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PARERGA 
 
PARERGA: 
 
 A COMPANION VOLUME 
 
 TO 
 
 UNDER THE CEDARS AND 
 THE STARS 
 
 BY 
 
 CANON SHEEHAN, D.D. 
 
 Author ©/""My New Curate," "Luke Delmege 
 "Glenanaar," etc. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 
 LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1908 
 
|UBrlARYofCON«'i£3S 
 1 Two Copies ><Ki— J. 
 
 I FEB 25 I y08 
 
 UM: 
 
 
 I 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by 
 Longmans, Green, and Co. 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. AUTUMN 
 
 Section I. (i-xxxi) 3 
 
 Signs and Tokens — The Grey Friar — A Spring Scene 
 
 — A Holiday — Unchanged Nature — Reveries — The 
 Rapture of the Sea — In Vain — Once More — At Even- 
 tide — Aurora — Sea-Fogs — Minute-Guns — The Fall 
 of the Leaf — Phantoms — The Magic of Sleep — A 
 Returned Exile — Death the Hope-Giver — Death Con- 
 quered — Death the Eternal Law — " Why are ye 
 Fearful?" — An Impartial but Unreasonable Thing — A 
 Personal Diagnosis — A Secret Science — Other Sciences 
 
 — Theology a Commonage — The Great Rebellion — 
 An Unscientific Departure — Theology a Science — No 
 Mystery in Medicine — Ultra Crepidam. 
 
 Section II. (xxxii-lxxiii) 29 
 
 The Great Mystery — The Inevitable — No Progress 
 without Pain — Pain the Agent of Civilisation — Grades 
 of Spirits — Inhabited Planets — The Altruism of Nature 
 
 — Pain a Revelation — Sentence of Death — "Thy Will 
 be Done!" — Winds and Rains — Welcome, Boreas! 
 
 — The Storm-Rapture — The Drama of the Storm — 
 Autumnal Rains — The Autumn of Life — Autumnal 
 Acquaintances — A Great Success — But a Mediocrity — 
 A Paradise and a Ruin — G«<3r^a e Passu — A Phil- 
 osopher — Another Type — Early Education — Disillu- 
 sion — Education and Experience — Justice Blind — A 
 Fagin University — A Lurid Sunset — Cirrhi and Cumuli 
 
 — An Evening-Star — My Doppel-Ganger' — An Apology 
 for Anger — Res Caducae — Mocking the Eternal — In- 
 finite Pity — A Distinction — A Good Shepherd — The 
 Miracle of Adaptation — Evil the Root of Good — Two 
 Books — A Gleam of Hope. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Section III. (Ixxiv-ciii) 66 
 
 The Orient — The Spirit of Curiosity — Symbols — A 
 Vicious Circle — Romanticism — Wanted, a Grand Vizier 
 
 — A Learned Candidate — A Progressionist — Haroun 
 Disguised — A Fakir — Three Questions — Closing in 
 
 — Impressions of Death — Pierre Loti — Disinterment 
 of Williams — Shelley's Cremation — Grey Skies — Si- 
 lence of Winter — Street Noises — Creameries — City 
 Noises — World-Problems — Their Solution — Thf Lady 
 of Shalott — The Poets' Mirror — Poets and Society — 
 Carlyle — Hawthorne — Winter— O Altitudo. 
 
 PART II. WINTER 
 
 Section I. (i-xxx) 97 
 
 The Narrowing of Winter — Lu and Ju — War Pro- 
 claimed — The Higher Humanity — An Ally — A 
 Machiavel — Remorse — An Academic Speech — The 
 Crisis over — Science and Death — Irish Turf or African 
 Yt\dx.— Ruhe Sanft — The Souls of Flowers — A Holy 
 Riddle — A Mimosa — Guillotined — A Meteoric Shower 
 
 — A Great Line — Contrasts — Shakspeare and the Sea 
 
 — The Love of the Sea — A Modern Passion — Men 
 and Books — A Student's Library — Counsels — Clean 
 Books — New Parcels — Illustrations — Bindings — 
 Ci siamo ! 
 
 Section II. (xxxi-lviii) 125 
 
 Shakspeare and Germany — Celts and Shakspeare — 
 Great Lines — Shakspeare and the Stage — His Coarse- 
 ness — Too Human — Heine on Shakspeare — No 
 Abstractions in Shakspeare — Character Painting — Not 
 a Creator — Shakspeare-Bacon Controversy — English 
 Opinion — Lord Houghton — An Eclectic — The Drama 
 Omnipotent — Jeu de Mots — Judge Webb's Opinion 
 
 — A Cambridge M. A. — The Accent of Universities 
 
 — A Dialogue — A Descent — Seneca and Shakspeare 
 
 — Shakspeare and Jean Paul — Souls and Stars — Richter 
 not Read Now — Faust and Freemasonry — Three Re- 
 ligions — Humanism. 
 
 Section III. (lix-xc) 153 
 
 The Sense of Ridicule — The Angels' Laughter — The 
 Puppet Show — Goethe — Schiller — The Home of Mys- 
 ticism — The Home of Science — The Need of the Age 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 — A Significant Group — The Tri'vium of Herbart — 
 Instruction "versus Development — A Triptych — First 
 Picture — Second Picture — Third Picture — Equality- 
 Education— Discipline— £/f^«, Fugaces .' — The Rapids 
 
 — Work — The Loom of Time- A Watch and a Vision 
 —Christmas Eve — Midnight— The Constellations— The 
 Angels at Bethlehem— Child and Mother— Days Length- 
 ening — A Kleptomaniac — A Socialist — Compromise. 
 
 PART III. SPRING 
 
 Section I. (i-xxvii) 187 
 
 A Glimpse of Spring — Spenser — A Poet's Grave — 
 A Martyrology — Verdaguer — Herder — A Colossal 
 Work — Not Popular — A Great Thought — Svpin- 
 bume — The Verdict — Atalanta in Calydon — Servile 
 Imitation — Death with Dignity — A Child-Poem — No 
 Message — But of Paphos — Aloof — No Hero- Worship 
 — Swinburne's Prose — Too Emphatic — Tantaene Irae? 
 
 — Loch Torridon — Another View — Criticism Run 
 Mad — A Selection — Redeeming Lines. 
 
 Section II. (xxviii-lix) 212 
 
 Goethe's Symbolum — Carlyle — Early Heroic Days 
 
 — An Epic's Close — A Last Scene — The Prophet's 
 Place — His Letters — His Fickleness — A Worshipper 
 
 — His Ambition — His Hopes — Degenerate — Two 
 Trials — And Temptations — Law is Law — The Char- 
 iots of Life — Charioteers — A Fine Expression — "The 
 Pendulum of Eternity " — A Cataclysm — The Indif- 
 ference of the Universe — Stars and Graves — Contrasts 
 of Life — A Defeat — Waste in Nature — Nature Silent 
 
 — A Peep of Spring — Boreas Defied — Athletes — A 
 Tournament — Discipline — A Disappointed Man. 
 
 Section III. (Ix-lxxxvii) 239 
 
 Associations — Waifs — Spring Idylls — Seed-Time — 
 Grace and Gentleness — Man and Nature — Spinoza 
 
 — Poets and Nature — Tennyson — A Great Lyric — 
 Transformations — "The Wild Freshness of Morn- 
 ing" — Recollections — Sentiment — An Artist First — 
 Winged Thoughts — Taine on Tennyson — Tennyson's 
 Colouring — Not Sublime — Art and Artlessness — 
 Wordsworth' s Bathos — Word-PaintIng — Originality 
 
 — Parallels not Plagiarism — Adaptations — His Mind 
 Progress — Juvenilia — Drifting. 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PART IV. SUMMER 
 Section I. (i-xxx) 265 
 
 The Geocentric Theory — «'Ye Shall be as Gods!" 
 
 — Clothes Philosophy — Life — Not Seraphs — Life 
 a Compromise — No Perfection — Climatic Influences 
 
 — Sunny Thoughts — Mother Nature — Colossi — 
 Their Majesty — Painting and Song — Great Sayings 
 — Their Tenderness — And Infinite Pity — M. Angelo's 
 Generosity — Platonic Love — Beatrice — Other Heroines 
 
 — Decadent Italy — Her Modern Poets — Carducci — 
 A Degenerate Age — Goethe, Coryphseus — A Por- 
 tentous Renascence — The Hymn to Satan — Lawless- 
 ness — Science and Law — And Despair. 
 
 Section II. (xxxi-lxiii) 289 
 
 Jewish Laws — Purity before Learning — An Index — 
 Present Poetry — The Second Law — Ceaseless Work 
 
 — Harvest Labourers — Nemesis — "The Man with 
 the Hoe" — Idleness — Some Great Ideal — Epitaphs — 
 A Fall — A Lost Art — Parliament — Business Men 
 — The Gallery — The House of Lords — Disillusion — 
 An Unpleasant Trick — A Riddle — Dalmeny Park — 
 Is it Patriotism? — Be not too Bold! — In the Depths 
 
 — A Mammoth — Halls of Eblis — Cave Treasures — 
 A Bear's Incisor — Prehistoric — Summer Flowers — 
 " All Shall Go ! " — Unbelievers. 
 
 Section III. (Ixiv-ci) 316 
 
 A Stampede — A Circus to a Boy! — The Proces- 
 sion — Fairyland — Childhood — A Rare Talent — The 
 Child, the Enigma — Other Eyes than ours — Early 
 Prejudices — The Wisdom of Experience — The Insane 
 
 — Delusions — An Example — Chained in a Cellar — 
 Only a Little Longer — "To Let" — Ridiculed — A 
 Fragment of Eden — "What a Paradise!" — Mem- 
 ory — Despondency — Loneliness — Alone ! — Winter 
 Closes in — A Crisis — Back again — A Dramatic 
 Entry — A Reverie — And then ? — The Secret of 
 Happiness — Browning on Wordsworth — A World- 
 Soul — The Erd-Geist of Goethe — Plagiarism — Natu- 
 ralism — Heine on Goethe — Vanished — A Garden 
 Dialogue. 
 
part I 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
P A R E R G A 
 
 AUTUMN 
 Section I 
 
 Again the silent, sombre, melancholy autumn 
 days have come round ; and gently, almost im- 
 perceptibly, the mighty Mother is 
 preparing to disrobe all her children Tokens" 
 for the sleep of the coming Winter. 
 I dearly love those gentle autumn days, almost 
 more than those of any other season. The grey 
 lights, the hushed colours, the slow and solemn 
 changes in leaf and fruit and tree and flower ; the 
 clouds drifting before the south wind to-day — to- 
 morrow poised in vast, cirrhous masses with sunlit 
 skies between them; the cries of Nature — of 
 lonely herons, beating up with heavy wings and 
 long, spiderlike legs from river or fen, and uttering 
 now and again a hoarse alarm-cry ; the shrieking of 
 the swallows in the evening, as they gather far up 
 in the sky and plan all their little arrangements for 
 the coming migration ; the boom of the threshing- 
 machine, caught high and low on the passing wind ; 
 the shrill cry of some singing bird, who has lost the 
 glorious gift of song, with which he thrilled all 
 nature in the gladsome Springtime, — all speak of 
 the general winding-up of the pageant and pride 
 of the season ; and the contraction and closing-in 
 
PARERGA 
 
 of the majestic forces that broke out in such lavish 
 splendour during the Spring and Summer of the 
 year. 
 
 II 
 
 Yes ! The garish lights and the jocund music 
 
 are gone; the laughing children, who tossed the 
 
 daisies and wove the cowslips of 
 
 rey riar. gpj.jj^g^ ^^^ ^^^ maidens who crowned 
 
 themselves with the roses of Summer are gone ; 
 and the cowled and grey-habited, but gentle friar, 
 Autumn, has just come out from the sidewings on 
 to the stage. I have chosen that simile because I 
 like monks. I like their dress, so flowing, so 
 graceful and majestic ; I like the falling scapular : 
 I like the folded hands ; I like the placid face, un- 
 furrowed by care and undisturbed by passion ; I 
 like the solemn eyes that seem to regard us " from 
 Eternity's stillness " ; I like the hood that frames 
 the placid face. And so, too, I like this grey monk. 
 Autumn, that comes to us so quietly, so solemnly, 
 without noise or laughter, except the soughing of 
 gentle winds through the changing foliage of the 
 trees, or such sounds as I have already described, 
 and which seem to be quite in unison with the decay 
 and demise of the year. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Not that I complain of Spring or Summer ! 
 
 Oh, no ! I have such vivid recollections of the first 
 
 daisy, or the first violet, of the snow- 
 
 pnng cene. (^^op and lily-of-the-valley, that I 
 
 should be ungrateful to make odious preferences 
 
AUTUMN 5 
 
 and comparisons. Mother Nature has never in 
 her vast repositories anything more gracious or 
 beautiful to show than when she hangs out her 
 pink-and-white apple blossoms in the month of 
 May, and, like trees and shrubs in a stereoscope, 
 makes them stand forth with clear distinctness, each 
 in its own place, till the whole garden seems snowed 
 over with those frail and delicate flower-wafers ; and 
 the background is an unlimited vista of blossom till 
 it breaks against the ranker foliage of the forest 
 trees. And, when you add music to colour, and 
 hear from the thick recesses of massed and fragrant 
 bloom, or from the heart of a lilac-tree with its beau- 
 tiful hyacinthine blossoms, or from beneath the 
 drooping gold of the laburnum, the fluted melody 
 of thrush or ousel, you think that there can be but 
 one step from this to Paradise, and that one need 
 not be surprised if he saw the angels walking hand- 
 in-hand along the fragrant avenue, or standing, in 
 tranced worship, beneath the trees of Eden. 
 
 IV 
 
 And I have pleasant memories, too, of a short 
 holiday which I took this Summer. I had not been 
 to this seaside village for thirty-five ^ „ ,.j 
 
 o , , -^ , A Holiday. 
 
 years — smce my student days; but 
 I carried always with me the recollection of its one 
 street, wind-swept and sloping down to where ab- 
 ruptly rose, or seemed to rise from the sea, a naked 
 island ; and just beyond, the white walls of the 
 lighthouse. And I remembered, also, the windy 
 mornings when we went forth to bathe, across the 
 cliffs and down a dangerous winding path, to where 
 in a sheltered bay enormous boulders lay prone, to 
 
PARERGA 
 
 be lashed and washed by the huge waves that came 
 rolling in from the deep sea-spaces. And I remem- 
 bered the little trickling fountain half way down the 
 cliff, where a tiny runlet started from the sandstone 
 rock and fell into a natural basin ; and how cool 
 and sweet it tasted to lips half-parched by the bitter 
 and brackish waves. And there was one sheltered 
 spot, where the flat face of a rock fronted the sea, 
 and formed a kind of natural seat or lounge, where 
 in my adolescence I read, and read, and read the 
 livelong day ; and even hoped for rain and tem- 
 pestuous weather that I might have the sea-cliffs 
 and the sea all alone to myself. 
 
 And now I found all unchanged, except myself. 
 
 There was the same cliff, the same chasm, the same 
 
 boulders and rocks. The little foun- 
 
 Unchanged Na- ^^-^ ^f ^^^^^ ^^^^^ Sprang, as of old, 
 
 from the sandstone, and was gath- 
 ered into the hollow basin. A few feet of earth and 
 shingle at the top of the cHff had fallen down ; and 
 a new path had been made. And that was all. For 
 there, too, was my old seat beneath the rock ; and 
 to all appearance the same fragrant and perfumed 
 purple heather, the same wild hemlock, with the 
 little black star in the centre of the white disc ; the 
 same yellow broom, that since has yielded me that 
 most safe of all heart-tonics — sparteine. And was 
 I changed .? Well, somewhat. I did not look at 
 life with such tranquil and hopeful eyes as when I 
 was a boy, hiding away from human observation 
 there. But, I remember, the same poems pleased 
 me then that please me to-day ; and the same ques- 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 tions came up from the sea, and tortured me with 
 their delightful iteration and persistence, — the same 
 questions about life, and nature, and death, and im- 
 mortality, to which I have found no answer as yet, 
 except, of course, the emphatic and unwavering 
 responses of Faith. 
 
 VI 
 
 I am not sure that the habit of day-dreaming, or 
 reveries, is at all wholesome. But, like all opiates, 
 it is very sweet and very tyrannical. 
 At least I know that three or four 
 of the morning hours after breakfast used to pass 
 away almost unconsciously there in my smooth bed 
 of heather beneath the rock. A little reading, a 
 little observation, a little meditation on what I had 
 read, and then — dream-pictures, such as seem to 
 come in sleep, only that they never were grotesque 
 or uncouth, or frightful — only shadows passing on 
 and over the glistening surface of the sea as it slept 
 beneath the warm rays of a midsummer sun. Then, 
 suddenly, the mild face and wondering eyes of a 
 sheep nibbling near me, or the shrill call of the 
 young sea-gulls, beating up bravely in the wake of 
 their stronger sires, or the swift whir and sharp cry 
 of a black diver, would wake me up to read again, 
 and pause again, and again go out into the happy 
 Elysium of fair if fleeting dreams. Now and again 
 the dark hull and streaming smoke of the funnel 
 of some great liner would blot the fair round mirror 
 of the sea ; and I used to grow impatient of the 
 apparent slowness and painted stillness with which 
 it moved toward the horizon. But all things end 
 sometime or other. And the great deep would be 
 unspotted and unflecked again. 
 
PARERGA 
 
 VII 
 
 One thing, however, I missed, — the rapture of 
 the sea, — the keen, stinging pleasure the sounds 
 
 and scents of the sea gave me when 
 tle'sl^''""^' ^boy; Of course, it is age, -age 
 
 with its dulled senses and percep- 
 tions, age with its weakened nerves, age with its 
 brain-power perhaps increased and developed, but 
 with all its sentient faculties benumbed, and, alas ! 
 controlled almost to the verge of extinction by that 
 dread monitor. Experience. And nothing can give 
 back "that wild freshness of morning." I see 
 things with " larger, other eyes " than in youth. 
 The problems of existence have loomed up greater 
 and more formidable and more mysterious than 
 ever. The problems of life are deeper, and their 
 solution farther away. The single eye of youth 
 that saw but the present has grown to a double 
 vision that is blind to the present, but painfully 
 sensitive to pictures thrown upon its field by the 
 past and the future. " Knowledge has come, but 
 wisdom lingers," — the wisdom of the child on the 
 seashore, filling his ears with the music of the shells, 
 and believing that he hears the roaring of the sea, 
 when he only listens to the hot blood coursing 
 through his own veins. 
 
 VIII 
 
 I whipped up my faculties to catch again that 
 old, far-off, sweet enthusiasm and sense-intoxication 
 of childhood. It was in vain. I 
 called up the memories of the exul- 
 tation I felt when the deep thunder of the waves 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 smote my ears in childhood, and the scent of the 
 seaweed was an elixir of Paradise. In vain ! The 
 mighty element that intoxicated my senses in child- 
 hood now seemed to steep me as in chloroform. I 
 could dream, and dream, all day long. But I could 
 not think ; and even reading became irksome. Once 
 or twice I sought to arouse my faculties by writing 
 verses. I failed. Ideas would not come; and I 
 knew well it was of no use to solicit them, unless 
 they came spontaneously. I contrived to jot down 
 some lines which swept across memory from the 
 night-sleeps. But that was all. I felt all the stupor, 
 without the exhilaration, of an opiate. I began to 
 wonder how Coleridge or Shelley felt under the in- 
 fluence of laudanum ; and what strange power it 
 gave them to reach such altitudes that no poet, with 
 unsustained wings, could ever touch again. 
 
 IX 
 
 But twice at least during this fortnight's holiday, 
 I was privileged to see a sudden and unexpected 
 revelation of Nature's magnificence, _ 
 
 1 /- 1 1 1 1 1 Ml r • Once more. 
 
 and to reel the old thrill or surprise 
 and delight which so often in childhood and youth 
 made my pulses throb and my cheek grow pale. 
 It seemed to me that Mother Nature was saying to 
 herself: " This old poetic dreamer and admirer of 
 mine has become so hebetated and outworn that he 
 
 no longer recognises my loveliness and my power. 
 He has gone after other loves — his speculations, 
 his philosophy, his world of ideas. He does not 
 want any longer such a material creature as I am. 
 The larger and more ethereal spirits, that occupy 
 the high altitudes where he is moving, have made 
 
lo PARERGA 
 
 him turn away from me. Let me see if I can call 
 him back to my side once more before he dies. 
 Surely one victory over an old reasoner and world- 
 observer, as well as idealist and dreamer, were worth 
 a hundred easy conquests over the mind and heart 
 of youth." And the dear old Mother did put forth 
 all her arts of coquetry, and — succeeded. I had 
 grown tired of the grey face of the sea, of that 
 long, low line across the horizon, encompassing that 
 dark, melancholy mirror, which seemed to reflect 
 only the sadness of things, — the unplummeted 
 deeps of the human heart, the undiscoverable se- 
 crets of existence. And the thunder of the waves 
 no longer smote my senses with delight, that was 
 half fear, half love for the dread element that could 
 seem so gentle and calm, but that bit with the fury 
 of a serpent and smote as with the lightnings of 
 gods. Once more, only once, the sea put forth her 
 power, and clothed herself with a panoply of light, 
 and dragged me a willing worshipper to her feet. 
 
 X 
 
 My bedroom overlooked the tiny artificial har- 
 bour that was formed by two projecting piers ; and 
 A ev ntid here, all day, boats and punts, yachts 
 
 and hookers and fishing - smacks, 
 lolled and tossed on the bosom of the tide. Every 
 evening, too, just at seven o'clock, a group, or 
 rather several groups, of bronzed and stalwart fish- 
 ermen could be seen wending their way along the 
 pier, laden with nets or cordage or baskets ; and 
 one by one they got their fine, strong boats ready, 
 whilst the women watched them, and young lads 
 envied them, and groups of gaily clad girls ran along 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 the pier as the boats pulled out from the harbour 
 and got into the deep seas. Here a mizzen-sail was 
 hoisted ; and one by one, at a few hundred yards' 
 distance from each other, the boats glided softly 
 away to the south and west, until sometimes their 
 white sails seemed but feathers far out on the deep. 
 There they dropped anchor, and put out their nets 
 and lines to catch the treasures which Old Ocean 
 drew into their hands. It was pretty and pictu- 
 resque, especially when the sun was sinking softly 
 in the west, and his great golden light suffused sky 
 and sea and earth in a pale, yellow radiance. One 
 would have wished them to sing the sailors' chorus, 
 or some wild Gaelic melody ; but the Celt has not 
 got over the shyness and silence of centuries as 
 yet. 
 
 XI 
 
 Then one morning I awoke to hear the plash of 
 oars, the rush of pulleys, and the loud voices of 
 men and women beneath my win- 
 dow. I rose up, flung on a dressing- 
 gown, raised my blind, looked out, and exclaimed, 
 " My God ! " The sun had well risen, and the 
 whole face of the sea to the east was suffused with 
 a soft, rosy radiance, so tender, so beautiful, that I 
 could have almost wept for the thought of its eva- 
 nescence. Across the gulf, too, the cliffs of Knock- 
 adoon stood out transfigured in the morning glory ; 
 for they were no longer frowning ramparts with 
 deep purple embrasures and dark cobalt foundations, 
 but battlemented walls, stained in light vermilion, 
 and seeming, in the clear tracery of the morning 
 splendour, transparent as the ruddy sky or the 
 flushed face of the sea. Farther to the west, the 
 
12 PARERGA 
 
 blending of colours had deepened, until, where 
 the waves broke softly on the peaty strand, they 
 were almost slate colour. But beneath my window 
 the rosy radiance was cut clear through by the black 
 lines of the piers and the dark hulls of the fishing- 
 boats and the picturesque forms of men and women. 
 These latter were busy in a Babel of tongues, chat- 
 tering and bargaining for the silver fish which the 
 men flung up unconcernedly from the holds of their 
 boats. The whole village beside was asleep. Na- 
 ture, with the wilfulness of a woman, was lavishing 
 all this splendour without an eye to see it. The 
 magnificent panorama had vanished when the lazy 
 sleepers woke up, for pleasure or for profit, in the 
 late hours of the morning. 
 
 XII 
 
 The next morning the same miracle took place. 
 And I, like a penitent who was regretting his indif- 
 ference, again woke up to see and 
 ^' admire. And then, as if satisfied with 
 
 her triumph over me, she drew down a heavy, milky 
 fog, that for three days and nights blotted out the 
 heavens and the earth. It was so thick that the 
 powerful light across the little strait was absolutely 
 extinguished except for its lonely watchers on the 
 island ; but all day long, and all night, came every 
 minute the deep, mournful voice of the fogbell, 
 muffled and sad, with a strange, funereal tone, that 
 seemed to tell of wrecks and sea-ruins. The grass 
 and heather and hyssop and hemlock on the hills 
 were saturated with moisture ; and as I sat in my 
 accustomed seat with my back to the rock, the 
 waves at my feet only visible, I could hear, ever 
 
AUTUMN 13 
 
 and anon, the foghorn of some vessel, deeply em- 
 bedded in the thick folds of the mist, and the an- 
 swering alarm from some spirit-ship farther out at 
 sea. And sometimes quick spasms of sound would 
 break in succession quite close to the shore, — inar- 
 ticulate warnings of great peril, — until, like the 
 gasps of an exhausted and terror-stricken creature, 
 the voices would come repeated from farther and 
 farther away, as the trembling ship tore in terror 
 to the safety of the outer deeps. 
 
 XIII 
 
 And all day long at intervals of ten minutes, and 
 then five minutes, the deep boom of the gun from 
 the lightship at Daunt's Rock, ten 
 
 ., ° ^ ,j , 1 ^u Minute-guns. 
 
 miles away, would echo along the 
 shore, until one felt that men and their toyships 
 were everywhere besieged by peril, and were calling 
 to each other by gun and bell, and siren and horn, 
 to beware. How powerless man is, and yet how 
 great ! How insignificant, and yet how victorious ! 
 How tremendous are the forces Nature brings to 
 bear on his destruction, and yet how skilfully he 
 conquers or evades them ! Once, in this deep fog, 
 a great steamer did actually grind her keel against a 
 sunken rock near shore. There was a moment's 
 panic ; but she instantly sheered off, and passed 
 safely out to sea. And all the time the lighthouse 
 was flashing its ineffectual light into the very bosom 
 of the mist ; and the great lever of the fogbell was 
 being lifted by its powerful machinery up and down 
 every minute to strike the mighty bell, whose tones 
 sank in silence, absorbed in the night-fog, and 
 scarcely struck the white walls of the enclosure 
 
PARERGA 
 
 that ran down to the deep. Portia's reflection on 
 the power of a tiny candle was reversed. The 
 powers of darkness are greater than the powers of 
 light, after all. 
 
 XIV 
 
 But this summer dream is obscuring my thoughts 
 of the grey friar. Autumn, showing how dream- 
 pictures are sometimes more powerful 
 Leaf.^^^^ °^ *^^ ^^^^ realities; and how a sunny past 
 will extinguish, even in memory, the 
 facts and species of a sombre present. But I am soon 
 recalled to life by one event after another, as if in 
 some mysterious manner circumstances combined to 
 force upon one's faculties all that is sad and melan- 
 choly in life with all that is grey and sombre in 
 Nature. For in some mysterious manner, it seems 
 to be always in the autumn season, when Nature 
 is manifesting its tendency to decay and death, 
 that amongst human beings also, the dread symp- 
 toms of sickness and dissolution become more ap- 
 parent. There is a tradition that it is in the Fall 
 of the year the sick and weakly drop silently away. 
 It stands to reason. The vital powers of Nature, 
 of which man is an integral part, are steadily low- 
 ered, day by day, in the grey autumnal time ; and 
 the human energies, that were buoyed up during 
 the life-giving summer heat, tend to run down and 
 become extinguished as the mercury falls in the 
 double glass that marks heat and moisture ; and as 
 the sap descends from leaves to stem, from stem 
 to branch, from branch to trunk, until it sinks 
 into the all-absorbing earth. 
 
AUTUMN 15 
 
 XV 
 
 And just now I notice that some pale phantoms, 
 who used to pass me in the streets limping painfully 
 along, or leaned up against the sunny 
 
 ,,&' . ^ • J 1 J- Phantoms. 
 
 wall opposite my wmdow, have dis- 
 appeared. They came forth from their stuffy sick- 
 rooms, where they had vegetated during the Winter 
 and early Spring; and like plants kept in a cellar, 
 they brought forth the pallor of pain and sickness 
 under the light of the all-powerful sun. And all 
 day long they basked in the warmth and strength 
 of his rays, until even their pale faces became 
 slightly bronzed; and their thin hands assumed a 
 tinge of healthy colour. And hope, the eternal 
 angel, seemed to come back from his banishment ; 
 and they could answer with a cheery smile : " Com- 
 ing around a little, thank God ! I think I can pull 
 through the Winter now 1 " And the passer-by, in 
 the sublime hypocrisy of charity, would murmur : 
 " Not a doubt about it ! You 're on the mending 
 track at last ! " Oh, life, life ! what is it that makes 
 a thing so worthless and evanescent seem of such 
 supreme importance to poor mortals ? 
 
 XVI 
 
 Yes ! the phantoms have disappeared. The first 
 grey fog, that came down with its smell of frost in 
 the air, banished them to the gloom 
 and monotony, the darkness and the sieep^*^^*^ °^ 
 despondency, of the sick-chamber 
 again. And I follow them in fancy. I see the dread 
 round of daily and nightly suffering. I feel the 
 hours go by, each laden with sighs — sighs in the 
 
PARERGA 
 
 midnight for the first pale gleam of morning; sighs 
 in the long hours of the day for the merciful oblivion 
 of night. I see them toss and turn on their beds of 
 agony, seeking only one thing, unconsciousness, but 
 seeking that with a prayer that would, we imagine, 
 coerce the eternal powers to grant the one great 
 boon that mortals crave. Yes ! so are we consti- 
 tuted ! There is no greater gift to mortals than the 
 gift of unconsciousness. When Nature, racked and 
 torn, refuses it, we seek to compel her by the pow- 
 erful action of deadly poisons. Yes ! sleep, sleep, 
 so powerful that it is most welcome when it most 
 resembles Death, is the one thing that makes life 
 tolerable. All waking pleasures are unavailing 
 when they cannot be forgotten in sleep. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Here, for example, is a poor young girl who sat 
 
 out during the warm days in the sunshine, eagerly 
 
 grasping: every sunbeam to extract 
 
 A returned Exile, p ^ .=> i-r t • a r 
 
 rrom it a lire-elixir. A rew years 
 ago, conscious of her great beauty, she almost 
 spurned the flags of the village street, as she walked 
 with springing step in all her Sunday finery, and 
 knew that the eyes of many hungered after her. 
 Then her own home became too small for her 
 ambition. America alone was large enough for 
 her desires. She went away, became a unit, an 
 insignificant unit amongst millions, whose eyes, 
 dazzled with the glare of gold, had no sight for 
 her beauty. Then came sickness, sadness, a crav- 
 ing for the old home, where she could at least die 
 in peace, with friendly faces around her. She sat 
 out during these few weeks, patient and sorrowful, 
 
AUTUMN 17 
 
 her physical beauty etherealised by the dread dis- 
 ease that was slowly eating away her life. She 
 has disappeared. It is easy to imagine the rest. 
 The eternal hacking cough, the night-sweats, the 
 ever-growing weakness, the depression, the despair 
 — the calling on God at the midnight hour to 
 plunge her into the blessed forgetful ness of a 
 dreamless sleep ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And yet, if one in mercy whispers even the name 
 of death as the one hope-giver, she shudders, looks 
 frightened, and weeps. She cries all 
 night long for unconsciousness, for Hcje^-giver. 
 sleep. But the unconsciousness of 
 death is an unspeakable terror. Why this incon- 
 sistency ? Is not death a blessed thing, — God's 
 greatest and most beautiful angel, who comes to us 
 so softly, and so gently unweaves the bands of flesh, 
 and touches so quietly that wound that the very 
 touch is an anaesthetic ; and gradually weakens and 
 uncoils the springs of existence, so that when at last 
 he touches the last frail thread, it snaps without pain, 
 and the soul sinks into a languor that is a sweet prel- 
 ude to the eternal rest? Why do men fear it? Is 
 it the inertia of life that will not bear transmission ? 
 Or the habit of life that will not bear being broken ? 
 Or the dread of 
 
 " The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
 No traveller returns " ? 
 
 Or a foolish fear, as of children who see spectres 
 everywhere, and will not walk on unknown land, 
 lest unseen terrors should leap forth to paralyse or 
 appal ? 
 
PARERGA 
 
 XIX 
 
 So thought Lord Bacon : " Men fear death 
 as children fear to go in the dark ; and as that 
 natural fear in children is increased 
 Sfnquered. ^^^^ ^^^^s, SO is the Other." And 
 
 again : " I have often thought upon 
 death, and find it the least of all evils. All that is 
 past is a dream ; and he that hopes or depends 
 upon time coming, dreams waking." Reason argues 
 against the fear of death and discountenances it. 
 Religion laughs at it : " O Death, where is thy 
 sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? " And yet, 
 there seems to be but little use in arguing against 
 it. Foolish men, who know so little, and do so 
 much evil with that little knowledge, call it the 
 " King of Terrors," as if we did not know, as the 
 aforesaid Lord Bacon has already proved, that there 
 is no passion that cannot conquer Death. '* Re- 
 venge triumphs over it ; love slights it ; honour as- 
 pireth to it ; grief flieth to it ; fear preoccupateth it ; 
 nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety. Think how 
 often hast thou done the self-same things. It is not 
 only the strong man, and the miserable man, but, 
 even the weary man can wish to die" — that is, 
 weary of doing the same thing over and over again. 
 
 XX 
 
 Perhaps, outside the magnificent hopes and prom- 
 ises of religion, there is no greater, there is no 
 
 sweeter anodyne of Death than the 
 Eurnal'Law. reflection: It is the Law! Birth, 
 
 reproduction, Death, — this is the 
 programme of all things, sentient and insensible. 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 19 
 
 spiritual and material ; it is the unalterable decree 
 in every kingdom, animal, vegetable, mineral. It 
 is even the necessary law, if the universe is to con- 
 tinue. Tithonus was wretched, because immortal. 
 He was placed outside the pale of law, and hence, 
 he craved Death. All must go. The type and 
 species alone remain ; and these too must change 
 in form in order to be permanent in reality. 
 
 '* Nothing abides. The seas in delicate haze 
 Go off; those mooned sands forsake their place ; 
 
 And where they are shall other seas in turn 
 Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays. 
 
 Lo, how the terraced towers and monstrous round 
 Of league-long ramparts rise from out the ground 
 With gardens in the clouds. Then all is gone. 
 And Babylon is a memory and a mound. 
 
 Observe the dew-drenched rose of Tyrian grain — 
 A rose to-day. But you will ask in vain 
 To-morrow what it is ; and yesterday 
 It was the dust, the sunshine, and the rain. 
 
 This bowl of milk, the pitch on yonder jar. 
 
 Are strange and far-bound travellers come from far. 
 
 This is a snow-flake that was once a flame, — 
 The flame was once the fragment of a star." ^ 
 
 XXI 
 
 And whither all things go, we too are tending. 
 Borne along on the river of Life, now fast, now 
 slow, now gliding smoothly, and anon 
 tossed hither and thither on the sur- ^a^fu[? ^^ 
 face of ruffled and angry waters, there 
 is no pause, no stay, no hiding under shady banks, 
 
 ^ Mallock's "Lucretius." 
 
20 PARERGA 
 
 no retreating to forgotten and darkened coverts. 
 The stream of humanity moves ever onwards to 
 the great gulf, and we are borne with it. Let us 
 not repine, nor fret at the inevitable. We are 
 going the way of emperors and conquerors. 
 
 " Thither the singers, and the Sages fare. 
 
 Thither the great queens with their golden hair. 
 
 Homer himself is there with all his songs ; 
 And even my mighty Master's self is there. 
 
 There too the knees that nursed you, and the clay 
 That was a mother once, this many a day 
 
 Have gone. Thither the King with crowned brows 
 Goes, and the weaned child leads him on the way. 
 
 Brother and friend, and art thou still averse 
 
 To tread that road ? And will the way be worse 
 
 For thee than them ? Dost thou disdain, or fear 
 To tread the road of babes, and emperors ?" ^ 
 
 XXII 
 
 Yet it is hard to argue against the fear, especially 
 with the young. So many passed by, and they 
 . ^ . , chosen ! So many old and forlorn 
 
 An Impartial L rr u J i 
 
 but Unreason- creatures tor whom lite had no pleas- 
 able Thmg. ^j.g^ because no hope, trembling on 
 the verge, and yet apparently forgotten by the 
 angel Death ! So many worthless creatures, whose 
 lives do not contain a single utility, — nay, whose 
 very existence seemed detrimental to every cause 
 and individual with whom they came in contact; 
 and lo ! Death passes them by, and leaves the 
 barren fig-trees untouched ; and lays his heavy 
 hand on some life, that was bourgeoning out in all 
 fair promises of vast utility to itself and mankind. 
 
 ^ Mallock's •* Lucretius." 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 So argues a second patient of mine, a young man, 
 stricken with that dread disease, cancer. He is 
 not impatient nor disconsolate. He is resigned. 
 But he cannot understand. He is perplexed by 
 the mystery of things. He has had his sentence of 
 death duly passed on him ; and the numbered hours 
 are fleeting swiftly by. But he is young. He 
 clings to hope. The local doctor is on his holi- 
 days. He has a chance now. Perhaps some other 
 may speak a word of hope. He summons him by 
 telegram. He presents the following diagnosis of 
 his formidable disease. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 " Seven months ago, in South Africa, I under- 
 went an operation for epithelioma of the antrum, 
 necessitating the excision of the left 
 superior maxilla ; and, on account of Diagn^oSs^ 
 exopthalmus, the left eye had to be 
 enucleated. Since then my voice has been badly 
 impaired ; and so I wrote down these particulars, 
 my artificial palate not working properly of late. 
 A few months after the operation, anaesthesia ex- 
 tended along the temple and forehead on the left 
 side. It has now crossed the middle line, and in- 
 volves the whole forehead and scalp. I have been 
 laid up for five days with a swollen eye-socket. It 
 is with respect to the latter that I wish to consult 
 you. Since the operation, the socket has been in 
 a state of inflammation, with a profuse whitish dis- 
 charge. It is now greatly swollen. The temple on 
 the same side is also much swollen. The pain is 
 not very great, but there is a feeling of uneasiness 
 and oppression. The wound cavity left by the 
 
22 PARERGA 
 
 operation is looking well, and there is no evidence 
 of recurrence in that quarter. I cannot account for 
 the accentuation of the anaesthesia, for its extension, 
 and for the aggravated state of the eye-socket. I 
 would like you to tackle the eye-socket particularly ; 
 that region is very anaesthetic, and is affecting my 
 head greatly. I may mention there is still some 
 granulated tissue and constant extravasation of 
 blood behind the eye-socket or at the floor of the 
 orbit, as I pay constant attention to it, and know 
 how it is getting on." 
 
 XXIV 
 
 I doubt if there were on this planet a more sur- 
 prised man than that doctor, when he read this 
 diagnosis. The science of medicine 
 Science.* ^^ ^ secret science. Very wisely, its 
 
 professors have wrapped up all its 
 principles and discoveries in an occult and dead 
 language. Its prescriptions are written in a kind of 
 luminous shorthand, of which only some letters are 
 of Roman type, the rest being cabalistic signs. It 
 is a kind of calyptic cypher of which only one man 
 holds the key. It is pitiful, but instructive to see 
 how an ordinary layman turns over the mysterious 
 paper in his hand, and stares in blank ignorance at 
 it ; and to witness his surprise when the chemist 
 glances over it, and proceeds to interpret it in act. 
 Then all medical books are written in great pon- 
 derous symbols of sesquipedalian Greek, as if the 
 writers kept Liddell and Scott always on their desks, 
 and picked out the longest and hardest words. And 
 then — watch the contemptuous and angry stare 
 with which any layman, or even neophyte, is 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 23 
 
 crushed who dares to touch even the fringe of 
 medical mystery. It is a kind of sacrilegious in- 
 vasion into a region where only the initiated are 
 admitted ; and happy is the unhappy wight who is 
 let off easily with the warning : " You had better 
 leave these things alone, young man ! " 
 
 XXV 
 
 It is the same with the Science of law. Here the 
 adage holds, " The man who is his own lawyer has 
 a fool for a chent." And we know ^ , 
 
 , , . , . . Other Sciences. 
 
 how sternly is the prescription en- 
 forced in the courts of justice, that no man can be 
 heard unless through the lips of a lawyer. You 
 may be as learned as Scaliger, and have all the legal 
 lore of Chitty and Bacon and Coke at your fingers' 
 ends; but if you presume to infringe upon the he- 
 reditary rights of the legal profession, you may be 
 assumed to have sacrificed your best interests. " By 
 whom are you represented, sir ? " is the dire ques- 
 tion ? "By myself!" "Oh!" And your case 
 is lost, that is, if you are permitted to speak at 
 all ; for, in certain courts, you cannot plead except 
 through the instrumentality of a lawyer. Is this 
 right ? That is not the question. We are but 
 stating facts — that a cordon is drawn around the 
 learned professions by rule and statute, by prescrip- 
 tion and tradition ; and all who are not initiated into 
 the mysteries, who have not eaten dinners and sawed 
 bones, are rigidly excluded. Right or wrong this 
 exclusiveness undoubtedly surrounds the professions 
 with a certain atmosphere of reverence which mate- 
 rially helps to keep sacred the inner workings, 
 which would soon be profaned by exposure. 
 
24 PARERGA 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Strange to say, it is only theological science that 
 
 has no such bounds and ramparts as these. It is 
 
 a commonage where every one may 
 
 Commo^ifage. ^^^^Y ^^ ^^^ °^" sweet will. It has 
 been invaded, overrun by every class 
 and every individual from the beginning of Chris- 
 tianity until now. Under the Jewish dispensation, it 
 was kept apart and sacred from the multitude, — 
 hedged in by every kind of legislation, primitive and 
 prohibitive. No man dared touch the Holy Moun- 
 tain; no one but the High Priest was privileged to 
 enter the Holy of Holies. One tribe was set apart 
 for the priesthood. All teaching and all legislation 
 came from the lips of a consecrated priesthood. Still 
 more exclusive and dominant were, and are, the 
 sacred hierarchies of the Eastern religions. The 
 Lamas and Brahmins allow no lay-interference with 
 their privileges. Even kings and emperors must 
 keep aloof. Their lamaseries and monasteries are 
 sacred ground, where no one dare trespass without 
 permission. Their traditional teachings are such 
 that no man dares contravene or challenge. But 
 no sooner was Christianity established than a Simon 
 Magus tried to penetrate and purchase its myste- 
 rious powers ; and from the first, laymen, from the 
 Emperor down to the prefect, sought to usurp the 
 sacred rights of the Christian priesthood, and mould 
 the dogmas of the Christian faith to suit political 
 exigencies or private whims. 
 
AUTUMN 25 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Then came the great rebellion, with its cardinal 
 principle that theology was no science ; that relig- 
 ion had no mysteries; and that every 
 man had a perfect right to frame his Rebe^Uon! 
 own dogma according to the direction 
 of private interpretation. And whilst all other 
 sciences became more exact in their guiding laws, 
 and sought to render more rigid every day the 
 boundaries of professional exclusiveness ; whilst 
 great generalisations broke up into special depart- 
 ments, and each department surrounded itself by 
 abattis after ahattis of rules and ceremonies, the vast 
 domain of theology was broken into by every sacri- 
 legious and impious speculator, and all its mysteries 
 were profaned by hands that held them up to the 
 public gaze either as commonplace truths that no 
 man could deny, or fraudulent presumptions that no 
 man could accept. And to-day, scientific men of 
 every rank and grade, biologists, geologists, astron- 
 omers, legislators in every shape, literary men 
 through the press, judges on the bench, and even 
 the " man in the street " crowd through the broken 
 defences and tumbled barricades to plough and sow, 
 and reap a sorry harvest where once was the wheat 
 that made the Bread of Life, and the wine that 
 germinated virgins. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Apart from the desecration and the unreasoning 
 fury and folly of all this, it is a dis- 
 tinct departure from the secret and DepYS^Tre"''^'' 
 inviolable laws that direct the oper- 
 ations of evolution in Nature and Society. For we 
 
26 PARERGA 
 
 know that the lower the organism, the more simple 
 are its organs and operations. In certain zoophytes, 
 each part is capable of every function. As we ad- 
 vance higher in the scale, the functional energies, 
 becoming more extended, demand new organs for 
 their operation ; until we reach the higher mammals, 
 where every function has its own specific organ, 
 localised and developed. The same tendency ex- 
 ists in the body politic, where all the energies are 
 again specifically located, and, though obedient to 
 and progressing from a common centre, are concen- 
 trated in some council, or society, or department, 
 whose operations, if controlled from a centre, are 
 yet specifically distinct, and more or less independ- 
 ent. In the science of theology alone, there is, on 
 the part of the masses, an idea that, dissolved as a 
 science, it had better be allowed to drift back to 
 primitive elements — which are the thoughts of in- 
 dividuals — for dogmata, and the vagaries of human 
 passion for moral and ethical principle. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 And yet theology is a science, a great science, 
 a complicated science ; a science to the upbuilding 
 
 of which were devoted the energies 
 scilnce^^^ o^ ^^e greatest intellects that have 
 
 become incarnated on this planet. 
 A world of iconoclasts, such as that in which we 
 live, may pass by with unbowed heads the statues 
 of St. Augustine and St. Thomas ; and may affect 
 never to have seen the shrines where saints and 
 scholars, like Ambrose and Bernard, are niched 
 for ever. But they cannot break them. And so 
 long as the printing-press shall last, there shall re- 
 
AUTUMN 27 
 
 main the record of their studies in the greatest of 
 human sciences, and the results of their researches 
 into the recesses of mysteries, which are to-day, as 
 yesterday, as closed secrets to the eyes of science 
 as they were when men believed that the heavens 
 were domed above the earth as the centre and pivot 
 of space. It is pitiful to see the easy and flippant 
 way in which modern sciolists dispense with the 
 consideration of questions that agonised the minds 
 of Tertullian and Augustine. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Yes, my good doctor was much surprised. He 
 seemed not able to take his eye from that page 
 where the dying boy had recorded 
 the dread symptoms of the disease SedkS"^'" 
 that was slowly eating away his life. 
 He whistled softly to himself, looked curiously at 
 the patient, whispered the mysterious words, " epi- 
 thelioma," " enucleated," " antrum," " maxilla," and 
 finally asked : 
 
 " You have been a medical student ? " 
 
 " No ! " was the faint, muffled whisper that came 
 from the diseased throat. " I am a journalist ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " But," the doctor said, after a pause, " no one 
 but a medical expert could have written this ? " 
 
 " I made a study of the disease when I knew I 
 was aflfected," was the reply. 
 
 " Rather a foolish thing," said the doctor, main- 
 taining the professional exclusiveness. 
 
 " Not at all," was the reply. " There is no mys- 
 tery about it." 
 
 The doctor shook his head. This was rank 
 heresy to his mind. He turned to me. 
 
28 PARERGA 
 
 XXXI 
 
 " Strange," he whispered, although the hideous 
 malady had destroyed the boy's hearing, " how 
 „,, „ . , things work. The blow falls here 
 
 Ultra C re pi dam. , ° , , , , 
 
 and there ; and there appears to be 
 no rule, no uniformity, no consistency." 
 
 I nodded acquiescence. 
 
 " If any one were to ask why this boy, clever, 
 accomplished, enterprising, should have been struck 
 down on the very threshold of a brilliant career, 
 whilst hundreds of mere hinds and louts go free, 
 where would be the answer ? " 
 
 The good doctor never saw that he was passing 
 ultra crepidam. He who would resent, who did 
 resent, the trespass of that poor boy upon the 
 sacred precincts of medical science, was now uncon- 
 sciously usurping the office of theologian. For 
 medical science has only to deal with facts, I pre- 
 sume, — physiological facts, pathological facts, ma- 
 teria medica, etc., etc. What has a doctor to do 
 with philosophy, — with motives, reasons, causes of 
 things ? Let him keep to his scalpel and his steth- 
 oscope ! But no ! Every one must have his say 
 about these transcendent mysteries that have ever 
 stupefied and puzzled the human mind, as if they 
 were market-merchandise, to be turned over, and 
 pulled asunder, and examined and valued by every 
 hind, or huckster, or vivandiere, who wants a cheap 
 bargain. Well, after all, it argues the existence of 
 something more than a beaver or squirrel faculty in 
 man, and, as such, is worthy of some esteem. I 
 thought this, but did not say it to my good doctor. 
 Then I took the thought home with me. It was 
 my property. 
 
AUTUMN 29 
 
 Section II 
 
 XXXII 
 
 The mystery of suffering ! The great eternal 
 problem ! And yet no problem at all, if we only 
 consider it as a Law of Being. Apart 
 altogether from the higher and tran- Jiy^sSy** 
 scendent and beautiful teachings of 
 religion, which place an aureole around the crown of 
 thorns on each wounded head, and throw the irides- 
 cence of hope athwart the gloomiest and darkest sky, 
 is it not in the nature of things that suffering is in- 
 evitable? I look at it under three aspects: (i) As 
 a necessary condition of imperfect beings; (2) as a 
 necessary motive power in carrying on the work of 
 existence ; (3) as an unconscious but most noble 
 revelation to higher beings than we are of facts and 
 principles in the great economy of creation that 
 perhaps otherwise would be hidden from them for 
 ever. I know perfectly that all these philosophical 
 reasonings cannot mitigate pain any more than rea- 
 soning can disarm Death of its terrors, or soothe an 
 excruciating physical torment. I know no philo- 
 sophical talisman for anguish or sorrow, except that 
 final hope of suffering humanity : All things have 
 an end. But, nevertheless, it may be in our pain- 
 less moments a soothing thought that suffering is 
 not the unreasoning and inconsiderate infliction on 
 helpless beings of pain from the hands of a supreme 
 and arbitrary power ; but that behind it there may 
 be grave motives and far-reaching designs which our 
 imperfect knowledge may feebly grasp, if we cannot 
 always hold fast to them as a consolatory remedy 
 for our weakness and our woes. 
 
30 PARERGA 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 It is strange that men will not see how suffering 
 is the inevitable accompaniment of our state of ex- 
 istence. Whether man has fallen 
 
 The Inevitable. ^ ~ - . .. 
 
 from a state or perfection according 
 to Christian truth and belief, keeping still some 
 vague tradition of that happy condition in his eter- 
 nal dream of the perfectibility of the race ; or whether, 
 in the evolutionist theory, he is supposed to be 
 struggling upwards from primary elements towards 
 more spacious conditions and final developments, it 
 must be admitted that this his intermediate state is 
 a state of imperfection, with all the blunted senses, 
 stunted faculties, darkened intellect, and weakened 
 will, that denote a fallen or struggling being. In 
 such a state, suffering is inevitable. Death must be 
 preluded by disease ; and the aspiring soul must 
 beat its wings in fruitless efforts to touch an ideal 
 that is ever present, and ever unattainable. Hence, 
 the sublime dissatisfaction that ever haunts the 
 dreams of mortals, — the never-satisfied craving 
 and hunger after an indefinable something that 
 ever eludes us, and that is not to be attained, no 
 matter how frequently we change the surroundings 
 of life and seek to satisfy our unquenchable desires. 
 Hence come mental pain and anxiety, — "the look- 
 ing before and after and pining for what is not," of 
 which the poet speaks, — the restlessness and irrita- 
 bility, the exaggeration of trifles, the sad presenti- 
 ments of the future, the bitter remorse for neglected 
 opportunities that beset the weary way, — the via 
 dolorosa of human life. 
 
AUTUMN 31 
 
 " Nothing begins and nothing ends. 
 That is not paid with moan; 
 For we are born in others' pain. 
 And perish in our own." 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Again, there can be no progress without pain. 
 In pain are we brought forth into the world; in 
 pain do we grow and increase ; in 
 pain, perhaps painless pain, do we wUhrmPafn. 
 die. But never a forward step is 
 taken by man or society without pain and suffering. 
 The whole development of human character is 
 wrought, and can only be wrought, by self-denial and 
 suffering, by the patient bearing of weary burdens, 
 by the crushing of one's own will, by the forehead 
 wrinkled and the face agonised under the pressure 
 of torture. All the finest faculties of our nature 
 remain dormant until they wake under the sharp 
 accolade of pain. We all know the beauty of a suf- 
 fering creature, — the unspeakable beauty of death. 
 It is only the sharp chisel of pain that can round 
 the lineaments into such perfect and ethereal love- 
 liness. Take the case of this poor boy. The left 
 profile is, if you like, hideously scarred by his disease 
 and by the cicatrices of the surgeon's knife. The 
 cheek is deeply furrowed and fallen in, where the 
 maxilla was removed ; and the eye-socket is swollen 
 and discoloured from the disease that is proceeding 
 beneath. But the left profile — narrow white fore- 
 head, great luminous eye, straight nose, and cheek 
 and chin covered with a light, fair beard — is per- 
 fect; perfect above all by that colour of gentle 
 paleness that marks the patience of great suffering, 
 endured bravely, and without a murmur. 
 
32 PARERGA 
 
 XXXV 
 
 The social body, too, is moved ahead along the 
 wheels of suffering. It is a sad truth that the hor- 
 rors of war appear to be the necessary 
 of^Civmsation"* preliminaries to advancing civilisa- 
 tion. Every great forward movement 
 in human history has been preluded by conquest. 
 Degeneracy is the adjunct of continued peace. 
 Hence the school of thinkers who maintain that 
 war is a necessity for eliminating the weaker ele- 
 ments of a nation and developing its strength ! 
 
 Is it peace or war ? better, war ! loud war by land and sea. 
 War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 
 
 It is famine, too, that scattered the civilising races 
 over the earth. The surplus populations in the old 
 countries, driven to distress and despair by over- 
 crowding, fled their own land with its congested 
 millions, and carried civilisation across seas and 
 lands to black and tawny savages. These in turn 
 yielded under the sword, and the " white man " 
 triumphed. We cannot say much for the morality 
 of such progress : but we are speaking of facts. 
 Famine drove forth the conquerors ; the conquered 
 perished by the sword. Civilisation followed in 
 the wake of the latter; that is, along the valleys of 
 suffering and death. The path of progress is the 
 path of pain. Bleached bones and broken hearts 
 mark every inch of its way. 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 33 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 But there is a third consideration, which is for 
 ever rising up before my mind. I can hardly con- 
 ceive anything so absurd as the proud ^ ^ , „ . . 
 
