You want me to tell you how it comes to pass that I am able to glide
up a steeple like a spider, get astride upon the cross, and pull off
my cap to the crowd below, like a gentleman on horseback saluting his
acquaintances.[2] You want me to explain on what principle, as you
call it, I do this. Well: principle, I suppose, means the rule or law
by which a man does what he ought to do; and if so, it is a very good
word to use. I will oblige you by explaining my principle, for I am as
affable as any man that creeps to his dying day upon the surface of
the earth; and I will tell you how it chanced that I found it out: at
least I will try, for I am no scholar; and if you wish to understand
me, you must have your ears open, and catch a meaning when you can.
And this will do you good, whether you make anything out or not. I
know fellows that go to the lectures, and come back as empty as they
went. But what of that? They think they understand, and thought breeds
thought; and when a man's mind is fairly astir, it is odds but
something good turns up.
You must know, then, I began the world as a sailor; and I marvel to
this day how I ever became anything else. Sailors are the stupidest
set in creation. They are mere animals, except in the gift of speech;
good, honest, docile animals, perhaps, but dull and narrow. They go
round the small circle of their duties like a blind horse in a mill.
Their faculties are rocked by the waves and lulled by the winds; and
when they come ashore, they can see and understand nothing for the
swimming of their heads. Drink makes them feel as if at sea again; and
when the tankard is out, they return on board, and exchange one state
of stupefaction for another. Well, I _was_ a sailor, and the dullest
of the tribe. No wonder, for I was at it when a young boy. I was never
startled by the sights or sounds of the sea. The moaning of the wind,
the rush of the waves, the silence of the calm, were parts of my own
existence; and in the wildest storm, my mind never took a wider tack
than just to think what the poor devils on shore would do now.
I was a handy lad, however. I could go aloft with any man on board,
and never troubled the shrouds in coming down when a rope was within
springing distance. But this was instinct or habit: thought was not
concerned in it--I had not found the principle. One day, it blew what
sailors call great guns; our bulwarks were stove in pieces, and the
sea swept the deck, crashing and roaring like a whole herd of tigers.
There was something to do at the mast-head; and when the order came
through the speaking-trumpet, seeing the men hesitate, I jumped upon
the shrouds without thinking twice. But at that moment the ship gave a
lurch, and, holding on like grim death, I was buried deep in the
waves. Although still clutching the ropes, I had at first an idea that
they had parted, and that we were on our way to the bottom together.
This could not have lasted above a minute or so; but it seemed to me
like a year. I heard every voice that had ever sounded in my ear since
childhood; I saw every apparition that had ever glided before my
fancy: the Sea-Serpent twisted his folds round my neck, and the keel
of the Flying Dutchman grated along my back. When the vessel rose at
last, and I rose with her, the waters gurgling in my throat and
hissing in my ears, I did not attempt to spring up the shrouds. I
looked round in horror for the objects of my excited thoughts; and as
I saw another enormous wave advancing till it overhung me, instead of
getting out of its reach, which I could easily have done, I kept
staring at it as it broke into what seemed innumerable goblin faces
and yelling voices over my head. I was down again. My leading thought
now was that I would strike out and swim for my life. But when I had
just made up my mind to this--which the sailors would have called
being washed away--I rose once more to the surface--and struck _up_
like a good one! I was at the cross-trees in a breath, and once in
safety there, I looked back both with shame and indignation.
When my job was finished, I went higher up in a sort of dogged humour.
I went higher, and higher, and higher than I ever ventured before,
till I felt the mast bending and quivering in the gale like the point
of a fishing-rod; and then I looked down upon the sea. And what, think
you, I found there? Why, the goblin faces were small white specks of
foam that I could hardly see; and their yelling voices were a smooth,
round, swelling tone, that rolled like music through the rigging. The
mountain-waves were like a flock of sheep in a meadow, running and
gamboling, and lying down and rising up; and in the expanse beyond the
neighbourhood of the ship, they were all lying down together, or
wandering like shadows over a smooth surface. I felt grand then, I
assure you. I looked down, and around, and above, till thoughts that
were not the instincts of an animal, came dancing up in my mind, like
bubbles upon the face of the sea. And as I returned slowly to the
deck, these thoughts grew and multiplied, and began to arrange
themselves into a form which I am not scholar enough to describe. But
through this new medium, I saw things as they are, not as habit and
prejudice make them. I did not fear the waves, and I did not despise
them. I humoured the sea as I got down towards the bulwarks, which
were still buried every now and then; and so I reached my quarters in
safety.
And what has all this to do with it? I will tell you. With the means
of doing a thing, nothing is difficult, if you only understand
thoroughly the nature of the thing. The obstacles that commonly deter
you are not in the thing, but in you; and until you understand this,
you will keep gaping and shrinking, and saying, 'It is impossible.'
