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 Essays; literary, critical and historical 
 
 3 1924 013 514 827 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013514827 
 

 
 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 \ 
 
 
 LITERARY, CRITICAL 
 AND HISTORICAL 
 
 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS O'HAGAN, 
 M.A.,^h.D. 
 
 \ 
 
 
 Autlior o( " Canadian Essays," 
 
 " Studies in Poetry," " In 
 
 Dreamland," " Songs of 
 
 the Settlement." 
 
 etc. 
 
 
 
 /7^ >> 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION 
 
 
 TORONTO 
 
 WILLIAIW BRIGGS 
 
 1909 
 
 
 T 
 
Copyright, Canada. 1909, by 
 THOMAS O'HAQAN. 
 
TO 
 
 HIS FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, 
 THE FRENCH CANADIANS AND ACADIANS 
 
 Who, speaking the language of Bossuet 
 
 and Lamartine, have added Lustre 
 
 to our Canadian Citizenship, 
 
 Virtue to our Canadian 
 
 Homes, and Joy to our 
 
 Canadian Firesides, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, 
 
 IN SINCERE ADMIRATION, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T^OUR of the five essays- which make up this 
 ■^ volume have appeared during the past 
 few years in the American Catholic Quarterly 
 Review and the Champlain Educator. The 
 author begs to acknowledge particularly his 
 indebtedness to Dr. S. E. Dawson's admirable 
 work on Tennyson's " The Princess," in the 
 preparation of his study of that poem. In- 
 deed, without Dr. Dawson's fine analysis of the 
 poem the first essay in this volume could never 
 have been written. 
 
 The paper on " The Italian Renaissance and 
 the Popes of Avignon " was prepared while the 
 writer was sojourning at Louvain University, 
 Belgium, in the autumn of 1903, and at 
 Grenoble University, France, during the 
 summer of 1904. It may be well to add 
 that the libraries of both these ancient and 
 renowned seats of learning are very rich in 
 works relating to medieval history and lit- 
 S 
 
Preface 
 
 erature, and afforded the author unusual op- 
 portunity in the preparation of the essay. 
 
 In the writing of the essay on " Poetry and 
 History Teaching Falsehood," the author has 
 been motived by a desire to set forth in the 
 clearest light possible the misrepresentation of 
 Catholic truth which obtains in much of the 
 history and poetry of our day. 
 
 The third essay in the volume, " The Study 
 and' Interpretation of Literature," is based by 
 the author upon' ideals gained in pOs;t-graduate 
 courses pursued in this subject at several of the 
 leading American universities, as well as upon 
 a practical knowledge in the teaching of litera- 
 ture obtained in the High Schools of Ontario. 
 
 The paper on " The Degradation of Scholar- 
 ship " has never before appeared in print. Let 
 the reader, divested of every predilection and 
 bias, examine it carefully, remembering that 
 the courage to state the truth is a more valu- 
 able asset of character than the gift of bestow- 
 ing false praise; though that praise should 
 secure friends. 
 
 T. O'H. 
 
 Toronto, Canada, March, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" . . . . ii 
 
 Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood . 45 
 
 The Study and Interpretation of Litera- 
 ture 65 
 
 The Degradation of Scholarship .... 83 
 
 The Italian Renaissance and the Popes of 
 Avignon loi 
 
A STUDY OF TENNYSON'S 
 "PRINCESS" 
 
A STUDY OF TENNYSON'S 
 "PRINCESS." 
 
 FEW poems written within the Victorian 
 era of English literature have been so 
 singularly underrated and misunderstood as 
 Tennyson's " Princess." At its very birth — ^as 
 if it had been born under an unfavorable star 
 — it encountered the adverse breath of criti- 
 cism; and even now, after nearly fifty years 
 have rectified many a past error of judgment 
 in literary matters, this, the first long and sus- 
 tained poem of the late Poet Laureate, receives 
 but grudging recognition and commendation 
 in a general review and study of the author's 
 works. We think it was a little unfortunate 
 that its second title, " A Medley," was tacked 
 to it when the poem first appeared, for it gave 
 some of the critics who had neither the gifts nor 
 disposition to study it aright a pretext, and, in 
 some measure, justification, for the violent on- 
 slaughts which they from time to time made 
 upon it. 
 
 In the light of the progressive views held 
 
 to-day of the higher education of woman, this 
 
 poem may be regarded as a prophecy voicing 
 
 the advent of a broader, rounder and deeper 
 
 II 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 culture for the race upon a plane of civilization 
 in which woman as a primal factor and true 
 complement of man shall unfold her being in 
 a ceaseless striving for truth, beauty and love. 
 The attainment of this higher condition of life 
 will not, however, be hastened by isolated Idas 
 walled within colleges of their own pride and 
 sex, and vainly and foolishly waging war upon 
 their own brothers ; and every movement which 
 starts out with the purpose of setting up 
 woman as a rival of man in achievement, is not 
 only a detriment to the cause of human pro- 
 gress, in which man and woman alike are 
 shareholders, but the end thereof must be 
 abasement and defeat. 
 
 The " Princess " appeared first in print in 
 1847, ^t a time, by the way, when the surface 
 thought of England was largely given up to 
 corn-laws and. free-trade; and this may 
 account, in some measure, for the coldness of 
 the reception accorded it, as the English are a 
 people who have proverbially little time or 
 thought for " bainting and boetry " when a 
 commercial or economic question is on the 
 boards. ^/The poem is a medley in form, but 
 not in essence, as it possesses the real and deep- 
 seated unity which all art demands — ^that of a 
 consistent purpose and a pervading harmony 
 of tone.'^^The medley consists in the poem 
 being serio-comic, constructed of ancient and 
 12 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Prince ss " 
 
 modern materials — a show, as Edmund Clar- 
 ence Stedman says, of medieval pomp and 
 movement observed through an atmosphere of 
 latter-day thought and emotion. It is such 
 a mixture as we find in Shakespeare's " Win- 
 ter's Tale," and, indeed, in the prologue the 
 name of that drama is introduced as if to just- 
 ify by precedent the incongruities of the nar- 
 rative. 
 
 We think, however, that the critics have 
 made too much out of the improbability of the 
 incidents in the poem. Surely to be consistent 
 such critics should extend their reproach to 
 "The Tempest" and "Midsummer Night's 
 Dream." To us the impossible elements and 
 anachronisms render the poem more attractive. 
 In estimating a poem we must always take for 
 granted the conditions assumed by the poet, 
 and these being assumed, we have only to in- 
 quire whether the poem possesses unity, con- 
 gruity and a definite and worthy object. There 
 are, however, two things we have a right to 
 demand: that the characters are congruous 
 with themselves, and that the treatment of the 
 incidents is poetic. But as far as art is con- 
 cerned, we should not lose our literary tem- 
 pers or prepare to let fall the axe of condemna- 
 tion merely because some idealized scene in a 
 poem or drama does not harmonize in every 
 particular with our own workaday world. We 
 13 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 mention this fact because in all fairness we con- 
 sider that this poem, " The Princess," should 
 be judged and appraised according to some 
 canons and rules that apply to similar works 
 of imagination and fancy. 
 
 The prologue and epilogue form the setting 
 of the poem, and it would be difficult to find in 
 all English literature a more truly natural and 
 graceful picture than the scene from English 
 life of to-day which the poet paints for us in 
 the opening lines of the poem. /The place is 
 the South of England. The occasion a fes- 
 tival upon the grounds of a wealthy baronet. 
 Sir Walter Vivian has thrown open his 
 grounds for a summer's day, and the people 
 of the neighboring town, and especially the 
 members of its scientific institute, throng the 
 park and give themselves up to recreation and 
 pleasure. A party of young collegians on 
 vacation, in company with some of the well- 
 bom and cultured girls of the Hall and the 
 neighboring country seats, have made a select 
 picnic of their own in a ruined abbey. The 
 baronet's son, young Walter Vivian, is of the 
 company. One of the collegians, a dreamy 
 youth — the poet himself — has been looking 
 through the library and has come across a book 
 telling of knightly deeds of the medieval ances- 
 tors of the stately Hall. Taking the book with 
 him, he joins the party, keeping his finger on 
 14 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 the place where is told the story of a fearless 
 dame of the house, who, in defending her castle 
 against a lawless king, had armed 
 
 " Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate 
 Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 
 ' O miracle of women,' said the book ; 
 ' O noble heart who, being strait besieged 
 By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
 Nor bent nor broke nor shunned a soldier's death.' " 
 
 These last lines form a key to the story which 
 Tennyson employs in giving us his views as to 
 the proper sphere of woman, for this " miracle 
 of women " is the prototype of the Princess 
 Ida. ^^hile discussing the character of this 
 heroine who defended her castle in days agone, 
 the question at once arises among the members 
 of the picnic party — are there such women 
 now? One of the young ladies, Lilia, the 
 barbnet's daughter, answers : 
 
 "There are thousands now 
 Such women, but convention beats them down," 
 
 and in a half serious, half sportive way protests 
 against the way in which nowadays the powers 
 of her sex are dwarfed by insufficient culture, 
 and as a consequence women are no longer 
 capable of exhibiting such heroic qualities. 
 Young Walter Vivian in the course of his 
 remarks, which are banteringly addressed to 
 his sister, mentions a favorite game which he 
 15 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 and his college companions used to play, of 
 telling a story from mouth to mouth, each one 
 in succession taking up the thread till among 
 them they brought the story to a close. It is 
 then forthwith agreed that the seven youths 
 should transfer this medieval miracle of 
 womanhood to modern times in a story to 
 which each should contribute a chapter. Of 
 course, the conception out of which the plot is 
 developed is the founding of a Ladies' Univer- 
 sity by the Princess Ida, who has set before 
 her the task of 
 
 " Raising the woman's fallen divinity 
 Upon an equal pedestal with man." 
 
 It may be added that the question discussed in 
 this poem by Tennyson is one of vital impor- 
 tance to the human race, and is in every way 
 worthy of the attention of the best and most 
 earnest minds of our century. »<rhe poem 
 proper is made up of seven cantos, written in 
 semi-heroic verse, each story linked to and 
 growing out of the previous canto. The first 
 canto represents the Prince, who is none other 
 than the poet himself, as longing for the bride 
 betrothed to him in childhood. She, however, 
 disregarding all pledge and promise, has con- 
 ceived the idea of founding a University for 
 Women, from which men are to be excluded 
 i6 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 on pain of death. To carry out her strange 
 project she obtains from her father one of his 
 castles with the domain surrounding it. Here 
 the Princess Ida establishes her faculty, and 
 rains down the dews of knowledge upon the 
 thirsty flowers that bud and bloom under her 
 high-souled care. This lofty enterprise is, 
 however, in no way acceptable to the Prince, 
 nor to the King, his father, who, inflamed with 
 rage at her refusal to marry his son, swears 
 
 " That he will send a hundred thousand men 
 And bring her in a whirlwind." 
 
 The Prince, in company with two friends, 
 Cyril and Florian, steals away by night from 
 his father's court for the purpose of making a 
 personal appeal to his affianced bride, encour- 
 aged by a mysterious voice, borne upon the 
 winds in the woods, which whispered, 
 
 " Follow, follow, thou shalt win." 
 
 In his interview with Gama, the King, 
 father of the Princess Ida, who, by the way, 
 was powerless to oppose the wishes and designs 
 of his daughter and her two widow compan- 
 ions, we learn the two fallacies which mislead 
 the Princess in her design to found a Ladies' 
 University: that the woman is equal in all 
 respects to the inan, and that knowledge is all 
 2 17 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 in all. These are the very two fallacies which 
 to-day are productive of most mischief to the 
 true advancement of woman. 
 
 The second book or canto brings the Prince 
 and his two companions, disguised as women, 
 to the University, where the detection of 
 Florian by his sister, Lady Psyche, one of the 
 lady lecturers, is narrated. The description of 
 the grounds and walks leading to the Univer- 
 sity shows Tennyson's keen knowledge of 
 feminine nature. Just note, please, the follow- 
 ing appointments in the grounds. Do they not 
 reflect the artistic taste of woman? 
 
 " We foUow'd up the river as we rode. 
 And rode till midnight, when the college lights 
 Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
 And linden alley: then we past an arch, 
 Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
 From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 
 And some inscription ran along the front, 
 But deep in shadow : further on we gained 
 A little street, half garden and half house; 
 But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 
 Of clock and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
 On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
 Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
 In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
 And all about us peal'd the nightingale. 
 Rapt in her song and careless of the snare." 
 
 The only thing wrong in this nice bit of de- 
 i8 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 scription, as Dr. S. E. Dawson has pointed out 
 in his study of " The Princess," is in reference 
 to the song of the nightingale. It is only the 
 male bird which sings. Scientifically, therefore, 
 Tennyson is wrong, though historically and 
 poetically he is correct, for, according to the 
 Greek myth, Philomela was a princess who 
 was turned into a nightingale which sang. 
 
 Lady Psyche having discovered that her 
 three visiting friends are men, not women, the 
 Prince and his two companions, upon promis- 
 ing a speedy departure, prevail upon the fair pro- 
 fessor to conceal their real identity. Disguised 
 as women, and keeping their hoods about their 
 faces, the three young men stroll through the 
 lecture-rooms and listen to the " violet-hooded 
 doctors " descant on the ancient glories of 
 Greece and Rome, now reciting some scrap of 
 thunderous epic, now lilting oflf some throbbing 
 ode, now dipping into the science of star and 
 bird and shell and flower, electric, chemic laws 
 and all the rest, and whatsoever can be taught 
 and known — with what result? We will let 
 the Prince tell: 
 
 " Till like three horses that have broken fence, 
 And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 
 y/e issued gorged with knowledge." 
 
 Cyril, however, is not pleased with the con- 
 dition of things, and thinks that violence is 
 19 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 done to woman's nature in this isolated insti- 
 tution. This plain-spoken fellow evidently 
 regards the heart and its affections in woman 
 as of much more importance than the intellect, 
 for how otherwise are we to interpret his opin- 
 ion, as expressed to Florian: 
 
 " A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 
 And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
 Fly, twanging headless arrows at the hearts. 
 Whence follows many a vacant pang." 
 
