be A 3 Cornell University Library PR 6023.Y525P9 Prince Azreel, a poem with prose i note is. 3 1924 013 658 350 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013658350 PRINCE AZREEL PRINCE AZREEL A POEM WITH PROSE NOTES BY ARTHUR LYNCH // AUTHOR 07 * APPROACHES, THE POOR SCHOLAR'S QUEST OF A MECCA," " A KORAN OF LOVE," " RELIGIO ATHLETAE," AND OTHER BOOKS LONDON STEPHEN SWIFT & CO. LTD 10 John Street Adelphi 191 1 INTRODUCTION In an Arabian garden two Genii sported. It was near the end of a summer's day, the sky was blue, and the rays of the sun shone on the lucent waters of a little stream at the foot of the hill. The odour of the roses filled the air, and there came wafted now and then the scent of violets from the opposite bank. Suddenly one of them espied a something that gleamed by a neigh- bouring wall. " A weed," said the other ; " there are many such in the garden." But the first went to the spot, and sat long examining it leaf by leaf. " It is very strange," he said. " I find wonderful things here, and as I look more and more closely faint shining lines stretch out from the leaves, and radiant pictures move. Further and further they reach, and seem to lead towards that Presence that we ever seek. Before this frayed and dusty flower I tremble as at some new marvel." The second Genius laughed. And Azreel laughed at times, laughed even in his yearnings — yearnings to accomplish, to sound his own soul in all its reaches, to reach to the Soul of the world. PRINCE AZREEL Azreel marvelled too at the force of ambitions that swept over him, that haunted his solitude. But the hour of manhood was striking. Azreel must make his dreams real. Huge impulses stirred within him. He felt a constant drawing to the light. Above all he wanted to know. Azreel sat in his rooms in Paris one night, thoughtful, sad, brooding. He had struck his hand recklessly on the old things of life, politics, religion, philosophy. Much seemed to ring not true. Azreel sought for guidance, and crying aloud stretched out his hands madly to heaven. There came a visitor : a Spirit, in the shape of a man of the world. He offered to show Azreel the world in its heights and depths. Azreel was fearless, of an easy seraphic fearlessness. He said, " I accept." The Spirit showed him the world and all its splendid attraction, but not only in exterior form. He made it known to Azreel that in the development of his powers he might attain to the height of any ambition, and he displayed to his mind the great world types : The Athlete, the Lover, the Soldier, the Poet, the Statesman, the King, the Thinker. Azreel was fascinated with each in turn. They discoursed of these things, not vaguely but in actual experience. They saw the world together, and played on old-world questions with the modern touch. From the glories of Greece, to Paris, to London, nothing was hid. They spoke without reserve. They pondered INTRODUCTION problems deep as Job's, and they discussed the boulevards. Limitless aspirations swept over their souls, they sat in the Stranger's Gallery of the House of Commons. They touched all the stops of Life. And Azreel found, among other things, that he had made that wonderful pilgrimage — the voyage of the soul. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction : . . 5 Azreel's cry 13 Lucifer appears . 13 Colloquy of Azreel and Lucifer H Athlete : 18 The Olympic Games 18 Isabella's Court 20 British Isles 21 The Athlete's Joy 2 3 Lover : 24 Beauty of Women 24 Idyllic 26 Of Paris 28 Manner 28 French and English Style 29 The Comedie franqaise . 32 Sarah Bernhardt 35 Impressions 36 The Banquet of Beauty 38 Types of Beauty 39 Famous Beauties 40 Paris 42 The Ball at the Elysee 45 Birth and Character . 47 The Prize » 48 10 PRINCE AZREEL Alexander, Hannibal, Soldier : The Bivouac Approach of Battle World's Conquerors Caesar, Napoleon Invocation of Liberty Poet : . ... The Warm Poets Dante . ... Camoens . ... Shakespeare Milton . ... Shelley . ... Byron . ... Keats . ... Burns . ... Between Madeira and Canaries Scope of Poetry The Art of Poetry Ode to the Ode Musings . ... Harmonies : Ode to the Creator Statesman : . ... The House of Commons . Preconceptions . ... A Type . ... Journalistic . ... The House : Interior Clacbus . ... Wanderings, Digressions, and Protests of Azreel Salutation to Heroes and Martyrs . Interlude on Oratory CONTENTS II PAGE Statesman {continued) The Dance of Carpeaux . . . 112 Art . . . . . 112 Incitements . . 114 Truth is the Soul of Things Great US Lysis . . Il8 The Chancellor . . 123 Sir Gleyte . . 1*3 Questions of Azreel 124 Explanations of the Devil, who defends the Com- mons ; explains its Customs. Its Ghosts I24 Balbus . ... 126 The House of Lords 130 The Blaze of Colour . I3O The Labour Member's Remark ■ 131 Azreel's Misconceptions • 131 The Pride of Birth . 132 The Devil's Explanations 133 Lord Dunstone • 137 Baron Priggetburth . 138 Lord Rookc . 138 The Philosopher • 139 Fitzbeeze . ... I4O PRINCE AZREEL Azr eel's cry. " Man's inmost soul cries out to know his God, His mortal journey hath no other end ; And though he grope a worm upon the sod, In visioned dreams a lode-star ever burns And lights the hopes that still to Heaven tend. He loves ! His soul in passion yearning turns To touch the Garment's hem that makes him whole, While still beyond the brooding thought intense The Presence looms and onward lures his soul ; For love is worship ! love and all it brings Of joy and effort, new-born hope immense, And radiant thoughts that lightly rise on wings ; And even defeat, or death's eternal rest Sinks softened on the over-burdened sense Like opiate wine when drunk amid that quest." Lucifer appears. So Azreel dreamed, and dreaming cried aloud, And swift upon his thought a Spirit came, 13 14 PRINCE AZREEL The sudden beaming of a fiery cloud — Then stood before him clad in human frame. He smiled. " Be not afraid, for I am he Grown now," he said, " familiar to your mind As Satan, Lucifer, Mephisto ; see Me now, Earth-Spirit, courteously inclined. " For though my name has often been maligned Yet am I, after all, God's messenger And satrap to this world where now you find Yourself a somewhat puzzled passenger. " You look surprised, and yet I dare to hope That you will see these things more luminously, And find mis-featured shapes, in wider scope Moulded at length to one great harmony." Colloquy of Azr eel and Lucifer. " Be seated," said Azreel, " 'twas not polite To greet you with my foolish awkward start : But wonder, hope, the sudden glad affright With which some long-sought truth strikes with its smart " Upon the soul and makes its message known Of Genius in the flash that gave it birth — Let this sincere expression now atone And gain indulgence for my little worth." PRINCE AZREEL 15 " The Spanish blood ! " the Devil smiling cried ; " The fire I know beneath that gravity, And thank you, Prince, full warmly on my side For that fair show of courtly suavity." He sat and oped his eyes in one deep look That gazed on Azreel's soul. The young man thrilled, And some mysterious world within him shook, And reason tottering screamed; then all was stilled. " How old are you, Azreel ? . . . But twenty years. Some would have said too young for serious talk : Not I. The soul's first instincts, hopes, and fears Loom o'er the path the pilgrim's feet shall walk." He gazed on Azreel's study walls adorned With portraits, prints, a wondrous Titian rare, And shelves of books, a hunting trophy horned, And swords and pistols, a la mousquetaire. The Devil smiled and took the bright rapier, And deftly fencing showed a pretty " botte," " But Azreel, when I bade you have no fear I hardly meant what comes in earthly lot " From tiger strife, of which these pretty toys Are signs ; but something of a higher kind, For who can ever hold a perfect poise And meet all circumstance with equal mind ? 16 PRINCE AZREEL " And march through life intrepid, calm, serene, And dare with honest eyes to see things clearly, And shrink by instinct from the base and mean, And know himself and all things else sincerely ? " Approved, I see it in your dark blue eye That late had fiercely blazed ; else be assured, I had not hither sailed from realms on high, Nor you this perilous colloquy endured. " Take me as Man's Tempter, if you please,. * But I would rather seem an elder brother, I throw the gauntlet down, 'tis yours to seize The moment ; — or your bolder impulse smother. " 'Tis yours to shrink within the prudent grooves That custom builds for men, the petty lies In which the hypocrite, the coward moves And cheats his life, while life essential flies. " How scarce men are ! Ye gods, how scarce are men ! For even of those who strut in garish shows Adorned, and celebrated, incensed then To deities, how mean the true life flows. " O poor deluded slaves, these dogs of state, They crimp their souls, nor beat against the bars ; But let them pass, for they alone are great Who guide their earthly voyage by the stars. PRINCE AZREEL 17 " But now I prose, perhaps ; 'tis but a fool Who talks of trifles with a solemn mien, Wiser the teachers of the old Greek school Who met all happenings with brow serene. " Your Wanderjahre lies before you. Cling Fast to that you love, some youthful hope, As lover, soldier, poet, statesman, king, Rings out its notes and swells in ample scope. " The tree of knowledge, and its mortal fruit, Temptation in the wilderness, the guile Of Satan, Faust's alluring luckless suit, Be these full present to your mind the while ; " Familiar, fair, I show the splendid game With cards upon the table ; speak ere toll The midnight bells, be yours the praise or blame." " I play," cried Azreel. " Now unlock my soul." THE ATHLETE The Olympic Games. The Grecian glories rise to Azreel's eye And fumes of old Olympus faint perturb The clear pure atmosphere — the azure sky, The Athletes naked, lightsome and superb. And all that Greece then knew of worth, the source Of dignity, and grave distinction high, Adorned the scene : The runners in the course Have slipped their thongs, along the track they fly, And Azreel sees the victor radiant hurl From out beyond the rest the startled speed, The charm resistless of the onward whirl That bears him maddened to the victor's meed. The victor's meed is his, the olive crown, The wild acclaims of beauty, and the vast High surge and tumult of a new renown : He laughed in joy, and Azreel's breath beat fast. He longed to meet him with a friend's embrace, He felt within him thousand new hopes bud, 18 PRINCE AZREEL 19 He longed to plunge amid the straining race And know within his veins the hero's blood. New sports succeeded ; and the marvels rose, The leap of Phayllos beyond the plot, The fight where Melancomas laughed the blows To scorn, disdaining still to strike, though not To beat his man ! The wrestling contest where Great Milo showed his prowess and his strength, And swung his strong opponent in the air, And hurled him helpless on the sand at length. And through the live-long sunny day Azreel Rejoiced and gladsome gave his spirits life, Smit with the love of beauty, and the feel Of manhood's noble rapture of the strife. The very air was glad, and in its taste A sweet refreshment ran like subtle wine, And every sparkling thought was steeped in chaste Pervading mood of radiant joy divine. Ah, there's a tender smarting of the heart As memory brings the days far lapsed in time, And once again the athlete plays his part And finds this round world in its golden prime. The paths we raced upon, the lively zeal Of training tasks, the busy aid of friends, 20 PRINCE AZREEL The fiery contest then, the nerve of steel, The soaring hope that with mad impulse blends To win ! to win ! or die ! Oh, where are they The comrades of our youth ? The jocund boon Companions gone for aye ; let this verse pay A tribute to those days o'er-lived too soon. Isabella's Court. The Spirit smiled to witness Azreel's quick Delight, the glowing cheek and kindling eye ; He pressed his hand. And soon a dream-cloud thick Had borne him wondering to a distant sky. Now honoured guests at Isabella's Court In days of tournament, where feats of arms Magnificently shown in joyous sport Eclipsed the perils found 'midst war's alarms. Exultingly they gazed. At every turn They saw the perfectness of manly form Matched in soft eyes that knew to melt and burn, To win, to love, or strike in passion's storm. A glamour reigned ; for mid that high repute Of chivalry without reproach or fear The throbbing tones of Spain's romantic lute Had cast its spell upon the atmosphere. PRINCE AZREEL 21 A noble youth had backed a Barbary steed That pranced and curvetted and pawed the ground, Or starting trembled like a shaking reed And shook the rein at every fretful bound. But soon he knew the master in the seat And proudly paced obedient to his hand ; The rider turned the gracious Queen to greet, As offering of his skill to her command. They saw him high in air a gold piece fling And set the horse at speed, and with his sword Bright shining, strike the coin and make it ring. He laughed in joy ; and reaping the reward That buzzed around him in a murmur loud, He reined the horse and for a moment stood As cast in bronze. And Azreel's heart avowed His envy, in what envy holds of good. British Isles. The Spirit waved and showed the huntsman's sports ; The gay parade of France ; the green grass fields Of Merry England loud with sweet reports Of bell-mouthed hounds, the pleasures danger yields Amid the rapid gallop of the chase, The rain-fresh glories of the hunting morn ; 22 PRINCE AZREEL And Northward then, where Scotia's hardy race Dauntless and great, of pristine strength unshorn, Displays beneath the tartaned kilt the limbs Rounded in nervy strength that mock the boast Of Rome, or those whom Pindar's lyric hymns Exalted to the god's ensphered host ; In Erin's isle where flames the Celtic soul, And adds to form superb the last high thrill — That lively genius that informs the whole And witches every movement to its will. They sported under Austral skies, where life Has found new zest in breathing purer air ; In jungle deep they sought a perilled strife, In Afric tracked the lion to his lair. Yet ever came before his mind again That image won from Athens' golden prime, The flush of joyance 'mid the combat's strain, The rounding poetry of earth's bloom time, The aspiration, and that deep-toned sense Of health and grace and beauty's rarest gifts Brought there in offering of sweet incense And native prayer that still the soul uplifts ; PRINCE AZREEL 23 The toil of hardy thews, the fiery blaze Of valour, or defeat's stern chastening rod ; The vows, and hopes, or wonder's high amaze, All blent in one great sacrifice to God. The Athlete's Joy. The Spirit waved and brought him to the board Where sat his co-mates, their young foreheads crowned With roses chapleted ; and red streams poured Of Samian wine the while the bowl passed round. And Azreel now admired the forms of strength And lissom ease of youth in perfect grace, The rising column of the neck at length Encapitolled in comely head ; the face Cast in heroic mould in smiles now wreathed ; The broad deep torso clewed in powerful strands Of rippling muscles, and the air that breathed Of force at rest in swelling shoulder bands, And rounded limbs beneath the peplum's fold, And as they vaunted gay their youthful prime, All breathed to Azreel like a dream of old A living vesture from the woof of time LOVER Beauty of Women. The forehead crowned with roses, and the wine Whose ruby surface breathed of fragrant sweets, The gentle lulling songs of love divine, The music of soft lutes, the rhythmic beats And pulsive motions of the Eastern dance, The rounding hips, the milky globes half hid Beneath the vestments, and the langorous glance Of melting eyes, had blent with thoughts unbid That turned his sense to amorous desires, And mollient pangs that crept along the flesh, That warmed his blood within their smouldering fires And caught his soul in helpless passion's mesh. Azreel was young, his heart was pure and whole, And beauty throbbed within him like a sense ; A thousand viewless chords had seized his soul In thrall of love's behests and recompense. Youth, Beauty, Love. O marvellous gifts of life And fairest flowers entwined in Nature's Truth, Ye bring immortal boon mid earthly strife, And live again in Beauty Love and Youth. 24 PRINCE AZREEL 25 The Spirit marked the mood of soft desire. " Do not resist," he said, " that spell of might That Beauty throws ; our noblest thoughts aspire To Beauty's form, and reach it at their height. " But when those dreams of Beauty incarnate In ripened woman's shape and myriad charm, Shall Prudence meanly stand beside the gate And stay the impetuous soul with threat of harm ? " The Andalusian's soft and beaming eye That fires in passion, melts in tender gift Of Love, the glow where lightsome fancies fly And swim amid the half-closed lidded rift, " The calm clear brow that over shades the orbs, The tresses shaking odorous on the air, The skin of finest grain that health absorbs, The rounded neck, firm shoulders, and the fair " And petal-blooming slopes now rounding bold To those fair mounts upon whose sunny heights Venus ensovreigned basks ; charms yet unfold Along the free swept lines that girdle light " The waist and roll upon the sculptured hips, And firm and moulded limbs of supple grace. And beauties still enthral us when the lips Are marble, but when love lights up the face 26 PRINCE AZREEL " And sidelong gleams of soft entreaty coy Mingle with bolder looks, and clasping hands, Warm breath, and sweet distress of painful joy Fasten the soul in viewless magnet bands ! Idyllic. " But yet the force of love is most intense When love has stolen gradual on the heart All unaware, until some sudden sense Or fear of loss has struck its poignant smart. " The lazy hours of langorous sunny clime Beside the seashore where the heavenly blue Shines in the waters calm, and Spring's warm time Has fostered Earth to gladsome youth anew ; " What then to meet a fair girl, artless, true, With soft blue eye, clear brow, and perfect pose Of easy grace, whose cheeks reflect the hue Of red that freshly in the briar blows ; " And ruddier still the fresh and pouted lips Where kisses hive in odoured honey dew And loaded sweetness of the comb o'er drips, And sheafy tresses fragrant scents renew. " The golden dreams of love steep all the sense In soft narcotic balm, the while the rife PRINCE AZREEL 27 Strewn thickly clovered earth in reach immense Beams forth its benison on human life. " For love is life, the one great Paean sung Throughout the world in myriad livelihood, And love's caresses are like incense swung To Nature, goddess, beautiful and good." OF PARIS " What is the true Parisian esprit r Something well-bred, and graceful, shimmering light, With point, and sting not too infrequently Thrust in with pretty play of rapier bright ; " And manner, yes, for that is half th' esprit, The charming sesame that opes the doors Of Paris and to kindred wits makes free The gay demesne shut off from worthy bores. Manner. " 'Tis not in sarcasm, Azreel, that I say That manner counts in sweet Lutece for much ; For what is manner but the soul's display In little things, and life is made of such. " Manner not manners — these are mere kickshaws, And best are known by being least in view, But manner is the man, his strength and flaws, The courtesy, grace, kindness, and the true " And well-poised judgment of the worth of things ; True, Pride and Strength are there, reserved the while, 28 PRINCE AZREEL 29 And round them all a lighter air he swings Of easy, fine, good-humour free of guile. " I had said sympathy, but that's the breath That all-pervades the rest and makes them live, That spins attractions subtle, strong as death, And draws forth love and all that love can give. " To this the French have added brilliancy And urbane politesse and lambent wit, Though pressed at times to lack of dignity And suave repose and true abiding grit. Trench and. English Style. " How great that English word is — Gentleman, The modern knight, ' sans peur et sans reproche ' ; But no. For if the language stretch its span Some sense of foreign flavour doth encroach. " But gentleman ! there's nothing else I know That can express the dignity and style That seems hall-marked upon those knights that grow Indigenous, it seems, in Albion's isle. " Beyond that isle no gentleman is found, I speak of course with hint of no disgrace But marking simply what the term may bound Of manner special to the English race. 30 PRINCE AZREEL " Our terms of honour do not mean the same, And French ' gloire ' is not expressed by ' glory,' Nor ' devoir ' ring with quite an equal fame As ' duty ' stern in that rough Island story. " Genius diverse, and yet not disaccord ; Each to his taste then, cutlass or rapier, And Grand Seigneur may stand to English Lord As sparkling Champagne wine to British beer. " How would I have you, Azreel f Thus alone : Unique, devoid of every affectation, Ever yourself in every changing tone, Not courting yet not shunning observation. " Entire and honest to the marrow bone, Yet easy, plastic, in each new event ; Of trifles careless, forcing not your own • Nor yet all yielding to another's bent. " As one who gazes on this human life, This motley pilgrimage that leads to death, The fretful play, the swallowing up of strife In that still region of the icy breath ; " And touching all in million feelings keen Seeks still some deeper portent to unroll, And 'mid the world's vicissitudes serene Marches with gaze uplifted to the goal. PRINCE AZREEL 31 " And yet seize life, its joys and fervid pangs, Make them your own, and feel your warm life throb ' With zest of combat, while the prize o'erhangs To tempt your strength, and dull contentment rob. " We reach again the old eternal theme, The magnet, woman, and the world's romance That finds her still the motive and the dream, Beginning, end, the destiny and chance. " A force as if a sudden hand amain Had struck a deep chord hid within my breast Has waked the music of a poignant strain That wins the thought at once from all the rest ; " As if some former life were born again Or realm regained that once had been possessed, So dreams of beauty that had dormant lain Have flushed my soul in yearning strange unrest. " There is in blood, to call it by that name, Distinction, genius, or what else you will, That gives a finer human clay its fame Midst coarser pottery, for good or ill, " And makes all other admiration still When veritably there a woman stands And beams upon our sudden wondering thrill, Shaped, turned, adorned in Beauty's fiery hands. 