a city never failed to bring before the ranging eye some vision
pregnant of those emotions by which the sense of humanity is quickened
to a deeper consciousness of itself. The witchery of space was there
always, and seemed to draw from the soul the clinging mists of her
indifference. It was there that I saw nature in all her moods, and felt
that to each my own moods responded; there that despondency, imagining
her monotony of woe, was confuted by the saving changefulness of created
things. I remember one day, when a summer storm was spending its fury, I
stood upon this ridge and looked across the low lands that stretched
away beneath me. They lay with all their boundaries confused by a pall
of purple gloom, then darkly transparent, and dissolving before the
returning sun, whose penetrative influence was felt rather than actually
perceived. As I gazed, high in the veil of cloud there began faintly to
gleam a spot of palest gold, so high that it seemed to belong to the sky
and to have no part in an earthly landscape. Gradually it expanded, grew
more vivid, and assumed form, other forms and tints emerged beside it,
until at last it was revealed as a ripe corn-field on the high slopes
across the valley, and before many moments had passed, a long line of
downs stood out in the pure air with a sculptural clearness, as if
during the storm all had been uprooted and moved a whole league towards
the spot where I stood. While the rainbow spanned the plain, and the
thunder still rolled in the distance, all the opposite heaven cleared
almost to the furthest horizon; but there a remoter range yet lay
half-covered by a billowy mass of clouds, like the hull of a dismasted
ship in the folds of her fallen sails. At last even this trace of the
battle was gone; the sun shone unopposed; the wet lands and clear sky
were lit with an intenser brightness for their transient eclipse.
Then the humanity of all these things was borne in upon my mind, and I
was affected by these vicissitudes shadowing forth the destiny of man,
and reminding him in their beautiful and majestic procession that nature
endures no perpetual gloom. The sudden ruin of a bright day in deluge
and darkness and sonorous thunder, the timid reappearance of faint
light, the natural forms strangely emerging from the perplexed wrack
infesting the heaven, and at last seen as never before through leagues
of pellucid air; the thunder's silence, the final and supreme triumph of
light;--these swift yet utter revolutions of the visible world, by very
grace of mutability, were rich with instant consolations for the soul's
misgiving. They served to remind me that the fears, the spiritual
conflicts, the darkness that seems eternal, are mere incidents of a
summer noon and leave behind them a purer and serener day. Through all
this close intercourse with nature my mind was being prepared for a
healthier relation to my fellow-man, and my heart saved from the
petrification of melancholy self-regard. The ever-growing delight in
these inanimate things, the constant discovery of new charms as
knowledge widened with experience, united to prevent stagnation and
despair; they kept heart and mind alert for the perception of new
glories; and it is from a clear sense of their salutary power that I
dwell upon them in this record of a self-tormented life. How should he
find life colourless whose eyes are often fixed upon the sky, who sees
grey zones of cloud flush crimson before the sunrise, and at evening the
wide air richly glowing, moted as with the bloom of plums and the golden
pollen of all flowers?
At the end of that summer I returned to the occupations of life,
appeased and almost happy in this inheritance of new sympathies. And
before long I found that these were themselves but precursors of that
which was to come, and that like the paranymphs who escort the bride,
they did but apparel the heart for a deeper and more abiding joy. They
were busied about me in tranquil hours, and speaking not, but seeming to
wait in gladness for another, they made me serenely expectant also. They
destroyed all sadness of retrospect; they led me always forward; with
faces transparent with the light of an inward happiness they seemed to
promise a vision at each near bending of the way. From glad looks and
gestures assuring imminent joy, I too was charmed into a like faith, and
went on blithely in the confidence of a coming illumination. Nor was
that hope vain, for at length the mystery was made plain, and one day
they brought me exulting into the presence of the Ideal Love.
There is a place in every heart which must be filled by adoration, or
else the whole will grow hard and wither like a garden whose central
fountain is grown dry. And though the affection of mortal man or woman
may abandon it, there remains yet this other love which by pure and
strenuous invocation may be drawn to it, and dwell in it, to the
ennoblement of life; so great is the care of providence for mortal need.