 In the third canto the mock damsels pursue 
 still further their studies, and mounted on 
 horses, in company with the Princess, make a 
 geological excursion in the neighboring coun- 
 try. The Prince and Princess ride side by 
 side, and out of their conversation grows a 
 reference to her betrothal to the young prince 
 in the North. Her reply to the statement of 
 her disguised companion, that her persistence 
 in refusing to make good her pledge of mar- 
 riage would surely lead to the death of the 
 Prince, is characteristic of a woman who is 
 waging war with her womanly instincts and 
 the rooted affections of her heart, and under- 
 takes the heavy task of breasting the current 
 of nature with its strong and irresistible tide. 
 Here is the crumb of consolation she offers him 
 in his disappointment: 
 
 20 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princ ess " 
 
 " ' Poor boy,' she cried, ' can he not read — ^no books ? 
 Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
 Which men delight in, martial exercise? 
 To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
 Methinks he seems no better than a girl; 
 As girls were once, as we ourself have been; 
 We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them.' " 
 
 This reminds one of the advice given in Donald 
 G. Mitchell's " Reveries of a Bachelor " to a 
 disappointed lover — to adopt a diet of vege- 
 tables and read Jeremy Taylor's sermons. 
 
 The fourth canto contains the grand crash. 
 It is also the canto which closes the humorous 
 or serio-comic part of the story, the transition 
 being made from jest to earnest at the request 
 of Lilia, who, as spokeswoman for the ladies 
 in the poem, objected to the banter in the first 
 four cantos : 
 
 " They hated banter, wished for something real, 
 A gallant fight, a noble Princess — why 
 Not make her true heroic, — true sublime? 
 Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 
 Which yet," replies the poet, " scarce could be.'' 
 
 The crash comes when Cyril, honest-hearted 
 Cyril, after the party, tired from geologizing 
 and astronomizing, are seated in a silken pavil- 
 ion indulging in meat, wine and song, responds 
 to the request of the Princess for a song that 
 would have in it something of the flavor and 
 manners of his countrywomen in the North. 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 Cyril is a merry fellow and reminds one not a 
 little of Shakespeare's Mercutio. He is the 
 least sentimental of the three friends, and while 
 the Prince has been dwelling in cloudland, 
 rocked in airy dreams, Cyril has given himself 
 up to the excellent vintage of the southern 
 kingdom, and so, wrought upon by the purple 
 grape and his own sense of sport, he trolls out, 
 in absolute forgetfulness of his disguise, a rol- 
 licking love-song in mellow and melodious 
 tenor. Such song was not, of course, meant 
 for the ears of the Princess and her compan- 
 ions, and so Florian nods at him frowning, 
 Psyche flushes and wans, Melissa droops her 
 brows, the Prince smites him on the breast, 
 while the noble Ida, shocked beyond all endur- 
 ance, cries, " Forbear, sir !" and " Home ! to 
 horse !" and dashing off on her steed falls into 
 the river and is rescued from death by the 
 Prince. 
 
 In the fifth canto the Northern King has 
 marched with his army into the Southern king- 
 dom, and, anxious for the safety of his son, 
 has surrounded the Princess Ida's domain. 
 He has taken the King, her father, a prisoner. 
 Meantime, by judgment of the Princess Ida. 
 the Prince and his two companions have been 
 ignominiously thrust out of the University and 
 reach the camp of the investing army in drag- 
 gled female attire. Ida's warlike brothers, 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 fearing for their sister's safety, march their 
 troops northward to protect her. After a par- 
 ley between the two armies, it is decided that 
 the matter be finally settled by a tournament 
 between fifty knights on each side — the hand 
 of the Princess to be the reward of the Prince 
 if his side win. The fight takes place and ter- 
 minates unsuccessfully for the Prince, who 
 loses his bride and is wounded nearly to death. 
 The tournament scene is, indeed, a magnifi- 
 cent passage and has about it a certain 
 Homeric swiftness of movement and action 
 that is in strong contrast to some of Tenny- 
 son's more labored narrative. We feel the 
 shock of combat and shiver of lance as we read 
 the following vehement lines, full of the pulse 
 and power of the lists: 
 
 " Empanoplied and plumed 
 We entered in and waited, fifty there 
 Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 
 At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 
 Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
 The trumpet, and again : at which the storm 
 Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
 And riders front to front, until they closed 
 In conflict with the crash of shivering points 
 And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream I dream'd 
 Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
 And into fiery splinters leapt the lance. 
 And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 
 Part sat like rocks : part reel'd but kept their seats : 
 Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and drew : 
 
 23 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down 
 
 From those two bulks at Arac's side and down 
 
 From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 
 
 The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 
 
 He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists. 
 
 And all the plain, — brand, mace and shaft and shield- 
 
 Shock'd like an iron-clanking anvil bang'd 
 
 With hammers. 
 
 With that I drave 
 Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 
 And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream 
 All that I would. But that large-moulded man, 
 His visage all agrin as at a wake, 
 Made at me thro' the press and staggering back 
 With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 
 As comes a pillar of electric cloud. 
 Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains. 
 And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 
 On a wood, and takes, and breaks and cracks and 
 
 splits. 
 And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 
 Reels and the herdsmen cry; for everything 
 Gaye way before him : only Florian, he 
 That loved me closer than his own right eye. 
 Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: 
 And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 
 With Psyche's color round his helmet, tough, 
 Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 
 But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 
 And threw him : last I spurr'd ; I felt my veins 
 Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand. 
 And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 
 Till I struck out and shouted ; the blade glanced ; 
 I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 
 Flow'd from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell." 
 24 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 The sixth canto is, perhaps, taken all in all, 
 the finest in the poem. In it the full strength 
 of the poet is put forth. The field of battle, 
 the wounded knights, the old king's haggard 
 face stooping over the prostrate body of his 
 son — all are themes for touching and pathetic 
 pictures. How beautifully the poet traces in 
 this canto the growth and final supremacy of 
 the true womanly elements in Ida's nature. 
 The tender domestic instincts, first awakened 
 by the care of Psyche's child, are now quick- 
 ened into new and stronger life by the presence 
 of suffering and sorrow around her. 
 
 The seventh canto, which opens with one of 
 the sweetest songs in the English language, 
 "Ask Me No "More," shows the complete 
 transfiguration of Ida's nature under the influ- 
 ence of the affections. The college has been 
 turned into an hospital, and the ministry of 
 the heart in all its tenderness has taken the 
 place of mere pride of intellect. Love has 
 built its lily walls and transformed the cold 
 hearth of solitude and selfishness into a radiant 
 altar of self-sacrifice, devotion and love. 
 
 " Everywhere 
 Low voices with the ministering hand 
 Hung round the sick: the maidens came, they talk'd, 
 They sang, they read : till she not fair began 
 To gather light, and she that was, became , 
 Her former beauty treble." 
 
 25 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 Ida sits by the couch of the Prince, watching 
 him in his dehrium of fever. Her name is 
 ever on his Hps. Finally, in the still summer 
 night, consciousness returns, and observing Ida 
 at his bedside he murmurs : 
 
 " If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, 
 I would but ask you to fulfil yourself : 
 But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
 I ask you nothing : only, if a dream, 
 Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
 Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die." 
 
 The transforming power of love has done its 
 work. Ida, who sought far less for truth than 
 power in knowledge, is defeated in her pur- 
 pose, but rises in this apparent defeat to the 
 supreme height of her womanhood. Frankly 
 she confesses her failure and the cause thereof : 
 
 " She had failed in sweet humility." 
 
 Still she will not relinquish her high hopes of 
 a nobler future for woman ; nor is it necessary 
 that she should do so. " Rather," says the 
 Prince, 
 
 " Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
 The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free. 
 ********** 
 
 If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
 How shall men grow? but work no more alone! 
 Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
 26 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Pri ncess " 
 
 We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
 Will clear away the parasitic forms 
 That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 
 Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
 Within her — let her make herself her own 
 To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
 All that not harms distinctive womanhood." 
 
 And then, in the following beautiful pas- 
 sage, which for majesty of thought and deli- 
 cacy of feeling can scarcely be matched in the 
 whole realm of poetry, the poet describes the 
 relations of man's nature to woman's and 
 paints the ideal of a perfect marriage : 
 
 " For woman is not undevelopt man, 
 But diverse : could we make her as the man, , 
 Sweet Love were slain : his dearest bond is thijs, 
 Not like to like, but like in difference. 
 Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 
 The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, \ 
 Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
 She mental breadth, nor fail in childward carp, 
 Nor lose the child-like in the larger mind; 
 Till at the last she set herself to man, 
 Like perfect music unto noble words; 
 And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
 Sit side by side, fuU-summ'd in all their powers. 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
 Self-reverent each and reverencing each, 
 Distinct in individualities. 
 But like each other eVn as those who love. 
 Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ; 
 Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : 
 Then springs the crowning race of humankind." 
 27 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 Then follows the epilogue or conclusion, 
 whereby the reader is transferred from the 
 fairy-land of imagination ha.dk to the festival 
 crowd in the park, with which the poem com- 
 menced. There is not a jar in the transition, 
 and the mind of the reader, translated frdm the 
 stirring incidents of trumpet and tournament, 
 finds repose in the idyllic beauty which reigns 
 in the heart of English life and scenes. 
 
 Having traced the motive of the story and 
 the unity of its conception throughout, let us 
 now see whether the separate characters are 
 congruous within themselves, and in what way 
 they have a share in the development of the 
 plot. 
 
 The Princess Ida is drawn as the prototype 
 of " the miracle of women " who beat the king 
 and his forces with slaughter from the walls. 
 She possessed a noble enthusiasm, a quality 
 which would have made her an ideal wife for 
 Arthur. As a wife she would have sympath- 
 ized with him in his lofty aims and purposes, 
 and been willing to share with him in his fail- 
 ures and lost hopes: 
 
 " She sees herself in every woman else. 
 And so she wears her errors like a crown." 
 
 With what a loving hand Tennyson does 
 justice to her unselfish nature, even with the 
 failure of her enterprise inevitable. Cold 
 28 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 natures cannot understand her enthusiasm for 
 the cause which she has espoused : 
 
 " They know not, cannot guess 
 How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
 If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 
 Oh ! if our end were less achievable 
 By slow approaches, than by single act 
 Of immolation; any phase of death; 
 We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, 
 Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, 
 To compass our dear sisters' liberties.'' 
 
 And as the womanly elements gain ascend- 
 ancy in her nature, how beautifully the poet 
 tells of the dawning of love in her heart: 
 
 " Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears, 
 By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 
 And feeble, all unconscious of itself. 
 But such as gathered color day by day." 
 
 The Prince represents the poet himself, and 
 when he speaks it may be taken for granted 
 that his opinions relative to woman's sphere 
 and duties are the opinions of Tennyson him- 
 self. It may be noticed that his character is 
 not defined in very strong colors, simply be- 
 cause he is a foil to the Princess, and would, if 
 brought out more strongly, detract from the 
 brilliancy of the Princess as well as mar the 
 general unity of the poem. The character of 
 the Prince must have given Tennyson a great . 
 29 
 
A Study of Ten nyson's " Princess " 
 
 deal of trouble, for it was not until after the 
 fourth edition that he ceased to elaborate it. 
 It is hard to understand why' the poet added 
 the passages relating to the weird seizures of 
 the Prince. Perhaps his object was to set 
 forth the weakness and incompleteness of the 
 poet side of the Prince's character until he has 
 found rest in his ideal. 
 
 It will be observed, too, that the Prince aims 
 at elevating woman, but he differs from Ida as 
 to the means. ^'Ida dreams of intellectual 
 advancement alone. iThe Prince recognizes 
 moral elevation to be the higher of the two. 
 He pays tribute to the moral greatness of 
 woman where he says they are, 
 
 " Not like that piebald miscellany, man ; 
 Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire ; 
 But whole and one ; and take them all in all, 
 Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 
 As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 
 Had ne'er been mooted." 
 
 And when the Prince sets forth the mission 
 of woman as the conservator of the results of 
 civilization hardly won by the struggles of 
 man, and paints his ideal of a perfect marriage, 
 the Princess asks : 
 
 " What woman taught you this ?" 
 
 To which the Prince replies, in language which 
 touches the heart of every man : 
 30 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 "One 
 
 Not learned, save in gracious household ways ; 
 Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants ; 
 No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
 Interpreter between the gods and men, 
 Who looked all native to her place, and yet 
 On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
 Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
 Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved 
 And girdled her with music. Happy he 
 With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
 Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
 Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall, ' 
 He shall not blind his soul with clay." 
 
 As to the characters of the two kings, they 
 are well conceived and drawn. Ida's father 
 has an easy, loving disposition, and it is very 
 evident that she inherits her strength of char- 
 acter from her mother. The Northern King is 
 of a rough and violent type, which recalls the 
 time when marriage was a capture : 
 
 " Look you — Sir ! 
 Man is the hunter; woman is the game; 
 The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. 
 We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
 They love us for it and we ride them down." 
 
 While the character of Florian is vague and 
 indefinite, that of Cyril is well and clearly con- 
 ceived. The latter is a wholesome, jovial and 
 honest-hearted fellow. He is no dreamer and 
 can always tell the substance from the shadow. 
 31 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 He is not at all impressed by stately women, 
 and so he tells the Princess that Love and 
 Nature are more terrible than she. 
 
 The two widows, Lady Psyche and Lady 
 Blanche, are in sharp contrast to each other. 
 The former remains womanly under every cir- 
 cumstance. Even when discoursing on the 
 nebular hypothesis in the lecture-room, we find 
 that her babe, sweet Aglaea, is by her side, and 
 when she has lost it she bitterly reproaches 
 herself for having left it behind. 
 
 Lady Blanche is the most unlovely woman 
 in the whole gallery of Tennyson's women. 
 She has no thought but for herself, and even 
 asperses the memory of her dead husband. 
 She is full of envy and jealousy, nor has she 
 even the affection of a mother for her sunny- 
 hearted and winsome daughter, Melissa. She 
 is a type of not a few who identify themselves 
 with the Woman's Rights movement of to-day, 
 ostensibly to better the social and intellectual 
 position of woman, but virtually to blow a 
 bubble before the eyes of the world and gather 
 about them an atmosphere of notoriety. 
 