 , . ■^11 J • r t • Grades of Spirits. 
 
 claim made by us, denizens or this 
 little planet, that we represent the acme of perfection 
 in God's universe ; that we are the objective of all 
 evolutionary processes, — the sum total and crown- 
 ing-point of all the mysterious designs and occult 
 operations of the universe. Man has always seemed 
 to me to be the lowest representative of intellect in 
 the Universe, if he is the highest animal. And I 
 never had the least doubt that there are species and 
 types beyond limit, of spiritual and intellectual es- 
 sences, either resident, as we are, in planetary worlds, 
 or diffused universally through the ether in which 
 the universe is enveloped. Our conceptions of the 
 seraphim and the cherubim would represent the high- 
 est attainable grade in spiritual perfections. But 
 between the seraphim and man, what a mighty gulf 
 interposes ! What a vast space to be peopled with 
 great spirits ! And what tremendous possibilities 
 for the exercise of the never-tiring, ever-plastic attri- 
 bute of God's omnipotence ! 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Astronomy, too, reveals to us the possibility 
 of the planets, not only of our system, but of 
 greater systems, being peopled with 
 types of pure spirits, or mingled ere- planets!*^ 
 ations, diverse as the faces of men, 
 and numberless as the sands of the sea. That our 
 3 
 
34 PARERGA 
 
 little moth-planet occupies the central position in 
 the universe, which can have no centre, is an as- 
 sumption so grotesque that men wondered when a 
 distinguished professor advanced the theory last 
 year. We have to judge of the condition of the 
 universe outside ourselves by reason and analogy. 
 And reason tells us what a deordination it would be 
 that only one planet amongst myriads should be 
 inhabited by reasoning and sentient beings ; and 
 analogy teaches us that, inasmuch as the conforma- 
 tion of the earth does not differ materially from that 
 of the other planets, there is every reason to sup- 
 pose that similar conditions are adapted to similar, 
 if higher, races of being ; and that Nature, in its 
 mighty evolutions under the All-guiding Hand, has 
 not broken its moulds, nor lost its cunning, when 
 it placed man as master on this tiny world in space. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Now each tiniest item of creation works outward 
 and upward, subserving some higher species. Its 
 energies are not limited to its own 
 of^N^ur^^^'" existence or welfare ; nor even to the 
 continuance and preservation of its 
 own kind. It is the Altruism of Nature — the de- 
 sign of making all things cooperate in one single 
 plan ; each working for some higher existence than 
 its own, and subserving some higher and hidden 
 purpose far beyond its ken. For, just as each drop 
 of rain serves the ulterior purpose of carrying salts 
 to the sea; as the coral insect builds an island, and 
 then a continent, while it perishes ; as the tiny shell- 
 fish dies, after extracting from its own viscera the 
 material that goes to build yonder cathedral ; so 
 
AUTUMN 35 
 
 every human life has some ulterior purpose, as yet 
 but dimly guessed, but yet most certainly to be 
 revealed. And, as the rabbit or guinea-pig in the 
 hands of the scientist knows nothing in its pain of 
 the vast purposes it subserves, and only knows 
 that it is passing through a mysterious trial under 
 the hands of some superior and powerful being, so 
 we, too, are ignorant of the purposes which we serve 
 throughout the universe of God by the mysterious 
 agency of labour and pain and suffering. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 And may it not happen that, as the shrinking 
 animal gives ideas that are helpful to the higher 
 species of its own creation, so we also 
 may be the means, through labour, lation* ^^^^" 
 agony, and even death, of communi- 
 cating larger knowledge, nay, perhaps wider help, to 
 beings of whose existence we can form but a vague 
 comprehension, but who are as far beyond us as we 
 are beyond the beasts that perish and are dumb? 
 And may there not be some supreme science, some 
 synthesis of all earthly sciences, such as we are 
 always seeking after, but never attaining; and that 
 all this human pain and suffering under which we 
 blindly labour, and which sometimes seems to us 
 such an infliction of unnecessary cruelty on the part 
 of an all-powerful but capricious Being, are con- 
 tributory to the perfecting of that science, just as 
 the toxin in the veins of an afflicted beast reveals 
 some secret to the eye of a scientist, who in turn 
 builds therefrom some great theory fraught with 
 illimitable and beneficial consequences to suffering 
 mankind ? 
 
36 PARERGA 
 
 XL 
 
 So thinks, too, my poor patient, as far as I can 
 distinguish his words spoken through the muffled 
 
 and distorted medium of a diseased 
 Death?" °* mouth. He had been one of our 
 
 most brilliant pupils here a few years 
 ago, and had shown a marked aptitude for compo- 
 sition, shorthand, and type-writing. Then, con- 
 scious of his powers, and knowing that there was no 
 room for the exercise of them here, he left home, 
 took up a subordinate position on some Irish jour- 
 nals, using every farthing of his salary to buy books. 
 Thence, fired with ambition, he went to South 
 Africa, became sub-editor on an influential paper, 
 with a handsome salary, and was moving upwards 
 and onwards to very high positions, when one day 
 he noticed a slight anaesthesia in the left cheek. It 
 was nothing, apparently, and his medical advisers 
 suggested neuralgia. The theory was consolatory, 
 if not convincing. Then the left eye began to bulge 
 forward, and he sought the help of higher science. 
 The verdict was instantaneous and fatal — cancer. 
 Death in three months, unless an operation was 
 eflfected. Death in any case, but slightly deferred. 
 And preferring to sleep under the Irish shamrocks 
 at home, rather than beneath the South African 
 veldt, the poor wrecked spirit sought its native 
 land. 
 
AUTUMN 37 
 
 XLI 
 
 Wisely or unwisely, too, he had made a study of 
 his disease, as we have seen ; and he knew the dis- 
 tinction between the various forms 
 of his dread malady as well as his '"JoneT""''^ 
 physician. It was pathetic to hear 
 him explaining the exact difference between epithe- 
 lioma, sarcoma, carcinoma, etc., — words, I could 
 not help thinking, fit to be the symbols of flowers, 
 or other fair and holy things, but now consecrated, 
 or desecrated, to the nomenclature of the most 
 intractable and hideous disease that afflicts poor 
 humanity. But he knows it all ; sees in it the indi- 
 cation of the existence of a Higher, controlling 
 Power; murmurs sometimes about his youth, and 
 all its fair promise cut away ; dreams of what might 
 have been, had he been allowed to pursue his pro- 
 fession under such glorious and happy auspices. 
 Then, whilst a tear steals forth, glistens and falls, 
 he murmurs that best prayer for us poor, purblind 
 creatures, " Thy will be done ! " 
 
 XLII 
 
 Thank God, the leaden skies, and the southwest 
 storms, and the driving rain have come at last. It 
 is a strange exclamation of gratitude, 
 and I suppose very few would echo ^Stf ^^^ 
 it. And yet, I confess, I prefer the 
 shortened days and lengthened nights, the sombre 
 skies and the sound of storms, to the languor and 
 heat, and the eternal blue of summer days and sum- 
 mer skies. I certainly love the brightness and 
 beauty of a summer morning, when the sun streams 
 
38 PARERGA 
 
 in, and lights up the colours and gilding on my 
 books and pictures ; and, in the garden, all sweet, 
 fair things turn their faces towards the light-giver 
 and life-giver. But I shrink from the stare of the 
 great, open eye of a summer day ; and the long, 
 dreamy twilights fill me with unspeakable melan- 
 choly. I don't know what it is, — whether it is the 
 passing nature of all summer loveliness, or whether 
 it is the lonely setting of evening suns, or the pale 
 aspect of things in contrast with the splendour and 
 glare that have disappeared ; but, whatever it is, I 
 tire of its sombre beauty, and cry for my lamp and 
 fireside, for the book that is never so dear as when 
 the pale yellow light falls and pauses on its pages. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 Then the very stillness of Summer becomes op- 
 pressive. There is a languor over all things, an 
 
 effeminacy of atmosphere and tem- 
 BoreasT*' perature that seems to suggest a sick 
 
 condition of things, physical as well 
 as mental. The lazy winds that breathe so softly 
 from the south, and feebly lift up the leaves of syca- 
 more and beech, and stir so faintly the sleepy head 
 of the rose, are again suggestive of weakness and 
 languor and debility. Perhaps, too, the aspect of 
 pale consumptives, who were hidden away all the 
 Winter from its rude embraces, and now come forth 
 to sit or walk feebly in the summer heat, may, 
 through some strange association of ideas, suggest 
 sickness and disease. But I don't like it. I want 
 the bellowing and roaring and defiance of Boreas, as 
 he thunders out of the north, and sweeps down on 
 hillside and forest, and shakes and sways the mass- 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 39 
 
 ive frames of yonder giants, and tosses their branches 
 furiously against each other, and strews road and 
 sward and forest glade and the surface of the agi- 
 tated river with the spoils of countless leaves and 
 berries, and bares the vast arcades till their white 
 trunks seem the newly polished pillars in the great 
 cathedral of Nature. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 I know no rarer human pleasure than to lie awake 
 at night in the late Autumn or early Winter, and, 
 whilst the cheerful fire is crackling in 
 the grate and flinging giant shadows J^\ui°!^' 
 on the ceiling, to listen to the fore- 
 gathering and bursting of a midnight storm. Prob- 
 ably it is the contrast between our sense of security 
 and comfort and the dangerous elements raging out- 
 side that makes the pleasant surroundings so de- 
 lightful, according to the initial word of philosophy 
 uttered by Lucretius : 
 
 "When storms blow loud, 't is sweet to watch at ease 
 From shore, the sailor labouring with the seas ; 
 
 Because the sense, not that such pains are his. 
 But that they are not ours, must always please." 
 
 But, apart from that, there is a sense of the splen- 
 dour and magnificence of things when the riot of 
 Nature begins afar off in the sky, and its elemental 
 forces, always kept in check by supreme, invisible 
 laws, appear to have broken loose, and, trailing 
 behind them the sundered chains that had bound 
 them, sweep down with irresistible and destructive 
 force on the passive and tortured earth. When the 
 serenities of Nature are broken up, one sees the 
 awful and veiled terrors that lie hidden beneath. 
 
40 PARERGA 
 
 XLV 
 
 But there is a curious dramatic force or power 
 in these storm-displays. An earthquake, without 
 
 monition or scenic effect, tears and 
 tIe%?o?iS!^ °^ rends a vast city in pieces. A flash 
 
 of lightning smites suddenly and 
 swiftly, and the thunder rolls out its salvo of tri- 
 umph over defeated or shattered nature. But it is 
 a momentary, a transient, and a monotonous dem- 
 onstration. But in the gathering of a midnight 
 storm far away and far up in the skies and dark- 
 ness ; in the tumult and roar of vast forces collected 
 from the four points of the heavens and flung into 
 inextricable confusion ; in the pause and silent gird- 
 ings and strappings before the great downward 
 charge on the earth ; in the fury and determination 
 of the onset as it bears with coherent and irresistible 
 force on town, or hamlet, or forest; in its trophies 
 of rooted trees and the crash that accompanies their 
 destruction, and the flying slates that are lifted like 
 papers and carried onward lightly on the wings of 
 the blast; there is a tragic and sublime revelation 
 that thrills one with a sense of awe, and a corre- 
 sponding sense of selfish delight at one's own 
 safety. 
 
 XLVI 
 
 Next to that sense of pleasure and safety is the 
 
 delight of Hstening on an autumnal night, when 
 
 , „ . it is dark and still, to the steady. 
 
 Autumnal Rains. i i • • i r n r i i 
 
 rhythmic, musical fall of slow, heavy, 
 autumnal rains. The zip, zip, of the rain-drops 
 falling in the darkness, and gathering in larger 
 globules on the red and yellow leaves ; the swish 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 41 
 
 of the channel runlets carried on as if by some 
 kind of capillary attraction to the river, as the river 
 is borne by its own hidden laws towards the sea ; 
 the stillness and sombreness of the autumnal night ; 
 and the symbolism of autumnal decay and weeping 
 and darkened skies, — all have a touch of that 
 sweet, sad melancholy, which, if we are to believe 
 old Fletcher and our own experience, has some- 
 thing in it more daintily sweet than the vain de- 
 lights and passion-swept nights of the votaries of 
 pleasure and fashion. Yes ! I think the Autumn 
 of the year, though it is bereft of all the joyance 
 and pleasance of Spring, is best after all. It seems, 
 at least, to symbolise what is best; that is, fruitage 
 and harvesting, and the rest that comes after labour. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 So, too, I think the Autumn of life Is best. I 
 admit that youth has its raptures and enthusiasms, 
 — its intense enjoyment of the pres- 
 ent, its magnificent dreams of the "^f \,tfe*""^° 
 future. The sun shines out in all 
 his splendour and majesty. That grey, sombre 
 cloud, experience, which warms and fertilises our 
 little lives, has not yet thrown his shadow across 
 our path. We live in the present moment, which 
 is the sum-total of all philosophy ; we ignore the 
 past with all its faults and blunders and sins ; and 
 we look forward to the future under the shining 
 iris of eternal hope. And yet youth has its pains 
 and penalties too, — its uncertainties, its disappoint- 
 ments, its keen pangs of unreturned passions and 
 unrequited loves ; its heat and fury and headlong 
 plunging into abysses, whence it emerges with 
 broken wings and shattered nerves. Yes ! the au- 
 
42 PARERGA 
 
 tumnal sorrows are less keen ; and if only the 
 middle-aged could keep that great secret of youth, 
 — to live in the present moment, and let the future 
 and the past take care of themselves, I think it 
 would be the supremely happy period of our mortal 
 existence. 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 I am confirmed in this conviction by the few 
 autumnal acquaintances I have made. Or rather, I 
 
 should say, " had made," for now 
 quainTan^t'" ^hey have become phantoms of the 
 
 past, shadows thrown across the can- 
 vas through the magic lantern of life. Some are 
 real phantoms, — glimmering ghosts looking at me 
 with their spectral faces from eternity. Others have 
 passed beyond my ken for ever. If I fix their 
 contours and colours on this page, there will be no 
 unkindness, if we are to believe the words of the 
 poet : " The proper study of mankind is man ! " 
 I do not at all agree with the famous aphorism. I 
 think the subject a poor one at the best. The 
 proper study of mankind is the individual's soul, 
 laid bare under the searchlight of conscience ; and 
 the mysteries of being; and the secrets that underlie 
 the flower and the star; and the evolution of life 
 and its ultimate term ; and all the mighty questions 
 that have agitated the world from the beginning, 
 and will continue to agitate it to the end of time. 
 But I seize on the liberty of painting my fellow 
 beings, because they illustrate my theories about 
 the Autumn of life, — its serenities and cares, its 
 remorses and anticipations, its claim for precedence 
 above the hot passions of youth, and the subdued 
 but not extinguished fires of middle age. 
 
AUTUMN 43 
 
 XLIX 
 
 My first study Is not a remarkable one. He is 
 easily met with in daily life. He is a thoroughly 
 successful man. He is young still, ^ 
 
 , . ^1 r ^- T^u • 1 ^ great Success. 
 
 only m the forties. 1 here is no mark 
 of decay or failure about him except that a few Unes 
 of silver are shot through his blue-black, bushy 
 hair. This is creased over the left temple, and 
 brushed back, thick and glossy, over his head. 
 He looks at you with cold, clear blue eyes, mild in 
 their radiance, but set deep and fast, as if they were 
 embedded in adamant ; for they do not seem to 
 look at you, but to fall on you and remain fast- 
 ened to your face. There are two well-marked 
 lines in the short, stubby, firm nose, which is 
 squared at the tips. He is always as closely shaven 
 as a judge, and his face is blue-black from the razor. 
 And this shows the straight slit that marks his 
 mouth, and the square, firm chin beneath. He 
 never smiles, or smiles in such a sort as if he chid 
 and scorned himself for smiling. No man ever 
 saw his teeth in speech or laughter. He has all his 
 means cosily and safely invested in five per cent 
 stock. He gives admirable dinners, and always 
 finds people to eat them. His plate, his ware, his 
 servants are perfection. He accepts the praises 
 of men politely, but with evident incredulity. He 
 forces champagne on them, but sips a little Hoch- 
 heimer himself. He has never married, nor touched 
 a card, nor betted on a horse, because he abhors all 
 chance. Everything must be a dead certainty to 
 him. He goes every year to Marienbad to ease 
 his liver and get the fur out of his arteries. He 
 
44 PARERGA 
 
 figures largely in subscription-lists ; and having made 
 everything snug and secure in this world he is try- 
 ing hard to secure the hereafter also. He has some 
 suspicion that all his gains are not lawful ; and he is 
 covering the doubt with munificent charities. 
 
 / 
 
 But he is autumnal — that is my point. He has 
 all the serenity of grey skies and mild weather, the 
 T, m, ^- • slightest touch of incipient decay, but 
 
 But a Mediocrity. ii i i • i i i 111 
 
 ail the largesse m health and wealth 
 that the years have garnered for him. He is enjoy- 
 ing the harvest of life, reaping all its blessedness, 
 rejoicing in all its fulness. He has made no mis- 
 takes that would now embitter with remorse his 
 repose ; and he is cautious, but not fearful, of a 
 future whose uncertainties he has calculated and 
 reduced to a minimum. He comes near perfection, 
 yet falls infinitely short of it. Infinitely.'' Yes. 
 He is only, after all, a calculating machine — a thing 
 that is wound up every day, and every day does 
 precisely what it did the day before. He is too 
 uniformly successful to be human. He can never 
 rise above mediocrity. He can never make great 
 mistakes, and do great things. He lives on the 
 lower levels of self, hedged around by caution, fenced 
 by prudence, safeguarded by foresight. The eternal 
 heights are not for him. The struggle, the fall, the 
 repeated and gallant attack, the scramble, the wounds, 
 the gaining of one ledge after another, the final leap 
 over the last barrier, the planting of the flag on the 
 citadel, with the/jy suis^fy reste for his motto, are 
 not for him. Leave him alone down there with his 
 pieces of metal and his smug hypocrisy ! He has 
 no part with the great ones of the earth. 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 45 
 
 LI 
 
 My second type is the very antithesis of this. He 
 has plunged suddenly downwards from affluence 
 to poverty, and has kept his equa- 
 nimity unruffled. He had been in ^n^rRuin. 
 the enjoyment of some thousands a 
 year; had had a suburban villa so filled with all 
 sorts of art-treasures that one could scarcely move 
 around his rooms. The walls were so lined with 
 etchings and engravings, statuettes and pictures, 
 bronze busts and plaques, that scarcely one square 
 inch of paper was visible. Out of doors his gardens 
 stretched up in stately terraces, one rivalling the 
 other in splendour, until the whole beautiful vista 
 terminated in a pavilion, again filled with all kinds 
 of costly and artistic things gathered from reposito- 
 ries in the great cities of the world. Here, from 
 time to time, that is very often, he brought together 
 numerous friends from city and town, regaled them 
 with every luxury, amused them with every kind 
 of entertainment, until the place became a little 
 Paradise above the sea, which lent to the scene its 
 own enchantment. Then came the crash. The 
 whole thing vanished like a dream. It was many 
 years after that when I visited the place again. I 
 had seen it in the very zenith of its glory, and had 
 taken away and stored up in the maps of memory 
 a beautiful picture of the place, of its surroundings, 
 of its generous and kindly master. I passed by 
 in the dusk of the evening. The high wall that 
 shielded from vulgar observation all this loveliness 
 was broken down. I went in. The magnificent 
 pavilion was a mass of ruin ; its perfect flower-beds 
 
46 PARERGA 
 
 were overgrown with nettles. The splendid urns 
 that capped the pedestals were slimy and broken. 
 It was a picture of ruin and desolation. 
 
 LII 
 
 Soon after I met the former master of this ruined 
 
 paradise. Although past his seventieth year, he 
 
 ^ , _ was still in all his autumnal splen- 
 
 Guarda e Passa. , ^^ j -n r if 
 
 dour. i<ate and ill-fortune had not 
 touched him. The same brightness, the same cheer- 
 fulness, the same bonhomie, the same optimism 
 that had made him the centre of his circle some 
 years before, had not abandoned him in adversity 
 and penury. " I am a happier man to-day," he 
 said, " than when I had thousands to spend. I have 
 a room during the summer down near the sea, and 
 two rooms here in the city for the winter, and a 
 cool hundred a year. I have no responsibihty 
 now. I needn't ask John, Dick, or Harry to dine, 
 and to tell you the truth," he added, with a smile, 
 " I 'm not likely to be asked myself." 
 
 " What ? " I cried. " You, who entertained like 
 a prince — do you mean to tell me that you are 
 never challenged by any of your former friends to 
 a paltry dinner ? " 
 
 " Never ! " he said frankly. " And what is more, 
 they cut me here in this very street ! " 
 
 " The hounds ! " I could n't help saying. " Do 
 
 you mean to say that not even has an open 
 
 house for you ? " 
 
 He shook his head, but always smiling. 
 
 " He does n't see me when we pass here. Or 
 rather he does, and goes to the other side of the 
 street." 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 47 
 
 LIII 
 
 " Why, the last time I saw him," I cried, " 't was 
 in the Pavilion. He had a glass (and a good long, 
 tall one it was) of champagne in his 
 hand, and he was diving into a lobster ^ °^ 
 
 salad as hard as he could. 1 remember I had to 
 jump his long spider legs when I was coming 
 away." 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, " don't you know 'tis 
 all human nature ? When I had all these friends 
 at the Pavilion, feeding them and entertaining them, 
 I was pleasing myself There is one phase of human 
 nature. When they choose to cut me, there is an- 
 other. Did I expect anything else ? Certainly not. 
 I know the world too well. And what difference 
 does it make ? I can now pass along here without 
 bothering about anyone. I can stop and look at 
 the shop windows without being molested. I know 
 no one, and no one knows me. Tant mieux ! 
 Hallo! Jiff! Jiff! Jiff!" 
 
 He took a boatswain's whistle from his vest 
 pocket and looked anxiously around. Far away, a 
 little black, woolly terrier was dodging tram-cars, 
 side-cars, and passengers. When she heard the 
 well-known whistle she scampered over to her 
 master's feet. 
 
 " Good day," he said ; " I am glad to see you for 
 old times' sake." 
 
 " Good day," I replied ; " I am glad to have seen 
 the greatest Irish philosopher after Berkeley." 
 
48 PARERGA 
 
 LIV 
 
 It is a gusty, windy, autumnal day. The wild 
 west wind has burst his bonds and is thundering up 
 from the horizon, driving huge black 
 clouds before him, like the disorgan- 
 ised phalanxes of a conquered army. And he has 
 caught in his fierce embraces the forest trees, and 
 shaken them, and clashed them together, till the 
 whole sky is mottled with flying leaves, spinning in 
 the whirlwind; and the ground is growing thick 
 with the red refuse of the dying year. And, quite 
 appropriately, another autumnal type of character 
 crosses my path. He is grizzled and gray before 
 his time ; and some sharper chisel than the years 
 has cut channels in his cheeks, and sunk the orbits 
 of eyes that smoulder in repose, but gleam with a 
 terrible light when you touch one subject. And 
 how can you avoid it, when it embraces everything 
 of interest, — that is, men and women — the world 
 — the race — humanity ? Tolerant enough, polite, 
 even charitable in a large measure, he becomes ab- 
 solutely ferocious when you turn the conversation 
 on the Zeit-Geist. The fact is, he commenced 
 badly, — with a large, childlike, hopeful, trusting 
 faith in human nature, which has now changed into 
 a fanatical hatred. I can quite understand it, al- 
 though he has never explained. 
 
 LV 
 
 I see him coming forth from a home where he 
 was surrounded with all that was sweet and beauti- 
 ^ , , ful and sacred, where he never leaned 
 
 Early Education. • ^ ^l . i j i -i 
 
 agamst anythmg harder than a pil- 
 low, and the flutter of a roseleaf was not allowed 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 49 
 
 to ruffle his sleep. He was taught — O stulti et 
 caeci corde ! — that the whole world was like this ! — 
 that truth, honour, purity, sweetness, modesty, be- 
 nevolence, were to be his guardian angels through 
 life ; and that, above all, he should smile on the 
 world to get back smiles in return. It was a long 
 story, the story of his disillusion, for he clung with 
 despairing tenacity to his childhood's principles, 
 until, one by one, they came to be disproved, and 
 the last shred of their protection was torn away, 
 leaving him naked to his enemies. What was worse, 
 he found, in all authors who had become sacred to 
 him by reason of their lofty standing in literature 
 or from early associations, that the same principles, 
 endeared to him by early teaching, were carefully 
 inculcated until they had become a faith, a religion, 
 interwoven into his life. 
 
 LVI 
 
 The progress of the world, the perfectibility of 
 man, the advance of the race from civilisation to a 
 yet higher civilisation, the ehmination . 
 
 of all physical evil and all moral 
 taint, until the apex was reached, where man 
 should stand forth the immortal realisation of an 
 idea, — all these phrases and sentences had become 
 the symbols and embodiment of the theories that 
 had touched the enthusiasm of his youth, and in- 
 spired the more sober opinions of middle age. 
 Alas ! slowly and painfully he awoke to the knowl- 
 edge of human imperfection, deepening, as the 
 years advanced, into a knowledge of human igno- 
 rance and iniquity, and culminating in the autumnal 
 years into a recognition or behef in almost universal 
 
50 PARERGA 
 
 depravity. He was not saddened, but maddened, 
 by the revelation. Even though it had slowly 
 grown into a conviction, it carried with it the shock, 
 the surprise, of a sudden unveiling of deeps too 
 terrible to be contemplated or measured. Like 
 some monomania that is suddenly engendered by 
 brain fever, or that grows out of painful experience, 
 his mind was ever revolving around it ; and his 
 conversation, no matter from what distant pole it 
 started, invariably turned back to the one topic on 
 which the wheels of thought moved as on a pivot. 
 
 LVII 
 
 " I can pardon a good deal," he would say, " but 
 I cannot condone your crime in educating children 
 
 as you do. You teach them that it 
 Experienced"^ is dishonourable to lie or steal ; you 
 
 teach them to be merciful and kind 
 and self-effacing ; you teach them an altruism 
 which is divine rather than human. And you teach 
 all this on the understanding that the world will give 
 back as it receives, and mirror the riant and bland 
 expressions of ingenuous youth. You take that 
 child from school, and the first lesson the world 
 teaches him is, that all the wheels of life and society 
 are moved by lying and hypocrisy. You place that 
 boy behind a counter where, if he lies not, he is 
 instantly dismissed. He is taught, and not only 
 taught, but ordered, to put a price on his goods and 
 merchandise not according to market values, or 
 current charges, or a scale of legitimate profit, but 
 according to the appearance of his customers. You 
 put him in a fair or market. He instantly knows 
 that he must lie foully for self-protection, for 
 
AUTUMN 51 
 
 every man amongst these thousands has come hither 
 to swindle or to cheat. You give him a profession. 
 He Hes with his fingers on his patient's pulse. And 
 he will save the most consummate scoundrel from 
 the gallows, and drive the most innocent beneath it, 
 for that bribe called a fee." 
 
 LVIII 
 
 " Look at your Courts of Justice. Every police- 
 man knows that to gain the good-will of his officer, 
 he must swear up to the mark. . ^^j^^ ^jj^^ 
 Every Crown Prosecutor feels that 
 he is not there to discriminate the guilty from the 
 innocent ; but to put the halter around the neck of 
 that trembling wretch in the dock. The quarry 
 has to be run to ground, and he has to do it. That 
 is all ! His professional reputation will suffer if 
 that wretch escapes. Tears of wife or children, 
 or their unutterable delight ; despair of devils, or 
 ecstasy of angels, such as will alternate in these 
 human hearts contingently upon the one word 
 uttered by yonder bland foreman, — these have 
 nothing to do with the matter. He wants that 
 one word. Guilty! otherwise that venison pasty 
 will be tasteless, and that champagne will be flat as 
 ditchwater. And all the time Justice stands blind- 
 folded with her scales in her hands. Why should 
 the bandage fall or be removed ? Will not her 
 paid advocates lead her aright, and drop that heavy 
 sword into the scales against the condemned with 
 a solemn and conscientious Vae Victis? 
 
52 PARERGA 
 
 LIX 
 
 And your statesmen! Here is the sublime "He 
 has lied boldly," said Talleyrand. "There's the 
 
 making of a mighty statesman in 
 tlvefSty. him." "Diplomacy," "statecraft," 
 
 "political foresight," "civic wisdom," 
 etc., etc., what an accommodating language ! How 
 it lends itself to euphemisms ! And how beauti- 
 fully men gather up the skirts of easy words and 
 wrap them around bald and naked ugliness, as the 
 clothes of the world hide and dissemble all the ugli- 
 ness of deformed humanity ! " But," he cried, with 
 a filip of his finger, "a truce to all that ! I don't heed 
 it ! Let the world damn itself in its own fashion. 
 I 'm not going to play the part of the faithful 
 Abdiel. But," he cried with bitter emphasis, " if I 
 had the education of children in my hands, I would 
 have a Fagin-school with several Artful Dodgers in 
 every parish to teach the young idea how to adapt 
 itself to the larger and more intricate systems of 
 prevarication and swindling that are current in the 
 wide world of men. And I would teach them to 
 steel their hearts against every human feeling; and 
 smile as their seniors smile when they are practising 
 the arts of hypocrisy and deceit." 
 
 LX 
 
 I shuddered at this tirade against the species. 
 
 He went away with his head down and a frown on 
 
 , .^ „ his fine features. And, as if to em- 
 
 A lund Sunset. , . i • i • j j i j 
 
 phasise his lurid and thunderous 
 descriptions of a fallen world, the autumnal sunset 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 53 
 
 framed itself into such an aspect of magnificent 
 horrors that I began to think the end of all 
 things had come, and the wrath of the celestials 
 was about to descend on a doomed world. All the 
 western horizon up to forty degrees of the zenith 
 was piled with blue-black clouds, through which, 
 here and there, were purple strata into which, as 
 the sun descended, the lowering darkness blended 
 and softened into vast areas of dark-red splendour ; 
 whilst farther away, and on the edge of the horizon, 
 sudden openings in the piled masses of vapour re- 
 vealed great fields of scarlet and yellow radiance, 
 serrated, rounded, piled, heap on heap, in vast 
 cumulative masses, which assumed, in the ever- 
 varying light, one colour more blinding and radiant 
 than another. But, where the heavy purple clouds 
 hung motionless on the verge of the horizon, there 
 seemed to break through them here and there, vast 
 ragged caverns, irregular but well defined — here a 
 Gothic arch, there a Cyclopean cave, farther on, a 
 great round dome : but all as black as midnight. 
 " It is the vestibule of Hell," I said. 
 
 LXI 
 
 The next evening, I thought, I should not let even 
 one of such glorious October sunsets escape me. 
 Fading and evanescent — as all beau- 
 tiful things — indeed, as all things cumuir"* 
 are (but somehow the beautiful seems 
 more frail than the sombre and the dreadful, proba- 
 bly because we wish it to remain), — yet, there is 
 no reason why we, too, frail and evanescent beings, 
 should not take from them such pleasures as they 
 afford us. And surely, if there be a harmless grati- 
 
54 PARERGA 
 
 fication, it must be that which arises from the con- 
 templation of such sublimities as the mighty Artist 
 and Architect of the Universe prepares for his 
 wondering, but ungrateful children. This evening, 
 as if with the touch of a magician's wand, all the 
 sombre splendours of last night had vanished ; but 
 there was quite enough of water-vapour to catch 
 and reflect the beauty of the dying sun. Instead 
 of vast purple and black cumuli, resting like some 
 mountain of desolation and grandeur on the rim of 
 the horizon, long strata of cirrhous clouds stretched 
 from north to south in parallel lines. The eastern 
 horizon was crowded with pink cloudlets, darkening 
 to deep purple on the sky line ; and in the zenith, 
 the faint and feathery shadows were crimsoned, and 
 then gently vanished, as the sun fell from his orbit 
 into the burning and glowing west. 
 
 LXII 
 
 But all the other cirrhous flakes of cloudlets were 
 masses of burning gold resting on foundations of 
 
 grey vapour, which, in turn, as the 
 ftar^''^"'"^' departing rays of the dying sun 
 
 struck them, were transmuted into 
 red and yellow nuggets of molten metal, with an 
 occasional break through the green sky, as of an 
 alloy to test their value. I had to shade my eyes 
 from their blinding splendours, until, with involu- 
 tion after involution, the glowing masses melted 
 into each other, or dropped their golden radiances 
 from cloud to cloud as the sun descended. It was 
 as if some potent stage-manager or stage-painter was 
 flinging his majestic colours broadcast over the vast 
 curtain of the heavens, until, his palette run dry 
 
AUTUMN 55 
 
 and exhausted, the splendours faded away, so si- 
 lently, so gradually, with so much tenderness and 
 pathos, that I could only think of the farewell kiss 
 of a dying child, or the gradual fading away of those 
 spirit-faces that artists have drawn on canvas, but 
 never seen in the flesh. Then out came one star, 
 dancing and caracoling in the broad heavens that he 
 had now to himself. " Pah ! " I cried, for the sor- 
 row of the thing had crept into my heart, " it is like 
 a ballet dancer on the altar of a deserted cathedral ! " 
 
 LXIII 
 
 " Say rather a herald of eternity ! " said a voice, 
 and a soft hand rested on my arm. I did not shake 
 it off. I did not shake it off, be- 
 cause it was my Poet, my dreamer of Gangen^^^" 
 dreams, my Alter Ego, — the being 
 with whom alone I can freely converse, and open 
 out my mind with the certainty of being under- 
 stood and believed. With him alone 1 am at ease, 
 for to him alone am I intelligible. When I con- 
 verse with other men I feel that I am speaking to 
 statues, which stare irresponsively at me. When I 
 speak with him I know 1 am addressing a soul. 
 With other men I speak about human topics: — 
 their politics, their commerce, their wars, their food, 
 their dress. With him I speak of higher subjects, 
 — the soul, eternity, the course of history, the trend 
 of human events ; Nature, — the eternal Spring, 
 earth with its thousand aspects, the Heavens with 
 their dark secrets. Life, and the shadow that waits 
 for us all with the keys. If ever I touch on merely 
 human things, a cloud of disappointment and vexa- 
 tion crosses his fine features. He is eloquently 
 
56 PARERGA 
 
 silent, and runs his fingers through tangled and un- 
 combed locks, with just now the winter blossoms 
 beginning to gleam through their gold. When I 
 speak of higher things, his face glows. The foun- 
 tains of the great deep are broken up. 
 
 LXIV 
 
 " What are those tears for ? " he said, for my 
 eyes were red with the sorrow of the 
 f^?Angl°r^ sunset, — type of all ephemeral and 
 
 vanishing things. 
 
 " For the sorrow of the world," I said, " and its 
 sad destinies ; for the perishing of all that is most 
 fair, and the permanence of all that is foul and sor- 
 did. For the earth, which is but a cradle of suffer- 
 ing ; and for man, who weeps when he is born." 
 
 " But you were more than this," he replied. 
 " You were angry, and you used a scornful expres- 
 sion. Now, that is an evil mood towards Nature or 
 towards man." 
 
 " Angry ? " I cried. " Yes ! I was. Who could 
 help being angry in face of such deceitful and fad- 
 ing splendours ? And then, as if to mock me, out 
 comes that flippant and foolish star, dancing on the 
 floor of the firmament, and flapping his fingers in 
 my face as if in derision? Why, 'tis all mockery, 
 mockery, — earth, and sea, and sky, and the faces 
 of children, and the roses in my garden ! Under- 
 neath all is the grinning visage and the castanets of 
 Death ! " 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! " he cried, with an impatience that 
 rarely showed itself in his fine face or courtly man- 
 ners. " But why anger? Don't you know that the 
 inevitable is also the indispensable; and that it 
 
AUTUMN 57 
 
 would never do for ephemeral beings such as we to 
 be brought face to face with immortal beauty ? " 
 
 LXV 
 
 "There! You are always saying hard things," 
 I cried. " The inevitable is the indispensable ! What 
 is it ? What do you mean ? " ^^^ ^^^^^^^_ 
 
 "What do I mean? Why, we 
 have talked of these things a hundred times over, 
 and yet you ask me what I mean. I mean simply 
 this, that so long as we are but passing shadows, we 
 are not capable of being confronted with infinite and 
 permanent realities. That in fact, permanence is 
 not for us, only the res caducae^ the flitting and fading 
 phantoms that belong to an order of things that 
 preludes the stability of eternity. Hark, friend ! 
 If all that splendour over which you now wept had 
 remained, you would have tired of it in an hour and 
 gone back to your books, murmuring : * The eye 
 is not filled with seeing ; nor the ear satisfied with 
 hearing.' " 
 
 It was true ; and I had only to take refuge in 
 $ilence. 
 
 " But mark how foolishly you spoke," he con- 
 tinued. " You wept over a piece of painted vapour 
 — a little aerial moisture reddened by the setting 
 sun; and you ridiculed what? The mighty sun, 
 Arcturus, to which your sun is but a farthing candle, 
 and which is now lighting up with unimaginable 
 splendour the atmospheres of planets, to which our 
 little earth is but a sand-grain. It is the old, old 
 story. We cling to shadows and weep for them ; 
 and then blaspheme the Eternal." 
 
58 PARERGA 
 
 LXVI 
 
 " But, but," I cried, confused, " you speak thus 
 because you are not mortal. You have no human 
 feeling. You live amongst the stars. 
 E°erna1^*^^ There is nothing but cold, frozen 
 thought up there on the altitudes 
 where you dwell with your poets and dreamers. 
 Look you, my friend, the tear that soils the cheek 
 of a little child is more to me than if your Arcturus 
 were to heave and burst his elephantine bulk, and 
 strew all space with his fragments. This is our 
 world ; and it is enough for us, at least whilst we 
 are here." 
 
 " Quite true," he replied. " Then why are you 
 always dreaming, dreaming, dreaming of other 
 things? Why did you sadden in that sunset? 
 It was like yourself, transient and paltry. Why 
 did you not accept it as such ? No ! You went 
 out beyond it ; and you said it mocked you ; and 
 you, in turn, mocked the Eternal." 
 
 "It's enough to make any one savage," I cried, 
 — "this eternal duplicity and deception of Nature. 
 Lo ! splendours as of the third heavens, and be- 
 hold, they are gone whilst we cry to them to remain 
 for ever ! " 
 
 " 'T is not a subject for mockery, or savage 
 anger," he said, meekly. 
 
 " What then ? " I cried. 
 
 " Infinite Pity 1 " he said. 
 
AUTUMN 59 
 
 LXVII 
 
 "And men, with their infinite and ever-winding 
 intrigues and deceptions ? " 
 
 " Infinite Pity ! " he said. , ^ . „. 
 
 ,, - , , •' , . 1 1 r Infinite Pity. 
 
 "And those white women, halr- 
 angels, until you suddenly see some flash of soul 
 that reveals their deformity ? " 
 
 " Infinite Pity ! " he said. 
 
 "And those placed aloft in the high domains of 
 the world, to be burning and shining lights to their 
 generation, until you come near and see the flame 
 of their spirit flickering, unsteady, darkened with the 
 smut of carbon, and swaying to and fro in every 
 gust of passion ? " 
 
 " Infinite Pity ! " he said. 
 
 "And mighty statesmen, ordering the destinies of 
 nations, but prepared to change sides and principles 
 for a piece of ribbon from a sovereign, or a whiff of 
 popularity from the great unwashed ! " 
 
 " Infinite Pity ! " he answered. 
 
 "And teachers, — poets, preachers, prophets, with 
 their ^ everlasting yeas ' and ' everlasting noes,' lead- 
 ing mankind by the hand up the steep escarpments 
 where valour and truth alone can find a footing ; 
 and then suddenly descending to the basest levels 
 to quarrel over their cups, or play the valet to some 
 coroneted patron ? " 
 
 " Infinite Pity ! " he still answered. 
 
6o PARERGA 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 I shook him off — this Doppelganger of mine. I 
 
 was wroth with him and with myself, wroth, above 
 
 ^. . . all, because I had to determine was 
 
 A Distinction. i • i r i 11 
 
 this the final answer — the last re- 
 sponse to the eternal enigma. 
 
 Infinite Pity ! 
 
 For all suffering and harmless things, yes ! For 
 the redbreast frozen into iron on a January morn- 
 ing; for the wounded creature of the woods that 
 creeps into its hole to die unseen ; for the silver 
 wonder of the brooks that lies gasping on the grass, 
 held in the fierce steel of the fisherman ; for my 
 aged dog, who lies in his hutch in my yard and 
 looks at me with such piteous dying eyes, they 
 haunt me all the day long; for our human brother 
 or sister, who calls for night, and night forgets its 
 mercy, and who watches the faint dawn glimmering 
 through the window-pane, with the prospect of an- 
 other day of anguish ; for the wretch in the dock, 
 with the merciless faces around him, steeled against 
 all compassion by merciless law ; for the victim 
 helped to the scaffold, his arms supported by 
 warders lest he should fall ; for the last October 
 sunset, and the last rose that hovers in my garden 
 over beds of snow, — for all weak things, for all 
 stricken things, for all sad things, and all dying 
 things, — Infinite Pity! Yes! By all means! 
 But for all the strength that smites pitilessly; for 
 all the cunning that intrigues successfully ; for all 
 the duplicity that lies boldly ; for all the smiles 
 that cheat blandly ; for all the tyranny that grinds 
 mercilessly ; for all that is strong and severe and 
 pitiless ; for all that is loathsome and degrading 
 and maculated, — Infinite Pity ? No ! 
 
AUTUMN 6 1 
 
 LXIX 
 
 As the prophet of old foretold of the sweet and gen- 
 tle Shepherd of Humanity, I think I could gather up 
 and fold in my arms all tender, gentle, 
 and frail things on earth, no matter shepherd 
 how passion-swept, or into what deep 
 abysses betrayed by their own inexperience or the 
 malevolence of others. Nay, even for one that 
 " wanders like a lost soul upon the Stygian bank, 
 waiting for waftage," I feel I could have great pity, 
 which is akin to great love. But for the base nature, 
 that comes to you sometimes in life, rubbing his 
 shoulder against yours to pick your pockets, tossing 
 out carelessly and confidingly a petty secret to get 
 at your sealed and solemn sorrows, and then snap 
 you up, as Vivien did Merlin in the enchanted oak ; 
 for the creature who comes fawning and purring 
 around you, proffering his petty gifts, and protesting 
 his disinterestedness until, thrown off your guard, 
 you fling the creature what he wants, and he goes 
 his way, his hand on the button of his pocket ; for 
 all puny souls that have no circumference or scope 
 of vision beyond that of a coin, and who think more 
 of a piece of ribbon than of the colours of a sunset, 
 and whose base insolence to the weak is hardly more 
 irritating than their base subservience to the strong, 
 — I confess to a feeling of repulsion akin to that 
 one feels for slimy and dangerous things ; no great 
 wish to crush or annihilate, but a decided desire to 
 shun and avoid, and place some impassable thing, an 
 ocean or a Sahara, between us ! 
 
62 PARERGA 
 
 LXX 
 
 And yet — are not these things, too, a subject 
 for infinite wonder, — wonder at the miracle of 
 
 adaptation that seems to exist every- 
 AdapSn^^°^ where? For, after all, without moral 
 
 evil how can there be moral virtue ? 
 If all men, by a miracle, or rather by a transforma- 
 tion of our nature from its striking and painful 
 contrasts, were reduced to a dead level of uniform 
 goodness and perfection, where would be those trials 
 that develop all the grandeur of the great and heroic ? 
 If Xanthippe did not create the genius of a Socrates, 
 she at least has helped us to know him better. 
 Without an Antiochus, should we have had the 
 heroism of the Maccabees; the grave chastity of Su- 
 sannah, without the perfidy of the elders ? Had 
 there been no Nero or Domitian, where would be 
 the superb record of the countless martyrs of the 
 Coliseum ? It needed the malice of a Gesler to 
 create a William Tell, the state policy of Napoleon 
 to paint on the pages of history the gentle bravery 
 of the Due d'Enghien or the fearless manhood of 
 Hofer. We could not weep for the martyred nuns 
 of Compiegne had there been no Robespierre or 
 Marat. And to ascend to the highest — where 
 would have been the supreme tragedy of our race, if 
 Jewish priests had been generous, and Pilate had 
 hearkened to the plea for justice from the lips of his 
 wife ? 
 
AUTUMN 63 
 
 LXXI 
 
 So, too, on a lowlier scale, we find that all good 
 seems to arise from evil. Endurance cannot exist 
 without hardship, patience without 
 annoyance, serenity without pain, §00^3^^^ ^°°* °* 
 joyousness without injustice, chastity 
 without temptation, meekness without provocation. 
 If the world was reduced to one dead level of hap- 
 piness, mankind would grow hebetated from want 
 of energy. It was cold and hunger that framed the 
 flint arrowheads and bone needles, the relics of pre- 
 Adamite man over yonder in Kent's Cavern. It is 
 the sense of the same evils that puts Australian 
 beef on the London markets, and places the skin 
 of an Arctic seal on the shoulders of some woman 
 of fashion. Necessity, that is, pain, begets energy; 
 and energy develops faculties that otherwise would 
 weaken and perish from lack of exercise. In the 
 moral order, it is the same. Moral evil begets 
 Virtue. The narrow, distorted, and vicious soul, 
 prone to deceit and aggression, and chuckling at its 
 own trivial and transitory success over some larger 
 and nobler mind, is quite unconscious that it has 
 been the means, the fertilizing agent, of a larger 
 growth in the latter. " All things cooperate unto 
 good for those called to be saints," said the Apostle. 
 And may not this principle be the strongest proof 
 of immortality, — that the greatest evil shall produce 
 the largest good, and from the dark and bitter 
 root of death shall spring the undying flower of 
 immortality .? 
 
64 PARERGA 
 
 LXXII 
 
 Two books lay on my table — two books by the 
 
 man who, if he has not interpreted rightly the 
 
 spirit of the age, has at least laid 
 
 Two Books. ,'^ • 1 ••11 1 • • 1 
 
 bare, with a pitiless hand, its turpitude 
 and deformity. They were the Kreutzer Sonata and 
 the Resurrection of Count Leo Tolstoy. I had read 
 them before, with unutterable loathing. I took 
 them up now to refute my Doppelganger and end this 
 tale of Infinite Pity. Here, I thought, is humanity 
 under its most fetid and loathsome aspect. Let us 
 see how it appeals. Yes ! nothing could be worse. 
 These books should never have been written — 
 should never be read. For such a race there is 
 nothing but destruction, earthquakes yawning be- 
 neath its feet, or lightnings as of Sodom smiting 
 from above. One could not help recalling the lines 
 of Dante : 
 
 ** Ed io, che di mirar mi stava inteso, 
 Vidi genti fangose in quel pantano, 
 Ignude tutte, e con sembiante ofFeso. 
 
 " Questi si percotean, non pur con mano/ 
 Ma con la testa, e col petto, e co' piedi, 
 Troncandosi co' denti a brano a brano/' 
 
 Canto VII, 109-115. 
 
 ^ "And I, who stood intent upon beholding. 
 Saw people mud-sprent in that lagoon, 
 All of them naked and with angry look. 
 They smote each other not alone with hands. 
 But with the head, and with the breast and feet. 
 Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth. " 
 
AUTUMN 65 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 What pity could be lavished here? What pity 
 for men, selfish, brutal, pleasure-loving, heedless 
 of the dread issues that follow the con- 
 summation of their crimes ? What pity hodI^^"^ °^ 
 for those women, frail, intriguing, sink- 
 ing deeper and deeper into the awful Styx of infamy 
 into which passion had plunged them ? What pity 
 for officials, who had lost even the very semblance 
 of humanity in the exercise of their brutal and 
 bestial duties ? What pity for prisoners, hardened 
 in guilt, and flinging aside all decencies under the 
 despair of their degradation ? What pity for the 
 husband, consumed with jealousy of his wife ? 
 What pity for the wife, repudiating her sacred 
 duties for the sake of her appearance ? 
 
 Yes ! it was all brutal, loathsome, animal, in its 
 disgusting details. 
 
 And yet, when all is ended, and one sees the 
 feeble struggling upward of the diviner instinct 
 under such an awful weight of human depravity ; 
 when one reads of PozdnishefF struck with remorse 
 at the thought of how the fatal steel pierced his 
 wife's corset, and how he felt when the dagger ran 
 easily through the soft, yielding flesh, and he saw her 
 swollen and distorted features under the death- 
 agony; when one reads of Katusha, redeemed at last, 
 and NekhludoflF following up his one sin with a life- 
 repentance, the thought will occur that the race is 
 not hopelessly lost; that there is a gleam of hope 
 yet irradiating the Stygian gloom of modern life. 
 And the word will spring unbidden to the lips, — 
 Nemesis and Destiny? No. Infinite Pity ? Yes! 
 s 
 
66 PARERGA 
 
 Section III 
 LXXIV 
 
 With all their despotisms, and arbitrary and fero- 
 cious customs, we can forgive the Easterns because 
 of two features in their character, — 
 their dignity, and their tenderness 
 towards all weak and suft'ering and ignoble things. 
 The former feature stands out in superb contrast 
 with the essential vulgarity which, side by side with 
 commercial immorality, is a characteristic of our 
 Western civilisation of to-day. Some writer has 
 said that the manners of the rising generation are 
 non-existent. The reason is plain. The foundation 
 of all good manners, and, indeed, of all morality, is 
 reverence ; and reverence is not an attribute of our 
 age. Nay, irreverence, the supercilious contempt 
 and levelling down of all things to some common 
 denominator of vulgarity and baseness, appears to 
 be the peculiar feature of advanced civilisation. 
 And, as a species infima^ or lowest grade in that vul- 
 garity, is the spirit of curiosity, — the desire to 
 know all secrets ; the prurience for seeking out and 
 exposing all kinds of hidden arcana, in religion, in 
 science, in domestic life, in social intercourse ; and a 
 kind of ghoulish delight when some precious secret 
 is laid bare for base imagination to batten upon. 
 
AUTUMN 67 
 
 LXXV 
 
 This spirit of evil is everywhere. It lurks in our 
 legislation, it inspires atheistic science, it revels in 
 law-courts and scandals, it is the 
 basis of unholy romances and novels. curi^shy * °^ 
 It hides behind the arras or in the 
 cabinets of bedchambers, like that unspeakable 
 lachimo in " Cymbeline," or some old, garrulous, 
 chattering Polonius, who lurks inside the friendly 
 cover of tapestries to find secrets, and perhaps his 
 death. There is nothing too sacred for its prying 
 eyes. The things that hitherto men guarded as the 
 apple of the eye are ruthlessly torn open and ex- 
 posed. The governments of the world empower a 
 boy-clerk, who has just successfully passed some 
 trivial civil-service examination, to probe and search 
 into the most private affairs, and demand, with 
 contemptuous insolence, a full return of personal 
 incomes and revenues ; and those secret accounts, 
 which men kept hidden even from their wives and 
 children, are now seen and inspected by a stranger, 
 who may reveal them, or use them for personal 
 profit or revenge against the unhappy man, who is 
 thus placed absolutely in his power. And after 
 death, by the same iniquitous legislation, that is 
 utterly regardless of private rights, the last will and 
 testament that had been locked up from the eye of 
 the nearest and dearest friend is ruthlessly opened, 
 and exposed to the gaze of an irreverent and scofiing 
 public in the pages of every newspaper. The excuse 
 is, the public demands it, which proves our thesis, 
 that the world has become hopelessly and irredeem- 
 ably vulgar. 
 
68 PARERGA 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 Contrast with this the traditional reticence and 
 dignity and reserve of the East. Even in the seclu- 
 sion and inviolable secrecy of the 
 ^^ °^' Oriental harem there is a certain 
 
 sacredness which no child of the Prophet dare vio- 
 late. The Tashmak of the East is symboHcal. Sym- 
 bolical also is the abandonment of the veil as an 
 article of dress in the West; and with this aban- 
 donment, and, as a necessary consequence of it, the 
 loathsome realism and personal exposure of our 
 ball-rooms and theatres. When will mankind un- 
 derstand that clothing is the only thing that gives 
 its uncouth form the semblance of dignity and 
 beauty, and that secrecy is the guarantee of its 
 safety; that reserve is the first and last passport 
 to respect; and reticence the only shield against 
 danger ? " He wears his heart on his sleeve " used 
 to be an encomium until the second phrase, " for 
 daws to peck at," showed its intrinsic extravagance 
 and folly. But the fact remains that Western 
 civilisation, fiercely contrasted in other ways with 
 that of the " unspeakable Turk," has much to learn 
 from the latter in his dignity and reserve, and 
 his majestic eloquence and martial prowess, when 
 circumstances demand them. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 If the characteristics of modern society can be 
 
 taken as symptoms of its final evolution, and its 
 
 organisation as the growth and out- 
 
 A Vicious Circle. ° r ^u ^ • -^ u 
 
 come or the centuries, it would 
 seem that we are evolving backward into a con- 
 
AUTUMN 69 
 
 dition of chaotic nature, and that, after all, the 
 philosophy of Jean Jacques, so admired by George 
 Eliot and Emerson that they dated their mental 
 formation from his "Confessions," must be accepted 
 as the ultimate word in the historical development 
 of human civilisation. Our over-refinement has 
 toppled over into barbarism. The vast progress 
 of the centuries has been developing in a vicious 
 circle. In pushing too feverishly forward to the 
 goal of human perfection, we are plunging into 
 primitive simplicities. " Naked and unashamed " 
 is our condition. Hence the pessimism of the age, 
 which is only another word for its realism. For 
 just as your realist boasts that he only tells things 
 as he finds them ; that " all things are pure to the 
 pure " ; and that " Art must be pursued solely for 
 the sake of Art," your pessimist declares that he is 
 the only one who has the courage to face facts, and 
 make them known to the world. 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 There was much solid truth in that word which 
 Lowell spoke to Englishmen, on the occasion of 
 the unveiling of the Coleridge me- 
 morial, when he warned them that, if °™^" ^ *^"^' 
 they were to regain the intellectual altitude of their 
 ancestors, they must give up the adoration of com- 
 mon-sense, and study the advantages of imagination 
 and idealism. Men may decry romanticism in poem 
 or novel, but it will be found in the end the source 
 and secret of all those great regenerative processes 
 which have saved the souls of nations from extinc- 
 tion. For as, in ordinary human nature, the ten- 
 dency is earthwise and downward until it is elevated 
 
70 PARERGA 
 
 by religion or philosophy, so in the polities of na- 
 tions it will be found that, where materialism is 
 dominant as a guiding and ruling spirit, evidences 
 of degeneration speedily appear. And the process 
 moves onward to destruction unless, by some tre- 
 mendous force in literature or religion, the masses 
 are flung backward and upward to the heights where 
 imagination and the ideal reign triumphant. And 
 the masters in romanticism are the supreme mas- 
 ters, — Shakspeare, Schiller, Calderon. These are 
 the fountains of nationhood, as well as the masters 
 in their craft. 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 The Grand Vizier of Haroun was dead, and his 
 place had to be filled. But here the Prince was at 
 
 fault. Not one of his courtiers could 
 Sand viTi^r. ^e deem qualified to fill that exalted 
 
 place. But he was compassionate as 
 well as just; and he deemed it wise to allow his 
 candidates to judge themselves, and by their judg- 
 ment should they be judged. Some might deem 
 the Prince's action cruel ; some might think it con- 
 temptuous. But no, Al Raschid was just ; and he 
 had heard like an echo from afar off the words : 
 " Out of thine own mouth shall I judge thee ! " 
 Pie appointed a day, therefore, on which the aspi- 
 rants to the high dignity should meet him and 
 declare their qualifications. They came, a mighty 
 crowd, and the Prince was much afraid. Out of so 
 many, but one could be chosen ; and — the rest? 
 
 The first was a venerable man, of high stature, 
 his great forked beard resting on his breast, and his 
 garments tinkling with the little bells that hung on 
 the fimbriae of his vest and toga. 
 
AUTUMN 71 
 
 " I have come, great Prince," he said, " to claim 
 the post of Grand Vizier to your Royal Highness, 
 made vacant by the lamented death of your late 
 adviser. Permit me to present to your Royal High- 
 ness the testimonials to my worth and honour." 
 
 Herewith he called a slave, who laboured up 
 through the long apartment, sweating and toiling 
 beneath a fearful burthen. This he deposited at 
 the feet of his master, who unrolled it. The vast 
 parchments, written all over in Hebrew and Greek, 
 seemed to carpet the marble floor, and even to 
 aspire to decorate the walls and ceiling. 
 
 The Prince looked on unconcernedly. 
 
 " These vast rolls, I presume," said the Prince, 
 " are what men say of thee to thy face. Hast 
 thou a record of what is said when thou art not 
 present ? " 
 
 The venerable man shook his head. 
 
 "No?" said the Prince. "Well, then, this is 
 what men say : tell me what thou hast done. Thy 
 years look many." 
 
 " 1 have read the Al-Koran two thousand and 
 fifty times," said the sage, " and I have interpreted 
 it to the multitude. My disciples have sate at my 
 feet wondering. I have illuminated them, and they 
 have carried the lamp of learning beyond the seas." 
 
 " Venerable Father, thou hast done well. Go in 
 peace ! " said the Prince. 
 
 The old man looked surprised, but bade his slave 
 gather up the vast volume of parchment that filled 
 the apartment. But the Prince stopped him. 
 
 " Nay, nay, venerable Father," he said. " Thy 
 servant is weary even unto death. Go thou to thy 
 house, and my slaves will follow with thy goods." 
 
72 PARERGA 
 
 LXXX 
 
 When the aged man had departed, the second 
 
 aspirant appeared. He, too, was old ; yet the fires 
 
 of inspiration seemed to burn in his 
 
 Candfdau* cyes as he stood in a kind of awful 
 
 majesty before his Prince. 
 
 " And thou," said the latter, calmly allowing his 
 eyes to wander over the stranger's face and the cab- 
 alistic signs on his garments, "whence art thou.? 
 and what hast thou to say for thyself?" 
 