Love is our need, and it is given, if we despair not of it, even to such
as have rarely felt the glow of earthly passion. For love is of many
kinds; yet the palest and most subtle of its forms are made real to
those who believe, and may become the guiding influences of their lives.
Such are the visions of the ideal love to which those glad natural
sympathies now led me, leaving me alone awhile that I might worship the
orient light. And when I came out from that presence I rejoiced indeed,
for the path was clear for my return, and life was now glad with promise
like an orchard burgeoning with white blossoms. Old memories crowded
back on me of hours beneath the cedars with the Phaedrus and the Vita
Nuova, hours made happy with intellectual and austere delights. But now
the joy was other than intellectual, though significant tenfold, for
then in untried youth I had wondered at the beauty of an imaginary
world; now with eyes that had looked on desolation I perceived that
these visions were true. For had they been no more than airy fancies,
they surely had not endured throughout these long ages in our laden and
mortal air.
It was not merely the beauty of a literary setting which had preserved
them: the craftsman's skill might indeed have enhanced their natural
splendour, but it could not have alone inspired them with this perennial
life. The gem with fire in its heart outlives the delicate setting;
though it may be maltreated and buried for centuries by the wayside, it
will come to light when the gold that framed it is long battered or
lost, and will be desired by new generations for its inherent and
unalterable beauty.
Not Plato's or Dante's creative power, but truth surviving all
incarnations of genius, has kept this celestial gem aglow: they have but
celebrated that which was never mortal, and guided wandering eyes to
heaven's most beautiful star. This intangible and unincarnate vision
exacts more from its votaries than the love which walks the earth:
holding the lover ever in the strain of apprehension, it inures him to
unwearying worship, and itself moving in regions incorruptible, never
loses the glory of its first hour. The years may pass, but one face,
like a hallowed thing, abides continually; years may fret and corrode
other ideals, but to this they add beauties of ever fresh significance.
The auroral glow is always round it, brightening the world, until it
becomes an emblem of illumination and the symbol of eternal truths. This
visionary presence wakes aspiration to new effort and touches the
intellect with passion; beleaguered thought sallies out with new
strength, and the frontiers of darkness recede before it. From this
comes the quickening of the heart without which hope wanes and the mind
is barren: the deep pure joy of contemplation awakens all that is best
in the soul, which goes towards it on tense wings of desire. And as with
time it draws further from the earth, and, following, the soul essays
ever higher flights, it is often poised at a great height as in a trance
of motion, whence it looks back upon the world it has left, and round it
upon other worlds. Then, its love-range being wondrously expanded, it
sees beyond that visionary countenance, which dissolves and forms again
like a delicate wreath of mist; and clear starlight falls upon it from
every side, so that all shadow is destroyed. And when it returns to
earth again, and is forced to contemplate meaner things, it is now aware
that the very soil is compacted of dust of stars, and that he who looks
listlessly upon creation is unworthy of the human name. And so
continually flying forth and returning, it weaves endless bonds between
the infinitesimal and the infinite, forgetting how to despise, which is
the heavenly science.
All this ardour is awakened and sustained by love, which began in sense
and is now transformed. Through each succeeding change it is known for
the same divine power which has so attuned the body that it vibrates no
more to desire alone, but is now become resonant beneath a faint and
spiritual breath.
It is an old story that love is sightless, but that is the love which
romps among the roses and is blinded by their thorns. There is another
and a better tradition that love's eyes pierce heaven, and this is a
great truth; for infinity is cold and vaporous until man projects upon
it his mortal ideal, his conception of an earthly love transfigured.