 Having analyzed the poem as to its motive 
 and plot, and shown the part which each char- 
 acter contributes to the development of the 
 plot, we will now consider the purpose qnd im- 
 port of the songs or ballads which the young 
 ladies sing during the pauses or interludes in 
 32 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 the poem. The songs did not appear at first, 
 but were added by the poet to the third edition, 
 which appeared in 1850. It will be noticed 
 that they nearly all relate to children, and serve 
 as choruses to guide and interpret the sym- 
 pathies pf the reader in the progress of the 
 poem. Let us take them in their order, one 
 by one. The first tells of a quarrel between a 
 man and his wife, and of the reconciliation 
 caused by the memory of their dead child : 
 
 " As thro' the land at eve we went, 
 
 And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
 We fell out, my wife and I, 
 O we fell out I know not why. 
 
 And kiss'd again with fears. 
 And blessings on the falling out 
 
 That all the more endears, 
 When we fall out with those we love 
 
 And kiss again with tears! 
 For when we came where lies the child 
 
 We lost in other years, 
 There above the little grave, 
 O there above the little grave, 
 
 We kiss'd again with tears." 
 
 Here we have the abiding influence of the child 
 reaching back from the grave and uniting by 
 its memory the tearful and desolate hearts of 
 the estranged parents. 
 
 The second represents how the toil and labor 
 of the father are ennobled and lightened amid 
 the perils of the deep through the memory of 
 3 33 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 the little babe for whose life and love he fondly 
 braves every danger : 
 
 " Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
 
 Wind of the western sea, 
 Low, low, breathe and blow. 
 
 Wind of the western sea! 
 Over the rolling waters go, 
 Come from the dying moon, and blow. 
 
 Blow him again to me. 
 While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 
 
 " Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 
 
 Father will come to thee soon ; 
 Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 
 
 Father will come to thee soon; 
 Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
 Silver sails all out of the west 
 
 Under the silver moon : 
 Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep." 
 
 Sweet influence, indeed, this of the babe which 
 reaches across the ocean and unites loving 
 hearts. 
 
 The next song, " The Bugle," is regarded 
 by many as the finest lyric that has been writ- 
 ten since the days of Shakespeare. Its real 
 meaning is frequently not grasped by the 
 casual reader. It is based upon the contrast 
 between the echoes of a bugle on a mountain 
 lake, which grow fainter and fainter in propor- 
 tion to the receding distance, and the influence 
 of soul upon soul through growing distances 
 of time: 
 
 34 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 " The splendor falls on castle walls 
 And snowy summits old in story: 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 " O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear. 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 " O love, they die in yon rich sky. 
 They faint on hill or field or river : 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul 
 And grow forever and forever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying." 
 
 The stress of meaning is in the words our and 
 grozv. Our echoes roll from soul to soul — 
 from generation to generation — from grand- 
 parent to parent and grandchild. This poem 
 represents unity through the family in its rela- 
 tion to the future, just as the first two songs 
 represent that unity through the past and 
 present. 
 
 The fourth is intended to show the influences 
 of home and wedded love in nerving a man for 
 the shocks and conflicts of life: 
 
 35 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 "Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 
 
 That beat to battle where he stands; 
 Thy face across his fancy comes, 
 
 And gives the battle to his hands: 
 A moment while the trumpets blow, 
 
 He sees his brood about thy knee; 
 The next, like fire he meets the foe, 
 
 And strikes him dead— for thine and thee." 
 
 We see by this lyric that patriotism and heroic 
 effort have their root and origin in home 
 affection. 
 
 The next song represents the influence of 
 the family, of which the child is the bond, upon 
 the mother: 
 
 " Home they brought her warrior dead : 
 She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry : 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 ' She must weep or she will die.' 
 
 " Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 Call'd him worthy to be loved. 
 Truest friend and noblest foe; 
 Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 
 
 " Stole a maiden from her place. 
 Lightly to the warrior stept, 
 Took the face-cloth from the face; 
 Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
 
 " Rose a nurse of ninety years. 
 Set his child upon her knee — 
 Like summer tempest came her tears — 
 ' Sweet my child, I live for thee.' 
 36 
 
 > ff 
 
A Study of Tennyson's "Princess" 
 
 In this poem we see that desolation and despair 
 have sealed the fountain of tears in the wid- 
 owed wife — that the light of love has gone 
 from her life and returns only through the 
 influence of childhood, with all its tender links 
 and memories. 
 
 The last song, " Ask Me No More," is like 
 the sestette in a sonnet — the application of all 
 the preceding. These influences of the family, 
 with all its sacred ties and affections, are too 
 much for the strong and noble soul of the 
 Princess, who throws aside all theories of 
 intellectual independence for woman, and, 
 yielding to the impulse of love and affection, 
 proclaims the triumph of the womanly elements 
 in her nature in the following sweet and tender 
 lines : 
 
 " Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 
 
 The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the 
 
 shape, 
 With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
 But O too fond, when have I answered thee? 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 " Ask me no more; what answer should I give? 
 I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: 
 Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
 Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 " Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are seal'd : 
 I strove against the stream and all in vain: 
 Let the great river take me to the main: 
 No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
 Ask me no more." 
 
 37 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 What bearing these six lyrics, which are 
 truly miracles of workmanship, have upon the 
 main theme of the story will be readily per- 
 ceived. 4Tiey not only contribute to the unity 
 of the poem proper but are in themselves linked 
 together by a kindred bond and purpose. 
 They are the voice of the heart singing 
 through the night, cheered by the kindly stars 
 of faith, hope and love. 
 
 Having analyzed the poem and reached its 
 central thought, let us now consider who is the 
 hero or heroine of the story. Assuredly it is 
 not the Prince, for he has been ignominiously 
 thrust out of Ida's gates in draggled female 
 clothes. Nor is "it his jovial-hearted compan- 
 ion, Cyril, nor Arac, who cares for nothing save 
 the tournament. It cannot even be the high- 
 souled and stately Princess, for has she not been 
 vanquished at the very moment of triumph? 
 The only one who comes out triumphantly is 
 Psyche's baby — she is the real heroine of the 
 epic. The little blossom, sweet Aglaea, is the 
 central point upon which the plot turns. In 
 the poem, in the songs — everywhere — this un- 
 conscious child, the concrete embodiment of 
 nature itself, exerts an overpowering influence, 
 shaping, directing, nurturing the tender in- 
 stincts of womanhood and clearing away all 
 intellectual theories which tend to usurp the 
 sacred offices of mother and home. 
 38 
 
A Study of Tenn yson's "Princess" 
 
 In the despatch which Ida sends to her 
 brother she acknowledges the power of the 
 child in the following lines : 
 
 " I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
 This morning: there the tender orphan hands 
 Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence 
 The wrath I nursed against the world." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " I felt 
 Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
 In the dead prime." 
 
 Notice, too, how ubiquitous the babe is. Ida 
 carries it with her everywhere. It is on her 
 judgment seat, it shares in her song of triumph 
 when the tournament is ended, and is with her 
 on the battlefield when she is tending her 
 wounded brothers. 
 
 The babe is indeed the heroine of the story, 
 holding the epic along the channel of its main 
 motive, despite every current and breeze stirred 
 by foreign elements in its course. 
 
 It is not hard to read in this poem Tenny- 
 son's solution of the woman question, though 
 there are some who maintain that it is vague 
 and unsatisfactory. Such persons forget that 
 it is the office of the poet not so much to affirm 
 principles on a subject as to inspire the senti- 
 ments which ought to preside over the solution. 
 39 
 
A Study o^ Tennyson's "Princess' 
 
 It seems to us that the transfiguration of 
 Ida's nature under the influence of the affec- 
 tions is the only solution possible that could be 
 offered by the poet for the questions raised in 
 " The Princess." It is the office of poetry, not 
 to guide the conclusions of the intellect, but to 
 tone the feelings in accordance with truth and 
 duty. Poetry is not to teach the truth — it is 
 truth itself. 
 
 Those who have the interest of the true ad- 
 vancement of woman at heart should remember 
 that neither the whole race nor woman herself 
 can be benefited by any system of education 
 for woman at variance with Nature and not 
 co-ordinate with the highest needs of the race. 
 It is idle to discuss the equality or inequality of 
 gifts and faculties as between man and woman. 
 Every person knows that woman is not only 
 the equal of man in many respects, but his 
 superior in not a few ; yet this does not justify 
 her in waging a war with Nature and, with her 
 heart clothed in an iron panoply, riding forth 
 into the arena of dust and turmoil to perform 
 services for which the strong hand and knightly 
 heart of man as well as the vocation of cen- 
 turies have fitted him alone. 
 
 As to her education, that which enables her 
 
 every faculty to grow and unfold its beauty 
 
 and power, with no harm to her distinctive 
 
 womanhood — that should be her privilege and 
 
 40 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 right to enjoy; whether it be obtained in con- 
 vent or co-education hall. That woman needs 
 a greater breadth and solidity of intellectual 
 culture goes without saying, and this for two 
 reasons — to better fit her for the high moral 
 offices which belong to her domestic mission, 
 and to keep alive in her a just synipathy with 
 the larger social movements of which she is 
 the passive, but ought not to be the uninter- 
 ested spectator. 
 
 If Ida's theories were carried out, the child 
 element in woman and the feminine element in 
 man would be crushed out, and it is this very 
 feminine element in man which gives him 
 moral insight — it constitutes the poetic side of 
 his nature. Without the feminine element in 
 his nature Chaucer never could have written 
 " The Canterbury Tales." 
 
 Ida was right in seeking for a more generous 
 culture, but the spirit in which she sought 
 it was wrong. Mrs. Browning's Aurora 
 Leigh would be an artist first and then a 
 woman. Ida, too, would crush out the 
 womanly elements in her nature in her eager- 
 ness to satisfy the claims of the intellect. She 
 set the claims of the head above those of the 
 heart, and, like Aurora Leigh, she failed. 
 
 Enthusiasts often point to the glories 
 achieved by women through the centuries, and 
 make this a pretext for their vagaries and 
 41 
 
A Study of Tennyson's " Princess " 
 
 Utopian dreams. Secause Corinna won the 
 lyric prize from Pindar, and Judith delivered 
 her people from Holofernes, and Joan of Arc 
 repulsed the English from the walls of Orleans, 
 and Queen Elizabeth laid the foundation of 
 England's supremacy upon the sea, is it meet 
 that the whole social order should be turned 
 upside down and Nature wounded in its very 
 heart? Such enthusiasts forget that the 
 mother of Themistocles was greater than the 
 vanquisher of Pindar, the mother of St. Louis 
 of France greater than the Maid of Orleans, 
 and the mother of Shakespeare greater than 
 she who held with firm grasp the sceptre of 
 English sovereignty during the closing years 
 of the Tudor period. 
 
 In spite, therefore, of all theories to the con- 
 trary, in spite of many zealous but misguided 
 women who are looking in the near future for 
 the reign of woman and the complete subserv- 
 iency of man, the true mission of woman is, 
 and always will continue to be, within the do- 
 mestic sphere, where she conserves the accu- 
 mulated sum of the moral education of the 
 race, and keeps burning through the darkest 
 night of civilization upon the sacred altar of 
 humanity, the vestal fires of Truth, Beauty, and 
 Love. ( 
 
 42 
 
POETRY AND HISTORY TEACHING 
 FALSEHOOD 
 
POETRY AND HISTORY TEACHING 
 FALSEHOOD. 
 
 THE function of the poet is to speak essen- 
 tial truths as opposed to relative truths, 
 and Mrs. Browning in " Aurora Leigh " testi- 
 fies to this fact in the following lines : 
 
 " I write so 
 Of the only truth-tellers now left to God, 
 The only speakers of essential truth 
 Opposed to relative, comparative. 
 And temporal truths; the only holders by 
 His sun-skirts, through conventional gray glooms; 
 The only teachers who instruct mankind 
 From just a shadow on a charnel wall 
 To find man's veritable stature out 
 Erect, sublime, — the measure of a man; 
 And that's the measure of an angel says 
 The Apostle." 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the poetry of 
 the present day does not always fulfil this high 
 purpose. The poets of to-day — and by poets 
 of to-day I mean the poets of the past half- 
 century — are not " the only truth-tellers now 
 left to God." Nay, they are often dissemina- 
 tors of falsehood. It is true the non-Catholic 
 poet — a Wordsworth, a Byron, a Longfellow, 
 45 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 or a Tennyson — ^by being true to art and inspi- 
 ration, which has as its basis Catholic truth, 
 sometimes unwittingly expresses a Catholic 
 truth of the deepest significance. But as 
 poetry is only a reflection of life idealized, and 
 as there is nothing in poetry but what is in 
 life, we may expect the anti-Catholic seeds 
 scattered about by prejudiced hearts in the gar- 
 den of the world to bear the poisonous blos- 
 soms of falsehood as they are translated and 
 reflected in the pages of modern poetry. 
 
 And this is sometimes done indirectly. 
 Sometimes, too, it is done by expressing a half 
 truth or by seizing on some exceptional phase 
 of Catholic religious life and impressing it 
 upon the non-Catholic mind with an " Ab uno 
 disce omnes." 
 
 A concrete example will best illustrate this. 
 Browning has a poem entitled "The Bishop 
 Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church." 
 Now Browning's poetic workshop was Italy, 
 so this great psychological poet wrote: 
 
 " Open my heart and you shall see 
 Graven on it Italy." 
 
 He found in the land of Dante and Michael 
 Angelo fit subjects for his dramatic mono- 
 logues. The art world of Italy opened up to 
 Browning new themes, new thoughts. The 
 46 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 intense life of its people, full of the sweetness 
 and aroma of virtue and the dark tragedy of 
 vice, gave him scope which he could not find 
 elsewhere. Pity it is that he presents only the 
 dark side of Italian character. Pity it is that 
 the paganized and sensual Bishop of the Italian 
 Renaissance depicted by Browning in " The 
 Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's 
 Church " did not find setting, in his poems, as 
 a foil to the pure and pious men and women 
 who prayed before the shrines and in the clois- 
 ters of Italy when the new wine of old clas- 
 sicism poured from Homeric flasks and casks 
 had intoxicated the head and heart of that 
 garden of Europe and turned possible saints 
 into satyrs. 
 
