full
comprehension of the meaning of words in our own language, the exercise
of the judgment in distinguishing words of like or of opposite
meanings, the fine force of the particles of the language, and the
delicate shades of thought given by variation in mode or tense, has far
higher value as a broad training of that faculty than the most thorough
mathematical discipline.
The improved methods of instruction have removed the old objection that
it takes a lifetime to acquire the language. The objection applies as
much to music, or even to a single kind of music: it takes a lifetime
to become perfect master of the violin.
THE UGLY MAN.
I was the youngest but one of a large family, of whom the daughters
were remarkable for their personal beauty, while the sons, of whom
I was the last, graduated in plainness that was all but repulsive.
This peculiarity, by which the beauty was given to the girls and
the plainness to the boys, had been in the family for generations;
and, both in uncles and aunts and cousins of either sex, is still
discernible at the time I write.
But that which, in my own case, made this personal deformity an
additional misfortune, was the fact, that, along with my ugliness, I
had inherited a most sensitive disposition. And as there are never
wanting persons to speak of a child’s deficiencies even in its very
presence, I soon became aware of my defects. Not being precocious,
I was looked upon as more stupid than I was in fact; while the real
ability I possessed was altogether unsuspected. Often indeed the
gibes and jeers of my beautiful sisters, and the rough remarks of my
less ugly brothers, cut my childish soul to the quick. _My small,
flat, squab nose was in everybody’s mouth._ I was told of it twenty
times a day. Whoever wanted something to do, found instant employment
in twitting me on the subject of this unlucky feature. I was never
allowed to forget it; and often have I stood in the midst of a circle
roaring with laughter at my expense. The natural result followed: from
being naturally over-sensitive, I became only too keenly alive to the
supposed opinions of others. In church I sat with my head rigidly fixed
on my shoulders, turning myself neither to the right hand nor to the
left, lest the persons behind me should catch a glimpse of my unlovely
profile. I looked straight before me like an arrow; and on leaving my
seat, as I went down the aisle and had to face my enemies and critics,
I would hold my cap up to my eyes, and endeavor to pass demurely by,
with nose unobserved.
Nor was my poor little nose my only cause of annoyance, for my face
was large and splay, my complexion was muddy and pale, and the color
of my eyes was a washed-out green. The space too between my nose and
upper lip was long and protuberant, and my lips themselves were in full
bloom like those of a negro. Indeed, the only thing in my favor, as
regards personal appearance, was my hair, which was of a glossy auburn,
and curled naturally in profusion. But this, my only redeeming feature,
I was unacquainted with at the time. In my ignorance (for though
often told of my faults, I never, as a child, heard myself praised),
I even looked upon this propensity in my hair to curl as a positive
misfortune, inasmuch as my friends informed me that it always appeared
unkempt and wild, and therefore I naturally thought it an addition to
my defects. Oh, how I envied the oiled and trim locks of my companions,
which showed no such erratic tendency as mine; and in the agony of my
mind I often had recourse to the hairdresser, who, at my directions,
cut off close each offending curl, and sent me home shorn. But, alas!
my triumph was but short. Sisters and brothers crowded round me soon,
and proclaimed that my large inanimate face only looked larger and
more inanimate still; while aunts and mother dismissed me from their
presence with the observation that I was now a perfect fright.
Such, then, was the one thought uppermost in my childish mind. I had
a strong faith in my own ugliness. Happy days and hours I had, as
all healthy children will have. I frolicked and played; and being
naughty as well as ugly, I was often whipped; while my pretty little
sister, the youngest of us all, being pretty as well as naughty, was
only scolded and warned. However, no punishment I ever received (and
I had many) hurt me so much as the oft-recurring, never-long-absent
reflection, that Nature, when she turned me out of her mint, had
impressed me with her strongest stamp of ugliness. Nay, when at times
a child’s party was given at our house, and little neighbors came to
see us for a few hours, I was quick at observing how that none of them
took to me. If a game were proposed, I was always assigned the lowest
place in it. If others were kings and queens, I was only a servant and
a slave; and when others were captains and admirals, I was a common
sailor; and on one occasion, which I well remember, I was degraded to
the position of powder-monkey. It seemed indeed by universal, tacit
consent that I should be thus used; and in my own secret little heart I
attributed the cause to my ugliness. Often while I joined in the game
and shouted my utmost, I was in reality sad and disheartened; and have
more than once climbed a tree and hid myself in its topmost branches,
while the sport proceeded in the garden below, and my absence was
unnoticed.