32 PRINCE AZREEL " And visions of great dames are in my eyes, Their forms as warm and palpable now burn As if I touched them in a wild surprise Or spoke a word that made the shoulder turn. "Aspasia, Thais, Borgia's fairest prize, Oh Heaven ! what beauty in that face is seen, She stands, she walks, and radiant graces rise To witch the glance of beauty's matchless queen. " Therein is beauty infinite we find ; No Grecian mask alone can give the charm, Nor merely sculptured form reveal the mind In beaming brow, in neck, and moulded arm. " Ah no, with far more exquisite alarm Doth beauty stir the heart and wake the sense Tumultuously and lose all lesser harm In that deep passion of its force intense. The " Comedie jrangaise" " La Frarifaise — ha, what air that name imparts- Has not the fine calm beauty of the Greek, And yet a thousand graces, manners, arts, Set forth her charms, or point the faults to seek. " She is the artist feminine, the stone On which she works is her sweet self, I deem ; Her art is Woman, and to her alone Is given the genius to expound the theme. PRINCE AZREEL 33 " An art too fignole perhaps, we'd say, And full of tricks with over-much technique, Yet gracious, avenant, and pimpant, gay, And captivating with a charm unique. " That style inimitable comes to light Already in the manner words assume To deck the Franpaise in her own delight And distil on the air her own perfume. " For fignolage is not mere affectation Nor jolt just the French for English jolly, Nor avenant a showy delectation, Nor French esprit a shallow thing of folly. " For when the Gaul has had his little day And in the scales his work at length is weighed, This much at least he still may proudly say : Paris I built, my language perfect made. " For wars and laws, the noisy little strife Of nations pass, and monuments decay, But in the language beats a people's life, In deathless words its genius still holds sway. " And, ah, this wondrous Paris we behold To one whose knowledge can unlock the doors Opes like the palace of Aladin old, Where art and science rich display their stores, c 34 PRINCE AZREEL " Art and Science, blessed words of hope ! That flame the banners of the passioned mind Seeking new empires of its radiant scope And glorious tasks that tempt its powers refined. " Yet you would talk of women, dream of love, 'Tis well, for arts that civilize a race Still lead by paths where roses hang above To that sweet fount of glory, or disgrace. " And Paris is the City feminine, Grande Dame no doubt, but not at all severe, Whose moods to pleasant courtesies incline In well-bred disregard of fools austere. " Come then to Paris, come and let us walk On those enchanted floors, Parisian streets, Let's see the world and all the worlds, and talk Freely of whatsoe'er our vision meets." Azreel leapt with joy, he knew the air, The sheen and fascination of the lights, Whence Paris wins its name, Ville Lumiere. And yet not that alone, nor known delights Allured him. For before his eyes there gleamed The glamoured mist that veils the golden land Of the Unknown. And to his spirits beamed The bold hopes richly strewn by Fairy hand. PRINCE AZREEL 35 " For what's the world ? " the Spirit cried. " Lutece And all its provinces. For here's the brain Whence spring the live ideas that embrace The world and give to life some finer strain. " The world's great play-house too, for most things here Are seen as in a theatre. Let's go Therefore and see the little stage appear Within the great, and praise the mimic show." Sarah Bernhardt. Bernhardt was at her best. The actress played Upon the audience like a mighty harp Swept with fine gusts of feeling ; she pourtrayed The Dame of the Camellias, when the sharp Sweet pang of love had entered in her heart, The poor, false, erring, vile, yet now sublime Sad heroine whose pure and noble part Saved love by sacrifice of Beauty's prime. And Azreel, too, in sympathy had wept, And sombre Satan paused : yet not for long. The grand Seigneur instinctively adept To hide his griefs stood silent, calm and strong. He smiled while torments gnawed beneath his cloak, Regrets, remorse, apd fond hopes turned to pain. 36 PRINCE AZREEL * " Great actress still, she pleases me," lie spoke. " Let's go behind. I fain would greet again " Our Sarah. There is genius in that touch That lays its fingers on the soul, even though The sense revolts at puerile arts, and such Mere tricks as mark the mummer's flimsy show." Impressions. The presentation made, Prince Azreel bowed, And Sarah's eyes were swimming with delight To note him, while he gravely spoke aloud Some words of fervent praise, and still the light Parisienne's half mocking gamine smile Blended with woman's charm and native grace. The conversation shone. Azreel the while Gave wings to wit, and wit from one whose race Speaks of a royal line is always bright. The actress beamed ; and courtly smiled the youth. But Satan touched his arm — " Adieu to-night." They sallied forth, but not to rest, good sooth. " Here you will see," he said, " the fairest birth The world can show of beauty ; here's the mart Where women have, if not the highest worth, At least the highest price and leading part. PRINCE AZREEL 37 " The world's celebrity, and homage, gold, And luxury and every glittering gaud Here seize her soul, and fling her honour rolled In dust before the triumph of a bawd." All this he spoke as one who knew the town, And pleasant, gay, with light Parisian touch Set carelessly some few impressions down, Insisting on their drift not over much. THE BANQUET OF BEAUTY Resplendent shone the lofty banquet hall ; From gorgeous chandeliers the softened light Gleamed on the plate, and glowed on frescoed wall Adorned with scenes voluptuous of delight. And opposite this wall a garden heaped With flowers and fruitage shrouded in the night Its spicy fragrance in the cool air steeped, And breathed through half-oped windows its delight. And with the apple blossoms odour bold, And violet banks and beds of mignonette, Sweet strains of music mingled soft, and told Of wistful dreams and love undying yet. The table not o'er-loaded pleased the eye With blooms and freshness, apples ripe and red, And oranges, where green figs nestled by And plumping grapes that drowsy drooped the head. A table served with art most delicate, And fit to be extolled in the menu, 38 PRINCE AZREEL 39 With praise of wines all rare and exquisite From mellow Burgundy to Rheim's choice cru. Types of Beauty. But flowers of warmer bloom the table lined, Daughters of joy that Paris had produced All shining in their fame, and of their kind Adorned with arts that dazzled or seduced. And Heldin first, the queen of auburn hair And violet eyes, whose softened lights profound Glowed now in wanton mood that set more fair The form in ample classic graces bound. And she the famous Spaniard with the pure And chiselled features that the dark eye marked, And body supple with the devil's lure In rolling lines of pulsive force uplocked. And great Subrol majestical and calm, A presence, yet a ripened woman too Whose hands distilled a rich ambrosial balm And lips gave nectar sweet in honey dew. And sparkling clear, Lacate, with lighter note And silvery voice, the sweet incarnate muse y Of Comedy guides Pleasure's flowery boat 'Mid pleasant banks where spicy airs diffuse. 40 PRINCE AZREEL Famous Beauties. And Fleur-de-lis, the lily of her race, Who taught her thoughts towards prestige to aspire ; And youthful Bourgeon, whose Hellenic face Beamed with the softened glance of waked desire. And Perle d'Envie, whose captivating glance Threw promise of sweet jousts of coquetry, And Mogador, the genius of the dance, Elastic, lissom, free as Astarte. Labusquerie, a child of other kind, And yet no less a true Parisienne, Hardy in nerve, in purpose, will and mind, The Master seeking, scorning meaner men. Amongst these — splendid things more splendid mars — The Roseland beauty swam, fair, comely, tall And, as the rising sun puts out the stars,' In soft auroral splendour veiled them all. And Azreel gazed ; 'twas not alone the face, The swelling bosom's charm, the livening strain Of health, the easy movements and their grace ; The eye met his, and locked the electric chain That sudden bound them, stirred them with its power ; The eye of soft appeal and sidelong glance PRINCE AZREEL 41 That yet from out its love-embosomed bower Bore one fine beam that challenged like a lance. His breath came thick and faint, a sudden mist Swept past his eyes ; within his struggling breast His heart had swelled ; he touched her hands, he kissed Her ripened lips, and still fresh kisses pressed. Ambrosial banquet for Olympus fit, Whose savours with the sweetest incense breathed Of youth, and hope, and energy, and wit, And thoughts of love that with these fumes upwreathed. The wine was potent, Circe's wand at length A sweet disorder spread, but from red lips He drank a wine that fountained with new strength And flogged his blood with keen caressing whips. Beauty and beauties are for aye the theme When Paris casts its magic dazzling spell. In Beauty's quest did Azreel, eager, seem To lead his Guide, his treasured hopes to tell. They sallied forth to conquest of the world And all the worlds, and in that warm campaign The flambant banner of their youth outswirled From pleasures borne to pleasures fresh again. 42 PRINCE AZREEL They sought the Spaniard for her lustrous eyes ; The tender fiery genius of the Pole ; The flaxen German ; and, where Venice lies Embosomed, saw the Titian locks unroll ; In Buda found the supple Magyar's mould Perfect as Hebe ; 'mid Hagastan path Enjoyed the Armenian's soft caress and bold, And steeped ambition in a sensual bath. But pleasures feed on pleasure, and the man Who drives his passions like a leash of hounds Is rent at length by that enfamished clan, When less in strength the master whip resounds. And Azreel, sated yet with hungry thought, Gazed sickly, nerveless in his vast desires, On realms of plaisance now too dearly bought With wastage of his fitful flickering fires. Paris. An evening, soothing in its calm delight, He wandered to Pont Neuf and stood alone, Where he might drink the beauty of the night : The gleaming lights above the river shone And lit its darkling surface with their gleams, On either bank the dim vast buildings loomed, PRINCE AZREEL 43 While blent with this magnificence, the beams Of starry orbs through vaporous mists soft loomed. His heart was flamed, his eye was fain to rove From city, river, to the wondering skies ; An unrest raged within ; his soul yet strove And winged her flight even up to Paradise. But thoughts of man do not rest long in heaven, His course is marked upon the solid earth, Though higher aspirations give the leaven That win his soul from dull material dearth. From sky to river, to the City's haze He roved, and found anew the glamoured sense ; What secrets dwelt behind that muffled blaze, Ambitions, dreams, and splendid hopes immense ! A woman then the City seemed to be, A brilliant, fascinating, grande dame posed In elegance, in easy luxury, And smiling sphinx-like on each suit proposed. Coquette, she first demanded excellence, Strength always, and with strength a facile skill ; These were the title deeds of existence In fair domains where ruled her sovereign will. The lion boldly stalked upon her grounds, The fox there dwelt, the eagle soared above, 44 PRINCE AZREEL The peacock strutted in the courtyard bounds, Within her bowers the linnet sang of love. She asked for excellence, and not the means, Nor faithful service, nor the martyr's pain ; But victory shining, even where brilliance screens Less brilliant paths that led to dazzling gain. And those who failed knew but the stony breast, The iron claws that rent them, pitiless, And those who overlived their hour caressed Found ridicule to taunt their mean distress. For man may come, but She eternal lives, The woman soul that speeds their devious lives, That glory, joy, or earth's fulfilment gives And passes on where Love's new youngling thrives. And Azreel smiled, and stooped to lift the glove, And towards the silent City raised his fist, And laughed again, as in the lists of love He rode in spirit by fair fortune kissed* " He ne'er is crowned with victory," he cried, " Who meanly stops to gaze upon defeat, But he who plunges in the battle's tide Enflamed as conqueror his fate to meet. " For what is life ? Man's chiefest gift to hurl Against the walls of blind fatality, PRINCE AZREEL 45 And death is sweet, if but the soul outswirl Its radiant flag to immortality." So Azreel dreamed amid that opal light, How strange the thoughts that lift, then pass away — New thoughts succeeded with the waning night, He smiled to hear his Guide the morrow day. " The sweetbrier bloom, we've seen," the Devil said. " The fair and tender maid of innocence, And next the rose with amorous passions red, That sends its soul abroad in warm incense. " But love, pure love, except when passions blaze, Is less than love whipped up by vanity, By false ambition, or the perilous craze That finds its splendid spur in rivalry." The Ball at the Elysee, En fete ! the Elysee opened wide its gates And Azreel and his Guide, all charmed the while, Strayed with the throng where Princes, Potentates, Changed glance with Genius, Wit, and Beauty's smile. And Azreel danced the old voluptuous waltz Slow gliding down the balmy stream of love, Lulled in a dream where fortuned hopes though false Yet raised his soul to Paradise above. 4<5 PRINCE AZREEL His boat light floated on the music's tide, And rose and dipped with languorous rise and fall ; Rose-scented sails swelled large in lazy pride, And sunshine streamed its gifts of life o'er all. The while his arm in tender clasping held The supple form that throbbed in his embrace, And from the fragrant corsage ripened swelled Embosomed charms, the shoulders, neck, and face. The eye that late had flashed now cast its beam Beneath the drooping lid in sidelong glance ; They floated down youth's ever-marvelled stream, Their souls still flattered in the mazy trance The soft-toned haunting melody had thrown, While in the dizzy ballroom atmosphere, Bedimmed and strange though thousand lamps had shone, It seemed a thousand curious eyes did peer As in a dream of import vaguely known. What wonder then responsive to his own, He felt the tumult beating at his heart, While myrrhy scents from fragrant corsage blown In faint intoxications found their part. And hand sought hand in ever warming clasp, While intertwined the mazy wreath they wound, PRINCE AZREEL 47 And strong attraction locked them in its grasp, And wrapped in ecstasy the magic round. Birth and Character. Prince Azreel sat within a nook and sighed, His vision now fatiguing in the sheen That lighted yet obscured the grace and pride That shone within the ballroom's fairy scene. His Guide returned and pleased himself to trace The titles, names, renowns of trumpet blast That sound in history, the strength of race, The adamantine barriers of caste ; All things that in their wall of human pride Peopled with viewless dragons held the prize Beyond his reach. " And yet, my Prince," he cried, " You, too, have names that vaunt to take their rise " From Charlemagne, whose minions 'fore us walk. I laugh, 'tis true, at claims of long descent And give but little heed to prating talk Of futile vanities ; a Man is spent " Not on dead parchments but in noble deeds, And noble deeds alone are proof of birth. Yet from good blood a certain style proceeds Of easy bearing, not devoid of worth. 48 PRINCE AZREEL " Then equal to yourself, yourself reveal Serene and calm, and not distressed with fears Of other's thoughts, with silent still appeal To some true touchstone, constant with the years ; " With purpose sure and mind of strong control, Yet all expressed in courtesy and grace, And sympathy that stirs the inner soul ; Voitin, my noble Prince, the pride of race. " But now I prose, while you still feast your eyes Like Hyblan bee on these ambrosial flowers ; Yes, here's the game, and woman's still the prize, The warmest quarry that enflames the powers " And maddens man's hereditary vril ; These dainty nothings, smiles, and tender glance, And soft entreating words that pouting spill The nectared lips where coy bold kisses dance ; Ihe Prize. " Those dainty nothings, that still pout and beam, Egg on man's vanity in wildest hour, And crush his pride, and yet revive the dream Of Eden's kisses and its odoured bower. " The prize is there, the ever-glittering prize That cheats the hopes, and shines again more fair ; PRINCE AZREEL 49 Behold the world within thy sweetheart's eyes, The soft transcendent beaming star is there ! " 'Tis yours to win delight and power and fame, Colossal effort to command the age, The dazzling prestige of a lofty name, Or witching deeds upon the world's high stage. " Keen are the weapons, high the mountain steeps By which you climb to those encarmined lips, Or glance in hopes upon those eyes where peeps The star of love, or when the forehead dips " In sweet confusion, shamed with blushes rife, Clasp hand in suasive hand, till head finds rest At last upon that billowed fount of life, The petal-blooming warm and fragrant breast." SOLDIER The Bivouac. Beside the camp fire in the glooming night Sat full accoutred Azreel and his Guide, And talked of chances of the coming fight Where signals gleamed around them far and wide. The day had seen the posts in combat, nor Lacked fierce ensanguined contests — tongues of fire Shot forward by the rushing blaze of war ; And each had known his life and life's desire A sport in Fortune's hands, yet bravely played The splendid game, and dared to look on Death, The one with calm, cool courage, sober staid, The other smilingly with light-drawn breath. Back to the camp with scant escort they rode While gathered close the curtain of the night, And slow they wound the narrow mountain road, Wild, frowning steeps encompassing the sight, And all around the night's mysterious things, Mysterious sounds of Nature's ceaseless moil, 5° PRINCE AZREEL 51 That still her deep, strange dirge in harmony sings With man's wild hopes, and fears, ambition, toil. And then on smoother upland paths they came, Where far on every side the stretching plain Wove shadows like a pall, save where the flame In ocean billows rolled and flashed again With gleams of war's confusions, moving hosts, Stampeding herds, and death, and frantic fears, And ruined homesteads whose gaunt walls like ghosts Haunted with thoughts of stricken women's tears. But as they cantered on the even road, A joy of strength had entered Azreel's mind, Fatigue had vanished like a fallen load, And cares and griefs and pains were cast behind. The slow-swung rocking of his cradled seat Had lulled his spirit to a deeper rest, The falling of the hoofs in rhythmic beat Had crooned in dreams and bodings undistressed. Approach of Battle. A sweet repose to spirit overwrought, And halcyon moments of a brooding calm, The vague and looming atmosphere had brought And bathed his soul in soft enjoyment's balm. 52 PRINCE AZREEL But now this scene had wrought its influence Of stern insistent force. Before him gleamed The foeman's fires : inscrutable, intense, As large mild stars amid the night they seemed. The battle offered, and the morning fight, The bivouac of comrades sunk asleep — Last sleep to many ere their endless night ! And from the host the slow pulsation deep Of cadenced breathing rose in murmured waves Like exhalation of the teeming earth. " Oh, rise, Azreel, let's walk ; within me raves A storm of feelings, whose confined berth " No longer stems their force. My eye now sees The mystic greatness that the foeman masks In these soft-shining lustres of his ease ; For still behind that constellation basks " A Nation'^ might, a nation's fate. Each man A nation's trust hides deep within his soul ; And with the dawn the powers of Hell will span This strip of earth, and Havoc claim the whole, " Death shower upon our ranks, these peaceful fields Become the seething cauldron, where 'mid strife, And agonies, and groans, a people yields Its blood in offering to the God of life. PRINCE AZREEL 53 " Our comrades whom we see the camp-fires by, Rejoicing in their strength, ere morrow night "Here on this ground in stiff, stark death will lie. And beaten — should that be our luckless plight — " Our wretched host unnerved will flee pursued By vengeful hands, by terror, hunger, thirst, By mocking scorn and deep reproach imbued Of blasted hopes, suspicions thrice accursed ! " I see you, Azreel, strong and true as steel ; That is the man I love, him that I know ; The soldier loves the man who dares to feel His life with his staked bold upon his throw ; " Who calmly waits the cast, resolved to fight, To conquer or to die, yet scorns defeat And sees before his eyes that quenchless light That lures the chosen soul to god-like feat. " Oh, what has peace to offer greater than This fierce intoxicating wine of strength, And stoic pride and all that makes a man, Rolled thousandfold in comrade's hopes at length " That centre on your head, while from the drowsed, Lulled giant camp and from the fields that seem In slumber too, there wafts in thoughts aroused An influence rising like enchantment's dream. 54 PRINCE AZREEL " The soldier's Nature's darling, God's chief man, For at his contact lesser feelings break, Lost in the spell of that attractive span And vista'd glories that his hopes awake. " The soldier knows the soldier, reads the signs Which, hid from others, yet to him unmask The soldier's caste, the spirit that defines His world, his life, and his appointed task. " Courage, yes, hut more ! the lion's spring In face of peril ; all the high renown That thrills the heart, the daring force to wring From Victory's trembling hands the immortal crown. WORLD'S CONQUERORS Alexander. X He told the tale of Alexander's inarch The thought inspired, the mighty heave of will, The fame that flew their banners to o'er-arch While conquest loomed a far-off vision still. " Led by the hand of God the hero came Ev'n though unconscious, steadfast to his choice, And 'mid the thousand peals of glory, fame, And power, yet hearkened to the deeper voice " Of faith and fate, and staked all on the die Cast to the Unknown in life's splendid game. .... The soul of the commander touched on high Imbues the soldier, quivers in his frame, " And as the mighty enterprise bears on Resistless to its goal, the hero finds His spirit tinged with hardships undergone And blent with myriad shapes of comrades' minds. " The army's life is his, the thousand far Blown hopes, resolves, the hunger, thirst," and toil, 55 56 PRINCE AZREEL The goal alluring like a wondrous star, All life the stake, an endless world the spoil. " The fight at length, the battle pre-ordained Yet fraught with hazards, perils, pressing care, Ten thousand forces in his soul contained To meet the bloody toil that lowers there. " The sheen of polished arms, the impetuous charge, The swaying fight, the onward crushing life, The flying foe, the fierce pursuit at large, While from that fateful field of blood and strife " His eye beholds a continent subdued, No power of man to rise against his will ! — Oh, what voluptuous joy of passion's brood, Or airy thought, can equal that strong thrill " That sweeps o'erwhelming through the conqueror's soul !• — And spirit ever thus new spirit breeds, For countless ages yet shall hear the roll Of Alexander's name, exalt his deeds ! Hannibal. " And great the glory of the upward fight That Hannibal from boyhood's days had dreamed, When Rome bestrode the world in towering might, Immutable as Nature's laws, she deemed. PRINCE AZREEL 57 " The Carthaginian rose and scourged her pride, And bade the Roman shrink behind his wall ; Yet in that stern command could not abide When Capua caught his sensual soul in thrall. Ctssar. " The soldier turns his serious eyes from aught But where the golden star of triumph rules, . . . That star led Caesar to a fate unsought, Yet better than the joys obscure of fools. " Great Caesar, great in all the arts of life, The easy, supple mind,. the fateful eye That beamed with lights of genius, and when strife Of war had shrieked its withering rage on high, " Flashed with Olympian gleams upon the foe, And yet withal again in sweet concord Of friendship shed its mild and charming glow, . . . Great still where wild adventures might afford " Their play to burning energies that first, Consumed in woman's wiles, had sapped his force ; Great in the fight when still for fame athirst. From conquest on to conquest sped his course, " And won new worlds for Rome. And great the attempt When at the Rubicon he cast the die 58 PRINCE AZREEL Of death or earthly triumph yet undreamt And reached his hand to touch at God on high. " And great in Rome when with a master hand He swept her priceless treasures to his "sack, And shattered superstition's cramping band, Daring the means lest daring hopes should lack. " And ever great when in Pharsalia's plain He called out Pompey and his might o'er-hurled In genius, fire, the good true victor's strain, And rode the field the ruler of the world. " Oh, Azreel, think what spur to noble deeds When opens to the eyes the mighty scroll Of history, and there in living creeds Of Nations' greatness stands the heroes' roll. " The conqueror, the soldier, stands apart, The one great figure masculine ; beside His magnet power all meaner forms of art Sink helpless. Down the centuries rolls his pride " In newer blood ; and high ambition's dream, The dread of fools, expands in radiant forms And makes us know in life's warm pulsive stream The sweetest passion that the mind transforms, " That lifts us from the brutes, and gives the fire To hopes, to courage, all that brace the soul, PRINCE AZREEL 59 And teaches him who, chosen, dares to aspire To shatter all, even Death, to win the goal. "... And by the sword how great is Constantine, And that strange portent, victor beyond death, Mahomet, and the stars of Moslem line, And splendid Sultans, children of his breath ; " And Charlemagne, the great majestic king, Whose blood now beating in your blood inspires Your thoughts with chivalry, your hopes with sting , Of fierce impulse and world-involved desires. " The world moves on, and yet with lingering glance I gaze upon the ever-marvelled East, The boundless fields of Xenghis' fiery dance, The sway of Tamerlane from bounds released. " The ideal life was near. It likes me much Amid the panoply of myriad arms And rare and splendoured state to find the touch Of simple shepherd life and pastoral charms ; " The young and pristine romance of the worldj Rejoicing in its spring-like health and strength, The lust of conquest, flaming, raging, hurled And glutted o'er the orbed earth at length ; " The soldier's will unrivalled, yet the man Fraternal, faithful, native to his sod, 60 PRINCE AZREEL Feeling with eyes uplift to heaven's deep span A child still trembling in the hand of God. Napoleon. " But there is one whose deeds like eagles tower On high, and brook no lesser rivalry — Napoleon : the sound is conquest, power ; And Bonaparte, the name is chivalry. " O splendid hero, from the chaos sprung ; The courage, strength, the flame of genius still That captivates men's hearts, impulses stung With thoughts divine, the energy, the will, " The soaring soul, the faith of the Elect, All blazoned forth in that slight form and young That broke the insolent nations to respect The hopes from Revolution's wings out-flung. " 'Twas Montenotte showed him in its flame, And Lodi with its golden-sounding bell Awaked his soul and caught the magic name That held enraptured Prance beneath its spell. " And Egypt shrined him in romantic dreams, Marengo proved his metal in its fire, The sun of Austerlitz blazed forth its beams Of omen vast, and bade him still aspire. PRINCE AZREEL 61 " His soldiers' idol, swaying to his will A continent, and gifting thrones as toys, He scorned degenerate ease, and hearkened still To war's stern voice, and battle's fiery joys. " And Moscow, Moscow, wondrous, great, and strange, With mystic lure kept calling from the snows. . . . 