 De Maistre, the great French publicist, has 
 said that history for the past three hundred 
 years has been a conspiracy against truth. 
 Aye, and poetry, too, whose countenance 
 should reflect the beauty of heavenly truth, 
 often wears the mask of the assassin. To-day 
 there are so-called advanced and up-to-date 
 scholars in our universities and clubs who hold 
 that " The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. 
 Praxed's Church " is a true reflection of the 
 religious life of the Italian Renaissance. They 
 quote Ruskin as saying of that poem : 
 
 " I know of no other piece of modern Eng- 
 lish, prose or poetry, in which there is so much 
 47 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 told as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit 
 — its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypoc- 
 risy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, 
 and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have 
 said of the Central Renaissance, in thirty pages 
 of the ' Stones of Venice,' put into as many 
 lines, Browning's being also the antecedent 
 work." 
 
 We would say just here to students of litera- 
 ture and history: Let not the shadow of a 
 great literary name overawe you. John Rus- 
 kin did a great deal for art and criticism, but 
 he is far from being an infallible apostle of 
 truth in either domain; and though he loved 
 the lowly, brown-hooded friars of St. Francis, 
 this love was not based on spiritual affinity, 
 but on the poetry and art bound up in their 
 humble lives. 
 
 John Ruskin and Robert Browning, respec- 
 tively art critic and poet, have done the reli- 
 gious life of the Italian Renaissance a grievous 
 wrong — nay, they grossly misrepresent it when 
 they say that this abnormal picture of a Re- 
 naissance Catholic bishop truly represents and 
 reflects the religious life of Italy at that period. 
 No doubt but a certain amount of abuses and 
 corruption prevailed in the Church at that time, 
 largely as a consequence of the worldly spirit 
 which had gained entrance into it during its 
 exile at Avignon. 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 However, all was not darkness and sin. 
 The vivifying life of the Church was not exem- 
 plified in the Bishop of St. Praxed's. As the 
 great historian of the Popes of the Renais- 
 sance, Dr. Ludwig Pastor, says, " If those days 
 were full of failings and sins of every kind, 
 the Church was not wanting in glorious mani- 
 festations through which the source of her 
 higher life revealed itself. Striking contrasts 
 — deep shadows on the one hand and most con- 
 soling gleams of sunshine on the other — are 
 the special characteristics of this period. If 
 the historian of the Church of the fifteenth 
 century meets with some unworthy prelates 
 and bishops, he also meets in every part of 
 Christendom with an immense number of men 
 distinguished for their virtue, piety and learn- 
 ing, not a few of whom have been, by the sol- 
 emn voice of the Church, raised to her altars." 
 
 Limiting ourselves to the most remarkable 
 individuals of the period of which we are about 
 to treat, we shall mention only the saints and 
 holy men and women given by Italy to the 
 Church : St. Bernardine of Siena, of the order 
 of Minorites, whose eloquence won for him 
 the title of " Trumpet of Heaven and fountain 
 of knowledge " ; around him are grouped his 
 holy brothers in religion, Saints John Capes- 
 tran and Jacopo della Marca. St. Antonius, 
 whose unexampled zeal was displayed in 
 
 4 49 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 Florence, the very centre of the Renaissance, 
 had for his disciples blessed Antonio Neyrot 
 of Ripoli and Constanzio di Fabriano. In 
 the order of St. Augustine are the following 
 who have been beatified : Andrea, who died 
 at Montereale in 1497; Antonio Turriani, 
 in I49'4. In 1440 St. Frances, the foundress 
 of the Oblates, was working at Rome. The 
 labors of another founder, St. Francis of Paula, 
 who died in 1507, belong in part to this period. 
 These names, to which many more might be 
 added, furnish the most striking proof of the 
 vitality of religion in Italy at the time of the 
 Renaissance. Such fruits do not ripen on 
 treses which are " decayed and rotten to the 
 core." 
 
 Indeed, it is astonishing what nonsense is 
 talked about this period of the Italian Renais- 
 sance, especially as it influenced the religious 
 life of the people. In one breath our would-be 
 professors w'ill tell you that the Italian Renais- 
 sance movement swept the Catholic Church 
 into a vortex of paganism — ^pope, cardinals, 
 bishops, and all ; and in the next they will lead 
 you to believe that the Catholic Church set its 
 face against the new revival of classical learn- 
 ing, fearing that the development of the intel- 
 lect would be prejudicial to the faith of the 
 people. Either slander will effect its end. 
 
 As we write we have before us two historical 
 so 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 works of somewhat recent publication : " Books 
 and Their Makers During the Middle Ages," 
 by George Haven Putnam, A.M., and " A 
 General History of Europe," by Professors 
 Thatcher and Schwill, of Chicago University. 
 As the latter is now used as a text-book in 
 many American High Schools, we will deal 
 with its worth and wisdom first. 
 
 There is but one Chicago University in the 
 world, and we might expect its distinguished 
 professors of medieval and modern European 
 history to understand at least the elementary 
 truths of the Catholic Church and something 
 of its spirit and policy. 
 
 Let us examine for a moment some of the 
 statements contained in this " General History 
 of Europe," by Professors Thatcher and 
 Schwill. Here is a choice morsel which will 
 amuse the student of Church history. The 
 topic is " The Church and Feudalism." The 
 author says : " As late as the eleventh century 
 it was not at all uncommon for the clergy to 
 marry. Since fiefs were hereditary, it seemed 
 perfectly proper that their children should be 
 provided for out of the Church lands which 
 they held. But unless all their children became 
 clerg3mien these lands would pass into the 
 hands of laymen and therefore be lost to the 
 Church. One of the purposes of the prohibi- 
 tion of the marriage of the clergy was to pre- 
 51 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 vent this alienation and diminution of the 
 Church lands." 
 
 And this little paragraph dealing with the 
 Italian Renaissance, found on page 264 of the 
 same work : " Medieval life knew nothing of 
 the freedom, beauty and joy of the Greek 
 world. . . . The medieval man had no 
 eye for the beauty of nature. To him nature 
 was evil. God had indeed created the world 
 and pronounced it very good, but through the 
 fall of man all nature had been corrupted. 
 Satan was now the prince of the world. As 
 a result no one could either study or admire 
 nature." Pray note the force of the auxiliary 
 " could." 
 
 Just think of it! A Catholic — a medieval 
 Catholic — was forbidden to look at or admire 
 a flower, a forest, or a mountain peak. How 
 so much of nature got mixed up in the singing 
 of " Old Dan Chaucer," a Catholic poet of the 
 fourteenth century, we know not. 'Tis a mys- 
 tery. Chaucer is essentially the poet of the 
 daisy, and robed it in verse long before Burns 
 turned it over with his plough. 
 
 Then we have the brown-hooded and gentle 
 Friar, St. Francis of Assisi, who was wont to 
 call the birds of the air and the beasts of the 
 field his brothers, and who composed canticles 
 to the winds, the flowers and the sun. Did 
 the erudite professors of Chicago University 
 
 52 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 ever make a study of Gothic architecture, the 
 distinct inspiration and creation of medieval 
 times? If so, they will remember that plants 
 and flowers play, in symbolism, an important 
 part in ornamentation. The hatred of nature 
 as well as the hatred of art imputed to the 
 early Christians is simply a " fable convenue" 
 manufactured by the partisan and superficial 
 historian who is either too dishonest or indo- 
 lent to state or reach the real facts. 
 
 It is enough to say that Professors Thatcher 
 and Schwill's work is actually ' teeming with 
 historical inaccuracies and gross misrepresenta- 
 tions of the Catholic Church. Whether by 
 inference or blunt statement, these two profes- 
 sors have written themselves down in the pages 
 of their history either as ignorant or dishonest 
 historians, and it is unworthy of a presumably 
 great university, such as Chicago, to give its 
 imprimatur to such unreliable and unscholarly 
 works. 
 
 But lest we may not have convicted as yet 
 Professors Thatcher and Schwill of having 
 misrepresented the truth, life and policy of the 
 Catholic Church in the pages of their history, 
 we shall cite one more paragraph found on page 
 172. It deals with monasticism. The author 
 says : " The philosophic basis of asceticism is 
 the belief that matter is the seat of evil, and 
 therefore that all contact with it is contamin- 
 5.3 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 ating. This conception of evil is neither Chris- 
 tian nor Jewish, but purely heathen. Jesus 
 freely used the good things of this world and 
 taught that sin is in nothing external to man, 
 but has its seat only in the heart. But His; 
 teaching was not understood by His followers. 
 The peculiar form which this asceticism in the 
 Church took is called monasticism. 
 After about 175 A.D. the Church rapidly grew 
 worldly. As Christianity became popular large 
 numbers entered the Church and became Chris- 
 tians in name; but at heart and in life they 
 remained heathen. The bishops were often 
 proud and haughty and lived in grand style. 
 Those who were really in earnest about their 
 salvation, unsatisfied with such worldliness, 
 fled from the contamination in the Church and 
 went to live in the desert and find the way to 
 God without the aid of the Church : her means 
 of grace were for common Christians. Those 
 who would could obtain, by means of asceti- 
 cism and prayer, all that others received by 
 means of the sacraments of the Church. There 
 were to be two ways of salvation : one through 
 the Church and her means of grace ; the other 
 through asceticism and contemplation." 
 
 There is assuredly something of the histori- 
 cal naivete of the schoolboy in the above. 
 Mark when the Christian Church became cor- 
 rupt — nearly one hundred and fifty years be- 
 54 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 fore it was upheld by the arm of Constantine 
 and when it had been hiding for more than 
 one hundred years in the Catacombs carving 
 and painting in symbol the truths and mysteries 
 of God. This was the corruption, that as 
 Christ had birth in the lowly manger of Beth- 
 lehem so the Church, His Spouse, was cradled 
 in humility, hidden away from the purple rage 
 of the Caesars, and, like a little child whose 
 dreams are of the past and the future, was 
 rudely fashioning her life and soul in terms of 
 eternity, in symbols of the palm, the dove and 
 the lamb. 
 
 Now let us cite from Putnam's " Books and 
 Their Makers in the Middle Ages " an instance 
 of historical contradiction within the compass 
 of three pages. It is said that he who mis- 
 represents the truth must have a good memory^ 
 but the author of " Books and Their Makers in 
 the Middle Ages " is evidently devoid of that 
 faculty, otherwise he would not have contra- 
 dicted himself in almost succeeding pages of 
 his work. Here is the contradiction. He is 
 speaking of book-making at the time of the 
 Italian Renaissance. On page 331, Vol. I., the 
 author says : " A production of Beccadelli's, 
 perhaps the most brilliant of Alfonso's literary 
 proteges, is to be noted as having been pro- 
 scribed by the Pope, being one of the earliest 
 Italian publications to be so distinguished. 
 55 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 Eugenius IV. forbade, under penalty of ex- 
 communication, the reading of Beccadelli's 
 " Hermaphroditus," which was declared to be 
 contra bonos mores. The book was denounced 
 from many pulpits, and copies were burned, 
 together with portraits of the poet, on the pub- 
 lic squares of Bologna, Milan and Ferrara." 
 
 On page 333 of the same volume Putnam 
 Writes — and we beg the reader will compare 
 carefully the two statements : " Poggio is to 
 be noted as a free thinker who managed to keep 
 in good relations with the Church. So long 
 as free thinkers confined their audacity to such 
 ■matters as form the topic of Poggio's ' Face- 
 tiae I Beccadelli's ' Hermaphroditus ' or La 
 Casa's ' Capitolo del Farno ' the Roman Curia 
 looked on and smiled approvingly. The most, 
 obscene books to be found in any literature 
 escaped the Papal censure, and a man like Are- 
 tino, notorious for his ribaldry, could aspire 
 zvith fair prospects of success to the scarlet of 
 a Cardinal. 
 
 These are the kind of books that stuff the 
 shelves of the libraries in our great secular uni- 
 versities. 
 
 There is perhaps no other period in the his- 
 tory of the world that requires more careful 
 investigation than that of the Renaissance in 
 Italy,' and this because of its complex charac- 
 ter. Speaking of this complexity Dr. Pastor 
 56 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 says : " In the nature of things it must be ex- 
 tremely difficult to present a truthful • picture 
 of an age which witnessed so many revolutions 
 affecting almost all departments of human life 
 and thought, and abounded in contradictions 
 and startling contrasts. But the difficulty be- 
 comes enormously increased if we are endea- 
 voring to formulate a comprehensive apprecia- 
 tion of the moral and religious character of 
 such an epoch. In fact in one sense the task is 
 an impossible one. No mortal eye can pene- 
 trate the conscience of a single man; how 
 much less can any human intellect strike the 
 balance between the incriminating and the ex- 
 tenuating circumstances on which our judg- 
 ment of the moral condition of such a period 
 depends, amid the whirl of conflicting events. 
 In a rough way, no doubt, we can form an 
 estimate, but it can never pretend to absolute 
 accuracy. As Burckhardt, author of ' The 
 Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in 
 Italy/ says : ' In this region the more clearly 
 the facts seem to point to any conclusion the 
 more must we be upon our guard against 
 unconditional or universal assertions.' " 
 
 It were well assuredly if some of our profes- 
 sors of history in the great secular universities 
 — professors who assume to understand the 
 Catholic Church and her policy better than her 
 own clergy and laity — it were well, we say, if 
 57 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 these would lay to their historical souls 
 Pastor's judicial words ere they indict the 
 " Renaissance Period " and blacken the charac- 
 ter of its popes, its prelates and its people. 
 