 " Knowest thou not," said the stranger, with 
 awful and commanding dignity, " that I am the 
 Oracle of Colchis, who see before and after, and 
 trace the tortuous paths of men ^ From me noth- 
 ing is hidden, nothing secret. I can probe all hearts 
 and search all minds. The universe hath for me no 
 enigma. The courses of the stars and their myste- 
 rious influences on human destinies are to me as the 
 alphabet to a child ; and there are no arcana beneath 
 the earth that can escape my gaze. The most sub- 
 tle things I can search out and reduce to their com- 
 binations, and the most complex and entangled 
 things I can resolve into their elements. Test me, 
 O Prince, if thou pleasest. What wouldst thou 
 know ? And earth and sky and sea shall yield up 
 their secrets to me for thee ! " 
 
 The Prince looked grave. 
 
 " Knowledge is a beautiful and worthy thing," he 
 said. " It is a pearl of great price. Allah has been 
 good to thee, venerable Father. But hath not some 
 wise man said: 'My secret to myself!' Thou 
 knowest too much, venerable Father ! A king 
 must have secrets even from his wife. Go thou, 
 too, in peace ! Allah be with thee ! " 
 
AUTUMN 73 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 Then a third came, and advanced his claim to be 
 Grand Vizier of the kingdom. 
 
 " Know thou, O great Prince," he said, " that I 
 am he who hath rescued from the sands of Sahara 
 a portion of your kingdom, and hath 
 turned it from a desert into a smihng ^onist^"^' 
 plain of plenty. By a strange and 
 incommunicable secret I have poured the waters of 
 life across the waste and burning sands, and re- 
 deemed from the barrenness of desolation a whole 
 province, yea, even a kingdom. Where the sand- 
 wastes curled beneath the south wind and were 
 wreathed into pillars of destruction, the vine and 
 the olive are now growing ; and I have drunk of 
 the grapes of Abara, where the nose of the camel 
 sniffed in vain for water. My herds are as vast as 
 the clouds that sail up on the south wind ; and for 
 every beast that chews the cud in the shelter of my 
 palms there is a black Numidian in my household. 
 My sceptre is dipped from sea to sea; and the 
 hoofs of my horses tear the earth from the base of 
 yonder Atlas to the Pyramids." 
 
 " Thou art great and mighty," replied the Prince 
 Haroun ; " why should'st thou seek the humility 
 of a place in my household ? " 
 
 " I would teach thee, O Prince," he repHed, " to 
 be great and powerful and beneficent. I would 
 have thee do even as I ; and conquer Nature in- 
 stead of kingdoms." 
 
 " And for whom hast thou wrought all this vast 
 and laborious work ? " said the Prince. " Who 
 are thy subjects, and how doth it profit them ? " 
 
74 PARERGA 
 
 "Subjects I have none to serve ; slaves I have 
 countless to obey. I am the lord who hath wrought 
 and fashioned these things unto himself." 
 
 " Ah, then ! Go in peace," said the Prince. 
 " The eagle must not dwindle into the hawk ; nor 
 the leopard into the weasel. Allah be with thee ! " 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 Then Haroun al Raschid donned his disguise; 
 and at night, when the oil-lamps flared in the angles 
 
 of the streets, and all men were gath- 
 "uTsld" ^'^' e^ed around their hearths, he sallied 
 
 forth with one humble follower, and 
 passed rapidly through the deserted marts and be- 
 neath the silent and shining marbles of palaces, and 
 came to a suburb of the city, where only the mule- 
 teers of the desert and the camel-drivers and the 
 charcoal-burners lived. Here he paused and looked 
 around and questioned. Many a rude answer, or 
 ruder blow smote the Prince : but he was patient. 
 At last, he came to where a prayerful and humble 
 man was making his midnight orisons to the 
 Highest; and, without invitation, the Prince and 
 his follower entered. The holy man turned not 
 away from his prayer. He was speaking to Allah ; 
 and besides Allah, there was no one else in the 
 Universe. The Prince waited long, till the man had 
 finished his prayers and risen up with the " Salem 
 alaicom " on his lips. Then he bade his guests be 
 seated, and was silent. 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 75 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 "I would know, Father," said the Prince, "some- 
 thing of thee." 
 
 " Man knoweth not aught of him- a p i,- 
 self," replied the fakir ; " speak to 
 Allah." 
 
 " Thou art wise, O Father," replied the Prince. 
 " The man who speaketh aught of himself to 
 strangers, and all men are strangers unto each other, 
 hath kept the empty scabbard and cast away the 
 sword. But who are these ? " 
 
 " This," said the fakir, pointing to a hairless, 
 mangy cur, " is a beautiful dog, fit to be petted by 
 the houris of the Prophet in Paradise ; and this," 
 pointing to a heap of rags, " is a fair virgin, outcast 
 from her friends, and come hither to be a lamp unto 
 my midnight, a rose unto my wilderness." 
 
 " Hast thou aught that we may eat ? " said the 
 Prince. 
 
 " Yea, even these," said the fakir, taking down a 
 bundle of dried dates and figs that hung from the 
 ceiling, and offering them to the Prince and his 
 companion. 
 
 " I would see thee eat also," said the Prince. 
 
 And the man first handed a date to the dog, 
 who devoured it greedily and bit his master's hand ; 
 and then he drew towards him the face of the girl. 
 It was yellow and pitted, and the sightless eyes had 
 pearls on them, like opals. He put into her mouth 
 food, which she took querulously, and then, turn- 
 ing away, lapsed into indifi^erence again. Then, and 
 only then, the man ate a fig in silence. 
 
76 PARERGA 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 " I would ask thee three questions," said the 
 Prince. " And first : when is man greatest ? " 
 
 " When he laughs amid his tears ; 
 Questions. when he suffers, and is silent ; when 
 
 he labours, although he foresees he 
 never shall be paid," answered the fakir. 
 
 " Where is woman greatest ? " asked the Prince. 
 
 " By the cradle of her child, by the couch of the 
 dying, at the feet of God," said the man. 
 
 " When is God greatest ? " asked the Prince. 
 
 " There are no degrees in God," said the man de- 
 voutly. " He is always greatest and best." 
 
 " Come ! " said the Prince to his companion ; " I 
 have found him whom I sought." 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 The days are drawing in swiftly and surely. It 
 is now quite dark at five o'clock. I can just see the 
 ^, . . empty garden-beds black against the 
 
 Closing in. r J o & 
 
 green grass. 1 he trees are colourless 
 blots against the pallid sky. I try to think what a 
 summer evening, only a few weeks ago had been at 
 this very hour. I try to call up the long splen- 
 dours of the sun, as they rested on tree and bush 
 and house, and on the thick wall of verdure 
 that stretches from horizon to horizon across the 
 way. I try to summon up and picture the gar- 
 den-beds beautiful and radiant with all their varied 
 colours ; the rose-trees nodding under their fragrant 
 burthen ; the gladioli in the borders, rainbow-tinted; 
 the great stars of the asters and the heavy blossoms 
 
AUTUMN 77 
 
 of the dahlias; the sweet, pure, fragrant air; the 
 swallows cutting it in every kind of segment. In 
 vain ! the present obliterates the past. Imagination 
 cannot conquer reality. The mind-picture will not 
 stay in face of the eye-picture which tells — here is 
 darkness and cold and gloom, and the bareness of 
 trees and the naked shrubs, and the silence broken 
 by no song of bird, or hum of bee, only by the 
 hoarse murmur of the waterfall far away, and the 
 groan of a sick stag over there in the forest. 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 I think this goes far towards explaining the feeble 
 impression made upon us by death. There is 
 really nothing so surprising as the 
 callousness with which men regard S^Pf"''"''" °^ 
 death ; and their strange indifference 
 to their own relations with it. There is nothing on 
 earth that should be more impressive than the sight 
 of an open grave, with all its ghastly accompani- 
 ments of skulls and bones, and the poor effigy of 
 clay in the long yellow box that is waiting for its 
 own interment and consequent dissolution. One 
 seems to hear the solemn voice and warning from 
 the dead : Hodie mihi I Cras tibil " To-day for me ; 
 to-morrow for you ! " And yet the imagination, 
 accentuated by the inevitable certainty, will not 
 apply the lesson to ourselves. No ! Here we are 
 living, our pulses beating rhythmically, our breath 
 coming freely, life running joyously throughout 
 our veins. No ! we cannot die. Death is not for 
 us. We only grasp the present. Reason speaks 
 warningly and infallibly. We dare not think that 
 we can be exceptions to the universal law. But do 
 
78 PARERGA 
 
 we realise it ? We cannot ! The reality of our 
 present existence obliterates the certainties of reason 
 and the possibilities of imagination. And so, 
 though "we look before and after, and pine for 
 what is not," our lives are really centred in the 
 present. We only make ourselves miserable for our 
 memories and anticipations of a dream within a 
 dream. 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 Bearing on this do you remember that awful 
 
 chapter, " Profanation," in Pierre Loti's " Impres- 
 
 , . sions," — of the cool indifference of 
 
 Pierre Loti. , ,. , , , ^ 
 
 the grave-digger when he sought tor 
 the remains of the four young Breton sailors who had 
 been hastily interred, and found not coffins, with 
 their still and secret burdens, but only fragments of 
 blue cloth and a motley collection of human bones ; 
 of his French cynicism when he called for baskets 
 to remove these human relics ; of his momentary 
 horror, when he found the red ribs and breast-bones 
 of one poor lad a casket of white, writhing maggots ; 
 of his rapid recovery from such weak and culpable 
 surprise, and his resumption of an attitude of cool 
 indifference as he rubbed the larva from the under 
 side of a piece of wood, and quietly shook aside 
 into the earth the awful life that had been generated 
 from the decomposition of these human forms ; of 
 the momentary horror of the spectator, and the im- 
 mediate business-like indifference, as if those things 
 had no concern for the living ? 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 79 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 I know no equal to such Dantesque horrors, ex- 
 cept that scene narrated so graphically by Trevelyan, 
 of the disinterment and cremation of 
 the bodies of Williams and Shelley on wniiams. 
 the sands near Via Reggio. It is a 
 piece of Homeric or uSlschylean tragedy suddenly 
 placed on the stage of events in the dawn of the nine- 
 teenth century, and carried out with a realism, an 
 adaptation of pagan rites and ritual that no poetic 
 artist, neither a Landor, nor a Swinburne, nor a 
 Morris could have imagined as a central scene of 
 epic or tragedy. Listen ! 
 
 " The first indication of their having found the body was 
 the appearance of the end of a black silk handkerchief. — I 
 grabbed this out with my stick, for we were not allowed to 
 touch anything with our hands ; then some shreds of linen 
 were met with, and a boot with the bone of the leg and the 
 foot in it. On the removal of a layer of brush-wood, all 
 that now remained of my lost friend was exposed, — a shape- 
 less mass of bones and flesh. The limbs separated from the 
 trunk on being touched. 
 
 " ' Is that a human body ? ' exclaimed Byron ; ' why, it 's 
 more like the carcass of a sheep, or any other animal, than 
 a man ; this is a satire on our pride and folly.' 
 
 "I pointed to the letters E. E. W. on the black silk 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Byron, looking on, muttered : ' The entrails of a worm 
 hold together longer than the potter's clay of which man is 
 made.' " 
 
8o PARERGA 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 So far for poor Williams. Let us pass on to 
 Shelley's disinterment. 
 
 " We were startled and drawn together 
 tion. ^^ * *"" ' by a dull, hollow sound that followed the 
 blow of a mattock ; the iron had struck a 
 skull and the body was soon uncovered. Lime had been 
 strewn on it ; this, or decomposition, had the effect of stain- 
 ing it of a dark and ghastly indigo colour. Byron asked me 
 to preserve the skull for him ; but remembering that he had 
 formerly used one as a drinking-cup, I was determined Shel- 
 ley's should not be so profaned. After the fire was well 
 kindled, we repeated the ceremony of the previous day ; and 
 more wine was poured over Shelley's dead body than he had 
 consumed during his life. The heat from the sun and fire 
 was so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy. 
 The corpse fell open, and the heart was laid bare. The 
 frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the 
 mattock, fell off; and as the back of the head rested on 
 the red-hot bottom bars of the furnace, the brain literally 
 seethed, bubbled, and boiled, as in a cauldron, for a very 
 long time. 
 
 " Byron could not face the scene ; he withdrew to the 
 beach, and swam off to the Bolivar." 
 
 But is it Trevelyan, or Leigh Hunt, that tells 
 how the three friends, after such an awful and im- 
 pressive scene, drove back to Pisa, and made the 
 pine woods ring with their BacchanaHan songs and 
 laughter ? 
 
 XC 
 
 Clearly the Winter is upon us almost before we 
 
 realise it. The light of the firmament has been 
 
 shaded by the great Artist-Hand ; 
 
 rey les. ^^^ ^j^^ skies from their altitudes of 
 
 infinite azure have swooped down in a grey, leaden 
 
AUTUMN 8 1 
 
 dome of vapour, that sometimes hangs pendent, 
 sometimes weeps with excess of moisture. The 
 days have been drawn in gradually, but swiftly, as 
 you would close up the folds of a camera, or the 
 joints of a telescope. It seems only yesterday that 
 we had twilight up to midnight ; and then the dawn. 
 Now it is night always, not so terrible as in Norway or 
 the arctic regions, but yet a muffled and stifled day- 
 light, and with it the curious silence that touches all 
 things with a wand of mystery and an atmosphere of 
 peace. Unwelcome ? Oh, no ! Thrice welcome 
 rather ! I think silence is a kind of worship — a 
 solemn latreia in the great Temple of Nature. 
 Wordsworth makes it a teacher, — a spiritual, un- 
 robed, or disembodied priest, who, like Echo, 
 daughter of Air and Tellus, might have been pun- 
 ished for his loquacity whilst in the flesh, and has 
 now to preside over the solemnities of Nature with 
 his finger on his lips. At any rate, he is a mighty 
 teacher. One learns more from him, and deeper 
 and more mysterious things, than from the sense- 
 less babble and clatter of mortals. And "silence 
 is the custodian of righteousness," said the great 
 doctor of Bethlehem. And a higher than he : " In 
 silence and in hope shall be your strength." 
 
 XCI 
 
 I appreciate the silence of Winter all the more 
 from its contrast with the eternal and discordant 
 noises of the Summer. Yes ! even 
 in this remote Irish village, far away wfnter.° 
 from trains, which are the network 
 of civihsation, and nestling in a deep well, sheltered 
 by the impenetrable umbrage of woods and forests. 
 
82 PARERGA 
 
 yea, even here, are noises as of Tophet or — Charing 
 Cross. In the early morning a certain ragged phi- 
 losopher, with the voice of a stentor, commences his 
 day right under my window with wonderful specu- 
 lations on things in general. He is instantly joined 
 by another leisured professor of Do-Nothingism, 
 who has contrived for many years, for his hair is 
 grey, to solve successfully that problem, which is a 
 puzzle to political economists, — how to get on on 
 nothing a year. They commence an amiable dis- 
 cussion on things in general, — the things of yester- 
 day and to-day, — yea, even the impenetrable future. 
 Sometimes they wax wroth at the general deordina- 
 tion that seems to obtain throughout the universe ; 
 and the inexorable but wanton Fate, which will not 
 allow them to set all things right. Sometimes the 
 voice of the stentor rises into an emphasis, which I 
 hope his guardian angel will forget; and the deep 
 bass of his companion is broken in a sorrowful Jere- 
 miad, which can only be terminated in one way. 
 Seven o'clock strikes. Bells ring out, — convent 
 bells for morning mass ; mill bells for labour. The 
 first public house is legally open, and I have a res- 
 pite — a little peace. 
 
 XCII 
 
 But instantly comes the creaking and jolting of 
 donkey-carts of every size and shape to the cream- 
 ery. Through some mischievous 
 Street Noises. ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ Creamery happens 
 
 to be placed just round the corner, and within an 
 appreciable distance of my house. Now I have a 
 settled, deeply rooted conviction that no greater evil 
 was ever invented for this island of unhappy desti- 
 
AUTUMN 83 
 
 nies than these creameries; and I repeat what I once 
 heard a famous millionaire (no less than Mr. Car- 
 negie) declare, in answer to some amusing story about 
 betting, " If it were in my power I would give you, 
 sir (I mean the inventor of creameries), two months 
 of the hottest temperature you could bear in the 
 next world." But there it is, and there it will re- 
 main. And during these three hours of the morn- 
 ing, a slow, solemn procession of donkey-carts, each 
 with its solitary tankard of sweet milk, comes creep- 
 ing down the high road, across the bridge and on 
 to the creamery. And if you want to see the 
 dreamy and mysterious Celt, here he is ! and here 
 she is ! Slowly, at the rate of a mile every two 
 hours, the procession files on. The donkeys, in a 
 meditative mood, scarcely lift their feet, and seem 
 to proceed in a kind of shuffle, ears bent down, 
 brain dreaming, I suppose, on unlimited hay. And 
 meditatively, dreamily, solemnly, the drivers hang 
 listlessly on the cart, looking nowhere in particular, 
 only suffering themselves to be led by the instincts 
 of their beasts. And very often it is a young girl, 
 her shawl wrapped around her thick hair, her chin 
 resting gently on her hand, her eyes cast down, 
 dreaming, dreaming, dreaming ! 
 
 XCIII 
 
 By some occult but general rule, however, they all 
 seem to wake up just as they come right under my 
 window; and with furious beatings 
 
 -,,',, , - . ^r Creameries. 
 
 or their donkeys, and fierce cries or 
 " G'won ! G'won ! G'won 1 " sometimes emphasised 
 with a curse, they force the animals into a gallop. 
 The noise and clatter are maddening. Sometimes I 
 
84 PARERGA 
 
 think of what the Sage of Chelsea would say if he 
 were here in my study. How he would invoke the 
 Eternities and the Immensities ! How he would 
 invent from his too copious resources of unbridled 
 and unlicensed speech, epithets for the hated Irish ! 
 And how he would philosophise, and spill all the 
 vials of his wrath on the narrow, mammonish, ma- 
 terialistic spirit that compels these farmers to send 
 in the richness and fat of their flocks and herds to 
 swell the exchequer of an English speculator, whilst 
 consumptive girls here in the village cannot get a 
 glass of milk to wet their parched and splintered 
 lips ; and mothers are compelled to poison their 
 infants with black acrid tea because the farmers, for 
 a little profit, send every glass of milk from their 
 dairies to swell the tankards that pass under my 
 window every morning to the great condensed-milk 
 factory six miles away. O mad prophet of the un- 
 bridled tongue ! there is at least one who, differ- 
 ing from you in everything else, would cheerfully 
 join in your philippics here. 
 
 XCIV 
 
 And then, all day long, comes the vast army of 
 idlers of every rank, who apparently have nothing 
 ^. „ . else to do but to drive harassed beasts 
 
 City Noises. , , , r j t-i 
 
 up and down berore my door. I he 
 carts appear to be all empty ; but they drive and 
 drive, and rattle and creak over broken stones and 
 crossings, and I say : " What superb nerves these 
 fellows have ! They seem to enjoy the hideous 
 clatter ; or is it that they are narcotised by that 
 thick, oily, black tobacco that every one appears to 
 smoke? The cracking of whips, an amusement in 
 
AUTUMN 85 
 
 which Germans seemed to find great delight, used to 
 drive Schopenhauer almost mad. The barrel-organ 
 and the crowing of cocks were the especial torments 
 of Carlyle. Clearly there is nothing for it but to 
 wrap up in cotton-wool the "genus irritabile vatum"; 
 and put them in sound-proof chambers, and get the 
 " profanum vulgus " to cease forever their profane 
 noises. But how then shall we carry out Emerson's 
 prescription for literary men and especially women, 
 to spend all their years after sixty in some city? He 
 argues wisely and deeply as usual ; and there is much 
 sense in his theory that the country life is only 
 suited when the faculties are fresh, but that when 
 they grow hebetated and weak they need the stimu- 
 lus of human society to reanimate them. But the 
 noise and tumult and dust and clangour of a great 
 city — is not the price too much for the transient 
 gain ? 
 
 xcv 
 
 Yet " Back to the land ! Back to the land ! " 
 is the cry, and the opportune and legitimate cry of 
 all social reformers or economists who „, ,^ „ ^, 
 
 , , . r ' 1 World-Problems. 
 
 have the interests or nations at heart. 
 Here in Ireland, this little rugged rock in the North 
 Atlantic, we are prone to think that our problems 
 and difficulties are our own peculiar property which, 
 except for sympathetic assistance, should have no 
 concern for the world at large. We are so insular 
 in our ideas that we do not see that just as we shape 
 the characteristics of other conquered races, so are 
 we working out the same issues. Our little griev- 
 ances, which English statesmen laugh at, are in 
 reality not Irish problems, but world-problems. If 
 the quadrature of the circle could be solved in Ire- 
 
86 PARERGA 
 
 land, it would affect the universe. And if we can 
 solve the labour-problem, the problem of taxation, 
 the land problem, we shall solve them not only for 
 our own benefit, but for humanity at large, and for 
 generations yet unborn. Under all that is unde- 
 sirable and unendurable in politics, I see humanity 
 struggling upward and outward towards great and 
 lasting issues. But I think it is a mistake to im- 
 agine that Acts of Parliament can lift a race, as if 
 by hydraulic power, from the marsh to the mountain ; 
 and I think history testifies that it is not by Persic 
 laws, Draconian codes, Justinian Institutes, or Codes 
 Napoleon that the best elements of humanity have 
 been developed, and the race, or nations composing 
 the race, have been placed in the path of freedom 
 and progress. 
 
 XCVI 
 
 For example, whilst we are deploring the exodus 
 
 of our people from their native land, this chronic 
 
 hemorrhage that has been going on 
 
 Their Solution. c i • . r j • 
 
 for nearly sixty years, we find a sim- 
 ilar exodus from every country in Europe, save 
 France. Whilst we complain of the fatal tendency 
 of our people to flee the land and congregate in 
 great cities, we are reminded that in certain English 
 counties the land is so deserted that its owners are 
 glad to have their estates occupied merely for pay- 
 ment of rates. Whilst we deplore the compulsory 
 celibacy of our young men and women, and the 
 growing disinclination to assume the responsibili- 
 ties of marriage, we are reminded by advices from 
 America and England that what we thought a local 
 and limited evil is in reality as wide as the earth. 
 But all this should be an encouragement, not a 
 
AUTUMN 87 
 
 deterrent, to put forth all our energies, and, by 
 solving here on this little island our insular and 
 local problems, pave the way for the solution of the 
 wider and more intricate problems that are exercis- 
 ing the faculties of humanitarians from the rising to 
 the setting sun. And there is but one solution, — 
 the creation of new and wholesome ideas by means 
 of broad and liberal systems of education. 
 
 XCVII 
 
 On reading over to-day the " Lady of Shalott " 
 for my little children in school, and demanding an 
 explanation from them of the poem, 
 which is clearly allegorical, I saw, as Ihai^?.'^^ °^ 
 in a flash of light, what deep mean- 
 ing was hidden in the poet's mind. I cannot help 
 thinking that the idea must have been suggested 
 to Tennyson by these lines of Shakspeare, which 
 Goethe was so fond of quoting, — 
 
 " We are such stuff as dreams are made of. 
 And our little life is rounded by a sleep, — " 
 
 just as " Mariana In the Moated Grange " was sug- 
 gested by the lines in " Measure for Measure." And 
 the meaning appears to be that, for certain dream- 
 ers or poets, it is best to regard the earth and its 
 mortals as passing shadows, and to see them only 
 in the mirror of fancy and imagination, for it is 
 death to high hopes and dreams to turn away from 
 the shadow and face the terrible reality. 
 
 ♦* She hath heard a whisper say, 
 A curse is on her if she stay 
 
 To look down to Camelot. 
 She knows not what the curse may be. 
 And so she weaveth steadily. 
 And little other care hath she, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. " 
 
PARERGA 
 
 Precisely ! Poets and philosophers and dreamers 
 must keep steadily at their task, " weaving by night 
 and day the magic web," and never turning to 
 watch in the bald and bare realities of life the replica 
 of the fairy images wrought by the spell of imagina- 
 tion in the mirror of their own fancies. 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 Hence, one finds that every poet who turns 
 away from his magic mirror and stares boldly at 
 
 the realities of human existence be- 
 mrror°^^^' comes a confirmed pessimist. The 
 
 genial Shakspeare, whose high fore- 
 head and calm face seemed the very symbols of 
 placid content with himself and the world, became, 
 we know from several passages in his dramas, and 
 from all his sonnets, a soured and disappointed 
 man. Tennyson abandoned his sunny creations — 
 his Orianas and Doras and Claribels — for the 
 gloomy pessimism of " Locksley Hall : Sixty years 
 after," and " Despair," and " Maud." Dante 
 gnashed his teeth at the world. Browning was an 
 optimist, because he never saw things in the magic 
 mirror; but face to face from his early manhood, 
 in the happy realism of social life, he saw men and 
 women as they are, and was never compelled to 
 exchange the aerial sprites of poetic fancy for the 
 Calibans of ordinary life. No man can be an 
 optimist after fifty, unless he has been wise enough 
 never to gaze into the mirror of youthful fancies 
 and hopes, but to see and watch from the beginning 
 the stern if sombre realities of every-day existence. 
 It is a sad day in every human life when it can be 
 said : 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 " Out flew the web and floated wide. 
 The mirror cracked from side to side. 
 * The curse is come upon me,' cried 
 The Lady of Shalott. " 
 
 XCIX 
 
 Hence poets are quite out of place at five o'clock 
 teas and other social gatherings. We look to them 
 for some demonstration of their high 
 calling, — some manifestation of our society"*^ 
 belief, and possibly their conviction, 
 that they are not as other men. We like to see a 
 Wordsworth, clothed in his shepherd's plaid, and 
 walking in royal solitude along the summits of his 
 Cumberland or Westmoreland hills ; we do not 
 want to see him gnawing raisins behind green lamp- 
 shades in some commonplace London drawing- 
 room. Shelley, in his nautilus-craft, sailing before 
 the wind along the shores of the Gulf of Spezzia, 
 and wondering whether the next moment will not 
 reveal to him the great secret, is quite well placed 
 for the poet of "The Skylark " and "The Cloud." 
 We hate to think of him watching Constantia sing- 
 ing; or practising pistol-shots with Byron. Keats, 
 too, we can understand, dreaming out on Hamp- 
 stead Heath, or by the blue waves at Teignmouth. 
 But the Keats, revealed in his insane letters to 
 Fanny Brawne, is a terrible disillusion. And 
 Browning — the Browning of "Saul" and " Abt 
 Vogler," and the colossal poems that a pigmy gen- 
 eration cannot yet, even when standing on tiptoe, 
 measure — think of Browning standing, like a 
 gawkish school-boy, with Mrs. Carlyle's tea-kettle 
 in his hand ! And think oi our shame when we hear 
 him rebuked for his awkwardness, and petulantly 
 ordered to put it down ! 
 
90 PARERGA 
 
 And Carlyle himself, how fearfully and terribly 
 he lost by coming down from the Holy Mountain 
 and mixing with the common herd in 
 " ^ ^' the streets ! Had he remained in the 
 
 lonely seclusion of Craigenputtock, and issued from 
 thence, such epics as Sartor, we should not be forced 
 to think of him, as Herbert Spencer and Mill found 
 him, a garrulous and angry monologist, intolerant 
 of interruption and argument, and seeking in his 
 Babel of languages some stony expletive, harder 
 than the other, to fling at the head of an antagonist. 
 It is true that No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, is still 
 an object of interest to the world ; but it is not as 
 the Mecca of a prophet, but merely as the theatre 
 of such human weakness and marital unhappiness as 
 the world had seldom seen. A voice from the 
 desert or the mountain would have been listened to 
 by the present generation and echoed down along 
 the corridors of Time. But who can say, that the 
 Jeremiads and Woes of Chelsea are hearkened to by a 
 people that to-day are more materialistic and sunken 
 than when the voice from Craigenputtock first 
 awakened them to a sense of their political and 
 moral degradation? 
 
 CI 
 
 The most reserved, and therefore, the most re- 
 vered of modern writers, was probably Nathaniel 
 _- ^ Hawthorne. There is something 
 
 Hawthorne. , .-,.,,., , ° 
 
 very beautiful m his silent and up- 
 ward struggles through poverty and adverse circum- 
 stances to independence. No querulousness, no 
 
AUTUMN 91 
 
 railing at fortune, nor at men, from whom, indeed, as 
 seems to be always the case with such gentle and 
 lofty spirits, he received but scant consideration ; 
 but silent work, carried out always in obedience to 
 that silent behest of genius to persevere through 
 faith in one's own unacknowledged powers. And 
 then, when triumph came, the meek enjoyment of 
 the slender competence the world flings to such 
 benefactors, and the same reticence and reserve that 
 characterised his hidden and early struggles. Yes ! 
 the contemplation of such silent and lofty spirits is 
 invigorating in the enervation that will come from 
 the loud noises of a blatant world. And his end 
 was quite in harmony and beautiful unison with his 
 life. Gently, without a murmur, or even a sigh, 
 he sank into the dreamless sleep; and his friend, 
 deceived by his placidity and motionless aspect, did 
 not know and could not tell at what time sleep 
 ended and death began. 
 
 CII 
 
 So ! it is Winter. The beautiful frost-foliage is 
 on my windows in the morning, — flowers and 
 leaves, wrought out in all manners 
 of such exquisite curves and interlac- 
 ings that no human art could possibly approach it. 
 No finest pencil, or sharpest chisel, held in the 
 hands of a Michael Angelo or a Phidias could 
 trace on canvas or marble anything at all approach- 
 ing the exquisite tracery, the multitudinous lines, 
 the sweeps and segments of circles wrought in a 
 few hours by the invisible spirit of the air on a little 
 moisture on the glass. Alas ! that it is evanescent, 
 like all beautiful things. I breathe softly on the 
 
92 PARERGA 
 
 window-pane, and lo ! 't is gone. The secret artist 
 withdraws his handiwork, and departs. It is a hint 
 at perfection, a suggestion of the absolute, which 
 Nature is forever giving us to remind us of " The 
 Beauty, ever ancient, ever new," that hes beyond the 
 visible, and shall be revealed when matter is no 
 more, but only the Form, the Archetype, the Vision 
 and the Spirit stand out against the background of 
 eternity. 
 
 cm 
 
 Like Jean Paul's wandering spirit through the 
 stars, the Infinitely Great, — when he sank down 
 terrified at the awful revelations, and 
 besought the Angel of the Lord to 
 spare him any further revelations as too over- 
 whelming for a human intellect, — I confess to a 
 feeling of dread of examining too minutely God's 
 second revelation, the Infinitely Little. It is again 
 a succession of wonders, minute but significant; 
 and these crowd upon the human mind that inves- 
 tigates them with such amazing prodigality that 
 there seems no release from their terrifying and 
 seemingly interminable succession, but to lay down 
 one's book, and cease to investigate further. On a 
 long piece of mica, that founder of crystallography, 
 the Abbe Haiiy says : 
 
 "We have been able to detach from it a layer that reflected a 
 beautiful clear blue, which is a sign of extreme tenuity. Having 
 calculated the thickness of this layer, we found it equal to the 
 forty-three millionth of a millimetre, which supposes that from 
 a piece of mica one millimetre thick, we can slice off more than 
 23,000 separated lamina." 
 
 And of the crystalline drawings and pencillings 
 on my window-pane Professor Tyndall could write: 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 93 
 
 '•Let us imagine for a moment that stones are gifted with a 
 power of locomotion, that they attract and repel each other, and 
 that by virtue of these attractions and repulsions they dispose them- 
 selves in such order as to form houses and streets in the most per- 
 fect symmetry, would we not be astounded at such phenomena ? 
 Observe those stars of ice which form on your window-pane during 
 winter : viewed by the microscope in their complete formation 
 each of them has six rays ; one would say they were flowers with 
 six petals, and each molecule takes up its place in this type rigor- 
 ously hexagonal." 
 
 Alas! that such a lover of "the fairy tales of 
 Science" could not, like old Sir Thomas Browne, 
 utter with faith, "O Altitudo!" 
 
iart EI 
 
 WINTER 
 
WINTER 
 
 Section I 
 
 I 
 
 One advantage of the wintry season is that it 
 draws in and concentrates thought and interest on 
 domestic and homely things. Sum- 
 mer is the period of externation. Our of'w^nten'"'"^ 
 ideas with ourselves expand and travel 
 abroad. Everything seems to open up, — the heav- 
 ens, light, the length of day, the sun, the trees, the 
 flowers, the very insects. These latter form a world 
 in themselves ; and we wonder where they lay hid- 
 den and perdus during the long Winter; and how did 
 they, frail things, protect themselves against bitter 
 and biting frosts, which killed birds and plants and 
 flowers without remorse. Yet here they come 
 forth, — some as garden beauties, some as garden 
 pests; some extremely beautiful, some extremely 
 ugly; that is, if there be such a thing as ugliness 
 at all in anything which Omnipotent and Eternal 
 Beauty has constructed. But now Nature goes 
 into retreat. The days narrow to a slit of twi- 
 light; the skies draw down and weigh upon the 
 atmosphere, which chokes and blinds us; all living 
 things seem to have vanished, as if by magic, from 
 the flower-beds and shrubs and walks of my garden. 
 And we, too, become narrowed and contracted from 
 all external interests and occupations ; and we notice 
 and watch and philosophise about things which a 
 few weeks ago seemed to us of little or merely pass- 
 
 7 
 
PARERGA 
 
 ing interest. Perhaps it is but the physical theory 
 appHed to thought, that heat has an expansive influ- 
 ence and that cold contracts. 
 
 II 
 
 Lu and Ju are kittens, about three or four 
 
 months old. They differ much in appearance, but 
 
 very little in their habits. Lu is 
 
 Z.U and Ju. .•_ r t t j ^u 
 
 quite angelic, ir I may dare use the 
 expression. Her white, soft, downy breast, her meek 
 eyes, her little pink nose and tongue, speak nothing 
 but gentleness and playfulness. Ju is more robust, 
 and her grey fur, roughened sometimes in play or 
 anger, and her eager eyes, give one the idea of closer 
 relationship with the striped terror of Indian and 
 Bengal jungles. They seem to enjoy life, climbing 
 up lace curtains to their serious detriment, scratch- 
 ing the damask of chairs and sofas, tearing out by 
 clawfuls the fur of the hearth-rug, chasing each 
 other under tables and chairs, rolling over on the 
 carpet, and clawing at each other in sportive play- 
 fulness. They are rather exclusive, too. Charlie, 
 my white English terrier, a very lively and jocund 
 individual, has made several advances and been 
 rudely repulsed. He has stood on his hind legs 
 and gracefully pawed the air, rolled over on his 
 back, and performed other gymnastics, evidently 
 with the intention of being allowed to share the 
 amusements of the kittens. But no ! He has been 
 ignominiously repelled. To all his blandishments 
 there is but one response, — a hiss, a spit, and a 
 quick, fierce dash of a paw that might seriously 
 injure his optics. In this peremptory refusal of all 
 
WINTER 
 
 99 
 
 advances, Lu is as fierce as Ju, and Ju Is as fierce 
 as Lu. Otherwise, and in all the other details of 
 life, the kittens manifest a spirit of fraternity that 
 would suit the dreams of a Communard. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But a few days ago, in an unhappy moment for 
 her own ultimate felicity, Lu killed a mouse. It 
 was her first, and she was very proud 
 of the achievement. But she was ^rprocaime 
 not going to keep it in a museum. She wanted to 
 eat it. Unfortunately Ju wanted the same. Lu 
 strenuously and emphatically refused, claiming the 
 prey for her lawful prize. She had seized it and 
 killed it. Therefore, by all law, human and feline, 
 it was hers, and no one had a right to interfere. 
 But Ju had an idea also, borrowed from certain 
 moralists, that she had a right at least to deprive 
 Lu of possession if she could do so by violence, 
 fraud, feint, or sleight of hand, diplomacy, or other 
 method. Hence war has been formally proclaimed 
 and is now raging. The fraternity born in the 
 common cradle is broken up; the sports of child- 
 hood are set aside for the sterner work of warfare ; 
 the angelic Lu hides her prey like a burglar, and 
 burrows in dark corners, growling over it, little 
 beast as she is ; and Ju watches from secret places 
 like any assassin, pounces on the incautious Lu, 
 rolls her over, and tries to murder her ; whilst, all 
 day long, the noise of battle — growls and screams, 
 and hurried scampering to and fro, and rude en- 
 counters — have taken the place of those gentle 
 amenities that hitherto had marked the unruffled 
 progress of happy kitten-life. 
 
100 PARERGA 
 
 IV 
 
 One smiles pityingly, and rather contemptuously, 
 on these pranks of the lower creation, until it is 
 
 suddenly asked. Wherein does the 
 Hum?nfty" higher humanity differ ? Put human 
 
 beings for Lu and Ju ; put a piece of 
 paper, a coin, a bit of polished charcoal, a square 
 of earth, a riband, in place of the mouse, — and is 
 not the fraternal spirit, too, rapidly changed into the 
 fratricidal ? How men's faces harden and grow 
 thin ; how the light dies from their eyes, and the 
 fierce animal-cunning look takes its place ; how sud- 
 denly the gentle purrings and cooings and dainty 
 little amenities of life are set aside, and the hard, 
 metallic judicial or military note is assumed; and 
 how each creature seeks to hide his treasure and 
 bury it in a bank, and lock up his securities so that 
 no human eye may see them, for he knows that cov- 
 etousness and rapacity are everywhere, and that he 
 must conceal his treasures or fight for them ! And 
 statesmen governing mighty empires, — how they, 
 too, have to watch, and prevaricate, and lie boldly, 
 and bury deeply, and speculate wildly, and steal 
 unblushingly, to safeguard their little possessions ! 
 Put bayonets for claws, the thunder of cannon and 
 the rattle of musketry for the angry growl, and a 
 piece of barren island for a mouse, and you have 
 brought down the statesman, whose word rules 
 hemispheres, to the level of Lu and Ju. 
 
WINTER loi 
 
 Charlie has heroically offered his services as ally, 
 or peacemaker between the hostile forces. He pre- 
 tends, canine diplomat as he is, to be 
 quite indifferent about the spolia opima^ " ^' 
 
 around which the battle is raging. He affects the 
 lordly indifference of a superior being, of one who 
 has copious treasures of his own, and a plethora of 
 good things in general, in order that his services, 
 given generously and gratuitously, without hope of 
 favour or reward, may be accepted. Charlie, who 
 cannot see the flutter of a wing in the garden, or 
 the faintest sign of animal life without being seized 
 with the fierce fury of a murderer, now assumes the 
 role of peacemaker. A mouse, — a mere mouse, 
 already half consumed and badly mangled, — he 
 turns away in sorrowing contempt for such a thing. 
 Has he not his own prey and booty in the stable? 
 Did he not kill that young, brown rat, that was 
 making such criminal raids upon the oat-bin yester- 
 day ; and has he not as many trophies as yonder 
 bloated spider with all his gallows-victims around 
 him ? Oh, no ! Charlie, in offering his services 
 as ally or intermediary, is above suspicion. Be- 
 sides, there is canine honour to be maintained. 
 And honour above all things ! O canis improbe I 
 O caeca hominum pectora ! And oh, Charlie ! that 
 much-abused motto, Noblesse oblige I 
 
 VI 
 
 Ju has conquered ! She caught Lu In an Incau- 
 tious moment, when she was sadly » ,, ^. , 
 
 J / ^ ,, - •' A Machiavel. 
 
 unprepared (too full a sense or se- 
 curity, I expect, or too much reliance on that astute 
 
PARERGA 
 
 statesman, Charlie, who had completely succumbed 
 to her charms), rolled her over again and again, 
 snatched the fragmentary prize and incontinently 
 ate it. Lu is just now caterwauling and making 
 ineffectual appeals for sympathy around the house. 
 Ju is on my hearth-rug, either in a state of apo- 
 plectic coma from too much mouse-meat, or in a 
 state of sad depression from the consummation of 
 her crime. Remorse is snapping at the heels of 
 ill deeds. Charlie is sitting beyond her, looking at 
 the fire in a sad manner. He is overwhelmed by 
 the consciousness of feline depravity. There is a 
 melancholy pity on his fine features as he looks 
 sometimes on the penitent criminal beneath him, 
 and then at the fire. Once or twice he caught my 
 eye, as I watched them both ; and he looked at 
 me as if there were some link of a common supe- 
 riority and general immunity from universal de- 
 pravity between us. It was flattering, but then I 
 thought I saw the fellow winking with his off-eye 
 at the fire. I cannot make him out. He is a 
 Machiavelli in furs ; a Talleyrand without an em- 
 peror to practice his wiles upon. 1 am getting 
 rather suspicious of Charlie. He fawns on me, 
 thrusts his nose into my hand, professes eternal fidel- 
 ity and affection. But yesterday, when I pushed 
 away a bone with my foot, he nearly bit me. And 
 this affectation of virtue ! I don't Uke it. 
 
 vn 
 
 Yes ! I see it is remorse that is agitating Ju, — 
 not the dyspeptic melancholy of too much mouse- 
 _ meat. She goes about sadly, clings 
 
 Remorse. , , ,° , , -^ * °j 
 
 to the hearth-rug when she can, and 
 refuses to play even with her ally, Charlie. To-day 
 
WINTER 103 
 
 she looked so miserable, so utterly broken-hearted, 
 that I commiserated her, and not wishing to hurt 
 her feelings by making a direct application of the 
 subject to her case, I read aloud the following pas- 
 sage from a brilliant lecture by his Grace the Duke 
 of Argyll, K. C, delivered before the students who 
 had assembled in the London Mansion, as one of 
 a course of university extension addresses. Charlie 
 stood up to leave, but I bade him remain. I think 
 he suspected that I was going to be personal in my 
 remarks. Nothing was further from my mind. I 
 hate personalities. I think there is nothing more 
 unpleasant in life than personal remarks, if I except 
 personal explanations. I have a few acquaintances 
 who are always explaining. I hate to hear their 
 knock, and to be informed that they would like to 
 see me on business. I feel like the Eton boy who 
 is told, " the Master wishes to see you in his room." 
 I always know what 's coming : 
 
 "A fine day!" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 " Very cold, however ! " 
 
 "Yes, very cold. I think the glass is running 
 down." A pause. 
 
 "You won't mind my speaking to you about a 
 little matter — " Oh, dear! 
 
 But Ju and Charlie are waiting. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Thus saith his Grace, the Duke of Argyll: 
 "There is one other universal fact connected 
 
 with past history to which, for a few 
 
 minutes, I wish to attract your atten- spee^h!'^^"^'^ 
 
 tion, and it is this : that man, ever 
 
 since we have had any record of him, has been a 
 
104 PARERGA 
 
 fighting animal." {A gentle murmur of applause from 
 Charlie ; Ju wakes up.) " Let not my fair friends 
 whom I have the honour to address, think I am 
 bringing before them something which belongs to a 
 coarse philosophy." {Charlie nudges Juy who looks 
 slightly offended.) "Let us look facts in the face. 
 In all science we have to deal with facts, and we 
 ought not to put them aside for the sake of fancy 
 or sentiment. It is unquestionably true that war 
 and conquest have been universal facts in the history 
 of the world. I believe I am correct in saying that 
 there is not a single nation of any power now exist- 
 ing in the world, that has not been founded on war 
 or conquest." {^^ Bow-wow ,' from Charlie, which is 
 the canine equivalent of Hear I Hear ! 'The Chair de- 
 mands silence.) " So it has been all over the world, 
 and it is so at the present moment. We are even 
 now perpetually seizing and occupying countries 
 which have a native population, and whom we do 
 not actually conquer only because they are too weak 
 to fight. The world in this respect has not changed, 
 ladies and gentlemen, — not one whit. I know 
 nothing more curious in recent history than the fact 
 that, in the great war between Germany and France 
 when France was defeated, Germany seized a little 
 bit of her territory, — Alsace; and she was severely 
 blamed for doing so." {Scornful laughter from Ju and 
 Charlie.) "I said to all my friends at that time, 
 ' Do you think the world has so completely changed; 
 that great wars and great conquests are to go on, and 
 that the conquering nation is never to take what all 
 other nations have hitherto taken, portions of terri- 
 tory for their own possession ? ' There was no 
 answer to that." {Bow I wow I wow I from Charlie.) 
 
WINTER 105 
 
 IX 
 
 Ju stretched herself and yawned deeply. The crisis 
 had passed. There will be no felo de se this time. 
 Her conscience is at rest. She has 
 withdrawn formally the Nimmer und 
 Nimmermehr about which her mind was sadly revolv- 
 ing. Here, in the higher human species, and in the 
 very apogee of its progress towards perfection, are 
 both precept and examples — the credentials for 
 future infinite mouse-eating and feline rapacities. 
 Might is right ! All human moralities point that 
 way ; and we, of the lower levels, wild or domesti- 
 cated, must not dare presume to pitch our moral 
 conduct on a higher plane than that of our great 
 superiors. I don't know what Lu will think of his 
 Grace the Duke of Argyll ; but she, too, has now 
 carte blanche to take and keep whatever lies in her 
 power. It is primitive morality, but simple. And 
 oh ! how it does solve all the metaphysical questions 
 about free will, and the rights of States to punish ; 
 and capital punishment, and death penalties, and 
 reformation of criminals. Surely, if it had no other 
 merit, this alone, that it stopped forever the wran- 
 glings of philosophers, would justify it. Dante 
 has written a Divina Commedia; Alfred Austin a 
 Human Tragedy; Balzac a Comedie Humaine ; alas! 
 there is no room for more. 
 
 X 
 
 My poor boy-patient died this morning. His face 
 had become fearfully deformed in the 
 progress of the dread disease, epitheli- |fj|"" ^^^ 
 oma. Even the profile, hitherto un- 
 touched, began at last to be affected, like the other ; 
 
io6 PARERGA 
 
 the right eye bulged forth ; the malady grew down 
 and into the throat, until at last he could swallow 
 no food, and became emaciated like a tuberculous 
 patient. And just as he died I took up the morn- 
 ing paper and read that an indubitable cure for 
 cancer had been discovered in France ; and that 
 Pasteur's assistant in Paris had accepted it, and was 
 already working wonderful cures on his patients. 
 One is slightly incredulous about such reports, until 
 they are put beyond doubt by repeated and genuine 
 experiment. Yet we are at liberty to admire this 
 unquenchable desire of Science to grapple with its 
 great antagonist, Death, although victory must 
 remain always with the latter. It is the dread 
 picture of Laocoon and the serpents that is pre- 
 sented to our imagination when we see the priests 
 of Science grappling with the inevitable and the all- 
 conquering. There really is nothing for humanity 
 but to accept its fate. 
 
 " Out, out, brief candle ! 
 Life *s but a walking shadow. A poor player 
 That frets and struts his hour upon the stage. 
 And then is heard no more ! " 
 
 XI 
 
 It was a dreary, clammy, wet, and dismal day, as 
 we bore his poor remains across the stretch of country 
 
 to a mountain hollow, where the 
 Afdca^^VeWt. churchyard nestled under great trees, 
 
 as if the earth alone were not able to 
 hide its beloved dead. Great sheets of grey rain 
 swept across the landscape, hid the mountains, filled 
 the valleys, clothed the naked branches with pearls, 
 and replenished the dry channels, where all the 
 Autumn the brown and red and green sandstone 
 
WINTER 107 
 
 pebbles and boulders lay naked to the sight. We 
 took him up through deep cuttings in the hills, 
 down through pleasant valleys, until at last we de- 
 posited the sacred burden in earth consecrated 
 in the memories and devotions of the faithful for 
 over a thousand years. It was a lonely place, and 
 we the mourners were few. One or two people 
 from the straggling hill-village looked out, and 
 seeing something that broke the grey monotony of 
 their lives, sauntered down after us to the graveyard, 
 and raised their hats as the last prayers were repeated. 
 Then all departed, and he was alone. " Well," said 
 some one, penetrated with a sense of the loneliness 
 and desolation of the place, and the sad surcease of 
 a life that was just breaking out into such promise 
 of great things, " it is better to rest here than in a 
 stony grave out on an African veldt." 
 
 XII 
 
 How strange is that cry of Rest! Rest! Rest! 
 the prayer and the hope of humanity. Young and 
 old alike look forward to it ; the for- „ , „ ^* 
 mer, as the concomitant or age and 
 the reward of life's labour ; the latter, in death, the 
 final sleep and stillness for mind and body. We 
 place the magic initials on our obituary notices of 
 our departed ones ; we write the full words, Re- 
 quiescat in pace^ as the final farewell when the grave 
 hides them from our sight. Customs differ in 
 different countries ; but I must say I was inexpres- 
 sibly touched on noticing in the German and Swiss 
 cemeteries, particularly over the graves of little chil- 
 dren, the little poetic prayers : 
 
 '' Ruhe Sanftr' 
 
io8 PARERGA 
 
 and beneath, as the last word of immortal hope 
 blending with the final benediction : 
 
 ** Auf Wiedersehen ! ' ' 
 
 Goethe, the scientific Pagan, omits the latter word 
 of Christian hope in the famous lines he wrote in 
 the grotto or summer house at Weimar : 
 
 " Ueber alien Gipfeln 
 1st Ruh ; 
 In alien Wipfeln 
 Spiirest du 
 Kaum einen Hauch ; 
 Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde ; 
 Warte nur, balde 
 Ruhest du auch." ^ 
 
 XIII 
 
 A huge bunch of chrysanthemums — white as 
 
 curds, bronze as dying fireflames, scarlet, yellow, 
 pink — was on my writing-desk when 
 
 Fiowers.^^ °^ I returned ; and strange to say, al- 
 most the first lines my eyes fell upon 
 
 when after dinner I turned up the flame of my lamp 
 
 and began to read were these : 
 
 " Flowers have souls, as well as animals, all spreading and 
 expanding and germinating upwards even to the soul of 
 
 ■ Over every mountain-height 
 
 Slumber broods ; 
 Scarcely a zephyr light 
 Stirs in the woods 
 One leafy crest. 
 The song-bird sleeps on the bough 
 Wait a little, and thou. 
 Thou, too, shalt rest." 
 
WINTER 109 
 
 And these words were spoken by the strangest 
 lips and in the strangest place ; yea, even by the lips 
 of Napoleon the heartless, and on the rock of St. 
 Helena. Think of the lips of bronze that thun- 
 dered over Europe for twenty years, and condemned 
 at least two millions of his race to death, uttering 
 such a piece of poetry ; and in his barren cage where 
 sultry siroccos and the sharp teeth of ocean hurri- 
 canes had worn away vegetation even to the stony 
 surface, except where in valleys and hidden places a 
 willow might grow, and water spring, and grasses 
 wave, as in that lonely spot where, after six years of 
 mental and physical torture, the little frame of granite 
 and iron was laid to rest. 
 
 XIV 
 
 How much more appropriately sounds a similar 
 conception from the mind of the poet, who extorted 
 the admiration of the bowelless con- ^ ^^ , „.^^, 
 
 r 11 1 rr cc iz -i-^ ^ Holy Riddle. 
 
 queror after the battle or J ena. " yoiLa 
 
 un hommel " And how sweetly come the words in 
 
 the native German : 
 
 "Alle Gestaken sind ahnlich, und keine gleichet der andern ; 
 Und so deutet das Chor auf ein geheimes Gesetz, 
 Auf ein heiliges Rathsel." ^ 
 
 A holy riddle I So it is. And it may be expressed 
 thus : "What is it in Nature that not only develops 
 the instinct, the passion, for new creations, but makes 
 that instinct also develop itself in forms of varied 
 and entrancing beauty ? " And whence her tremen- 
 
 ^ ** All the forms are resembling, and no one is like to another; 
 And thus does the chorus point to a mysterious law, 
 A holy riddle:' 
 
no PARERGA 
 
 dous prolific sources whence proceed not only new 
 creations, but such an infinite variety of beautiful 
 forms that one is bewildered by such munificence, 
 such prodigality, such infinite resources for produc- 
 ing form and colour and detail, absolutely perfect 
 and flawless ? Look at these chrysanthemums on 
 my table ! I am bewildered with their beauty. 
 
 XV 
 
 I doubt if the fertile imagination of any poet ever 
 invented such a pretty little story as that which a 
 certain naturalist tells us of a mimosa 
 and a Uttle child somewhere in South 
 America. This beautiful plant had become so ac- 
 customed to be approached and touched by the 
 young daughter of the house that it never shrank 
 from her, but like a sentient thing, like a bird or a 
 favourite dog, allowed itself to be fondled and fed 
 by the gentle fingers of the child. A gentleman 
 visitor, also a botanist, whilst thoroughly recognising 
 the sensibility of these wonderful creations, was yet 
 incredulous about its dumb perception of the child's 
 affection. The matter was put to the test. The 
 gentleman was challenged to approach the plant with 
 all caution. He did so. But when he came within 
 a yard of the mimosa, it shyly drew in its petals and 
 closed them fast, just as an oyster snaps at the touch, 
 or the garden-snail withdraws its feelers and horns. 
 After an interval it opened up again, and stretched 
 out its petals. Then the child was bade approach. 
 Not only did the plant remain quite open, but it 
 allowed the gentle fingers to smooth and rub the 
 petals and twist them hither and thither without the 
 least sign of shrinking or of fear. 
 
WINTER III 
 
 XVI 
 
 Yet, whilst that feeling remains uppermost in my 
 mind that these pretty things have at least sensibility, 
 ^ .„ . ^ it brings with it a hideous reflection. 
 
 Guillotined. '-ni, n ^ li i 
 
 These flowers on my table are soul- 
 less ; for these most beautiful fronds and leaves are 
 the decapitated heads of winter beauties which the 
 scissors would not spare. Already I can perceive 
 the process of decay. They have been ruthlessly 
 guillotined, and must perish. And as I watch them 
 by my lamplight, and wonder at their beautiful 
 petals and corolla, a sudden resemblance flashes up. 
 I see a fair, sweet face, crowned with a corona of 
 white powdered hair, carried on the top of a pike 
 through the streets of Paris. It is the head of the 
 youthful Princesse de Lamballe, who has been torn 
 from the side of the unhappy Queen, ruthlessly mur- 
 dered, insulted in death in an unspeakable manner, 
 finally cut into small pieces, which were scattered over 
 the pavements of Paris. One, more brutal than the 
 others, has brought her head on his lance, and pa- 
 raded it beneath the windows of the Duke of Orleans. 
 Philippe Egalite rises from his dinner-table and 
 smiles at the ghastly trophy. It was then borne to 
 the Temple, and paraded beneath the windows of 
 Louis XVI. A commissioner calls him to the win- 
 dow to see it. Another tries to prevent him. The 
 cut flower is carried away to be trampled beneath 
 the feet of demons. 
 
112 PARERGA 
 
 XVII 
 
 Last night we had a most glorious meteoric 
 shower. I heard the children " making wishes " 
 
 outside my windows, and concluded 
 Sh^\n°"'^ from their exclamations that the 
 
 mighty and mysterious heavens were 
 producing once again, and at their stated times, a 
 magnificent spectacular display. So it was. Swiftly 
 and beautifully as arrows shot from an invisible bow 
 by the hands of some mighty Archer, the tenuous 
 lines were flung forth, and after trailing a path of 
 light across the heavens, sank soundless into the 
 womb of Infinity. At one time they seemed to 
 cross each other in irregular lines like summer light- 
 ning; and apparently they were performing a zig- 
 zag dance in the heavens. But I had seen something 
 about their being focussed in origin from some cen- 
 tral point; and it was then quite easy to perceive 
 that, swift and sudden as was their flight, the vast 
 projectiles did issue from the centre of the constel- 
 lation Andromeda. Each meteoric flash lit up not 
 only the heavens, but the earth, with a pale blue 
 light; and the whole efi^ect was pretty, but not sub- 
 lime. The one feature in the great display that was 
 sublime was the sudden swallowing up of such vast, 
 ignited, metallic masses in the awful deserts of the 
 universe. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Suddenly all kinds of star-lines in star-poetry 
 shot through my mind, but their 
 
 A Great Line. i 
 
 presence there was as evanescent as 
 the meteors themselves. All but one line of 
 
WINTER 113 
 
 transcendent beauty from the " Midsummer Night's 
 Dream " : 
 
 " And certain stars shot madly from their spheres 
 To hear the sea-maid^ s music. ^'' 
 
 That line hung crystalline and liquid in the night 
 of memory as the planet Jupiter that looked down 
 upon these foolish meteors as if nailed to the Infi- 
 nite; and, as I watched the tenuous flashes, and 
 thought over the beauties of that line, — the allit- 
 eration so delicate and unpronounced, the short 
 syllables that marked the swift flight of the stars, 
 and the broad, smooth vowels of " sea-maid's 
 music," I thought for the thousandth time that 
 there is but one great enigma in literature, and 
 that is Shakspeare. 
 