When this beloved guide appears throned above him as in the clouds, he
dares to lift his eyes, and there he reads through its light the divine
purports of his existence. Is it a small thing to stand, though but for
a moment, searching infinity undismayed? This is the celestial ocean to
whose shore he is come; and now "drawing towards and contemplating the
vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and
notions in boundless love of wisdom, until on that shore he grows and
waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single
science, which is the science of beauty everywhere ... beauty absolute,
separate, simple, everlasting, which without diminution, without
increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever growing and perishing
beauties of all other things."
To some the great perception comes but late, rising from the ashes of
love's common furnace. But they whose hearts have never been consumed in
these roaring flames may find it earlier; and purged from all taints of
jealousy and covetousness, may pass straightway into the bliss of a
higher union. This is that supreme affiance and espousal of the soul
wherein they may be released into a larger air, undelayed by the
earthward longings and gradual initiations of seemingly happier men.
Thus its servants do not decline into slothful service, but are
strenuous always; raised above the acquiescence of use, they never know
the cloying of fruition or suffer the barbarian conquest of
indifference. Their soul is unaffected by material circumstance or
misfortune, and illuminates their lives as often as in the silent hour
of meditation they concentrate their thoughts upon its grace. The cup of
earthly love, even the noblest, is often dipped in Pyriphlegethon, and
the draught it offers scathes the palate until its finest sensibility is
for ever dulled. Those who have quaffed this liquid fire can no longer
understand his mood who leaves the roses and the wine to toil through
deserts in search of limpid water. They think him madly ungrateful for
God's good gifts, a fool abandoning joy proved and present for a shadow
far and incomprehensible. But they who have not denied themselves are no
longer fit judges of him who has renounced. They cannot know that by
this renunciation the senses are thrice refined, and receive as a vital
influence the stellar beam which falls chill and ineffectual upon a
grosser frame. They cannot believe that this love from the infinite
distance wields as mighty a force over renunciant lives as the near
flame of passion over their own. But, for all their denial, it lives and
puissantly reigns. It reigns in very truth predominant, this ideal love
to which space exists not and propinquity is nothing; and it will have
none for its subjects but those who by bereavement or aspiration or
intense purity are inly prepared for its dominion.
Happy therefore are the shy if in the midst of their tribulation they
are guided to the gateway of so bright a kingdom. It may well be that we
must first be led thither by some dear-remembered and virgin form once
almost ours through earthly love, but now joined to us only by an
imperishable and mystic union. Our sight may at first need the embodied
beauty to give it the finer powers by which the revelation of the ideal
grows familiar to us, but is at last attainable without mortal
intervention by an immediate flight of the soul. Until that late day of
enlightenment we must still be set upon the celestial path by a touch
of human tenderness; a pure yet sensuous yearning must be ours when we
are first girded to the ascent. If there are beings which attain the
fulness of the ideal love without the first inspiration of a fair
earthly form I know nothing in creation to which they may be likened,
nor had I ever part in so rare an enfranchisement. The vision that now
entrances my soul first arose from a living, breathing form radiant with
earthly brightness and instinct with every charm which brings men
fawning to the feet of women. The sensuous frenzy which lovers sing was
also mine, the tremor of the heart, the vibration of the very life; the
deep seventh wave of passion rioted through me also. But from the first
amazement of the shaken being it was not given me to pass through
satisfaction into tranquillity; I was held long in a whirl of trouble;
in the anguish of denial I learned initiation into the mystery which is
eternal and supreme.
It is good for some of earth's children that passion should be stayed
before it makes ashes of the fancy; for if it does but touch for a
moment only to be withdrawn for ever, it does not destroy, but by its
meteoric passage kindles the imagination with the glow of an
incorruptible flame. It is with them long enough to brand upon memory
the image which, though never renewed before their bodily eyes, by its
very severance from perception puts on an immortality of virginal grace.
Love is understanding, said the poet of Heaven and Hell, and love
ennobled through renunciant years shall at the last encompass the world.
The sensuous glow that first quickened the heart of youth is transmuted
into a purer fire akin to that which moves the spheres.