 The truth is that few if any non-Catholic 
 students read Catholic historical works to-day. 
 Jansen's great work, dealing with the social 
 and religious life of Germany in the period 
 that preceded the advent of Luther, is con- 
 sidered to be the last word on this debatable 
 ground, and yet how many non-Catholic stu- 
 dents have ever opened its pages? The same 
 may be said of Pastor's monumental work. 
 " Lives of the Popes Since the Close of the 
 Middle Ages." When this ignorance of Cath- 
 olic fact is supplemented by the reading of 
 such misrepresentation as is found in Brown- 
 ing's poem, " The Bishop Orders His Tomb," 
 what hope can there be of justice to Catholic 
 truth and the Catholic faith in our great secu- 
 lar universities ? 
 
 We see, then, that not alone are the facts of 
 history falsified, but the genius of the poet is 
 enlisted to give glamor and glow to the his- 
 torical slander. 
 
 Take again Tennyson's poem, " St. Simeon 
 Stylites." This is a satire on ascetic life. 
 Tennyson was a Broad Churchman, and it is 
 said that he was particularly careful not to 
 write anything that would offend the religious 
 S8 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 feelings of any of his friends. He saw, how- 
 ever, at the time of the " Oxford Movement," 
 the English mind in certain quarters look with 
 favor on monasticism, and he wrote " St. 
 Simeon Stylites " as a rebuke to the movement. 
 But is it a true picture of the spirit and life of 
 those early hermits of the desert ? Not at all. 
 Tennyson as a satirist did not aim at truth, but 
 rather at exaggeration. So he puts into the 
 mouth of this pillar-fixed saint these words of 
 pride : 
 
 " A time may come, yea, even now, 
 When you may worship me without reproach. 
 And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones. 
 When I am gathered to the glorious Saints." 
 
 The essence of the Catholic faith is not " the 
 torpidity of assurance," but the working out of 
 one's salvation in fear and trembling. That 
 pride should sometimes gain entrance into the 
 cloister and assume the garb of humility is no 
 doubt true ; but the self-renunciation which is 
 the true spirit of the cloister, giving up all for 
 the service of God, is in itself a mantle of virtue 
 — a seamless garment of grace which neither 
 the false satire of a Tennyson nor the flash- 
 light of a Browning monologue can transform 
 from a beauteous raiment of light. 
 
 It is true that the same pen which gave us 
 "St. Simeon " gave us also these beautiful lines 
 59 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 in " St. Agnes' Eve," a poem which is stirred 
 with the loveliness and tenderness of religious 
 life. St. Agnes on the very eve of death utters 
 these ecstatic words in beatific vision : 
 
 " He lifts me to the golden doors ; 
 
 The flashes come and go ; 
 All heaven bursts her starry floors. 
 
 And strews her lights below, 
 And deepens on and up ! The gates 
 
 Roll back, and far within 
 For me the heavenly Bridegroom waits 
 
 To make me pure of sin. 
 The Sabbaths of Eternity, 
 
 One Sabbath deep and wide — 
 A light upon the shining sea — 
 
 The Bridegroom with his bride." 
 
 The student, before accepting Tennyson's 
 poetic or, more correctly, satiric picture of the 
 hermits of the desert in the early centuries of 
 the Church as represented in " St. Simeon Sty- 
 lites," would do well to study the condition of 
 the Christian, or rather pagan, world at the 
 time when the hermits fled to the deSert. It 
 is a remote period in the life of the world, and 
 like all remote periods you must translate your- 
 self into it if you would clearly and justly 
 understand it. But we warn you that Kings- 
 ley's " Hermits " will not enlighten you. 
 
 Catholics have no need to apologize for the 
 life or policy of their Church during its reign 
 60 
 
Poetry and History Teaching Falsehood 
 
 of nineteen hundred years. It is a book open 
 to the world, and every chapter in it is a record 
 of the spiritual and intellectual progress of 
 man. There have been, indeed, twilight 
 epochs — spiritual eclipses — when man seemed 
 to forget his divine destiny ; but the Church of 
 God still stood at her altars waiting for her 
 people to kneel — waiting for the " Introibo ad 
 altare Dei" to reach the heart of king and 
 noble, peasant and slave. 
 
 Therefore as a student of history and litera- 
 ture we protest against every misrepresentation 
 of Catholic truth, whether within the pages of 
 history, fiction or poetry, no matter who may 
 be its author — a professor in one of our New 
 World universities, a Marie Corelli counting 
 her gains as she kneels at the shrine of a pub- 
 lisher, a Tennyson striking the chords of false- 
 hood and " looking down towards Camelot," 
 or a Browning constructing his little mono- 
 logue chapel by the wayside to seduce from 
 Catholic truth his poetic pilgrim — it is ever 
 misrepresentation wearing the specious garb of 
 truth, whether it be in history or fiction or 
 poetry teaching falsehood. 
 
 6i 
 
THE STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 
 OF LITERATURE 
 
THE STUDY AND INTERPRETATION 
 OF LITERATURE. 
 
 THE study of literature has of late years 
 become somewhat sane and rational in 
 its aim and purpose. There was a time, and 
 that not very long ago, when literature was 
 forced to yield up its spirit in the class-room 
 to mere analysis or a talk about grammar, 
 philology, rhetoric and sundry other irrelevant 
 subjects. 
 
 To-day, however, in the best schools and 
 colleges, this vicious method, which has for 
 years worked destruction to true literary cul- 
 ture, has pretty well died out ; nor is a through 
 ticket by flying express down the centuries 
 from Chaucer to Tennyson any longer re- 
 garded as satisfactory evidence that the privi- 
 leged passenger knows much of the glory 
 which nestles on the way. 
 . How any person can hope to become a lit- 
 erary scholar in the highest and best sense of 
 the word without assimilating the informing 
 life of literature has . always seemed to us a 
 problem in dire need of solution. We can well 
 understand how one may possess himself of the 
 5 6s 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 literature of Isnowledge without such assimila- 
 tion, but how he can become possessed of the 
 literature of power without responding to the 
 inner life of an art product, is to us a question 
 incomprehensible. 
 
 Nor has the old spirit, we fear, been fully 
 and wholly exorcised, as yet, from the class 
 and lecture room. There are still to be found 
 those who believe that the analytical exegesis 
 of literature should be the main purpose of the 
 teacher — ^that to elucidate the intellectual 
 thought which articulates a poem, precipitating 
 it from a concrete creation into a barren ab- 
 straction—this and this alone should be the aim 
 and end of all literary study in the school or 
 lecture room. 
 
 The fault with such persons is, that they do 
 not, fully understand and appreciate the true 
 meaning and import of literature, mistaking 
 its lesser coefficient for its chief and primary 
 one. No definition of literature can be at all" 
 adequate which does not take into consideration 
 the spiritual element as a factor. The late 
 Brother Azarias, whose study of literature was 
 most profound, clear and sympathetic, gives us 
 a definition in the very opening chapter of his 
 charming little volume, " A Philosophy of Lit- 
 erature," which is entirely satisfactory. He 
 regards literature as the verbal expression of 
 man's affections, as acted upon in his relations 
 
 66 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 with the material world, society and his Crea- 
 tor. Literature may therefore be defined as 
 the expression in letters of the spiritual co-op- 
 erating with the intellectual man, the former 
 being the dominant co-efficient. 
 
 Knowing, then, that the spiritual element 
 constitutes the informing life of a poem, how 
 can teachers fritter their time away with bril- 
 liant analytics which do little or nothing for 
 true literary culture? Better, far better, that 
 the students under their charge be turned loose 
 in some library — there to browse at will, free 
 to follow their literary tastes and inclinations. 
 
 We have long ;, consi dered t hat examinations 
 fQIL.certifica±e&...an.d -degrees are ^fot. the.. most 
 part a_ detriment to literary studies^hat they 
 dull the finer faculties of appreciation, and^mag- 
 nify the importance of mere acquisition. As- 
 suredly, when a young man finds that in order 
 to reach his diploma or degree he must be able 
 to discuss the Elizabethan English as found in 
 Shakespeare's " Macbeth " and " As You Like 
 It," or trace the gerundial infinitive through 
 Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales," he will pay 
 little heed to either the spirit of Shakespeare 
 or Chaucer as embodied in their works. 
 
 In our great eagerness to fill our heads with 
 
 facts, without any co-ordination, we lose sight 
 
 amid the stress and strain of our educational 
 
 work of the one great fact: That if we 
 
 67 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 would be wisely educated, we must seek it on 
 the basis of a maximum of education with a 
 minimum of acquirement. It is impossible to 
 play fast and loose with the spirit of literature 
 and not suffer for our insincerity. Literature 
 is a jealous mistress and will brook no rival. 
 Those who woo her must come with clean 
 hearts and minds, setting aside all thought of 
 mercenary returns, for, as Mrs. Browning 
 says: 
 
 " We get no good 
 In being ungenerous, even to a book. 
 And calculating profits — so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong into a book's profound 
 Impassion'd for its beauty and salt of truth — 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book.'' 
 
 Another fault which characterizes the lit- 
 erary studies of to-day is, that we grasp at too 
 much, and not a little that we fain would com- 
 pass is, as far as literary training and culture 
 are concerned, entirely unimportant. A few 
 great literary personages — epochal men — who 
 have handed the intellectual torch down the cen- 
 turies — these are worthy of a devoted study. 
 We think it is Ruskin who says that he who 
 knows the history of Rome, Venice, Florence, 
 Paris and London has a full knowledge of 
 medieval and modern civilization. Twenty 
 68 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 authors are not many, still they largely cover 
 the great masterpieces of poetic thought, both 
 ancient and modern. Homer, Virgil and 
 Dante, Calderon, Moliere and Goethe, Chaucer, 
 Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth 
 and Tennyson — ^these contain much of the best 
 poetic thought in all ages, and yet we have but 
 named little more than half of the twenty. 
 There is a flood of ephemeral literature — 
 chiefly novels — day by day deluging the land, 
 which fashion and frivolity set up for literary 
 study. How much harm these novels do, lash- 
 ing with their waves the moral shores of life, 
 God alone knows. To-day, in the minds of 
 many, the novel has supplanted the Bible, and 
 the ethics of George Eliot take precedence of 
 the Sermon on the Mount. It is doubtful if 
 either Cardinal Newman or John Ruskin ever 
 read a line of Tolstoi, Ibsen or Kipling, and 
 yet both hold respectable places in literature. 
 Passing now from the subject of literature 
 in itself to a consideration of its interpretation, 
 we desire to touch upon a subject of vital im- 
 port : The Vocal Interpretation of Literature 
 The spiritual element in a poem is indefinite 
 and cannot be formulated in terms of x and y. 
 No examination on paper, be it ever so thor- 
 ough, can satisfactorily reach it. The only 
 full response to this spiritual element, this 
 essential life of a poem, that can be secured 
 69 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 by the teacher is through a vocal rendering of 
 it. But before he is capable of doing so he 
 must first have sympathetically assimilated the 
 INFORMING life of the poem. This is why no 
 person need hope to become a great reader 
 without a deep and sympathetic study of litera- 
 ture, nor a great interpreter of literature — 
 which means a great teacher of literature — 
 without the vocal capabilities requisite for 
 voicing the indefinite or spiritual element 
 which constitutes the soul of an art product. 
 A true literary scholar is one who grows soul- 
 ward. It is not enough that he store his mind 
 with intellectual facts, he should grow vitalized 
 at every point of his soul in his literary studies. 
 
 " Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell." 
 
 Knowledge is of the intellect, wisdom and 
 reverence of the soul. We should aim, in our 
 study of literature, to pierce through the show 
 of things — to reach the vital, quickening, 
 spiritual element, by breaking through the 
 baffling and perverting mesh of words which 
 hide and blind it. How true are the lines of 
 the late Poet Laureate : 
 
 " I sometimes hold it half a sin 
 To put in words the thoughts I feel, 
 For words, like nature, half reveal 
 
 And half conceal the soul within." 
 70 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 Herein, then, comes the office of the voice 
 in literary interpretation — to aid in laying bare 
 the soul within. When the same time is given 
 in preparing the voice for the high office of 
 literary interpretation that is now devoted to 
 it in' preparation for the operatic and concert 
 stage, then we may look for the best and high- 
 est results in literary study. Then, indeed, 
 will the throbbing pulse of poetry be felt in the 
 class and lecture room, and the divine infection 
 of inspiration will do its benign work, cheating 
 the lazy and indifferent student of his hours 
 and days. 
 
 Many make the mistake of believing that 
 they may become capable vocal interpreters of 
 literature in a month or a year, whereas the 
 great work should cover a lifetime. Professor 
 Corson, of Cornell University, who is acknow- 
 ledged to be the ablest vocal interpreter of lit- 
 erature in America, once told the writer that 
 he had made it a custom to read aloud for an 
 hour each day for more than twenty-five years. 
 Those who have been privileged to hear Pro- 
 fessor Corson interpret vocally the great mas- 
 terpieces of poetic literature, as found in 
 Shakespeare, Tennyson, Coleridge, Words- 
 worth, Milton and Browning, can better under- 
 stand and appreciate the true value of vocal 
 culture as a factor in the great work of literary 
 interpretation. 
 
 71 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 If we could combine the voice work of our 
 best schools of elocution and oratory with the 
 fullest and most comprehensivfe courses in lit- 
 erature found in our best universities, we might 
 soon hope for the very summit of literary 'cul- 
 ture and training. The worst of our elocu- 
 tion schools are a positive injury to vocal 
 training as a worthy factor in the interpretation 
 of literature, inasmuch as they induce both 
 superficiality and artificiality, their chief ambi- 
 tion being to graduate pretty girls with pretty 
 gowns who can recite some catch-penny piece 
 of current literature, before an assemblage of 
 admiring friends, according to the numbers or 
 lines upon an elocutionary chart or fashion 
 plate. When these graduates leave their 
 schools after a six months' course, all equipped 
 and prepared to voice the depths of Shake- 
 speare, the heights of Milton, or the zigzag 
 involutions of Browning, they never fail, also, 
 as a rule, to carry with them the brand or 
 trade-mark of their respective manufactories. 
 