'Tis Fate. For who of men can pierce the range Of mortal hopes, or know whence guidance flows ? " The eagle wounded is an eagle still, And Champaubert, and Arcis, Montereau Are cries of rage that fierce, defiant, thrill Through even the hosts of the avenging foe. " And Waterloo, deep Waterloo, the last Strong test that troubled genius turned to face ; — Who shall deny, when Fate her die has cast, That dauntless deeds may yet burn out disgrace. " O great, great, great the glory of that name ; Does it not stir the blood, and fire the soul, And sweep the sense with ardent dreams of fame, And drives impetuous hopes beyond control ? " Then, Azreel, ever choose the nobler part, And though toils baffle, dangers thicken, still See clear the goal, and strike within the heart The strong-toned notes of high resolve and will." 62 PRINCE AZREEL And Azreel's senses fluttered all unfurled, And like a ship at sea a moment borne By fierce tornado gust that leaves her swirled In mountain waves, and reeling, strained, and torn, Then righted sure ; so Azreel's soul had sped. " You know not, noble Guide, how deep you wrought Upon my inmost soul," at length he said, " And waked the phantasms of my earliest thought. " My dream was power, even from my childhood's days That note was ever sounding at my heart, An instinct, challenge, and a prayer always, That had become of me the strongest part. " In boyhood still my thought was like a man, It gave me sternness, stoic strength to quell The signs of weaknesses, except when ran Like some sweet, hardly yet discovered well " Within, the tears that sympathy could win. But lately you have seen me in the hail Of lead all calm, and 'mid the shattering din Of battle-storm have known me not to fail. " The morrow's battle will not prove me less. For I was born a soldier. ... I yet willing lost The soldier's dream. Yet none can ever know How deep that first renunciation cost. PRINCE AZREEL 63 " Great, Alexander was, and Caesar great ; And greater still in fierce alluring hope The Corsican's career ^ yet now that fate But grieves me in its later lesser scope. " I mean not Waterloo, nor yet the isle ; The lurid flames that lit with majesty The idol's ruin purified the vile Desires of hated, ill-found tyranny. " No deed more bright had Romance ever craved Than when that bold young chief with high hopes flown On Lodi's bridge the flag of freedom waved And shook oppression on its trembling throne. " And yet how mean, and unambitious, base, When, like a slave bowed down to senseless things, He sought his proper glory to efface And pimping claimed the fellowship of kings. " See now our camp, where sharp the thought inspires What gallant souls we know around us near ; And in that host that sleeps beyond those fires, How many who might find a brother here. " And yet to-morrow when the sky smiles blue, Shall host with host in death's grips madly strive, And ruin, torment, this fair field o'er-strew ; And Pestilence and Famine only thrive." 64 PRINCE AZREEL " I can in every nerve," cried Azreel, " feel The stern allurements of the warrior's course, To crush my foe beneath an iron heel, Within his sanctuary to ride my horse ; " To smite false altars with a mailed hand, Proclaim a new world from 'my soldier's camp, To wheel the world's march to my high command, And print the nations in a finer stamp. " A great ambition ! yet withal so mean ! To find in blind force, ruthless carnage, deajh, Delights to pride and vanities unclean, And sniff that incense as our mortal breath, " To turn the world upon a single will, To cripple mankind to one narrow man, With despot acts the page of history fill, And make of self the centre of the plan. " Or drunk again, while rapine gluts the soul In that great orgy of the nation's — war, Let loose the hounds of blood without control, And reign in god-like power, Imperator. " And yet the slave sits crouching in the car, To whisper in the ear that all is base, And Pestilence spreads her brooding wings afar And Ruin mocks the glory of a race. PRINCE AZREEL 65 Invocation of Liberty. " No. No. The soldier's life is only great When summoned to his perilled country's call He moves undaunted to an unknown fate To win her freedom or in battle fall, " To drive the baffled tyrant from her shore, To raise the flag of human liberty, In splendid fight to lead the battle fore And witch the world with deeds of chivalry. " O sacred Liberty ! 'Tis thou alone Canst give the hallowed touch to nation's strife And in thine ampler nobler ends atone For this high offered sacrifice of life. " And yet for thee the sacrifice is worth, Ideal Essence, whose bright ardent fire Shall cleanse all human faults of meaner birth, And bid our hopes immortal still aspire. POET The Warm Poets. " The warm poets, Azreel, call them hither now, Those spirits whose live thoughts have boldly dared, Who flung beyond themselves their fervent vow, And suave, immortal forms of beauty reared. " 'Twas theirs to pour their warm affection's tide In acts familiar, give devotion rare To some bright hope that beckoned, lured, defied Their mortal touch, yet held the Ideal there. " What though they poured their blood upon the dust, Or friends in coldness left them in their blame, The world repaid their song with famine's crust, Or pale misfortune robbed them of their fame ? " Yet not in vain they lived, the beauteous forms Their souls had fashioned still are living, real, Their shining aim our struggling march informs And points us still to some upraised Ideal. Dante. " Whom should I name ? The sad-faced Florentine Who sat in exile and o'er-human grief, 66 PRINCE AZREEL 67 With mournful eyes the depths of Hell had seen, Nor found in depths of human pride relief. " Yet rather now in radiant life we know Him Poet, true, of earthly love refined, That uplifts man from out life's meaner show, And sheds its ray where else all life was blind. Camo'ens. " And thou, sweet Camo'ens, whom I learned to love 'Mid fierce disasters not unlike to thine, Whose verse inspired so oft as from above, Yet sparkling glows like Lusitanian wine ; " Rich with the fragrant thoughts of old romance, And bold aspirings for the good and fair, While golden climes hold all in dreamy trance, And ocean wafts a perfumed tropic air. " But chief I love thee that beyond the rest Thy soul with love of beauty has been thrilled, Thine heart with forms of beauty all possessed, And beauty's plastic shapes thy romance filled. Shakespeare. " And Shakespeare ! who that sainted name can greet And not be awed ? Yet I have found him 'gay 68 PRINCE AZREEL Betimes, and genial, radiant, fresh and sweet As is the morning of a warm June day. Milton. " And Milton early set on high supreme, And later known and loved, though mayhap less As chosen builder of a mighty theme Than friend and solace of long days of stress. " Harmonious flow of full majestic verse ■ Thou know'st to wield, and hold the pictures clear That strike with salient force yet all immerse Their force in Poesy's fine atmosphere. " To catch in golden moods the words that charm, And weave the fragrant blooms of flowered phrase, 'Tis well, but better when in faint alarm The lifted veil thine inner soul displays. " And then in joy we find thee full confessed, Of all warm poets, free and perfect peer, In love of plastic beauty all possessed, And genius' subtle voice attuned to hear. Shelley — Byron. " Ethereal Shelley whose supernal song Gives snatches caught from some angelic choir ; PRINCE AZREEL 69 And Byron, tempest-tossed, yet genial, strong, And thousand-touched by the celestial fire. Keats. " And thou, O Keats, divinest of the brood Of poets, whose strong verse breaks forth alive With magic lighting to the highest mood, Whose inspirations sure from God derive " The radiant thought, the quick, infectious charm Infused in ample sweep and power serene, And thine, and thine the uplifting fine alarm That flames in sudden meanings swiftly seen. " O rarest painter yet vouchsafed to earth, Whose colours shine as dies that angels use, Thou hast given life itself a newer birth And Truth exalted as thy heavenly muse. Bums. " One name I have not spoken. For I longed To meet and greet him on his native land, While thousand memories warm and lively thronged To flush the joy with which I grasped his hand. " O Robbie Burns, that beaming eye has mirth, That smile reveals the true douce goodman's heart, 70 PRINCE AZREEL poet freshly sprung from mother-earth, Yet bearing of that birth some radiant part ; " Of Tam O'Shanter laughing by the hour We'll talk, and Pousie Nannie's smoky den, Nor Sainted Willies make our faces dour, Nor Mauchline Belles let us forget we're men ; " Or in another mood I'll listen, Rob, And give to Hallow-E'en its place apart, And know thee in thy spirit's beat and throb Inspired historian of old Scotia's heart. " And Robbie Burns, we'll have a song of love, That rises freshly as a lark at morn, That sends a spell from some sweet realm above And thrills its music like a hope new born. " Yet not in this is all our poet told, Nor have we known him on his native sod, Till in our ears the deep-toned note strikes bold : An honest man's the noblest work of God. " A man's a man for a' that, Robbie Burns, O flaming soul of truth and liberty, And still our thought in love to thee returns When Freedom's pipes scream loud, triumphantly." PRINCE AZREEL 71 Between Madeira and Canaries. So spake the Spirit, and near Azreel swung The hammock where he had reclined in ease, While towards the sky the mellow voice had sung Love songs, romaunts, and snatch of melodies. And then he talked of poets he had known And cited verses burning in delight, And waked in Azreel's mind ideas strown Like stars amid a balmy tropic night. Between Canary and Madeira's Isle Their yacht slow buffeted the long-drawn waves, And like a cradle lazy rocked the while, And soft repose to tired nature gave. The day was warm, and blue the summer sky Of ether haze that floated light and free And lost itself in dreamy space on high Where yet the mind ascended easily, And gentle wind-waves wayward wanton pressed And came and went and scarcely stirred the hair, With softened frolic touch the cheek caressed And wafted breaths of perfumed tropic air. And when the sun at length sunk towards his rest His beams anew, swirled forth in gorgeous light, 72 PRINCE AZREEL Emblazed the realms of all the heavenly West With myriad fires and flaming streamers bright. The distant cloud-hills cumbering ocean's breast, That gloomed in welcome on the coming night, Stood now illumed like portals of a blest And radiant city of celestial might. To live was then enjoyment, and the sense Soft floated in some higher mood, 'twould seem That toil, or effort, care had vanished hence And life was merged in some rare real dream. And soon the stars of night forth shining showed Their sheen of lamps until the heavens revealed, While gemmed and mystic worlds strewn-myriad glowed, The endless glories day's bright veil concealed. And when there stirred the livelier air of night And brought a sweet refreshment in its taste, Their spirits quickened to this new delight, And found themselves to hardier ventures braced. They rose and paced the deck, or wondering gazed Upon the starlight sky, whose beauty rare Was tinged with influence from out the maze Of far-off worlds that blinked in lustre there. And then they cast their eyes upon the sea, And leaning watched the waves that slowly raced PRINCE AZREEL 73 And laved the vessel's side, and flowing free Darkled and blent amid old Ocean's waste. Between those two immensities they stood Frail perched upon our marvelled isle in space And sought the gleams of things half understood, And tried some plan amid this All to trace. Certes, these are moments when the mind is free, Feeling how slight a thing is human life, Feeling that Truth alone our guide can be 'Mid all the tumults of our devious strife. Scope of Poetry. And in those moments what in life seems great ? Something that out from self uplifts the soul, Redeems in noble act our human fate And links our striving towards some distant goal. How can it be that all this wondrous sense Of aspiration, hope, expanse of mind Should die and vanish without recompense, Devoid of meaning in a world gone blind ? And all earth's beauty that delights the eyes Of shapes that ravish, tints that warming glow, And now this marvel that around us lies ; Are these the figments of a mocking show f 74 PRINCE AZREEL No. No. From life's first, vital, inmost spark We know that our immortal hope is real, That burning ever 'mid our earthly dark Is set on high our load-star — Man's Ideal. So Azreel mused. At last he murmured low, " Your words, O Spirit, stirred me deep. 'Tis strange That thoughts the gentlest, subtlest, that we know May shake our being through its utmost range. " Oft had I longed to know the poet's power To pour in living words the thoughts that surged, My visions grand with language rich to dower, And hopes adorn where passioned impulse urged ; " Or in a nearer sphere mayhap to tell Of joys o'er lived, ere yearning thoughts disperse, Or seized again 'neath plastic beauty's spell Give colours, odours, to my living verse ; " Or find in history's brighter page a theme, To beat the pulses, set the blood aflame, Of tragic strife of love, or some supreme Great deed enshrined within a Nation's fame. " To think of Spain is quick to breathe romance Deep true and glowing in an ardent life ; The chivalry, the lightsome songs of France Rise graceful 'mid the storms of hellish strife. PRINCE AZREEL 75 " And were I English with what glad amaze Of splendid strength and golden hopes unfurled I'd find amid the breezy spacious days Of good Queen Bess an epic of the world. " Yet now I feel what I had never known, Something of nobler and exalted state That makes the poet not a voice alone Of outward shows of beautiful and great ; " But something nearer still to Nature's soul, A many-toned lute through which she breathes In changing feeling strains of one great whole, And diverse moods in harmony upwreathes. " How shall we know the poet ? With what food Nurture a spirit that so high aspires ? Keen shall he feel the smart of Nature's mood From Arctic snows to Tropic's lambent fires, " In lively mind to know the soul of things, To see the world with candid eyes and clear, And still, whate'er adventure newly brings, Find sympathy his native atmosphere ; " On viewless winds to send his thoughts to fly, To question Nature at old Ocean's strand, And still whate'er vicissitude looms nigh Uplift the spirit to the great and grand ; 76 PRINCE AZREEL " And yet through life to find the greatest part In human joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, Love's tender yearning stealing on the heart, Or grief for lost ones and enhallowed tears ; " Or blazing up amid our earthly state The boldest impulse of the pilgrim soul To stake even life itself, to challenge Fate, To find a voice of guidance to our goal." Art of Poetry. The Devil smiled. A shade of strange regret Passed ne'ertheless athwart his countenance : " I follow well your meaning, Azreel, yet You're apt to overstrain life's ordonnance. " 'Tis well to tread the lofty mountain peak Of pure transcendent thought, but others rest In smoother paths and atmosphere less bleak And leave you famished on your lonely quest. " And even poetry's not all expressed Entire in tranced mood of soul inspired ; The muse is shy, desires to be caressed In courtly grace with lover's longings fired. " Look for a moment at a sister art ; A man may be a poet, hero, saint, PRINCE AZREEL 77 Yet not a painter, if in nooks apart He never smeared his finger-tips with paint. " The soul enflamed is great, but there's a rare And cloistered charm 'mid hours of pensive ease To study words as gems and set them fair, And seek the sounds where subtle meanings please ; " And con the quaint and cunning syllables, And oft with changing tones the play rehearse, And joy when flush of gladsome moments fills The fragrant lines, the bloom-enladen verse ; " Or pent in narrow walls to close the gaze, And call new worlds with touch of lute serene, Find sun-beamed pictures rising through the haze And sphered words effusing golden sheen ; " Or if the brightening touch of genius thrill, As lambent glides the living verse along, Feel thoughts leap out beyond the reach of skill And sparkling shine in everlasting song. " Give me your ears then, Azreel, I will try To pay my discourse with its proper toll, A poem ! But not such as fling on high Th' uncalculed tempests of the poet's soul. 78 PRINCE JZREEL " A lesser aim, and yet not all too mean Contents its hopes. It is a thing of art ; A tribute paid to poets who have been, But yet whose thoughts are of our lives a part. " Bring forth, then, shawms and harps. Accord your flutes. Or in your fancy find my lines o'erflowed With music strains whose changing tone salutes The changing sense of this : Ode to the Ode." ODE TO THE ODE Break clear in the cry of thy soul, O throbbing ^Eolian harp ; Attuned to its inmost sense And glowing shaped to its mood, Free and whole, And alive with its fires, thou art ; Striking a music fine and intense, Or with note loud and sharp Resounding the clang of war strident and rude, Or sinking again In exquisite strain Singing the songs of the heart. In days of old wert thou great When Miriam in triumph elate Screamed thy wild notes over the sea Avenging her race, cursing Pharaoh's race sink by the rod, Or when David joyous and free Bade his people rejoice, And uplifting his voice Before the ark dancing sang praises to God. 79 80 PRINCE AZREEL Or again when Pindar's lyre Chanting a gloried golden time, The bloom of Grecian clime, Rang with emboldened strain Rising in strength amain And urging still to aspire And gathering fire Blazed to the skies in passion of the soul, And bade the picture rise, The youths of splendid prime, The eager straining eyes, The olive prize, The race, the athlete maddened for the goal. Or when Sappho breathed of love, Gave thee her spirit fine That trembled, throbbed, and warm with aspirations from above Still yearned, still unappeased, for higher things divine. Horace familiar, crowned with roses, steeped in wine, Longing still for parted lips, the fruits of sweeter vine, Gave thee form and movement suave, perfumed of old regret. For centuries thou slept, 'mid dubious strife, and yet The centuries brought thee glories still unknown, When Milton found thy pealing voice renewed In choral hymn, or potently imbued In flowering splendoured verse thy spirit richly sown. PRINCE JZREEL 81 And Wordsworth knew his joy When free from harsh alloy a nature kind, At thy sweet touch refined, Rose on thy wings, And music from thy strings In magic shimmering In the lines like glimmering Dawn sent pulses trembling on the mind, Till o'er that visioned sea Of tranced memory Where the children sported on the shore The music burst its core And swept above the billows that rose rolling evermore. And Shelley was thy child, Whose sweet notes wild Most exquisitely trilled ; Or new inspired With genius fired In clouds of light attired Rose swift in joy/yet unfulfilled, And still uprising thrilled And burned emblazed in ecstasy of song. With hand of power Keats touched thy lute serene, Rare child of God, whose truth was all his art, For 'neath the poet's glamour and the sheen The thought sincere still held the inmost part ; The Grecian spirit breathed upon the sense F 82 PRINCE AZREEL In chastened light, and in its deep strength calm, Or Autumn's rich and favouring influence Enwrapped our hearts in soft and odoured balm ; The golden tones and mellow atmosphere Still interfused the theme when poignant thought Pursued the nightingale's emerveilled song, Beating the sense in vivid notes and clear, Mingling a threnody with that high strain Melodious and sad that his own death besought, That bore the soul in darkling mood along, With thought of death breathed lofty life again, And in that trance had quenched his mortal pain. And shall thy voice be hushed ? Earth blooms for ever fair, The worlds of lesser care Have not thy pure soul crushed. The dawn is radiant now as when in Homer's day faint flushed She stretched her rosy fingers in the sky ; The green leaves deck the earth that yellow blossoms strewed, Man's heart is born renewed And striving upwards lifts his thoughts for aye. The sonnet hath great secrets yet untold, The epic's stately march is starred with image bold, The tender song of love is never old, And madrigal and roundelay, And sweet refrain and virelay, PRINCE AZREEL 83 Will ever haunt the ear, The smooth majestic flow, the swerves and swirls, Of silver sound, the dropping pearls Of melody, enchant the soul in joy serene and clear ; And all these gifts are thine, And thine the wider scope, The tremulously fine irradiations of the soul, The flaming impulse all unbound and whole The surge tumultuous of impassioned hope : The flow not only hast thou, but the flight On wings of light Up-soaring, singing, till the flight and song are one, On pinions sailing free, Or wheeled, and reeled, Poised airily, Or sweeping onward to the rising sun Thou pantest forth thy soul to the newer day begun Resounding paeans to the life fresh-born All flushed in radiant glowing of the clear triumphal morn. Musings. " I hesitate to speak, I tremble, fear, If only in a strange, weak diffidence Of self, when now my naked thoughts appear 'Mid perfect things and judged by higher sense. " Yet there's a word that strikes upon my soul And stirs within the deepest secret heart, That frees my spirit all unbound and whole And makes it of these radiant things a part. PRINCE AZREEL " That word is poetry ; the intense true And noble voice of man when impulse great Forth flames in vivid gifted fire anew Of unterrestrial moments when the gate " Of Heaven is opened in the dawning light, When seized, enwrapt, o'er mortal bounds surpassed The vision meets the golden pathway bright By which the soul ascends to Home at last. " Nothing I fear ; for now I'm like the poor And lowly, ignorant, but Chosen one For whom the sign has come to make him sure Elect apostle of the truth new won. " The fierce, wild soaring of the soul above The sordid fetters of our earthly life, Pure, ardent longings, sainted thoughts of love, Rare aspirations 'mid our lowlier strife : " Have these no meaning ? Must the soul of man Cry out in rage, despair — cry all in vain, Find hopes ideal but a phantom clan, And lofty thoughts the whimsies of the brain ? " And Truth ? And Truth in whose immortal quest The man the burning marl of Hell hath trod And in wild moods of all his mad unrest Hath raised his thought accusing to his God ? PRINCE AZREEL 85 " And Beauty ? Beauty's ever-luring shapes, Whose suasive touch the promised Heaven seems, The sunset's hues or fair earth's bolder scapes Shall these dissolve, all lost like cheating dreams ? " Or that high mood when fervid passion's force And all that fierce, impetuous strength achieves Seem lesser, when the soul, in airy course Ascending, its dull earthly prison leaves " And finds in subtler means a greater strength And quivers with some new god-given light, An unknown marvel power revealed at length And claimed in gladness as its own birthright ; " Is this all empty, with no meaning fraught, And void these words that through myself seem blown, As if this trembling self imperfect caught Some far-off voicings of a Power unknown ? " The Spirit paused, and thoughtful walked apart. Then smiling, said : " The higher moods are great, And yet not low do I esteem the art That chiefly seeks to charm our present state ; " That offers solace, brings embellishment To daily life, and all our thought pervades With beauty, or with chosen ornament Weaves through our home-spun cloth its rich brocades. 