 XIX 
 
 For how can the imagination compass the fact 
 that the same hand which wrote that line, and 
 others, such as. 
 
 Contrasts. 
 
 *'or Heaven's cherubin, horsed 
 Upon the sightless couriers of the air ; " 
 
 or these : 
 
 " spirits are not finely touched 
 But to fine issues ; nor nature never lends 
 The smallest sample of her excellence 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 Herself the glory of a creditor, — 
 Both thanks and use," 
 
 did also actually write the riverside tavern obscen- 
 ities that deface so much of his verse that one 
 must walk with a lantern, as on the pavement of 
 
 8 
 
PARERGA 
 
 an Oriental city by night, lest the foot should 
 stumble into unnameable horrors? It is altogether 
 inconceivable, impossible, except on one theory, that 
 the man, Shakspeare, stands, like ancient Homer, 
 for a multitude of singers, some sweet, some hoarse, 
 some vile, some sublime ; that he was a practical 
 eclectic, using his powers of adaptation and selection 
 with marvellous dexterity, here and there adjusting 
 to some great historic scene some mighty speech 
 or philosophic monologue, caught from the lips of 
 Verulam or Pembroke, and again descending to the 
 tavern to seize for comedy the wit and repartee of 
 minds teeming with all kinds of salacious abomi- 
 nations. " Airs from heaven " and " blasts from 
 hell " were never seen in such combination in any 
 other poet. 
 
 XX 
 
 It is not a little singular, but it is very signifi- 
 cant, that Shakspeare has not said one kind word 
 about the sea. He seems to be 
 
 Se^Sea*^"^*^ ^"'^ P^^^^^^^^^^Y uneconomic of the word 
 " ruffian," when he speaks of winds 
 or surges. 
 
 "And in the visitation of the winds. 
 Who take the ruffian billows by the top. 
 Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 
 With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds. " 
 
 And in "Othello": 
 
 " Methinks the wind has spoke aloud at land ; 
 A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements ; 
 If it hath ruffianed so upon the sea. 
 What ribs of oak, when mountains melt upon them. 
 Can hold the mortise ? " 
 
WINTER 
 
 15 
 
 And in several places we meet such expressions as : 
 
 ** The rough seas that spare not any man." 
 
 "The deep-mouthed sea." 
 
 " In cradle of the rude, imperious surge." 
 
 The deep love, and the mysterious longings, and 
 the suggestions of eternity and infinity, and the 
 contrast between its intransience and this fleeting 
 life, and all the tender sounds and aspects of the 
 sea seem to have been completely unknown to 
 him. 
 
 XXI 
 
 But this feature is common to all poets with 
 Shakspeare, prior to the nineteenth century. The 
 Bible always speaks with a certain 
 dread of the sea — of its monsters, the^sea!^°^ 
 its leviathans, its strength, its fury. 
 The Homeric epithets " loud-resounding," " wine- 
 coloured," suggest an alien and perilous element. 
 One expression in Dante, very tender and very 
 sweet, seems to come closer to modern sentiment 
 than anything to be found in his predecessors or 
 contemporaries. It is the well-known line in the 
 Purgatorio : ^ 
 
 ** L'alba vinceva I'ora mattutina 
 
 Che fuggia innanzi, si che di lontano 
 Conobbi il tremolar della marina.^' 
 
 There is some pride in the sea, as England's ex- 
 clusive domain, in the eighteenth-century English 
 poets. But there is no hint as yet of that deep, 
 
 ^ Canto I., 115-118. 
 
ii6 PARERGA 
 
 almost uninterpreted love of the sea, which seems 
 to have held captive every poet that sang in the 
 nineteenth century, from Shelley to Swinburne. I 
 say " uninterpreted, " because it is quite clear that 
 their expressions are not consciously adequate to 
 interpret their feelings. The passion, the rapture, 
 with which such poets watched the ever-varying 
 face of the deep has not found its rightful expres- 
 sion in their works. There is something always 
 lacking amidst the exuberant enthusiasm of their 
 love. No poet has yet embodied his dream of 
 the sea. But the sea and the child have been the 
 invention, or revelation, of the nineteenth century. 
 
 XXII 
 
 This is quite intelligible. Although it seems 
 
 paradoxical, the very infinitude of the sea, with its 
 
 vast and beautiful suggestions, was 
 
 A Modern ^u c U' u • lu 
 
 Passion. the feature, which m the past, con- 
 
 stituted its terror. For then, it was 
 an unknown and awful element, pathless like a 
 desert, and with all the minatory and frightful as- 
 pects which are associated with the idea of vastness 
 and loneliness and danger. It was illimitable ; and 
 the illimitable always makes the heart of man to 
 sicken and grow sad. But in our time, whilst its 
 greatness and seeming infinity suggest eternity, and 
 afford a background for all sublime and spiritual 
 imaginings, the conquest of its terrors by frail, pitiful 
 man has robbed it of that threatening and melan- 
 choly aspect which it seems to have presented to 
 our forefathers. It is no longer, even in its most 
 hostile moods, our dread, omnipotent master. The 
 giant has been chained and wheeled into our service. 
 
WINTER 
 
 117 
 
 and our children play with him. But his greatness 
 and vastness, his loneliness and majesty, his varied 
 moods of tempest and tranquil peace appeal to our 
 imagination, and give birth to that vast outburst of 
 sea-music, which forms the most conspicuous and 
 most delightful element in the majestic literature of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 One supreme advantage of the winter months is 
 that it takes you from the companionship of men, 
 and throws you into the companion- ,. ^ t, , 
 
 , . r 1 1 r) 1 ^^" ^"^ Books. 
 
 ship or books. Books are greater 
 than men, because they reveal man at his highest. 
 The author of " Hamlet" and "Lear" is infinitely 
 superior to the "immortal link-boy," or the cautious 
 speculator of Stratford, or the gay companion, who 
 gave up his life in a drunken bout. The divine 
 poet who wrote that poets' poem, " The Faerie 
 Queene " is not to be brought down to the mean 
 level of the ruthless exterminator, the mercenary 
 scribe and secretary of Lord Deputies and County 
 Lieutenants. You cannot recognise the author of 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in the voluptuary of 
 Venice ; and you can never understand how the 
 same pen that wrote " Endymion " and five im- 
 mortal odes could have indited those pitiable letters 
 to Fanny Brawne. The only two poets, who seemed 
 to live up to their high calling, and keep the lofty 
 serenity in daily life that breathes through their im- 
 mortal verses, are Dante and Shelley. I think I 
 would rather look at the glorious Florentine, and 
 speak with him, than read the Divina Commedia or 
 the Convito. And I am sure I would rather see 
 
ii8 PARERGA 
 
 Shelley than hang over the pages of Alastor or 
 Adonais. These men lived poetry, not merely 
 wrote it. And I am sure neither their actions, 
 nor their ideas, nor their principles, nor their con- 
 verse could ever savour of the commonplace. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 But as we cannot "call spirits from the vasty deep," 
 
 and as we have here the immortal part of them, let 
 
 us be thankful ; and closing down 
 
 A Student's ^i • ^ ^ • j ^- • 
 
 Library. the wmter curtams, and stirrmg up 
 
 the winter fire, let us have a sympo- 
 sium of the Gods. And as the details of a student's 
 library are as interesting as the details of a quarrel or 
 a divorce; and as details, circumstances, surround- 
 ings, are the very things most readers want to see 
 and stamp on their imaginations, let me mention 
 briefly one or two that are trivial and yet of uni- 
 versal interest. And first let me mention that I 
 read and write by lamplight — a good old-fashioned, 
 brass-pillared, opal-shaded lamp, that throws a mel- 
 low light on these pages, and contributes not a little 
 to raise the temperature of my study to the 62° 
 prescribed by medical science as a comfortable heat. 
 I mention that trivial fact, not only as indicative of 
 a constitutional aversion to novelties, and a close 
 clinging to ancient prejudices — " old wine, old 
 books, old friends " — but also because this reaction- 
 ary symptom in my character does not appear to 
 recommend itself to my friends. 
 
 " Psha," they say, " get the electric light, man, or 
 use acetylene gas, or at least incandescent burners. 
 That old paraffin lamp is as antiquated as a quill 
 pen or a horn spoon." 
 
 I rather like these remonstrances — for their ab- 
 
WINTER 
 
 119 
 
 surdity. Nothing gives me such pleasure, unlawful 
 as it is, as to see pretentious people make fools of 
 themselves. When I see a self-opinionated man 
 tumble into some betise^ it gives occasion for silent 
 and undemonstrative laughter for weeks. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Uncharitable ! Yes, so it is. But irresistible. It 
 cannot be helped. When the Commissioners of 
 National Education send me a per- 
 emptory order to construct at once °""^^ ^" 
 lavatories in my mountain schools for the use of 
 bare-legged boys and girls, I cannot help smiling 
 all over when I recollect that it would be just as 
 easy for me to build the aqueducts of Solomon on 
 that mighty ruin that spans the lonely spaces of the 
 Roman Campagna. And so, when my friends, 
 advanced thinkers from the centres of civilisation, 
 and brought into daily touch with the genii of gas 
 and electricity, advise me to summon those good 
 genii to this remote country village, I feel like ask- 
 ing them whether they have Aladdin's lamp in their 
 coat pockets, or whether they hold the magic ring 
 that would command all powers in earth or sea or 
 sky. Then, when they depart, I turn up the lamp 
 and wonder at the delightful imbecility of mankind. 
 For it is surely one of the saddest symptoms of our 
 age that, in our race after progress, we never con- 
 sider the obstacles that may lie in our path, — tem- 
 peramental, material, or otherwise, — and so run 
 our faces against difficulties that we refuse to fore- 
 see, to the infinite detriment of our own persons, 
 and, too often, the fatal obstruction of our plans 
 and the fatal disappointment of our hopes. 
 
120 PARERGA 
 
 XXVI 
 
 On another detail I differ from my friends. I 
 like, dearly like, well-bound books. I loathe, ut- 
 terly loathe, shabby, ragged, or soiled 
 volumes. I do not know a more un- 
 pleasant feeling than to take up a greasy, well- 
 handled book. I have no pleasure in reading it, 
 no matter how attractive and beautiful the contents. 
 And if I allow my imagination to run riot over the 
 past experiences of that volume, I generally end by 
 placing it on the coals, or sending it as a present to 
 some book-loving friend. How many fingers have 
 touched that grimy cover ! Sweat and dirt are well 
 marked there. Perhaps it lay once or twice on the 
 bed of sickness, and was fondled by some fingers, 
 frail and white, which were shedding the scales of 
 some disease. With all compassion and tenderness 
 for such a sufferer, one cannot help feeling a little 
 shudder of pain and loathing — no, that is too 
 strong a word, which I keep in reserve for moral 
 diseases, but, let us say, of shrinking — at the idea 
 that these pages were fondled by such a hand, and 
 may yet be reeking with the terrible but invisible 
 remnants of the routed and conquered disease. Or 
 perhaps this book was a long time in the possession 
 of some bookworm, or lonely scholar, who had the 
 lofty contempt of such spirits for mere physical 
 cleanliness ! It is a curious association of ideas, 
 but we do insensibly connect the idea of great libra- 
 ries and much learning with carelessness and infinite 
 dust. 
 
WINTER 
 
 xxvir 
 
 Hence I never open a parcel of books without a 
 certain feeling of trepidation lest I should shrink 
 back in disappointment at their first 
 
 ^ A ^ 1 r u 1 New Parcels. 
 
 appearance. Catalogues or books are 
 like diplomatic statesmen. They do not exactly lie, 
 but they equivocate. There is a good deal of men- 
 tal reservation in book catalogues. You may read, 
 for example, of a certain book which you would 
 like dearly to possess, and this edition in four oc- 
 tavo volumes will just suit your library, and it is 
 bound in cloth gilt. Here is a prize ! You order 
 it incontinently. The parcel duly appears. For 
 three or four days you watched the post with impa- 
 tience. You wondered what had happened. You 
 thought you would like to dismiss the Postmaster- 
 General and his entire staff of subordinates for such 
 culpable delays. You said this kind of thing was 
 only fit for Central Africa, but was intolerable in 
 such advanced civilisation as ours. At last the 
 volumes appear. Your anger against officialdom 
 has died away. With trembHng hand you cut the 
 string, unloose the thick paper wrapper, and your 
 heart sinks into your boots ! The covers are 
 clammy ; the edges bent in and torn ; the tops 
 are broken; the gilding has been rubbed away in 
 all kinds of unimaginable friction. You turn over 
 the pages with a certain feeling of disgust, when, lo ! 
 at the end of the last volume you read, " End of 
 Volume IV. " ; and, on seeking further, you find 
 that you have secured but four volumes out of eight 
 that complete the work 1 
 
122 PARERGA 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Or you may read of books beautifully Illustrated ; 
 
 and you would dearly like to see your favourite poet 
 
 represented to your eye, as already 
 
 Illustrations. ^ ^ . . \. v j c 
 
 to your imagination. You dream or 
 fairy pictures, — cloud-castles, aerial spendours, vast 
 and novel presentments of sea and shore and sky, 
 sylphs and fays and Ariels, sculptured ideals and 
 canvased perfections ; and, lo ! here are a few 
 wretched drawings, raw, uncouth, hideous, — cheap 
 photographic reproductions, or twisted monsters, 
 presented to you with the assurance that this is Art. 
 Just lately, I saw a fine edition of a great poet dis- 
 figured by such line drawings. The paper was 
 good, the type excellent ; but every page was ruined 
 by hideous figures, supposed to be classical, and 
 which resembled, more than anything else, the chalk 
 drawings on a blackboard executed by some truant 
 schoolboys in the intervals of school hours. If one 
 could erase them, it would be all right. You had 
 your text and paper and binding. But no ! By 
 some criminal cleverness, these drawings were inter- 
 calated with the text, and the one could not be 
 erased without destroying the other. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 But there is a genuine pleasure — shall I call it 
 
 rapture — in the very appearance of a beautiful, clean 
 
 book ; and no speculator in stocks 
 
 in ings. beholds a rise in market prices with 
 
 half the delight that fills the soul of the student when 
 
 he sees a favourite book of a favourite author nobly 
 
WINTER 123 
 
 and worthily presented. It is not a purely intel- 
 lectual delight. It is even a physical pleasure. A 
 book bound in polished calf, with red or blue labels, 
 and embellished with profuse gilt lettering, is a "thing 
 of beauty in itself." I have a small octavo volume 
 of the Souvenirs of Maurice du Guerin, bound in 
 purple calf and beautifully lettered. It is a never- 
 ceasing pleasure to me to take up that volume and 
 feel the smooth perfection of the binding, and turn 
 over these creamy leaves with the clear type and 
 wide margins, that belong to the aristocracy of books, 
 and place it in certain lights as you would place a 
 costly picture, that its beauties might show in con- 
 trast and be exhibited under different aspects. And 
 I keep it in good company, — amongst respectable, 
 well-dressed citizen-books, even though some of 
 them will only rank amongst the bourgeoisie of 
 literature. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Well, here we are ! ci siamo, e ci resteremo, during 
 the gloomy days and the delicious long evenings of 
 Winter. We shut out politics and „. . 
 
 , , , r Ci siamo. 
 
 controversies, and all those petty 
 things that seem to engross the ever-fretful mind 
 of man. Events have made us mere spectators in 
 the eternal drama, which is either a mere puppet- 
 show or a colossal tragedy, according to the manner 
 in which you regard it. We will blot out the pres- 
 ent, and become the tranquil contemporaries of a 
 past that is so mournfully still and silent now, 
 although the crash of conflicts and the tumult of 
 factions sound like an echo from its chronicles ; and 
 of a future, that throws back no echo, for all is 
 enfolded in prophetic silences and inarticulate con- 
 
124 PARERGA 
 
 jectures, which will only speak when the ribbon of 
 eternity draws out and touches the raw nerves of a 
 supersensitive world. How tremendous, even in 
 their ever-varying metaphor, are the words that Car- 
 lyle was ever mumbling in his old age, when he 
 was already a forgotten voice : 
 
 "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
 To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
 Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player. 
 That frets and struts his hour upon the stage 
 And then is seen no more. It is a tale 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
 Signifying nothing." 
 
WINTER 
 
 125 
 
 Section II 
 
 XXXI 
 
 I notice that the Celtic temperament is curiously 
 hostile to Shakspeare. He never has got a footing 
 in France. Voltaire called him a bar- 
 barian ; and in a furtive, half-respect- le^ma^ny.'^ ^"'^ 
 ful manner, the French critics seem 
 to have taken his words as a tradition of their race. 
 He violated the unities. This was his first great 
 crime in their eyes. But this might have been con- 
 doned, but for those historical plays which have ever 
 glorified England at the expense of France. For 
 national prejudices will intrude themselves even into 
 the halcyon region of literature ; and many more 
 criticisms are founded on race prejudices than on 
 the canons of taste that have been recognised by the 
 literary faculty in every age. Shakspeare found his 
 resurrection in Germany. Lessing first, then Her- 
 der, then Schiller, saw, even through the opaque 
 glass of translation, some transcendent merits in the 
 great English dramatist ; and, although we might 
 be disposed to discredit Goethe's literary sense on 
 account of his extravagant admiration for Byron and 
 even inferior poets, there can be no doubt that the 
 "Hamlet" critique in " Wilhelm Meister" aroused 
 the world's attention to the vast merits and beauties 
 of the poet, who, even in his own country, was fast 
 sinking into oblivion. 
 
126 PARERGA 
 
 XXXII 
 
 I confess I cannot, strive as I may, take much 
 delight in Shakspeare. I suppose it is again the 
 Celtic temperament, dreamy, cloud- 
 Shakspeare. riding, spirituelk^ that holds in aver- 
 
 sion the strong, earthy, lusty English 
 spirit, so fully embodied in Shakspeare. The 
 Shakspearean delineations of character, male or 
 female, are thoroughly Saxon. There is no weak- 
 ness there, no delicacy. The deep strong lines that 
 he has drawn would never suit the airy pencillings 
 of refined and spiritual temperaments. Everything 
 is massive as a Cathedral pillar; beneath every 
 character, even the sweetest and purest he has drawn, 
 there is an element of strength and even coarseness, 
 which is not found in the higher and more fragile 
 organisms of Latin races. Even the women of 
 Shakspeare strike us, notwithstanding all that has 
 been written to the contrary, as wanting at least in 
 those graces and sweetnesses that we are wont to 
 associate with the female character. We make all 
 allowance for the freedom of the age, its licentious- 
 ness, its bald, coarse language ; and yet, we venture 
 to think that the women who were contemporaries 
 of Shakspeare in other lands were of a loftier and 
 purer type than he has painted, and that he has done 
 some injustice to the ladies of Venice and Verona 
 by attributing to them certain grosseries of manner 
 and speech that we think were hardly tolerated at the 
 time beyond the coasts of Albion. 
 
WINTER 
 
 127 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Whatever be the cause, I cannot take half the 
 pleasure in Shakspeare that I experience in Milton, 
 or Shelley, or Wordsworth. Forty 
 
 ^ J ^ T J L • Great Lines. 
 
 years ago, as a student, I read him 
 closely enough, and I think appreciatively ; for I 
 still retain many a folio page of blue foolscap, on 
 which I had culled and composed for myself certain 
 " Beauties of Shakspeare." I still think he is the 
 world's greatest dramatist, and closest delineator of 
 human passion and conduct as he witnessed them 
 at the time. But I think there is a good deal in 
 human nature that he missed ; and I certainly think 
 that there are far greater isolated passages of pure 
 poetry in many another far less celebrated singer. 
 Perhaps we cannot match the inimitable lines : 
 
 ** The multitudinous seas incarnadine ; " 
 
 or 
 
 ** In cradle of the rude, imperious surge ; " 
 
 but I could name passages in Milton, and Shelley, 
 and Wordsworth, which for continuity of high ex- 
 cellence cannot be surpassed by any similar lines in 
 Shakspeare. The sustained grandeur of the stately 
 speeches and noble characters in "Julius Cassar " 
 have always had a supreme fascination for me ; and 
 I am quite sure that all human literature does not 
 hold anything so terrible as Othello's remorse after 
 the murder of Desdemona. That line : " Cold, 
 cold, my girl 1 " is tremendous ; and " Dead, dead, 
 Desdemona dead ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! " is the climax 
 of all human mental suffering. 
 
128 PARERGA 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Now, I am ever asking, what Is it that repels me 
 in Shakspeare ? I admit all his intellectual vast- 
 
 ness and greatness. He stands alone; 
 fhl^ltage'^ ^"'^ or Dante alone may stand unabashed 
 
 by his side. Yet I cannot read him 
 with pleasure, but always as a study. And I cannot 
 read him for profit, even though he has my fullest 
 meed of admiration. I am sure that one valid rea- 
 son is that Shakspeare's plays were written for the 
 stage, not for the closet ; for the glare of footlights, 
 not for the student's lamp. This was borne in on 
 me many years ago, when an amateur elocutionist, 
 who had come into the locality on some business 
 connected with lifting a sunken vessel, gave public 
 recitations from Shakspeare. Wolsey's farewell was 
 one of these ; and after hearing it I decided, then 
 and there, that I had never read Shakspeare. What 
 must have been the illumination of such renderings 
 as Garrick, or Kean, or Salvini, or Siddons gave to 
 their generation ! The cynical Heine confesses to 
 his emotion when Kean ran wildly across the stage, 
 shouting: 
 
 " A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse ! ' ' 
 
 I think I would advise every Shakspearean student 
 to see Shakspeare first, and read him afterwards. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Then, his coarseness is certainly repellent to our 
 
 tastes. It may, or may not, be a valid apology for 
 
 such obscenities to say that Shak- 
 
 His Coarseness. , •',.., 
 
 speare s age was a rough, virile one, 
 when men and women spoke Rabelaisian. But we 
 
WINTER 129 
 
 cannot be blamed If, with our training, we feel as if 
 walking through a field of meadow sweets we were 
 to stumble suddenly into some hidden cloaca^ or 
 sewer, and carry the sordes with us in all our further 
 walks. At least, I never take up Shakspeare with- 
 out looking far before me, and carefully picking my 
 steps. If the world were advancing along the lines 
 of refinement and delicacy in tone and thought and 
 feeling, it is possible that Shakspeare would eventu- 
 ally subside into the decent retirement of Marlowe, 
 or Beaumont and Fletcher. But, as the contrary is 
 the case, and plainness of speech about matters 
 hitherto held in discreet silence ; vulgarity of man- 
 ners, arising from the unabashed and universal 
 hunger after wealth ; and open revelations about 
 things hitherto shrouded in a noble reticence, are the 
 characteristics of our age, Shakspeare will not yet 
 be dethroned. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 It Is the exclusively human element In Shak- 
 speare, however, that makes him so unattractive to 
 many. Human nature, at its best, „ „ 
 
 . ^ , , Too Human. 
 
 does not seem to be always engross- 
 ingly beautiful ; and one of the reasons of Words- 
 worth's popularity with thinking minds is that he 
 marked the natural revulsion from the Byronic 
 school, with its gross pictures of corsairs, Don 
 Juans, and voluptuous women, and insisted on a 
 return to the simplicity and sweetness of nature. 
 And human nature in Shakspeare is not of the 
 highest and holiest type. There is a vast, nay, 
 disproportionate preponderance of ugly and deter- 
 rent types. He appears to have created his women 
 9 
 
130 PARERGA 
 
 types as a foil to the large number of bestial and 
 incontinent rascals he has produced. In one 
 way, his heroines redeemed his heroes. But even 
 amongst his heroines, but a few, a Cordelia, a Des- 
 demona, a Portia, or a Juliet, answer our ideas of 
 what is sweetest, gentlest, and best in womanhood. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Heine puts it more strongly in his defence of the 
 Shakspearean unities — the enchainement des sceneSy in 
 which French critics supposed Shak- 
 Shak^ ^are speare to be lamentably at fault. 
 
 " This world forms the stage of 
 his plays, and that is his unity of place ; eternity is 
 the period in which his plays come to pass, and that 
 is his unity of time; and the hero of his plays, the 
 bright central figure, representing the unity of action 
 and conformable to the other two, is — Mankind ; 
 a hero, who is always dying and always rising again, 
 always loving, always hating, yet in whom love is 
 stronger than hate ; now crawling like a worm, now 
 soaring like an eagle, now deserving a fool's-cap, 
 now a laurel-wreath, or still oftener, both of these at 
 the same time ; the great dwarf, the small giant, the 
 homoeopathically prepared divinity, in whom the 
 divine elements may have become diluted, but 
 which nevertheless exist. Ah, let us not overrate 
 the heroism of this hero, for the sake of modesty 
 and very shame 1 " 
 
WINTER 131 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 As a result of this too exclusive dealing with 
 humanity (his dramas being the exact antithesis of 
 Dante's in this respect) there is a 
 singular dearth of those great and No Abstractions 
 
 , r . 1 I 11 o ... in Shakspeare. 
 
 lorty ideas that belong to spiritual 
 souls, and are, as it were, the properties of eternity. 
 Shakspeare is essentially concrete in his art. He 
 is a historian rather than a poet. He gives us " the 
 very eye and body of the time; " but he does not clothe 
 it in the subjectivity of a great creative intellect. 
 Abstractions do not exist for him. Great principles, 
 heroic dealings with life's mysteries. Titanic ideas of 
 scaling the bastions of Heaven and wresting their 
 secrets from the gods, are not to be found in his 
 dramatic presentments. Once and again, as in 
 Prospero's meditation, 
 
 " We are such stuff as dreams are made on. 
 And our little life is rounded by a sleep; " 
 
 or, as in the lines : 
 
 *' To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day ; " 
 
 he repeats the words of Ecclesiastes, or the sad re- 
 flection of Job ; but even this petty philosophy is 
 infrequent. Men and manners, intrigues and chi- 
 canery, blustering kings and unfeminine women, 
 fools and debauchees flit across his pages. There are 
 many types of humanity left unrepresented ; and 
 the gallery is of gay, and interesting, but hardly of 
 very sublime or edifying personalities. 
 
132 PARERGA 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 The supreme merit of Shakspeare seems to lie m 
 his perfect delineation of character ; and his marvel- 
 lous adaptation of the English lan- 
 PahSn*^' guage to scenes and incidents that 
 
 are truly dramatic. The language, 
 just then in course of formation, was necessarily 
 more virile and less loaded with foreign accretions 
 than at any time since his period. And hence we 
 find words in common use even now, but bearing in 
 his pages certain peculiar meanings, owing perhaps 
 to their collocation, which are far more marked than 
 in their present use. I suppose no writer nowadays 
 would use the expression : 
 
 ** all gi/t with Frenchmen's blood; " 
 
 or speak of the clouds as : 
 
 " base contagious clouds ; *' 
 
 or would dare use such a bold simile as : 
 
 ♦' Enfeoffed himself to popularity. 
 That being daily swallowed by men's eyes. 
 They surfeited with honey." 
 
 or that fine line : 
 
 " horsed 
 Upon the sightless couriers of the air." 
 
 These strained uses of language, these tremen- 
 dous metaphors, these forced conceits and antith- 
 eses are peculiarities of his age. We find them in 
 Marlowe, in Beaumont and Fletcher, etc. ; and if 
 
WINTER 133 
 
 it be true that Shakspeare borrowed the plans and 
 ideas of all his plays from previous stage represen- 
 tations, we must also admit that in the style of his 
 dialogues and discourses he surpassed all his con- 
 temporaries, without originating anything new. 
 
 XL 
 
 Hence I do not know that we can address the 
 shade of Shakspeare in the language just used by 
 an admirer to Carducci, the author 
 of the " Hymn to Satan," and other ^°' ^ ^'"^*°'- 
 such poems — " Creatore e plasmatore di coscienza ; 
 artista del pensiero." Nor do I think the shade of 
 Shakspeare would be gratified. His massive Eng- 
 lish intellect, his calm, majestic manner, outwardly 
 manifested by the gentle, intellectual face that is so 
 familiar to the world, would probably shrink from 
 the too emphatic compliments of French and Italian 
 admirers. It is only Latins and Celts that push 
 things to such extremes. The English and Teu- 
 tonic genius is pivoted on a more firm basis. It is 
 slow to move, and when moved, it proceeds calmly 
 and with dignity. But " Creatore e plasmatore"? 
 Hardly. " Holding the mirror up to Nature " 
 is much better. Shakspeare was not a Michael 
 Angelo that could create. He needed a world of 
 men and women as types to be transferred to the 
 canvas of his poems, and thence paraded on the 
 stage. 
 
[34 PARERGA 
 
 XLI 
 
 Will the Shakspeare-Bacon controversy ever be 
 settled? Hardly, unless fresh documentary evi- 
 
 Shakspeare- ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ brought to light. The 
 
 Bacon Contro- arguments on both sides seem over- 
 ^«"y- whelming. It is impossible to im- 
 
 agine Bacon speak of the Romans as wearing hats, 
 ships landing in Bohemia, and Aristotle contem- 
 porary with the Trojan war. And here is a pretty 
 little blunder that that philosopher could never 
 make; 
 
 ** Timon hath made his everlasting mansion 
 Upon the beached verge of the salt flood ; 
 Whom once a day with his embossed froth 
 The turbulent surge may cover." 
 
 On the other hand, if the Earl of Pembroke be 
 the hero of the sonnets, and Mistress Fitton their 
 heroine, it seems incredible that one, brought up 
 like Shakspeare, and only a few years removed 
 from more or less plebeian surroundings, could ad- 
 dress such familiarly affectionate language to one 
 who was so far removed by birth and station. 
 
 XLII 
 
 I have a suspicion that most English thinkers are 
 now convinced that the man Shakspeare who came 
 . up to London from Stratford-on- 
 ng IS pinion. ^^^^^^ ^^^ \\Q\d horses at the doors 
 of theatres for many years, could never have been 
 the author of such marvellous dramas and poems. 
 But they cannot bring themselves to extinguish one 
 
WINTER 
 
 135 
 
 of their great luminaries, even though it added to 
 the exceeding great lustre of the other. National 
 pride has hitherto exulted in these twins of genius, 
 Bacon and Shakspeare; it cannot bear the thought 
 that there was but " one bright, particular star," in 
 its firmament. And national pride is responsible 
 not only for the sins of statesmen, but for a great 
 many of the more venial offences that are com- 
 mitted in the more secluded domains of literature. 
 I say " venial," for they are easily pardonable. 
 And a world that does not love England will at 
 least forgive it for its glorious pride in Shakspeare. 
 He is her guardian angel — her pontiff, who, if 
 ever the Huns and Goths shall leap the narrow slit 
 of sea that has hitherto saved England from de- 
 struction, and penetrate to her capital, shall warn 
 them back, as Leo warned Attila from the walls of 
 Rome. If it could be proved that Shakspeare was 
 a myth, it would be a greater loss to England than 
 that of her Indian empire, or even — Ireland ! 
 
 XLIII 
 
 There is a curious passage on this subject in a 
 letter to his wife written by Lord Houghton, whose 
 individual opinion is valuable, inas- 
 much as he must have discussed the ^°'^ Houghton, 
 question hundreds of times with all that was best in 
 London literary circles, and gathered his opinions 
 from them : 
 
 Turin, Wednesday. 
 
 I have yours of the tenth, so you see we are not very 
 
 far asunder. This place is new to me, and not easily got 
 
 at again, and the personages amusing, so I have settled to 
 
 stay here until the end of the week, and cut Pans short. You 
 
136 PARERGA 
 
 would like this climate very much, a sky continually bright, 
 and fresh air. I think it keeps me rather "tender" and 
 nervous. I am afraid I shall be at Stoneleigh on the 
 twenty-third and you must write up to Stanley, who, who- 
 ever, I believe you may say, agrees with me that there 
 never was such a man as the lamented Shakspeare. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 What if, after all, we find that the word " Shaks- 
 peare," instead of standing for an immortal unit, was 
 really, like Homer, a mere symbol 
 for a multitude of players and drama- 
 tists which then thronged the theatres of London.? 
 Or, if there were the man, Shakspeare, that he was 
 but a clever collector, " a picker-up of pearls from 
 dunghills," a kind of chiifonier, who gathered up the 
 remnants and rags and potsherds of plays, the casual 
 observations of philosophers, the tavern gossip of 
 travellers, the inspired utterances of drunken poets, 
 and mixed them all in the alembic of his own genius, 
 or took up the discarded discoveries or creations of 
 others and gave them an immortal name, as the ad- 
 venturer Vespucci did for Columbus and the West- 
 ern Republic. I find no difficulty in imagining a 
 Bacon, or a Raleigh, or lesser souls, amusing them- 
 selves, in the leisure of high political intrigues, in 
 watching the progress of a London play ; and 
 sometimes furtively bringing down to the green- 
 room of the theatre a manuscript, composed in the 
 intervals of business, and asking that young man, 
 William Shakspeare, to put it before the public in 
 his own name. Noblesse oblige ! and it would never 
 do for a Lord Chancellor to appear before the 
 footlights as the creator of clowns and fools and 
 madmen. 
 
WINTER 
 
 -^-^1 
 
 XLV 
 
 Two things we are prone to forget in forming 
 our estimate of the Shakspearean dramas. The first 
 is, that in the EHzabethan age the 
 theatre was everything. There was J^ni^Jtent! 
 practically no other amusement for 
 city folks. Where we have institutes, and societies, 
 and clubs, the geniuses of that day had the tavern ; 
 and for travelling, cycling, motoring, for Carlsbad 
 and Aix-le-Bains and Marienbad, there was no sub- 
 stitute but the theatre. Education ranked higher, 
 even though not so widely extended ; and theatricals, 
 in public or private, were the order of the day. 
 Yet, at that time, the player and actor or dramatist 
 was regarded by high society somewhat as we regard 
 the strolling player of to-day — the Crumlesses, 
 Codlins, and Shorts of a bygone period. Yet, se- 
 cretly and surreptitiously, genius saw that what was 
 good enough for ancient Greeks might be good 
 enough for the modern Briton ; and perhaps states- 
 manlike Bacon foresaw that, if a high patriotic 
 sentiment was to be maintained in the country, it 
 would be most happily fostered by the presentation 
 of historical plays, where the great figures that had 
 passed across the stage of English history might be 
 again brought to life and action on the mimic stage 
 of a London theatre. 
 
 XLVI 
 
 And in the second place, we are prone to forget 
 that the nervous, sinewy English of Shakspeare, and 
 the dialogues interspersed everywhere d m t 
 
 were really an exact reproduction of 
 every-day manners and speech amongst his contem- 
 
38 PARERGA 
 
 poraries, only raised just a little to suit the dignity 
 of the stage. Those little witticisms, the eternal 
 play on words, the antitheses and sly allusions, the 
 bold metaphors and the dainty euphuisms, so utterly 
 foreign to our most commonplace utterances, were in 
 constant use in good society at that time. The 
 amusement of camps and courts, the pleasures of 
 country life, even the stately surroundings of the royal 
 palaces, were enhanced by this studied interchange 
 of wit and puns. The great queen herself did not 
 disdain to join sometimes in this jeu de mots; and a 
 passport to her equivocal favour was adroitness in 
 the use of language, and a knowledge of all the 
 quips and cranks that could be played on the simple 
 English tongue. This was not quite the same style 
 of wit that in pre-revolution times, the ages of 
 Louis XIV. and XV., made the salons of Paris 
 famous. The Elizabethans were witty punsters 
 and broad humourists. The French do not know 
 what humour is, even if they be the wittiest race in 
 the world. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 I think the neatest summing-up of the arguments 
 
 pro and con in the Bacon-Shakspeare 
 
 Oplnfor^^^^'^ controversy is that of Judge V^ebb, 
 
 although I cannot bind myself to 
 
 his decision : 
 
 "In the case of the authorship of the Shak- 
 spearean plays there are circumstances of difficulty 
 which are common to both candidates for the su- 
 preme distinction. As far as appearances go, neither 
 of them claimed to be the author ; neither of them 
 published the immortal works ; neither of them 
 gave any directions for their publication ; neither 
 
WINTER 
 
 139 
 
 of them mentioned them in his will ; and to all 
 appearance either of them was utterly insensible to 
 their literary value, and each of them was utterly 
 indifferent to their ultimate fate. The only diifer- 
 ence between the two is this — that if the Player 
 were the author of the Shakspearean plays, he had 
 every motive to proclaim the fact; while if the 
 Lawyer and Statesman was the author, he had 
 every reason to conceal it." 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 In saying that Shakspeare did not know every- 
 thing, I am curiously reminded of an acquaintance, 
 who has long since passed beyond 
 my ken, but in whom at one time m.^a"'^"'^^^ 
 I felt some interest. When I first 
 knew him he was a gentleman-graduate, B. A., or 
 possibly M. A., of Cambridge; and in dress, man- 
 ner, deportment, all that could be expected of a 
 scholar and a gentleman. I was a young missioner 
 in an English city, and had not even a nodding 
 acquaintance with him ; but the glamour of a uni- 
 versity education to my imagination hung around 
 him ; he was one of the Dii majores to be addressed 
 with "bated breath and whispering humbleness." 
 I little thought that the day would come, and come 
 swiftly, when he would be glad to get a sixpence 
 from me to buy bread, or — drink ! That word 
 explains all. He had come down, or rather rushed 
 down the declivities of Hfe pell-mell ; and now lay 
 a broken and distorted wreck amongst the human 
 debris cast out by fate from the urn of necessity. 
 The silk hat had given way to a broken bowler ; 
 the shining boots to patched and broken shoes ; the 
 
140 PARERGA 
 
 morning coat, without fray or crease, to a wretched 
 blue serge jacket with broken buttonholes, tied 
 with a piece of cord, and badly concealed, or half- 
 revealed by a long, grey dust-coat, whitening under 
 use and time. 
 
 XLIX 
 
 When I first made his acquaintance, he had not 
 tumbled quite amongst the potsherds. He hung 
 
 suspended, like those mountain genii 
 UnrvtrsiSes°^ ^^ ^^e piazza at Turin, driven out by 
 
 the forces of civilisation from their 
 mountain fastnesses, and hanging head downwards, 
 like falling angels, on the facile descents towards 
 Avernus. He was a bruised and beaten, but not a 
 conquered spirit. I cannot remember now how I 
 struck up an acquaintance with him, but I well re- 
 member how deeply I was impressed by the wide 
 range of his acquirements, and, above all, by that 
 peculiar pronunciation of Greek and Latin which 
 seems to be cachet of a university training. Yes ! 
 there was the educated gentleman seen through all 
 the sad disguise of rags and penury. Nothing 
 seemed strange or unfamiliar to him in all ancient 
 and modern literature. He quietly and unostenta- 
 tiously passed along from the " Electra " of Eu- 
 ripides to the " Henriade " of Voltaire and the 
 " Iphigenia in Tauris " of Goethe. He was eking 
 out a wretched subsistence at the time, in a narrow 
 room in a squalid back lane in the city, by teaching 
 a few little schoolboys at night a little writing, a 
 little geography, and the Rule of Three. He took 
 his professorial fees mostly in drink. I could have 
 cried for him, and yet he was always protesting that 
 he was not an object of disdain nor of compassion ! 
 
WINTER 141 
 
 But where did I bring in Shakspeare ? Oh, 
 yes, 1 remember. I was one day deploring his 
 misery when, at a certain railway sta- ^ ^.^^^ ^^ 
 tion which he frequented for obvi- laogue. 
 
 ous purposes, he accosted me for a shilling. 
 
 " I hope," I said, " that you have found the jewel 
 in the head of the toad Adversity." 
 
 He had not the slightest sense of humour. He 
 was always grave, calm, majestic in his rags. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " and perhaps more successfully 
 than you may be disposed to imagine. I have 
 found the elixir of life. I am like the emperor of 
 old : I drink of nectar in which pearls are broken 
 and dissolved." 
 
 1 stopped. 
 
 " Have you much time at your disposal ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Well, the magnificent unpunctuality of these 
 trains," I replied, " has given me compulsorily 
 three-quarters of an hour. I have no objection 
 to a Socratic disputation. But you .? " 
 
 "Oh, my day's work is done," he said. "You 
 have given me a shilling, with which I can purchase 
 Nirvana^ and sufficient for the day is the good 
 thereof. But" — he hesitated a little, and I thought 
 I saw a faint pink blush steal up on his pallid face — 
 "you — eh? — are not ashamed to walk up and 
 down such a public place with me ^. " 
 
 " Not in the least, my dear fellow. I am known 
 pretty well here. So are you. It won't affect either 
 of us materially." 
 
 "Good ! 'T is a pleasure to meet with a philoso- 
 pher. Now, you mentioned Socrates, I think ? " 
 
142 PARERGA 
 
 " Yes," I replied. 
 
 " I presume you admire him ? " 
 
 "Well, somewhat," I said in a tentative way; "he 
 was very ugly, you know; and then — Xanthippe!" 
 
 "Well, ugliness is a recommendation — some- 
 times. Beauty is always a dono infelice. But 
 Xanthippe, — that is legendary, invented by some 
 admirer who wanted to excuse the mightiest of sages 
 for what needed no apology, inasmuch as it consti- 
 tuted the chief element in the Socratic philosophy." 
 
 " You surprise me," I said ; " how is that ? " 
 
 "Well, sir," said my tramp, "the chief constitu- 
 ent in the Socratic, as indeed in all philosophy, is 
 the discovery of the great secret of anesthesia" 
 
 I still looked puzzled. 
 
 " Have you never read that Socrates was able to 
 drink Alkibiades " (he had an old habit of always 
 pronouncing the Greek as in the original) " and all 
 the other golden youth of Athens under the table?" 
 
 " Ye-es," I said dubiously. "Are you making a 
 new Apologia ? " 
 
 "No, no!" he said quickly. "That would be 
 dishonourable. But in that marvellous faculty of 
 the great sage consisted all his wisdom. I presume 
 you admire his glorious death, — martyrdom I be- 
 lieve it is called ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I think it was sublime ! " 
 
 " So do I. But probably our reasons differ. His 
 death was a euthanasia^ not for any sacrifice it in- 
 volved, for there was none; not for his serenity, 
 because there was nothing to alarm him, — but be- 
 cause he died as he had lived, seeking happiness by 
 the mere cessation of sensation. He had found 
 the great secret. So have I." 
 
 " I am glad indeed to hear it," I murmured 
 
WINTER 143 
 
 faintly. " Do you know, I have been commiser- 
 ating you all these years." 
 
 " Quite unnecessary, sir," he said grandly. " I 
 assure you your commiseration was quite misplaced. 
 You see before you a man who is passing through 
 life with undisturbed serenity, and who will face 
 death calmly because of its even more profound 
 peace." 
 
 " I am really delighted to hear it," I said. " I 
 wish I had your secret." 
 
 " 'T is yours already," he replied, " but, like the 
 vast majority of the species, you don't know it. It 
 is contained in the philosophy of Locke, — all pain 
 comes from knowledge, all knowledge from sensa- 
 tion ; therefore destroy sensation and you annihilate 
 knowledge, and, with knowledge, pain. Hence you 
 see the wisdom of Socrates. He knew the value 
 of anaesthetics in life and in death, in wine and 
 hemlock." 
 
 I murmured something about the higher faculties, 
 
 — reason, conscience, sense of responsibility, hon- 
 our, etc. 
 
 "All moonshine, sir!" he said. "Pardon the 
 expression. These things are all the action, or irri- 
 tability of nerves. Love, — the irritation of a certain 
 set of nerves. Ambition, — the excitement at the 
 centre of some other gangHon. Avarice, — another 
 set called into play. Zeal, philanthropy, charity, — 
 all nerves, nerves, nerves ! Emotion, pleasure, pain, 
 
 — all words denoting the mere titillation of nerves ; 
 and all meaning the same thing." 
 
 " Surely you don't contend that pleasure is pain, 
 and vice versa ? " 
 
 " Certainly ! " he replied. " For example, take 
 love, that paltry and puerile passion, of which, I am 
 
144 PARERGA 
 
 proud to say, I am absolutely immune. Analyse it ! 
 And who can tell you whether it is pleasure or tor- 
 ment ? If you cannot analyse, go to the great chem- 
 ist and analyser, Shakspeare. Read his Anthony 
 and Cleopatra. For one pleasure, paltry, if not de- 
 grading, he suffered the torments of the damned. 
 Take ambition ! Look at Napoleon ! Glory, vic- 
 tory, honour, power ! All words, words, words ! 
 His valet, who heard him rise from his camp bed after 
 Austerlitz and Wagram, and heard him mutter, 
 " Une autre bataille " in an accent of despair, knew 
 better. Look at your millionaires — your Goulds, 
 your Vanderbilts, your Rockefellers, your Barnatos ! 
 Toiling like dray-horses to get money, and then 
 groaning in spasms, like a boa-constrictor, until it is 
 disgorged and dissipated. Look at me, at me ! " 
 
 I looked. He was not an attractive object. The 
 electric bell in the Northern Hut marked the ap- 
 proach of my train. 
 
 "Would you believe that I used to dine with 
 great people at the Criterion, London ? Yes, sir ! I 
 drank champagne at six pounds the dozen, and never 
 smoked anything under a shilling cheroot. Was I 
 happy ? No ! Nerves and sensations again. I 
 hated, loved, winced under sarcastic looks, culti- 
 vated homicidal feelings in my heart. Here at The 
 Crown, with a clay pipe, a glass of Cognac, and a 
 clientele of half-drunken labourers I reason, argue, 
 talk, philosophise, rule, govern, — am a king ! " 
 
 " Yes ! " I replied, — 
 
 " 'Kings may be blest. But Tarn was glorious. 
 O'er all the ills of life victorious.' " 
 
 " Precisely ! The immortal exciseman and 
 ploughman knew the secret of life. And behold ! 
 
WINTER 
 
 145 
 
 Men have raised more monuments to his glorious 
 memory than to WelHngton or Napoleon. The 
 verdict of the world is always right ; it recognises 
 its kings, — Burns, Mangan, Poe, Maginn, Balzac, 
 Murger, Schiller, Coleridge, — myself." 
 
 " You have n't mentioned Shakspeare," I said, 
 "amongst the kings!" 
 
 "N — no!" he replied hesitatingly. "A man 
 that could quit the taverns and theatres of London 
 at middle-age, when life is in its right ascendant, and 
 go down to a provincial town with money" (his 
 voice took on an accent of disgust), " money, and 
 actually invested in house property — think of it — 
 house property, was never a king of intellect. He 
 wore the mask and buskins — that was all ! " 
 
 " But Shakspeare died in a drunken bout ! " I 
 pleaded. 
 
 He started, and a smile of ineffable pleasure 
 seemed to cross his palHd face. 
 
 " Did he ? " he cried, in the accent of one that 
 had saved a lost soul. 
 
 " So it is reported," I replied. 
 
 "I am so glad!" he said, still smiling. "After 
 all, Shakspeare was one of us ! " 
 
 I bade him good-bye ! and took my seat. Two 
 fine ladies, dressed like peacocks, and probably with 
 the intellects of oysters, looked askance at me. As 
 the train glided from the platform, I looked out. I 
 thought I saw the frayed skirt of a drab overcoat 
 vanishing through the door of a third-class refresh- 
 ment-room. 
 
146 PARERGA 
 
 LI 
 
 I wonder is there a more terrible thing in Hfe than 
 to see a noble mind, raised by its own nature, and 
 by the study of great works, far up 
 on the shining peaks, where the poet 
 and idealist alone can breathe ; and after such an 
 earthly apotheosis suddenly compelled to descend 
 to earth and exchange, under the bare coercion of 
 securing the necessaries of life, all the splendours of 
 imagination, all the glorious dreams of cloud and 
 mountain-top for the bare, bald realities of every-day 
 existence ? And yet it is the fate of many bright 
 spirits. Natural disposition, training, experience, 
 seem to open up for such souls a long happy life 
 teeming with all kinds of felicities, and very far re- 
 moved from the gross and sordid materialism of 
 every-day life. It is a terrible disillusion when an 
 acquaintance with these conditions becomes a neces- 
 sity of existence. And when once this necessity be- 
 comes apparent, there is no return to the land of 
 dreams and high imaginings. The beautiful papilio. 
 Psyche, is stripped of her wings, and never has 
 strength to put them out again. 
 
 LII 
 
 How to combine the ideal and the real, the 
 Dichtung und Wahrheit of existence, is a difficult 
 
 problem, a feat that but few have 
 Shakspeare successfully performed. Shakspeare 
 
 is one example, as we have just 
 quoted; Goethe is another; Tennyson is a third. 
 There certainly is some feeling of bathos and anti- 
 climax in the life of Shakspeare. It seems impos- 
 
WINTER 147 
 
 sible that the mind that wrote " Hamlet," and, still 
 more, the " Sonnets," could actually be descending at 
 the time to the paltry considerations of receipts at 
 the pit or gallery of a theatre ; and should rush 
 away from the scene of such tremendous triumphs 
 to buy a few houses in his native village. It leads 
 one to suspect that the divine genius, as we are 
 wont to consider him, was after all but a commer- 
 cial speculator, investing in poetry and philosophy 
 simply for the remuneration that an age which was 
 impassioned about such things freely and ungrudg- 
 ingly gave. One suspects the genuineness of Sen- 
 eca's philosophy when we know he was a usurer, 
 and died worth three million sesterces ; and one sus- 
 pects the divinity of Shakspeare when we find him 
 buying houses out of the proceeds of his .plays. 
 
 LIII 
 
 I am of opinion that no modern writer approaches 
 Shakspeare but one. That is Jean Paul. They 
 are the two Titans ; but Shakspeare 
 prefers to remain on earth. But for j^l^^-^^^l^ ^""^ 
 wielding, forging, and hurling the 
 thunderbolts of mighty words and startling meta- 
 phors, and antitheses and contrasts that strike you 
 with a shock, they stand alone. There are not in 
 Richter the grand varieties and diversities of charac- 
 ter that make the dramas of Shakspeare such a brill- 
 iant and glowing mass of colour. He affects rather 
 the simple life of simple German people, except 
 where, as in his " Titan," he reflects the thoughts 
 and manners of the nobility in rank and genius. 
 But I doubt if Shakspeare approaches Richter in the 
 richness and exuberance of his fancy. The great 
 
PARERGA 
 
 difference is that Shakspeare uses metaphors in 
 words which Richter elaborates into similes. But 
 two such daring, insolent, triumphant demigods the 
 world has not seen before or since their times. 
 Some critics, who clearly have never read beyond 
 Flower, Fruit, and 'Thorn-PieceSy are content to rank 
 Richter with Sterne or Goldsmith. When you have 
 read Levana you rank him with Bacon ; when you 
 have read Titan or Hesperus, with Shakspeare. 
 
 LIV 
 
 If he had had the musical and dramatic power 
 
 of Shakspeare, or if Shakspeare had had his fancy 
 
 and power of seeing metaphor everv- 
 
 Souls and Stars. ,^ ,^ -Tl-^ ij 
 
 where, what an mtercnange it would 
 have been ! In the vast range and scope and cir- 
 cumference of thought, Shakspeare easily outstrips 
 his rival ; but his thoughts, his domain, is always 
 of the earth, earthy. Richter is circumscribed in 
 abundance and variety ; but in his leap towards the 
 Infinite he is illimitable, or only bounded by Space. 
 In reading Shakspeare one walks amongst men and 
 women, however diverse their worth ; in reading 
 Richter one is always in view of souls and stars. 
 He never allows us to forget that this little human 
 theatre is o'ercanopied by the sky ; and that life is 
 but the vestibule of eternities. Hence the gross 
 materialism of Shakspeare, however real it may be, 
 contrasts but ill with the lofty spiritualism of 
 Richter. A Gione, or Amone, or Nadine, are 
 spirits beside such beings as even a Miranda, 
 or a Rosalind. 
 
WINTER 149 
 
 LV 
 
 Yet I found that in Germany Richter is no 
 longer read. The enthusiasm that hailed the pub- 
 lication of every new book, the fer- ^. ^ 
 
 ... /, J 1*1 Richter not read. 
 
 vid letters addressed to him by 
 admirers of every rank and station, the tremulous 
 worship of women, — all have passed away. Goethe 
 and Schiller are still in the heyday of popularity and 
 triumph ; and every year seems to make the Goethe- 
 Haus, in Frankfort, the centre of larger pilgrimages, 
 — the Mecca of Goethe-worshippers from all parts 
 of the civilised world. It is easily accounted for. 
 Richter's abominable obscurities, that made a 
 Richter-Lexicon necessary even during his life, 
 repel modern readers, who, in the stress and storm 
 of modern conditions, have no time to spend in 
 penetrating such labyrinths of thought ; and, in the 
 second place, that humanism, which has become 
 the religion of our age, and which has made Shak- 
 speare so popular, has told with equal effect against 
 the romanticism of Richter, and in favour of the 
 refined paganism of Goethe. It is possible that a 
 wave of romanticism, such as that which created 
 Tieck, Novalis, and the Schlegels, may again sweep 
 over Germany. If it does, the transcendental spirit 
 may again leap into the ascendant, and the Aufkla- 
 rung, the lUuminism, of Goethe, sink submerged, 
 at least for a time. 
 
I50 PARERGA 
 
 LVI 
 
 It was at one time said that Faust was the Bible 
 of Freemasonry, as Shakspeare was the Bible of Hu- 
 manity. It was forgotten that the 
 Fre"emlsonry. religion of Freemasonry (for it is a 
 distinct religion, with its ecumenic 
 confessions of faith, its liturgy, its orders, its wor- 
 ship) and the religion of Humanity are the same; 
 and both are atheistical. The first Freemason 
 lodge in Germany was founded in 1733 at Ham- 
 burg; the first English lodge in 1717. It was 
 from English deists that the inspirations of athe- 
 ism, which bore such fearful fruit in France, were 
 carried to the Continent. It was from French 
 Deists that the evils were carried over the frontiers 
 into Germany, and there bore fruit in the human- 
 ism, illuminism, of the eighteenth century, and the 
 rationalism of the nineteenth. Rousseau and Vol- 
 taire preached it in France, and the cult of Goethe 
 and Shakspeare arose simultaneously in Germany. 
 Those evil spirits have never been laid. They 
 assume Protean forms; but the genetic impulse in 
 atheism and humanism is the same. They have 
 one enemy; and only one — the Catholic Church. 
 
 LVII 
 
 There are three great religions, and only three. 
 All others are oflFshoots or branches of these. They 
 are Christian Theism, Spinosism, and 
 Religions. Humanism. Or otherwise, God, 
 
 Matter, and Man. The first is the 
 logical issue of all reasonable thought ; the second is 
 the stopping-place, where Reason sinks down faint- 
 
WINTER 
 
 151 
 
 ing, and Faith cannot wing it over the abyss ; the 
 third is the hypostasis of the most foolish pride 
 that ever entered the mind of a created being, God 
 is the term of all fine intellects working upward and 
 outward through the covering and integuments of 
 matter towards the everlasting Ideal. Substance, or 
 matter is the worship of Illuminism or Materialism 
 with its motto, JVahr ist^ was Klar ist [True is all that 
 clear is!). Humanism is the most abject of idolatries, 
 worse than that of the Scarabasus or the Ibis, for 
 these were but symbols of something far beyond, 
 whereas Humanism is the worship, direct and im- 
 mediate of Man, unless we suppose, as Fichte did, 
 that the aggregate of mankind is God; or that the 
 progress of the ages tends to extract from the womb 
 of time the God that is yet to be created. 
 
 LVIII 
 
 How this pretty Deity, called Humanity, conducts 
 himself has been seen in all human history ; but 
 most of all in that period of enlighten- ., 
 
 , 1 • 1 1 • 1 Humanism. 
 
 ment and progress which culmmated 
 in the glories of the French Revolution. The Free- 
 masonic, humanistic circles which commenced with 
 dreams of it knew not what, which would lead to a 
 new awakening it knew not where, were suddenly 
 broken into segments of Jacobins and Girondists, 
 Dantonists and Robespierrists, each apparently de- 
 termined to show, with all the fury and ferocity of 
 wild beasts, how completely they could eliminate the 
 very root-elements of all that is human and civilised 
 from the human heart. The world has seen greater 
 human holocausts than those which were offered up 
 to Hate and Passion on the Place de la Concorde. 
 