 In the best of our elocution schools, such as 
 are found in Boston, Philadelphia and New 
 York, where saner and more thorough meth- 
 ods are pursued and a certain measure of lit- 
 erary scholarship finds a habitation and a 
 name, respectable attention is given to some of 
 the chief masterpieces of literature, and a grad- 
 
 72 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 uate knows something more than the scrappy 
 selections found in a few recitation books. 
 
 Still the aim of all these schools is to turn 
 out readers and teachers of reading, and this 
 very aim precludes a deep, serious and compre- 
 hensive study of literature. 
 
 In many of our leading colleges and univer- 
 sities there is a professor of oratory, who 
 trains young men for declamation and inter- 
 collegiate contests in oratory and debate, but 
 here again the aim determines the character 
 and limitations of the work done. The most 
 suitable department for voice training in a col- 
 lege or university is that of English literature, 
 for it is as needful in the dramas of Shake- 
 speare as in the orations of Webster and 
 Burke; as requisite in the lyrics of Moore, 
 Burns and Longfellow as in the glorious epics 
 of Homer, Dante and Milton ; as potent in the 
 sonnets of Cowper and Wordsworth as in the 
 tender elegies of a Shelley, an Arnold or a 
 Tennyson. 
 
 But what about the vocal interpretation of 
 literature in our primary and intermediate 
 schools — in our academies preparatory to col- 
 lege and university work? It is here where 
 the great work of vocal culture should begin 
 — and begin in earnest, too. But it should 
 never be pursued as an accomplishment or 
 means of frivolous display. The aim should 
 73 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 be, in every class, the adequate voicing of liter- 
 ary thought. Teachers will find in the voice 
 an invaluable aid in the work of interpreting, 
 particularly lyrics. 
 
 The lyHc being subjective, and its very life- 
 blood being feeling, a sympathetic vocal inter- 
 pretation of it will give a better insight into 
 its poetic moment or inspirational thought, 
 around which centres the whole structure, than 
 hours of sentence chopping and phrase stitch- 
 ing. For the purpose of illustrating this fact 
 let us take Tennyson's exquisite lyric, " Break, 
 Break, Break," which embodies or crystallizes 
 a mood. Here is the delightful little gem : 
 
 " Break, break, break, 
 
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 " O well for the fisherman's boy 
 
 That he shouts with his sister at play! 
 O well for the sailor-lad, 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay. 
 
 " And the stately ships go on 
 
 To their haven under the hill; 
 But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
 And -the sound of a voice that is still ! 
 
 " Break, break, break. 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 74 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 It will be remembered that this lyric, as well 
 as another poem, " In the Valley of Cauteretz," 
 though not contained in the linked elegy of 
 " In Memoriam," are practically a part of itj 
 and are co-radical as to their subject of inspira- 
 tion — the sorrow borne by Tennyson for 
 young Hallam. Here are the lines of the 
 second poem: 
 
 " All along the valley, stream that flashest white, 
 Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, 
 All along the valley, where thy waters flow, 
 I walked with one I loved two and thirty years ago. 
 All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day. 
 The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away ; 
 For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed. 
 Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead. 
 And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree. 
 The voice of the dead was a living voice to me." 
 
 It is easy to find the poetic moment in the 
 first lyric, as it may be seen and felt at once 
 that the whole poem-thought centres around 
 the inspirational lines : 
 
 " But O for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still." 
 We have seen an examination paper strewn 
 with questions upon this lyric, among them 
 being one asking for the reason why the first 
 line, "Break, break, break," is shorter in the 
 number of its feet than the others which fol- 
 75 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 low. As well ask for the reason of the per- 
 manency of parental or filial affection. The 
 question is entirely gratuitous to one who has 
 assimilated the poem in its essential life and 
 can voice it properly. To those who have not 
 responded, or, worse, cannot respond, to the 
 INFORMING life of the lyric, a technical answer 
 is of as much value as are many of the treat- 
 ises that assume to deal with the subject of 
 versification. But enough. Let the reader 
 be assured of one thing : That the vocal inter- 
 pretation of literature is in every way a sub- 
 ject worthy of his attention, and that he is the 
 best interpreter of literature whose every fac- 
 ulty is fully developed — ^not the least of which 
 is the voice — and who brings to his work a 
 full and vitally spiritualized life. 
 
 Now as to the best method of taking up the 
 study of literature — and we refer particularly 
 to that department of it known as poetry — in 
 our primary and secondary schools and col- 
 leges, why, we should say that the less method 
 put into the work the better. For indeed there 
 is no best method in the study and interpreta- 
 tion of literature. A poem being a work of 
 art, the approach to it must be along the same 
 lines as is the approach to every work of art. 
 
 As a matter of fact, no two interpreters of 
 literature — we use the word interpreter here 
 rather than that of teacher, since the study of 
 7(> 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 literature is entirely subjective — will ever ap- 
 proach a poem along exactly the same lines. 
 Why ? Because the poem makes to each a dif- 
 ferent appeal. 'Nothing is truer than the state- 
 ment that you get out of a poem what you 
 bring to it. But the teacher of literature 
 should ever remember that the primary purpose 
 in the study of poetry is not discipline and 
 instruction but exaltation and inspiration. 
 
 Dr. Hamilton Mabie, the well-known Amer- 
 ican critic and author, writing upon the study 
 of poetry, says : " So much has been said of 
 late years about methods of literary study that 
 we are in danger of missing the ends of that 
 study; in the multiplication of mechanical 
 devices of all kinds and in the elaboration of 
 systems the joy which ought to flow from a 
 true work of art escapes us, and we are dis- 
 ciplined and instructed where we ought to be 
 exalted and inspired. There are other studies 
 which train the mind and impart information; 
 the study of poetry ought to do more ; it ought 
 to liberate the imagination and enrich the spirit 
 of the student." 
 
 Dr. Corson, now Professor Emeritus of Eng- 
 lish Literature at Cornell University, N.Y., to 
 whom reference has already been made, whose 
 sympathetic interpretation of poetry will re- 
 main a gift and memory to every student who 
 has ever had the rare privilege of sharing in 
 77 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 his instruction and enjoying the fine infection 
 of his inspiring lectures, has this to say with 
 respect to the study of poetry : " In studying 
 a poem with a class of students, the purpose 
 being literary culture (that is, spiritual cul- 
 ture), the aim of the teacher should be to hold 
 the minds of the class up as near as possible, 
 which at best may not be very near, to the 
 height of the poet's thought and feeling. 
 He should carefully avoid loosening, so to 
 speak, more than there is need the close tex- 
 ture of the language; for it is all-important 
 that the student should be encouraged to think 
 and feel as far as he is able in the idealized 
 language of the higher poetry." 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that much of our 
 best poetry is expressed under the form of a 
 symbol. Take, for instance, Longfellow's 
 little simple lyric, " Excelsior." Think you 
 that the full meaning of that poem lies upon 
 the surface ? Instead of representing the fail- 
 ure of a youth climbing the Alpine peaks of 
 life, does the poem not rather represent the 
 triumph of a soul over all earthly difficulties, 
 freed from every worldly allurement? Is not 
 the voice we hear at the close " from the sky 
 serene and far" but the voice of triumphant 
 immortality? 
 
 If the student would indeed know what 
 poetry really means, and what is its function, 
 78 
 
The Study and Interpretation of Literature 
 
 and what the office of a poet, he should read 
 Tennyson's "The Poet's Mind" and "The 
 Lady of Shalott," the Fifth Book of Mrs. 
 Browning's " Aurora Leigh," and her " Mu- 
 sical Instrument," and Browning's poem, 
 " Popularity." In nearly all these poems the 
 meaning is expressed in s)mibol. 
 
 Another thing to remember in the interpre- 
 tation of poetry is that its value is constant; 
 nor has it one message or meaning for the boy 
 and -another for the man. But in order that 
 this may be realized it would be well to take 
 up first for interpretation in the classes the 
 poets whose work is chiefly confined to the 
 lyric, the idyl and the ballad, and leave for 
 mature years — ^the years of philosophic 
 thought — ^the study of poets of the more com- 
 plex and philosophic school. 
 
 79 
 
THE DEGRADATION OF 
 SCHOLARSHIP 
 
THE DEGRADATION OF 
 SCHOLARSHIP. 
 
 NOTHING is more evident in this our day 
 than the degradation to which scholar- 
 ship is subjected at the hands of certain so- 
 called educators. Indeed, it has bec^e a mal- 
 ady which sooner or later must prove fatal to 
 the life and welfare of the body educational. 
 How could it be otherwise when pedantry with 
 all its assumption and presumption usurps the 
 throne of scholarship, and true culture often 
 finds but little welcome in the class-rooms and 
 academic halls of our land ? 
 
 Nor is this an exaggerated picture of the 
 educational conditions which obtain right here 
 in the Province of Ontario. No person at all 
 acquainted with the character of work done in 
 our primary and secondary schools but knows 
 that in many respects it is not only inferior, 
 but that much that bears the name of scholar- 
 ship is only the merest pedantry tricked out in 
 the feathers and pomp of a school curriculum. 
 
 Should you ask for a proof of this statement 
 you have but to visit with an open and un- 
 biased mind the primary and secondary schools 
 83 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 of our Province and learn for yourself of their 
 lack of efficiency in the foundation subjects of 
 reading, writing, composition and spelling. 
 
 Should your desire lead you further to ascer- 
 tain somejthing of the character of the work 
 that is being done in the departments of what 
 may be designated culture subjects, such as 
 Latin, French and German, you will quickly 
 find proof that here it is pedantry rather than 
 scholarship which obtains. 
 
 As to the subject of reading, it is conceded 
 on all sides that it is badly taught in both the 
 Public and High Schools, and that along this 
 line little progress has been made for a number 
 of years. The High School teachers lay the 
 blame for this at the door of the Public 
 Schools, alleging that the pupils read very 
 badly when they enter the High Schools, for- 
 getting meantime that the charge recoils upon 
 themselves, since the teachers of the Public . 
 Schools are the product of the High Schools. 
 
 The fault lies in the fact that neither 
 teachers nor inspectors of Public or High 
 Schools in Ontario have had any training in 
 the subject of reading; or, if they have had, 
 it has only been along the line of barren and 
 worthless theorizing. This is borne out by the 
 fact that teachers who have from time to time 
 boldly ventured to prepare manuals of reading 
 have not been able to apply their own prin- 
 84 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 ciples, and as readers or vocal interpreters of 
 literature have been and are pronounced 
 failures. 
 
 If the teacher whose spirit has been quick- 
 ened by the deeper sympathies and experiences 
 of life cannot read, how, pray, can you expect 
 the boy or girl to do so? If "Learn by 
 doing " is pedagogically of great value to the 
 pupil, should it not be of equal value to the 
 teacher ? 
 
 Now turn we for a moment to the subject of 
 composition, and what do we find? A con- 
 dition which reveals manifest defects in its 
 teaching. We can readily put our finger on 
 its weak spots, and with Goethe say, " Thou 
 ailest here and ailest there." In the first place, 
 the translations in the secondary schools from 
 Greek, Latin, French and German authors are 
 so badly done, so inaccurately done, so inele- 
 gantly done, that what should be a daily prac- 
 tice in English composition in the construction 
 of sentences and paragraphs, the disposal of 
 phrases, and the choice of the exact word, 
 becomes almost worthless. The introduction 
 of no fad like oral composition will or can com- 
 pensate for this. 
 
 Again, while the Public and High Schools 
 
 are being provided with libraries — in many 
 
 instances quite an unnecessary expense being 
 
 entailed — little direction is given to the read- 
 
 8s 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 ing, and pupils gabble thoughtlessly through 
 books in mental gallop from chapter to chap- 
 ter without adding to the capital of their 
 scholarship a single new thought or idea, or 
 to their vocabulary a single new word. Was 
 it not at a convention of teachers, held but a 
 short time ago in an Ontario city, that a 
 Public School teacher boasted of the fact that 
 one of his pupils had read sixty books in 
 three months? And not a teacher present — • 
 not even the Inspector — ^protested. 
 
 Then, too, in many cases the teachers cannot 
 teach composition, since they cannot write 
 themselves. What does a teacher know about 
 sentence or paragraph construction, or the 
 logical and artistic expression of thought, who 
 has never served his time as an apprentice in 
 the great labot-atory of composition ? It is but 
 a few years since a leading Canadian jour- 
 nalist told the writer that among the letters 
 sent to his paper many of the worst and most 
 faulty came from teachers. 
 
 Lastly, the study of literature, which should 
 be an auxiliary to composition, nay, be its 
 right arm, is often such in our schools as to 
 aid the student but little in the work of com- 
 position. 
 
 There yet remain to be considered, of the 
 foundation subjects, writing and spelling. 
 Perhaps nowhere else in the world can be 
 86 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 found as many slovenly and bad writers as here 
 in the schools of Ontario. Go to England, 
 Ireland, Scotland, Germany or Switzerland, 
 and you will find that a boy or girl of fifteen 
 years of age writes a hand marvellously clear 
 and legible. Why is this ? Because in Europe 
 its importance is emphasized, and it counts for 
 quite as much in the estimate of acquirements 
 as arithmetic or grammar or history or geog- 
 raphy. We also know of no word in the 
 school vocabulary of Europe — in any lan- 
 guage — ^that exactly corresponds in meaning 
 to our word for school exercise book — " scrib- 
 bler." Sometimes a word when traced to its 
 origin is very significant. 
 