86 PRINCE AZREEL " Yet every man's a poet of his kind, If all sincere from out himself he cry, And catch in essence that delight of mind, When boldened impulse flings its hopes on high. " I would not have you, Azreel, too long bend To carve a trinket, chase a pretty gem, Yet not would I despise the art to mend, Or inspiration's flowing garment hem. " Above all, be yourself, pour out the wine Of native thoughts that warm and sparkling shine Or catch in some rare moment the divine Superior touch of things that yet are thine." Azreel replied : " Yet once I hoped to know The subtle secrets of the poet's art, That might I living through my verses flow, The vivid moments of my mind impart. " 'Twas on a day when deep absorbed in thought I read and pondered, and still pondering read A book wherein the author patient sought Some light on man's industrial world to shed. " Fatigue at length had crept upon my mind When, by an apt citation quick illumed, The ways wherein I late had groped purblind Stood clear in thousand newer forms assumed. PRINCE AZREEL 87 " I rose, and in my mind a ferment raged Sudden and fierce, that all my being flushed ; Fatigue had vanished, and the mind presaged New thoughts that now in radiant streamings gushed. " What felt I then of power, and thought, and sense, All mingled in a mood that breathed with hope, And in the moment of a life intense Saw life itself expand in ampler scope. " But now when I these thoughts again would tell, How strange, far-off, and meagre, barren, cold That vision seems, all vanished now the spell And god-like power that held its colours bold. " Yet have I striven in my petty art And sought with force of dull and obdurate word To point where thoughts their soul should fresh impart And raise the picture though in colours blurred. " Imagine, then, that pipes aerial sweet Fill out the sense and raise the faltering lines, And with their music's varied strain complete That sense when spirit with its form combines. " The voice it is of th' individual soul That finding Harmonies of higher sense Appeals to one great universal Whole In strange communings of a mood intense." HARMONIES. To the Creator, an ode to be sung to shawms, pipes, and harps ; being what the soul of the thinker cried out to the soul of the Universe. not alone for this, Great God, 1 bring thee praise : Thy gifts of beauty bright, Thy gifts of splendid might, The firmament ablaze With light, the mystic maze Of starry worlds that wheel as swayed to a viewless rod ; And the fine exquisite glints From life's smaller world ; the tints And delicatest forms of flowers, Or where up-towers The impulsive thought to glories of the world in high amaze. But chief, thy inmost gifts, The opening rifts Of light amid our dark by which we find the way : Thy universal Law, that holds in due array 88 PRINCE AZREEL 89 And wields to action all the sweep of being and of forms In their interchanging play, And from the drifts and storms And seeming chaos blind eternal harmonies uplifts. That Law be still our mortal guide By which we live our daily lives, That he in goodness thrives Who seeks there to abide ; And that our first affections, Our childish recollections, All human feelings dear to human hearts, Our trembling hopes and fears, Our toils, our laughter, tears, And sympathy and love Flowing bounteous from above Are with this spirit linked, from Thy soul not apart ; That our acts are known and their desire, That in ardour to aspire The soul may scale the pathway steep The promised fruits to reap, Or flamed with sacred fire, And swept in clouds of light, May wing, While beams out-fling, From change to lofty change her flight ; Till in vision of Thy Law, Touched with awe, raised in strength 90 PRINCE AZREEL With sacred passion filled, The pulse of less hopes stilled, In higher trances lapped, exalted and refined, She beholds her task at length and blessedness combined, And in that gleam and flood of life is rapt. STATESMAN Preconceptions. " O lofty men, their task indeed is great ! " Cried Azreel, as they crossed Westminster street ; His pulse rebounded at the iron gate, The lobby filled him with a joy discreet. " At last I stand within the sacred walls," He said, and wondering still the hour beguiled With dreams of greatness, old historic halls, Great men ; great thoughts ; great deeds. The Devil smiled. " Cradle of Empires, mother of Parliaments ! Freedom's high shrine, and Magna Charta's fane, Home of just laws, and ward of testaments In which the mighty dead live once again ! " Beyond that aisle the Gilded Chamber lies, That thing of legend, and yet now so near ; We ope the door, before our marvelled eyes The Barons bold of Runnymede appear. " At least the scions of that noble band, And with that same reforming spirit seized, 9' 92 PRINCE AZREEL That wrenched our Freedom from the Tyrant's hand." — The Devil took a pinch of snuff, and sneezed. " And some there be who reach a higher line, And sound a thrilling patriotic note With claims — at which our duteous heads incline — Of wisdom from the Witenagemot. " Yet these who might be thought the high elite Of all earth's greatness pale their faded fires When dazzled eyes the faithful Commons greet And wondering hope to giddy heights aspires. " For what can make the perfect Commons' man ? — Long years of study, old historic lore That slow evolves the Constitution's plan, With patient thought that adds to wisdom's store. " Yet not alone on musty books to pore Be his, except to feed the living light Of clear intelligence that shining o'er Illumes new paths in inspiration bright. " Then travel, travel through the earth's wide realms, That he may nations, peoples, customs scan, And 'mid a life that prejudice o'erwhelms Enlarge a genial mind to wider span. PRINCE AZREEL 93 " Of intercourse and trade he tells the routes, Intricate ways, and busy humming hives, With skill to lead great National pursuits, And cast the lines where industry best thrives. " And science too, for science is the star That guides all Progress in its steps aright, That sheds its rays on commerce from afar And wins our modern world to bolder flight. " But chiefly sympathy, that thrice-blessed gift To know another's pain and inmost heart And find the strength another's load to lift And less for self than common weal take part. " And eloquence within his breast shall swell To charm the ear with sweet and cadenced note, In moving tones a tale of pity tell, Or thunder Jove-like from his brazen throat. " His soul in ardour of reform shall blaze As if ten thousand paling furtive fires Of hope should join in him their warming rays And shine a beacon of the world's desires. " Yet Prudence calm and strong shall sit in state And hold these forces in supreme control, And feeling every virtue in its weight Shall mould their strength to one harmonious whole. 94 PRINCE AZREEL A Type. " Some magic lies in that affix — M.P., Whose wearer it proclaims in striking tones As mankind's exquisite epitome ! " — " Who called for Sir Fitz Clarence Blogsby- Jones ? " These words were shouted close to Azreel's ear And woke him to the world's reality. A stumpy, stodgy, podgy man stood near, And beamed with affable pomposity. The Devil bowed and courteously advanced, And Blogsby seized him in effusive style And shook his hands, while dubiously he glanced At Azreel proffering his modest smile. " I'll find you seats," cried Blogsby with an air, In loud, important, somewhat brassy tones, " In the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery, where Even Dukes and Earls are baking now like scones." The cause of this, well-pleased, he then explained, " Full dress debate, and most important speech Expected from the Chancellor," had strained Accommodation to its utmost reach. Lucky the dukes and earls who thus could sit In stalls reserved, ambassadors were packed About the wings, mere barons in the pit, And younger sons in corridors were stacked. PRINCE JZREEL 95 " The Government will have a narrow shave," Said Blogsby, " And the whips have got a fright. I hurried down from Thickneckshire to save The show, and yet I doubt if I did right. " We're going at a headlong, reckless burst, The country's fears are not unjustified — For this of Liberal Governments is the first That thought th' experiment might well be tried " Of taking seriously our platform talk. And what talk too ! and what a Chancellor ! My dignity at length begins to baulk At many things my vote'll answer for. " I must, forsooth, be patient yet awhile, And see my country going to the deuce, And vote and vote and help to swell the pile That keeps on top these Rads and their abuse. " The Lords are up in arms, and so's the Trade, The Church is shocked in its divinity, For when a stand against Reform is made You'll always find at one that trinity. " Red ruin and the breaking up of laws Will likely follow when the screw next twists, And then we'll have — will that not give them pause ? — In power Caird-Heevy and his Socialists ! "96 PRINCE AZREEL " And that the coming of the end will be ; The country's ruined and not that alone, We're driving straight and fast to anarchy, No laws, no church, no marriage, and no throne ! " The Devil wore a look of grave concern : " Tell me, Sir Fitz," he questioned, " why you're in This state, you've made me all agog to learn " : — the tax the Chancellor has put on gin," Sir Fitz replied, unburdening his soul. " The tax had been by tuppence-farthing raised, But this had made th' already heavy toll On gin outrageous, left the Trade quite dazed ! " For months Sir Fitz had heard the question waged In speech on speech, until his brain was filled With heated thoughts and rancours, and he raged That his own Party such a crime had willed. A bell rang loudly in the vestibule. " Division ! " cried Sir Fitz. " The tax goes bang, For in this House is one safe golden rule : Vote solid always, let your conscience hang." The Devil smiled : " A perfect type," he said, " Of that good, honest, righteous, earthly soul, The average man by high ambition led To write his name on Fame's parochial scroll. PRINCE AZREEL 97 " The family fortunes took their root in Jones, Then Blogsby in a marriage dot was caught, FitzClarence lent its fine ennobling tones, And ' Sir ' was with a big subscription bought. " Jones played the forward Radical at first And promised working men their heaven here, A single Chamber, and to souls athirst More culture, light, and leisure, cheaper beer. " No doubt he was sincere, or half sincere, As politicians run, especially Sincere in his endeavour to get here, And carry out his functions honourably. " But yet the man must be of tempered steel Who in this slow stagnating atmosphere Keeps bright his hopes, and does not daily feel His pristine strength in vapour disappear. " And so Sir Fitz has constantly progressed In crab-like fashion towards his destined goal, And shed consistently beliefs professed And kept his principles in wise control. " By voting steadily to end the Lords He hopes to gain the favourable ear Of Ministers, when framing their rewards And crown as Lord Inclover his career, G 98 PRINCE AZREEL " And with each step towards that blessed state Sir Fitz has cast off friends and loved to strut In circles highly apt to cultivate The last, the choicest art, the art to cut. " And this uncultured, pompous little man, Who measures greatness by a gaudy show, Is deemed a model for the general clan — The mischief is that they, too, think it so. " ' Mellowed with years, inspired by moderate views '- Such are the usual terms of sophistry By which these men their consciences abuse And make a virtue of hypocrisy. " Mere sentiments and foolish dreams of youth, They call the hopes that burned with sacred flame Before for gain they paltered with the Truth And sold their pride for honours, place, and shame. " Yet life is youth, or all that's best in life Is found where flows the energising sap That breathes of future hopes from out the strife Where these dried twigs of prudence weakly snap. " Where is the leader who with genial eye Will see the nation's strength in Youth's ideal And set its fervours, dreams, and hopes on high And lead its force to make these visions real f PRINCE AZREEL 99 " But here, with tickets, comes Sir Fitz, our friend The Legislator — stolid, sturdy man, The Nation's core ! and yet our visions tend When centred there to lessen in their span. " He has not found your measure yet, Azreel. You're young — a circumstance that caution brings, For reckless, fresh, warm youth disdains to feel Our Blogsby's foolscap-virtue scheme of things. " Besides, you lack that stolid gorgon stare That Blogsby has been taught to think the sign Of dignity and high superior air That marks the scions of a noble line. " And as the ancient augurs had to scan The sacred chickens ere their doubts would loose, So Blogsby sagely judges of a man By indications of the tailor's goose. " But let that pass, for when I style you Prince, He'll frisk with flattering smile and well-pleased grin And for that title a respect evince That valour, virtue, genius fail to win. Journalistic. " But I have seen you cast a curious eye Around the hall : The scene we gaze upon ioo PRINCE AZREEL Is this great nation's counting-house where high Exchange of statesmanship is carried on. " Not all these fine distinguished men you see Are statesmen, for there is another sort More fraught with wisdom and authority, And not less known to general report. " They are the journalists, good honest men, Whose only foible is omniscience, Though even that boundary's too narrow when Some call is made upon their prescience. " Their function is to note this ill-staged play That slow beats out its rather dubious rhyme, To indicate the plot, the scenes pourtray, And paint the fashion of the passing time. " And in that painting talents varied lie, For with the same details through all their range, The artist sees with individual eye And can at will the whole perspective change. " The bright warm riancy of Corot's touch He throws upon his party's own landscape, But Rembrandt's darkest hues reserves for such As from the Opposition school take shape. " In mood of praise he'll deftly bring to view A Titian model limned with master hand, PRINCE AZREEL 101 Or Turner-like on misty prospects strew The light that never was on sea or land. " But imitation is not all, you'll find, For truth is diverse, howsoe'er you take it, And it may happen to a genial mind To dress up history, or if needful make it. " Dispenser, too, of fame in modern days, The journalist may well exalt his trade, For — Kings, or pills, or poetry, or plays — Most reputations now are paper-made." The House. The Spirit and the Prince surveyed the scene With cool enjoyment, measured, sober, calm, And even that note of sadness that has been Infused in British pleasures as a balm. Interior. A solid, panelled, Dutch-interior air Impressed a sense of old solidity, While squarely planted stood the Speaker's chair, A monument of quiet dignity. In high background a grille's invidious bars Half hid and half revealed a store of fair 102 PRINCE AZREEL But shadowy forms whose gazing eyes like stars Shed mildened lustre on earth's dullness there. On lower galleries attentive sat The nation and the world in audience, Representatively ; in proof of that Strange gear and uniforms gave evidence. The members, too, in long and serried rows Seemed much impressed ; they mostly sat upright, Except where dignities in office chose To sprawl in careless beauty as they might. The Speaker, throned upon his solemn chair, — More neat than solemn, it perhaps might be But for th' imposing figure sitting there — The Speaker wore an easy dignity. And eke he wore a long full-bottomed wig, And buckled shoes, black hose, and flowing train. Such things are notable, for that quaint rig Did much of noble dignity contain. Though beauty unadorned, as we've been told, 'S adorned the most, yet 'tis the artist's eye Alone that dares put forth the judgment bold To find where pure and modest beauties lie. And no less true of beauty of the soul, Nay there especially, is that to tell ; PRINCE AZREEL 103 For fine, intangible, beyond control, Are thoughts that hold attraction in their spell. And so the public wants adornment, gold Embroidery, laces, frills, and robes of State, To label virtues, blazon deeds enscrolled, And give even fame its due certificate. " What's truth ? " quoth Pilate, as an empty jest, " What's virtue ? " dying Brutus cried on high, " What's right and wrong ? " asked Kant in thought oppressed, And gazed awe-stricken on the starry sky. But note how doubts and scruples vanish when Big wigs or ermined robes have told their tale, And that- where reason droops the tailor then Turns out the arguments that seldom fail. " Respectability f " cried Carlyle once, " What is it f — It is where one keeps a gig." " And what is dignity ? Why ask, then, dunce ? It shrouds that blessed man that wears the wig." Carlyle had written Sartor all in vain — Rare work of genius, and some misty thought, All redolent of that fine humorous strain Of shows of things that there is subtly taught. 104 PRINCE AZREEL Carlyle, I say, had written Sartor ill If we interpreted its moral thus, That clothes, being accidentals, might at will Be disregarded, or cast off from us. We've not yet reached that transcendental state Where we are fit to see things as they are, And so we need the tailor to translate ; And when we hitch our wagon to a star, The star, I fear, is often on a coat, And there the glitter that attracts the gaze Has more of gold than when the better note Of soul-filled thought has won our ardent praise. How deep even trivial teasing questions strike Of praise and blame, of homage and salaams, Of pomps, displays, of honours cast alike On real merit and on worthless shams. For where lies good and bad ? And what is Truth ? The baffled soul again to God appeals, And trembling o'er the shattered hopes of youth Builds dreams that some bright future life reveals. Clacbus. But meanwhile Clacbus held the House all close Attentive to his words. It was a speech PRINCE AZREEL 105 That marks an epoch fit to rank with those Whose grave monitions through the centuries reach. Or should have been at least, for it had much Of what in great orations one admires, Except the essential — that magnetic touch That shows a man who wills and who inspires. But Clacbus was the middle-class in brief, With all their virtues held on life-long lease, Of politician-opportunists chief, And Mediocrity's great masterpiece. Of middle height, Dutch-built, and fair and square, That phrase might to his intellect belong ; His very flights of fancy took the air Like Rubens' angels, heavy, cloddy, strong. His voice was round, metallic in its tones, And polished as though polished with a file, His sentences were cut like graven stones, And well built up in lapidary style. Conspicuously he stood there as the safe And prudent man in party politics, Which being interpreted may mean the waif That keeps his balance by a thousand tricks. 106 PRINCE AZREEL Wanderings, Digressions and Protests ofAzreel. These prudent men, self-righteous, smooth, and smug, Too oft in life they take us, strangers, in, For who can tell when they their conscience hug How much that cloak of virtue hides of sin. True Prudence, foresight's clear, far-seeing eyes That all the forces and the field survey, And not less dauntless because then more wise — To that great virtue let us homage pay. But there's another wretched, cunning sort That veils its mean pusillanimity In cheating words, and gains a false report Of wisdom, ponderation, equity. They find in compromise a blessed word And sell for power or pelf the hopes of youth, And see their visions in mean bargains blurred — Weak, godless souls that fear the living truth. Not less in worlds of action we behold The shores of nations with the wreckage strown Of those who shrank and failed when Wisdom bold The task of splendid enterprise had shown. Parmenion was prudent when he prayed Great Alexander turn from Asia's prize PRINCE AZREEL 107 And Ethelred was prudent when he paid The Danes to spare him, and his arms despise. And prudent, too, the superstitious crew That chid Columbus pointing ever West, And prudent Byng who found his ships too few And hied him off upon a safer quest. And he the third Napoleon who defamed A name that breathed of energy and strength, And by his weak and changing counsels shamed A ruined nation, rent in twain at length. But turn to those who dared to win — to Men ! Great Caesar calls from Rubicon afar, Fame links the names, Armada, Drake, again, Napoleon, Lodi ; Nelson, Trafalgar. To dare was half the winning, and the pride To dash to battle singing Victory's song Had won the fickle goddess to the side Of dauntless hearts and steeled hands stern and strong. For never yet was noble battle won That had not in the Captain's soul been gained, Nor ever glorious enterprise begun But that within the leader's heart had rained io8 PRINCE JZREEL Salutation to heroes and Martyrs. Some wondrous influence of fatality That told in language he alone might read : ' He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.' Those who have dared to win are truly great, But often greater those who dared to die, Who gave their lives in service to the State, Or for some high world-Truth to testify. O heroes, who but envies you the death, That leaves you in your country's fame to live, And makes you know within your latest breath How glorious shines the offering you give. Leonidas I see before the gate Of Greece, surrounded by his little band Of heroes, gladly all resolved to wait The doom that sealed the greatness of their land. Nor fear could ev'n a frolic mood destroy, They jested gravely as their Fate loomed nigh, And felt that keen, voluptuous pang of joy To face the myriads of the foe, and die. O radiant souls when Victory's paeans swell, And blessed if in Freedom's fight o'erthrown, Where Washington has seized the torch from Tell, Or Kosciusko cried aloud to Tone. PRINCE AZREEL 109 And not less hallowed, heroes, may ye find The dungeon cell, or burning flames of hate, O Socrates serene 'mid passions blind, O Bruno called thy truth to expiate. O poet, thinker, martyr to the Truth, Hadst thou not felt in direst stress of pain The thought immortal,*that thy Spirit's youth From fires of thy disgrace should rise again And Phoenix-like undying bear the word To ardent generations yet unborn ; That they within their deepest fibres stirred Should hear the cry from thy deep anguish torn. Liberty, thou bright and shining cause, 1 still again salute thee on my way, And in this musing mood obedient pause To hang my garland at thy shrine and pray. Meanwhile was Glacbus speaking, speaking well, With neat turned phrase and rounded period, And yet that faultless diction, truth to tell, Made Azreel dream of Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, and Aristotle banned, Of Sophocles haled up for lunacy, Of Milton old and blind, yet not unmanned, Of Bunyan jailed for his contumacy. no PRINCE AZREEL Of anything a wandering mind can catch To find relief from dull smug ecstasies ; Of men, of thoughts, misfortunes that o'er-match These bourgeois souls and their hypocrisies. Interlude on Oratory. And yet again it was a famous speech, Replete with learning and politic sense, Adorned abundantly with arts that reach To summits of forensic eloquence. A speech, as Aristotle wisely said, Should have beginning, middle, and an end ; Commencing with wide survey ; gradual led To show the weight of reason and its trend ; And then the final marshalling of force To charge resistless to the shining goal. And so the speech of Clacbus in its course Had strength of parts, momentum as a whole. It was the Ciceronian model-speech, Of splendid talent where no genius gleams, Where lacked the subtle things no art can teach That rise within us deep and light as dreams. That stirring spirit had Demosthenes : When he had spoken Athens did not cry, PRINCE AZREEL m How fine a speech, but cursed its slothfulness, And burned to fling proud Philip from on high. " Action, action, action once again ; The oration's there," Demosthenes has taught. These words I oft have probed, and fancied then Some inner meaning with a secret fraught. And now I think perhaps the larger part Of that fine import may be thus expressed : The orator's is like the soldier's art In this, that each must be to victory pressed ; And each position must be gained in turn To form the pivot of the next advance, And through this onward movement there must burn Foreshadowed triumphs that the soul entrance. In war the atmosphere is rude and wild, And force, compelling force, the instrument ; Th' oration, subtler, has our thought beguiled And led us charmed to its accomplishment. I pardon beg that I have Clacbus left Once more, yet 'tis not mere distractiveness, For Clacbus and his kind are most bereft Of that rare precious gift, attractiveness. ii2 PRINCE AZREEL And on my thoughts has swept another theme That yet perhaps from that smug Clacbus came, For there's a passion of the soul, 'twould seem, To loathe even virtues, measured, chaffered, tame. The Dance of Carfeaux. Before the Opera House of Paris stands, Or dances rather, so instinct with life, A marble group that from the sculptor's hands Sprang vivid, light, victorious from the strife That spirit must with matter ever wage When some fine thing of art grows quick apace And airy fancies with dull stone engage To win its form to free and lissom grace. Each figure perfect in its joyous ease Moves to an air with dancing gladness fraught, While sweep through all wild strains of revelries That swirl the group in swaying flight up caught. Oh never since the Greek Praxiteles Had fused in marble Aphrodite's grace Had such a wonder come to earth to please As Carpeaux's genius found delight to trace. Art. Not far removed upon the self-same plinth Another statue stands, a thing of rule PRINCE AZREEL 113 And line, untouched of art's fine amarinth, Unsalved above the precepts of the school. Yet have I seen good, honest, cheerful souls Regard them both and with an equal eye, Or turn from that where Beauty revelling rolls And praise the lifeless pattern set on high. Why polish still the stone ? To greet whose eyes ? Who probe too deep ? No guerdon lies that way. For they who know not Beauty judge the prize, And Truth looms strange beyond our little day* Why strive to lift the soul F To scale the skies ? Why strive for Beauty ? Beauty will betray. No strife but greed of gold around thee lies • And narrowed minds hold everywhere the sway. No ! No ! I cry, for visioned worlds unroll Where Mammon's crew accurst can never grope. And what of these ? I hold a brighter scroll, And thoughts with which pale reasons cannot cope With sharper edge come sweeping through my soul. Aflame — I burn to give my spirit scope, To seek the world where I am free and whole, And know in passioned truth God's larger hope. H ii4 PRINCE AZREEL Incitements. How often have we seen the buzzing crowd With bravos hail mere shallow, worthless men, While worth is crushed beneath the selfish proud And genius cast to obloquy again. Old Milton in his Samson strikes the chord In calmly tragic, deep reflective mind, And not less keenly that his own reward In life had tinged his survey of mankind. And Keats inveighed in bitterness of heart Against the " baaing vanities " enthroned, While sorrow and neglect have been the part Of noble souls, and spirits finely toned. 