52 PARERGA 
 
 The pyramids of skulls that marked the track of 
 Tamerlane, and the very grass withering under the 
 feet of the horse of Attila might seem more ap- 
 palling. But for ghastly surroundings, for a revolt- 
 ing exhibition of all that was possible to human 
 guilt and depravity, the French Revolution bears 
 away the palm. The very excuses made for its 
 enormities only aggravate them. After reading 
 these nightmare details of orgies never equalled by 
 Imperial Rome, one can never think of Paris again 
 as the centre of the world's civilisation. It is the 
 cabaret de la mort. We can quite understand why 
 Cardinal Newman, in his Anglican days, faced the 
 horrors of a sea-voyage rather than set foot on the 
 soil of France. 
 
WINTER 
 
 f53 
 
 Section III 
 
 LIX 
 
 Just as I write these words, comes news from 
 that same France, witty, intellectual, Freemason 
 and humanistic, of another revolu- 
 tion, unbloody but truculent and R^^ic^k^^ °^ 
 inhuman. That cry of humanity 
 seems to mean, by some perversity, whatever is in- 
 human, just as the watchword " Fraternity " seems 
 to usher in every fratricidal struggle. The strange 
 thing, however, is that the French people, supposed 
 to be witty and sarcastic, seem to have utterly lost 
 these national talents. Why Robespierre, who de- 
 creed the existence of the Supreme Being, was not 
 killed with ridicule long before his shattered head 
 fell beneath the guillotine, we find it diificult to 
 conjecture. And why his modern imitator, Viviani, 
 who, in our days, has " by one magnificent gesture 
 swept the Supreme Being out of existence," is not 
 annihilated under a storm of sarcastic pleasantry, is 
 also unintelligible! Is France doomed? Has she 
 lost her sense of ridicule, — or that fine perception of 
 her own absurdities, which, alas ! does not always 
 accompany the dangerous talent of seeing and noting 
 the sad beiises to which other individuals and natures 
 are subject? 
 
54 PARERGA 
 
 LX 
 
 What is this Shakspeare says — 
 
 • ** But man, proud man, 
 
 Drest in a little brief authority, — 
 Most ignorant of what he 's most assured. 
 His glassy essence, — like an angry ape 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
 As make the angels weep." 
 
 No ! my dear Mentor of Humanity, it is not 
 over such scenes that angels weep. It is over such 
 
 scenes that the young angels scream 
 Laug^"e^r^^^' ^^^^ riotous laughter. They may 
 
 weep and shed their tears in wintry 
 rains across the dreary landscapes of earth, over little 
 children broken on the bed of suffering, or over 
 some lost, struggling soul, making ineffectual efforts 
 to regain some forfeited position. But for the little 
 parasites of this moth-planet, this grain of sand in 
 space, who arrogate to themselves attributes too 
 great for the seraphim, and whom their own scien- 
 tific and critical spirit cannot convince of the truth 
 of their insignificance, although they think it de- 
 thrones the Eternal ; who make themselves Gods, 
 whilst Science declares them atoms, — for such there 
 are no tears in Heaven, only the inextinguishable 
 laughter of the happy immortals. 
 
 LXI 
 
 There is another point of resemblance between 
 the master-mind of England and the 
 
 ShovT"^^^* master-mind of Germany. They keep 
 
 their own personalities very much in 
 
 the background. They refuse to appear on the 
 
WINTER 
 
 155 
 
 stage. Showmen of that puppet-tragico-comic the- 
 atre of varieties called the world they stand in the 
 wings, away from the naphtha-fuses that flare and 
 smoke in the wind; and cry aloud: 
 
 " Come up, ladies and gentlemen ! come up, and 
 see my show, — the only real and genuine present- 
 ment of the ever-entertaining, ever-amusing troupe 
 of mimes and tragedians, called Humanity. Come 
 up ! come up ! Only sixpence ! Only sixpence ! 
 And you will see kings and queens, fools and 
 mountebanks, courtiers and knights, tavern-brawlers 
 and heroes, bishops and friars, nuncios and cardi- 
 nals, warriors and boasters, dainty ladies and disrep- 
 utable drabs, Greeks and Romans, Christians and 
 infidels and Jews, English and French, Danes and 
 Normans, Welsh and Irish and Scotch, ghosts 
 and sprites, monsters and angels, hideous witches 
 and dainty Ariels and Queen Mabs, murderers, sui- 
 cides, violence, craft, — all that belongs to the com- 
 mon herd, humanity, nothing omitted that you 
 may find elsewhere ; for this is the only, real, un- 
 adulterated, genuine Masque of Humanity. Sole 
 Proprietor, William Shakspeare, under the distin- 
 guished Patronage of Baron Verulam, the Earl of 
 Pembroke, Sir Walter Raleigh. Come up ! Come 
 up!" 
 
 Is it a fraud ? No ! Shakspeare's Masque of 
 Humanity is perfect. 
 
 LXII 
 
 So too with the German puppet-show ! Actors 
 and actresses, princes and clowns, countesses and 
 hinds, Greek priests and German mys- 
 tics, philosophers and country maidens, Goethe, 
 fiends and witches, sages and children, — all stream 
 
156 PARERGA 
 
 athwart the motley stage. The same heroism, the 
 same coarseness, the same licentiousness, the same 
 bravery and self-sacrifice, that mark the English 
 puppet-show are here. But the noble figures do 
 not reach the height of Shakspeare's heroes; and 
 the lower types are more revolting. The actors in 
 "Hamlet" are very much the same as those in 
 " Wilheim Meister " ; but the witches that chal- 
 lenged the returning warriors on the blackened 
 heath are not quite so loathsome as those who 
 danced on the Brocken on the Walpurgis-Nacht, 
 and Caliban is hardly as gross as the man-created 
 Homunculi. I doubt if in all dramatic literature 
 there is a more revolting scene than that on the 
 Brocken ; or a more revolting and significant and 
 bestial incident than that of the red mouse leaping 
 from the mouth of the young beauty with whom 
 Faust was dancing. But then there are creeping 
 things everywhere in Goethe. And Retsch has 
 done badly in depicting them in his line engravings. 
 
 LXIII 
 
 Yet here is a significant and pregnant fact. 
 Goethe and Schiller lie side by side in the mauso- 
 leum of the Grand Dukes of Weimar. 
 A writer, who seemed to love both 
 equally well, tells us that at his last visit, the coffin 
 of Schiller was piled high with flowers, placed there 
 reverently, and reverently renewed, day by day, by 
 hands of worshippers ; whilst, on the casket that 
 holds Goethe's remains there are a few withered 
 blossoms, and no more. How can we explain this 
 phenomenon ; this strange discrepancy between the 
 verdict of the literary and artistic world, and the 
 
WINTER 
 
 157 
 
 verdict of the popular heart? Is it that Schiller 
 was more patriotic ? — for Goethe was too great to be 
 a patriot. Or is it that the former spoke more 
 immediately to the heart of humanity than his ma- 
 jestic friend and rival ? Or is it that Schiller's 
 personality passed into his works, and that his thin, 
 worn, intellectual features shine from every page ; 
 whilst Goethe is but the showman, in the side- 
 scenes, with his bell and corbona for honours and 
 rewards ? We do not know ; but the vox populi 
 sometimes, not always, seems to ring out a true 
 note of appreciation. 
 
 LXIV 
 
 Very many of the finest spirits in modern lit- 
 erature, no matter what might have been their 
 starting-point in reading, seem to 
 drift unvaryingly and untiringly^ in MysS°sm^.°* 
 the direction of German mysticism 
 and transcendentalism. Germany is the home of 
 idealism. The Christian mystic finds much food 
 for thought in the writings of Tauler and Ruys- 
 broeck and Thomas a Kempis. And the literary 
 mind, even though it should not make German 
 transcendentalism the terminus of its search after 
 fresh and virgin thought, will nevertheless find itself 
 drifting, by the sheer necessities of modern tenden- 
 cies, towards the literature of that period which 
 marked the very zenith and apogee of German 
 genius. As every road leads to Rome, every train 
 of thought seems by some invincible attraction to lead 
 onwards to that cloudland and mistland where great 
 spirits seem not only to have found a footing and a 
 rest, but to have disported themselves in effortless 
 
158 PARERGA 
 
 felicities amongst ideas and problems the very names 
 of which are calculated to make weaker spirits faint. 
 Alas that all this should be so largely consecrated to 
 error, so vehement against revealed and lifegiving 
 truth ! What a gigantic aerial tournament or intel- 
 lectual joust it would be if in the Coliseum, or other 
 world-gymnasium, the spirit of an Aquinas could be 
 pitted against Kant, Suarez against Spinoza, Ros- 
 mini against Hegel ! I have not mentioned St. 
 Augustine. It would need an archangel to be wor- 
 thily placed face to face against that supreme and 
 serene intellect. 
 
 LXV 
 
 But I think the secret of that general tendency 
 towards the metaphysical schools of Germany is 
 
 probably the passionate desire of fine 
 ScieiSe!"^ °^ minds to get away as far as possible 
 
 from Humanism, — Materialism of 
 every kind in poetry and philosophy. Many in 
 their intellectual wanderings feel, as Cardinal New- 
 man whom I have already quoted felt, that they 
 would much rather go around Europe by sea than 
 set foot on the soil of France. For France is the 
 home of all that is positive, logical, mathematical, 
 material. A nation that solved great questions by 
 the edge of the guillotine, and then employed a 
 mathematical Napoleon to carry its spirit to the 
 foot of the Pyramids and up to the walls of Mos- 
 cow, is not the nation of high thinkers. And a 
 race that has no great spiritual poet or seer, and 
 whose oratory seems always to degenerate into gas- 
 conade, is best represented by its perfect prose, its 
 mechanical stage, by its laboratories where men's 
 
WINTER 
 
 59 
 
 hands are blistered with acids, and ladies handle 
 deadly elements in the pursuit of science and fame, 
 and by the fact that it established a factory of gloves 
 from human skins at Meudon and decreed in its 
 Senate the existence of the Supreme Being ! 
 
 LXVI 
 
 Idealism, not in its metaphysical, but in its reli- 
 gious and literary meaning, as opposed to Realism 
 and Materialism, is the fulcrum, the 
 only fulcrum, with which an Archime- the^^e^^ °* 
 dean spirit can move, and lift, the 
 human race. And it was this Idealism, that seemed 
 to hover always around the confines of atheism in its 
 efforts to grasp the shadows of its own intellectual 
 creations, and which ushered in the Romanticism 
 which held in happy bondage for a generation the 
 choicest spirits of Germany. It was a force that 
 seemed to call back the planets from wandering aim- 
 lessly in space, and swing them into their proper 
 grooves around the central sun of Catholicity. 
 Now, this romanticism sprang undoubtedly from 
 the poetic philosophy of Schelling. And what our 
 age needs most — for it has certainly drifted back 
 into the old lines of sensistic irreligion — is not the 
 great Catholic poet (who would be certainly not 
 only unappreciated but gravely misunderstood), but 
 a school of writers that, commencing with Christian 
 Idealism, will wean men's minds away from body- 
 worship, mammon-worship, clothes-worship, plea- 
 sure-worship, and, carrying the human mind once 
 more towards chivalry in politics, asstheticism in 
 art, idealism in literature, romanticism in fiction, 
 dethrone the little god Man, and enthrone him 
 amongst God's servants. 
 
i6o PARERGA 
 
 LXVII 
 
 " In vain ! in vain ! " some one cries. Man and 
 Matter are the conquerors. It is an age of science, 
 
 of retorts and alembics, laboratories 
 Groil"'^''^''* and museums. And Science is the 
 
 enemy of Idealism. It is an age of 
 materialism, when the sensible things of life are of 
 supreme moment, and the invisible things are un- 
 recognisable! It is an age of militarism, — of great, 
 grey barracks everywhere, of millions of men stand- 
 ing to arms in all the barrack-squares of the world ; 
 of huge floating batteries circling around the coasts 
 of the world ; of cruel and inhuman taxation crush- 
 ing out the energies of workers, and paralysing 
 every attempt at initiative in the arts that make for 
 civilisation. Idealism ? Pah ! Go to the capital 
 of your Germany, — your home of Idealism and 
 Poetry ; pass down under the limes in the Unter der 
 Linden. Stop ! Behold this group. The central 
 figure is Frederick. The four corners are filled 
 with bronze figures of soldiers. The spaces are 
 filled with similar bronze effigies of soldiers. Sol- 
 diers everywhere. Where are your poets and phi- 
 losophers now in this German land .'' Oh, yes. 
 Look here ! Right behind, and under the tail of 
 Frederick's horse, are two statues. Of whom ? 
 Kant and Lessing ! Placed there to show how 
 easily poetry and philosophy can be kicked into 
 illimitable space by the iron hoofs of militarism ! 
 
WINTER i6i 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 A grim, if somewhat contemptuous comment on 
 that Herbartian system of salvation by education 
 that is again coming into vogue. If 
 anywhere on earth education has Serb™""" °^ 
 been made paramount in social and 
 political economics, surely it is in Germany. 
 Splendid schools, perfect equipment, trained teach- 
 ers, scientific appliances, State control, discipline 
 almost military in its severity, and above all, the 
 ^^ vielseitige Interesse'' on which Herbart laboured 
 so painfully, and which should have been promoted 
 in Germany above all other places by the example 
 of such lofty and gifted minds ; and lo ! for all this, 
 and as its final effect and growth, behold a system 
 of militarism carried so far that, even in a public 
 monument, the effigies of warriors are everywhere 
 placed in situations of honour, and those of the 
 most illustrious geniuses of the Fatherland are rele- 
 gated to a contemptuous obscurity. One would be 
 tempted to ask at once, where now are the ideas, 
 the ideals, the devotion, — the trivium in which 
 Herbart placed all his hopes? 
 
 LXIX 
 
 But perhaps this is not quite fair, although it is 
 certainly significant. Herbart opened up the tre- 
 mendous question, which certain edu- 
 cationists solve in an airy manner in Deveiopmem""^ 
 these days, whether education is to 
 be accomplished by developing the faculties, or by 
 feeding them. Or, in other words, whether educa- 
 
i62 PARERGA 
 
 tion is development by Exercise or by Instruction. 
 I know of absolutely no thinker of the present day 
 who would not promptly answer that the whole 
 essence of education consists in the exercise of the 
 faculties, not in the filling-in and feeding of the 
 mind through facts and data. Yet the Herbartians 
 fling a decided negative athwart that stream of 
 modern tendency ; and contend that the whole cur- 
 riculum of studies which have for object mental 
 culture should also have for object moral culture ; 
 that there is no mental growth except by ideas : 
 and that righteous ideas, such as will tell eventually 
 for the benefit of the whole community, can be de- 
 rived only from apperception — the study, through 
 story, legend, and history, of the lives and deeds of 
 all the great men who have left the impress of char- 
 acter on human history ; and a study of nature- 
 facts and nature-wonders through the eyes of 
 Science. 
 
 LXX 
 
 I have said that it is not fair to judge of the mind 
 of Germany from that group of effigies in the Unter 
 der Linden. I had a better object- 
 "^ ^^ ■ lesson of the German mind and char- 
 
 acter at Nauheim, three years ago. Every one 
 knows that the Nauheim baths are specifics for 
 heart trouble, etc., but every one does not know 
 that here in this fashionable watering-place, with its 
 monster hotels, its charming villas nestling each in 
 its cradle of trees, its electric lights, its baths, etc., may 
 also be seen German life typical of all classes, from 
 the highest to the lowest. I do not know whether 
 others see things as I see them ; but probably I 
 had contrasts in my mind drawn from experience of 
 
WINTER 163 
 
 my own country, and it was probably those con- 
 trasts that fixed the pictures and picture-lessons so 
 deeply on my mind. These pictures or mental 
 cartoons formed a kind of triptych, or triple repre- 
 sentation, which I took to be indicative of certain 
 phases of national character, and national character 
 developed or created through a long course of years 
 by means of education and discipline. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 The first thing that struck me in watching the 
 ways of these people was the perfect equality that 
 seemed to obtain amongst all classes ^. 
 
 , ,. , <:r T- 1- >> • First Picture. 
 
 m public places. Jiquality is a 
 word of French revolutionary coinage. It rings 
 hollow and spurious along the Boulevards. It is a 
 genuine thing beyond the Rhine. For here in Nau- 
 heim, as in all such places, is a Kursaal ; and in 
 front of the Kursaal is a vast terrace or promenade ; 
 and under shelter of a permanent awning, and lighted 
 by a thousand electric arcs are some five hundred or 
 six hundred tables, numbered by twenties, and each 
 twenty under charge of a special waiter. Here, 
 three times a day during the season, and at the cost 
 of the State, a splendid band plays for the delecta- 
 tion of visitors and natives ; and here, shoulder to 
 shoulder with aristocratic and noble visitors from all 
 parts of Europe, are the bourgeoisie and ouvriers up 
 from Frankfort for a holiday. There at that little 
 round metal table is a duke or earl ; and here at 
 the next table are Fritz and Gretchen, Frau and 
 Fraulein, eating sausage and drinking small beer. 
 And there is not the slightest appearance of a sense 
 of intrusion amongst these workers, — no insolent 
 
1 64 PARERGA 
 
 assumption of rights, or menacing scowl or gesture : 
 " I 'm as good a man as you ! " Oh, no ! The 
 sense of freedom and equality has been born with 
 this race. It is taken for granted. And the polite 
 waiter is as courteous and assiduous about the table 
 of the workman as when he takes his orders from 
 " my lord ! " 
 
 It was a magnificent human lesson ! 
 
 LXXII 
 
 The second picture in my triptych was this : 
 On Sunday nights, in the great hall, recitals were 
 given from the masters. The first recital was ex- 
 clusively from Gounod. The second 
 
 Second Picture. ^ ,,%. a i i r i 
 
 from Wagner. At the end or the 
 hall, where I sat amongst some German priests, who 
 seemed to know as much about these classical pieces 
 as about their Breviary Hymns, was a large crowd 
 of students, each with the score and a pencil in his 
 hand. It was very interesting to watch their eager, 
 boyish features, lighted up with enthusiasm as they 
 followed with such critical and intelligent interest 
 the performers, jotting down notes, asking questions 
 of each other, making comparisons, all the time in 
 a quiet, polite, undemonstrative manner, so that no 
 one around them was in the least degree embarrassed. 
 Twice they were hushed absolutely into silence, 
 dropped their pencils, and closed the sheets of music. 
 It was when a young violinist stepped forward from 
 the orchestra, and executed in a marvellous manner 
 some study, nocturne, fantaisie, or fugue, utterly 
 unknown to me. The two attendants could hardly 
 carry in their arms the piles of bouquets offered si- 
 lently and without an attempt at applause from the 
 
WINTER 165 
 
 vast audience. There these remained piled on the 
 stage, whilst the young executant went back meekly 
 to his place. The whole thing was beautiful, — the 
 music, the appreciation of it, the silence. I won- 
 dered, was civilisation focussed here ? 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 Next day I got into an accustomed corner beneath 
 a spreading lime to watch, and listen to, the band. 
 The Instrumentalists, be it said, went _ . , . 
 
 , , , ' ^ . Third Picture. 
 
 through each programme as conscien- 
 tiously and as fully in the morning, when they had 
 only a few nodding trees, and a certain middle-aged 
 Irish priest for audience, as in the afternoon, when 
 several hundreds from all parts of Europe were 
 gathered in silence on the veranda. I thought I 
 noticed my maestro of the violin and the bouquets, 
 calmly obeying the baton of the kappelmeister, as if 
 he were a young novice or apprentice under momen- 
 tary apprehension of dismissal. I thought if I 
 were he, and possessed of such genius, 1 would 
 never play but before the Grand Duke or the 
 Kaiser. I was puzzled over such humility, such 
 self-effacement. I questioned the young Jew who 
 lent us Tauchnitz editions for a few centimes each 
 afternoon. 
 
 " Yaas," he said, "dot vhos Bull." 
 
 " But," I said, wondering, " that young man is a 
 genius, a meistersinger." 
 
 " Yaas," he said, " zo he is ! " 
 
 " Then," I cried, " why does n't he come over to 
 London, or go to New York, and reap the rewards 
 of his genius ? What is his salary here ? " 
 
 " About eighteen schellings a week, at most a 
 
i66 PARERGA 
 
 bound. The kappelmeister gets two dousand 
 bounds from the Grandt Duke. He pays all the 
 rest." 
 
 " But," I said, " that young artist could earn fifty 
 pounds a week in London ! " 
 
 "Berhaps zo," he said carelessly. " Und I dere 
 say he vhill goom to London yet. He is berfecting 
 himself in his art ! " 
 
 " He is perfecting himself in his art ! " The 
 words ran through my ears all day, and every day, 
 as I watched that young man, silently, patiently, 
 " without haste, without rest," labouring after per- 
 fection. And only a few weeks before, I had heard 
 the kind lady who examined our children in needle- 
 work exclaiming : 
 
 "Ah! Celtic impetuosity again. There is the 
 one dominant Celtic note in all our work, — to get 
 it done, no matter how ; but to get it done, and take 
 leave of it for ever!" 
 
 And I also thought of certain wise sayings and 
 holy maxims, spoken by deep and learned thinkers 
 of the higher issues of life, of our need of aspiration 
 after perfection, of our preparation for that place 
 where there is no blot, nor flaw, nor stain in the 
 spirits, and fore the face of Him before whom the 
 stars are not pure ; and I bowed my head and was 
 silent. 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 But here were three great object lessons. Equal- 
 ity^ not a catchword of revolutionary humanism, but 
 a reality, derived from the clear con- 
 qua 1 y. ception that each individual was a 
 child of the State, claiming his birthright, and pre- 
 pared to defend, even at the cost of life, that mother- 
 
WINTER 167 
 
 land which protected him. For, as I watched those 
 German labourers, their strong, burly, Saxon frames, 
 I remembered the charge of the Wiirtembergers at 
 Sedan, and the ring of fire and iron that Moltke 
 drew around the disorganised and demoralised le- 
 gions of France. And I knew that if the word 
 went forth, each of these young students, now ap- 
 parently so engrossed in music, would fling the 
 sheet aside and take up his soldier's blanket for 
 the bivouac, and take down his rifle from the rack, 
 and hang the violin in its place with the words, 
 "Till 1 return, or — " This is genuine manliness 
 and patriotism. No hysterical screaming, nor 
 speech-making; no insolent demands for levelling 
 up or levelling down ; no feud of class against class ; 
 but the instinct and conviction that all are equal in 
 the eyes of the State, — equal rights, equal duties, 
 the equal claim for righteous protection, and the cor- 
 responding obligation to stand shoulder to shoulder 
 in defence of the commonwealth that guarantees to 
 each his natural and hereditary rights. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 I cannot for a moment agree with the Herbar- 
 tians who place the ultimate salvation of States and 
 peoples in education, unless, indeed, 
 they understand education in its 
 broadest and widest signification, as the develop- 
 ment both of moral and mental faculties. But I 
 like the idea that the mind must be fed, as well as 
 exercised, just as nature, in its physical processes, 
 places nutriment in the first place. You may de- 
 velop the mathematical mind on sines and co-sines, 
 and sharpen the reasoning faculties on these whet- 
 
i68 PARERGA 
 
 stones until it can split the abstrusest problems, and 
 yet find in the end that you have but 
 
 ** A reasoning, self-sufficing thing. 
 An intellectual all-in-all." 
 
 Or you may develop the imagination, and stretch 
 it out in illimitable fancies, and yet find but a Byron 
 at the end. Or you may develop the memory, and 
 produce a calculating-machine for a dime museum. 
 But this is not education. I think the time may 
 come when our educationists may have to hark back 
 to one Herbartian idea, that the mind has to be fed 
 as well as the body ; and that this process can only 
 take place successfully when great thoughts, inspired 
 by great examples, from man or nature, are made 
 the mental pabulum of the young. 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 The third idea is Discipline, and discipline not of 
 the schoolmaster's ferule, but self-i?nposedy through 
 the sense that there can be no ulti- 
 iscip ine. niate perfection except through the 
 
 long and patient elaboration of that task or talent 
 which it is given to us to perform or develop. This 
 involves restraint and reserve, — restraint over im- 
 pulses which, in the name of self-interest or self- 
 advancement, hurry us on to the fruition of labours 
 which we have not honourably accomplished ; and 
 reserve, — the husbanding of resources which, too 
 lavishly utilised, might lead us into intellectual 
 bankruptcy, and the modest silence about ourselves 
 which, even in a blatant world, is certain to be re- 
 warded by an acknowledgment of whatever talents 
 we possess, provided we have not irritated public 
 
WINTER 169 
 
 opinion by wounding public vanity. Apart from 
 its ultimate reward, modesty is a charming and use- 
 ful virtue. And it is the virtue of the great. It is 
 only the Pharisee that wears long phylacteries, and 
 loves salutations in the market-place ; and he has 
 passed down the ages as a synonym for an unclean 
 platter and a whited sepulchre. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 Christmas ! Actually, Christmas again ! With 
 what terrific speed we are moving on, — on towards 
 the immeasurable gulf of Death. ^, 
 
 -iTTi 1 1 I cneu Fugaces, 
 
 When we were boys, how that grey, 
 old hypocrite. Time, disguised himself and played 
 with us, and stretched out for us the long, long, 
 summer days, which we thought would never end. 
 How he accompanied us, throwing sunlight and 
 flowers all the way ; and stood by us and com- 
 manded, like Joshua of old, the sun to stand still 
 in the heavens, and pour down his rich, warm gold, 
 as we leaped the brook in the glen, and chased the 
 dragon-fly, with his gorgeous panoply of gold and 
 bronze, down where the yellow irises were waving 
 above the cool stream ; and fished for sticklebacks 
 with worms, and thought that we had made the great- 
 est discovery in natural science in this century when 
 we found that the little broken fragment of a twig 
 at the bottom of the pellucid stream was really the 
 home, the palace, the armoury, the disguise of some 
 white, aquatic caterpillar. And we thought what a 
 cunning little creature it was to hide itself thus! 
 We did not know the infinite science and the un- 
 bounded resources of the great magician. Nature ! 
 
170 PARERGA 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 But now, now ! the old fellow has thrown off his 
 disguise, and claims us no longer as playfellows, 
 but as victims. He seems to have 
 ^* ' put the alae, the wings of Mercury on 
 
 his feet ; and, instead of the caduceus^ he has taken 
 up his scythe, and bade us prepare for the harvest. 
 He slides our mornings into evenings, our days 
 into days, our weeks into weeks so easily, yet so 
 swiftly, that we hardly wake up except to sleep 
 again ; and sleep itself is but a moment's oblivion 
 between a dream and a dream. And on, on, on we 
 go, swiftly, silently, irresistibly, our relentless com- 
 rade and mentor and conqueror at our side, until 
 suddenly we find ourselves in the rapids above the 
 great gulf of the grave, and we hear the falling of 
 the waters into the immeasurable abyss, and we feel 
 the suction of eternity. 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 What then ? Well, then work, work, work ; tem- 
 
 pus breve est, and work is the elixir of life, — the 
 
 one thing alone that, whilst it accel- 
 
 Work. ^ ° . ^ J .u 
 
 erates our moments, yet sends them 
 gloriously freighted to eternity. It was the wildest 
 and foolishest dream to suppose that Creation ended 
 on the Seventh Day. The work of creation is 
 never-ending. Ohne hast^ aher ohne rasty the Ineffa- 
 ble Mind that is governing the universe is ever 
 evolving from new or old materials new and glori- 
 ous forms, each surpassing the others in perfection 
 of design, and symmetry of execution. Old and 
 worn-out things are broken up and dissolved in the 
 alchemy of creation ; and behold ! new forms spring 
 
WINTER 171 
 
 forth, and look, and breathe, and face the Eternal, 
 tingling with the sense of existence, eager to take 
 their part in the colossal drama, and confident of 
 their immortality. There is nothing old, nothing 
 weak, nothing feeble in creation. Everything is 
 young, with a sense of actual youth, or the con- 
 sciousness of immortality. 
 
 LXXX 
 
 1 forget whether it is G. H. Lewes who says that 
 the two most tremendous lines in all The Loom 
 literature are those of Goethe : — °^ Time. 
 
 ** At the whirling loom of Time unawed 
 I work the living mantle of God." ^ 
 
 Lewes was a Goethe-worshipper ; but the lines are 
 certainly great. God at his loom, or rather His 
 glorious spirits. His angels of the universe, every- 
 where throughout creation, with eyes fixed on the 
 eternal archetype and design, that hangs before the 
 walls of Heaven, weaving and framing, loosing and 
 dissolving, plying the vast shuttles of Force and 
 Matter throughout the infinite mazes of star-worlds, 
 so that, if we were not happily deaf, we should be 
 stunned by the thunders that reverberate everywhere 
 from these stupendous operations ; and, if we were 
 not happily blind, we should be stricken by the 
 effulgences that blaze ever up from the molten 
 masses that are flung into the perfect moulds of 
 other worlds and other beings than we. 
 
 ' So schafF ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit 
 Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. 
 
 Faust. 
 
172 PARERGA 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 And if in these harmonic, yet awful operations 
 our tiny moth-life seems so insignifi- 
 Vi^n.'^ ^""^ ^ cant that there should be no count of 
 it ; if our existence here is but 
 
 " a watch and a vision 
 Between a sleep and a sleep," 
 
 yet we have our little parts to perform in the econ- 
 omies of creation ; and at least we can feel that we 
 are in one sense greater than the mechanism of the 
 universe, for that, as Pascal says, is unconscious; 
 but we, at least, have the consciousness of our own 
 littleness. Turn on, then, Old Time ! Put your 
 hour-glass and your stellar chronometers before us ; 
 wave your scythe above our heads. Do we not 
 know that when the last sands have run out from 
 that bellglass of yours, a Divine Hand will turn it 
 over for eternity ; when your clock has struck its 
 last hour, the bells of Heaven shall ring for us; and 
 when your scythe has mown down the last ridge in 
 the fields of God, the harvest will be gathered into 
 the granaries of Heaven ? 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 But it is Christmas, — Christmas Night. The 
 clock on my mantel-piece peals out ten ; and there is 
 _ . „ deep silence over all things. The last 
 
 Christmas Eve. .,/ ^ , , • a cc r^ j 
 
 Village-Stragglers have said, Good- 
 night" and gone to their homes. The last footstep 
 has sounded, echoed, and died along the street. I 
 feel absolutely alone, here by my fireside. The great 
 
WINTER 173 
 
 Christmas candle, a yard in length and two inches 
 in diameter, is burning silently in the next room, 
 and casting down a flickering flame on the glistening 
 holly with its scarlet berries beneath. I remain up, 
 for 1 have to say the midnight mass at the convent, 
 preparatory to my two masses in the morning ; and, 
 as I watch the fire in the delicious, but almost op- 
 pressive silence, it seems to me that all the delight- 
 ful ghosts, which that intense and realistic spiritualist 
 called Literature has created, come in and walk in 
 solemn procession before my eyes. I watch them 
 all tenderly, lovingly, as they pass by and look at 
 me with the wistful sadness of eternity in their eyes, 
 until the convent bell rings out at a quarter to 
 twelve; and I pass out into the night. 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 It was a clear, starlit night, which did not quite 
 show all its splendours, until I had gone out from 
 the streets. For the lamps were left . 
 
 alight by the men in charge ; and ^ "^^ 
 
 from every house, even the humblest, the tall 
 Christmas candle, placed in the window, shed a 
 yellow light across the pathways. But the moment 
 I got beyond the range of the houses, and their 
 black roofs and gables no longer cut oflF large por- 
 tions of the sky, the full splendours of a winter 
 firmament burst upon my sight. It was no novelty, 
 for I flatter myself I have quite an intimate, almost 
 hand-shaking acquaintance with these nocturnal 
 beauties, which so lavishly squander their splen- 
 dours on a world which heeds them not. It makes 
 one smile to hear that this universe was made for 
 man ; whilst the petty creature goes back to his 
 
174 PARERGA 
 
 blind bed, exactly when the firmament unrolls Its 
 magnificence and displays all the silent wonders, all 
 the ineffable radiances that it keeps cloaked and 
 hooded by the day. Nevertheless, although familiar 
 to me, I am always startled when the effulgence 
 suddenly bursts upon me. These constellations 
 seem to smite one with their splendours. Every 
 moment you imagine you can hear the sounds that 
 must underlie their awful operations. Jewels of the 
 sky, set in its black mourning pall ; lamps in the 
 City of God ; whatever figures of speech you use 
 fade into insignificance before the revelations of 
 science, — suns, infinite suns, sunk in the depths 
 of illimitable space. 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 The Dragon^ folding his coils as usual around 
 the Little Bear, was due north ; and a little to the 
 
 northwest, and just on the verge of 
 tTons.^°"'*'"^' the horizon, the beautiful Vega of the 
 
 Lyre was barely visible. The tail 
 of the Great Bear hung down into the Northern 
 Seas, pointing to the invisible Arcturus ; and the 
 hunting-dogs of Bootes and the giant Hercules were 
 asleep beneath the cold rim of frozen Arctic seas. 
 Directly east, but low down, one could hardly see 
 the sickle of Leo, were it not for the brilliant jewel, 
 ReguluSy in its handle ; and in the east too. Cancer 
 and Hydra intervening, the Gemini looked down on 
 Procyon, the great glowing eye in the Canis Minor. 
 In the southeast Canis Major was just rising ; Sirius, 
 the peerless one, was spitting out his blue and green 
 and yellow flames right and left, and the triple 
 stars that form the jewelled belt of Orion pointed 
 
WINTER 175 
 
 steadily towards him, whilst they seemed to light up 
 all the darkness around them ; and higher up the 
 net of the Pleiades was strung with the white pearls 
 of its six great stars, and the innumerable aiglets of 
 its other star-sprays. In the southwest, Cetus the 
 whale was spouting his glories above the seas. Mira 
 " the wonderful," the variable one, had set her lights 
 in honour of the night. Capella in Auriga was almost 
 in the zenith ; Perseus with the demon-star, Algol, 
 was watching the fettered Andromeda ; and the four- 
 wheeled chariot of the winged Pegasus seemed 
 toppling down into the west. 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 Three thousand four hundred years ago, these 
 glories seem first to have attracted the eye of man, 
 who, notwithstanding the Greek de- 
 rivation of his name, seems more in- '^}^%, ^^,^^^ 
 
 ' at Bethlehem. 
 
 clmed to fix his gaze on the earth, 
 than upon the sky. Later on, holy Job asked : 
 "Who hath resisted Him, and hath peace? who 
 shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars 
 thereof tremble. Who alone spreadeth out the 
 heavens, and walketh upon the waves of the sea. 
 Who maketh Arcturus, and Orion, and the Hyades, 
 and the inner parts of the south. Who doth things 
 great and incomprehensible and wonderful, of which 
 there is no number." And the greatest, most 
 incomprehensible, most wonderful of all things 
 wrought by Omnipotence was assuredly that mighty 
 mystery which we commemorate to-night, and on 
 which, nineteen centuries ago, those same constella- 
 tions that are now blazing in the heavens looked 
 down and trembled, as the angels clove their way 
 
176 PARERGA 
 
 between them, and made them sing together the 
 praises of the Most High. It was a strange and 
 terrible thought — that those stars looked down on 
 Bethlehem. They saw and wondered, and were 
 still ; and abyss called out to abyss, as all the 
 heavens told the glory of God, and the firmament 
 revealed His wonders. 
 
 Lxxxvi y 
 
 And then came the tremendous contrast ! From 
 under that blazing firmament into the little chapel I 
 
 came, with its painted ceiling and 
 Ni'othe^r"'^ ^i"^^ human decorations. I passed 
 
 the crib, as I came to the altar, and 
 saw — the Child and His Mother I And then, after 
 the jubilant chorus of the Gloria in Excehis had died 
 out, came the ever sweet, ever tender words of the 
 Adeste. It was sudden, and striking — the contrast 
 between the universe of suns and this little chapel, 
 — between Omnipotence guiding that vast and 
 awful procession of worlds outside and the same 
 Omnipotence hiding here under the most helpless 
 of all forms. But these things touched the intellect. 
 The moment came, when the flood-gates of emotion 
 were suddenly opened ; and I had to suspend for 
 a moment the onward course of the divine sacri- 
 fice. It was at the awful words : 
 
 Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, 
 
 Gestant puellce viscera. 
 God of God, Light of all Light, 
 The womb of a child is bearing. 
 
 That word " puella," a little girl, placed there in 
 literal opposition, or rather real conjunction with 
 
WINTER 177 
 
 Omnipotence, choked me. The sudden descent of 
 the Immense, the Almighty One, into the feeble and 
 tender embraces of a child-mother, was too over- 
 whelming. It is the confutation of atheism, the 
 mockery of human pride, the suspension of inexor- 
 able law in favour of a divine manifestation of love 
 
 all at oncey 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 And lo ! as Christmas departs, the days seem 
 suddenly to open up ; and though the sun seems to 
 linger yet below the horizon in the Days 
 morning, he does not hasten towards Lengthening, 
 his setting. And the old adage comes true : 
 
 *♦ As the day lengthens. 
 The cold strengthens." 
 
 For now, we have had a tremendous fall of snow, 
 a biting blizzard, that whitened all the air and then 
 passed away leaving its feathery deposit thick upon 
 the ground. Down came a heavy frost upon this, 
 hardening and annealing and enamelling it, until 
 the nerves of the young tingled with the excitement 
 of prospective skating, and the old and feeble 
 huddled with shrinking shoulders near their fires. 
 I have a little oil-painting that exactly reproduces 
 the scene, — bare trees, loaded with their pretty 
 white burden, a misty atmosphere through which 
 the pink and contracted and feeble sun strives in 
 vain to shine, and the long avenues of forest glades, 
 where the prints of human feet are visible. And 
 here is a pen-picture of the same from a modern 
 Italian poet : — 
 
178 PARERGA 
 
 ** Una caligin bianca 
 Empie I'aer dormente, e si confonde 
 Col pian nevato all' orrizente estremo. 
 Tenue, rosseggia e stanca 
 Del sol la ruota, e fra i vapor s'asconde. 
 Com' occhio uman di sue palpebre Scemo, 
 E non augel, non aura in fra le piante, 
 Non canto di fanciulla, o Viandante." 
 
 "A whitish darkness fills the sleeping air, and 
 mingles with the plain even to the extreme hori- 
 zon. Weak, and rosy and small, the sun seems to 
 hide in the vapour, like a human eye without a lid. 
 No bird, no breeze stirs amongst the plants ; nor is 
 heard voice of maiden or wayfarer." 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 I regret to have to report to my readers that 
 
 Ju, the less attractive, but stronger-minded of my 
 
 two kittens, has developed into a 
 
 ep omaniac. ^^^^^^^^ kleptomaniac ; and that 
 
 Charlie is beginning to suffer from a mild attack of 
 megalomania. I had to send away Ju's mother, 
 on account of her incorrigible propensity to put 
 her whiskers in my cream-ewer and taste my butter 
 before I had tasted it myself. And now the 
 dreadful law of heredity seems to obtain in her filial 
 relative, and the shameful propensity seems to have 
 been handed down with interest. She appears also 
 to have a decided habit of breaking up fish-bones, 
 and leaving them in all conditions of debris on my 
 carpet; and as no venerable old maid (I speak with 
 the deepest reverence of a class whom I really ven- 
 erate) has such a horror for untidiness as I have, 
 I have been obliged to punish Ju, which I am sorry 
 to say she resented with all the pertinacity and inso- 
 
WINTER 179 
 
 lence of the modern spirit. She did not protest 
 except by repeated violations of the rights of prop- 
 erty ; and by a reproachful and argumentative look 
 in her green eyes, which was eloquent beyond 
 words. To-day, after having sundry things thrown 
 after her by way of protest and punishment for her 
 attacks on the privacy of my breakfast table, she 
 took her place on my hassock near the fire, and 
 said with her eyes : — 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 "You object, it appears, to my assuming any 
 rights over your breakfast table ? " 
 
 " Certainly," I replied. " My housekeeper tells 
 me that you are actually overfed in the kitchen ; 
 and I can testify from personal ob- 
 servation that the house is overrun 
 with mice." 
 
 " Mice ? " she said, turning up her little nose, 
 " Mice .'' I hope I am beyond all that ! " 
 
 "I remember a time," I said, "when you made 
 yourself beastly sick with a mouse, or at least, a 
 portion of one." 
 
 "That was in my infancy, or adolescence," she 
 said. " I trust I am beyond all that now ! " 
 
 "Oh, I see," I replied. "You have advanced 
 as far as cream and lemon sole just now ? " 
 
 " Quite so ! " she said, without winking an eye. 
 
 " Well, I object," 1 said emphatically. " I sup- 
 pose in the strange evolution of things we are com- 
 ing to that, but I am not going to anticipate ! " 
 
 " What can you do ? " she said saucily. " I ad- 
 mit that you are the stronger ; but I have science 
 and cunning on my side ! " 
 
i8o PARERGA 
 
 " I can suppress both at once ! " I said. " And 
 what is more, I shall, if they are unduly exercised ! " 
 
 " But how, how ? " she said saucily. 
 
 " Well, first of all," I replied, " there are at least 
 forty executioners, in the shape of small boys, just 
 now at school, but shortly to be liberated ; and 
 there 's an extremely convenient pool of deep, stag- 
 nant water just a few yards off near the bridge — " 
 
 "Pah!" she said. "You daren't," or "You 
 durstn't," I am not sure which. Ju is rather a 
 prh'ieuse. 
 
 " Why, might I ask ? " 
 
 " Because you profess to be opposed to capital 
 punishment," she said. " And you are aware that, 
 in the comity of nations, the whole tendency is 
 towards its aboHtion." 
 
 " That is for human, not for feline animals," I 
 replied, although thunderstruck at her mode of 
 argumentation. I thought she smiled sarcastically. 
 
 " These distinctions are out of date," she said 
 scornfully. " The advanced science of the day has 
 put an end to the old, unscientific, and illiberal dis- 
 tribution of the animal kingdom. Charles Darwin 
 and Edward Clodd and Professors Huxley and 
 Clifford have rearranged these things on a more 
 scientific basis." 
 
 " I see you have been reading books, instead 
 of minding the business for which you were created 
 — that is, keeping rats and mice out of this estab- 
 lishment," I said. "Here's the cause of all the 
 trouble of the world, — the general mixing-up of all 
 classes, grades, species, genera, in one hodge-podge, 
 with the schoolmaster's ferule over them." 
 
 " I am fully prepared for that outburst," she 
 cried bitterly. In fact, her voice was raised almost 
 into a caterwaul. 
 
WINTER 
 
 " You believe that education belongs to a class, 
 and is the privilege of a few. We maintain that 
 education is the prerogative of all created things — " 
 
 " To teach them to steal cream and fish-bones ? " 
 I replied. 
 
 I thought the sarcasm would have killed her. 
 She only smiled. It did not raise a hair on her 
 soft fur. 
 
 " There 's no question of stealing where there are 
 rights," she said. 
 
 " Of course not," I said ; " but where do the 
 rights come in ? " 
 
 "Precisely," she replied; "where do your rights 
 come in ? " 
 
 This was a stunner. I did not want to talk the- 
 ology with a mere kitten, although 1 had no objec- 
 tion to talk political economy. I thought I 'd cut 
 the matter short. 
 
 " My rights come in here," I said, — "that, if I 
 catch your whiskers in my cream-ewer again, or see 
 so much as an infinitesimal atom of fish-bone on 
 the floor, there is not an article in the room that I 
 won't turn into a missle of destruction." 
 
 " Of course," she said. " Might is right, is it 
 not? That's Carlylese philosophy." 
 
 " All that I know is," I replied, " that you are a 
 feline Radical and Socialist. You are bad enough 
 in yourself, and you are corrupting the morals of 
 that innocent and angelic Lu." 
 
 " Morals ? " she said ; " morals ? That 's more 
 of your priestcraft — " 
 
 I was about to demolish her with a heavy dic- 
 tionary, but she glided away to a safe distance. 
 
 " I meant nothing personal," she said ; " but 
 there 's no such thing as morals. These are anti- 
 
i82 PARERGA 
 
 quated terms. There's instinct; and I believe you 
 superior animals affect to have something superior 
 to instinct which you call ' reason,* but which, if we 
 are to judge by results, is a most fallible and unreli- 
 able guide. But ' morals,' * morals ' ! — all morality 
 is simply resolvable into following your instincts, 
 passions, desires. Why should Nature implant 
 them in us but to help us to gratify them ? " 
 
 " Look here, pussy," I replied ; " you should 
 have been head kitten to Madame Warens and her 
 protege, long ago by the Lake of Geneva. You 
 are an anachronism. You are born out of time. 
 You are altogether too astute, too logical, for this 
 generation." 
 
 " By no means," said Ju, bridling up at the in- 
 tended sarcasm. " There never was a time when 
 our race " — with what pride she uttered the words ! 
 
 — "had so many opportunities for self-improvement 
 or self-advancement as at present. The larger hu- 
 manitarian ideas that obtain in all higher circles, and 
 which, I am sorry to say, you are too retrograde 
 and reactionary to adopt, are moving us onward and 
 upward towards ' some far-off, divine event,' when 
 we shall evolve into — " 
 
 Ju's eloquence failed her here. She could not 
 for a moment recollect the form of the final evolu- 
 tion of her species. She instantly, with unerring 
 feminine tact, harked back. 
 
 "When, in the most advanced circles of society," 
 she continued grandly, " our interests are not only 
 studied and considered, but considered paramount, 
 
 — considered paramount," she repeated ; " when 
 great ladies take us up, and place us in positions of 
 dignity and comfort far beyond those allotted to 
 mere human infants ; when we have specialists set 
 
WINTER 183 
 
 apart for our physical complaints, and footmen are 
 deputed to wait upon us ; when scientists have dis- 
 covered that we have souls as well as you; and when 
 we are interred with all honours, and with more 
 genuine tears of sorrow than are lavished on your 
 species ; and when, in the words of a certain vulgar 
 song of yours, our lady friends — I use the word 
 advisedly — whisper in the ears of deceased felines, 
 whilst their hot tears rain down on the beautiful fur, 
 *Not Adieu, dear little kitten,' but*Au revoir — '" 
 
 " Scat ! " I cried, as I flung an imperial dictionary 
 at her. She dodged it, of course. At a safe dis- 
 tance she arched her back and stiffened her tail. 
 
 " Ps — s — st ! " she cried, as she made for the 
 door. " Why did n't you throw one of your own 
 books ? It would have been a more dangerous 
 because a heavier missile." 
 
 XC 
 
 We made it up, however. You must make up 
 everything nowadays. It is an age of compromise 
 all around. The old landmarks are ^ 
 
 d« ji TT • 1 r Compromise, 
 
 isappeanng rapidly. Universal suf- 
 frage is in the air. Evolution is progressing by 
 leaps and bounds. The animal creation will have 
 developed into man, with rights of voting and meet- 
 ing, long before man has put on the wings of an 
 archangel. So I have made it up with Ju ; and, in 
 return, Ju has informed me that Charlie has had a 
 bad attack of megalomania. It arose from the fact 
 that he was very unwisely patted on the head by 
 the eight-buttoned glove of a lady who had come 
 into the garden. Charlie, who has imbibed Com- 
 munistic ideas from the arch-conspirator Ju, is quite 
 
i84 PARERGA 
 
 prepared to be friendly with every one. I have no 
 doubt whatsoever that he would shake hands with 
 a burglar, and probably show him over the premises. 
 As to his master's rights, he acknowledges nothing 
 of the kind. The Zeitgeist is on him,— the spirit 
 of the age, the spirit of insurgence and independ- 
 ence, and, alas ! also the spirit of idleness and self- 
 indulgence. Charlie, once obedient and respectful, 
 now turns away his head when summoned. He 
 affects not to hear, and assumes a certain stolidity 
 of aspect, which is his canine way of showing inde- 
 pendence of spirit. Ladies should not pat little 
 puppies on the head with eight-button gloves. 
 
part III 
 
 SPRING 
 
SPRING 
 
 Section I 
 
 I 
 
 It is January the 20th ; and yet I call it Spring, 
 because it is Spring. Old Winter may come back 
 yet, and pay us a complimentary 
 visit; but so far, for the last fort- spS^^'' °^ 
 night he, with his icy beard and 
 rheumy eyes and icicled hair, has vanished with the 
 holly and ivy of Christmastide. And Spring, the 
 delectable queen and fay and fairy, has already sent 
 her av ant-couriers far and wide across the barren 
 but yearning land; and the pretty things that hid 
 away in silence from the rude embraces of Boreas 
 are now shyly peeping up — crocus and purple 
 primula, and snowdrop and daisy, and look towards 
 the pallid and pinkish sun, as if to ask when their 
 mother and mistress shall come. And the lambs 
 are out in the fields, frisking and leaping in all the 
 splendid joyance of youth, sometimes straying away 
 in the exuberance of life and spirits from their 
 mothers; but each infallibly finding its own when 
 the maternal bleat calls back the truant. How 
 grave and solemn are those sheep-mothers, who two 
 years ago were riotous and irresponsible lambkins. 
 
 " Ob, Gioventu ! 
 Oh, Primavera, gioventu delP anno. 
 Oby Gioventu, primavera delta vita ! ' ' 
 
PARERGA 
 
 II 
 
 I stood yesterday on the highest attainable sum- 
 mit of Kilcolman Castle. It is barely three miles 
 north-northwest of this village, and 
 
 Spenser. i , ° r 
 
 seems but a short, gray stump or an 
 ancient keep, or frontier castle, perched above a 
 brown bog, and looking white in sunshine, black 
 against the dark-blue of the neighbouring hills. I 
 pulled aside the iron gate that leads into a kind of 
 basement story, where also is the donjon or keep, 
 an apparently indispensable appanage to these old 
 castles, with walls six feet thick, and barely lighted 
 through a thin slit, from which the huge walls open 
 inwards. A narrow stone winding-stair leads to the 
 first story, which is now but a grassy sward ; and a 
 further but narrower stair leads upward to the sum- 
 mit of the castle. Thence you can see five coun- 
 ties — from the Commeragh range in Waterford to 
 the far mountain chains of Kerry. The Galtees 
 seem to frown over your head ; and the lordly 
 Shannon is a gleam of glory on the horizon. Here 
 Spenser, Secretary to the English Deputy, resided 
 many years, in the enjoyment of three thousand 
 acres of land confiscated from the Earl of Desmond. 
 And here he managed to combine these two most 
 dissimilar callings, — poet of the " Faerie Queene," 
 and cold but ruthless exterminator. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Here the Queen's favourite. Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 
 came, after having circumnavigated the globe, and 
 
 ^ , ^ brought potatoes and tobacco into 
 
 A Poet's Grave, t i j u • l • l o 
 
 Ireland ; here m his honour bpenser 
 composed his welcome : " Colin Clout 's come home 
 
SPRING 
 
 again " ; here, in loyal fealty to his Irish wife, the 
 poet wrote his magnificent " Epithalamium " ; and 
 here, as a reward for his ruthless policy towards the 
 native Irish, was the castle burned down remorse- 
 lessly, and here his infant child, notwithstanding 
 the heroism of the rapparees, was burned to death. 
 Over there in London, the great poet, the thorough 
 politician and sectary, died a pauper in King Street, 
 and — was buried in Westminster Abbey. He died 
 of actual want, in abject penury ; yet he had more 
 than royal obsequies. For his brother poets gath- 
 ered around his remains, and each in turn flung into 
 the open grave the ode he had composed on the 
 gentle poet, and the pen with which it was written — 
 an honour greater than fifty salvoes of artillery, or 
 the purchased panegyric of some popular orator. 
 And if that curious phantom called Shakspeare was 
 there, and flung his sonnet and pen on the coflin, 
 did the dead man, I wonder, shed tears '^. 
 
 IV 
 
 What a terrible martyrology is that of genius ! 
 For one Tennyson or Browning, dying calmly of 
 old age, with all its attendant hon- 
 
 \ ^ • II ,1 i-rA Martyroloey. 
 
 ours, what a grim holocaust has lire 
 demanded of so many others, equally dear to the 
 fickle and inconstant Muses ! Genius at the best 
 is a tragic thing. Nature, when she does bring 
 forth a rare spirit, should have it wrapped in cotton 
 wool, and sequestered, as far as possible, from the 
 rougher elements of daily existence. Except alone 
 for purposes of study, it should be kept far from 
 its kind ; or allowed only to associate with children, 
 or the meek and gentle elders, who have the gravity 
 
190 PARERGA 
 
 of eternity imprinted on heart as on features; and 
 the charity of experience manifested in their daily 
 lives. But genius cast amidst a rude, boisterous, 
 tumultuous world, full of animalism and passion, 
 and riotous in all the insurgency of its radiant ig- 
 norance, is like an Agnes or a Polycarp in the 
 Coliseum, or a Dante sinking amid the circles of 
 Hell. And when, after the fierce buffetings of life, 
 it sinks into the grave, one can almost hear the 
 verdict paraphrased by the French cynic : 
 
 " Le bruit court que Pison est mort. C'est une grande 
 perte. C'etoit un homme de bien ; et qui meritoit une 
 plus longue vie. II avoit de I'esprit et de I'agrement ; de 
 la fermete et du courage. II etoit sur, genereux, fidele ! 
 Ajoutez — pourvu qu'il soit mort." 
 
 Who was Jacinto Verdaguer ? I have heard that 
 he was born in Barcelona in 1845 > ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ chap- 
 lain to a ship, the "Ciudad Candal"; 
 ^^ ' that he had one at least of Johnson's 
 
 author-evils, — a patron. Marquis de Comillas ; that 
 he wrote an epic, " The Atlantide," in which the 
 greatest passages are : " The Burning of the Pyre- 
 nees " ; "The Garden of the Hesperides"; "The 
 Cataract" ; " The Engulfment." It is also said that 
 he had trials — fa va sans dire ; that he was accused 
 of certain unpleasant things of which a poet, and 
 above all a priest-poet, should not be guilty ; that 
 he bore all with philosophical serenity; that he 
 wrote "Idylls and Mystic Songs"; "Patria"; 
 "Songs of Montferrat"; "Religious Songs for the 
 People"; " Dreams of St. John "; "Jesus, Child"; 
 
SPRING 19] 
 
 "Flowers of Mary"; another epic, " Canigou." 
 Died in June, 1902, aged 57. Buried with public 
 honours ! Alas ! Were it not better for him to have 
 been a village cure; never to have written anything 
 but his little prone for Sunday morning ; and to have 
 died amidst the sobs of his people, and had his 
 requiem chanted by his village choir? 
 
 But who was Jacinto Verdaguer ? His fame has 
 been circumscribed and local. Was it worth the 
 cost? 
 
 VI 
 
 What a pathos underlies those words — a failed 
 life, une vie manque e ! I struck across the expression 
 a few evenings ago in connection with „ ^ 
 
 TT 1 Ti J- J r J- • Herder. 
 
 Herder. He died or disappointment, 
 of a broken heart, of a failed life. I had been think- 
 ing of him as a colossus, as a genius who stood like 
 Dante's tower, 
 
 ** Full square to all the winds that blow." 
 
 I only saw him as he appeared to Goethe that even- 
 ing in the hotel at Strasburg, where he had gone 
 for surgical help for his eyes, — a tall, commanding 
 figure, with high, broad forehead, and eyes that, even 
 through the inflammation which affected them, were 
 yet piercing; hair curled and dressed; clad in strict, 
 clerical costume, black coat, and a long silk cloak 
 flung gracefully over it. He was but twenty-seven 
 years old at the time ; and as he came down the 
 grand staircase of the hotel, probably feeling his way 
 owing to his imperfect sight, there leaped up the 
 stairs against him a young, light, Olympian figure, 
 tall and masculine, with great eyes that glowed with 
 
192 
 
 PARERGA 
 
 genius and animation. With the ease and assurance 
 of a student, this young fellow accosted the senior 
 and venerable figure that was before him. It was 
 the beginning of the life-long friendship — the mu- 
 tual respect never broken by manly criticism ; and 
 the mutual assistance always given freely and with- 
 out any sense of recompense — between Goethe and 
 Herder. 
 