 Now just here it will be well, lest it might 
 be thought that we are making statements 
 without any facts to support them, to quote 
 from the official report of McGill University 
 matriculation examination held at Montreal 
 and the various examining centres of Canada 
 in June, 1908. Touching the subjects of writ- 
 ing and spelling, the chief examiner in his 
 report says : " The handwriting of some of the 
 candidates was so unformed and untidy that 
 it was hard to believe that the writers were 
 actually candidates at a matriculation exam- 
 ination. Certainly such candidates will stand 
 a poor chance of being accepted should they 
 look for any employment in which writing is 
 87 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 a factor. It is regrettable that a number of 
 papers otherwise excellent showed conspicuous 
 lapses in this particular. This will explain to 
 some candidates thoroughly well up in their 
 subject why their marks were not high. A 
 word of warning might be given them that if 
 they wish to have a high standing in English 
 when they come to college they must give their 
 days and nights to the study of the spelling- 
 book — or the dictionary, perhaps, for there are 
 no spelling-books nowadays." This is frank 
 criticism, and if hearkened to by schools and 
 colleges cannot but prove a benefit education- 
 ally. There is no attempt here to consider 
 the work of the examiner as " confidential." 
 Such criticism is, indeed, the basis of progress. 
 But pray enter the temple of higher studies 
 and see what we find. Assuredly the work 
 done in Latin is not thorough. How could it 
 be sa when a course that demands six or eight 
 years of study in Old World schools is com- 
 pleted here in three? Is it any wonder that 
 the Canadian matriculant, when pursuing his 
 classical studies at the University, ever lives on 
 intimate terms with his " crib " or " pony " ? 
 How extensive can be the vocabulary of a stu- 
 dent in Latin whose class work has covered 
 but four thirty-minute spaces a week for three 
 years? What will be his grasp of the Latin 
 grammar ? During his third year he has been 
 88 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 " sight reading." Is he really prepared for 
 such work at the end of the second year ? It 
 is quite true that " sight reading," or transla- 
 tion without preparation, is excellent practice 
 in the study of any language, but does it not 
 presuppose a solid grounding in the grammar 
 and a wide vocabulary? The boy's teacher, 
 fresh from the academic halls of his alma 
 mater, has pathetically bid farewell to his 
 " crib " or " pony," and now goes out into the 
 cold classical world alone to teach " sight read- 
 ing " to his class, that have been tiptoed into 
 Latin. What is the result ? In most instances 
 the work is worthless — a loss of time which 
 could have been far better devoted to the Latin 
 grammar or the extension of his vocabulary. 
 But it looks well, you know, in a High School 
 curriculum. 
 
 In the department of modern languages — 
 that is to say, French and German — a still 
 worse condition exists. After a three or four 
 years' course in those languages in an Ontario 
 High School, what does the student carry 
 away? The ability, think you, to converse in 
 those languages, to write them and read them 
 easily? Not at all. Though in many cases 
 the students have been taught by so-called spe- 
 cialists, their accent in reading French or 
 German is in most instances unlike that of 
 either " Christian, pagan or man." They have 
 89 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 prepared for an examination and have passed. 
 That is all. 
 
 The purpose in studying modern languages 
 in Europe is to be able to speak and write them 
 with ease. Here gabbling through syntax and 
 making application of its rules to the prescribed 
 text seem to constitute the chief aim in their 
 study. Indeed, an Ontario teacher who went 
 to Europe a couple of years ago for the pur- 
 pose of taking a summer course in modern 
 languages complained on his return that over 
 there too muth attention was given to the 
 speaking of the languages and not enough to 
 the grammar. He was probably disappointed 
 with Old World scholarship, finding that it 
 was so devoid of pedantry. No doubt gram- 
 mar has its place, but its role is a secondary 
 one in the acquisition of any modern language. 
 
 Let us for a moment consider next how the 
 important subject of history is taught in our 
 secondary schools. No one will deny how 
 large a place this subject should hold in a cur- 
 riculum of well ordered studies in either a 
 High School or a University. For what is his- 
 tory but a record of the activities of the human 
 race, and to have a thorough knowledge of this 
 is in itself equivalent to a liberal education. 
 
 But the student who pursues a course in his- 
 tory in the High Schools of Ontario is beset 
 with a double danger — that of endeavoring to 
 
 90 
 
The Degradation of Sch olarship 
 
 cover too much ground and thereby getting 
 but a superficial knowledge of the facts and 
 great movements of history, and that of basing 
 his judgments on data drawn from only one 
 source. 
 
 The course in history, as at present consti- 
 tuted in the High School curriculum of On- 
 tario, comprises five years. Now, certainly a 
 good deal should be done in that time, but it 
 would be the sheerest folly to think that any 
 boy or girl could within that time gain even 
 a fair knowledge of the history of Greece, 
 Rome, Canada, England, medieval and modern 
 Europe. This tiptoeing the pupils in his- 
 tory is not a whit better than tiptoeing 
 them in Latin, French or German. Indeed, 
 we are not sure but it works greater harm to 
 true scholarship. We are living in an age 
 when education is becoming so widely diffused 
 that scholarship as a consequence is becoming 
 very superficial and thin. 
 
 As we write we have before us the Syllabus of 
 the Ontario High School Course in Medieval 
 and Modem History. It briefly outlines the 
 scope of the work to be done and gives a list 
 of books to be consulted as works of reference. 
 Now, the scientific method of studying history 
 warns you to take nothing for granted. First 
 you must verify the facts by examining the 
 witnesses that testify to these facts. Secondly, 
 91 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 you must properly appreciate or value these 
 facts from the point of view of principles that 
 ought to govern human actions,' and thirdly, 
 these facts should be explained by going back 
 to the causes, whether particular or general, 
 that produced them. That is, the scientific 
 method in history requires, first, verification; 
 secondly, appreciation or valuation; and 
 thirdly, explanation of historic facts. 
 
 In a High School it is true there is not suf- 
 ficient time for historical research or investi- 
 gation, but there is sufficient time to study a 
 question on more than one side ; there is suffi- 
 cient time to be honest ; there is sufficient time 
 to prefer truth to falsehood; and where in a 
 mooted point the policy and teachings of the 
 Catholic Church are involved there should be 
 sufficient time and sufficient honesty to consult 
 authors who know whereof they write. Take 
 for example the history of the Middle Ages. 
 Without a thorough and correct knowledge of 
 the policy, teachings and work of the Catholic 
 Church, how, I ask, may the student hope 
 to follow and understand the great move- 
 ments of history in those centuries? In the 
 first place, the Catholic Church in the Middle 
 Ages was the bulwark of sovereignty, law and 
 order,, the founder of universities, the patron 
 of letters, the inspiration of art, the shield of 
 the oppressed, and a very staff and guide to 
 92 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 the halting and stumbling steps of civilization. 
 She was knowledge, she was authority, she 
 was order, she was reverence. 
 
 Taking up now the books of reference 
 recommended in the Syllabus of the High 
 School Course in Medieval and Modern His- 
 tory in Ontario, we find the work of but one 
 Catholic author on the reference list — " Eng- 
 lish Monastic Life," by Dom Gasquet, the 
 Benedictine. Is this not truly a one-sided 
 study of history that obtains in the secondary 
 schools of Ontario? Yet the teachers of his- 
 tory in those schools are supposed to be broad- 
 minded and. cultured men. Why, then, should 
 they refuse to read the Catholic point of view 
 in the study of historical periods and historical 
 movements in which the Catholic Church was 
 the greatest factor? 
 
 It will not do to say that Catholic authors 
 are not available. Translations have been 
 made of many of the most valuable works in 
 medieval and modem history written by lead- 
 ing Catholic scholars of Europe. We usually 
 find what we look for. Why, for instance, not 
 put on the list of reference books the lives of 
 St. Benedict, St. Dominic, St. Francis and St. 
 Ignatius written by members of their own 
 communities? They should best understand 
 the meaning, spirit and purpose of the religious 
 society in which they live. Why not put on 
 93 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 the list the great German historian Jansen's 
 work dealing with the history of Germany on 
 the eve of the Lutheran revolt, or. Father 
 Denifle's monumental work, " The Life of 
 Luther " ? For the beginnings of Christianity 
 why not put on the list Dr. Shahan's excellent 
 studies in this subject, as well as his scholarly 
 work on the Middle Ages? For a study of the 
 Thirteenth Century, which saw the founding 
 of the medieval university, the rise of the 
 Gothic cathedral, the development of scholastic 
 philosophy, the birth of Dante, the world's 
 greatest epic poet, the composition of the great 
 Latin hymns, the foundation of great libraries, 
 and the origin of democracy. Christian social- 
 ism' and self-government, is there a better work 
 of reference than Dr. J. J. Walsh's " The Thir- 
 teenth, Greatest of Centuries"? Why, then, 
 not put it on the list? And beside this, why 
 not put on the list Pastor's " Lives of the 
 Popes Since the Close of the Middle Ages " ? 
 
 If the purpose in the study of history be to 
 reach truth, why accept in the court of history 
 the testimony of but one set of witnesses? 
 Such a proceeding is neither judicial nor just. 
 It would not be permitted in the law courts of 
 our land; why, then, permit it in the h'istory 
 courts of our schools and colleges? 
 
 Nor is this ex-parte study of history more 
 obvious in the curriculum of the High Schools 
 94 
 
The Degradation of Schola rship 
 
 of Ontario than is the objectionable character 
 of many of the poems that are assigned for 
 literary study. In the selections from Brown- 
 ing of last year this choice stanza greeted the 
 Catholic pupils in their study and appreciation 
 of " Up at a Villa— Down in the City " : 
 
 " Or a sonnet with flowery marge to the Reverend 
 Don So and So, 
 Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome and 
 
 Cicero. 
 'And moreover' (the sonnet goes rhyming), 'the 
 
 skirts of St. Paul has reached, 
 Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more 
 
 unctuous than ever he preached.' 
 Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady 
 
 borne smiling and smart 
 With a pink gauze gown all spangles and seven swords 
 
 stuck in her heart ! 
 Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te- 
 
 tootle the fife; 
 No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest 
 
 pleasure in life." 
 
 It may, we think, be legitimately questioned 
 whether either the study in our secondary 
 schools of a one-sided presentation of the facts 
 of history or the' interpretation of poems which 
 ridicule the tenets and ceremonies of any 
 Church conduces to that breadth of scholar- 
 ship and culture and to the upbuilding of that 
 large-minded Canadian citizenship which we 
 all so heartily desire in our land. 
 95 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 Is it not on the plea that these higher insti- 
 tutions of learning— High Schools and Nor- 
 mal Schools — are broad and just and free from 
 prejudice in their teaching that the Roman 
 Catholic Separate School System has been per- 
 sistently denied by successive Governments in 
 this Province the right to develop beyond an 
 •elementary status, though this right is mani- 
 festly inherent or implied in the very pact 
 which made provision for. the establishment of 
 Separate Schools for the minorities in the Pro- 
 vinces of Quebec and Ontario. The Govern- 
 ment of Quebec has recognized the right; the 
 Government of Ontario refuses to do so. 
 
 Now a word as to certain conditions edu- 
 cational which prevail in Ontario and which 
 have not only led to abuses but are contributing 
 factors to the degradation of scholarship as 
 well as to the debasement of the teaching pro- 
 fession. 
 
 And first of these is the system of creating 
 " specialists " — a system or method which has 
 not scholarship as its basis. Why should a 
 university graduate whose average is sixty- 
 six per cent, in his examinations be regarded 
 as having the academic standing for a spe- 
 cialist, while the graduate whose average is 
 sixty per cent., though he may. have pursued 
 post-graduate work for two or three years, is 
 refused this standing? How large a part does 
 96 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 not mere memory play in examination per- 
 centages? If specialism were based upon the 
 post-graduate work of one, two or three years 
 it would have some meaning or value, but as 
 it exists to-day in Ontario it is largely a sham. 
 
 Then as regards the professional qualifica- 
 tions of a specialist, are they not almost wholly 
 based upon the opinion of an examiner or 
 inspector? Now this opinion may be worth a 
 good deal; it may be worth very little; it 
 may be worth nothing. As a matter of fact 
 the High School inspectors of a few years ago 
 often differed as widely as the poles in their 
 estimate or rating of the High School teachers 
 of this Province, and the High School inspec- 
 tors of to-day are rating teachers high who 
 had been marked low by the former inspectors. 
 
 And what shall be said of educational ofifi- 
 cials who, lacking a fine sense of duty, dignity 
 and honor, have been playing the part of edu- 
 cational Warwicks in the Province, crowning 
 and uncrowning, making and unmaking teach- 
 ers, now in one part of Ontario, now in 
 another? We endeavor to keep education out 
 of politics, while gross partisanship is doing 
 its work. 
 
 With such conditions educational in our 
 Province, need we wonder that during the past 
 year an inspector refused to permit a French- 
 Canadian girl who held a Normal School En- 
 7 97 
 
The Degradation of Scholarship 
 
 trance and Normal School Professional Cer- 
 tificate to teach in a school where three-fourths 
 of the children are of French-Canadian ori- 
 gin ? Either the Normal School staff, in grant- 
 ing that French-Canadian girl a certificate to 
 teach, did not know what they were doing, or 
 the inspector exceeded his authority. Look' at 
 it as you will, the matter is discreditable. 
 
 For how, we ask, may the teacher be ex- 
 pected to grow and reach out towards higher 
 things if he be not permitted to enjoy the very 
 first conditions of growth — the right to de- 
 velop and advance by virtue of his own gifts 
 and toil ? Who stands between the lawyer and 
 the acceptance of his brief? Who stands 
 between the physician and the diagnosis of his 
 case ? We speak of the dignity of scholarship 
 and the dignity of the teaching profession, but 
 if the law of development be thwarted and its 
 attendant right to -advancement be denied, 
 degradation, not dignity, would be the fitting 
 term. 
 
 98 
 
THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE AND 
 THE POPES OF AVIGNON 
 
THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE AND 
 THE POPES OF AVIGNON 
 
 THERE is probably no other period in the 
 history of the world in which the atti- 
 tude of the Papacy toward art and letters has 
 been so misrepresented by certain writers as 
 that of the Italian Renaissance. If one takes 
 up the works of such well-known historians 
 of this period as Pastor, Burckhardt and Sy- 
 monds, the conflict of opinion is so great that 
 one almost despairs of getting at the real truth. 
 
 The charm of style in the work of Symonds 
 is so seductive that for the moment misrepre- 
 sentation and contradiction pass unheeded and 
 one is swept along a current of rhetoric, 
 dazzled now by the coloring of thought, now 
 by the very atmosphere which rests upon the 
 art headlands and uplands of this transition 
 period. 
 