'Tis true the poet's verse should clear resound Above all vanities and lesser hate ; The thinker's mind as adamant be found To thoughts that urge him from his destined fate. Yet often heroes who in light of day Astound the world with daring splendid feat ; Or martyrs stern resolved their life to pay And cruel ordeals all undaunted meet — Yet these may need some constant higher stay, To melt their soul's rich massy shining gold In little coinage given from day to day In hidden deeds and sacrifice untold. PRINCE AZREEL 115 For much that stirs the wayward human heart To highest effort still is vanity ; And wherefore not ? that instinct has a part In all that links in one humanity. 'Tis sweet to hear a friend's approving cry, The nation's call is still a noble lure, And fame a mystic star that burns on high With meanings that as deep as life endure. And who can turn from all the world's applause Its pomp and shows and vanities expressed In pleasing forms, and find his inner cause More deep, and true^ and strong than all the rest ? And who within the silence of his heart Unstirred by vanity, uncheered by praise, Can slay ambitions and renounce a part That promised wealth and power and honoured days ? Truth is the Soul of Things Great. And who, alone, beneath the starry sky Where no eye saw could contemplate two ways, One silent, bare, with chill death lurking nigh, The other joyful with the world's blown praise, And yet to virtue true, unwarmed by strife, Or challenge, or approval, then could choose u6 PRINCE AZREEL To vindicate his duty with his life, And all the world's recreant joys refuse ? He only who has faith in Truth, in God, Who feels the soul of some great living scheme Within him stirring — else were man a clod, This world a fretful child's unreal dream. Thus Azreel mused, then suddenly recalled How wide afield his wandering thoughts had strayed, And what strange fancies had his mind enthralled In flight from realms that prudent Clacbus swayed. The Devil's comment had a .quainter ring : " These mediocrities no doubt have uses Except in crises, for like Admiral Byng In lieu of battle then they give excuses. " Or Alexander-like to conquest sworn What spirit do they strike through all their troop ? They kill enthusiasms freshly born And put cold water in their soldiers' soup. " These images, you note, are drawn from war, And Peace, sweet piping Peace, needs other arts ; Yet I maintain, apart from metaphor, The leader's soul the electric touch imparts. PRINCE AZREEL 117 " And if in Peace this is less evident 'Tis that in peace some finer spirit's lost, And peace is served with feebler temperament Than stupid war in rage insensate tossed. " Else who would call these tame villatil fowl Reformers, and our Clacbus here top-sawyer ? Are tameless eagles led by chouseled owl Or Revolutions by a family lawyer ? " LYSIS Another rose of different style and mien, Of tall and slender, somewhat willowy air, With, through a manner unobtrusive seen, A something of distinction printed there. Where ? when ? or how ? one hardly knew, and yet That quiet, bland approach betokened one In some way pointed out by fame, and set On high for deference securely won. The voice was good and clear and trained, of course, For public speaking, though this operation Had too much smoothed its native tone and force And given instead a spice of affectation. His attitude was easy, too much so, Degagee, is the word that he would use, Which being translated means he did not throw Much zeal into his task or life infuse. He spoke as if he had not quite believed In what his party asked for, or desired, But by his skill of sophistry achieved Much more than they whom purer faith inspired. 118 PRINCE AZREEL 119 He had in truth, like Belial, the art, As our immortal Milton well hath told, To make the worse appear the better part, " And yet he pleased," like Belial of old. His style was free, elastic, and refined, He had a subtle and artistic touch As if his tastes had early been inclined To good French models, and been formed by such. And 'twas so good of that peculiar kind Of fine word-spinning that our visitors, Delighted this rare Attic salt to find, Soon dubbed him chief of Grand Disquisitors. If " action, action, action " be the test, The speech was certainly without pretension, But then the definition stands confessed In need of some more light and free extension. 'Twas less a speech than fine artistic feat Of irony and sceptic railleries, A thing of spangles, tricks, illusions sweet ; — " The Prince of Air upon the high trapeze." Azreel applauded, and the Devil smiled. " Delectable ! " the Prince replied, " This speech Has charmingly a quarter-hour beguiled, And to amuse is but a way to teach. 120 PRINCE AZREEL " And yet not very clearly I perceive How he can play the Leader to the full, For what more different can one conceive Than Lysis here to sturdy old John Bull ? " " My Prince," the Devil said, " he never leads, He simply gyrates brilliantly in place ; His party also is the last that needs A leader strenuous to force the pace. " Lysis has found a most congenial role, He does not wish to lead, nor they to move, And so he keeps his party in control By shimmering discourses that nothing prove " He would adorn the French Academy, For he has letters, elegance, and wit, And piquing monsieur, pleasing madame, he Would find a field for genial talents fit, " A dilletante, yes, of genius though, ^-The flowers of genius, even if not the fire — His thoughts of life at many vistas show A mind illumed, a vision to inspire, " Lysis once wrote a philosophic book ■ — I read it, I amongst the very few-~ For at first blush it had a dubious look That caused much chattering in the hidebound crew ; PRINCE AZREEL 121 " That is to say all but that selfsame few Who take an interest in works of thought, And Lysis in his title gave a clue That in his book some kind of Doubt was taught. " Now Thought's anathema within these spheres, And Doubt ! — I think our solid friend Sir Fitz Could best express the apprehensive fears That word calls forth to such plum-pudding wits. " Lysis explained he had desired to seek Why Doubt had always buttressed up the church, And as his theme was long-drawn, tenuous, weak, He left his captious critics in the lurch ; " And much enhanced thereby his budding fame And gave his party further cause for pride, For all who had not read extolled his name, And blessed their stars that Thought was on their side. " And yet observe the pity of it all : — This man was capable of sterling work, Had he not heard this House's syren call Or known the lures that here insidious lurk ; " For science then had claimed him, and the mind That now is frittered in mere casuist skill Had shown that lustre of a life refined : An Intellect at service of a Will. 122 PRINCE AZREEL " Yet I would leave him with a touch of praise : A kindly heart has won for him this grace, That with the moulding of the broadening days His outlook, too, has found a broadened base." The set debate became then general, Which, generally speaking, meant not good. The orators were not at ease at all, And hid their human nature, when they could, Behind that straight-lined, formal, foolscap style Which is the acme of all things official, As if they feared that any casual smile Of human nature might be prejudicial. And not alone the outward form was dressed In garb correct, hall-marked by fashion's die, But even the soul itself might seem expressed In black frock coat, starched collar, faultless tie. Conformity was worshipped like a god ; The simple truth was spoken less or sought Than what was suitable within well-trod Safe party lines of trite and common thought. No hope was here to get the base of things ; Even common sense was often found amiss And tinged with .odium that always clings To what runs counter to our prejudice. PRINCE AZREEL 123 The orators seemed more contented when They missed th' essential and their talent spent In twisting details and arriving then At wrong conclusions from bad argument. The Chancellor. " Our serious Angles " like a man of weight, If he be very heavy they adore him ; And hence the astutest statesmen cultivate With great success the faculty to bore 'em. That's where the Chancellor failed to satisfy — A clever little man of charming sort, With mild and fiery, kindly light blue eye, But careless of that proud and swelling port Which in the Commons goes with High Finance ; And possibly the hatred he provoked Was not so much due to his fiscal prance As that he, without difficulty, joked. Sir Gleyte. Sir Gleyte then rose, a form of other strain, As if a stained-glass mediaeval saint Had come unhinged from off its window-pane, And basked itself in sort of free constraint. 124 . PRINCE AZREEL And carried yet that haunted atmosphere Of dim cathedrals bathed in mystic light Of vigils, ecstasies, of moonshine clear, And chilly fervours of the neophyte. Then came the voting, which, the Guide explained, Preserved an ancient and spectacular side As being the only function that remained To give the rank and file a glow of pride. " For like that old philosopher," he said, " Who proved by walking, I have known them walk Hours after decent folk were all in bed, And still they walked, and then returned to talk." Questions of Azreel. " Are these men sane ? " the Prince in wonder cried. The Devil laughed in quiet joy consumed, " Oh, Azreel, think how fickle," he replied, " A judgment seems too hastily assumed. Explanations of the Devil, who defends the Commons; explains its Customs. " You came here filled with this Assembly's fame And now you flatly dub them imbeciles, So quick a change suggests some deeper game Than this quaint outward surface show reveals. PRINCE AZREEL 125 " You must not take this House too seriously, Then much is said, and things are half explained ; That air of busy idleness you see Is all that here of business has remained. " These set orations never change a vote, 'Tis seldom that they even change beliefs, And yet they talk, and talk, and strain the throat, Like barren lawyers, spouting forth their briefs. " The speeches here, you'll be surprised to know, Are mostly given to prove ability, And votes are cast the member's zeal to show And with some hope of vague utility. " And yet ev'n after all you've heard and seen I still declare that this same House contains Men capable of gracing any scene, Good men of worth, and wit, and power, and brains. Its Ghosts. " The men are sane, but yet too many ghosts Haunt this old House, and put deceptive scales Before their eyes, and fill their brains with hosts Of whimsies quaint and foolish old wives' tales. " That proverb must be taken with some salt That says that in the country of the blind 126 PRINCE AZREEL The one-eyed man is King, for great's the fault To see more clearly than the world's inclined. " And in the country of the one-eyed men The two-eyed man his lucky star may thank If he escape with life, to wrestle then With grave suspicions that pursue the crank. " Most of the men you now behold are gauged And weighed ; they've shot their bravest bolt, Within safe lines their little battles waged, Nor from convention ever dared revolt. Balbus. " Yet Balbus has not given the fullest scope Of all his parts of statesman, or play-actor, And he alone now gives us some faint hope Of finding that rare thing — a character. " I do not mean a something good or bad, But rarer, something quite itself and whole ; That may not be in labelled parcels had, Or well turned out by tailors of the soul. " Balbus has qualities not often found Within these isles, and curiously enough Distrusted then, for here a type all round, And tough, and stiff, and somewhat rude and bluff, PRINCE AZREEL 127 " Is lauded as the ideal, although it's true The glories of the British race have shown That flash, that secret of the chosen few, That sends its genius through the wide world flown. " Whom shall we name ? At Zutphen Sydney great, A gentle soul in fine heroic mould ; At Blenheim Marlborough like a God of Fate, All fiery calm and all resistless bold. " And Nelson once again at Trafalgar, A blind and maimed and weak, light-thoughted waif, Yet with that spirit from God's realm afar That burns and thrills, inspires with victory safe. " Not less in poets, in true poets, found, Their essence truly, such celestial ichor As sparkling, genial Byron handed round In brimming bowls of light and sun-kissed liquor. " What is this subtle and mysterious thing ? 'Tis but the wine of human nature kind ; But education often dries the spring And chills the sweet affections of the mind. " I hope it is not strange to associate Our Balbus with these radiant names too soon Lest fame with egotism emulate In killing Nature's fair and precious boon, 128 PRINCE AZREEL " And in his mind filtrate a lesser mood Too apt to check the native lively flow, And spoil a man by furnishing the food For insolence and pride of outward show. " Thus far I like him well ; will he endure And keep his spirit brightened to the last, And not his single precious gift abjure In efforts to conform to that dull caste " Of wooden statesmen, fools, and lying saints, Who throw their shadow upon life itself, Whose mean hypocrisy the nation taints, Who sell their souls for place, and power, and pelf ? " But here is something of another sort ; He wins, it seems, even by deficiency, For where, despite of general report, Has Balbus shown a high proficiency ? " Thoughts wise and quite profound fall from his lips, And yet I cannot take him seriously ; I feel as if he might with sportive quips Laugh off the sense of their reality. " His prose is good, although we search in vain For style that casts its own peculiar spell, And yet half-wonderingly we find again With pleasure that he really writes so well. PRINCE AZREEL 129 " No orator — he lacks essential things, Yet gives us speeches full of interest, All stumbling, yet with trying fluttering wings That flicker fine suggestions of the best. " He wanes and blushes lika a trembling maid, And wins affection for his furtive hopes ; Anon he hits like Tom Spring unafraid As game he fought Bill Neat from off the ropes. " ' Ambition should be made of sterner stuff ' ? Yes, that's a phrase that does not always hit, And Balbus, too, has impudence enough To make sheet armour for the tenderest wit. " The soldier's fire, afflatus of the poet, We find in Balbus ; something of the soul, Something that more subtly than we know it Spells Fate within the man, and points his goal." THE HOUSE OF LORDS The Blaze of Colour. Of purple robes and trains and ermine stoles, Of robes of crimson, blue, and cloth of gold, Of fur-lined opulent velvets in whose rolls The blaze of colours dimmed to darkened fold, The Chamber shone resplendent, while the rim Of this bright pomp of intermingled hues Was like a garland set with bouquets trim Of living flowers, of beauteous women whose Soft cheeks with roses vied, whose eyes had beams Ev'n brighter than the diamonds diademed Or shimmering sparkling in corsletted streams Adorning flowered bodices engemmed. There at the head while greeting hymns intoned And noble peers their humble homage paid, Sat in the majesty of Empire throned The Monarch whom a thousand realms obeyed. " As when in beauteous Spalatro Bay," The Devil said, " on fine warm summer eve 130 PRINCE AZREEL 131 The sun-kissed waves in thousand colours play And floods of goldened tints in billows heave, The Labour Member's Remark. " So here this gorgeous richly hued display Seems slow to swell and float within the gaze." — " We'll want some work to sweep all this away ! " A voice was heard, and not without amaze The auditors who gazed in pious awe Behind the rails that marked their lower caste Waxed hot indignant as they turned and saw The author of this wicked counter-blast. A tall, strong, burly figure, plain and good The sonsie features of the douce good man, In home-spun suiting calm and upright stood, And hardly deigned the brilliant scene to scan. Azreel's Misconceptions. To Azreel 'twas as if a boldened Gurth At Ashby-de-la-Zouche had dared King John, Against tyrannic power set honest worth, And blasted that false pomp he frowned upon. He seemed to read within his soul which said : " O never in the history of our race 132 PRINCE AZREEL Has misery festering grown beyond control As that which now in England finds its place. " Are you our rulers ? If we come to you And show the nation's deep corroding sore, Will you for only answer flaunt to view These fripperies that add a pang the more ? " A message has gone forth all fraught with life To raise the people to a higher lot ; Is this to you with no great meanings rife But call to hold prerogatives ill got ? " The nation's burdens ever heavier grow, The nation's wealth is won in harder toils, Will you the nation's burdens all forego And cling with grasping hands to robber spoils ? The Pride of Birth. " Yet," Azreel cried, " These coronets of pride, Were they not won in many an ancient fight Where valour and devotion side by side Saved England's freedom and won England's might f " These robes of quaint design and precious wear, Have they the Witenagemot not graced, From Runnymede not brought their noble air, At Guynes the chivalry of France out-faced i " PRINCE AZREEL 133 The Devil's Explanations. The Devil smiled : " I fear you wrong the Lords By thus surmising their decrepitude, For glimpse of what Dark Ages still affords You ground for homage or for gratitude ? " The past has left too many monuments From ill-built towns to uncouth brutal laws, That we should proffer maudlin sentiments, And weeping o'er its relics fondly pause. " The golden age before us always lies, That is the hope that keeps the world afloat ; More virtues from a living soul arise Than from the dead hand of an age remote. " But pray, Azreel, excuse my platitudes. Be comforted ; this House has few dry sticks ; Less savour here from old Crusades exudes Than from chicane of modern politics. " Or worse perhaps, as when a lawyer dubbed As accident's mere accident a Peer, And in his phrase quite delicately rubbed A nattering balm on his rhetoric spear. " The satin skin of some fair orange girl Becomes the parchment of a ducal line, 134 PRINCE AZREEL And these proud blazons radiantly unfurl While modest merits with respect incline. " This House holds also men of signal worth Whose talents have unlocked the charmed doors, Who yet demean themselves to worship birth As Afric Black his wooden god adores. " For what is pride of birth or noble blood If no high deeds attest their honest fame ; If but the soul be base, all else is mud And sounding titles add a sting to shame. " What higher birth than noble Robbie Burns Can Scotland show in pride of ancestry ; The blood of Washington victorious spurns The olden heralds' useless flattery. " The soul's the test. If low and meanly bent The man is shapen in servility, If thoughts aspire to high accomplishment The soul is tempered to nobility. " In ancient Rome the Imperial tyrants reigned With gifts profuse of circuses and bread ; In London bread is not so easily gained, Nor circuses ; we have the Lords instead. " We found the Commons haunted with their ghosts ; But here the ghosts are Hamlet and the play, PRINCE AZREEL 135 The players, scenery, and the armed hosts, The drama's spirit, and its sole mainstay. " They do the British Constitution wrong, I always think, whose dull descriptive powers Compare it to the oak deep-rooted, strong, Or talk of battlemented fortress towers. — " A thing so airy, delicate, and fine That it cannot be shown in light of day But where Enchantment draws her magic line Lest Reason's winged shafts too freely play. " This Chamber as a fairy-tale should seem The Make-Believe that opes our marvelled eyes ; You laugh — the fabric crumbles like a dream And but a barren stage before us lies." The Devil said this in a musing air As if some problem fine, inscrutable, Perplexed, amused, yet held him spellbound there By happenings not to others visible. And many times the Spirit and the Prince Returned to contemplate their Lordships there, And seek for outward signs that might convince The world of some superior lordly air. 136 PRINCE AZREEL 'Twas not physique, good looks, nor knightly port, Assuredly it was not power of speech, Nor native wisdom, nor whatever sort The study diligent of books may teach. And least of all a fine attractive style, For Azreel found it disconcerting there That pains fastidious and inborn guile Combined to give a chill repellent air. In sheer despair he said it was the Hat, That girt their Lordships' House as with a wall, That black, silk, glossy, smooth smug, fabric, that Most righteous and least human gear of all. The Devil laughed : " The hat deserves its fame If only as the cover of the head, But that's not all that makes the very name Of Lord a manna from high Heaven shed. " I seek for something that strikes still more deep, Less easy to express, perhaps, than find, — That nations may like men feel o'er them creep A certain middle-agedness of mind. " They then make virtues of their meaner gifts, And less admire the impulses of youth, And feel contempt for all that upward lifts Towards arduous heights or bears untimely truth. PRINCE AZREEL 137 " Then avarice and pride seize on the soul, And worth is judged by surface rich displays, Convention's hand holds all in firm control And smooth hypocrisy wins golden praise. " And of this proud but middle-aged nation This Chamber is the drawing-room complete ; Whose stuffy atmosphere of slow stagnation Conserves the touch of glories grown effete." Lord Dunstone. Lord Dunstone rose to talk affairs of State — A speech all colourless whose chilly stream Ran without sparkle at an even rate And never knew a moment's sunny gleam. The House had calm, sedate attention shown, But seldom made approval manifest, As if decorum had prescribed the tone And every natural impulse had suppressed. His Lordship scorned the rhetorician's arts, Of pose, exaggeration, emphasis, And all mechanic tricks that force impart At times to very shallow discourses. Thus far this manner was most excellent, But then his Lordship managed to omit 138 PRINCE AZREEL All sense of movement and of temperament, Sincerity, and logic, point, and wit. Baron Priggetburth. To him succeeded Baron Priggetburth, Who gave the long debate reality, And fully conscious of his proper worth Made some impress of personality. A tall, imposing, fresh-faced, clean-cut Peer, Who talked at ease with pomp and dignity, And pleased himself to make our duties clear, And gave no handle to malignity ; But that indeed Perfections always call To life the brood of jealousy and spite, And this great person had of virtues all That on a tombstone give a pure delight. I'll not pursue— for, even if inclined, His fame in Byron's Juan best abides, His name Lord Henry there I think you'll find, And many a flash of matchless wit besides. Lord Rooke. Lord Rooke arose — a soldier, tall, erect, A Liberal ! And Azreel's wonder grew PRINCE AZREEL 139 That liberal doctrines there could find respect ; He wondered less when Rooke expressed his view. For instance, Rooke suggested that when next They went fox-hunting, certain things were barred, And Farmer Hodge might very well be vexed If all the hunt careered through his backyard. His actual words, perhaps, were not so turned, His speech had much to do with high finance, But that's the mood in which his great soul burned To blaze in forefront of the world's advance. The Philosopher. The soldier sat, and Azreel marvelled more To see a great philosopher now rise, More great no doubt in philosophic lore Than qualities of finer enterprise. The speech was tame, and Azreel scornful laughed ; " Is this," he cried, " the Helicon we've sought, This tasteless, flat, and not too wholesome draught Of soda-water for the wine of thought ? " The Devil smiled, but all indulgently. " Keep well within the modern key in all," He said, " and sure and gradual, silently, These things within a true perspective fall. 140 PRINCE AZREEL " You've reckoned, too, without our lordly hosts, We still may hear his polished Grace Fitzbeeze, The one great orator the nation boasts Who still retains the last great art, to please." Fitzbeeze. Fitzbeeze arose and to the table walked, And looked around and fastened every eye And raised expectancy before he talked ; — Such potencies in subtle acting lie. He stood. A statesman. Ev'n a type 'twould seem, Yet not of that severe granitic mould That Milton's puissant hand has stamped supreme, That " pillar of state " hewn out in lines so bold. Fitzbeeze, though yielding to Beelzebub In stately grandeur, gained in sympathy ; He had the modern touch of those who rub With shoulder freely on the course or city. A manner bright and genial, debonair, Which he had somehow draped in serious pose Of John Bull-like solidity, though there He failed, as one might readily suppose. For John is strong and calm and self-contained, A