 VII 
 
 Now, Herder died at the age of fifty-six ; and 
 
 during those brief years he was not only leading 
 
 preacher at Weimar, but such a zeal- 
 
 A Colossal Work. '^ j-jr-i_i^j^- 
 
 ous and indefatigable student in poe- 
 try and philosophy that one stands amazed at the 
 prodigious amount of work he accumulated during 
 the short period allowed him on this planet. There 
 was no national literature existent at the time with 
 which he was not perfectly familiar, — Sanskrit, Per- 
 sian, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Roman, Moorish, 
 Spanish. He had studied the folk-lore of the world 
 from Lapland love-songs to Scotch drinking-songs ; 
 from a wild Norse scald to some voluptuous and 
 erotic ballad sung in the wild places of Sicily. Then, 
 passing from poetry to her more austere sister Phi- 
 losophy, he projected in his late manhood a " Phi- 
 losophy of the History of Humanity " in twenty-five 
 books. Of these, he had completed twenty before 
 he was called away ; and these are marked by a learn- 
 ing, a synthetic power, a minute analysis and dis- 
 criminating force, and a solemn eloquence that make 
 it ever a matter of surprise that, whilst Gibbon's 
 turgid pages are so much prized, this greater and 
 more original book has been suffered to pass into 
 oblivion. 
 
SPRING 193 
 
 VIII 
 
 But, nevertheless, the question will arise, why- 
 Herder died in anguish with such a fatal verdict 
 upon his lips. It cannot be said that , 
 
 I ^ ^ • ^ J J • ^-c Not Popular. 
 
 he was unappreciated during lire. 
 The great literary luminaries, Goethe, Schiller, 
 Wieland, seemed to revolve around him as a central 
 sun. All that was brightest and most intellectual 
 in Weimar, the spiritual capital of Germany, hung 
 upon his lips when he preached. His orthodoxy 
 was slightly suspected, as he seemed to lean towards 
 a mild form of pantheism, and was a professed ad- 
 mirer of Spinoza. But this will not account for his 
 acute disappointment with life. These are the minor 
 worries from which no career is safe. Can we search 
 for and find the cause of his ultimate despair in the 
 fact that he was a social failure, probably owing to 
 the concomitant irritability of genius? He was not 
 a popular man. He was too great to be merely 
 popular. But he was also aggressive, and self- 
 assertive. His dearest friends complained of this. 
 He was the German equivalent of Carlyle. "The 
 man," says Wieland, "is like an electric cloud. 
 From a distance the meteor has a splendid effect ; 
 
 but may the d have such a meteor hanging 
 
 over his head ! I would like to have a dozen 
 Pyrenees between him and me ! " 
 
 The verdicts of Spencer, Mill, etc., on Carlyle ! 
 
194 
 
 PARERGA 
 
 IX 
 
 One excellent lesson he taught his countrymen. 
 He took them aside from their barren admiration 
 
 of poetic form, and bade them look 
 Thought ^°^ "great ideas." It is quite true 
 
 that either rhythm or metre is at 
 least a useful, if not essential, element in poetry; 
 but in our degenerate days, when we have descended 
 so far from the sublime spirit of ancient master- 
 pieces, we have rushed into the heresy of sacrificing 
 everything to mere form. Hence a mere jingle of 
 words, strung together like nursery-rhymes, has 
 often assumed the position in public estimation that 
 should be occupied only by those sublime and in- 
 tangible ideas that lift humanity above its common- 
 places, and place it on the summit of the everlasting 
 hills. It is quite true that perfect form, as a vehicle 
 of thought, has not only a charm in itself, but also 
 the vast utility of conveying in sweet and resonant 
 language whatever we may have to communicate to 
 the world. But no form, however perfect, is more 
 than an empty, sounding shell, if the living idea is 
 not there. For words are but the expression of 
 ideas ; and if the ideas be not great, the word is but 
 a foolish and futile sound. Herder seemed to have 
 been thoroughly interpenetrated with this great prin- 
 ciple. His last words were : 
 
 " Give me a great thought before I die! " 
 
 X 
 
 We have a very striking example of this in the 
 
 greatest of our contemporary poets, 
 
 Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose 
 
 seventieth birthday is being celebrated as I write. 
 
SPRING 
 
 ^95 
 
 Swinburne is the supreme melodist of the language; 
 the magician who makes music, as of Heaven, out 
 of the discordant elements of the English tongue ; 
 the master of alliteration ; the artist of antitheses ; 
 and the skilful portrayer of subtle and suggestive 
 passion. He is our modern Greek. Where Keats, 
 who built his Greek epics out of Plutarch and 
 Spenser, taking his matter from the former, and his 
 form from the latter, conspicuously but gloriously 
 failed ; where Landor fell short of Greek ideals and 
 expression, although by some he was compared to 
 Plato and Theocritus, Swinburne has succeeded. 
 Atalanta in Calydon is the most perfect reproduc- 
 tion in modern times of the Greek spirit, Grecian 
 thought, Greek dramatic force; and is probably the 
 only modern exemplar to those uninitiated in Greek 
 poetry of what the Greek spirit of art and the 
 drama could produce. Why, then, is this harmo- 
 nist, in an age of music ; this melodist, in the age 
 which has glorified Tennyson for his singing power; 
 this Greek of Greeks, — so neglected in our age 
 that his very name seems to be forgotten ? The 
 simple, quiet man, living over there with Watts- 
 Dunton in Putney, so timid that he drops his hat 
 in the presence of ladies ; so kind that he fills his 
 pockets on every walk with sweetmeats for children ; 
 why is he unknown, or only known, as the preacher 
 of the sensuous and pagan life ? 
 
 XI 
 
 And the answer comes promptly, because he has 
 been the preacher of sensuous paganism ; and be- 
 cause he has given no message to his 
 generation. The modern world, which 
 tolerates Ibsen's realisms, and throngs the theatres 
 
196 PARERGA 
 
 to see certain modern society dramas that seem to 
 have escaped, as if by miracle, the censure of the 
 Lord Chamberlain and the Police Commissioners, 
 retains the Christian verdict delivered on Mr. Swin- 
 burne's poems in pre-pagan times. Forty years ago 
 it was dogmatically decided that Mr. Swinburne 
 should not be read. His poetry had too much of 
 the atmosphere of Paphos for the public taste of 
 those times. Public taste has changed, alas ! not 
 for the better; but public opinion, like a judge's 
 sentence, seems unalterable. The verdicts passed 
 by the tribunals of half a century ago remain ; and 
 it is tacitly taken for granted that Mr. Swinburne's 
 poems are, at least, virginibus puerisque^ unreadable. 
 A few of his verses have escaped through the 
 meshes of the anathema, as a singing bird will find 
 his way through the meshes of a net; but all the 
 rest is marked with the red and ochre of an auto- 
 da-fe. Mr. Swinburne's poems are in quarantine. 
 It is doubtful now if he ever can receive a bill of 
 health. 
 
 XII 
 
 Yet that magnificent chorus in Atalanta^ " Before 
 the beginning of years," and the still more magnifi- 
 cent chorus on the Death of Mele- 
 Cd'ydon '" ^S^^ would tempt many more curious 
 
 than careful to break the regulations 
 of the health-office to get at the tainted beauties of 
 other works. And they are not all tainted. There 
 are a great many Swinburnian poems, unexcelled 
 for music and rhythm, that may be read by any one. 
 There are just two which, I think, are incomparable; 
 and which may be read by those who still dread 
 the yellow flag. The first is one of the finest ele- 
 
SPRING 197 
 
 gies in the language, — I do not exclude " Lycidas " 
 or " Thyrsis." I do not include " Adonais," which 
 is a tragedy rather than an elegy ; and which seems 
 to stand supreme and alone in poetry. It is the 
 Elegy on the death of Barry Cornwall, commenc- 
 ing with the well-known lines : 
 
 *' In the garden of death, where the singers whose names are 
 deathless. 
 One with another make music unheard of men." 
 
 The other is the poem named " Child Laughter," 
 a perfect piece of melody and purity of conception. 
 It is in those lyrics that Mr. Swinburne's art is 
 best manifested, as it is by his short lyrical notes 
 that the music of Tennyson will be carried to the 
 ears of posterity. Nature is greater than Art ; and 
 the ponderous efforts after great achievements in 
 epic or drama are seldom so well appreciated as 
 the spontaneous music that wells from the poetic 
 heart in its moments of inspiration. And, above 
 all in imitations of the antique, there is the certain 
 tendency to miss its aerial lightness and softness 
 of touch, and to degenerate into a lumbering and 
 stiff-mannered style. But our lyrical poetry is 
 always graceful, because generally unencumbered 
 save by a single thought. 
 
 XIII 
 
 A thought will here occur — why should our 
 modern poets imitate so servilely the ancient mas- 
 terpieces that even in the exact forms 
 of Odes and Choruses they feel Stion. 
 bound to copy their originals? It 
 is quite reasonable that in sculpture the antique 
 
PARERGA 
 
 forms should be studied and even copied, because 
 that is a fixed art, with stereotyped rules and prin- 
 ciples that change not with years or manners, but 
 remain as archetypal perfections unto all time. But 
 poetry is the interpretation not of "the human 
 form divine," but of something greater, namely, 
 of all the moods and types, of all the thoughts 
 and sensations, of all the passions and desires that 
 sway or govern the human soul. And as these 
 are as multiform and intense as the subjectivism 
 of each individual allows, varying from the purely 
 sensistic emotions of the hind up to the seraphic 
 exaltation of the mystic, poetry as their interpre- 
 tation must assume their forms, and break into as 
 many outer shapes as human energy and invention 
 can devise. Hence, we find modern poets straining 
 ever and ever after new forms of verse ; and it is a 
 distinct triumph when some daring writer breaks 
 away from consecrated forms, and dares to assume 
 an originality that first paralyses by its audacity, 
 and then, perhaps after many years, becomes the 
 model, and its issue the classic to a new generation. 
 It seems, then, a great mistake in modern writers 
 to copy so servilely the great poetic masterpieces 
 of Greece. Autres temps, autres mceurs ! The ideas 
 of one age are not the ideas of another. A great 
 gulf yawns between the centuries, wherein are buried 
 the religions, the cults, the manners and the passions 
 of the past. Each century has its own record ; each 
 age, its characteristics ; each race, its peculiar genius 
 and tastes ; and nothing is gained, but everything 
 is lost by a slavish subservience to traditions. 
 Shakspeare is great, because he broke away from 
 the Unities, and dared to be original. Milton's 
 Samson, admittedly the most perfect adaptation of 
 
SPRING 199 
 
 the Greek drama to Jewish ideals, is that one of 
 his works which is least read. In France, Racine 
 and Corneille retain the name of classics, but classics 
 on the shelves. No modern Frenchman would 
 tolerate their interminable speeches. In England, 
 Talfourd's Ion is now unheard of; Tennyson's 
 abortive dramas are waste paper. But lines from 
 immortal lyrics, like the choruses in Atalanta in 
 Calydon^ and the songs from the Princess lilt on every 
 tongue. And the little drama Maud^ the author's 
 favourite, shall ever be a favourite with the public, 
 because it is un-Greek, un-Roman, un-classic in 
 frame and form ; because it is thoroughly English 
 and modern, and the best expression of the Time- 
 Spirit in the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
 Hence, it was the greatest pity that Mr. Swin- 
 burne, who probably was as conversant with modern 
 ideas and their trend towards pessimism and prog- 
 ress, and all the possibilities of poetry that lie 
 hidden beneath the anguish of a too self-conscious 
 age, should have elected to go back to the simple 
 realism of Greek thought and Greek feeling, where 
 there was absolutely no room for the play of that 
 subjectivism which may be misleading in philosophy, 
 but which certainly forms the central attractiveness 
 in most of the emotional poetry of the Victorian era. 
 {Night of October l^.) 
 
 XIV 
 
 I do not know whether it is our Oriental origin that 
 makes us think not only lightly, but lovingly of 
 death ; but it is quite certain that we 
 cannot view it with all the attendant Dfgnu^'*^ 
 horrors with which the modern mate- 
 rialistic imagination surrounds it; nor yet with that 
 
200 PARERGA 
 
 mute despair as of an inevitable event in the resist- 
 less march of Nature. We do not weave garlands 
 of flowers through his naked ribs ; nor wreathe his 
 bony head with chaplets. But we like to think of 
 dying with dignity, — of passing away, like the 
 legendary king, surrounded by weeping queens, and 
 launching out into the great deep without fear or 
 terror of what shall hap to us there. And hence, 
 we like every word that assures us of immortality, 
 and that lends to our last great act on the stage 
 of life something that will redeem our bodily indig- 
 nities in the grave. And I like these solemn 
 words, that remind one of the calm nobility of 
 Socrates : 
 
 " The same year calls, and one goes hence with another. 
 
 And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet song's sake. 
 The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother 
 
 Takes mutely the cup from his hands that we. all shall take." 
 
 " Takes mutely ! " Quite so. Even the grim 
 executioner, like him who handed the hemlock to 
 Socrates, must drop a tear over his victim. 
 
 XV 
 
 The other poem is a child-poem ; for it may sur- 
 prise some to be told that Mr. Swinburne is the 
 children's poet par excellence. Is 
 oem. ^.j^g^g j^Q^. j-j^g sound of bclls and 
 
 laughter in these well-known lines ? 
 
 " All the bells of heaven may ring. 
 All the birds of heaven may sing ! 
 All the wells on earth may spring. 
 All the winds on earth may bring 
 All sweet sounds together. 
 
SPRING 
 
 Sweeter far than all things heard. 
 Hand of harper, tone of bird. 
 Sounds of woods at sundawn stirred. 
 Welling waters' winsome word. 
 
 Wind in warm, wan weather," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 and in this 
 
 " 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' 
 No glory that ever was shed 
 From the crowning star of the seven 
 That crown the north-world's head, 
 
 " No word that ever was spoken 
 Of human or godlike tongue. 
 Gave ever such godlike token 
 
 Since human hearts were strung." 
 
 And surely the pen that wrote the two last stanzas 
 in "A Child's Sleep" should never have been 
 dipped in gall : 
 
 ** As the moon on the lake's face flashes. 
 So haply may gleam at whiles 
 A dream through the dear deep lashes 
 Whereunder a child's eye smiles, 
 
 ** And the least of us all that love him 
 May take for a moment part 
 With angels around and above him. 
 And I find a place in his heart." 
 
 Here is the jingling of musical bells ; and a very 
 beautiful and spiritual sense of childhood's charms, 
 even though the two last lines of the first stanza 
 ring leaden. 
 
 XVI 
 
 But, with all its music, Mr. Swinburne's poetry 
 has the one great defect that it conveys no lesson, 
 
202 PARERGA 
 
 teaches no truth, gives us no great ideas to help 
 
 us along the summits of life, and keep us from 
 
 sinking into the valleys. In our days 
 
 essage. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ prophet, as well as a 
 
 psalmist, or — nothing. His functions changed 
 from those of mere verbal artist, as in the days of 
 Dryden and Pope, to the introspection and melan- 
 choly of Goethe and Byron, until, after the lapse of 
 half a century of neglect and contempt, Words- 
 worth again raised them to the high position of 
 prophetic insight into the workings of the human 
 heart, and its eternal sympathies and correspond- 
 encies with Nature. " High Priest of Nature " was 
 he; and in his wake followed Browning with his 
 lofty optimism, and Tennyson with his elaborate 
 philosophy of pantheistic doubtings. And there is 
 not the least use of any writer of prose or verse 
 coming before the public now unless he has a mes- 
 sage to his generation. And that message must be 
 one of purity and of hope. No matter how sunken 
 men may be in vice, — and our age is not an immac- 
 ulate one, — the souls of men recoil from the brutish 
 philosophy of Lucretius, from the secret indecen- 
 cies of Ovid and Petronius. It may revolt against 
 the sweet and pure teachings of Christ, but it will 
 not go back to Cytherea. Mr. Swinburne would 
 have been well advised had he read in all its signifi- 
 cance that valedictory addressed to Heine from the 
 marble lips of the Venus in the Louvre : 
 
 " How can I help you ? Cannot you see that I have 
 lost both my arms ? " 
 
 XVII 
 
 Now, Mr. Swinburne has no message, unless it be 
 a suggestion of Paphian rites ; no gospel, except 
 
SPRING 203 
 
 what is contained in " Laus Veneris " and the 
 " Hymn to Proserpine." ^ Possibly he has seen by 
 this time that his revolutionary heroes „ r ^ ^ 
 
 ^ r 1 J J 1 But of Paphos. 
 
 were made or pasteboard, and that 
 his dreams of an "Italia Nuova" have not been 
 realised. Carlyle grew tired of Mazzini as ineffec- 
 tual, and the verdict of such a foe to Catholicism is 
 probably now the verdict of Mr. Swinburne on the 
 wily Ligurian. Take, then, the revolutionary songs 
 away, ill-adapted as they are to modern ideas, and 
 measure his erotic poetry even by such low stand- 
 ards as modern ethics will allow, and there remains 
 to Mr. Swinburne the reputation of being the most 
 marvellous y<?«g"/^«r with the English tongue that has 
 yet appeared on English soil, and the best interpre- 
 ter of Greek thought to moderns. But few mod- 
 erns care for Greek thought, fewer still for that 
 peculiar phase of Greek thought which no other 
 modern poet has dared to reproduce. 
 
 ^ Whilst these notes were passing through the Press, I was re- 
 minded that in repeating the common verdict on Mr. Swinburne's 
 poems, I should have added that it is quite possible that the public 
 might have drifted into its not unusual error of judging the entire 
 work of a poet by that very portion which he himself might possi- 
 bly consider the least representative of his genius. Mr. Swin- 
 burne's position as the greatest of living poets is unassailable, but 
 even the gods may wince under injustice ; and it is only fair to say 
 that the keenest and most comprehensive of modern critics refuse 
 to accept "Poems and Ballads" (i 866-1 878) written in Mr. 
 Swinburne's youth, and containing nearly all the erotic poetry he 
 has published, as the finest flower and characteristic of his genius ; 
 and they would probably challenge the title " Poet of Human 
 Love" in favor of " Poet of Humanity." But, as I am a pro- 
 found disbeliever in the utility of waiting for the just judgments of 
 posterity, I think it is a pity that it is not generally known that it 
 has been authoritatively stated that Mr. Swinburne would elect to 
 be judged by his larger and maturer work, rather than by those early 
 conceits and unbalanced enthusiasms of his youth. 
 
204 PARERGA 
 
 XVIII 
 
 We meet him but seldom in the records of con- 
 temporaries. He does not appear to have touched 
 the circle within which Carlyle, Rus- 
 kin, and Tennyson moved. His 
 closest friend appears to have been the late famous 
 master of Balliol, Professor Jowett. He was the 
 Professor's constant companion in their Highland 
 vacations ; and we meet him frequently at Tummel 
 Bridge, drinking strong tea, and enlivening the read- 
 ing party by recitations from Charles Dickens. Ex- 
 tremes meet in most men, but I do not know that I 
 ever experienced such a shock as when I read that 
 the author of " Erechtheus " and the " Hymn to 
 Proserpine " did actually and habitually, and with 
 forethought, impersonate Sairey Gamp. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Once or twice during his long life he has ap- 
 peared before the public as protagonist of an idea, 
 „ h- ^'^ ^" self-defence. In the first ca- 
 
 ero-wors ip. p^^jj.y j^^ hurled back with Titanic 
 
 strength the violent charges that were made by 
 Robert Buchanan against " the fleshly school." 
 In the second he repudiated, with the " scorn 
 of scorn " of which a poet alone is capable, the 
 dedicatory poem written to him on his birthday 
 by Eric Mackay. It is a pretty story. The poem 
 was ecstatic in its adoration of Mr. Swinburne. 
 The closing stanza ran thus : 
 
 " But Hate absorbs thee not ; thy theme is Love, 
 And all the joys and all the griefs thereof. 
 
SPRING 205 
 
 And all the marvels which the years unfold. 
 Thy hand is strong ; thy lute-strings are of gold. 
 And thou, too, as Chaucer did in years gone by. 
 Canst wake the world to wonder and delight. 
 And through the courts and corridors of Fame 
 Canst make thy voice ring out by day and night 
 In full-toned ecstasies of earth and sky. 
 Thou hast for badge a star, for faith a flame, 
 And for thy meed the halo of a name. 
 Thy peers are with the dead who cannot die." 
 
 Here will be noticed symptoms of that highest 
 admiration, imitation. The poem appeared in "The 
 World" of April 4, 1894. Copies were sent to Mr. 
 Swinburne and a friend. No reply or acknowledg- 
 ment. Three months passed ; still no reply. Nine 
 months elapsed. Then Eric Mackay wrote as an 
 aggrieved one. Reply this time : 
 
 "Mr. Swinburne begs to inform Mr. Mackay — whose 
 name is unknown to him — that he did receive the number 
 of ' The World ' inquired about ; and is happy to learn 
 that the lines inscribed to him, which appeared in it, will 
 not reappear under that inscription." 
 
 Mr. Mackay wrote back, regretting that Mr. 
 Swinburne was no gentleman, and hinting that a 
 little personal chastisement would, etc., etc. Reply 
 from Lewis and Lewis, solicitors, to the effect that, 
 if Mr. Mackay continued the correspondence, the 
 intervention of the police would be requisitioned. 
 Tableau ! 
 
 XX 
 
 Mr. Swinburne is one of the few great poets 
 of our time who has also ventured 
 into prose. Whether Tennyson and 
 Browning consulted best for their after fame by 
 
2o6 PARERGA 
 
 limiting their work to poetry is a moot question. 
 But there is no law binding a great writer to limita- 
 tions of this kind, although eventually, if he escapes 
 oblivion, he must take his choice in the Temple of 
 Fame as prose-writer or poet. No man can occupy 
 two niches, where the space is narrow and already 
 overcrowded. Carlyle ventured into poetry, which 
 no one reads, although, as we have said elsewhere, 
 his " Mason-song" is far finer than its original, the 
 "Symbolum" of Goethe. Tennyson wrote a little 
 prose, chiefly in connection with his " Idylls." 
 It is unknown, or forgotten. It is true that Shel- 
 ley may be remembered by his " Letters," when 
 many of his poems are blotted out from public 
 memory; and Macaulay's " Lays" may yet consti- 
 tute his chief claim to immortality. But, as a rule, 
 men are judged by one species of work. The 
 world will not acknowledge Michael Angelo to 
 have been a supreme poet, because it acknowledges 
 him supreme artist. It is chary of praise, economic 
 in worship. It will only pay for one claim. 
 
 XXI 
 
 But it seems quite certain now that Mr. Swin- 
 burne will owe whatever of fame is meted out to him 
 „ „ , . by posterity to his merits as poet. 
 
 Too Emphatic. « • • • i i 
 
 As critic or essayist he cannot be 
 taken seriously, for he has carried into all his writ- 
 ings a passion for extreme opinion, which is best 
 described as "vehement and volcanic." Here he 
 beats even Carlyle hollow. He has a command of 
 vituperative language that quite equals that of the 
 Chelsea scold ; and he is more indiscriminate in his 
 abuse, as he is more lavish in his praise. Carlyle 
 
SPRING 
 
 207 
 
 praised no man ; or did it always with damnatory- 
 restrictions and objections. Mr. Swinburne's adula- 
 tion is as frantic as his vituperation. Whoever has 
 read his preface to the poems of S. T. Coleridge or 
 his multitudinous essays on Victor Hugo will easily 
 understand this. With these poets there are no 
 limitations. Everything is in the superlative — no 
 equals, no rivals ! And yet in his criticism on 
 " Lear," he seems to have heard that there was a 
 man called Shakspeare, and that he lived long be- 
 fore Victor Hugo, and is likely to live long after 
 the exile of Guernsey has been forgotten. Well ; 
 one can excuse enthusiasm ; but is there an excuse 
 for calling Mark Pattison " an ape of the Dead 
 Sea"? It was a pretty asset of Carlyle's — that 
 word " ape." " Called to see that ape, Keble, 
 author of a book, * The Christian Year.' " But it 
 is hardly polite. And what shall we think of this 
 pious sentiment regarding Constable and Bannatyne, 
 who were the causes, innocent perhaps, of Scott's 
 bankruptcy : 
 
 " It is a comfort to remember that their place in 
 Hell is now between Heming and Condell." 
 
 Surely vituperative madness is not altogether 
 confined to the Celt. 
 
 XXII 
 
 And, if Mr. Swinburne has chosen to write of 
 the " ramping renegades or clattering corsairs" of 
 Byron ; of his " violent and vulgar ^ ^ , . 
 
 ^ r J 11 Tantaene Irae? 
 
 resources or cant and rant and glare 
 and splash and splutter;" of his "sickly stumble 
 of drivelling debility," his " drawling draggletail 
 drab of a muse, Inyx, the screaming wry-neck " ; 
 
2o8 PARERGA 
 
 he must not complain, if he is said by another 
 writer " to pile butter upon bacon, and honey on 
 sugar, driving the aching sense to nausea with the 
 dead, inevitable beat of the rhythm, and the irri- 
 tating recurrence of alliteration and assonance. He 
 seems a sort of poetic Blondin, keeping perilous 
 foothold on an imperceptible wire in mid-air, and 
 surrounded by blazing coruscations of rockets and 
 crackers." 
 
 Such are the amenities among the gods, O ye 
 mortals ! 
 
 XXIII 
 
 I notice that the best of Mr. Swinburne's poems 
 are un-Swinburnian, — that is, they are not recog- 
 ^ ^ ^ ._, nisable as Mr. Swinburne's owing to 
 
 Loch Torndon. , , r 1 1 • • i ° 
 
 the absence or alliteration and super- 
 latives. Here is a lovely little bit from " Loch 
 Torridon " : 
 
 ♦* All night long, in the world of sleep 
 Skies and waters were soft and deep. 
 Shadow clothed them, and silence made 
 Soundless music of dream and shade. 
 All above us, the livelong night 
 Shadow, kindled with sense of light; 
 All around us, the brief night long 
 Silence, laden with sense of song. 
 Stars and mountains without, we knew. 
 Watched and waited the soft night through. 
 All unseen, but divined and dear 
 Thrilled the touch of the sea's breath near; 
 All unheard, but alive, like sound. 
 Throbbed the sense of the sea's life round; 
 Round us, near us, in depth and height. 
 Soft as darkness, and keen as light." 
 
SPRING 209 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Have I said that Swinburne has no message to 
 mankind? Well, here suddenly am I confronted 
 with a new theory, — namely, that 
 
 1 . , 1 r 1 cc Another View. 
 
 he is the preacher or the most ex- 
 alted ethical idealism;" that "he is, like Victor 
 Hugo, in exceptional nearness to the Divine ele- 
 ment in the universe, the element that makes for 
 love, pity, purity, in fact, for holiness." " The 
 essential attitudes of the Christian temper," says 
 Mr. W. M. Payne of The Dial, Chicago, "receive 
 Swinburne's fullest sympathy, save only the meek 
 and lowly attitude, upon which he pours out the 
 vials of his scorn. The proud exaltation of the 
 full-statured soul is the key to Swinburne's ethics 
 through its close relation to his conception of duty, 
 and his strenuous demand for complete sacrifice of 
 self." " Victor Hugo and Swinburne are both pri- 
 marily spiritual poets, — poets of exalted spiritual 
 passion." 
 
 XXV 
 
 The English language must have undergone a 
 tremendous revolution when words like these could 
 be used by rational beings of the 
 most sensuous poetry in the English Mad*^'^"^ '^"^ 
 tongue. But criticism, like history, 
 has run wild. When such amiable beings as Crom- 
 well, Nero, Danton, Mirabeau, etc., are deified in 
 history, we cannot be surprised when, in the eternal 
 jugglery of words, " physical " and " moral," " sen- 
 sual " and "spiritual," "Christian" and "Pagan" 
 are interchanged, and assumed to be synonymous. 
 
 '4 
 
PARERGA 
 
 A newspaper critic, like a lawyer, can prove any- 
 thing. Nay, not prove, but assert; and assert just 
 where there is no peril of contradiction or disproof. 
 But the world does not take such persons seriously. 
 It may repent of its early indiscretions, or oblivion, 
 or stupidity, in the case of such a poet as Words- 
 worth ; but it never stamps poetry as sensuous or 
 suggestive without adhering to the verdict. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Hence the best that can now be done for Swinburne 
 
 is to make a judicious selection of his best poems, 
 
 and give these to the public. No 
 
 A Selection. i i j i r xt 
 
 poet should ask tor more. JNo poet 
 can be remembered in our fast age, when such ex- 
 cellent verse is poured out so lavishly in every 
 magazine, except by one or two poems, which have 
 fastened on the public fancy. The day may come 
 when Tennyson will be known only by one or two 
 lyrics, and perhaps " In Memoriam." And if Mr. 
 Swinburne survives, twenty years hence, as the 
 author of one or two great choral odes, he should 
 thank his stars, and be content with such a modicum 
 of fame. But here again lies the secret of his non- 
 success. He has been the melodious psalmist of 
 forbidden things, but he has given no great thought, 
 no lofty line to the world. Shall we describe him, 
 as another poet limns himself, as 
 
 **The idle singer of an empty day; '* 
 
 or shall we say that he should have been poet- 
 laureate to the Sultan, or national bard to Lydians 
 or Cypriotes ? But the Goths of the North, with 
 
SPRING 
 
 their eyes darkened from city-fogs or sea-mists, and 
 who are for ever seeking for new gospels, and not 
 finding them, have nothing in common with this 
 Southern singer, who, like his goddess Cytherea, 
 seems to have sprung from a purple and enchanted 
 sea. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 And yet, even if we suppose that Mr. Swinburne 
 has misdirected his splendid powers, it must be 
 confessed that he has left some noble 
 lines, some delightful verses that men Lhfe^s^""^"^ 
 will not permit to die. The grand 
 criterion of immortality is to pass from the printed 
 page to the mouths of the people. When suddenly 
 a line or a passage leaps to the lips, it is a sign that 
 it has gone down into the heart and made its man- 
 sion there. I make no doubt that hundreds have 
 committed to memory, for daily use and enjoyment, 
 the chorus in Atalanta in Calydon. I know that I 
 never see the sea breaking into surf on the sea- 
 shore, but the magnificent Alexandrine comes to 
 my lips : 
 
 *' Where the thundering Bosphorus echoes the thunder of Pontic seas." 
 
 And for forty years I have never witnessed the 
 entrancing sight of night, stooping down on the 
 sea with its hanging clusters of stars, without think- 
 ing of the words : 
 
 " And with stars and sea-winds in her raiment 
 Night sinks on the sea." 
 
212 
 
 PARERGA 
 
 Section II 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Apropos of great lines and great thoughts in our 
 poets, I make no apology for inserting here these 
 words of Goethe's (which many will 
 seek in vain in all the selections of 
 Goethe's "Gedichte" that have been 
 given to the world), which are well known, or per- 
 haps I should say ought to be well known, through 
 Carlyle's translation. Goethe calls the poem Sym- 
 bolum. It is found in the series " Loge," in the 
 sixth volume of Goethe's collected works.^ 
 
 Goethe's Sym 
 bolum. 
 
 Symbolum. 
 
 Des Maurers Wandeln 
 Es gleicht dem Leben 
 Und sein Bestreben 
 Es gleicht dem Handein 
 Der Menschen auf Erden. 
 
 Die Zukunft decket 
 Schmerzen und Glucke 
 Schrittweis dem Blicke 
 Doch ungeschrecket 
 Dringen wir vorwarts. 
 
 Und schwer und schwerer 
 Hangt eine Hiille 
 Mit Ehrfurcht Stille 
 Ruhn oben die Sterne 
 Und unten die Graber. 
 
 Betracht sie genauer 
 Und siehe, so melden 
 Im Busen der Helden 
 Sie Wandelnde Schauer 
 Und ernste Gefiihle. 
 
 The mason's ways are 
 A type of existence. 
 And his persistence 
 Is as the ways are 
 Of men in this world. 
 
 The Future hides in it 
 Gladness and Sorrow. 
 We press still thorough, 
 Nought that abides in it 
 Daunting us ; onward ! 
 
 And forward before us 
 Gleams the dark portal. 
 Goal of all mortal. 
 Stars silent rest o'er us, 
 Graves under us, silent. 
 
 While earnest thou gazest 
 Comes boding of terror. 
 Comes phantasm and error. 
 Perplexes the bravest 
 With doubt and misgiving. 
 
 1 Goethe's Werke, Band 6. Stuttgart, 1857. 
 
SPRING 213 
 
 Doch rufen von driiben But heard are the Voices, 
 
 Die Stimmen der Geister, Heard are the Sages, 
 
 Die Stimmen der Meister, The worlds and the ages. 
 
 Versaumt nicht zu iiben Choose well ! Your choice 
 
 Die Krafte des Guten ! Brief, but yet endless. 
 
 Hier winden sich Kronen Here eyes do regard you 
 
 In ewiger Stille, From eternity's stillness. 
 
 Die sollen mit Fiille Here is all fulness 
 
 Die Thatigen lohnen ! Ye brave, to reward you. 
 
 Wir heissen euch hoffen ! Work, and despair not 
 
 The strange thing about this poem is, that Car- 
 lyle's translation is far more suggestive and spirited 
 than the original. Carlyle was a poet without the 
 song-gift; but here he seems to have struck sud- 
 denly upon a lyrical sermon, which he was fond of 
 repeating, especially the last line : We bid you be of 
 hope I 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Was it because he felt himself so utterly " without 
 hope in this world " that he was always trying to 
 summon courage by such words ? It 
 may be said that Carlyle lived the 
 last forty years of his Hfe in despair. That last 
 expression of his to Froude: "God does nothing!" 
 is his valedictory and death-bed profession of utter 
 hopelessness. All the hysterical screaming of forty 
 years has died down into that feeble burr of despair. 
 As preacher and reformer, he had been as utter a 
 failure as the Edward Irving on whom he lavished 
 such pitying contempt. To all human seeming, he 
 had been a successful man. The ordinary accom- 
 paniments of a serene and honourable old age — 
 wealth, fame, honour, troops of friends, — were his. 
 And yet he sank into his lonely grave, not only 
 with the Vanitas Vanitatum of the preacher on his 
 
214 PARERGA 
 
 lips, but with a keen sense of disappointment that 
 his mission had been a failure. He had conquered 
 the world so far as the world's lip-service was con- 
 cerned, only to find that the captive hugged its 
 chains and refused the offer of emancipation. 
 
 XXX 
 
 There is a line of demarcation drawn across Car- 
 lyle's life, marking off whatever was great and noble 
 in it from all that was hysterical and 
 Eariy Heroic affected,— a line as marked and obvi- 
 ous as that which distinguishes ado- 
 lescence and senility in most men, only in Carlyle's 
 case the contrast was reversed. Wisdom and seren- 
 ity were not the fruitage or heritage of his years. 
 There is something really magnificent in his early 
 life. Born in humble circumstances, the son of a 
 Scotch mason, and stricken early in life with ill- 
 health, he yet believed that a revelation was made 
 to him that he was a child of genius, and that the 
 world outside — the dim, blind, stammering world 
 — would, sooner or later, acknowledge the fact, and 
 come bowing to his feet. It was his belief in his 
 star of destiny, — the faith that genius always in- 
 spires, and that helps to surmount every obstacle 
 towards its development and fulfilment. These 
 early days in Ecclefechan, when he consumed his 
 evening meal of bread and milk on the top of the 
 stone fence outside his father's dwelling, and saw 
 visions as of Patmos ; the dreary hours in the little 
 school at Annan, brightened and darkened once 
 only by the presence of Irving; the opening up of 
 life when he was transferred to Kirkcaldy ; that 
 evening on Drumclog Moss, when, after a long 
 vacation walk, he and Irving stood still and talked 
 
SPRING 
 
 215 
 
 about the eternal truths, and saw the parting of their 
 ways ; the hours in his scanty lodgings in Edin- 
 burgh, toiling over Legendre's Geometry, teaching 
 the young Bullers, whose tuition (ranked in money 
 value at £100 a year) Irving's brotherly solicitude 
 had obtained for him ; or writing furtive articles for 
 the " Edinburgh Review," which were not even 
 acknowledged, and for Brewster's " Encyclopaedia," 
 which were most frugally and economically paid for; 
 his lonely hours at Mainhill, Hoddam Hill, and 
 Scotsbrig ; his romantic marriage and subsequent 
 eremitical life amidst the " Druidical Solitudes" of 
 Craigenputtock ; the burning of the ships and em- 
 barking for London ; his uphill fight against poverty 
 and neglect; his fearlessness, his manliness, his in- 
 dependence ; his contempt for money, society, social 
 rank, and everything the human heart holds dear; 
 his gradual emergence into the light of public recog- 
 nition through every kind of Cimmerian gloom and 
 adamantine opposition, — the whole is a grand epic, 
 in which you cannot hear the clash of arms or the 
 shout of victory, but the more noble heart-throbs of 
 a great spirit, warring against untoward circumstances, 
 beaten down, submerged, almost extinguished, but 
 finally victorious, not through adventitious help or 
 eleemosynary assistance, but by virtue of its own 
 indomitable energy and invincible determination. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 But the epic suddenly closes there. The life- 
 history of the man, made glorious by struggle and 
 strain, now degenerates into a kind 
 
 r y •!• t An Epic's Close. 
 
 or complacent servility on the one 
 
 hand, and furious defiance on the other, — both 
 
 deeply resented by his dearest friends, and tolerated 
 
2i6 PARERGA 
 
 by an easy public because atoned for by the glamour 
 of genius. I do not know a more humiliating inci- 
 dent in the lives of great poets and teachers than 
 that journey to Scotland under the patronage of 
 Lady Ashburton, when Carlyle and his wife were 
 huddled into a second-class compartment with her 
 ladyship's servants, whilst her ladyship occupied an 
 ex-royal saloon. Strange to say, Carlyle never saw 
 the incongruity and degradation of the matter ; nor 
 has Mr. Froude seemed to observe it. Jane Welsh 
 Carlyle resented it; and refused to return from 
 Scotland under similar circumstances. I never read 
 the incident without a blush of shame at seeing this 
 child of genius, this strong spirit, carried like a 
 valet, as merely one of her ladyship's suite. And, 
 alas ! no man ever wrote so bitterly, so savagely of 
 the flunkey-soul. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 And then comes one of the last scenes. It is 
 Mr. Smalley, the American retailer of small things, 
 that tells it — how Carlyle, having 
 returned from his night walk through 
 Chelsea, and having consumed (dyspeptic as he 
 was) vast chunks of plum-cake and bread and 
 butter at tea, sat down on the floor, back to fire- 
 place, took out a comb, brushed his white hair 
 down over his eyes, lighted the long clay pipe, 
 and treated his visitor to one tedious monologue 
 of two hours' duration. The words sounded 
 strangely familiar to his hearer. He went home 
 and found the mighty monologue a mere recital 
 of some old stale platitudes from essays on Chart- 
 ism, or Latter-Day Pamphlets. " How are the 
 mighty fallen ! " And all those screech-owl letters 
 
SPRING 217 
 
 to newspapers, and all those maudlin letters to his 
 " goody " (which she accused him for having writ- 
 ten with a view to publication for posterity), and all 
 those noisy declamations from the Apostle of Si- 
 lence ; and all his scorn for whatever is sweet, and 
 beautiful, and sacred in life, — ah, me! how one 
 does regret that he ever left his Hermitage, and fell 
 under the spell of tongues more terrible than those 
 for which he flung his pitying scorn on Edward 
 Irving ! And was Irving a subject for scorn ? I 
 trow not ! Of the two men, Irving stands forth as 
 the most lovable and honourable. If in genius he 
 was of smaller stature, in true nobility of character 
 he stands high above his great compatriot. His 
 noble generosity to Carlyle, when the latter was a 
 struggling teacher whilst Irving was an acknowledged 
 master, his kind words : " Two Annan men must 
 not be strangers here" ; his free offer of the use of 
 his library, an asset about which most men are jeal- 
 ously conservative ; his honourable relinquishment 
 of Jane Welsh in order that he might keep his en- 
 gagement with the plain, muddy-complexioned Miss 
 Martin ; his loyal welcome to Carlyle in London ; 
 his pitiable illusions and painful reverses ; his half- 
 prophetic enthusiasm ; his decline and fall from 
 such transcendent heights as he had reached ; and 
 his noble equanimity under crushing adversity will 
 bear comparison with the querulous, sad, unhappy 
 life that, even though it were a cresset and beacon- 
 fire to humanity, smouldered and crackled painfully 
 to the end there in that dark house in Chelsea. 
 
2i8 PARERGA 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 One could have wished that Carlyle had never left 
 the solitudes of Scotland, but from perfect union with 
 Nature, had received of the plenti- 
 Piacef'^"^^** ^ tude of her inspirations, and com- 
 municated it through his marvellous 
 gift of language to the world. - There would have 
 been something akin to the circumstances and sur- 
 roundings of the prophets, who choose stony deserts 
 or barren mountains for their residences, in his selec- 
 tion of the brown moors and tors of a Scottish 
 highland as the place of his meditations on those 
 problems of existence that loomed up vague, shad- 
 owy, but colossal before the eyes of the young sage 
 and scholar. For clearly, from the moment he 
 began to think, life and not how to live was the 
 transcendent question for Carlyle. " The hush of 
 the world's expectation as the day died" was a He- 
 brew speech to him, even as a child. How the 
 further glories of the universe broke on his imagi- 
 nation, and how the cryptic handwriting of Nature 
 became a life-torturing puzzle to him, we can well 
 imagine. How the world would have listened and 
 wondered and admired, if those after-revelations of 
 his had come out from the desert on the wings of a 
 prophetic voice, and not from the dust of a London 
 hall or the fogs of the Chelsea embankment. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 He must have carried to London in 1834 some- 
 thing of his Scottish atmosphere of energy and 
 „. ^ virility, and drawn largely on this 
 
 His Letters. /' r . ° ^ , 
 
 Storehouse or native power and na- 
 tive independence for a few years. But then there 
 
SPRING 219 
 
 was a visible decline. " The French Revolution " 
 touched the high-water mark of his genius. In 
 " Heroes and Hero-worship" the tide came to a 
 standstill. Once again, in " Past and Present," 
 there was an eflfort, a tour de force, as of one who 
 felt the power slipping away from him, and thence 
 a steady decadence downwards through dreary jere- 
 miads and hysterical shriekings to the end. Car- 
 lyle's letters from 18 14-1826 may yet come to be 
 regarded not only as valuable biographical helps, 
 but as the best indications of his genius. There 
 are passages in those letters, descriptive and meta- 
 phorical, which he has not surpassed ; and assuredly 
 the great work wrought out in pain and conflict 
 amidst the terrific desolation of Craigenputtock will 
 be the last of Carlyle's writings that will fail to grasp 
 the admiration and attention of the world. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 The one forecast or indication of what Carlyle 
 was to become in later years is a certain fickleness 
 of judgment, as when in one letter 
 
 u 1. 1 /^ ^u tc^L ^ ^ • His Fickleness. 
 
 he styles (joethe "the greatest genius 
 that has lived for a century, and the greatest ass that 
 has lived for three. I could sometimes fall down 
 and worship him ; at other times I could kick him 
 out of the room." ^ And again of " Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter": "A book which I love not, which I am sure 
 will never sell, but which I am determined to print 
 and finish. There are touches of the very highest, 
 most ethereal genius in it; but diluted with floods 
 of insipidity, which even / would not have written 
 for the world. Some of the poetry is very bad, 
 
 ^ Letters, vol. ii. p. 224. 
 
220 PARERGA 
 
 some of it rather good. The following is mediocre 
 — the worst kind" Readers of Carlyle will be 
 amazed to find those words written of verses which 
 he afterwards quoted so frequently and with such 
 enthusiasm : 
 
 '* Who never ate his bread in sorrow. 
 Who never spent the darksome hours 
 Weeping, and watching for the morrow, — 
 He knows you not, ye gloomy Powers." 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 And in his letters to Goethe there is a symptom 
 
 of the servility and adulation to the great ones of 
 
 the earth, which afterwards alternated 
 
 ipper. painfully with such fierce assertions 
 
 of independence. Reading those letters now in 
 
 ** The dark backward and abysm of Time,** 
 
 one cannot help feeling a sudden shudder of pain at 
 expressions of admiration and flattery which might 
 not be out of place in some second-rate poetaster 
 craving for patronage at some nobleman's door, but 
 which seem fulsome and undignified coming from 
 the pen of one who aspired to be seer and prophet 
 to his generation. I have never seen anything like 
 it in the writings of the masters of literature. In 
 the vast correspondence of Goethe himself, there is 
 either a perfect equipoise of dignified serenity, or else 
 a lordly condescension that seems to dwarf into a 
 mere pupil the greater genius that wrote from the 
 silences and loneliness of Craigenputtock. 
 
SPRING 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Besides the natural decadence of power that fol- 
 lowed Carlyle's introduction to London society, 
 and his assumption of a dictatorship ^. ^ ^. . 
 
 , . , , r 1 , , , , His Ambition. 
 
 which the world would not acknowl- 
 edge, there was one cause mentioned by a close ob- 
 server, Mr. Larkin, which operated powerfully 
 towards the disintegration of Carlyle's powers, and 
 the development of that morbid irritability which 
 alienated such friends as Herbert Spencer and John 
 Stuart Mill, and that large body of admirers whose 
 principles, rudely attacked by Carlyle, compelled 
 them to abandon belief in his inerrancy. This 
 cause was his secret ambition, kindled by the mo- 
 mentary success of his political works, to get into 
 Parliament, and thence unto some coign of vantage 
 as minister, whence he could mould the minds and 
 destinies of at least large sections of the population 
 to his own peculiar views. For he verily believed 
 he was a God-sent man, — an apostle to a genera- 
 tion stiff of neck and hard of heart and slow of 
 comprehension, and that he alone of all men saw 
 the clear way to make straight the way of the 
 Lord. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 He seemed to pivot all his hopes on the states- 
 man. Sir Robert Peel, whom he firmly believed he 
 had converted to his opinions on 
 many public questions. There had ^^ °^ 
 been, too, a little informal rapprochement between 
 the statesman and the writer ; and some expressions 
 of mutual esteem. Then destiny — the destiny that 
 
222 PARERGA 
 
 was always thwarting Carlyle, and which he believed 
 he had strength to conquer and defy, interfered. 
 Sir Robert Peel was killed by a fall from his horse ; 
 and Carlyle's political dreams vanished. Both politi- 
 cal parties, representing for the most part the sane 
 common-sense of Britain, shrank from association 
 with such an iconoclast. Their great organs, quar- 
 terly, monthly, daily, refused his fiery denunciations 
 of anything and everything under the sun. They 
 feared probably that such a man, inflated with all 
 the adulation of the empty heads of London, would 
 order the Speaker from the chair, as he went very 
 near ordering the preacher from the pulpit on the 
 only occasion on which he visited St. Paul's. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Thenceforth Carlyle seems to have lost all self- 
 control. The humour, grim though it was, that 
 pervaded " Sartor " and the story of 
 
 ^ " ^ ' Abbot Samson, and the French 
 
 Revolution, grew into the savage denunciation with 
 which he lashed, like Swift, all opponents. The 
 poetical faculty, which he certainly possessed, al- 
 though he lacked the ear for metre or rhyme, and 
 which constitutes the great charm of his early letters 
 and writings, seems to have degenerated into a kind 
 of fiery rhetoric, that scorched and withered instead 
 of fostering and embalming; and the sage of Chel- 
 sea became, to all observers who could get beyond 
 the glamour of a great name, "the bad-tempered 
 old gentleman, who called down God's lightning 
 from heaven every time he could not lay his hand 
 upon his match-box." ^ 
 
 ^ Lowell. 
 
SPRING 223 
 
 XL 
 
 There are two terrific trials in the life of every 
 great thinker — and Carlyle experienced them, but 
 did not come out of them "the ^ ^ . , 
 
 , , ,, /> I I 1 Two Trials. 
 
 Strong athlete or whom the author 
 of "The Imitation" speaks. These are to live a 
 divine life amidst all that is squalid and ignoble ; 
 and to accept in silence a lower and subordinate place 
 beneath the futilities and imbecilities which, through 
 interest, cunning, or intrigue are enthroned in the 
 high places of the earth. There is a third, namely, 
 the trial of a high, pure soul, in the grasp of malig- 
 nant imbecility, powerless to free itself, loathing its 
 master, but impotent to dethrone him. From time 
 to time certain souls feel themselves called to a higher 
 life. Whether the inspiration comes from heredi- 
 tary influences, home training, extensive reading, 
 or from on high, they feel themselves constrained to 
 depart from the beaten track of men, and to walk 
 alone on the eternal hills whilst their every-day, 
 lower existence is still cast amongst the common- 
 places and wretched banalities of the work-a-day 
 world. It is the strenuous life, straining after great 
 things ; but it is one full of trials to the spirit. It 
 is a way of desolation, but not of darkness, a way of 
 visible trials, but invisible helps. Many start for- 
 ward in the course. Few attain the goal. Fewer 
 still the bravium, or reward. 
 
224 ' PARERGA 
 
 XLI 
 
 Their great temptation and obstruction is — that 
 they make themselves the " heroes of their own 
 
 epic." They become self-absorbed. 
 Temptations. ^^^^ ^^ ^'^^ conducive to humility ; 
 
 and the humble alone succeed. Such 
 souls must learn to live heroic lives without a hero. 
 They must be content with the fruits of the spirit, 
 without hanging them, like apples of the Hesper- 
 ides, on every tree. They must think in prose, 
 not in the long roll of the hexameter. They must 
 be content to live unknown, and die unnoticed. 
 For the breath of human worship and applause will 
 stain the white mirror of their shields ; and if every 
 one wants to examine with his soiled fingers the 
 brand, Excalibur, very soon will its edge be dulled, 
 and the mystic letters will vanish. In the solitude 
 of their own thoughts, in the silence and reserve of 
 the spirit, must such souls wear out the days of life, 
 content to know that they are electa ex millibus, 
 chosen out of thousands by some arbitrary, but 
 unerring decree. 
 
 XLII 
 
 The second and third classes of souls, conscious 
 of their own integrity and greatness, chafe under 
 . the dominion of imbecilities. It may 
 
 be the unfitness, the deordination of 
 things that exasperates them ; or it may be that 
 wounded pride, which must needs be compelled to 
 suffer and endure much at the mercy of hands that 
 are feeble, but too prone to smite. For a time 
 there is sullen discontent, hidden rebellious feelings, 
 
SPRING 225 
 
 murmurings at such a disposition of things which 
 seems to run counter to all order and proportion. 
 Then comes the end — either open rebellion, or 
 the swift abandonment of some high calling, that 
 the destinies determined should be pursued right 
 through the teeth of every discouragement or ob- 
 struction. There is the tacit and mute forgetful- 
 ness of that which should never be forgotten — 
 that Law is Law; and that the administration of 
 law is placed most often in the hands of the imbe- 
 cile or malignant, who nevertheless must be obeyed, 
 for their charter comes from the High Powers, that 
 work in mysteries, and whose reasons or designs it 
 is not given to man to fathom. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 It is a question whether the chariots of life 
 could best be guided by the noble and wise in 
 every generation. For guidance re- 
 quires knowledge and experience; Th^ Chariots of 
 and knowledge and experience are 
 very often destructive of nobility of character. 
 Even a chauffeur requires training. And as the 
 chauffeur must know every curve, and rut, and 
 sweep in the road he is travelling, so the charioteer, 
 who guides a State, or a department, must know 
 every foible or weakness, or eccentricity in that 
 little section of humanity committed to his care. 
 But with that knowledge, especially if it come 
 from experience, there will arise, too, a certain 
 contempt, even though it be wrapped in the fair 
 garments of mercy and charity. And there is no 
 greater solvent of nobility of soul than even the in- 
 cipient feeling of contempt. There never yet was 
 
226 PARERGA 
 
 a ruler who held a firm hand to the end. Like 
 unwearied Nature, each seeks his goal through the 
 lines of least resistance. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 When, therefore, thinkers, like Carlyle, are quietly- 
 ignored and set aside by those who have the ap- 
 ^^ . pointment of Councillors of State, or 
 
 Charioteers. i j r j • i • i i 
 
 heads or departments m their hands, 
 they have no reason to complain. The author of 
 The Advancement of Learning and the Essays was 
 not a success as a Lord Chancellor. The light that 
 was to stream forever unto all future generations 
 was obscured in a court of law. Making all 
 allowance for Lord Macaulay's unsparing denuncia- 
 tion as a piece of wanton rhetoric, and not a judicial 
 examination of an obscure and complicated case, 
 there can be no doubt that Lord Bacon does not 
 come out of the ordeal with clean hands. But it 
 was the circumstances that surrounded him which 
 were really responsible for his apostasy from honour, 
 not the native character of the man. A philosopher 
 has no business in a law court, nor in a House of 
 Lords. In his study, he soars aloft and contem- 
 plates humanity from the summit of his science. 
 If he descends to closer and more practical relations, 
 humanity drags him down to its own level, and 
 beneath it. 
 
 XLV 
 
 I have just stumbled upon one of those tremen- 
 dous expressions uttered, or written 
 
 Expr?s^sion. ^^ ^^ ^Y ^ careless hand, but which 
 
 seem to make one's heart stand still, 
 
 and hold one's breath by reason of their sublimity. 
 
SPRING 
 
 227 
 
 The sentence occurs in the " Recollections of Mary 
 Somerville," and runs thus: 
 
 " The perturbations (of the Solar system) are 
 only the oscillations of that immense Pendulum 
 of Eternity, which beats centuries as ours beats 
 seconds." 
 
 Did the authoress, great as she was, see the awful 
 import of these words ? They are written hap- 
 hazard at the end of a chapter; and they close 
 a paragraph, commencing with Newton's doubt 
 of the permanence of our solar system, and La 
 Grange's confidence in its stability, inasmuch as 
 these disturbances were periodical, and arose from 
 the reciprocal attraction of the planets and their 
 satellites. But Mrs. Somerville always prided her- 
 self on her severe style, as most in accordance with 
 the science she illustrated so admirably ; and I see 
 from Lord Brougham's letters to her, and from her 
 great French correspondents, that this was a peculiar- 
 ity on which they highly complimented her. How, 
 then, did she lose and forget herself for the moment, 
 and break into those lines that I thought could be 
 written by no pen but Jean Paul's ? 
 
 XLVI 
 
 The Pendulum of Eternity ! I can hear the swift, 
 ceaseless ticking of the watch in my pocket; the 
 slower beat of the clock on my 
 mantel-piece; the still more solemn '"^J^^^^^jftJ^'J™ 
 sound of the hall-clock ; the grave 
 steady beat of the sacristy-clock, that has swung to 
 and fro for nigh a century; the still slower swing of 
 the town-hall clock, that seems a fitting accompani- 
 ment to the deep boom of its bells ; but where is 
 
228 PARERGA 
 
 the "Pendulum of Eternity"? In what vast un- 
 known, undreamt-of spaces in the great immensity- 
 does it swing its gigantic bulk ? Between what con- 
 stellations does it oscillate, and set in motion those 
 wheels and springs in the mighty void that we call 
 systems, and of which our suns and planets are but 
 the golden rivets ? Take your pen and write — 
 The clocks of earth move but a Second under the 
 swing of their pendulums ; but every beat in the 
 Pendulum of Eternity marks a Century ! Put it 
 down in figures, and contrast them. Then you 
 may understand what the poet means when he 
 says his clock 
 
 "Beats out the little lives of men." 
 
 XLVII 
 
 But mark the minor words "perturbations," 
 
 "oscillations." They are the mere tremulous and 
 
 momentary shudder of the gigantic 
 
 A Cataclysm. i • i • ° i i- 
 
 mechanism, that moves m sublime 
 and eternal silence through the dark fields of space, 
 just as my clock trembles and vibrates a little at the 
 music of the gong that strikes the hours. And yet 
 — mark the terror of the thing! Earthquakes, 
 volcanoes, tidal waves, suddenly swallowing up 
 thousands and tens of thousands of pigmy men, 
 tumbling stately cities into masses of shapeless ruin, 
 blotting out landmarks, and, in the wake of that 
 momentary shudder, dragging the fierce demon of 
 Fire to complete its work, staggering the minds of 
 civilisation, until men begin to grow dazed and con- 
 fused with terror — ah, yes! I touch with my foot 
 the anthill, and break down the work of generations, 
 whilst the startled insects run to and fro. And there 
 
SPRING 229 
 
 is just one little swerve in the diurnal motion of the 
 earth; and the anthills of men come tumbling into 
 ruin and the little, vain, but eternally plastic crea- 
 ture stands appalled at the phenomenon, before he 
 commences, with unerring instinct, to plan and build 
 again. 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 Come, bury or burn those corpses at once. 
 Work has to be done. Don't you see how the 
 planets swing on in ceaseless music 
 and serenity; and old Earth moves Jf^^^^nwrrse" 
 round utterly regardless of the de- 
 struction she has caused by that one little jar and 
 shudder on her surface ? Come, bury those bodies ! 
 Why cumber they the ground? A thousand, ten 
 thousand, twenty thousand — it makes no matter 
 whatsoever ! The Universe is indifferent. That 
 slight departure from the smooth and even perfection 
 in which the planets move, as if each glided along 
 in a perfect groove, only emphasises the beauty and 
 grandeur of that eternal motion and flux of things 
 that goes on under the names of diurnal and annual 
 movements. If we were not made conscious from 
 time to time of some slight discord in the eternal 
 harmony of things, we should soon become heedless 
 or incredulous about the latter. A jarring note is 
 sometimes introduced by a great master to accentu- 
 ate the finished perfection of fugue or sonata. And 
 if sometimes the Earth did not shiver in its course, 
 we might forget that she does not stand still, but 
 swings in inconceivable velocity in her destined 
 path through the infinities of space. 
 