Thus it was that my childhood fled away, till, as time progressed, the
evil became more serious. Having been so often rebuffed and humiliated,
I lost all ambition to excel. Insensibly I acquiesced in the idea that
I was in all points inferior to others, and that no efforts of my own
could ever raise me to their level. My friends now not only called
me ugly, but stupid. My plain elder brother was undeniably clever.
My plainer second brother was shrewd, but I was both the ugliest and
stupidest of all. At first I wept at this double discovery. I then
grew content at being at the bottom of my class at school. My master
held me up to ridicule (the rascal has since been made a bishop), and
that, too, not only because I was backward and idle, for in these
respects I richly deserved his blame; but, alas! for poor human nature
so apt to be biased by mere externals, because I was ugly. I felt at
the time that, had I not been so very plain, my being a dunce would
have been more overlooked. I saw good-looking dunces in the class with
me, who were easily pardoned; but I was an ugly dunce, and therefore
was ridiculed and punished. This treatment made me sullen. At last I
never cared to work at all. I copied my exercises and blundered over
my translations so much, that the master grew tired of hearing me, and
would often pass me over entirely—a course that pleased me exceedingly,
and only confirmed me in my idleness. I was called stupid, and I became
stupid; and I discovered, till I half became a little misanthrope, that
the ugliness for which I was bantered at home, caused me also to be
treated with greater harshness for my faults at school.
Nor was it my enforced stupidity alone that thus gave the sting to my
plainness, but my poverty. My father was very badly off. I wore my
elder brothers’ old clothes, which were too large for me. I assumed,
I recollect, on one occasion one of their cast-off hats, and it
overshadowed me completely. My well-dressed school-fellows christened
me Guy Fawkes on account of my frumpish attire: and one of them, kinder
than the rest, came to me one day when I was all alone, and told me he
was sorry for me. This last incident completed my humiliation. I did
not weep but I kept very silent for a day or two. I entered into no
sports. I walked apart and thought of my ugliness, my stupidity, my
poverty; nor was it till a week or more had passed away that I regained
my usual spirits.
Shortly after the above-mentioned events, when I was about fourteen
years of age, my poor father began to think seriously of the
future career of his ugly bantling. And now a fresh sorrow awaited
me. My acquirements were so small, my manners and appearance so
unprepossessing, that there was great difficulty in deciding on my
future course. “Come here, Jack,” said my father one day to me. “Can
you read well?” “No,” he answered for me. “Can you write well?” “No,”
he said again. “Can you cast accounts well?” “No,” he replied once
more. “You can do nothing well, but take birds’ nests. I don’t know at
all what is to become of you.”
On hearing these words, poor Jack left the room very much crestfallen;
and quite agreed with his father, that he did not at all know what
was to become of him, being both the ugliest and stupidest of his
family. “Send him to college, father, and make a clergyman of him,”
suggested an amiable and compassionate sister, thinking more of her
brother’s feelings than the Church’s interests. This last speech of
hers I overheard, as I was disappearing through the doorway, with the
additional words: “Perhaps he may just pass through, without being
absolutely plucked.”
* * * * *
Since the above-mentioned scenes, years have passed away and a great
change has come over me. I have already said more than once that I was
a backward boy, and very lazy over my books. About the age of sixteen
years, however, a visible alteration took place in this respect. At
the suggestion of a sister (a suggestion indeed half made in fun),
I was induced to try my hand at writing verses. At first I refused,
being quite aghast at such a daring proposal; but on the request being
repeated, I complied. Then it was that I caught the first sound of
praise my ugly ears had ever heard yet. She and I were both alike
surprised. I could not believe that I had composed the poem out of
my own stupid head. I read it over and over again, and each time
with increasing wonder. I was actually startled at myself, while the
pleasing idea stole into my mind that I was not so great a fool after
all.