character compact of force and weight, PRINCE AZREEL 141 Well balanced, staunch, and seldom overstrained, Too deep and too entire to imitate. And John is unexpansive, well content With John himself ; and naught beyond him lies Of thoughts, or hopes, or fine accomplishment But John takes leave most bluntly to despise. And Fitzbeeze was a bloom of other race, Less stolid but less solid than John Bull, And tinctured somewhat with that style and grace That Louis Quinze exemplified in full. The attitude and countenance indeed Recalled Napoleon on his tragic isle, But crossed with something of another breed That smacked of Coquelin's high comic style. And thus when strangers sought Fitzbeeze to gauge A question rose, the same to every lip : Is that a statesman gone upon the stage, Or some great actor turned to statesmanship ? He spoke. The orator was in the voice Of round and clear and perfect silvery notes, Where lingered with warm touches to rejoice, The native Doric of ancestral throats. To this was added yet a precious gift Which he had nurtured with regardful care, 142 PRINCE AZREEL A tone so solemn, tragic, as to lift The lid of Hell to liven our despair. — A sign infallible that one expects In artists only who can reach domains Of comic genius and produce, effects That never low buffoonery attains. The gestures, too, were all appropriate, And amplest sweeps had nothing of excess, And even when violent served to indicate The seething things that words could not express. One attitude quite smote the charmed sense : His Lordship bent his knees and raised his hands And with a look of energy intense Writhed as if held in spiritual bands. And for our good, we felt he waged that fight Amid a pending sense of cataclysm, For then he seemed like Samson in his might Cross-buttocking the props of Anarchism. And yet his points were very finely made And even the strongest had no need to insist, While lighter touches, delicately played, Just necked the sense and did not more persist. How often have we seen an actor great Whom public fame has raised to giddy heights PRINCE AZREEL 143 Storm, emphasise, and rage, and rant, and rate, And stalk, and strut, and pose before the lights. And even of Shakespeare's airy fairy Dream They make a show to wooden wits akin, And lines that ripple like a sylvan stream They clog and plague with stagecraft born of sin. But Fitzbeeze acted like a gentleman, And even to the very finger-tips, Or there especially ; for fine tacts can Elicit triumphs where rude force o'er-trips. And so the speech delightful progress made From brief exordium to its mid discourse, All touched with Comedy's fine light and shade, Or fierce dramatic moments when the force Of horrent trombones and the fearful clash Of cymbals raged and big drums fumbling roared That threatened reason from its throne to dash, — Till radiant play of wit our joy restored. And so with many a laugh and many a leap Of bright surprise, and now and then a fright, Or serious pause, or aphorism deep, Th' oration warbled in its genial might. But Azreel's chief delight was in that note Already mentioned, rare, sepulchral, low ; 144 PRINCE AZREEL He longed to hear that noble-anguished throat Recall once more " the tale of pleasing woe." Fitzbeeze had sounded mighty themes, and yet Azreel preferred on lighter tones to bask, And when the speech had ended felt regret ; — What better homage could a speaker ask ? To criticise he deemed a foolish act, For why should he his pleasure thus destroy? He laughed at logic, common sense, and fact, And only kept the savour of his joy. " For statesmanship's a quite peculiar art," Said Azreel musing, as they walked away, " And many a thing wh.ere wisdom has no part Gives food for thinking through the livelong day." NOTES Page 6. A Spirit came. There has been a gradual evolution in the conception of the Devil. In Goethe's Faust he has become more humanly intel- ligible than he had been previously, but even then the appearance he presents, though picturesque in opera, is yet too operatic for the veritable Tempter of Man. Page 15. "Botte." Every great swordsman has his own botte, that is to say, a stroke that he has especially and affectionately cultivated. A famous duellist once imparted, to me his botte ; I felt highly honoured. This was M. Thomeguex, who even in mature years retained the spirit and enthusiasm of a d'Artagnan. Thomeguex would invite a man to a duel as cordially as to a dinner, and he would fight with the same debonair courtesy as he would play the host. His contest with the celebrated Italian swordsman Pini will long be remembered in Paris. Thomeguex, after a brilliant display, received a scratch on the face, and his seconds insisted on his retiring. Page 18. The Grecian glories. The Greek Olympic games have established the standard for all time. The study is fascinating to find comparisons between the Greeks and our modern athletes. Long-distance feats, details K 145 146 PRINCE AZREEL of training, the actual accounts of contests, statues, frescoes, and representations on urns, all help us to form estimates. I feel assured that our best athletes of to-day present to the world types superior to anything the Greeks had shown. But the glory of the Greeks is to be found in the spirit of the games, and all their ordinances. Their games had an atmosphere which we do not possess — not alone the physical atmosphere, the cerulean sky, the warm and life-attended sun, the crystalline pure air, but also, and especially, the atmosphere of the soul. Their minds were alive to the whole beauty of the scene, the sense of the majestic civic festival, something indeed of a sacred cere- monial in which the land offered to its gods the best fruits of youth, grace, beauty, and strength. We have lost much of that sense ; but not entirely. Deep down in the hearts of true athletes there is a poetic sense of the beauty and glory of their art, a poetry none the less true that it is expressed in terms of effort and stress. Page 19. Beyond the plot. The leap of Phayllos made the phrase "overleaping the plot " proverbial in Greece. The plot was a little space where the earth was dug up to form a soft landing-place for the athlete. The leap of Phayllos must therefore have been extra- ordinary, for it went beyond the limits of what had been thought possible. Phayllos of Croton was credited with a leap of 55 ft., and the Greek foot, it should be noted, was a shade longer than ours. The statement is made in inscriptions on various pedestals of statues, and the gravity of the assertion is not greatly lessened by the fact that all the inscriptions do not correspond. The disparity of a foot or two was of no great consequence to people who measured distance by such a standard as how for a strong arm could throw a quoit. The Greeks made NOTES 147 the leap with the aid of halteres or dumb-bells, and it may be mentioned that a patient German commentator, Jaeger by name, makes out the distance to have been 45 feet. But this does not enable us to believe in the reality of the feat as stated. I have noted the figures of the jumpers on Greek vases, and I have seen a modern athlete at the work whose style and build appeared to me superior to the Greek examples. This was Mr. P. O'Connor, a man finely designed for the long jump, and gifted with a veritable genius for the exercise. It was impres- sionant to see him run towards the mark, finishing his run with a dash of fiery speed, and then rise soaring in the air — " With clang despised the ground " — and land skilfully and well. P. O'Connor's best leap unaided appears to have been 24 ft. 9 in., though he has a record of 24 ft. 1 if in., taking off from a board. When long jumping reaches that state of perfection, the improvement is to be measured by inches only. Many athletes have cleared 24 ft., none has reached 25 ft. Dumb-bells skilfully used help the jumper considerably. The longest leap of modern times of which we have any record is that of the famous Howard, of Bradford, who, with certain artificial advantages, cleared 29 ft. 7 in. Howard leapt from a wedge-shaped board 2 ft. long, 4 in. thick, and raised 4 in. at its extremity ; he used dumb-bells, weighing 5 lbs. each, which he flung behind him at the moment of taking his spring. The record of Phayllos, however, remains inscrutable. The Greek boxers were muscular, but I believe slow and heavy compared to moderns whom we have seen or heard of — from Jem Belcher to Jem Ward, the Nonpareil to Jim Corbett. Even in the vivid verses of Homer or of Theocritus there arises no sense of speed, of electrifying dash and intrepidity, such as spring out of fights of Belcher or of Sullivan. Melancomas 148 PRINCE AZREEL certainly wore down his man without striking a blow, but could Melancomas have played these tricks on Bob Fitz-Simmons, or could he have "milled" with Jem Ward or Jim Jeffries ? The accounts we read of Greek running fail to convince a modern expert. Dandes the Argive, Ladas, or Antipatros could not, I would wager, have lived with Frank Hewitt. He was a runner, the best I have seen, more wonderful than the best Greek models. The easy flying gait, the perfect rhythm of his running took away the suggestion of effort, but his speed was displayed as he flared past his rivals and left them to toil. Even in a short preliminary spin there was in Hewitt's running a peculiar polish and grace, a flash of superiority, that made the oldest pedestrians leap to their feet. Page 23. The Spirit waved.. Keats at one moment opined that a life of sensation might be preferable to a life of thought. This, I think, was not a shallow expression, but rather, like most of the utterances of Keats, sincere and deep. Many of our refined feelings in etiquette, manners, morality, are the delicate tacts by which we find our- selves in the unseen world of human intercourse ; but the ultimate sanction of these feelings must be found in the primordial basis of things. It is the lack of this that makes the principles of our moralists so often chlorotic, weak, and immoral. No scheme of ethics can be good that depreciates the value of the natural impulses, the lively affections of the soul, be the touch refined to all that is exquisite. Keats, piercing to the white of truth, beheld the flaw of such a system as that of Kant with his categorical imperative. No deficient atomy like Kant can talk sanely of ethics. The whole man thinks ! NOTES 149 Page 28. The true Parisian esprit. M. Jules Claretie has said very well that common sense is the back-bone of French wit. Page 34. The world and all the worlds. Alexandre Dumas made a friend and comrade of his son, Alexandre Dumas. They set out in Paris together to " see the world and all the worlds," and they were compagnom de debauche. This is less amazing in Paris than elsewhere, for Paris has exerted its spell, even in questionable realms, on minds so vigorous, and in some respects so austere, as those of Descartes and Diderot. Even Pascal, before he retired to Port Royal, had "looked on much wickedness." Page 34. La Ville Lumiere. La Ville Lumi&re — the City of Light — is changing. The delightful capital of France is become in some respects a huge cosmopolitan railway station. The lights have become garish. But I prefer to think that the Ville Lumi&re takes its name rather from the milder radiance of its science, its art, its literature, and its refined social intercourse. When I first saw Paris there were still the relics of that old city of the students described in Victor Hugo's Les Miserable;. Now a railway station occupies the place of the Cafe Rouge, a comptoir d'escompte of a little restaurant where we got good dejeuners at a moderate price, still more moderate by buying, as many students did, a bundle of cachets. Paris has become embourgealse. Page 35. Luiece and all its provinces. Lutece. The name brings back recollections of Julius Caesar, whom we do not usually think of as a boulevardier, although the 150 PRINCE AZREEL French version, Jules Cesar, already makes that idea more tangible. But in the environs, or reviewing the magnificent panorama from St. Germain, or seeing the Seine in the valley below from the heights of Meudon, where my friend Rodin has rivalled the glories of old Greece, I have wondered how these beautiful scenes in all their pristine freshness may have appealed to the impressionable mind of the writer of the Commentaries, or by what foresight he might have projected dimly all the marvellous development of which the rude camp of the Lutetii formed the germ. Page 35. Bernhardt. I have seen actresses who entered perfectly in the setting of the fine dramatic picture they evolved, and who were thus great artistes. But Bernhardt at her best had an electrifying quality. A stranger who had never heard her name, but had entered casually in the middle of the play, would be held surprised, delighted, perhaps entranced, by the force of her acting. Page 36. Prince Azreel bowed. Thackeray said that Nature might make the man, but good society made the gentleman. This is especially true when society is well marked by a sort of caste system, for an essential of good manner is ease and confidence, not easily attained but by some conceded superiority. Page 39. Types of Beauty. I have seen many celebrated beauties, almost never a pure type of beauty. It is virtually impossible to find it in these dames. Certain of those whose names have become famous were rather artistes of beauty than naturally beautiful. Page 43. A brilliant, fascinating " grande dame." Grande dame. In the personification of cities one could hardly think of Paris except as feminine, and as grande dame. NOTES 151 Why ? That impression arises from a thousand subtle associa- tions. Page 44. She eternal lives. Paris has been somewhat maliciously described as the city where women have the highest value and the least esteem. Napoleon, in an aphorism terribly deep, uttered at St. Helena, had the impression in his mind of Nature being a woman who loved daring and brilliancy and success, and discarded piteously those who had failed to please. Page 45. Ely see. Not the brilliance now of the old Imperial days when Princess Metternich, the ugliest, sauciest, most impudent beauty in Europe, played pranks in this cour pour rlre that she would not have dreamt of perpetrating in other Courts of Europe ; when Eugenie and Castiglione, rival beauties, rival queens, battled with the weapons of fascination and of wit ; and when France danced gaily to ruin to the impish strains of Offenbach. The Elysee is now much more bourgeois, but a safer resort. Page 47. Barriers of caste. Less now than formerly, but still strong in Europe. Louis XIV declared that his own line was tainted by the — Medici ! Page 54. The soldier knows the soldier. Napoleon remarked that there was a sort of freemasonry among soldiers by which they recognized each other. The veritable soldier holds everything else inferior to war. Napoleon, who instinctively believed this, yet insisted particularly on the ceremonies of Court and the civil side of his reign, in order to keep in respect his bold and swaggering officers of the type of Augereau. iS2 PRINCE JZREEL Page 54. In face of -peril. It is the crisis that tries the soldier, that crisis that may never arise in time of peace. Here the Admiral Byngs fail, the Nelsons blaze in triumph, Byng stopped to count the number of the enemy, and prudently retired. He was shot, as Voltaire's Candide remarked, •' to encourage the others," and that shooting has often been denounced as an act of injustice. Possibly. But that depends on the standard adopted. Ships should be manned by sailors, not by accountants. Page 55. the tale of Alexander's march. The most illuminating commentary on Alexander's conquest is that which I have found in a work of science — Humboldt's Cosmos. He shows that the great and most enduring result was in the spread of commerce and in the interchange of ideas. The view of life thus opened up may incite to deep reflections, for the great doer in life has always been one who " moulded better than he knew," and worked out destinies beyond his thought. Page 56. The battle pre-ordained. The battle is always gained in the soul of the commander. He has there nailed his colours to the mast. In the accounts of battles Napoleon gives more detail of the strategy than of the actual fighting. That follows and as a matter of course. A true commander goes forth to win. Compare the prudent men from Ethelred to Bazaine. Page 59. Mahomet. Faith is the aegis of victory, and this is true in faiths most contradictory. It sped the bands of Mahomet to the conquest of a world, it inspired the army of Joan of Arc to marvellous deeds, and it led the soldiers of 'the Revolution to sing their song of Freedom in every capital of Europe. NOTES 153 Page 60. And Bonaparte. When the Emperor Joseph boasted of his lineage to Bona- parte, the Corsican soldier replied that he was the Rudolf of his line, and that he dated his nobility from Montenotte. The stroke was a shrewd one, for that was the first occasion on which he had beaten the Austrians. Bonaparte said that Lodi " awoke his soul." That victory, he said, assured him that he was capable of rising high in the roll of commanders, and he began to give wings to his ambition. The " sun of Austerlitz " marked the zenith of Napoleon's real power. The morning of the battle had opened misty ; but before the main charge, when the soldiers moved forward as on parade, the sun shone forth. This made a great impression on the Corsican's superstitious mind. Napoleon, though gloomy on the eve of Austerlitz, slept well ; he joked before Waterloo, but did not sleep. Page 63. Mean and unambitious. Napoleon said at St. Helena that he was a Liberal, but that for a period he had deserted that doctrine. He was a child of the Revolution, and in spite of his aberrations must always be so considered. Some of his phrases, such as " The career open to the talents," are worth all his victories. Page 64. To smite false altars. That was the spirit of conquest of Mahomet II. He rode his horse into the church of Saint Sofia and smote the altar with a mace. Page 65. O sacred Liberty ! Liberty is a marvellous watchword. It often happens, un- fortunately, that the soldiers of Liberty display less passion, power, and purpose than those led on by rapine, self-aggrandize- ment, and tyranny. Yet Liberty sanctifies all who raise a hand in her defence. 154 PRINCE AZREEL Note to Poetry. The distinction between prose and poetry is that poetry in its form and impulse corresponds to the emotions which its words evoke. The power of poetry depends on the evocation of past experiences, for even the building up of new images, the delight of brilliant description, or the fine spiritual appeal of something that underlies outward shows — all these depend eventually on the web of associations of the individual. Hence it is that poetry makes diverse impressions on different people. And differences of poetical form depend on the different manner in which the fund of past associations is called into life. An orator may influence his audience either by the infection of his own force of passion, or by subtly playing, as on an instrument, on the chords of their emotions ; so poetry may find its varied forms and changing moods. Everything that is true is good. Everything that is new and true will be found immortal. The problems that we touch on here are as deep as those of Job. But we live in a new world. We speak of these things in the light and flexible modern style. The story of Paradise Regained is the story of the temptations on the Mount. But the temptations are material, and they are brought forward as a challenge. Is this always the manner of temptations ? Are there not more powerful temptations, more insidious — those that arise in the development of the mind itself and that have their play in the exercise of its capacities ? This, then, is the theme — barely stated, with something indeed of the bareness of that good typical critic who opined that Don Juan was composed to show the evils of a bad early education ! Let us leave it at that. Is it well to write underneath a picture " This is a horse," and to point out the intention ? That may be well at times. NOTES 155 What, then, in brief I have sought to do is to play freely through the gamut of life — yet to touch the chords with a modern touch. I have endeavoured to write so that every line should be expressed as far as possible in its direct meaning, and I have eschewed what is called "poetic diction." This is only partially true. There are exigencies — I will not insist. The clearest principle I have sought is that a poem should not depend on the tricks of the poetic art. To adorn all the stones of an edifice is meretricious. The building should rise in the power of its conception, even though the stones be plain. Rhyme ? I have hesitated at rhyme. Rhyme is a con- vention, but it is a convention in a certain manner of modern poetry that is as indispensable as the conventions of the theatre. The theatre is not real life, it is absurd to make it so, even though we indicate real life by its medium. And so with rhymed verse — it is foolish, but it is not without compensations. This is true also of a formal stanza and studied rhythm. The advantage of these arises in part that they are conventions ; that the ear and the mind have been taught to expect certain sequences. A familiar rhythm has an effect more forcible, and in general more pleasing, than a better rhythm which is still unfamiliar. Moreover, as our rules of scansion are too mechani- cal and gross, it will be found that the accepted Spenserian metre, for instance, is much more plastic and various than might be supposed. What concerns me as more personal is that with regard to imagery,- 1 would like to see the imagery referred as closely as possible in the world of emotions evoked by the theme to the direct mental impact, and accordingly I have desired to make little use of any set forms of analogies and metaphors. The words should rather call up immediately the temperamental impression in its own quality, its sap, its savour. Others will develop these ideas. They will do many things 156 PRINCE AZREEL that I have not ventured to attempt here. They will develop their rhythms, as if spontaneously, in each mood, according to the beat of the emotion itself. That has a connexion with the physiology underlying. Out of these elements a harmony will be wrought, true at every point and moulded to the harmony of the whole conception. The course will be thus : The conception of the poem rising at large, with a vague indication of the harmony of the emotions. The conception of the subsidiary parts, with a clearer sense of the harmony of the emotions. The sense of the rhythm, corresponding to the harmony of the emotion, its rise and fall, its movement, force, and impact. The words will come last ; they will not be tentatively sought for ; they will be expected, even if they bear a sense of surprise in their coming. They should seem as things given, inevitable. Think of the sonnet. The theme will arise, telling of its embodiment in sonnet form. There are a thousand forms of conceiving this embodiment ; but in each sonnet that form will be given as definite. There will be given the pulsation of the feeling, the harmony of the emotion running through the form. There will be the precipitation into expression, this becom- ing clear in quick flashes, but not flowing consecutively. Each line may be given completely, or in patches of expression, but the form of each will be definite. Then will follow, as is necessary in our imperfect language, the art " to cunning piece and sew." But the essentials have been established ; the metier will change only the inessentials. In the dithyramb we have an extension of this. In the ode, another form of this extension. In all this the art, the metier, should be subordinate, but brought to the point of easy mastery. That is the part which NOTES 157 is most artificial, most susceptible of training, of schooling. It is as the training of the athlete in a game. The quality that is more intangible, that is more of the birthright, is the manner, style, impulse of the poet — the afflatus. This is capable of culture, but not of tentative or mechanical schooling. The culture needed is that of the whole soul and nature, the dis- position, the hope, the fears, the courage, the inmost endeavour. For a poem should be a subtle distillation of the soul. What is the standard of beauty in poetry ? The question may gain by being widened for a moment. What is beauty even in the physical form ? Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, has exhibited rare analytical skill, but he looked at the question too narrowly, and in the end produced something which sounds almost like a reductio ad absurdum. Grant Allen, in his Physiological ^Esthetics, has argued the matter in lights of modern science unknown to Burke, but he has not said the last word either. Just as the points of view are various, so in this subject the conclusions are diverse. But this diversity indicates to us how complex are the factors from which we have built up the appreciation of beauty which to most of us arises as naturally as an instinct. The sense of beauty is rooted deep in our experiences, our sympathies, our uses, our temperament, confirmed and elaborated through thousands of generations ; yet the appreciation of beauty in art depends, in general, on insecure and artificial standards. I think that the deepest motive of appreciation is this : the conformity to a model which we have set up in our minds. The establishment of the model in our minds may be due even to accidental circumstances, such as the teachings we have received when the mind was most susceptible to impressions, or again to associations which may be of an accidental character. Descartes tells us that when a boy he saw a little girl squinting 158 PRINCE AZREEL at him over a garden wall, and all through his life he loved women who squinted. The fury of partisans and the blindness of critics arise from these conditions. A man has conceived an intense admiration for one of the old masters ; all that does not savour of the same manner he regards as contemptible. Or, again, a man has been smitten for some new development of modern art, such as that of the Impressionist school. He throws the whole matter out of perspective, and he cannot look on the world except with Impressionist eyes. His very sincerity, his intensity, his enthusiasm unfit him to be a sane critic of art. Let us take a man who is an amateur of a certain form of poetry — the poetry of mysticism, of moonlight, of glamour, of delicate, intangible sensations. There is much in this that corresponds to his own temperament, that has become indeed an expression of the needs of his character ; and his whole being responds to a stimulus of that kind. His fervour leads him to think indulgently of the accidentals of this school — the insincerity, the weak sentiment, the triviality, the affectations, the attitudes of the stained glass window. Then at last he cannot look on poetry except through this medium. He condemns all that lack these tricks and vices. Huysmans has drawn such a character in Au Rebours. In these things it is as though we blamed a wine not because it was good or bad in itself, but because it did not taste like sherbet, or like hemlock. Coleridge has expressed the matter by saying that a poet must create the taste by which he is to be appreciated. But tastes, the most intangible and most fickle of things, are also the most difficult to change by good reason. The poet cannot create the taste except by creating, or educating a generation. That was the fate of Coleridge himself, of Shelley, of Keats, of Wordsworth, of Browning, of Walt Whitman. NOTES 159 Certainly the argument need not be pushed so far as to make public indifference the mark of a great author. Byron seized on public imagination from the first by the brilliancy and the glamour of his exploits — " the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme " — but also, it must be said, by reason of many circum- stances that had nothing to do with poetry — his aristocratic birth, his irregular life, the stories that enveloped him, and the showy, rhetorical, captivating style even of the insincerities and rhodo- montade that his generation associated with poetry. Goethe touched the depths of German sentimentalism in Werther, but with a spirit and verse new to the Germans, and bounded into fame. Burns, though he could hardly be said to have had success in his life, charmed the ear of a poetical people who had long waited for the true voice — and where he was really best, and brightest, and truest, offended his generation deeply. Page 66. Poetry. Poetry is a word of life and strength. In all great things is poetry. Poetry is the flash, the polish, the last exquisite perfec- tion of all that is great and enduring. Courage is poetry, joy is poetry, and sunny laughter is poetry. -Courage dauntless, electrifying courage, devotion unto death, bold originality, the flight of the soul fearless, unrestrained, finding itself in its passion ; the last polish of beauty when strength unites with grace; the songs of daring, the paeans of victory that reach to heaven — these are poetry. Poetry is the splendour of the earth and the skies. The world resounds with poetry, life has its full meaning only when it flashes into poetry. Poetry is the bloom of the flowers, it is the bloom of thought. No thought is entirely sane to which poetry has not given its magic, its vivifying touch. Poetry is the precious gift of God to 160 PRINCE AZREEL man, that which alone raises life from penalty. And poetry is the voice of the world to God. Page 66. Warm poets. Genius, inspiration. These are always deep and mysterious words in poetry. Are there not moments in the individual life that are worth years of humdrum existence, that is to say, for poetry ; moments illumed ? And what these moments are to our existence, so is the poet to the race. There is something in the quality of his mind, partly of temperament, partly of intellect, and for which no word exists. We call it genius ; but that is too wide and vague a term. We get nearer to it in a certain sense of the word genial. But in that word genial I mean that thing of quick appre- hension, of easy plasticity of spirit, of understanding, of zest, of sympathy warmed from the upper air, something of the flash of genius of the genial spirit, something that is of the soul of poetry, and that we find in Shakespeare, in Byron and Keats, at their best ; in all those, indeed, who are here called the " warm poets." Page 66. The ideal there. Ideal! Yes. But let the ideal be also true. Let it stand the test of the rude shock of the actual world. It is well to insist. For the tendency is always to seek some sublimated, eviscerated ideal, some weak diaphanous ideal ; some ideal that in the final resort may be the offspring of mere convention, of cowardice, that may have all the immorality of falsehood. Ideal, yes. Not the evaporation of what may be called high and refined thoughts, simply because they have a high and refined glamour ; but that must be real, real and true. For on these wings we may soar to a greatness that all weaker imagin- ings had failed to compass. NOTES 161 Page 69. Douce goodman's heart. Sir Walter Scott tells us that, as we might have guessed, the portraits of Burns are softened or "prettified," as old Walt Whitman called it in deprecating any such attempt on himself. Scott describes Burns as the " douce guid man." The Scotch word here is probably derived from the French, and the phrase already gives a fair image of Burns. Page 71. So spake the Spirit. In thinking of poetry one is inclined, in different moods, to enlarge, and yet again to restrict the field. On the one hand every bright play of fancy, every delicate morsel choicely served, the light champagny verses of wit, slight but delicately chiselled works of art, have their value of poetry. The Rape of the Lock is exquisite in its style, of course, the lyrics of Herrick have the fresh atmosphere of the English May-time, the graceful conceits of Lovelace have lived, and the vers de sociite of Austin Dobson are perfect of their kind. The ballads, the rhymed narratives, whose interest is in action principally, and next in presentation of character in bold out- lines — these have been a delight, from Marmion to John Gilpin, or that wonderful 7am 0' Shanter, which includes all forms. The sentimental songs of Tom Moore with their haunting melodies ; the splendid onrushing, overwhelming rhetoric, even amid faulty execution, of Davis's Fontenoy — these are poetry. But there are times when the soul longs with all its intensity for something greater, higher, and, in the centre of feeling, something truer than all this. I think, for example, of one who has seen the world in various aspects, and tasted of its pleasures, and its pams, who has known its joys, its griefs, its ambitions, and who, after some deep experience, or some absorbing study of the philosophy of 162 PRINCE AZREEL things, or some bereavement that has tried him to the foundation, has found his life regenerated by undimmed ideals ; think of him reclining amid the beauty of an autumn day on a moor over- looking the North Sea, with no land between him and the Arctic Zone, or again, on a hill in a Southern clime, where to live is to enjoy, and where the charming aspects of Nature move the mind to serene meditations ; what is the poetry that arises, removed from things of local interest, from triviality, from violence, but always high, or deep, majestic, grand, supreme ? In this mood one admires Keats and Milton and Shakespeare and Byron, from whom the dross, the accidents, have fallen. One may admire the poetry of ardent love, the poetry of fine appreciation of the plastic form, the poetry of noble endeavour, the poetry of truth, and find the marvellous charm of sentiment that has held the world from Solomon to Sophocles, to Camoens, to Goethe. Page 71. Poets he had known. The fibre of the man, the manner of attack, the range of sympathies, the character of all that the poet has made real and living to us, his world, in short — everything in this escapes from verbal criticism, yet here we find the poet. Not indeed that words are of small account. The artist may reveal himself in a line, in a phrase. And when I think of these matters my mind readily reverts to Keats. He is con- spicuous above all others for that genius with which in some bright surprise of words, that yet are inevitable, simple, he opens up a field of thought and stimulates our own imaginations. It is as when at the turn of a road we are suddenly brought in view of a rare landscape which we had not known before. In all this there is no trick. There is nothing but sincerity NOTES 163 and truth ; yet the whole life, the thoughts, the style of the man is behind these expressions. The Ode to the Nightingale the Ode to a Grecian Urn, the Ode to Autumn for example, are all perfect as works of art. We dream on, cogitate, and again enjoy such lines as these : . . . But in embalmed darkness guess each sweet, . . . Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter . . . While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day. . . . Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn . . . Among the river sallows. A volume of criticism might be written on these phrases, for their study opens up the whole realm of psychology, of the meaning of the subtle associations that influence us ; and also the whole question of the poet's technique, his sense of rhythm, his sense of the feel of words, their weight and impact, the movement of the thoughts suggested. And lastly we may come down to grammatical and syntactical correctness, and what are called the " rules " of composition, the points that school- men fasten on, the most superficially obvious often, and some- times the least important. The words are generally the last part of a poem. The poet finds his poem presented dimly, it becomes clearer, it has form and shape and colour and atmosphere, he feels its weight and its proportions, and here and there the words grow, and then shine in full-born lines ; in the end he trims and refines. The world of Keats is the world as we find it, enjoyed with zest in the intimate quality, the very smack of its nature ; yet all moving towards new perfections, new glories. The vision and the interpretation of these depend on the individual mind. The poet's mind is raised to see the inner meanings of things, and its finest moods behold the world in its truth, its colours, 164 PRINCE AZREEL its warmth, its movement. The world is moving to an un- known goal, but beauty is the sign and truth the test of every perfectness. They merge in one, and that is Poetry. Endymion is Keats' best poem, and the worst. Worst because of its frequent puerilities, the jejune touch of the green author, the faults of the Leigh Hunt school which had overlaid his proper style — all this and more ; best because of the wondrous throw of mind, unequalled in literature, by which the poet at this first essay reaches the height of all the problems of poetry and of thought. Prune the poem of its rank excrescences, Endymion is the work of a thinker. Not the thinker who with infinite pains of the little instruments of logic works out some circumscribed position, but of one who, well informed of the principles, at least, of sciences, gifted with flights of intellect that are like to intuitions, feeling, moreover, the premonitions of an early death, and therefore cutting away much that hampered and soaring freely without even the misgivings of courage, sped his soul on a voyage the most inspired of all we know. That alone is the manner in which to read Endymion. There are touches that are for ever wondrous — and these are not always the best known. Consider the Lusiad. The verses move with the fine melodious flow, the softened sonority, of the rich Portuguese in which it is written. There is a charm of natural poesy in the rhythmic medium in which all is expressed. But the glory of the poem is in its whole conception, the history of the Portu- guese, not in the bare recital of what are called facts, but in the course of the spirit that had pervaded their development, the wonder and the romance of new discovery, of dauntless courage at the service of an ideal, of great adventures inspired by gentle thoughts, while through all is felt, as old Humboldt remarked, the spicy sea-born breath of tropic isles, and the rich flow of the NOTES 165 poet's imagination, his pagan love of beauty and the plastic form, his high ambitions, his noble soul. Or think again of Byron, whom it is becoming a fashion to decry. Certainly there are slipshod verses in Byron ; there are verbal inaccuracies, worse, there is much of mere rhetoric of a showy type, gallery play and fustian. I am inclined to believe that all these things abound also in Shakespeare. In Milton I could speak by the book and cite passages that would show him weak and barren, faulty in rhythm, awkward, and harsh, labouring a subject in poverty of spirit. Yet to fasten on these is to lose the sense of proportion. Byron's poetry is his whole manifestation. His faults were few, indeed, even in the matter of form, in his best. Why dwell on his faults — his morbid vanity, his strange, half-mad gloom, his capriciousness, his occasional mean selfishness, his abiding egotism ; for there was something in his soul that had power to sweep these faults out of sight ; to hide his egotism in devotion to an ideal, to expunge his selfishness in high self-sacrifice ; to banish his gloom in verse the wittiest of all literature, and to absolve his vanity in vast accomplishment. There is soul there, force, energy, the fire of the champion, the spirit to dare, to soar to the limit of the world of thought, and to lift up from our human paths the voice in protest, in demand, in lofty suppli- cation to the Deity, to present even, though in petulance, in madness, the grand problem of man's destiny, his guidance, his relation to his God. What was there in Byron that made him not merely an English poet, but a French poet, a Spanish poet, a Greek poet ? He becomes infused with the spirit of the country of which he writes — the veritable Alcibiades of verse. Possibly he is at his best in Don Juan. There he has laid 166 PRINCE AZREEL aside a good deal of his fustian with the glamour of its rhetoric. He thought it, Mrs. Shelley remarks laughingly, greater than Shakespeare. But is it not so of its kind ? Is it not incom- parable ? The immorality of 'Don Juan is superficial and current ; not an unfair reflex of life. The morality of the poem is its sincerity, here entirely, perhaps, for the first time with Byron. Critics have taken objection to his digressions, with which the main theme is diversified ; but the digressions are the life of the poem. And in these Byron's wit finds its most delicate and its boldest play. And what shrewd strokes of character he gives us, dashed in but vivid for ever, and what exquisite shades of meaning ! The love of Adeline for Juan strikes all the notes that lead from comedy to tragedy. Lord Henry is a type, accomplished, in literature — the perfect Englishman. At first Adeline does not know the attraction Juan has exercised over her. Byron wanders from the theme, yet we do not feel that he is dragging us away. What he does still betters what is done. Then again he returns, and with each return the note is struck deeper, and with a growing sense of fatality. We see Adeline as hopelessly invested as in the old Greek tragedies of fate — as Clytemnestra or Phsedra. Carlyle's whole world is contained in germ in Sartor Resartus. What else we have is but the development of ideas there announced. What the Cosmos is to Humboldt, such is Sartor Resartus to Carlyle, the world from the standpoint of his know- ledge and his sympathies. Born with Kant, developed by Fichte, transmitted to Carlyle — of such is the philosophy, mixed with Carlyle's intermittent flashes ; savouring of Sterne, Swift, and Jean Paul Richter, the style, but still Carlyle's inimitable own — atmosphere, colour, large views, delightful NOTES 167 touches, hot sarmattan of scorn, and the aroma of his humour pervading it all. I have mentioned Carlyle with the poets, for there is a point of view in which I see Endymion, Don Juan, Sartor Resartus, yes, Paradise Lost, and the Koran, in a class with the Cosmos — the questioning outlook of a great and serious soul upon the universe. That is, indeed, the most illuminating light in which to regard Paradise Lost, the incidents, the wandering allusions of which give it its supreme value ; for the vivid, living passages are found in those episodes in which he half offers, half hides, some personal revelation. It is only when we have become familiar with the " architecture " of the poem, the colossal stage properties of devils and angels — so familiarly as in great part to disregard them — that we get to the soul of the work, that we can reap the poetry of this thrice marvellous creation. Milton himself, one conjectures, became fatigued by the artificial machinery he employed ; the poem in its stately march of flowered pomp leaps and throbs in the ecstasy of vision and feeling only when it is real. There is a sudden flush of fervour in the lines ; Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady groves, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song, but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow, Nightly I visit. Milton was one of the warm poets almost killed by the exigencies of a great political struggle, in which he rightly saw in the Puritans his mainstay. His own realm was Italian in its 168 PRINCE AZREEL amorous warmth, one is fain to think at times. At least, the recollections of his Italian tour waft a fine odour on his brooding thoughts. Passages abound in which he extols with luxury the beauty and the grace of woman : She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied Subjection, but required with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best received, Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. Wordsworth. Wordsworth ? I know the Wordsworthians ! I was a Wordsworthian ; I am a Wordsworthian, eclectically. I have read the Excursion, at length. I have read stolidly ; I have read with phases of enthusiasm, with moments of intense delight. And I have read Tintern Abbey a score of times with complete appreciation, and I have seen how in the Intimations of Immor- tality the well-toned music has at length freed itself from fetters, become ethereal, become immortal. And I have admired the perfection of the sonnets, and later found them less perfect. And I have read through the puerili- ties, the futilities of much of his occasional, and much of his polished, verse. And then I have reverted to my natural. I have sought the warm poets again, never now to leave, for I know the best and worst. I have felt like a schoolboy escaped from the drudgery, and from the beatitude, of a good task ; and once more I run in sheer delight in the untrodden path, under the blue sky, and in the fragrant atmosphere of things of sap, of life, and virility. I have escaped from Wordsworth. Respecting him now, even NOTES 169 devoutly ; yet with strength enough to be impatient of his prosi- ness, to despise the recantation of a nobler soul that at one time seemed possible within him. His best thoughts are wrong, blind but sententious commonplaces. Yet I feel constrained to think of Wordsworth again. My opinion of Wordsworth has changed several times during my life. In early days I considered him devoid of passion, colourless, tame, and I laughed at his idiot boys. Later, and chiefly by virtue of the praise of John Stuart Mill and Mathew Arnold, I returned to him. I became a " Wordsworthian," enthusiastic even to ecstasy, rejoicing in Intimations of Immor- tality, Tintern Abbey, and various passages in the Excursion. In this admiration I am inclined to think that it was really the artist I extolled, for at his best Wordsworth was a supreme artist not only in words, but in the sequence, the rhythms, the weights, the movements, these almost indefinable, but very real, forces that to the lover of poetry give exquisite delight. But the thought of the man is altogether inadequate to this literary skill and to the fervour of the feeling. Here was a man of passionate nature, but with that stiff and awkward unwillingness that marks his kind. Shutting himself up in a secluded county, and giving himself, not to philosophy, but to random musing, he poured forth the strength of his passionate nature often on trivial things. His mind lost balance and proportion. We call this Nature- worship, and we think it sublime. But may not a man feel a reverence for Nature, a deep love of the beauteous aspects, and of the great manifestations of Nature, without secluding himself from the passions of his fellow-men ? Is not the wonderful play of human life also a phase of Nature, and is it not in that we are called most imperiously, and most naturally, to do our part ? 