To know this truth is their compensation who are swiftly withdrawn from
the warm radiance of earthly love. They are stricken, but before passion
blinds them are rapt into a high solitude, whence, if they truly love,
an infinite prospect is unrolled before them. They know desire; but as
their passion was hopeless in this world, their steps were mercifully
set upon a new path, whereby the bodily semblance of the beloved became
the symbol of spiritual comeliness, alluring the beholder into the
peace of a serene and unworldly mood. A thin and rarefied ideal, you
say, a mirage which no wayfarer can approach: experience rejects these
subtleties, and to these creations of a dream human affection was never
given. True, to hearts established and content in happy unions, to minds
preoccupied with the near cares and pleasures of a home, our distant
visions may appear frail structures wrought in mist by homeless fancy.
But for the exiled heart they are not such, but verities of abiding
inspiration. For the ideal love did not die with Plato, but came again
in mediaeval Italy, and who shall say that even our material age has
banished it from the earth?
No indeed it is not dead, the ideal love, but indwells, a redeeming
power, wherever there are desolate hearts and minds to be updrawn and
united by its ministry; a power so lustral in its nature, that no abject
and despairing thought creeps into its presence but is purified and
exalted by its regard. This love brings hope and cheerful constancy;
with a shining falchion it affrights into their natal darkness the
monstrous forms of despair, and lends to all work a secret charm of
chivalry. It sustains that high anticipatory mood to which life is but a
preparation, and the bees buzzing round the honey-flowers seem poor
things toiling for an inessential gain. Because it is mystic and
transcendental it is the predestined guide of all whom fate holds
removed from earthly love. This is the old device of the world's
failures, you say, to trick themselves out in Plato's mantle or the
schoolman's cowl, and conceal their spite beneath the pretensions of the
mystic. But I answer that the causes which moved the Greek and the
Florentine are still at work among mankind to-day; they have never
ceased, however much obscured by the glare of triumphant luxury or the
stress of miserable toil. Often when disillusion has laid bare a soul,
this love which did but slumber awakes to contest with envy or despair
the possession of a wounded heart. I aver that any exile from the
happier earth whose heart is pure, if he invokes this love with ardent
faith, may unbar his door and feel that it has passed his threshold.
Let us never be persuaded that the ideal world is far from this earth of
ours, or that the way to it may not be daily traversed by him who has
submitted to the heavenly guide. Not even the close entanglement of
common cares can avail to keep such an one from his love; but as Bishop
Berkeley is said to have been able to pass in a moment from the
consideration of trifling things to the throne of thrones and the seats
of the Trinity, so this lover shall overpass with easy and habitual
flight the barriers that hold most men life-long prisoners.
For to the Spirit that is chastened and endures there is given a power
of flight and poise, by which, if it abandon itself to the celestial
wind, it may instantly remove from the deeper planes of life, as a bird
by the mere slanting of its wings is carried in proud quiescence into an
upper region of the air. He shall know instant release from the leaguer
of disillusion and vain solicitudes; in the light of one beautiful and
compassionate countenance the unquiet memories of failure shall give up
their exceeding bitterness.
And though the style and instinct of modern life are hostile to such
love, though in prosperity it is ignored and in adversity often
overborne by a vain uproar of lamentation, yet even in a self-indulgent
and furious world it still draws many to the severe exaltation of its
service. We cannot approach the heights where a Plato and a Dante walked
with ease, but far beneath upon the lower slopes we can draw a breath of
new life as we fix our weaker eyes upon the glory which they saw so
near. Although the men who have there ascended are a supreme company, we
may yet presume to follow; for let it never be said that the gods have
reserved for surpassing genius the consolation of which lesser men have
so much deeper need. But he who would reach a serener air must press
forward strenuously; for as a mountain may have one bare and northern
slope, and another sunlit and clothed with verdure, and yet there may be
a path on each side to the summit, so it is with the ascent to this
felicity. One lingers amid pleasant groves and laughing waters;
another, undistracted by the beauty of any lower zone, but fixing his
eyes upon the far summit, crosses the chill rocky slopes, never feeling
the warmth of the sun and only seeing his brightness reflected from the
highest peak. Though the ways of the two travellers lie far apart until
the end, their endurance may be crowned with the same reward; but he who
knew no dalliance and plucked no fruit has from the beginning seen the
goal clearly, and lived steadfastly in its distant promise. And do you
tell me that this is not love or joy, you who saunter in the verdant
southern valleys breathing a present happiness with the perfume of a
thousand flowers? Your way may lead you upward after long vicissitudes,
but endurance will more swiftly fail you for the last most arduous
ascent. Very love is of the heights, and he whose thoughts have long
been thither exalted will breathe with least pain the attenuate upper
air.