Nor did the matter end there. The verses were taken to another sister,
and were praised by her in turn. My second brother also, who saw them
next, declared boldly that they were not mine; or if they were, must
have been made up of odds and ends by some unconscious trick of the
memory. The answer was easy: I knew no poetry, and therefore the idea
of plagiarism had no grounds to rest upon. And this last consideration
made my triumph complete. My intellectual being awoke from its long
slumber, and sprang at once into conscious life. Poetry became a
passion. I read all I could lay my hands upon. I composed and filled
volumes with my own lucubrations; my spirit within me yearned under
the burden of a thousand new and contending romantic emotions; and
while I continued busily my classical studies (for about this time it
was settled that I should go to college), I read and wrote much in
addition, and was never idle for a single moment.
Still, though the first step had thus been taken in the right
direction, much remained to be done. When alone with my books, I felt
and enjoyed the freedom I had acquired. I no longer looked on myself
as below my fellow-men, but recognized my birthright of intellectual
power, and delighted in the exercise of it. The case, however, was
different when I was with strangers, or even with members of my own
family. Immediately the fancied giant slunk back again into the
stunted dwarf. The fault of my education came over me like a cloud.
The lesson that had been drilled into me so early was not to be easily
eradicated; and the consequence was, that, while my indignant spirit
secretly rebelled at my own cowardice, I was obliged to submit with a
good grace, and cut but a poor figure in the eyes of my companions and
fellow-students.
Nor did this proud diffidence lose in intensity when I was introduced
into the little world of academical life. The same fault haunted
me still; and keeping aloof from others, I not only forfeited many
advantages, but likewise ran the risk, incurred by all solitary men,
of increasing selfishness and egotism. Circumstances, however, in some
degree broke down this barrier to freedom of intercourse with others,
which unwise friends had unconsciously helped to raise; and though I
had a small but select circle of acquaintances, my evil genius was
still with me; and I finally left the university, having missed much it
was calculated to teach.
My next experience dates from the time when I found myself a curate in
a large manufacturing town. All my old troubles began over again. When
I stood up in public, my sensitiveness came back to me with tenfold
force. The thought of my extreme ugliness, the recollection of my
ridiculously little and flat nose, overwhelmed me with confusion. I was
keenly alive to the ludicrous: and hence the picture I involuntarily
drew of myself wounded my vanity in the extreme. My first appearance in
the desk was formidable. I was miserable. My poor little nose, through
intense self-consciousness, actually ached on my face. If I caught
the full glance of an eye, I suspected at once that it was fixed on
that particular feature; and I had by an express effort to call all my
reasoning powers together to lay this ghost of my own morbid fancy.
This extreme sensitiveness, however, soon began to wear off. I made up
my mind to be ugly; and the strong brotherhood I felt with many others
in this respect came to the aid of my philosophy.
But there was a worse evil, which was not so soon overcome. Having been
for so many years of my life looked upon as stupid, I was now seized
again with that distrust of self which I had once so nearly shaken off.
It seriously crippled my usefulness; and I had the mortification to see
others, with half my abilities and acquirements, but more self-reliant,
occupy positions with applause where I was compelled to be silent.
The struggle in my heart was very bitter; and if at last I did break
through the trammels in some degree, it was not till many a wasted year
had flown, and many a golden opportunity had gone by forever.
Like all other young men too, I fell in love, and then the thought of
my ugliness came down on me like a thunderbolt. Of course the young
lady was perfection, and her nose a thorough contrast to my own. The
fact that ugly men often obtained beautiful wives was very consoling,
I allow; and I often ran over in my own mind a list of all the plain
men I knew who were married to lovely women. Still my own ugliness
distressed me, and I began in consequence an awkward and unwieldy
flirtation. I tried to be agreeable, but my shyness prevailed; and I
generally ended by making some blunder, such as plunged me in disgrace.
Then a period of silence and distance would ensue, at which the fair
object of my affections was visibly piqued and puzzled; and, as was but
natural, soon let me feel her anger and annoyance. Then immediately,
with the proverbial inconsistency of a lover, I forgot my own conduct
that had caused the alteration in her manner, and attributed the change
to a rooted dislike of my person. And so at last we separated; and a
happier rival appeared, who carried her off at once, and wears the
flower to this day.