230 
 
 PARERGA 
 
 XLIX 
 
 But these little fragments and remnants of shat- 
 tered humanity must be gathered up somehow, in 
 coffin or casket, in basket or tumbril, 
 
 Stars and Graves. j t • j 3 --ni. ■ jj j 
 
 and hidden away. 1 heir sudden and 
 awful dissolution is part of the programme — one 
 of the little accidents of the universe — an incident, 
 and a small one in the vast history of ephemeral 
 things. And strange to say, men seem to heed such 
 things quite as little as blind, mechanical nature. A 
 paragraph for a day or two in a morning paper, with 
 some large type and notes of exclamation — and 
 that is all ! In a week all is forgotten. The busy, 
 plastic little creatures are already at work, clearing 
 away debris^ laying new foundations, planning new 
 streets, mapping new thoroughfares, determined to 
 pile a new Tower of Babel on the ruins of the old. 
 The comet that caused that slight deflection in the 
 earth's axis, has sped streaming into space; or 
 Saturn or Jupiter that developed too much energy 
 is calmly looking down from the eternal heights. 
 There is magnificent silence and indifference every- 
 where. And the graves of the martyred thousands 
 are also silent. 
 
 " Ruhn oben die Sterne, 
 Und unten die Graber." ^ 
 
 Nothing surprises me more than the contrasts 
 of life. I notice that sometimes a 
 
 Life!*^*^*^ °^ little circumstance that passes un- 
 
 heeded and ineffectual in every-day 
 
 life, becomes suddenly magnified in a certain junc- 
 
 ^ Stars silent rest o'er us, 
 Graves, under us, silent. 
 
SPRING 231 
 
 ture of accidents into an event of vast importance. 
 And the most trivial offence against morality, which 
 perhaps for generations has passed unheeded, sud- 
 denly develops into a crime, which receives exem- 
 plary but disproportionate punishment. But these 
 singular contrasts are in no wise so manifested as in 
 the estimate that is placed by men on human life. 
 Here in the wards of a hospital is a little child 
 whose life is imperilled in the grip of some dire 
 disease. Lights are lowered ; footfalls are made 
 inaudible by slippers of felt ; night and day, a 
 skilled and trained nurse never leaves that bed- 
 side ; grave doctors come in three or four times a 
 day, examine with knitted brows the diaries or 
 noctaries of the nurses — pulsations, temperature, 
 food, liquids, the action of medicines; develop furi- 
 ous tempers if there is the slightest appearance of 
 neglect; anxiously consult with one another; open 
 heavy tomes for new lights ; go away perturbed ; 
 return with deeper furrows on their foreheads ; and 
 all this science and skill and zeal — to save that 
 little thread of life that vibrates in that tiny child. 
 
 LI 
 
 And if death intervenes doctors and nurses feel 
 that they are defeated and shamed. They pass by 
 that little waxen figure with averted 
 eyes and downcast heads. Death is 
 the victor, and he waves his black flag in derision 
 above their heads. There was life^ — life in its 
 most humble and tiniest form, and they have failed 
 to save it. Yet those same doctors will pass from 
 the bedside of that child where they fought such a 
 desperate battle, and, taking up the morning news- 
 paper in the hospital surgery, read with perfect 
 
232 PARERGA 
 
 composure and little interest of twenty thousand 
 lives lost in a tidal wave in Japan, or a thousand 
 lives lost in a South American earthquake, or a 
 regiment or two blown to atoms suddenly by a 
 concealed mine in some mad human conflict. How 
 do you explain it? Professional honour? No. 
 That won't do. Honour is not at stake. They 
 have done all that men can do. Tenderness for 
 that child ? No, alas ! The cases are too com- 
 mon ; and tenderness vanishes through familiarity. 
 And they don't allude to honour; and they don't 
 assume a tenderness they are far from feeling. No ! 
 It is life! life! It is their duty, their vocation, to 
 save life, no matter how mutilated and miserable it 
 shall be. And they have failed. 
 
 LII 
 
 Let us ask Mother Nature, for unconsciously it 
 is her peremptory behests they are obeying. They 
 
 won't admit it. They will mutter 
 Nature.*" science ! science ! but they don't 
 
 know that Nature is the mother 
 and preceptress of science. What shall we ask 
 her? Oh, yes! How is it that you. Mother Na- 
 ture, take such infinite pains for the reproduction 
 and multiplication of vegetable and animal life ; and 
 the after conservation of a fungus, a bud, a flower, 
 a fresh-water polype, so that nothing shall touch 
 them, or impair them, or destroy them ; and then 
 — fling them broadcast into the dustbins and rub- 
 bish-carts of creation ? Not only the reproductive 
 instinct, but the maternal or conservative instinct is 
 everywhere. Naturalists stand amazed at the inge- 
 nuity with which not only animals, but plants, con- 
 serve their offspring, and ward off from that tiny 
 
SPRING 233 
 
 egg or bud all hostile forces and elements with such 
 solicitude that one would think that that egg and 
 bud are the only remaining specimens of their kind. 
 And yet we know that 100,000 seeds in one solitary 
 plant are doomed to extinction ; that 10,000 eggs 
 in one tench, 20,000 in one carp, are flung heed- 
 lessly along the waste places of the deep. Life 
 everywhere, even in the ether, and death everywhere 
 dogging the steps of life ! 
 
 LIII 
 
 But Nature will not reply, but go on her own 
 way, blind, relentless, undeviating in that eternal 
 circle that is marked out for her, and 
 
 hr 1 r Nature Silent, 
 
 ose final purpose no man can rore- 
 
 tell. " The one, far-off. Divine event " is shrouded 
 
 in darkness which we cannot pierce until the New 
 
 Heaven and the New Earth stand revealed, and 
 
 imperfection rounds to perfection, and mortality 
 
 clothes itself with immortality, and pain and sin 
 
 and suffering are no more for ever. But now we 
 
 only hear the rumbling of the machine, and see the 
 
 pallid faces, the stricken hearts, child and corpse, 
 
 cradle and bier ; and we almost hear the terrible 
 
 words of St. Peter to the trembling Sapphira : 
 
 " Behold the feet of them who have buried thy 
 
 husband are at the door, and they shall carry thee 
 
 out." What then ? Well, then, as we cannot stop 
 
 the motions of the heavens, nor lay our hand upon 
 
 Time to stay him ; as we are imperfect, and cannot 
 
 be otherwise than we are, let us move forward with 
 
 blind, unquestioning faith, and with the assurance 
 
 that the All-Holy and Infinite Being has not set us 
 
 here for the mere purpose of seeing us agonised 
 
 over an unsolvable enigma. 
 
234 PARERGA 
 
 LIV 
 
 Just as I thought. Spring, like a curious woman 
 
 as she is, had just forgotten herself, and had come 
 
 peeping into and trespassing with 
 
 eepo pnng. [^gj. j^^^j.^^j^jj^^i-gj^ ^^d flower-children 
 
 upon the domain of Winter ; and the rude fellow, 
 just awakened and alert, has whipped up all his 
 grim apparitors, and ruthlessly and unchivalrously 
 driven off the pretty intruder. Yesterday, Sunday, 
 Boreas came thundering down from the northwest, 
 driving before him in his war-chariot legions of 
 arrowy sleet and snow ; and just allowing the fright- 
 ened and pallid sun to look out on the shrinking 
 primulas and snowdrops for a moment, and then 
 blinding the whole landscape again with his showers 
 of white arrows out of the blackened and threaten- 
 ing sky. It was a horrible contrast to the weather 
 we have had since Christmas, which, however, was 
 unnatural and misplaced. I fear the beautiful Vir- 
 gin Spring will not show her sweet face again until 
 the " merry month of May." 
 
 LV 
 
 And yet I have seen Boreas and his thundering 
 
 legions yesterday gloriously defied. Right beyond 
 
 the river is a splendid field, of many 
 
 Boreas defied. n j >.j_ tt r^i j 
 
 acres, called the Horse Close ; and 
 here, during the last twelve months, has been held 
 every Sunday a tournament, or trial of strength, on 
 Gaelic principles and rules, between football and 
 hurling teams from every part of the surrounding 
 country. It is a glorious and exhilarating sight; 
 
SPRING 
 
 235 
 
 and, like the little Irish boy who, when asked by 
 the Inspector, not to define, but to give an example 
 by way of illustration of the word " splendid," 
 promptly answered, "A fight," so, if I am asked to 
 illustrate the words " glorious and inspiring," I 
 promptly reply, "A Gaelic tournament" ; for noth- 
 ing since the old Isthmian and Olympian games 
 has been seen to equal the energy and passion, the 
 skill and science, the temper and self-control, of a 
 modern Irish game. To see these fine young fel- 
 lows, full of strength and vitality, braving all weath- 
 ers, and testing every organ, nerve, and muscle in 
 the pursuit of victory, is certainly enough to make 
 an old man young again. 
 
 LVI 
 
 Yesterday I stood outside the ropes, a shivering 
 but interested spectator. I had two overcoats, a 
 thick muffler, and an umbrella, and 
 yet I trembled with cold ; and there, 
 a few yards away, were two or three dozen young 
 fellows, with naked arms, naked heads, naked feet, 
 and clad only in a light silken jersey and drawers. 
 " Every man of these," I thought, " will be down 
 with pneumonia to-morrow." But no ! in five 
 minutes after the ball was spun, they were a great 
 deal more comfortable than I. And one team was 
 composed of city men, fresh from shops and coun- 
 ters ! I refused to believe it. I inquired. The 
 city team, as I suspected, was indeed composed of 
 city men, but every one had been " raised " in the 
 country, in the green fields and under blue skies. 
 Another argument for those who cry, — oh, with so 
 much truth if they knew it ! — " Back to the land ! 
 back to the land ! " 
 
236 PARERGA 
 
 LVII 
 
 The following Sunday was still, but more in- 
 tensely cold. There was a heavy rime frost on the 
 trees : the air was filled with a purple 
 
 A Tournament. ^ ^ r ^1 i, i.- i, • 
 
 transparent tog, through which, as m 
 a stereoscope, the naked branches, each with its 
 pretty rime-coating, stood out in bold relief It was 
 picturesque and beautiful beyond description, but 
 the cold was too intense to be pleasant. And yet, 
 under that fierce chill in the atmosphere, our young 
 men stripped and fought fiercely for victory, utterly 
 heedless of cold or danger, intent only on warding 
 off the dreaded defeat. And here I saw a curious 
 instance of the silent revolution through which we 
 are unconsciously passing. The teams were appar- 
 ently very unevenly matched, one team of country 
 lads overtopping in stature and general physique 
 the rather puny town boys who were opposed to 
 them. The latter, however, made up by science 
 what they lacked in physical strength, and very soon 
 the game was on the side of David against Goliath. 
 One of the Philistines hereat lost temper, and was 
 clearly spoiling for a fight. A few times he broke 
 the Draconian rules of the Gaelic Athletic Associa- 
 tion, but the referee's back was turned to him and 
 he escaped. 
 
 LVII I 
 
 Thus emboldened, he committed another flagrant 
 
 Discipline. 
 
 breach of the rules by rudely push- 
 ing with his hand one of the opposite 
 team. In an instant the referee's whistle was blown ; 
 
SPRING 237 
 
 the ball was seized, and the whole field drew together. 
 The referee took out his watch. 
 
 " Who is captain of this man's team ? " he asked, 
 pointing to the delinquent. 
 
 " I am," said a young giant, stepping forward 
 with folded arms. 
 
 " Remove that man instantly from the field," said 
 the referee. 
 
 The captain demurred, and demanded expla- 
 nations. 
 
 " I give you three minutes to decide," quoth ref- 
 eree, watch in hand, and unheeding the demand. 
 
 The captain called his team together and con- 
 sulted. 
 
 " We can't play without him," was the decision. 
 
 " Then I award the victory to the other team," 
 said referee. 
 
 And they put on their coats. 
 
 Not another word. It was magnificent. 
 
 LIX 
 
 Fifty years ago, forty years ago, twenty years ago, 
 that word would have been the signal for a faction 
 fight that might range over twenty 
 
 •L Ji_ 1 jrJ,A Disappointed 
 
 parishes, and be prolonged trom ^^^ ^^ 
 generation to generation. That day 
 there was not a word. Another game was instantly 
 in progress ; and I saw victors and vanquished leave 
 the field together in terms of perfect amity. I was 
 much amused at the consternation vividly depicted 
 on the face of an old man, who had seen other things ; 
 and who had as many marks and cicatrices on forehead 
 and face as a German student. With the instinct 
 of old traditions, he had evidently been expecting a 
 
238 PARERGA 
 
 glorious fight. When he saw how things ended, he 
 was deeply disgusted. He looked for some time 
 into vacancy, as if calling up the ghosts of bygone 
 days, and then sauntered sadly away, muttering : 
 
 *' By gonnies ! What's this misfortunate counthry 
 coming to, at all, at all ? " 
 
SPRING 239 
 
 Section III 
 
 LX 
 
 I do not know what it is in these iron-gray March 
 days, when the sky hangs low without rain, and the 
 roads are white and hard as steel, and ^ . . 
 
 , . , ,., 1 T I Associations. 
 
 the east wind cuts like a knire, that 
 makes them such mere mnemonics, such memory- 
 haunters, that I always sit still in a kind of pleasing 
 melancholy, and recall them, as they troop up, with 
 a host of other memories, from the past. It is the 
 season of hoops and tops and marbles for boys, nor 
 have I forgotten their blessed associations. But one 
 picture is ever coming up and forcing itself forward 
 on the retina of memory every time 1 look out and 
 watch the grey face of landscape or street. It is the 
 picture of one such icy-cold, black, raw evening ; and 
 the figures in the deserted and wind-swept street are 
 those of an old man, holding in his shivering hand 
 that of a little child; and their voices, the old qua- 
 vering baritone and the shrill treble, come back to 
 me ; and the old waves of pity and sorrow seem to 
 be breaking and murmuring out of the hollow caves 
 of the past. 
 
 LXI 
 
 I see this moment, as I saw with the sympathy of 
 a child fifty years ago, the tall, bent figure of that 
 old man, his long, grey, threadbare 
 coat, through which the March winds 
 were piercing, his pinched and worn features, his 
 long, grey locks hanging down upon his shoulders. 
 And his bony hands held the half-frozen fingers of 
 
240 PARERGA 
 
 the child, as she, too, with her pinched and starved 
 features, strove to elicit a few half-pence from the 
 people before whose shops she was trilling out 
 a melancholy duet about: "Rosalie, the Prairie- 
 Flower." I remember how much I wondered, and 
 saddened at the wonder, why the good folk around 
 did not instantly bring in that hapless pair, and seat 
 them at the hospitable fire, and fill them with good, 
 warm food, and cheer them ; and, if they could 
 not keep them for the night, at least send them 
 on their way rejoicing. It seemed so easy, and I 
 felt it would be such a luxury to comfort and greet 
 those poor waifs, that I could not understand the 
 public indifference, or the cold way in which the 
 penny of charity was offered. I understand it better 
 now; or rather, I do not, nor ever shall. 
 
 LXII 
 
 I found that Spring was in the fields to-day. I 
 
 traced her virgin form everywhere. 1 tracked her 
 
 „ . ,, „ footsteps in the steaming; earth, and 
 
 Spring Idylls. , r^ , u i ^l j- J c 
 
 where she shook the diamonds of 
 the dew. I searched in all the cool and hollow 
 shades, behind the speckled laurels; and I drew the 
 curtains of the pine and feathered yew to see if she 
 were lurking anywhere. From the next field a 
 skylark soared and sang ; and a grey sea-gull who 
 was wintering here beat with his heavy but uncum- 
 bered wings his new-found way towards his pathless 
 sea. I saw the green wave glistening in his eyes; 
 and caught the perfume of the sea-brine dropped at 
 every beat of pinion, and every exultant scream. 
 The daisies opened their meek, patient eyes. It 
 gladdened me to see them, though later on, I shall 
 
SPRING 241 
 
 most likely shear them, as blots upon the beauty of 
 the grass. Rosebuds were shyly unfolding their soft, 
 silky petals — the cradles of the flowers that were 
 waiting the hot sun. Yes ! though invisible, the 
 virgin Spring was here ; for there was a soft and 
 subtle perfume in the air as of new births and resur- 
 rections. And then I heard the bleating of a lamb 
 — ^not in the meadows by its mother's side, not 
 couched on its daisy, dewy bed ; but in a hurdle 
 along the highway, passing to its young death, the 
 executioner walking heedlessly by its side. 
 
 LXIII 
 
 And it was seed-time. Young bees and butter- 
 flies, exulting in their new and gorgeous panoplies, 
 were flitting from pistil to stamen, 
 
 c ° • -1 • 1 J • 1 Seed-Time. 
 
 rrom stamen to pistil weighted with 
 the seeds that were to fructify later on in purple 
 flower or crimson fruit. It was the marriage of 
 Nature — the bringing together of all her secret and 
 mysterious powers, by processes unerring in their 
 uniformity and infallible in their action, as if guided 
 not by mechanical and purely dynamic powers, but 
 by mind and sensibility, the thrill and throb of sen- 
 tient things through which some spirit of awakening 
 and creation pervaded. One glorious blackbird 
 perched and swinging on the perilous top of the last 
 shoot of a pine sang the epithalamium of Nature; 
 and all beneath, in tree and shrub and garden-bed 
 and grass, was palpitating under the new life, and 
 throbbing with the exultant sense of new powers re- 
 suscitated after their apparent wintry death. Let no 
 one think there is no soul nor sensibility in nature. 
 The mysterious power that " sleeps in the mineral, 
 
242 PARERGA 
 
 dreams in the animal, wakens in man " operates too 
 in the veins and capillaries of shrubs and plants. I 
 shall never cut a flower again. 1 shall fear to see it 
 bleed. 
 
 LXIV 
 
 I notice that pure and gentle things are also very 
 graceful. There is a kind of slowness and sym- 
 metry in their every movement, that 
 Sness.^"'^ °^"" seems to be drawn on lines of beauty, 
 because, after all, the essence of all 
 perfection of harmony in sound and movement is 
 reserve, and the gentle alone are reserved. There 
 may be a studied grace in the forward or the inso- 
 lent, or the proud ; but it sits there with a certain 
 awkwardness, which is quite clear, notwithstanding 
 all artificial poses and pretences. I hardly know 
 anything more ridiculous than the assumption of 
 good manners by an arrogant and haughty and im- 
 perious man. They are so unnatural and uncouth 
 that the creature knows it ; and tries to be jocular 
 and interesting. He cannot remain in the golden 
 region where gentleness and affability and charity 
 are quite at home. The character so ill-suits him 
 that he must shake it aside somehow ; and he does 
 so by tastelessly drifting into the other extreme, for he 
 feels it is easier to resume his sceptre and toga after 
 masquerading for a moment in the cap and bells. 
 The jesters at the dining-table are the most truc- 
 ulent judges on the bench. 
 
SPRING 243 
 
 LXV 
 
 Here again is the marvellous similarity and kin- 
 ship between man and nature. There is not in all 
 her wide domain a more savage or 
 
 ., 1 u Man and Nature. 
 
 merciless creature than the common 
 house-spider or garden-spider. He is the very per- 
 sonification of cunning and brute force. The stories 
 of spiders descending the tubes of chandehers to 
 hearken to music are amongst the exploded legends 
 of science. And this creature, which has a certain 
 savage splendour by reason of his merciless power, 
 is the most awkward, ungainly, uncouth of insects 
 in his courting and wooing. Nothing can be con- 
 ceived more ridiculous than the attitudes, the cir- 
 cling dances, the absurd display of charms in the 
 male spider, when he tries to attract the notice of 
 his female bride, if we except the presence of a 
 hanging judge or unscrupulous financier in a ball- 
 room, gyrating to the dreamy waltz-music of Strauss 
 or Waldteufel. The only diflference is, that the 
 captious irritability of the female spider often brings 
 the wooing, and the wooer, to an abrupt termina- 
 tion ; and history has not yet recorded the assassi- 
 nation of a judge or stockbroker by a butterfly of 
 fashion. 
 
 LXVI 
 
 This accounts for, and explains, what has always 
 been to me a singular and quite unintelligible habit 
 in the life of the philosopher Spinoza. . 
 
 His minute biographer, his Boswell, 
 has told us that sometimes, after long hours of 
 deep and silent thought on the mysteries of crea- 
 
244 PARERGA 
 
 tion, the philosopher used to find his recreation in 
 setting spiders to fight with each other ; and that he 
 used to enjoy the sport so much that tears ran 
 down his cheeks with deUght. I always thought 
 there was a certain bathos, a certain disproportion 
 between the pursuits of the great thinker and such 
 puerile sport, and between the profound philoso- 
 pher and such cruelty. I have a strong suspicion 
 that it was the ludicrous antics of the male spider in 
 presence of his female charmer that amused the 
 philosopher, who, with all his other acquirements, 
 had a pretty deep knowledge of the laws that gov- 
 ern the animal kingdom. And — it is only a rhe- 
 torical question — did he see another comparison, 
 an uncouth imitation in these lower forms of Ufe, 
 of the equally absurd gestures and gyrations of 
 that superior being who is hardly less remorseless 
 or truculent than the spider? He had excellent 
 reasons therefor. 
 
 LXVII 
 
 I find that all poets and philosophers are close 
 observers of Nature through all her wonder-working. 
 
 They like to be alone with her in her 
 Nature^" solitude and silence, and to see the 
 
 mute, marvellous operations that she 
 carries on without haste, without rest, in all her 
 cryptic laboratories. Things that escape the eye of 
 the fickle and foolish, or those too deeply engrossed 
 in themselves, are quite apparent to the poet's eye. 
 He has an eye to admire; and Nature supplies the 
 objects. He is prone to marvel ; and she supplies 
 abundant opportunities. True, hers is the Isis-veil 
 which no man can lift but her poet. To him she 
 has no secrets, because she knows he is worthy of 
 her confidence, and in the temple to which she in- 
 
SPRING 245 
 
 vites him there is no danger of desecration. For 
 reverence and the soul for worship are the first ele- 
 ments of a poetic nature ; and the revelations of all 
 the inner arcana, which science is slowly unveiling, 
 and unravelling, and which make the mere scientist 
 an irreverent and sacrilegious penetrator of deep 
 mysteries, excite in the poetic mind wonder and 
 admiration, then comparison, then induction, until 
 he breaks forth into his hymnal of praise and thanks- 
 giving towards that awful Intelligence which is seen 
 in the atom and in the world, in the infusoria of a 
 glass of water and the seraphic beings who stand 
 before the Great White Throne. 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 I think it is one of the greatest charms in Tenny- 
 son's poems — this minute and careful recording of 
 the little things that make up the 
 
 , - ° , , . \ Tennyson. 
 
 miracle or nature, and their inter- 
 relations with the world around them and the uni- 
 verse. Thousands have seen the tiny dark heads 
 on the ash-tree in Spring, and passed them by un- 
 heeded, because so commonplace. They give the 
 poet a simile: 
 
 "As black as ashbuds in the month of March." 
 
 There is no more usual sight than that of waterfowl 
 standing at certain times of the day on one leg. 
 Nothing could be more ordinary or prosaic. Yet 
 the poet takes the fact and builds it into a symbol. 
 And he has watched how the skylark sweeps down 
 sideways to his nest ; and he has seen the resem- 
 blance between the hyacinth and the chestnut's 
 milky blossoms. The mighty prophet of old spoke 
 
246 PARERGA 
 
 of the cedars of Lebanon and the hyssop that grows 
 on the wall. Tennyson seizes the idea and builds 
 a philosophy out of it. 
 
 LXIX 
 
 It is a small thing, and a small poem ; yet I am 
 told the place in the New Forest is shown where the 
 . ^ , . poet paused and wondered and grew 
 
 A Great Lyric. f . *^ . , , . . & 
 
 mspired; and that visitors go out 
 from London to see it. How many thousands 
 passed by that and similar places, and never dreamed 
 of noticing such a trivial thing. Who is there that 
 has not stood on the seashore, and seen the full- 
 sailed ship sailing by, and heard the boy shouting 
 with his sister, and heard the sailor lad swinging and 
 singing in his boat.^ But that ordinary landscape 
 was never transfigured into a kind of pathetic 
 sublimity until the poet seized it and wrote that 
 lyric, which will be said and sung in human hearts 
 when London is Tadmor in the wilderness. 
 
 LXX 
 
 A few days ago I had some little business in the 
 old seaport town where I spent all my childhood's 
 
 holidays. The place is endeared to 
 Uons.^^°'^™^' "^^ ^y "^^^y memories ; and its every 
 
 feature is familiarised by frequent, 
 almost annual visits in summer-time. Every cliff, 
 every crevice, every boulder, seems an old acquaint- 
 ance ; but, as we all experience, the general aspect has 
 changed to eyes almost grown weary from looking 
 out on the strange and mysterious world. I might 
 say that every year marks a new change in the land- 
 
SPRING 247 
 
 scape. Nature has worked, in her own silent, mys- 
 terious manner, vast transformations in sea and 
 shore ; and the mind, that has such a creative and 
 formative effect on the landscape, has created its 
 own changes, intensified as the years roll by to 
 eternity. Sights and sounds that thrilled the boy 
 of seven have lost their magic for the man of fifty. 
 The heart leaps no more at the sound of the cata- 
 racts on the beach ; and the odour of the brine falls 
 dead on senses dulled by the friction of the years. I 
 have become like one of these fisher-boys hauling in 
 their nets out yonder ; or like my driver, who takes 
 a utilitarian view of things, and regrets that there 
 should be so much arable land wasted beneath that 
 infinite ocean. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 Age has compensations, I suppose ; but nothing 
 can give back " the wild freshness of morning." 
 This day, however, for just a moment, 
 the old enchantment, the thrill of ;;j3^;Sn'ng/" 
 boyhood, came back for a moment. 
 I had a few minutes to wait for my train when re- 
 turning, and I strolled along the beach in front of 
 the railway station, — along the firm, white, glisten- 
 ing sands, that are more dear than the marble mo- 
 saics of palaces, or the parqueterie of the sanctuaries 
 of fashion and folly. There was no one there ex- 
 cept myself. Far away along the beach two or three 
 children were building sand-castles ; and one old 
 gentleman, probably a retired peace-officer or civil 
 servant, sat quietly on one of the benches far down 
 on the promenade. And there was great silence, 
 broken only by the lisp of the small, creeping waves 
 
248 PARERGA 
 
 that fawned upon the shore. I was walking slowly 
 with head bent down, when suddenly my eye caught 
 one of those tiny shells, which long, long ago we 
 prized so much as decorations for our cardboard 
 boxes, and which from their strong resemblance to 
 a little grain of wheat, we used to call " wheaten 
 shells." I took it up, and in an instant the drop- 
 scene of fifty years rolled up, and I saw down the 
 long vista of time the scenes of childhood, long 
 faded, but not obliterated from memory. 
 
 LXXII 
 
 The great sand-cliff that terminates the prom- 
 enade jutted out then far into the ocean. There 
 „ „ . were ice-houses for the preservation 
 
 Recollections. r r 1 1 j 1 • • 1 
 
 or fish here and there in its sandy 
 crevices. Beneath it, where now the deep sea rolls, 
 was a row of whitewashed cottages. I see them 
 now in the light of the sinking sun, the nets drying 
 on the cliff behind, the black boats dotting the shore 
 and shining resplendent in the evening refulgence, 
 the dead fish here and there on the strand, great 
 troops of summer visitors gaily promenading the 
 beach and shading their eyes from the sinking sun, 
 a group of fisher-maidens gathered around a half- 
 simpleton, — a woman who in her feeble way is trying 
 to imitate for their amusement the deep ding-dong 
 of the great bell at Melleray, and the chanting of 
 the monks. But it is not only the vision, but the 
 very odours of the sea and shore are called up. The 
 strong smell of tarred ropes, the scent of the tangled 
 and half-rotten seaweed, and the strong, pungent 
 odour of valerian, which grew in purple profusion 
 on wall and cliff — all are here. There is the vista 
 
SPRING 249 
 
 and the vision; but the one thing that made it 
 delectable is not there : the words rise involuntarily 
 to my lips : 
 
 *' But oh ! for the touch of a vanished hand 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! ' * 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 The bell rings. Down drops the curtain again. 
 The scene takes on its every-day aspect, — sea, sky, 
 and greyness and desolation. The 
 
 re 11 J ^ JT Sentiment. 
 
 nrty years are blotted out; and 1 am 
 a second-class passenger, reading the morning paper 
 in a railway carriage, and far out in the twentieth 
 century. But I have kept that little wheaten shell 
 as a talisman ; and sometimes, perhaps, like the kin- 
 dred " Sesame" of the Arabian Nights, it may open 
 the rich caves of the past and show its treasures, 
 the dearest being that little touch of sentiment which 
 I am not ashamed to avow, and which comes all too 
 seldom into my present life. I know that some 
 people decry sentimentality, — good, pious people, 
 — on the score of religion ; fashionable people be- 
 cause it is emotional ; and emotion is the one unfor- 
 givable sin. The former forget that shortest, but 
 sweetest text in all Holy Writ: And Jesus wept! The 
 latter might know that it is this very emotionalism 
 that marks them off from the animal creation, inas- 
 much as it is neither instinct nor passion, nor sensuous 
 nor base, but only some higher element, consecrated 
 by a memory tenacious of what is tender and rever- 
 ent, and softened down by that sense of dependence 
 or protection that is the highest bond of social life. 
 Oh, yes ! Thank God for our poets ; and thanks, O 
 
250 PARERGA 
 
 shade of Tennyson, for that line, no matter how sad 
 it may be : 
 
 ** The tender grace of a day that is dead 
 Shall never come back to me." 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 Some one, writing many years ago, I think in 
 MacMillaris Magazine, declared that Tennyson was 
 . . . ^ an artist before he became a poet. 
 
 An Artist first. t r i • i i i 
 
 If this be true, he never became a 
 poet, if we are to accept the time-honoured maxim : 
 Poeta nascitur, non fit. And such may possibly be 
 the verdict of that posterity that is the most merci- 
 less of critics. Certainly Tennyson lacks that spon- 
 taneity of idea and expression, that unconscious and 
 unstudied adaptation of words to ideas, that we are 
 accustomed to associate with great poetry. The fact 
 alone that he took years to elaborate a single poem 
 tells forcibly for his rigid sense of artistic perfection, 
 but tells with equal force against inspiration. For 
 if there be one thing more certain than another it is 
 this, that in all great poetry there is inspiration. 
 Whence it comes, or whither it tends, we know not. 
 It cannot be solicited. It cannot be coerced. A 
 writer may strain the pia mater of his brain until it 
 cracks, without evolving anything but crudities and 
 commonplaces, that are not worth the ink wherewith 
 they are written. He may study great compositions, 
 and call on all the Muses in turn to assist him, and 
 remain as barren as the sea. And, on the other 
 hand, suddenly and without forethought, without 
 seeking, without forcing, he may be visited by an 
 idea, winged with language so perfect, so beautiful, 
 that it lifts him off his feet with delight and 
 enthusiasm. 
 
SPRING 
 
 251 
 
 LXXV 
 
 One can easily imagine such moments in the 
 lives of Shelley and Keats, as the former swung in 
 his boat on the Arno, or lay on the 
 burning roofs of Pisa, and the latter "i^'i^ughts 
 went dreaming in Devonshire lanes 
 down near Torbay, whilst his life essence was con- 
 suming away in his dread disease. A few times, too, 
 the vision came to prosaic Wordsworth, as when 
 he wrote that second stanza in his immortal Ode, 
 or the " Lines on Tintern Abbey." And Tenny- 
 son, too, had such visitings when he wrote that most 
 perfect lyric, " Break, break, break on thy cold, grey 
 stones, O Sea ! " or " Tears, idle tears, I know not 
 what you mean." But most of his verses, espe- 
 cially in " In Memoriam," show marks of the file 
 and chisel, little mortisings of words to suit rhymes, 
 banal ideas wrought into high-sounding phrases, or 
 wrapped in involutions that " conceal, or but half- 
 reveal," to use his own expression, " the soul 
 within." 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 Hence, though it is severe, one cannot dissent 
 altogether from that verdict of Taine's on the great 
 elegy : 
 
 ° Taine on 
 
 ^, _ , , , , Tennyson. 
 
 " Cold and monotonous, and too pret- 
 tily arranged. He goes into mourning, but like a correct 
 gentleman, with brand-new gloves, and wipes away his tears 
 with a cambric handkerchief." 
 
 And to one who carefully studies the "In Me- 
 moriam," line by line, it is quite easy to perceive 
 
252 PARERGA 
 
 how the poet laid down his mosaic, bit by bit, piece 
 by piece ; how he rhymed his lines, and then filled 
 them in ; and how the inevitable bathos is quite 
 perceptible, only that it is supported and lifted up 
 by the strength of a preceding or subsequent line. 
 We miss the " lyrical madness," — that is, the 
 spontaneity of Shelley and the earlier English sing- 
 ers, — the bird-like song, that is not fitted between 
 bars, nor subdued by keys, but wells forth in a flood 
 of music under the divine intoxication. But, when 
 all this is said, there remains the universal and in- 
 expugnable verdict that, as a consummate word- 
 painter, or etcher, Tennyson has never had an equal. 
 Some critics, clinging to old traditions, and unwil- 
 ling to see any imperfection in their idol, put Shak- 
 speare first even here. But that will not do. There 
 is not one Shakspearean lyric comparable for a mo- 
 ment with many in Tennyson, or any in Shelley. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 The first impression in Tennyson's art comes 
 from his colouring, — the atmosphere in which 
 all scenes, incidents, and characters 
 Corouring'^ move. This is as distinct and pecul- 
 
 iar as the well-known pale or golden 
 ochre in which Turner wraps towers, and ships, and 
 palaces, and Roman river, and Dutch quay, and 
 English estuary. It is as characteristic as the cen- 
 tral spot of light in every one of Rembrandt's paint- 
 ings. And if I were asked to concentrate in one 
 word the expression of that colouring, I would use 
 the word " fenny." The Lincolnshire fens, the long 
 levels and the marshes, the poplars and the reeds, 
 the whole grey landscape, bounded by the sand 
 
SPRING 
 
 253 
 
 wastes and the blue deserts of the North Sea, seem 
 to have haunted Tennyson through life, so deep are 
 the impressions of childhood, so long do we bear 
 with us the memory of our early environments. Of 
 course, this became smoothed out into the more 
 civilised features of grassy knolls and downs, and 
 trim English gardens, and all the sweet civilities of 
 places brought nearer to the heart of modern life. 
 But Tennyson's muse always haunts the level plains, 
 where lie the cottage, the manse, the parsonage 
 and the mill, where the stream wanders slowly and 
 heavily through meadows rich in grass and flowers, 
 and where the unheroic, prosaic English folk live 
 out their dull and peaceful and monotonous lives. 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 But he never leaps to the heights of mountains, 
 nor touches great sublimities. The grander aspects 
 of nature, and the more tragic or ^^ ^ ^,. 
 
 , - . , , ^ , . , ° Not Sublime. 
 
 lofty ideals or humanity, he cannot 
 reach. And hence, when he unwisely attempted 
 the drama, and when he ascended to prehistoric or 
 legendary ages to find the heroic, he failed utterly. 
 There is a universal consensus of opinion that the 
 period of Tennyson's decadence dates from " The 
 Idylls of the King." It is quite intelligible. He 
 had not dramatic power. He was too impassive, 
 although irritable ; too unimpassioned, though im- 
 aginative ; too fine and artistic for great situations 
 and great bursts of human feeling. He lacked the 
 abandon^ the total yielding up and effacement of self 
 in painting great situations, or delineating great, 
 passionate character. He was too much of the 
 English gentleman, although he neither dressed nor 
 
254 PARERGA 
 
 spoke in the correct English manner. What could 
 he know of Enceladus in Etna^ — the fierce tortures 
 of humanity under the volcanic forces of human 
 passion ? 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 But it is only reasonable to say that the very 
 supremacy of Tennyson as artist and word-painter 
 is all the more remarkable because 
 n/ss^"*^ Artless- ^^ ^]^^ ^^^^ duiness and prosaic condi- 
 tions of the subjects that he wrought 
 into such marvellous verse. To take the common- 
 place, and transfigure it, is surely the triumph as 
 well as the vocation of the artist. And here Ten- 
 nyson soars infinitely higher than the poet who went 
 back to Nature for his subjects, and whom Tenny- 
 son, in the selection and ordering of his places and 
 persons, so closely resembles. For there cannot be 
 a doubt that, in "The Miller's Daughter" and such 
 like pretty idylls, he was following the lead of 
 Wordsworth, and finding in simple themes subjects 
 for great verse. But what a difference between the 
 "art" of Tennyson and the " artlessness," which 
 was not art, of Wordsworth ! Both affect a good 
 deal of exactness in description, but here they part. 
 
 LXXX 
 
 Wordsworth could actually bring himself to 
 write : 
 
 *• But say, what was it ? Thought of fear ! 
 ^°J^^sworth's Well may ye tremble when ye hear ! 
 
 — A household tub, like one of those 
 Which women use to wash their clothes. 
 This carried the blind boy." 
 
SPRING 255 
 
 And: 
 
 *• Few months of life he has in store. 
 As he to you will tell ; 
 For still the more he works, the more 
 Do his weak ankles swell." 
 
 Strange to say, he was not utterly damned for such 
 utter baldness and banality. And, stranger still, he 
 died in the belief that this was poetry ! 
 
 On the other hand, Tennyson is equally exact, 
 equally minute, equally simple in his descriptions, 
 as in the lines : 
 
 " With blackest moss the flower-pots 
 
 Were thickly crusted, one and all ; 
 The rusted nails fell from the knots 
 
 That held the pear to the garden wall ; 
 The broken sheds looked sad and strange, 
 
 Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 
 
 Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
 Upon the lonely moated grange. 
 
 All day within tiie dreamy house 
 The doors upon their hinges creaked ; 
 
 The bluefly sang in the pane ; the mouse 
 Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked. 
 
 Or from the crevice peered about." 
 
 Here is the cataloguing of very ordinary prosaic 
 conditions and events, but here, at once you say, is 
 good poetry, as in Wordsworth's lines you say at 
 once. Here is bad prose. Where comes in the 
 difference ? 
 
 In this, that Tennyson's art is suggestive. He 
 creates an atmosphere, grey, gloomy, and sad ; he 
 creates a landscape, lonely, desolate, abandoned ; 
 he creates a figure, pining, melancholy, deserted ; 
 and he paints in every detail, no matter how mi- 
 nute, to heighten the effect. The rusty nail, the 
 
256 PARERGA 
 
 black flower-pots, the skurrying mice, all throw a 
 colour of uniformity on the picture ; and that pic- 
 ture, one of abandonment and desolation. 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 So, too, in the greatest of his lyrics, he makes the 
 
 sea breaking on " cold, grey stones." The quiet, 
 
 still aspect of the scene : the fisher- 
 
 Word-Paintingr. > 1 -i 1 1 • 1 1 
 
 man s children playmg on the strand; 
 the sailor lad in his solitary boat on the bay ; and, 
 finally, the full-bosomed, stately ships, moving si- 
 lently on through the ocean path to the hidden 
 haven behind the cliff, — picture, framing, and all, — 
 tell the mute story of a vanished life, and the deep, 
 hollow gulf left in the heart of the survivor. In 
 that department of poetry — the casting on the can- 
 vas of emotions and feelings, and making dumb 
 Nature speak the thoughts of the one being that is 
 in it but not of it, because he belongs by right to a 
 higher sphere — Tennyson seems to have no rival. 
 Sometimes Milton's influence is supposed to be 
 traced in this word-painting ; but I doubt if pas- 
 sages could be quoted from Milton to exemplify 
 the passions that agitate humanity, and show their 
 representations in nature so perfectly, so beautifully, 
 as in Tennyson. 
 
 LXXXI I 
 
 How far the genius of Tennyson is original is 
 
 one of those questions that do not seek an answer 
 
 nowadays, because it is conceded that 
 
 ^ ^' there is no such thing as absolute 
 
 originality amongst poets. Milton plagiarised. 
 
 Shakspeare not only built his immortal dramas 
 
SPRING 257 
 
 on existing plays, but borrowed freely characters 
 from Plutarch, and thoughts, ideas, expressions, 
 from Montaigne. And if we note the following 
 very striking coincidences between Tennyson and 
 other poets, it is not with a view of depreciating 
 his worth or lessening his fame. The former is 
 unquestioned ; the latter secure, even though the 
 immense popularity he enjoyed during life has 
 sadly diminished since his death. And, besides, it 
 is an axiom that genius has a right to select and 
 adapt, merely adding the splendours of new forms 
 to older phrases and ideas. 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 But the following parallels are curious and 
 interesting : 
 
 I 
 
 A wind arose among the pines ; it shook 
 pfaiariJm°* '^^^ clinging music from their boughs, and then 
 
 Low, faint, sweet sounds, like the farewell of 
 
 ghosts. 
 Were heard: "Oh, follow, follow, follow me! " 
 Shelley : Prometheus Unbound, 
 
 zd Act, 1st Scene. 
 
 But while I meditated 
 A wind arose, and rushed upon the south. 
 And shook the songs, the whispers and the shrieks 
 Of the wild woods together, and a voice 
 Went with it : "Follow, follow ; thou shalt win! " 
 
 Tennyson : The Princess, Part I., line 25. 
 
 II 
 
 I sing, but as the linnet sings 
 That on the green bough dwelleth. 
 
 Goethe : Harper's Song in Wilhelm Meister. 
 17 
 
258 PARERGA 
 
 I do but sing, because I must ; 
 And pipe, but as the linnets sing. 
 
 Tennyson : In Memoriam. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I had felt some early stirrings of ambition ; but they were 
 the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls 
 of his cave. 
 
 Robert Burns : Letter to Dr. Moore. 
 
 So dark a forethought rolled around his brain 
 As on a dull day in an ocean cave 
 The blind wave feelmg round his long seahall 
 In silence. 
 
 Tennyson : Merlin and Vivien. 
 
 IV 
 
 In dreams you pursue the beast, and clamour 
 Like a dog, who never leaves off the care of toil. 
 
 -^schylus : The Furies. 
 
 Like a dog he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the 
 wall. 
 
 Tennyson : Locksley Hall. 
 
 When forms beloved in visions of the night 
 With changeful aspect mock our grasp and sweep 
 On noiseless wings adown the path of sleep, 
 
 -^schylus : Agamemnon, 400. 
 
 Tears of a widower, when he sees 
 A late lost form that sleep reveals. 
 And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 
 Her place is empty, fall like these. 
 
 Tennyson : In Memoriam. 
 
 VI 
 
 He who for love has undergone 
 
 The worst that can befall. 
 Is happier thousandfold than one 
 
 Who never loved at all. 
 
 Lord Houghton's Poems. 
 
SPRING 259 
 
 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 Tennyson : In Memoriam. 
 
 He who has never sought Friendship or Love is a thousand 
 times poorer than he who has lost both. 
 
 Jean P. Richter : Titan, Cycle 22. 
 
 VII 
 
 No greater grief than to remember days 
 Of joy, when misery is at hand. 
 
 Dante. 
 
 A sorrow's crown of sorrow 
 Is remembering happier things. 
 
 Tennyson.. 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 These are trifles — mere adaptations, perhaps un- 
 consciously made. For I do not think that a supreme 
 artist Hke Tennyson would con- 
 
 , , ^ , 1 r Adaptations. 
 
 sciously reproduce the very words or 
 
 others, as he has done in some of the cases quoted, 
 
 and still more remarkably in the lines : 
 
 ** And over those mysterious eyes 
 
 The bar of Michael Angelo. " 
 
 This latter expression is so peculiar that it had be- 
 come, even in Tennyson's lifetime, a subject for 
 much questioning and commentary. The expression 
 is a Coleridgean one,^ for Coleridge was not only 
 the greatest intellectual giant that England has seen, 
 since Bacon sank in disgrace, but the greatest word- 
 
 1 " A few, whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or steady, 
 and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridgelike, above the 
 eyebrows, bespoke observation, followed by meditative thought" 
 (Allegoric Vision). 
 
26o PARERGA 
 
 artist since Shakspeare laid aside his pen, and took 
 to speculations. If there be one pen-portrait more 
 annoying than another in that dark gallery of Car- 
 lyle's " Reminiscences," it is the cruel and distorted 
 picture he has given us of Charles Lamb ; and his 
 admirable " Life of John Sterling," I mean admirable 
 as a biography, is certainly largely spoiled by that 
 irreverent and fantastic portrait of Coleridge at 
 Highgate. 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 But to return to Tennyson. 
 
 There is no author the progress of whose mind 
 can be so easily followed in his books. It is true 
 that most writers reveal themselves 
 Progress^ in their writings ; but in Tennyson's 
 
 case, one can follow him, step by step, 
 from the crudities of early compositions to the pessi- 
 mism of advanced life, and even to that more or less 
 Christian valedictory, " Crossing the Bar." It is quite 
 clear, for example, that he set out in his profession 
 with the sole idea of stringing together musical words 
 without meaning. The influence of Poe with his 
 jingling " Raven " and " Bells " had crossed the At- 
 lantic. " The Raven " was the rage of London 
 drawing-rooms ; and its rhythm and despair appear 
 to have aff^ected Tennyson. There is an effemi- 
 nacy about his early rhymes, even about the names 
 of his Dulcineas, that seems childish in the light of 
 his after-jeremiads. Was he training his ear, and 
 moulding his notes for the full-throated song of 
 after-days? Or was he merely writing nonsense- 
 verses to train his hand and pen ? 
 
SPRING 261 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 The following lines, wisely suppressed amongst 
 his collected works, would appear to 
 
 , . ^ ^ Juveniha. 
 
 suggest this : 
 
 " A dark, Indian maiden. 
 
 Warbling in the bloom' d liana. 
 Stepping lightly flower-laden 
 
 By the crimson-eyed anana. 
 Wantoning in orange-groves. 
 Bathing in the slumb'rous coves. 
 In the cocoa-shadowed coves. 
 
 Of sunbright Xaraguay, 
 Who was so happy as Anacaona, 
 
 The beauty of Espagnola, 
 The golden flower of Hayti ?" 
 
 The swiftness with which he got away from these 
 gardens of the Hesperides, with their Orianas, and 
 Marianas, and Clara Vere de Veres, into the shock 
 and tumult of modern thought, can only be attrib- 
 uted to those portentous conversations which he 
 held with Carlyle in the tobacco-laden cloudland of 
 that Chelsea garden. Who would have thought 
 that these two young men, hidden there beneath the 
 rude wall of that London backyard, and smoking 
 until the dawn rose red above the roofs of London, 
 could so far pervade and influence all modern 
 thought ? 
 
 LXXXVI I 
 
 How easily I drift into these little monologues 
 on Tennyson and Carlyle ! It is the influence 
 of Spring — Spring, with its tender, ^ ., . 
 silky toliage, its songs of birds, its 
 uplifting of skies, its revelations of the Infinite 
 
262 PARERGA 
 
 Azure; all of which remind me of the day beneath 
 the old grey Geraldine keep of Maynooth, when I 
 heard two cassock-clad students discussing these two 
 names, and debating, as they rolled out line after 
 line from " Locksley Hall " whether in the second 
 stanza : 
 
 " 'T is the place, and all around it ; as of old the curlews call. 
 Dreary gleams around the moorland, flying over Locksley Hall," 
 
 the word "gleams" is a noun, placed in apposition 
 to " curlews," as if the curlews* flight made sombre 
 shadows across the colourless landscape, or whether 
 it was a verb with its nominative " moorland." I 
 only knew that it was the music sank into my soul. 
 It was the happy springtime, and it was youth, 
 which cares little for sense whilst it yields to the 
 fascination of sound. 
 
 *' Oh, Gioventu ! 
 Oh, Primavera, gioventu dell' anno ! 
 Oh, Gioventu, primavera della vita ! " 
 
I 
 
 fart $r 
 
 SUMMER 
 
SUMMER 
 
 Section I 
 
 I 
 
 I CANNOT help thinking that most of the errors 
 and foibles of humanity arise from the idea, not 
 yet abandoned, that this earth is the 
 centre of the universe, and man the ?h|o?y °""*"'' 
 apex of creation. The geocentric 
 theory has never been really banished from the 
 minds of men. Astronomers have disproved it; 
 and, although it has had a resurrection amongst 
 scientists in our day, owing to the advocacy of 
 Professor Wallace and others, all the conclusions 
 of induction on the one hand, and analogy on the 
 other, reduce the theory, not only to the verge of 
 impossibility, but even to the domain of absurdity. 
 The very idea that this awful and ineffable creation 
 was fashioned and formed for man, an ephemeral 
 unit on this planet, is quite unintelligible. And 
 yet, in actual life, it is the delusion under which 
 all men suffer. In religious life, through a species 
 of mock humility, men will speak of themselves as 
 "worms of the earth"; in science, we are told we 
 are but infinitesimal parasites on an infinitesimal 
 atom in space. In reality, we hug the delusion 
 of the poet: 
 
266 PARERGA 
 
 "What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! 
 How infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express 
 and admirable ! In action, how like an angel ! in apprehen- 
 sion, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon 
 of animals ! " 
 
 It is only just to Hamlet to add : 
 
 " Yet, what to me is this quintessence of dust ? " 
 
 II 
 
 For, if men did really believe all that science and 
 reason reveal about their utter nothingness, how 
 
 could they entertain that terrific pride 
 G^dsT"^" ^^ ^^ that might sit well on the brow of 
 
 one of Milton's fallen archangels, but 
 is only ridiculous and laughable on such an ephem- 
 eral being as man ? All pomp, all pride, all majesty ; 
 all these studied obeisances and ceremonies, which 
 are common to savagery and civilisation ; all this 
 artificial elevation of one poor scraggy mote above 
 another; all this enthronement of imbecility and 
 vice, of which you read in every page of history ; 
 all this power over his fellow-creatures lodged in 
 the hands of one man, king, magistrate, praetor, 
 consul; all this adulation and worship and fear; 
 nay, all this foolish love and amorous antics, this 
 straining of metaphors to express adoration, — what 
 is it all but the result of a conviction, disproved by 
 science, but for ever revived by vanity, that "Ye 
 shall be as gods ! " is the final pause and ultimate 
 issue in that slow, deliberate, but magnificent pro- 
 cess, called the evolution of the species towards 
 some hidden but realisable ideal? 
 
SUMMER 267 
 
 III 
 
 I remember some years ago, when the tremendous 
 truth that underlies Carlyle's clothes-philosophy 
 burst upon me, through one of those 
 object-lessons that seem necessary pi5\osophy. 
 from time to time to disenchant us 
 from that morbid condition of delusion in which we 
 spend half our lives. It was at Droitwich, in Eng- 
 land, a place famous for its brine-baths, a specific for 
 every kind of gouty and rheumatic disorder. There 
 was an immense swimming-bath, which was much 
 frequented in the afternoon of each day. It was a 
 study to see millionaires, capitalists, statesmen, gen- 
 erals, drive up in their carriages, alight, pause, as if 
 to demand the homage of the world for their splen- 
 did equipages, their costly garments, their jewellery, 
 their general majesty ; and then, ten minutes later, 
 to see them a sprawling mass of humanity in the 
 swimming-bath, — swollen limbs, cadaverous and 
 ghastly bodies, flinging out their white arms and 
 legs, — a kind of pale-green reptile beneath the thick 
 and brackish brine. Every instant I thought I 
 could hear the Aristophanic chorus : 
 
 Brek - ek - ek - ex ! 
 
 Brek - ek - ek - ex ! 
 
 Koax - koax ! 
 
 Except in size, there was nothing to distinguish 
 them from a shoal of frogs in a swamp some torrid 
 night in the early Summer. 
 
268 PARERGA 
 
 IV 
 
 Would not men be a little more humble and 
 pious, a little more tolerant and tolerable, if they 
 understood their utter littleness and 
 insignificance ? The whole history 
 of this poor planet from its pleiocene or miocene pe- 
 riods, from its amphibia and saurians, down to the 
 last man and the crack of doom is of no more con- 
 sequence than the flashing and extinction of a meteor 
 in the sky on a November night. Looking back 
 upon the slender span of an individual life, one 
 needs all the strength and inspiration of faith and 
 reason combined to be convinced that it is aught 
 but a dream, — a kind of phantasmagoria, or illu- 
 sion, raised by some potent, but malefic magician, 
 to cheat us into the transient joys and sorrows that 
 go to make up the hallucinations of days or years. 
 AH is so rapid, so transient, so fleeting ; and all the 
 incidents that go to make up the daily delusion are 
 so insignificant, even though they appear almost 
 tragic in sublimity or severity at the time, that the 
 only worthy record of man's history seems com- 
 pressed into the words of that ancient sage : 
 
 " De utero translatus in tumuium." 
 
 " Like the lives of leaves are the lives of men," 
 said Homer. And as the lives of men, so is the 
 history of mankind, — the record of a transient and 
 puny race on a planet, which was but an ephemera 
 in space. 
 
SUMMER 269 
 
 All this is rigidly if terribly true, yet we must 
 not look too closely at it, if we are to take a rational 
 and profitable view of our human 
 lives. We must accept facts ; and °^ "^^ ^' 
 try to understand that we cannot make ourselves 
 other than what we are. It is not the problem of 
 other existences, but of our own that we have to 
 solve. And we have to accept our limitations 
 humbly and resignedly in the belief that somehow 
 and somewhere they will disappear ; and the broader 
 expanses of another and larger existence will open 
 up grandly before us — the theatre of a greater 
 life. It is unwise to fret and fume because seraphic 
 intelligences are not ours ; nor is it ours as yet to 
 stand day and night before the Great White Throne, 
 with no purpose in existence but unending happiness 
 and unending adoration. The fact that we can rise 
 above our low levels, where one hears only the 
 marsh-music of creatures in a state of transition 
 from reptile to angel, and dream of loftier things, is 
 a pledge of their realisation. But we must not hurry 
 on the slow processes of suns ; nor wear out in un- 
 happy discontent the years that are given for that 
 great, if tedious evolution. 
 
 VI 
 
 Neither must we look too closely at our common 
 human nature. Let the artists say what they please 
 about "the human form divine," the 
 draped figure is nobler than the un- cimp^romise. 
 draped. We need delusions. We 
 dare not examine the realities of life too closely. 
 Imperfect ourselves, we demand perfection ; and 
 
270 PARERGA 
 
 reason says it is a bootless task, a fruitless pursuit ; 
 that nature is not flawless ; and that to examine 
 microscopically what it presents, is to submit our- 
 selves to disillusion. Let us hug our fancies ; and 
 clothing all things in the rich habiliments of delu- 
 sions created by habit, let us throw the rose colours 
 of imagination athwart the lineaments and features 
 revealed all too boldly and sadly under the white 
 light of reason or experience. Life is all compro- 
 mise; and we must hoodwink the too daring and 
 too honest efforts of the single eye of observation 
 and intellect, lest we should sink discouraged by its 
 revelations. 
 