 The Italian Renaissance flowered during the 
 fifteenth century, but it drew its nutrition from 
 the soil of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies. The spirit of free inquiry and delight 
 in beauty which are especially credited as 
 belonging to the Italian Renaissance had a 
 
 lOI 
 
The Italian Renaissance iand Popes of Avignon 
 
 place in the life and art of Italy as well as 
 France long before the fifteenth century. 
 
 The Catholic Church has during no century 
 prohibited free inquiry on questions that per- 
 tain to science, art and letters, and the expres- 
 sion of her life as represented iti art and litera- 
 ture is but the reflection of that beauty which 
 emanates from the source of all beauty — God. 
 
 It is not only unjust to the Catholic Churdh, 
 but it beitrays as well a superficial knowledge of 
 the basis and genesis of Christian art to main- 
 tain that all great poetry, painting, architec- 
 ture, sculpture and music had first soil in the 
 wilderness of the world rather than within 
 the sanctuary of God. So it is that certain 
 historians, for example, turn their faces in 
 every direction seeking causes for the great 
 awakening of life ahd art in Italy during the 
 fifteenth century, but are absolutely blind to 
 the light and influence which streamed from 
 the centre and headship of Christianity. 
 
 These historians would fain have us believe 
 that the Popes of the Renaissance set their faces 
 like flint against the revival of letters— that 
 they feared it would emancipate the human in- 
 tellect from the power of the Church. Indeed, 
 as has been elsewhere pointed out, Putnam, in 
 his work dealing with the making of books 
 during the medieval centuries, states in two 
 paragraphs, in almost successive pages, that the 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 Pope had a certain work burned " because it 
 was contra bonos mores " ; and, again, that the 
 Roman Curia looked on and smiled approv- 
 ingly at such a work because it was not con- 
 trary to faith. The real truth is that the 
 Catholic Church was the greatest factor in the 
 Renaissance movement, and he who would 
 understand the forces that contributed to this 
 great awakening of the human intellect, and 
 the development of art and letters which fol- 
 lowed logically in its train, must understand the 
 beginnings of the Renaissance in the four- 
 teenth century and the share which the Popes 
 of Avignon — ^then in exile — took in its pro- 
 motion and extension. 
 
 The poet Petrarch is justly styled the 
 " Father of Humanism," but were it not for 
 the influence, kindly offices and patronage of 
 the Papal Court of Avignon, the sweetest of 
 Italian sonneteers might have lived unheeded 
 ■ — obscure in a lonely villa of Parma or 
 Verona. 
 
 Let us, then, examine the share which the 
 Popes of Avignon justly have in this great 
 movement which filled the world of Italy of 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as with 
 the glory of a new and dazzling sunrise. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that the revival 
 of classical learning in Italy really began early 
 in the twelfth century with the revival of the 
 103 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 study of Roman law. Italy was heir to the 
 mid-day splendor of Roman literature, with 
 its Virgils, its Horaces, its Ciceros, its Quin- 
 tilians. Not only this, but as Carduoci says, 
 " By the fall of Constantinople Italy became 
 sole heir and guardian of the ancient civiliza- 
 tion of Greece." 
 
 But it is a mistake to consider that it was the 
 discovery of some manuscripts by Petrarch at 
 Verona, or the appointment of Manuel Chry- 
 soloras to the chair of Greek at the Florence 
 University in 1396, that set aglow the skies of 
 the Italian Renaissance. 
 
 A writer tells us that the growth of civiliza- 
 tion is as gradual and imperceptible as that of 
 an oak tree. It does not suddenly pas^ from 
 night to day, not even from night to twilight. 
 So was the Renaissance in Italy ushered in 
 slowly, and the factors which contributed to 
 this great intellectual awakening were indeed 
 many. 
 
 Now, not the least of these factors was the 
 Papal Court, whether its > influence went out 
 from Rome or Avignon. It seems to us 
 strange — ^nay, absurd — ^that historiatis of the 
 Italian Renaissance eagerly gather up every 
 vagrant straw that may contribute to their 
 theory as to the cause of the great intellectual 
 awakening of Italy in the fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries, but absolutely ignore the 
 104 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 influence of the Catholic Church as a potent 
 force in the Renaissance movement. 
 
 Non-CathoHc historians are fond of quoting 
 the Latin -poet's words : " Nihil humani est 
 mihi alienum" and hold that it was out of this 
 spirit — ^this attitude towards the world and 
 mankind — ^that the Italian Renaissance was 
 born. This is quite true, but as Guiraud points 
 out in- his admirable work, " L'Eglise et Les 
 Origines de la Renaissance," the need of sim- 
 plifying and generalizing — of studying man in 
 himself rather than any man in particular — 
 could find recognition in the classical spirit 
 only because it already existed in the spirit of 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 One thing is quite certain, that it was the 
 relation of the Papal Court to the Greek 
 Church at Constantinople and the religious 
 controversies that took place during the four- 
 teenth century between Avignon and Constan- 
 tinople that gave an impetus to the study of the 
 Greek Fathers, a large number of whose works 
 were in the Papal library at Avignon. In fact, 
 relations of friendship bound together the men 
 of letters of Avignon and Constantinople in 
 such manner that there was often an exchange 
 of manuscripts between the East and West. 
 The life of Petrarch furnishes examples of 
 this. 
 
 From the very beginning of the Papal occu- 
 105 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 pancy of Avignon the Vicars of Christ enriched 
 the library of the Holy See with numerous 
 copies of the works of the Latin and Greek 
 writers-^now the works of Seneca, Pliny, Sal- 
 lust, Suetonius and Cicero, now the Ethics of 
 Aristotle and the Poems of Virgil. 
 
 As to theological works written in Greek, it 
 was most natural that at a time when theology 
 reigned incontestably as the chief of the 
 sciences the Papal Library was well supplied. 
 
 It is true that the great masterpieces of Greek 
 literature, such as the works of Homer, Hesiod 
 and Pindar, the great tragedies, and the Latin 
 writers, Horace and Tacitus, were not as yet 
 well represented in the Papal Library at Avig- 
 non, but it is equally true that on the eve of the 
 great schism the Popes had collected together 
 an important number of manuscripts in which 
 Latin literature was well represented, so that 
 in the number and quality of the volumes the 
 Apostolic Library was second only to the 
 ancient libraries of the Sorbonne and Canter- 
 bury. 
 
 In several of his letters the poet Petrarch 
 has shown himself very severe towards the 
 Popes of the fourteenth century, who, in his 
 eyes, were guilty of the double crime of being' 
 French and of having left Italy. Meanwhile 
 the very literary reputation and glory which 
 Petrarch loved so much were due in no small 
 io6 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 measure to the protection accorded him by the 
 Popes of Avignon. Was it not, too, at the 
 Papal Court of Avignon that Petrarch's father, 
 an exile from Florence, had sought an asylum, 
 and in the sunshine of whose favor the poet 
 himself had grown in peace and security? 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that it was from 
 the Papal Curia of Avignon that the order 
 first went out to search for the Latin manu- 
 scripts which were of so great service in the 
 study of the ancient literature and language 
 of Rome. The work of copying also went on, 
 so that a manuscript copy of nearly every valu- 
 able Latin work was soon to be found in the 
 Pontifical Library. 
 
 In collecting thus the scattered literary 
 remains of antiquity the Popes gave proof of 
 an enlightened taste for letters, while at the 
 same time they favored the movement bom of 
 humanism. As in our own day, the Apostolic 
 Library was thrown open to scholars, and the 
 poet Petrarch, in several passages of his fam- 
 iliar letters, testifies to the fact that he himself 
 had full access to the books and manuscripts of 
 the Pontifical Library at Avignon. 
 
 Again, the missionary work carried on in 
 Africa and Asia during the residence of the 
 Popes at Avignon did much to bring in contact 
 the mind of the Orient and the Occident. 
 Towards the close of the thirteenth century, 
 107 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 before the Papacy had yet removed to Avig- 
 non, the Franciscan Jean de Montecorvino had 
 established flourishing Christian missions in 
 China, and in 1306 Pope Clement V. erected 
 for ,him the see of Pekin. Numerous missions 
 were also established in the Barbary States, 
 in Northern Africa, as well as in Tunis. 
 
 If, then, the discovery of new worlds, th6 
 fall of Constantinople and the invention of 
 printing were factors in the development of 
 the Italian Renaissance, assuredly the mission 
 work of the Papal Court of Avignon in its 
 propagation of the gospel in distant countries 
 contributed indirectly but incontestably to this 
 great awakening of the human mind. Indeed, 
 " humanism " may be said to have had birth at 
 Avignon within the Pontifical Court, with him 
 who has been justly designated " the first of 
 Humanists " — the poet Petrarch. 
 
 As to the study of Greek in Italy, long before 
 the dispersion of Greek scholars consequent on 
 the fall of Constantinople in 1453, long, too, 
 before the appointment of Manuel Chrysoloras 
 to the chair of Greek at the Florence Univer- 
 sity in 1396, the monk Barlaam, a Greek 
 scholar of great repute, a Calabrian by birth, 
 who had passed his youth at Salonica and at 
 Constantinople, where he became, thanks to 
 his literary and scientific culture, a favorite of 
 the Emperor Andronicus, was sent by the latter 
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The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 to propose to Benedict XII. a reunion of the 
 Greek and Latin Churches. 
 
 On his return from Rome in 1342, where he 
 had received the laurel crown of poetry, 
 Petrarch found Barlaam at Avignon and re- 
 quested from him lessons in Greek. Another 
 instructor of the poet Petrarch in Greek was 
 Nicolas Sigeros, also a Byzantine envoy to the 
 Court of Avignon. When the latter had ter- 
 minated his negotiations with Clement VI. and 
 had to return to Constantinople, Petrarch made 
 him promise that he would search for manu- 
 scripts of Cicero which might be hidden in the 
 libraries of the Bosphorus. Sigeros, however, 
 found none, but to show his good-will he sent 
 to his friend of Avignon a copy of the poems 
 of Homer. 
 
 It was Petrarch's different visits to Rome 
 that inspired in him a love for antiquity. His 
 first visit to the Eternal City was on the invita- 
 tion of his friend, the Bishop of Lombez, in 
 1337, and it is from this year that his Roman 
 patriotism dates, which henceforth inspires all 
 his works and in particular his Latin poem. 
 "Africa," and which, too, made him the en- 
 thusiastic friend of Rienzi. 
 
 A study of the life of Petrarch reveals the 
 
 fact that it was the good offices of the Papal 
 
 Court of Avignon which placed him in touch 
 
 with the eminent Greek and Latin scholars of 
 
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The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avigno 
 
 the day and made it possible for him, in the 
 seclusion of Vaucluse, to pursue his studies of 
 the great masters of Greek poetry and 
 philosophy. 
 
 Petrarch also prevailed upon his friend Boc- 
 caccio to publish in Latin the Iliad and Odyssey. 
 It was Leontius Pilatus who took charge of 
 this work a little time after and thus began the 
 great work of translating Greek authors which 
 Pope 'Nicholas V. was later to bring to so suc- 
 cessful an end. 
 
 But the works of the nature-loving Greeks 
 would never have inspired in the heart and 
 mind of Petrarch a love of the beauty of life 
 around him — Hellenism was but a factor — 
 were it not that his own beloved Provence 
 revealed its charms to his eyes and filled his 
 soul with poetic dreams. In his garden at 
 Vaucluse, among his trees and vines, he found 
 the inspiration which Nature never refuses to 
 the open and responsive heart, whether the 
 votary at her altar be a Wordsworth, amid the 
 lakes and cliffs and scenes of Cumberland; a 
 Bums, treading the hillsides of his native Ayr, 
 or a Whittier, dreaming amid his Berkshire 
 hills. 
 
 Many historians do an injustice to the char- 
 acter of Petrarch on the moral side. Petrarch, 
 in the moral gospel of his hfe and living, was 
 far from being either a Poggio or a Machia- 
 
 IIO 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 velli. Much as was his respect for the master 
 geniuses of antiquity, his love for the sacred 
 writings of St. Jerome and St. Augustine was 
 more profound, and it is said that on reading 
 for the first time the works of the latter he 
 thought of abandoning altogether the frivolous 
 study of the classics, with a view of consecrat- 
 ing himself entirely to Christian meditation 
 and reading. Petrarch's respect for the Chris- 
 tian ideal is to be found in the marginal anno- 
 tations of his manuscripts. We have the 
 poet's own word for it that he took the " Con- 
 fessions of St. Augustine " for his model when 
 he wrote his " De Contemptu Mundi." Prac- 
 tices of scrupulous piety marked his whole life. 
 Each night he arose to pray to God, and on 
 every Friday he practised a rigorous fast, 
 while his devotion to the Blessed Virgin was 
 most ardent and sincere. 
 
 It is true that, like all men of the Renais- 
 sance period, Petrarch was intense ifl his char- 
 acter. He hated with a Renaissance fervor, 
 and he was not free from the jealousy and 
 vainglory which belonged especially to the 
 spirit of his times. 
 
 In estimating the character of Petrarch one 
 must remember the spirit of the times in which 
 he had birth — that it was an age of great vir- 
 tues and great vices, and that excessive liberty 
 to sin followed in the wake of the Renaissance 
 
The Italian Renaissance and Popes of Avignon 
 
 in eyery land. In England it is reflected in the 
 lives of such men as Green and Marlowe and 
 in Marlowe's play of " Dr. Faustus," while in 
 France the courts of the House of Valois and 
 the camps of the Huguenots were marked by 
 the greatest wantonness and license. In Ger- 
 many men like Ulrich von Hutten were any- 
 thing but moral. 
 
 Petrarch was certainly " the morning star " 
 of the Italian Renaissance, but it was the Papal 
 Court of Avignon that made possible his light 
 — it was the Pope, as representative and head 
 of a universal Church, that quickened by con- 
 tact the mind of the East with the West — in a 
 word, it was the enlightened scholarship of 
 fourteen centuries illumined by the rays of 
 Divine Faith and speaking through the lips of 
 the Vicar of Christ in exile at Avignon that 
 led the way in that greatest of intellectual 
 movements — the Italian Renaissance of the 
 Fifteenth Century. 
 
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