Some folk, when looking out of a three or four storey window, feel as
if they were going to fall. This is their own fault, not the fault of
the window, for that is just like a parlour window, where they have no
sensation of the sort. A man sits peaceably enough on the top of a
tall, three-legged stool, and could hitch himself round and round, and
then get up and stand upon it erect for half a day, without any risk
of falling. Now, a steeple is much more securely fixed than a stool;
its top is as broad as a table; and there is nothing to prevent
anybody from standing upon it as long as he pleases, if he only will
not think he is going to fall. You go up half-a-dozen steps of a
ladder without fear, and then persuade yourself you can go no farther;
but there is nothing more dangerous in the next half-dozen, so far as
they are themselves concerned; nor in the next hundred, nor the next
thousand, for that matter. My secret consists in my _knowing_ all
this, although I feel that I have only described when, not how the
knowledge came. Perhaps you, who are book-learned, may be able to make
it out, and shew how it is that, when anything occurs to awaken the
mind, and enable one to work from knowledge, not habit, he is ten
times the man he was. Without this, I should have climbed a mast all
my life; but with it, I took to leaping up steeples by means of a
kite, in a way that makes many ignorant persons report that I manage
it by holding on by the tail.
But a man who goes up a steeple must take care how he behaves, for the
eyes of the world are upon him. He is not lost in a crowd, where he is
seen only by his next neighbours. That man must pull off his cap and
be affable; but he must not do even that to extravagance. When the
Queen was passing up the Clyde, an American seaman got on the
topgallant, and stood on his head. What was that for, I should be glad
to know? Suppose her Majesty was coming along Princes Street, just to
take the air like a lady, and look into the shop-windows, and I was to
go right up to her, and stand on my head--what would she say? I
surmise, that she would turn round to her Lord Gold Stick, and order
him to give me a knock on the shins. I know she would, for she is a
regular trump, and knows how people in every station should behave. I
am ashamed of that American: he is a Yankee Noodle!
It may be said, that the Queen has the same advantage as myself--that
she is up the steeple; but so is every ordinary bricklayer or emperor.
The thing is to be able to look and understand when you _are_ up. I
once saw a curious sight as I sat with the swallows flying far under
my feet. The people did not wander about the street here and there as
usual, but hundreds after hundreds of small objects came on in regular
array. Then I could see long lines of Lilliputian soldiers marching in
the procession, with their tiny bayonets glancing in the sun; and
every now and then came up a soft swell of music, feeble but sweet.
'What is all this about?' thought I. 'Are they going to set one of
these little creatures over them for a bailie or a king?' And one did
march in the middle with a small space round him; 'but perhaps,'
thought I again, 'he is only a trumpeter.' Howbeit, the procession at
last halted, and gathered, and closed, and stood still for a time; and
there was another small swell of the instruments, with a feeble shout
from the throng, and then they all stirred, and broke, and dispersed,
and disappeared. This was just like the view from the mast-head: it
made me feel grand. But when I came down, I had not replaced one
prejudice with another. I did not despise the creatures I came among;
for they were then of the same size as myself. I pulled off my cap to
them, and was affable; only it did give me a queer thought--not a
merry one--when I heard that the official they had made that day, on
going home to his house, out of the grandeur and the din, was heard to
commune with himself, saying: 'And me but a mortal man after all!'
Poetry? No, sirs, I have learned no poetry. I had poetry enough of my
own without learning it, and so has everybody else. I once knew a
fellow who wrote very good poetry; but few of us understood it. That
man lost his labour. It is nature that _makes_ poetry; the poet has
merely found out the art of stirring it in the hearts of men, where it
lies ready-made, like the perfume of a flower. A poet who is not
understood only makes a noise; and he is the greatest poet who makes
the greatest number of human hearts to leap and tingle. But the fellow
I mean piqued himself on not being understood. Like the Yankee Noodle,
he cut capers that had no intelligible meaning in them, just to make
people stare. As for my own share of poetry, I will tell you when I
feel it stirring most. You must know that in the view from a steeple
the form of objects is changed only in one direction--that is
downwards. The small houses, the narrow streets, the little creatures
creeping along them, and the feeble sounds they send up, make me feel
grand. But when I turn my eyes to the heavens, I see no shadow of
change. The clouds look awful, as if despising my poor attempt at
approach; and they glide, and break, and fade, and build themselves up
again--all in deep silence--in a way that makes me feel mean. Now this
mean feeling is real poetry. The meaner I feel, the grander are they;
and when I look long at them, and think long, and then begin to
descend to the earth, to mingle with the little creatures who are my
fellows, I tremble--but not with fear.
A philosopher, do you say? Fie! don't call names: I am a bricklayer. I
know that such distance as human beings can climb to is but a small
matter. I see things as they are. I do not fancy that it is more
difficult to stand on a steeple than on a stool, or that it is more
difficult to hold on by a rope at one height than at another. I
observe that men and their affairs, when viewed from a steeple, are
very insignificant; but the same insight into things teaches me, when
I am among them myself, to pull off my cap and be affable. I know that
the things of earth change according to distance, but that the things
of heaven are unchangeable. And all I have got further to say is, that
I am quite sensible that although when up in the air I am a sign and a
marvel to the people below, when down among themselves I am but plain.