170 PRINCE AZREEL Wordsworth had felt this, and he had turned away from it. He had quenched his early generous impulses, he had killed his glorious ideals, he had become a tame poet. In Wordsworth there is little force of intellect. There is a brooding disposition, a "questioning," but all in a manner of dreamy speculation, finally of futility. In his greatest poem, Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, the grandeur of the theme, the display of imagery, the true choice of words, the magic of the music, like a choir of angels singing — all these are marred by the ineptitude of the underlying philosophizing. Yet once more. Others talked of Nature ; Wordsworth loved Nature. He is, in a peculiar sense, the poet of Nature. Chaucer loved Nature ; a woodland freshness is in the atmo- sphere of his poems, but it is not the principal part. Shakespeare's Nature touches have their especial charm, but when we think of Shakespeare we think first of all of the dramatist. Milton's V Allegro is a delightful essay on the pleasures of country life. Nature touches in Shelley are exquisite ; in Byron and in Keats divinely appreciative, but they are occa- sional ; they are not the centre of the thought. But in Wordsworth, as in no other, we find a deep com- munion with Nature, a soul narrow but intense in feeling brooding over, and nurtured by, thoughts of Nature, pouring the tide of its affections, of its passions, into a profound association with Nature, and finding a response at times in the bright and easy moods of Nature, in the sunlight and shade of external things ; but also at other times more deeply and more ethereally, in a feeling solemn in its strange impressiveness, in a swelling ecstasy, in strains of immortal music that rises, that breaks all bounds at length, and soars in its genius above the wondering thought. True, human nature is itself Nature. And moreover, there NOTES 171 are a hundred things of genius that we find in Shakespeare or Byron that are lacking in Wordsworth. Yet withal, his glory is unassailable. Of its kind his poetry • is unique — unapproachable. Page 71. Cited verses. Let all poets be appreciated in their own quality. If we enjoy the polished epigram of Pope, may we not find also an abiding pleasure in the Task of Cowper ? There is sincerity there. May we not admire the delicate things of poetry from Ronsard to Lovelace, Petrarch to Herrick. Yet poetry marks the man. Poetry — it is the essence of the man. Too often we have given to the word a meaning that would go far to justify Newton's description — a sort of ingenious nonsense. Poetry should have breadth, and strength, and force, and passion, possibly ; but at least, even in gentler and serene r style, must pierce to the white of truth. There is no great poetry that is not sincere ; there is no real poetry that is not true. And in this manner we must criticize poetry. And in this manner, too, we find those who are here especially named especially fit to meet the test. Pope? Yes, Pope has written a pretty poem, but not Homer. Pope's Essay on Man never gets away from the grooves, though the epigrams are good and the couplets par- ticularly quotable. Dryden ? Good metier, no deep illumination. Gray ? Beautiful tracery. Goldsmith ? All delightful, all human, all sympathetic. Why had I not thought of him ? Perhaps, and this is all I can offer in excuse, because I had not then thought of him. Coleridge ? No one has ever caught more finely the subtle qualities of poetry, nor infused more delicate artistry into work 172 PRINCE AZREEL of curious charm. Yet all this is disappointing. Life would have no meaning if Coleridge were its poet. There is a lack of central cohesion. There are vague floatings of beautiful dreams and glimpses. Wordsworth ? Mighty poet, who ran away from the con- flict, who could not march in the world's progress, and com- pensated us with many pleasing, many puerile, and some astonishingly beautiful lays derived from a narrow inspiration. The imagery is good, the art sometimes exquisitely, surprisingly good ; but the thought is shallow, and to all but the shallow the damnation is there. Browning ? As I read Browning I find myself carried away in delight by the rich poetry of the expression. Yet there is often something wanting — the subtle thing of form. And so with Whitman, good old Walt Whitman, who has enlarged the whole scope of poetic thought and art, who has given us noble blocks of great ideas ; but who, except in rare intervals, failed to catch " the final lilt of songs." Goethe, I should have spoken of, but did not wish to give a catalogue of great poets, simply to speak in reminiscence of those who had deeply affected my mind. Goethe has the painter's faculty. But the Germans — I say in apology that I admire their science with enthusiasm — the Germans are a heavy-backed people in literature. And Goethe with all his genius is a German. He possesses a rare power of evocation, he has given us exquisite lyrics, he has produced a music of fine tonic force in Faust, he has displayed abundant and abiding pictures ; but the conception — in spite of a bolstered admiration — is not great, the theme often gross in idea, the treatment some- times dull. The French have no great commanding figure in poetry, although — and in a certain sense one might say, because — their prose is so exquisite. The language reflecting the temperament NOTES 173 of the people is too urbane and too precise for the deeper moods of poetry. I have not touched on the Greeks and the Romans j they seem too far away. Besides, I have never known them well enough. But the others — the warm poets — they have touched on life — life ! Life has been the meaning of all their poetry, and life in amplest scope and intensity. That is their greatness, for their treatment has been adequate. Page 73. Truth alone our guide can be. All poetry is true. The sentiment of the Book of Ruth, or of V Megro, and of the Ode to the Nightingale, is as true as that of the man who slaps his paunch after a good dinner. And why should it be assumed that the man who slaps his paunch is the last word of creation, the be-all and the end-all of that scheme of the universe of which he disdains to consider the laws ? There is much in verse that is mere affectation, that is of the style of the man who puts on his singing robes, and chants in strange, unnatural verbiage, or gives us the prettiness of weak sentiment and namby-pamby ideas. But this is not poetry. All poetry that has stood the test of time and has pleased diverse peoples is as true as the differential calculus, is just as strong to endure the last searchings of reason. Truth, sincerity, these are the vital things of our life, and these are the vital things of poetry. Energy, felicity, serenity, these are the great things of life, and these are the great things of poetry. Page 77. And con the quaint and cunning syllables. Of all the great masters of expression two stand out pre- eminent — Milton and Keats. And of these Milton is more 174 PRINCE AZREEL definitely and consistently the artist in words. Where else do we find the rich foliage of a line like this : The pleasant dales of Sibma clad with vines, or the liquid notes of this : And Eliale to the asphaltic pool, or the fragrant flushing of the picture : Like Maia's son he rose and shook his plumes. Or this again, which delighted Keats himself, who said that in sound it was unaccountably expressive of the description : A violent cross-wind from either coast Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues away Into the devious air. And throughout Paradise Lost, particularly, passages of fine expression arise in profusion. And if Paradise Lost be read from the Miltonic standpoint, as the history of a soul set forth in splendid images ; read for the sheer beauty of its imagery that lights the way, the delicate choice of words flowing in a wonder- ful glory of meaning and association wedded to perfect sound and rhythm ; read for the fervour of expression and the luxury of the artist's magnificence, we will not hesitate to class Milton among the warm poets. Keats is at times delightful even in the artistry of words, as in : The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves, and in a thousand different lines ; yet after all, his highest quality is derived from the insight, the intellectual vision of things, the strokes inspired by which he summons a vista of associations to his thought. Keats has been called a superficial poet, and his admirers have wronged him as greatly as his enemies. They have missed the NOTES 175 real, essential Keats. Keats above all other moderns is the poet of thought. The fount of all that marvellous outpouring of ideas, of images, of artistic forms, of wonderful phrase, and poetry that touches on the divine, that fount is to be found in the intellectual quality of the man. He himself has said it : I am a philosopher first, and poet afterwards. But not to perceive the greatness of the intellect of Keats is not to understand the real Keats at all. Read Endymion as one should read Sartor Resartus or Don Juan, as one should read again Paradise Lost as the spiritual biography of the poet, not consecutive, not formal, revealed in passages that yet make a coherent body of thought, and for the rest overlaid by the beauties and also by the faults of his pure poetic gifts. Is it wrong to insist on the " thought " of a poet ? Certainly we do not expect from the poet a formal and didactic exposition of a system of thought ; but the poet's thoughts are consistent all the same, the full expression of his poetry reflects his entire intellectual force ; and the calibre of the poetry, the impression it makes on one's own soul, depends on the fund of thought that illuminates the great and permanent problems that appeal to all of us. And it is in finding this, the luminous thought, the dauntless courage of his spirit, the transcendent vision, that I place Keats at the highest. Page 79. Break clear in the cry. A feeling, a passion, a deep experience smites upon the soul ; absorbs its thoughts, its life, and rings the being like the ringing of a bell ; if the soul rings true and entire, deep and fine associations are formed magically throughout the range of feeling and of thought ; the strongest feelings are linked with words ; all with the rhythm and force; of music ; the expression of these in their nascent energy, in their impetus, "throb, and music gives the lyric cry that makes the ode. 176 PRINCE JZREEL Page 79. Glowing shaped to its mood. Out of all the thousand poetical movements, images, beauties of the poet, a certain type seems to arise : that of Milton, harmonious grandeur, a pomp of winning graces ; of Burns, generous impulse, riancy, and vigour ; of Wordsworth, depth of Nature-worship, interpreted in ecstasies ; of Byron, wit, tempest, impact of life ; of Shelley, ethereal quality, ethereal music ; of Keats, the miracle of light. Page 86. Yet every man's a poet of bis kind. Greater in poetry than fine artistic polish is the sense of personality behind it. It is that that made Walt Whitman stand for an epoch, and it is that that made Ibsen famous. Is a poem good or bad ? Is the philosophy of a drama true, or is it but a mere sport of fancy — divagation ? Is it heroic on our part to be intensely interested in the doings of commonplace personages, or is there an element of sheer absurdity in their uncouthness ? These are questions to which few can give an answer. But gradually all of us begin to feel an intellect, a character, a man behind a work. Page 87. Harmonies of higher sense. The imagination of the poet is great, but Truth is the imagina- tion of God. Milton's gorgeous and grandiose conceptions sink into nothing- ness as compared with the wonders of the world revealed by the dry researches of science. Newton and Dalton and Faraday have been the servitors of a poetry greater than that of the most exalted poets. Once more we see how foolish it is to consider poetry apart from truth, or to endeavour to add strength to its development otherwise than by sincerity. NOTES 177 Page 92. Witenagemot. I have heard a noble peer, in deriving the descent of the House of Lords, pronounce that august name, Witenagemot, or rather mispronounce it. For if it be possible to have just enough of learning to misquote, it is easy to have just enough of history to mislead. Whenever I have observed events pass before my eyes, and have read them in history, I have seen how inexact was the record — inexact, not merely in the blurring of details, but in misrepresenting cause and effect. History of this sort is as mis- leading as would be the description of a machine written in ignorance of the principle of the mechanism. The appreciation of history, as of all arts, depends on a model created in the mind. The historian writes of things in order to explain them agreeably to an accepted standard. Few men who have made history have written history, few men who have written history have made history. Yet this should not be true if history were a real illuminating discourse on the progress of civilization. Yet when a speaker quotes history, as, for instance, in Parliament, he invests himself with an air of gravity which carries off even his own bad arguments. Page 92. The ferfect Commons' man. There was a time when the qualifications of a legislator swam before my eyes in a wondrous combination somewhere in the upper ether. Herbert Spencer has a note on the subject that greatly impressed me. I now believe that, for what would there be called " success," it is fatal to be really well educated. The successful man in Parliament should be but little advanced beyond the great multitude of the nation ; he should share not only their sympathies and aspirations, but their prejudices, their conventions, even their aversion to progress. But what they feel he should be able to express articulately in charming, flow- ing periods, or, possibly, in acts. M 178 PRINCE AZREEL Page ioo. Their function. Journalism has become too great for any to gainsay it. An old journalistic friend of mine who had "pontificated" in a leading journal, occasionally on subjects of which he knew but little, woke up one day to the contemplation of himself — Tris amusant, le journalism, he said. Page 103. The tailor. Thackeray's satire will ever remain true : King Louis XIV. The king represented by the clothes ; Louis as an ordinary little man; and the combination, that wonderful being the "Roi Soleil." Page 103. "Respectability ?" A joke which Carlyle was fond of repeating arose out of the answer of a witness in a gruesome murder trial. The witness said that a certain man was respectable, and, being asked for his reasons, explained that he kept a gig. Carlyle invented the word " gigmanity." Page 103. Sartor. Sartor to be read with full appreciation, should be traced from the German philosophers. Kant having arrived at "things in themselves," it occurred to Fichte, and others of Kant's disciples, to attempt the discovery of these things in themselves. Fichte, from whom Carlyle derives, found all the world but a show of appearance through which the spirit behind it made itself manifest. He also, somewhat after the fashion which Comte later elaborated, described three states of the soul, corresponding to Carlyle's first state of natural Faith, then Doubt, then the Everlasting Yea. It is always possible with history, or philosophy, to play these tricks of finding three NOTES 179 states, or five states; but these analyses do not pierce to the nature of things. Carlyle, however, in spite of the air of mystical profundity with which he liked to invest himself, was not a true thinker. He was more of a " character," a senti- mentalist and literary artisan, high flying, brilliant, coruscating, contradictory, whimsical, delighting with far-fetched fancies and humorous turns — an uncouth but shrewd Fool of the World — and, though the idea might make him rise in his grave, he will live in the gallery of the " Wits and Beaux." Page 106. Parmenion was -prudent. Parmenion said to Alexander, "If I were Alexander I would turn back," and Alexander replied, "So would I if I were Parmenion." Page 109. Old Milton. Milton strikes his most tragic, and even his most despondent, note in the early part of Samson Agonlstes, but it is the most unobscured Milton of all. Page 120. The French Academy. Mr. Balfour is almost the only man nowadays who has the style of academic wit, and something of the outlook of life that finds favour in the Academie Francaise. The discourse, even of reception, at the Academic has a delicate manner of piquing a man on his tender points, which is very enjoyable, even to the victim. Page 123. " Our Serious Angles." Byron said that Don Juan excelled Our Serious Angles in dancing, " the eloquence of pantomime." 180 PRINCE AZREEL Page 124. Proved by walking. This was the reply of the Greek philosopher to the Sophist who denied that there was such a thing as motion. He rose and walked. The method of voting by division in the House of Commons is really one of the most useful of all its forms, for it throws members together in an atmosphere more genial than that of the debates. But would not the end be attained if the members assembled every day to play shove-ha'penny instead of to make speeeches ? Page 132. Guy ties. Near Guynes, not far from Calais, was the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where Henry of England and Francois of France met; where Francois threw Henry in wrestling, and where the bluff, sturdy, honest Hal proved to be more crafty and false than the showy Frenchman. WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH BRITISH BATTLE BOOKS Illustrated with Coloured Maps BY HILAIRE BELLOC F'cap 8vo, cloth, is. net ; leather, 2s.6d. net HISTORT IN WARFARE The British Battle Series will consist of a number of monographs upon actions in which British troops have taken part. Each battle will be the subject of a separate booklet illustrated with coloured maps, illustrative of the movements described in the text, together with a large number of line maps showing the successive details of the action. In each case the political circumstances which led to the battle will be explained ; next, the stages leading up to it ; lastly, the action in detail. i. BLENHEIM 2. MALPLAQUET 3. TOURCOING 4. WATERLOO Later volumes will deal with Crecy, Poitiers, Corunna, Talaveras, Flodden, The Siege of Valenciennes, Vit- toria, Toulouse. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi PRINCIPLES OF A NEW SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY BY ARTHUR LYNCH, M.A., C.E., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S.E., M.P. AUTHOR OF "HUMAN DOCUMENTS," ETC., ETC. Two Vols. Demy 8vo. ios. 6d. net each A BASIC WORK OF ANALYSIS This book is dynamic. It is new in the sense in which Schwann's Cell Theory was new to Physiology, or Dalton's Atomic Theory to Chemistry. The author has faced the problem in its widest extension : Can the entire realm of knowledge, and the whole possible scope of mental acts, be so resolved that we may formulate the unanalysable elements, the Fundamental Processes of the mind ? This problem is solved, and thence the manner of all synthesis indicated. The argument is closely con- secutive, but the severity is relieved by abundant illus- trations drawn from many sciences. The principles established will afford criteria in regard to every position in Psychology. New light will be thrown, for instance, on Kant's Categories, Spencer's Hedonism, Fechner's Law, the foundation of Mathematics, Memory, Associa- tion, Externality, Will, the Feeling of Effort, Brain Localisations, and finally on the veritable nature of Reason. A philosophy of Research is foreshadowed. The work offers a base on which all valid studies may be co-ordinated, and developments are indicated. It pre- supposes no technical knowledge, and the exposition is couched in simple language. It will give a new impetus to Psychology. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St.. Adelphi GORDON AT KHARTOUM BY WILFRED SCAWEN BLUNT 155. net PRIVATE AND INTIMATE This book follows the lines of the author's works on Egypt and India, consisting mainly of a private diary of a very intimate kind, and will bring down his narrative of events to the end of 1885. The present volume is designed especially as an answer to Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, in so far as it concerned Gordon, and contains several important and hitherto unpublished documents throw- ing new light upon a case of perennial interest. It also includes an account of the author's relations with Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, Mr Gladstone, Mr Parnell, and other political personages of the day, as well as of the General Election of 1885, in which the author stood as a Tory Home Ruler. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi TORY DEMOCRACY BY J. M. KENNEDY Crown Zvo. Cloth. $s. 6d. net LORDS, GOVERNMENT, LIBERALISM There are unmistakable indications that the system of politics at present pursued by the two chief political parties is not meeting with the approval of the electorate as a whole, though this electorate, as a result of the Caucus methods, finds it increasingly difficult to give expression to its views. In his book on Tory Democracy, Mr J. M. Kennedy, who is already favourably known through his books on modern philosophical and sociological subjects, sets forth the principles underlying a system of politics which was seriously studied by men so widely different as Disraeli, Bismarck, and Lord Randolph Churchill. Mr Kennedy not only shows the close connection still existing between the aristocracy and the working classes, but he also has the distinction of being the first writer to lay down a constructive Conservative policy which is independent of Tariff Reform. Apart from this, the chapters of his work which deal with Representative Government, the House of Lords, and " Liberalism at Work " throw entirely new light on many vexed questions of modern politics. The book, it may be added, is written in a style that spares neither parties nor persons. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK BY JUVENAL Crown %vo. 5*. net VIVID ORIGINALITY In these notes and studies on life in New York, Juvenal, by his vivid originality and his masterly deductions, has surpassed all other writers who have written on the same subject. Mr Eden Phillpotts writes of the AuthoV : " The things seen are brilliantly set down. He writes with great force and skill." London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St. , Adelphi POEMS BY CHARLES GRANVILLE F'cap 4fo. 5s. net. REAL POETIC TALENT The present volume is composed of a selection from the previous poetical works of the Author, who is also well known as a writer of prose. The distinctive feature of the poems in this collection — the feature, indeed, that marks off and differentiates the work of this poet from the mass of verse produced to-day — is their spiritual insight. Mr Granville is concerned with the soul of man, . with the eternal rather than the transitory, and his perception, which is that of the seer, invests his language with that quality of ecstasy that constitutes the indisputable claim of poetry to rank in the forefront of literature. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., ioJohnSt., Adelphi MOTLEY A Story AND TINSEL th el g e BY J. K. PROTHERO Crown 8vo. 6s. A BOOK WITH DISTINGUISHED NAMES This story in serial form was the subject of an action for libel founded on the coincidence of the plaintiff's name with that of one of the characters. As a protest against the absurd state of the law, the author, in revising the novel for publication in book form, has used the names of distinguished writers and journalists who have kindly given their consent. George Bernard Shaw represents a stage door keeper. George R. Sims, in consenting to drive a hansom, fears there may be cabbies of the same name. Edgar Jepson is dis- guised as an irascible old gentleman of seventy, while Robert Barr officiates as stage manager, with Pett ■Ridge as call-boy ! Hilaire Belloc is a benevolent entrepreneur, and Cecil Chesterton a fiery tempered lover. We meet Frank Lamburn, the editor of Pearson's Weekly, as a distinguished actor, while Barry Pain has kindly divided his name between an aged man of weak intellect and his dead son. This by no means exhausts the list we find ; we meet the names of well-known journalists and men of letters on every page. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., xoJohnSt., Adelphi LOVE IN MANITOBA BY E. A. WHARTON GILL Crown 8w. 6s. A FRESH FIELD IN FICTION The writer has opened a fresh field of fiction and has presented a striking picture of life in the Swedish settlements of Western Canada — a district hitherto largely neglected by novelists. The Author is intimately acquainted with the life of these colonists, and has studied his characters on the spot ; while his local colour is in every way admirable. He knows the West and its people. And the people in his story are typical of those to be met with in every settlement throughout the West. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi THE BOSBURY PEOPLE A Novel BY ARTHUR RANSOM Crown Zvo. 6s. COMEDY AND SERIOUS CRITICISM This book opens with the appearance of three young cyclists — an Anglican priest, a Dissenting minister, and a young squire with Agnostic proclivities — who collide at a spot where three roads converge. They are discovered here by Sir Samuel Boulder, who, in his carriage, is returning from the railway station whence he has sent his daughters to the seaside. The baronet insists on taking the wounded cyclists to his Hall at Bosbury, and afterwards insists upon keeping them there until their wounds are healed. The situation is complicated by the unexpected return of " the girls." The comedy of the story is derived in part from the relations between the Priest, the Dissenter, and the Agnostic, and in part from the relations between the guests and the " girls." Not only does the expected happen, but the unexpected in the betrothal of the Dissenter with one of the baronet's daughters. Even the Rector's wife consents " to swallow the Dissenting parson." Beneath the lighter comedy of this study of English country life runs a stream of serious criticism of rural conditions. The time is a.d. 1900. London : STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi DAUGHTERS OF ISHMAEL BY REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN Crown Zvo. Cloth. 6s. FRANK, DELICATE, SINCERE In this book the Author has handled a difficult subject with the utmost of delicacy consistent with perfect frankness. While telling his story fearlessly, he does so without sensationalism. With nobility of manner and passionate sincerity he relates one of the sordid tragedies common to our great cities j but the story is told with such reserve and such impartiality that the zeal of the sociologist is never allowed to destroy the delicacy of the artist. Throughout the book there predominates the Greek idea of Fate ; but there is also something better, the hope of the ultimate amelioration of the evils that the book so aptly describes. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi THE REVOKE OF JEAN RAYMOND BY MAY FORD Crown Zvo. Cloth. 6s. INTERESTING, CULTURED, MODERN This is an arresting story of the psychological development of a modern woman. The problem of marriage is presented at a new angle and treated with the touch of modernity. A character more interest- ing than Jean it would be difficult to find ; cultured and broad-minded, a woman who has achieved mental and spiritual freedom by a vigorous search for the truth, she devoted her life to manifold practical activities in which her healthy nature found the utmost enjoyment. It was then that her tragedy befell her — a tragedy of temperaments — and the manner in which Jean revoked makes a strangely fascinating story. London: STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS Nature Essays BY G. G. DESMOND Crown 8vo. Cloth. $s. net A NATURE BOOK FOR TOWN FOLK This book for all Nature-lovers appeals perhaps most strongly to those in cities pent, for whom a word in season can call up visions of the open moor, the forest, the meadow stream, the flowered lane, or the wild sea-shore. The extreme penalty for reading one of these spring, summer, autumn, or winter chapters is to be driven from one's chair into the nearest field, there to forget town worries among the trees. The author does not spare us for fog, rain, frost, or snow. Sometimes he makes us get up by moonlight and watch the dawn come " cold as cold sea-shells " to the fluting of blackbirds, or he takes us through the woods by night and shows us invisible things by their sounds and scents. The spirit, even if the body cannot go with it, comes back refreshed by these excursions to the country. London : STEPHEN SWIFT & CO., LTD., 10 John St., Adelphi