To this pilgrimage the diffident are foreordained; it is their happiest
hour when they take staff and scrip and set out in earnest for the
shrine built among the mountains. The gardens of Armida are not for
them, nor the warm breezes fragrant of fruit and flowers; but the vision
of a far peak flushed at sundawn draws them onward, and strength and
peace are increased upon them throughout the great ascent. He is still
too rich for pity to whom renunciation brings these high and enviable
hours.
But the heavens are not opened every day, and the adept of these
mysteries must walk the dull round of common life like other men, not
warmed as they are by the glow of constant friendship, yet cheered by
intermittent flames of remembrance and of hope. The real life of the
diffident is cunningly hidden from those around them, for whom, indeed,
it is wont to have faint interest; but before you who have often sought
me out through fair and foul weather, I may venture to undo the pack of
small resources which brings variety and distraction into lonely days.
Firstly, I still dare to haunt the forecourts of philosophy. Into her
inner courts I may not penetrate, lacking the leisure which her whole
service demands; yet the loiterings which I may still enjoy are to me
like voyages into a foreign country, and give my mind the healthful
enjoyment of change; they are not long enough to bring that whole
detachment from daily life which, in my case, might prove a perilous
advantage. All that I need for common use is a simple rule based on a
few fundamental thoughts to give me a course upon the wayward ocean, and
though it be full of error as the Almagest, yet it shall surpass the
thumb-rules of Philistia. It must be a doctrine which allows imagination
her right and durable career, and therefore not be monist. For
materialism is too wildly imaginative at the start: like a runner who at
the outset overstrains his heart and thereafter runs no more, the
follower of this creed, by his postulate of a blind impersonal Law,
exhausts his power of speed and plods henceforth eyes downward over
flattest plains of dulness. That my mind may remain curious and alert in
isolation, I must conceive in the universal scheme a power that does
not alone impel, but also draws me forward. For were it true that the
sum of things blunders from change to change, swept by blind force into
uncharted voids, I should abandon myself in despair to that hopeless
course, and drift indifferent to the direction or the end.
Let me rather believe that if each several idea is compacted by my
active intelligence out of some vast system of relations, then only a
supreme intelligence akin to man's can brace together the whole system
or universal sum of things. For this earth, yes, and all the complex of
the spheres, exist to me imperfectly as idea alone, nor can I conceive
them any complete existence apart from a kindred but omniscient mind.
Each advance in human knowledge should then be an infinitesimal approach
towards the supreme comprehension; and the aspiring race of man is
justified in that inchoation of long hope which is folly to the single
life.
I would also believe that new relations between things may be detected
not merely by the staid and ordered process of collating abstractions,
which is science, but by swifter and more genial methods of intuition.
"Hurrah for positive science,
Long live exact demonstration!"
cried Walt Whitman, exulting over the filed fetters of mankind; and let
us all echo the cry, nor ever forget the razed Bastilles of
superstition. But there glimmers a wealth of truth in the penumbra
beyond our lanterns to which science will creep too slowly without the
aid of imagination. Yet this truth may be seized by swift sallies into
the darkness, and assured to us as it were by some dim apperception of
the soul, when the whole personality is made tense, and subtly
anticipates the cosmic argument. Life is too short to renounce this
daring: the sense of kinship with the All-Consciousness sanctions if not
commands the right adventure.