 VII 
 
 In the same way, we must not expect to find the 
 counterpart of our great ideas of moral excellence in 
 „ „ , . daily life. He who seeks perfection 
 
 No Perfection. . ^ r- j -n /-j tt 
 
 m a mend will never find one. He 
 who has found a friend must take him with all his 
 flaws and faults, or lose him for ever. And day by 
 day, and every day, he must throw the cloak of 
 toleration and forgiveness over many things which, 
 if they are to be pardonable in himself, he must 
 strive to regard as venial in others. All this means 
 the pain of clasping shadows, the torture of unde- 
 ception, the anguish of finding beneath the fairy 
 domino a death's-head, and beneath the purple 
 and fine linen of a Dives the skeleton that hides 
 everywhere. But life is only tolerable by such illu- 
 sions. The world's work would come to a stand- 
 still, if we meditated too much on death ; and we 
 should lose all faith and hope for humanity, if we 
 examined the microcosm too closely. It is difficult 
 to say whether it is all a tragedy or a comedy ; but 
 
SUMMER 
 
 271 
 
 we had better keep masked under our vizards to 
 the end of the last act. Then only shall the eternal 
 question be decided : 
 
 ** Fleat Heraclitus, an rideat Democritus ?" 
 
 ** Shall Heraclitus weep, or Democritus laugh?" 
 
 VIII 
 
 But, away with these gloomy thoughts. I fear I 
 have drifted into them through the climatic influ- 
 ences of dark days, east winds, and 
 showers that have more of Hyper- fnmlences. 
 borean fierceness than the promise 
 of gentle fecundity in April. And so sensitive is 
 the exposed plate of the human imagination, I fear, 
 too, that my reading of late has been amongst 
 authors, who, with terrible realism, take a despond- 
 ent view of this poor humanity of ours struggling 
 onwards towards its goal. It does not answer well 
 for Democritus to sit in his garden, book on knee, 
 and with the sad remnants of dissected beasts all 
 around him. It is not well to anatomise too much. 
 If the results are exact and scientific, the auguries 
 are unfavourable. And it is an ill day for any 
 thinker, when he rises up from a contemplation of 
 his species, and exclaims, as Carlyle did, when his 
 attention was called to the glories of the celestial 
 hemisphere: " Eh, gentlemen, 'tis a sad sight ! " 
 
 IX 
 
 But let us take Wordsworth's invitation : 
 
 •* Up ! up ! my friend, and clear your looks ; 
 
 Why all this toil and trouble? Sunny Thoughts. 
 
 Up ! up ! my friend, and quit your books. 
 Or surely you '11 grow double ! " 
 
272 PARERGA 
 
 and go out into the sunny, warm air, and look at 
 all the varied beautiful things mother Nature spreads 
 out before us for our delectation, and listen to the 
 woodland music poured around us from copse and 
 thicket, wood and tree ; and let it sink into our 
 hearts, and bring sweetness and beauty there, and 
 a sense of the greatness instead of the insignificance 
 of things. 
 
 "Sweet is the love which Nature brings ; 
 Our meddling intellect 
 Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things. 
 We murder to dissect." 
 
 You see, then, it is the intellect, the meddling 
 intellect, the all-comprehensive intellect, the insa- 
 tiable intellect, ever seeking the reasons of things, 
 ever probing into the arcana of nature, so that no 
 nook or corner of the universe shall be unprofaned ; 
 and yet the intellect, that Nature is ever mocking 
 by her subtleties, as children mock the blinded man 
 in Blind Man's Buff, — it is this intellect that stifles 
 emotion, and becomes the unhappy cause of half 
 our infelicities here below. 
 
 Happy is the man who takes Nature as he finds 
 
 her ; who is content with the green fields, with 
 
 their tapestries of flowers, without 
 
 Mother Nature. , . ^ , r i 
 
 searchmg, at the cost or so much 
 beauty, the records of the ages in the stone monu- 
 ments beneath ; who sees suns setting behind the 
 purple seas, and watches the gleam of a departing 
 ship, without a knowledge of astronomy or naviga- 
 tion ; who cannot call the flowers by their hard names, 
 nor muster transfixed butterflies beneath the glasses 
 
SUMMER 273 
 
 in his specimen boxes ; but who knows that the 
 shy violet smells sweetly, and that the airy, painted 
 papilio is a pretty, flashing radiance amongst his 
 garden-beds ; and who is content to dwell on the 
 flower faces of little children, and the godlike linea- 
 ments of the immortals of his race, without seeing 
 the deformities of the multitude, or scrutinising too 
 closely the flaws and spots which, after all, only 
 mark the chequered history of a fallen or imperfect 
 race. 
 
 XI 
 
 And here suddenly there rise up before me two 
 lofty figures, which alone, by reason of their gran- 
 deur and sublimity, would redeem a o 1 • 
 race more deeply fallen than ours, — 
 Michael Angelo and Dante. They are the Moses 
 and Aaron of the pilgrimage of humanity through 
 the desert, — the Calpe and Abila, twin pillars, 
 marking the narrow boundaries of this inland sea 
 of existence, and pointing to the vast ocean of eter- 
 nity beyond. The greatness of their work is lost 
 in the sublimity of their characters. Neither of 
 them was quite satisfied with the results of his 
 labours. Their ideals were too great. They sought 
 after Infinite Beauty, like their great compeer in 
 philosophy, St. Augustine, and found it not in 
 earthly things, for neither Vittoria Colonna nor 
 Beatrice, the objects of their respectful admiration, 
 was able to satisfy their exorbitant demands. And 
 hence neither Michael Angelo nor Dante has 
 touched the ideal of perfect beauty in his works. 
 They fell short of the greatness of their design ; 
 and instead of perfect beauty, they only achieved 
 majesty. 
 
274 PARERGA 
 
 XII 
 
 For " majesty " is the only word that can charac- 
 terise their genius. Those mighty figures that are 
 „, . ,. . flung pell-mell on the ceilings and 
 
 Their Majesty. ii '^r i o- • r^\ i i 
 
 walls or the bistme Chapel, that 
 Moses, more sublime than the Jupiter of the 
 Greek, that lofty dome, which is but the inner 
 and concentric circle of the infinite; and, on the 
 other hand, those terrible creations of the Floren- 
 tine, vast, naked, uncouth, like damned and de- 
 throned Titans, and even the celestial beings he 
 has evoked from the rich treasury of imagination, — 
 what are all these but the effort to bring down to 
 human forms and experience some dreams of infi- 
 nite beauty and loveliness ^ And when the effort 
 fails, and pen and chisel refuse to bring forth in 
 actual form of poem or sculpture the phantom that 
 is ever haunting and ever eluding the human mind, 
 there only remains the broken and distorted pre- 
 sentment of the impossible, — the majestic torso of 
 a figure the full proportions of which can only be 
 found in eternity. 
 
 XIII 
 
 And yet the soul of Michael Angelo is not in 
 
 his paintings and sculptures; but in his poems^ what 
 
 he failed to place with pencil and 
 
 Painting and ^j^j^^j^ ^^ ^^^^ wroUght well with the 
 
 more humble pen. And, as a reve- 
 lation of those secret thoughts that fill all minds, 
 but burn in the mind of genius, these lines culled 
 at random, are indicative of much: 
 
SUMMER 275 
 
 ** The beauty thou discernest, all is hers ; 
 
 But grows in radiance as it soars on high. 
 Through mortal eyes unto the soul above. 
 'T is there transfigured ; for the soul confers 
 On what she holds her own divinity : 
 And this transfigured beauty wins thy love." 
 
 And Death was to be the Great Revealer : 
 
 "Because in thee I love, O my loved lord. 
 
 What thou best lovest, be not therefore stern : 
 Souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry. 
 I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored. 
 
 Yet living man that beauty scarce can learn. 
 And he who fain would find it, first must die.' 
 
 Painting and sculpture are but for time : 
 
 " Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest 
 My soul that turns to His great love on high. 
 Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread." 
 
 But song is the art of eternity : 
 
 **The fetters of my tongue do thou unbind. 
 That I may have the power to sing of Thee 
 And sound Thy praises everlastingly." 
 
 XIV 
 
 Yes ! These two beautiful characters stand out 
 
 amid the caitiff rout of their contemporaries, colossi, 
 
 girt with the maiestic and massive 
 
 Great Sayings. == ^u r • j • ^ 
 
 strength or genius and virtue com- 
 bined, their high hands holding aloft the flaming 
 torches of truth to light the dark and devious paths 
 along which poor humanity is still struggling. And 
 History, which with unerring finger, whether of 
 disdain or justice, has blotted out from her pages 
 
276 PARERGA 
 
 the names of the mere rabble of dukes and counts, 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines, podestas and magistrates, 
 kings and priors, has protected and enshrined in 
 her pages these two names amongst the things she 
 will never suffer to pass into oblivion. And she 
 has kept also alive one or two of those great say- 
 ings which, more than great works, are indicative of 
 character. That " nunquam revertar " of Dante, 
 written in response to a base proposal from his 
 fellow countrymen, who were anxious to redeem 
 their baseness without compromising their dignity ; 
 and that reply of Michael Angelo to Julius II. in 
 similar language : " I shall not return to Rome, for 
 if I were undeserving of your esteem yesterday, I 
 shall not be worthy of it to-morrow," mark the in- 
 domitable spirit, that yet can be childlike in its 
 humility. 
 
 XV 
 
 Strangest of all is the depth of tenderness that 
 
 shows itself in these two souls, which on a merely 
 
 superficial glance seemed clothed 
 
 Their Tenderness. ^-^j^ ^j^^ ^^-^^ ^^ ^^^-^^^ ^^^ ^^^ 
 
 haughtiness of unstained manhood. If we have any 
 very definite idea of Dante, it is that of a proud, 
 haughty, disdainful soul, wrapped up in the melan- 
 choly of gloomy thoughts, and carrying in gait and 
 face and figure the outward symptoms of a spirit 
 darkened and embittered by the tragical events of his 
 life. We know that when he passed along the streets 
 of Ravenna, the people pointed him out : " Eccovi 
 Fuomo cli e stato in inferno "; and how his speech was 
 short and swift and brusque, especially towards 
 the great ones of the earth. We also know that 
 Michael Angelo flung aside with magnificent con- 
 
SUMMER 
 
 -^11 
 
 tempt offers of money or honours, which he could 
 not accept without dishonour to his conscience, or 
 disloyalty to his art. He, too, gives us the impres- 
 sion of aloofness and solitude from his kind — of a 
 great spirit engrossed with great thoughts, and 
 utterly oblivious of these petty things which seem 
 to occupy half the waking hours of ordinary men. 
 
 XVI 
 
 But if these great spirits were dowered with " the 
 scorn of scorn, the hate of hate," they also were 
 possessed with the larger poetic dower And infinite 
 of "the love of love." It is easy to Pity- 
 misunderstand both, just as such souls are generally 
 misinterpreted by their kind ; and by the shallow 
 critics who measure their manifoldness by their own 
 barren simplicities. It is quite true, as Foscolo says, 
 "that the power of despising^ which many boast, 
 which few really possess, and with which Dante was 
 uncommonly gifted by nature, afforded him the 
 highest delight of which a lofty mind is susceptible." 
 But it seems to me more true to say that this disdain 
 was rather a panoply, a coat of arms against the 
 " slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than the 
 real, inner soul of the man. To see Dante aright, 
 one must turn away from that haughty and terrible 
 face and watch him, the humble disciple of Virgil, 
 as with timid steps, and in deep humility, he fol- 
 lowed his master through the narrowing circles of 
 hell ; and dropped down in faints of terror, or shed 
 bitter tears, as Francesca swept by him, and in one 
 pause of pleasure in her endless misery told her sad 
 tale; or the wail of the sepulchral souls came borne 
 to his ears, and he saw the terrible lids closing down 
 
278 PARERGA 
 
 for ever under the sentences of the final judgment. 
 And Dante, to be better known, must be followed 
 into the higher regions of Purgatory and Paradise, 
 if we are to know the depths of humility and the 
 strength of divine love that animated the tried spirit, 
 and contrasted with the gloom and severity of his 
 exterior. 
 
 XVII 
 
 And then, the superb generosity of Michael 
 Angelo ! He lavished his praises (and who can 
 measure the value of such praises 
 Generosity"^^^°'' ^^om such a mouth?) on all his con- 
 temporaries. Massacio's pictures, he 
 thinks, when first painted, must have been alive. 
 The gates of the Baptistery at Florence, the work 
 of Andrea de Pisa, are fit to hang at the entrance of 
 heaven, Bramanti, who laid the first stone in the 
 great basilica of St. Peter, was a clear, luminous 
 mind, fit to design the greatest structure. He 
 waves his hand towards the dome of the Cathedral 
 at Florence, as he departs for Rome, and apostro- 
 phises its builder, Brunelleschi : " Like you I will 
 not build; better than you I cannot." He will 
 accept no gift from any man. He sends back to 
 the Pope the hundred crowns that were proffered as 
 one month's wages at St. Peter's. This must be a 
 work of love, or not be effected at all. He is im- 
 portuned to come back to Florence, and leave his 
 great work unfinished. He answers : " No ! to 
 leave St. Peter's unfinished would be a great sin." 
 He is hated. He speaks of " the cormorants who 
 daily hope to get rid of me." He fronts death with 
 the calm serenity of divine faith. " If life pleases 
 us, death, being the work of the same Master, ought 
 
SUMMER 
 
 279 
 
 not to displease us." His soul can no longer be 
 appeased by his passionate work of ninety years. 
 He wants nothing now but love, — Eternal Love! 
 
 xvni 
 
 And then, the marvellous sweetness and purity 
 of these men ! Although both of them wrote en- 
 thusiastically, almost passionately, of 
 
 , . . •' ? t- . / ' Platonic Love. 
 
 love, It IS quite easy to perceive that 
 it was not the love that flames along the lines of 
 carnal poets or dramatists. The beauty Michael 
 Angelo worshipped was purely intellectual. It was 
 his conception, — his mind-creation of whatever was 
 good and holy and pure in the universe of things. 
 It was ideal beauty, the perfection which all lofty 
 spirits seem to make it their life business to seek, 
 and which haunts them with its ever-present, but 
 ever elusive and evanescent suggestions of a Su- 
 preme Excellence that exists, but will not reveal 
 itself to the hungering human mind. That all his 
 ideas were ranged along the highest pinnacles of 
 sublimity we can conjecture from his poems as well 
 as his plastic works. That his was an unstained 
 nature Condivi, his friend, testifies : 
 
 " I have often heard Michael Angelo reason and dis- 
 course on love, but never heard him speak otherwise than 
 upon Platonic love. As for me, I am ignorant what Plato 
 has said upon this subject ; but this I know very well, — 
 that, in a long intimacy, I never heard from his mouth a 
 single word that was not perfectly decorous, and having for 
 its object to extinguish in youth every improper desire, and 
 that his own nature is a stranger to depravity." 
 
28o PARERGA 
 
 XIX 
 
 On the other hand, I wonder if there is in all lit- 
 erature anything so beautiful as Dante's ideal and 
 . spiritual love for Beatrice. It seems 
 
 almost capable of redeeming and 
 sweetening all that humanity has suffered from sen- 
 suous poetry. It is so ethereal, so taintless, so flesh- 
 less, so reverential, so tender, so awesome, that I 
 think the womanhood of the whole world should 
 deem itself glorified and sublimated by such a con- 
 ception. Except alone the tribute of the same 
 poet to our Blessed Lady, or the many tributes 
 paid by his glorious countrymen by pen and pencil 
 to the highest form of womanhood, it is the noblest 
 personification of ideal beauty that has ever been 
 made by human pen. When one sees in imagina- 
 tion this glorious vision leading the poet upwards 
 along the steep heights that lead to the summits 
 of Heaven it gives a little shock to remember that 
 Beatrice was married, and probably unhappily. But 
 then we know that it is the child of fifteen, the 
 gentle vision that confronted him that memorable 
 day on the bridge that spanned the Arno, that 
 he has placed for ever as the brightest spirit in the 
 ranks of those who have been canonised by poetic 
 adoration. 
 
 XX 
 
 For, after all, what are your Lauras, your Imogens, 
 
 your Portias, vour Cordelias, to this gentle lady ? 
 
 Of the earth, earthy, they are not fit 
 
 Other Heroines. . , , r \ 
 
 to raise the hem or her garment. 
 Shakspeare, gross and carnal, amid a mob of carnal 
 surroundings, could no more create a Beatrice than 
 
SUMMER 
 
 he could paint a Crucifixion. Milton could never 
 rise beyond the human attractions of an Eve. 
 Goethe, fallen himself, could never dream but of the 
 fallen. Tennyson alone in Arthur, and the " lily 
 maid of Astolat" seems to have some conception 
 that purity is the celestial privilege that elevates 
 woman and ennobles man. But Tennyson could 
 never reach the sublimity and glory of a heavenly 
 Beatrice ; nor move an inch above the conception 
 of purely human perfection embodied in a beautiful 
 form, and endowed with the grace of infantile inno- 
 cence and inexperience. Beatrice alone is the Spirit 
 made perfect, the Being that evokes the adoration 
 of man for the Highest. 
 
 " Ch' amar dee I'opra chi '1 suo Fabro adora." 
 
 XXI 
 
 How fearfully the Italy of their love, the soul of 
 their inspirations, has degenerated, is obvious to 
 the most unprejudiced observer. The 
 
 ., *^. .-' , . . rr^ 1 J Decadent Italy. 
 
 mercantile spirit, the spirit or England 
 and America, the worship of Dea Moneta, has crept 
 into the land of sunshine and beauty ; and to the 
 horror of every lover of art and the picturesque, 
 that fairest of fair lands is threatened with the fate 
 of England. Ancient palaces whose walls have 
 taken on the colour of ivory from a thousand suns, 
 are being pulled down to make way for a wretched 
 stucco modern mansion, cheap and nasty ; factory 
 chimneys of hideous red brick, vomiting their fumes 
 of smoke and soot, defile the vineyard and the 
 olive-grove ; historic rivers are bridged by frail, 
 cheap structures, as untrustworthy as that in Rome, 
 which Michael Angelo found trembling beneath his 
 
282 PARERGA 
 
 horse's hoof; and in Rome, Imperial Rome, ancient 
 and venerable churches are being removed, with 
 their glorious historical associations, to make way 
 for Hausmann streets, where houses half built, and 
 then suspended for lack of funds, stare down on a 
 population that seems not to know, or feel, that its 
 indifference to such sacrileges is the surest sign of 
 its own decadence. 
 
 XXII 
 
 And there are no artists in Rome to-day, except 
 a few German or American students who come from 
 afar to study the masterpieces of a 
 Poltf °'^^''" Past that shall never know a Renais- 
 
 sance. Workmen in the Carrara 
 quarries no longer chisel blocks for a Michael 
 Angelo or a Canova ; but turn out cheap statues to 
 fill the churches in England or the United States. 
 A few wretched women make a livehhood as models 
 for German or English students in the cities where, 
 in their golden age, mighty masters knew no models 
 but angels and saints ; and Dante and Petrarch and 
 Michael Angelo — the Divine Poets of the Past, 
 have for their successors a few hymnists of the 
 Revolution, whose names shall never cross the Alps, 
 or be heard beyond the village journal, in whose 
 corners they are writing. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Lo ! as I write these words, a 
 
 Carducci. ,. ... r 
 
 solitary Ime m a corner or a news- 
 paper announces : 
 
 Carducci is dead ! 
 
 Am I therefore wrong? Carducci has crossed the 
 
SUMMER 283 
 
 Alps. True ! And also true that just a few weeks 
 ago, he was crowned poet by a few admirers from 
 France and Italy. But oh ! what a mighty gulf 
 separates this revolutionary singer of the nineteenth 
 century from the Dante and iMichael Angelo and 
 Petrarch of the past. No city shall fight for his re- 
 mains and claim him as a child. No deputations to 
 popes will plead for his dead ashes. No thousand 
 translations of his poems shall be made into every 
 language on the globe. And what a paltry and 
 meagre ceremony this of yesterday compared to 
 the crowning and laurelling of Petrarch by the 
 Roman Senate in presence of fifty thousand jubilant 
 and enthusiastic Romans. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 This age of iron and steel is not a great age. It 
 shows no great men. There is everywhere a famine 
 of intellect. A crowd of mediocrities 
 
 fill the places occupied by the giant A^^egenerate 
 
 geniuses of the past. And they have 
 one and all this characteristic, — they are filled with 
 the spirit of revolt. Goethe seemed to have antici- 
 pated the wild delirium which was to seize on all the 
 pretentious beings who came after him, when he put 
 into the mouth of Satan, in answer to the interrog- 
 atories of the student, " / am the Spirit who denies." 
 Denial, revolt, the supersession of all existing forms 
 of government or religion, to make way for schemes 
 as visionary and undefined as Utopias and New At- 
 lantides always are, — this is the Zeitgeist^ the spirit 
 of the age. And with it arises a concomitant spirit, 
 — a new-born enthusiasm for the past, especially the 
 pagan past of the world, — the time when the arts 
 were omnipotent, and the senses governed all things ; 
 
284 PARERGA 
 
 when there was no law, no restraint, but the summum 
 bonum was the creation and enjoyment of fair and 
 beautiful things, without reference to higher calls 
 and nobler duties for the well-being of humanity. 
 
 XXV 
 
 I have hardly a doubt that the great pagan, 
 Goethe, whom Matthew Arnold, artist and agnostic, 
 
 hails as the greatest voice of the nine- 
 ^hius! ^°^^' teenth century, was the first apostle 
 
 and chief coryphaeus in this revolt 
 against Christian civilisation, — this return to the 
 reign of sense and paganism. He had his counter- 
 parts of course in the mediseval renaissance ; but his 
 was the nineteenth-century voice that awoke new and 
 morbid and furious dreams in the newly emancipated 
 intellect of Europe. For whereas the teachings of 
 Voltaire were absolute negations, and those of Rous- 
 seau preached a return to nature, the more subtle and 
 more dangerous dogma of Goethe was the need of 
 return to ancient paganism, — to the gods and god- 
 desses who haunted the groves of Dodona and the 
 banks of Ilyssus, and whose hot lusts and wanton- 
 ness were extinguished in the streams of blood that 
 flowed from the veins of martyrs for the cause of the 
 pure and gentle Christ on the sands of the Coliseum. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Rousseau and Voltaire precipitated the Revolu- 
 tion. Goethe has had a slower but more opulent 
 
 success in the Neo-paganism of our 
 Rerasc^nce"' ^g^' This Strange and portentous 
 
 renascence, which has not left even 
 Ireland quite untouched, has had its scientists, its 
 
SUMMER 285 
 
 lawgivers, its priests. The latest and most daring 
 of its poets is the man Carducci, the author of that 
 " Hymn to Satan " which startled and shocked even 
 the most advanced of the anti-religious propagan- 
 dists of modern Europe. There is some latent sense 
 of decency in the English and German mind, that, 
 notwithstanding its antagonism to Christianity, stops 
 short at blasphemy and persecution. Thus the 
 most advanced of the German transcendentalists 
 never allowed himself the terrible looseness and 
 audacity of speech which has always characterised 
 the French schools of philosophy. And English 
 thinkers will never pass the lines beyond which 
 there is always the danger, if not of outraging the 
 Supreme Intelligence, at least of shocking the nerves 
 of cultured and refined compatriots. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 French and Italian atheists know no such re- 
 straints. With them it is a point of honour to 
 outrage religion, and flout the Al- ,, 
 
 • L r ^XT\. ^il ^u • ^ Hymn to Satan. 
 
 mighty. Whether their countrymen 
 are insensible to such awful intellectual perversion, 
 such Satanic defiance of all that is most high and 
 holy, we know not. This we know, that no poem 
 in modern times has equalled the blasphemous au- 
 dacity of "The Hymn to Satan"; and yet it is 
 Carducci's first claim to distinction as an Italian 
 poet. It is the hymn of the orgies of human na- 
 ture let loose with all its terrific possibilities of 
 untamed and unrestrained licentiousness. It is the 
 voice of the whirlwind and of the conflagration, 
 scouring and sweeping the earth, to make way for 
 the empire of Satan. And the two ideas are blended 
 
286 PARERGA 
 
 in fatal unison, — the emancipation of the flesh and 
 the Spirit. Venus 
 
 Tra le odorifere \ -it ^ .1 j 
 
 _, ,,T , Venus amongst the sweet-scented 
 
 Palme d'ldumc. I ■, r tj u >k r 
 
 T^ 1 • 1 • V palms of Idumaea, where the foam 
 
 Dove biancheegiano r l /-. • • li u j 
 
 T rx- • o 01 the Cyprian wave is blanched. 
 
 Le Ciprie Spume, j ■"^ 
 
 and then Martin Luther! 
 
 Gitta la tonaca ^ ^^^^^ ^^-^^ ^, j^^j^j^^ ^^^^j^ 
 
 Martin Lutero, I ^j^her I Cast aside thy bonds, 
 
 Gitta a taoi vincoh f o human reason ! 
 
 uman pensiero. J 
 
 and then : 
 
 Salute OSatana! ^ All hail, O Satan ! O rebel- 
 
 O Rebelhone ! ,• , --> • r 
 
 O fozza vindice [ !^°" ' ^ avenging power of 
 human reason ! 
 
 Delia ragione. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 The idea has by no means the merit of originaHty. 
 
 It is as old as the world, and has seized on the 
 
 minds of men under different forms 
 
 Lawlessness. , ^ -n • 1 • 1 
 
 and figures. But it has certainly 
 reached its fullest development in the writings of 
 the last century. The cardinal principle in the 
 philosophic works of the arch-rebel, William God- 
 win, was that " law is an institution of the most 
 pernicious tendency ; " and that in religion and law 
 is to be found "a dark power of imposture which 
 fights and has hitherto fought with singular success 
 against the power of truth. Kings and priests rep- 
 resent the incarnation of evil." Humanity is the 
 chained " Prometheus," and Law is the Jove, the 
 tyrant, the avenger, who keeps the far-seer and 
 far-seeker in chains. Thoroughly sympathetic. 
 
SUMMER 287 
 
 Shelley can scarcely be said to have adopted this 
 idea, which was already his own by reflection and 
 prejudice. He has embodied all that the revolu- 
 tionary spirit has preached and promulgated in his 
 " Revolt of Islam " ; and in his sad life he flung 
 down the gauntlet at the feet of public opinion 
 and suffered, as all men must suffer, who contend 
 against what is inexorable as Fate. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 But the strange thing is that it was the scientific 
 spirit, of which Goethe was more enamoured than 
 of poetry, which, in the very middle 
 of the century shattered for ever ^""J^"" ^"^ 
 this idea of universal passion and 
 indiscriminate love by proving, through the dis- 
 coveries of Charles Darwin, that it is not Love but 
 Law that rules the universe. It came as a terrific 
 shock to all those hapless minds who were hugging 
 the belief that the great motive power of the world 
 was the instinct, which man has in common with the 
 beast, to satisfy unbridled passion and sanctify the 
 infringement of social customs by an appeal to 
 the suffrages of the emancipated. A higher class, 
 which had clung to a higher conception of Love, as 
 " being Nature's final law," were no less terrified 
 at being brought face to face with iron necessity. 
 It seemed as if the universe were shackled in a blind 
 despotism that worked darkly and enigmatically, but 
 pursued its unerring way heedless of aught it caused 
 in the way of despair and suffering, and moving 
 slowly but with awful and indifferent regularity 
 towards the consummation of a purpose as hidden 
 as its action was mechanical and blind. 
 
288 PARERGA 
 
 XXX 
 
 There was something pitiful in the way in which 
 the Doubters and the Agnostics (who clung in the 
 darkness to some faint hope that 
 behind the dread mechanism of the 
 universe was some mysterious, impersonal element 
 which, in face of the iron necessity that seemed to 
 encompass the universe, was yet slowly working out 
 the problems of existence towards a millennium of 
 universal and eternal Love) were suddenly con- 
 fronted with the discovery that there was nothing 
 anywhere but Law. In the dead mineral, in the 
 half-sentient vegetable, in the highest organism, 
 called man, life or existence, or whatever it may be 
 called, was evolved by one law, conserved by an- 
 other, abandoned to decay and dissolution by a third ; 
 and whilst a certain section of that school professed 
 to accept with a kind of joyful enthusiasm the fact 
 that even Death itself, with all its brood of minor 
 evils, could be accepted with equanimity as part of 
 the inexorable programme, another and more sensi- 
 tive section seemed to look back with brimming and 
 wistful eyes to the days when they reposed in the 
 full security of a faith that could gladly accept this 
 theory of Law, with the conviction that it came 
 from the hands of the same great Originator whom 
 they called our Father, and Lord of all hope and 
 love. 
 
SUMMER 
 
 Section II 
 
 XXXI 
 
 There are two admirable laws amongst the Jews 
 which might well be adopted by Christian commu- 
 nities. The first is, that no Jewish ^ . ^ , 
 
 , . , 1111 • 1 Jewish Laws. 
 
 youth or maiden should be permitted 
 to read the Song of Solomon, the Canticle of Can- 
 ticles, until the age of thirty, the age of maturity, 
 was reached. Notwithstanding its vast spiritual 
 significance, which was perhaps but dimly guessed 
 by Jewish legislators, there is a certain sensuous 
 sweetness in this piece of exquisite Oriental poetry 
 that might possibly prove to youthful or effeminate 
 minds suggestive of things on which the pure imag- 
 ination is forbidden by natural instinct to dwell. In 
 the frantic passion for education which characterises 
 our epoch the lesson is one that may be laid to 
 heart. Preceptors and professors who may have 
 passed beyond the age of temptation, and who have 
 grown enthusiastic about favourite authors, are prone 
 to forget that youth has its hot fires of passions only 
 banked up by the restraints of religion or the ab- 
 sence of temptation ; and the old and venerable and 
 veritable warning, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia^ 
 is too apt to be forgotten in the race for culture, and 
 the pride of being able to say, I have read that ! 
 Meat for men ; milk for babes. There are lines 
 of congruity everywhere that should never be 
 overpassed. 
 
2Q0 PARERGA 
 
 XXXII 
 
 I would sacrifice "Hamlet" rather than see the eyes 
 of a young girl resting on those three or four lines 
 
 of his address to Ophelia; I would 
 Learning.^°'^ bum " Romeo and Juliet" rather than 
 
 see the first hot blush of wounded 
 innocence mantling the face and neck of some sweet 
 child, whose eyes had rested for the first time on 
 the obscene wit of that thrice detestable nurse. I 
 would not make our youth, no matter how ardent in 
 their passion for self-improvement, mere "pickers-up 
 of pearls from dunghills." The soul is greater than 
 the mind ; and its purity is more important than the 
 mere mental cultivation. It is not by intellectual 
 acquirements, but by character ^^^t are judged before 
 the tribunals of men, as well as that of conscience. 
 The life is more than the work, as the body is more 
 than the raiment. It is moral excellence, after all, 
 that constitutes the charm of humanity ; and the 
 sweet and holy innocence of girlhood is of far more 
 importance than the wit of gilded salons, or the 
 achievements of a George Sand or a De Stael. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 I would have an Index Expurgatorius for youths 
 and maidens under thirty ; and I would promptly 
 place upon it such names as Boccaccio, 
 Montaigne, Rabelais, Shakspeare, etc. 
 Whatever contempt modern sciolists may lavish on 
 " Family " or " Bowdlerised " Shakspeares, there can 
 be no question that in their complete and naked mate- 
 rialism, Shakspeare's works are unfit for the young ; 
 
SUMMER 291 
 
 and there can be no greater proof of human in- 
 sincerity, and human inconsistency and human 
 hypocrisy, than to see such lavish and wholesale 
 condemnation poured out upon such writers as 
 Flaubert and Zola, and d'Annunzio, and Maupas- 
 sant, whilst Chaucer and Spenser and Shakspeare 
 amongst ourselves, and the above-named authors in 
 foreign literature are numbered amongst the classics; 
 and catalogued amongst the Hundred Best Books 
 which have passed down as the noble heritage of 
 dead workers to posterity. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 If we want to keep the minds of the young on 
 those high altitudes of thought where the air they 
 breathe is pure, and free from nox- 
 
 ' , . , . Present Poetry. 
 
 lous vapours, let us put mto their 
 hands Dante and Michael Angelo, Milton and 
 Wordsworth, Tennyson and Matthew Arnold ; and 
 the large host of junior and contemporary writers 
 who might have achieved immortality if they had 
 been lucky enough to be born under an earlier star. 
 For that, too, is a singular feature of our age — 
 namely, our contempt, or perhaps our ignorance, of 
 much poetry and prose of the present day, which, 
 if written a hundred years ago, would have ranked 
 the writers amongst the immortals. The literary 
 market is overstocked ; and valuable assets are held 
 cheaply. We have such abundant treasures from 
 the past that we flout the shy advances of those who 
 proffer their literary wares. And yet a wise reader, 
 who might be possessed of taste, might do well to 
 form a private anthology of many poems, now hid- 
 den away in the ephemeral pages of magazines ; but 
 
292 PARERGA 
 
 which, if I mistake not, would be crowned, if we 
 had the advantage of an Academy of Letters in 
 English-speaking lands. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 The second admirable provision of Jewish law 
 was, if we are to believe the Talmud and tradi- 
 tion, that which made the acquisition 
 Law.^^'^°"'^ of some manual trade compulsory 
 
 on Hebrew youth. The thought 
 flashed on me to-day, as I watched with interest the 
 steady, rhythmic, unintermittent way in which an 
 ordinary day-labourer, whom I had employed for 
 the moment, worked in my garden. I cannot guar- 
 antee that his work was so regular in my absence ; 
 but as 1 watched him I could not help admiring 
 the smooth, powerful manner in which his whole 
 frame worked with spade or hoe. It was just like 
 the beautiful perfection of some powerful machine, 
 when the steam has been let on, and crank and 
 piston and lever silently obey and move, as if in a 
 kind of blind intelligence, towards the accomplish- 
 ment of some object, of which they know absolutely 
 nothing. He was by no means a powerful man, 
 had even the repute of being delicate. But there 
 seemed to be no weariness or pain in his work. I 
 took up the heavy shovel, but in ten minutes had 
 to put it down again. At six o'clock he ceased 
 work, and I asked him : " Are you fatigued ? " 
 " Oh, dear, no ! " he said. He had worked eight 
 hours with slight intermission. " Thou art my 
 superior and master there 1 " I thought. 
 
SUMMER 
 
 293 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 His nerves and muscles, trained almost from 
 childhood, had the consistency and hardness of iron. 
 Labour was a kind of pleasure to 
 
 1 • Tj u-ij r ^L • Ceaseless Work, 
 
 mm. He was a child or the uni- 
 verse, where, if you think well, the same smooth, 
 silent, unceasing work is going on, day and night, 
 since the dawn of Creation. I never cease wonder- 
 ing at it — the quiet, silent, never-hasting, never- 
 ceasing work of the universe. No noise, no tumult, 
 no dumb ostentation, or articulate boasting; but 
 eternal silence, and eternal labour, the whole, vast, 
 intricate machinery revolving, creating, renewing 
 dissipated forces, and again entangling them in some 
 web or woof of perfect and flawless workmanship. 
 Oh ! how sublime it all is, had we eyes to see it — 
 had we eyes to observe that from the bursting of a 
 bud, or the snipping of a shell up to sun-spots and 
 star-clusters, there is motion everywhere, every- 
 where mute but eloquent obedience to some unseen 
 Voice that commands, some unseen Hand that directs 
 and controls unerringly; and just as unerringly is 
 obeyed by the vast and complex energies that lie 
 hid beneath the outer vesture and embroideries of 
 nature. 
 
 XXX vn 
 
 Sometimes, in the warm summer evenings, when 
 I see harvest labourers, or road and quarry workers, 
 returning from the day's toil, en- 
 crusted with dust, and with moist ^ou7e?s!^^" 
 foreheads ; and when I speak to 
 them, and notice the hard lines labour has chiselled 
 
294 PARERGA 
 
 on their features, and how the odour of honest sweat 
 and the minute particles of wood or stone or corn 
 exhales from their garments, my heart goes out in 
 great pity to them, and in a certain mute, modified 
 contempt for myself. And when I see the labourer 
 sitting over the embers of his fire in his little cabin, 
 silent as all these men are, and think, "To-morrow, 
 and to-morrow, and to-morrow there is nought for 
 that man but early rising, hard work, poor fare, and 
 limited wages," I feel a kind of natural insurgence 
 rising up within me at such a state of economics, 
 until further reflection suggests that this man, too, 
 is living in strict consonance with Nature, obeying 
 its laws, pursuing the same course, travailing with 
 the same silent persistence, and reaping the same 
 reward. What? The feeling that one is obeying 
 the behests of the Supreme Powers, and mutely and 
 humbly helping on the vast work which, with some 
 great ulterior design in the background, forms the 
 present programme and cosmic arrangement of the 
 visible universe. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 And I notice that Nature, with her rudder and 
 wheel of Nemesis, ever scouring the earth, will pun- 
 ish this man, too, even for enforced 
 emesis. idleness. Condemn that man to a 
 
 week's inaction there by his fireside, and you make 
 a miserable man. It is not only the lack of means 
 that disturbs him, but the sense of uselessness. All 
 things around him are busy. The grass is growing, 
 the flowers budding, the birds are singing, and man 
 and beast go forth to their labour in the morning 
 and return at eve ; but he, he alone, is out of touch 
 with Nature. He is a rusty cog, flung aside from 
 
SUMMER 
 
 295 
 
 the great oiled mechanism to rot in ignoble idleness 
 by the wayside. It is no fault of his, and yet he is 
 ashamed. He buries himself there in his sepulchre 
 as one dead, and he fears the face of his fellow-man. 
 Condemn him to further idleness and he becomes 
 hebetated and old before his time. Condemn him 
 to perpetual idleness, and he seeks and finds refuge 
 from the ignominy in the grave. Not many years 
 ago I witnessed a strike on the Great Southern and 
 Western Railway. It lasted six weeks. The men 
 went around the streets day by day dressed in their 
 Sunday clothes. They always looked shamefaced, 
 and turned away when my eye met theirs. They 
 were not ashamed of the strike. They believed it 
 to be justified. But the Sunday clothes on working- 
 days were Nessus shirts, — garments of shame. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 I am not at all sure but that manual training 
 should go hand in hand with, and even precede, 
 mental training. Very often the 
 mind, slower in its development than th^^H(^."" "^'^^ 
 the body, can afford to wait. And, 
 besides, manual training is mental training, inas- 
 much as it develops powers of observation, ac- 
 curacy of thinking, patience in watching details, 
 and the labour of perseverance. But, apart from 
 that, no mental training is a compensation for feeble 
 muscles, weak nerves, myopia, and the host of other 
 evils that are inseparable from purely sedentary 
 lives ; and no mental acquirement or intellectual 
 success is compensation for that growing contempt 
 for honest manual labour which is becoming one of 
 the most vicious and unpleasant symptoms of our 
 
296 PARERGA 
 
 advanced civilisation. " Back to the land ! " is the 
 cry of all economists of the present day; and "Back 
 to manual work ! " may also be the warcry of those 
 who are painfully conscious that our advanced civili- 
 sation is more or less that of a race in its decrepi- 
 tude, and on the downgrade towards extinction. 
 At least, it seems very certain to some minds that 
 it is the " man with the hoe," and not the man with 
 the pen, we need mostly in these times. 
 
 XL 
 
 Hence I cannot help feeling a certain contempt or 
 loathing when I behold young men, just budding 
 into the twenties, calmly putting the 
 pillows of old age under their elbows, 
 and settling down to a long life of most ignoble 
 inactivity. It is not alone the Sybaritic baseness 
 and selfishness of the thing that repels, but the very 
 horror at the incongruity of studied idleness and 
 uselessness amidst the general activities of -Nature. 
 Clearly these are mere parasites of Nature, and the 
 word has an ill signification. It means not only 
 idleness and uselessness, but theft, disregard for 
 others' rights, preying on the industries of others, 
 eating bread that is not righteously earned. It may 
 be a safe life and a secure one, where none of the 
 lower evils are encountered, and there is always a 
 kind of dulcet monotone of undisturbed serenity. 
 But if great trials are avoided, great deeds also 
 remain undone, and, in hugging a miserable sense 
 of security, the possibility of nobleness is utterly 
 lost. 
 
SUMMER 
 
 297 
 
 XLI 
 
 Every man should have a great ideal in life — 
 some high point in character or action to be aimed 
 at, even though it be never attained. 
 No man is absolute arbiter of his fate, f^^^ ^^^^^ 
 or parceller of his destiny. Will- 
 power counts for much, but only when conscience 
 is laid aside. " If you want to make your way in 
 the world," says a witty French writer, " you must 
 plough through humanity like a cannon-ball, or you 
 must glide through it like a pestilence." Had he 
 his countrymen Napoleon and Voltaire before his 
 mind, when he penned these words ? But " mak- 
 ing one's way in the world " is not the attainment 
 of the high ideal of which I speak. It is rather a 
 low ideal, the poor ambition of fox or beaver, or 
 their human types in commerce or the professions. 
 It is an animal instinct. It marks a man as belong- 
 ing to a degenerate type. It is not the symbol or 
 phrase that designates the higher call to the higher 
 issues towards which humanity is bound to tend. 
 
 XLII 
 
 Better to have written on our tombs ; " Labo- 
 ravi," or " Passus sum," than " Fehcissimus fui." 
 I have seen two faces quite lately 
 on whose foreheads such inscriptions ^ 
 
 had been already chiselled. One was the face of a 
 gentlewoman, grown old in peace and prosperity, 
 on whom the world had always smiled. Peace had 
 been her portion, and old age was not infirmity, but 
 the crown and consummation of the unbroken felici- 
 ties that had been her lot in life. One could be 
 
298 PARERGA 
 
 thankful, but one could not worship there. The 
 other had been sculptured by life-long sorrow, — • 
 perpetual sickness, loss of material resources, falling 
 away of friends, deception where honour had been 
 expected, derision for no fault but for having borne 
 the whips of Fate. It was one of those faces, which 
 externally calm, are ever ready to break their sur- 
 face serenity by the trembling of a lip or the gath- 
 ering and falling of a silent tear. One might well 
 worship here. We are in the sanctuary of sorrow. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 "Nature had intended him for a philosopher. 
 He became an orator." Was it fate, or self-neglect, 
 or a chain of unavoidable circum- 
 stances, that brought about the catas- 
 trophe ? We know not ; nor do we know about 
 whom the terrible epigram has been uttered. But 
 whoever the unhappy man was, great was the de- 
 ordination ; and great was his fall. For I cannot 
 conceive a more tremendous contrast than that 
 which exists between the science of philosophy, and 
 the dying art of oratory ; or between the student 
 pursuing in the sacred silence of his library or study 
 his investigations into the arcana of human and 
 divine things, and the mere talker in Parliament or 
 on platform, trying to cheat the senses of his audi- 
 ence, until they in turn cheat the intellect, wrapping 
 it in a cloud of "words, words, words." What a con- 
 trast between Demosthenes and Plato ! The former 
 is rapidly fading away from human vision with a "De 
 Corona" folded beneath his spectral toga. And half 
 the scholars of the modern world are still at Plato's 
 feet. 
 
SUMMER 
 
 299 
 
 XLIV 
 
 It is singular, very singular, how the art of the 
 orator is rapidly passing into the limbo of lost arts, 
 like its sister accomplishment of con- 
 
 A ^ ...L u ^ J A Lost Art. 
 
 versation. At the bar to-day, no 
 barrister dare attempt the oratorical flights of an 
 Erskine, or a Brougham, of a Grattan or a Shiel. 
 If he attempted such appeals ad captandum^ the jury 
 would promptly shut him up, if the stifled laughter 
 of the court had not already suppressed him. In 
 Parliament, no member dare repeat the processes by 
 which great measures were passed in bygone gener- 
 ations. Gladstone and Bright were the last orators 
 of England ; and the success of the latter was due to 
 his lucidity and brevity ; whilst the verbosity of the 
 former was beginning to be a torture to his friends, 
 whilst it never won for himself a single vote. There 
 is but one place still where the dying art is held in 
 reverence — that is, the platform. The audience 
 are the illiterate and unthinking. Even in the 
 church, oratory is decried. "Instruction" and 
 "illumination" are now the watchwords. Would 
 Lacordaire summon five thousand men to Notre 
 Dame to-day ? 
 
 XLV 
 
 Two things fill me with perpetual surprise, — the 
 existence in this practical age of a Parliament, or 
 /^//^z»£--house, and the descent of „ , 
 
 , ° , . , , . . , Parliament. 
 
 such thmkers and writers as Mr. 
 Balfour and Mr. Morley from the dignified and 
 sacred retirement of their libraries to the vulgar 
 controversies that rage across the floor of the House 
 
300 PARERGA 
 
 of Commons. It is simply inexplicable how the 
 British public, clamouring for ever new devices for 
 shortening the details of business, and expediting 
 public affairs, should still tolerate such an anach- 
 ronism as the House of Commons. In an age of 
 telegraphs and telephones, tubular railways and 
 motors, when every man's speech is Tea ! Tea ! 
 and Nay ! Nay ! it is impossible to understand 
 why such an active race can regard with compla- 
 cency the awful waste of public time, the post- 
 ponement of public business, the sacrifice of public 
 interests for the sake of those interminable and 
 stupid debates, those dreary and uninteresting 
 speeches, those eternal platitudes, and that com- 
 ical attitudinising which waste the time and de- 
 grade the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments. 
 
 XLVI 
 
 In ordinary life, whenever business has to be 
 transacted, men meet around a green-baized table, 
 „ . their watches in their hands, or their 
 
 Business men. , , , ^ \ • n • i 
 
 eyes on the clock, and briefly, with 
 the least expenditure of human talk, discuss, debate, 
 and decide the point at issue ; then depart to other 
 pursuits. If any long-winded orator were to attempt 
 a speech, they would take up their hats and walk 
 away. And yet, in an assemblage of six hundred 
 and fifty gentlemen, elected to arrange the most 
 complicated machinery in politics and economics the 
 world has ever witnessed, and to legislate for the 
 social and moral welfare of 300,000,000 of people 
 of every clime and race and colour, the most ordi- 
 nary and petty measure, that would be carried by a 
 vestry in a London suburb in half an hour, becomes 
 
SUMMER 301 
 
 I 
 
 the subject of human oratory that spreads its dreary- 
 desolation over hours and days, and broadens out 
 into a mud-flood that fills column after column of 
 the morning papers, but into which no man will 
 dip a finger if he cares to keep himself clean and 
 intact. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 I remember one evening in the House of Com- 
 mons in the gallery over the clock, saying to an 
 attendant, whilst an unhappy mem- ^ ^ ^ „ 
 
 , ' . . , . r r; . , In the Gallery. 
 
 ber was swinging his arms runously 
 below me, and talking to empty green benches, the 
 speaker gently dozing the while, and a few groups 
 gathered here and there, and talking leisurely around 
 the pillars : 
 
 " Is this the thing that governs and legislates for 
 300,000,000 of subjects ? " 
 
 " It thinks it does," was the answer. After a 
 pause he said : 
 
 '' It is just like a school. There's the master and 
 his ferule. Here are the scholars, and a very un- 
 ruly lot they are sometimes." 
 
 The member was droning away below, and ges- 
 ticulating furiously at nothing in particular. It was 
 getting on my nerves. 
 
 " How long has the Speaker to listen to this kind 
 of thing? " I asked. 
 
 " From four o'clock hevery day to dinner-time ; 
 from dinner-time to hany hour in the morning the 
 'Ouse may choose to sit," he replied. 
 
 There was a pause. The eternal droning broken 
 by appeals to " Mr. Speaker, Sir," was incessant. 
 One old gentleman, the rim of his hat resting gently 
 on his nose, was looking alternately at the Speaker, 
 
302 PARERGA 
 
 at his watch, and at the member. The others were 
 chatting and laughing. The Speaker was sleeping 
 gently. 
 
 " Does that man ever go mad ? " I said, pointing 
 to the latter. 
 
 " Never, sir," he said. " Probably he would, but 
 he dozes through." 
 
 " I shall go mad if I stay much longer," I said. 
 " How long will England tolerate this? " 
 
 " Until some men are sent in," he replied, " to 
 whom time is money, — some workers who work by 
 the piece, and not on day wages. They '11 make 
 short work of this thing." 
 
 And the eternal drone went on. The attendant 
 became anxious for me. Probably he did not care 
 to be compelled to escort me from the house. 
 
 " If I was you, sir," he said, " I think 1 'd go over 
 to the 'Ouse of Lords. There may be a sumthink 
 agoin' on there. This is very bad." 
 
 I took the hint, and went over to the House of 
 Lords. 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 With "bated breath and whispering humbleness " 
 I entered the gilded chamber. The glare of red 
 
 benches caught my eye; the solemn 
 Lord?°^^^ °^ ^"^ dignified silence smote on my 
 
 senses; and then I became aware of 
 a figure, which could not be called dignified because 
 it was so young and masculine, standing in the 
 aisle and fronting the woolsack, and of a melodious, 
 gentle, musical voice that filled, as with bird-like 
 melody, the entire chamber. I at once feared for 
 myself. I dreaded my conversion. I stood at the 
 dread point when I feared that I should be forced 
 
SUMMER 303 
 
 unwillingly to abandon a cherished conviction, and 
 resign a dear and well-cherished prejudice. I felt 
 my knees tremble at the possibility. I wanted to 
 close my ears, but I could not. I stood spellbound 
 as the clear, musical voice, without haste, without 
 rest, slowly but unhesitatingly went on pouring out 
 sentence after sentence so perfect, so connected, so 
 logical, so forcible, so affable, that I had to steel 
 myself against its fascinations, and prompt the rea- 
 son to stand up boldly against the betrayal of the 
 senses. I succeeded only by shutting my ears 
 against the siren words, and asking myself their 
 meaning. It was all about the paramount obliga- 
 tion of England, the mighty elephant, to squelch 
 some rat of a border tribe. 
 
 XLIX 
 
 This was an attempt at disillusion ; and yet I 
 could not tear myself away. The contrast between 
 the unhappy member of the popular ^. .„ 
 
 , 1 ^ 11 • 11 Disillusion. 
 
 chamber talkmg to empty benches, 
 and this polished orator holding spellbound the 
 Lords Paramount of England, was the contrast 
 between the droning of a Scotch bagpipe and some 
 airy fantasie of Bach or Beethoven played by a 
 master. The House knew it, and yielded itself 
 easily to the fascination. There was not a sound 
 to break the breathless silence. All eyes were fixed 
 on the young orator as, with his left hand in his 
 pocket and his right hand drawing airy circles like 
 a skilful hypnotist, he proceeded on his easy but 
 delightful task. I do not think he was concerned 
 much about influencing the opinions of the honour- 
 able House, or snatching a vote. He seemed more 
 
304 PARERGA 
 
 like an artist, who revelled in his work ; an athlete, 
 who gloried in his graceful strength. He paused 
 at last, and sat down. I expected an ovation. 
 There was a gentle murmur of applause, something 
 like the fretful murmur of a sick child that tosses in 
 its sleep. The Chancellor climbed down from the 
 woolsack ; the mighty Lords rose up. The House 
 adjourned. Had the eloquence paralysed them for 
 future effort ? Not at all. They went downstairs 
 to dine. 
 
 Whilst I was listening, as in a dream, to Lord 
 Rosebery, and fighting against the almost irresist- 
 ible fascination of his eloquence, an 
 THck."^^^^^^"* incongruous thought would rush in, 
 and the cynical, if good-natured re- 
 mark of Jane Welsh Carlyle about De Quincey 
 would suggest itself: "What would not one give 
 to be able to keep him in a bandbox, and take him 
 out ad libitum to talk ! " I know this comes from 
 reading Heine. That unfortunate fellow is always 
 dropping you from a cloud into a river, from a bank 
 of primroses into a sewer. And it is an unpleasant 
 trick which one is prone to imitate. But it at least 
 utters the verdict of " ineffectuality " against all 
 parliamentary eloquence. The public should at 
 once insist on making the Houses of Commons 
 and Lords places of business and not of idle talk. 
 By all means, give a grant towards establishing a 
 Forum down in South Kensington or elsewhere 
 where oratory might yet be practised; or where 
 such speakers as Lord Rosebery or Mr. Morley 
 might have an opportunity of demonstrating the art 
 of eloquence side by side with Raphael's cartoons or 
 
SUMMER 305 
 
 Bayeux tapestries. And resolve the aforesaid 
 Houses into fifty committees for the transaction 
 of public business. Oratory is as much out of 
 place in legislative chambers as cheap oleographs in 
 an attorney's chambers, or an Italian organ-grinder 
 behind the grating of the general post-office. 
 
 LI 
 
 The second question is, what in the world brings 
 Lord Rosebery from his library at Dalmeny, or 
 Mr. Balfour from his lodge in Scot- 
 land, or John Morley from his 
 beloved Encyclopedists to foregather with such 
 heterogeneous elements under the incandescent gas- 
 lights and in the overheated atmosphere of the 
 House of Commons ? And further still, we would 
 ask, how can such men leave the society of Plato and 
 Bacon, of Shakspeare and Dante, for the squalid and 
 altogether mean squabbles that go on about paltry 
 economic questions across the floor of the House ? 
 And further still, how can such men accept office 
 and sacrifice the serenity as well as usefulness of 
 their lives in dealing with all the chicanery and 
 deception, all the prevarication and lying, all the 
 furious conflicts of interests and opinions arising 
 out of racial prejudices, personal ambitions, social 
 antagonisms, religious mania, and national antipa- 
 thies that form the mighty maelstrom of modern 
 political life ? And further still, how can such men, 
 accustomed to the lofty and spiritual ethics which 
 they must accept with their reading, and which, if 
 not consecrated by religion, are at least sanctioned 
 by philosophy, condescend to assume the methods 
 which custom sanctions as necessary for state- 
 
3o6 PARERGA 
 
 machinery, and force their consciences into accept- 
 ing mental reservations, the " suppressio veri " and 
 the " suggestio falsi," which go to make up from 
 time immemorial the equipment of a successful 
 statesman ? 
 
 LII 
 
 When we think for a moment of Dalmeny 
 Park, with its two thousand five hundred acres, of 
 _ , _, , the noble Tudor mansion, with its 
 
 Dalmeny Park. . r ^ r r \ 
 
 suites or lorty apartments, or the su- 
 perb walks and drives through the almost primitive 
 wilderness, until one comes here upon forest glades 
 which the scythe and the axe have never touched, and 
 again on some grey-turreted castle overhanging the 
 waters of the Forth, and washed on two sides by the 
 tides that sweep up from the North German Ocean ; 
 when we reflect that the owner has it in his power 
 to summon thither, where nature is at its loveliest, 
 the choicest intellectual spirits of Great Britain and 
 the world ; and when we imagine the daily silent 
 delights of that superb library, or the pleasure of 
 meditation there where the sea laps the rough 
 granite of the tower ; and then of the nocturnal 
 revels where neither wine nor other dissipation can 
 blunt the intellect, but all the powers of great and 
 trained minds are brought to bear on the thousand 
 subjects that agitate and interest modern thinkers, 
 it seems incredible that the very genius of the place 
 should desert it for the stuffy benches of Westmin- 
 ster and the more or less degrading occupation of 
 crossing swords with antagonists unworthy of his 
 steel. 
 
SUMMER 307 
 
 LIII 
 
 What is it all ? Where is the fascination ? And 
 where is the reward? It may be the possibility of 
 acquiring; honours which governments ^ ., „ , . ,. , 
 
 .7, & . . o ,. . , Is It Patriotism? 
 
 Will not give except tor political ser- 
 vices. But then, — what can a philosopher care for 
 a piece of ribbon, or an empty title? It cannot be 
 money. I suppose that the distinguished men 
 whose names I have mentioned are above the 
 craving, which though universal, has yet a certain 
 touch of baseness always associated with it. Can it 
 be patriotism — the desire to maintain the splendid 
 supremacy by land and sea, in court and cabinet, 
 of " this England of ours " ? A noble ambition, 
 but pursued in a more heroic, because a more 
 ignoble manner than on the battlefield or the sea- 
 plain. But can the patriotism of a Brutus or a Leon- 
 idas stand the strain of hustings and platforms, or 
 the hardly less trying ordeals of long summer after- 
 noons, and dreary winter nights in the House of 
 Commons ? Or is it, after all, a kind of superfluous 
 energy, that, tired with the monotony of thought, 
 seeks the variety of action, and expends itself in 
 the pleasurable excitement of such intellectual jousts 
 and tournaments as must exist, so long as there are 
 parties to contend with each other, and the glories 
 of office are the prize. Yet, I can often imagine 
 these splendid athletes asking themselves, after 
 some "night of scenes" at Westminster, whether, 
 after all, " the game is worth the candle." 
 
3o8 PARERGA 
 
 LIV 
 
 I think it is Balzac who said : " Young men 
 have nearly always a pair of compasses with which 
 
 they measure the future. When 
 Bold?* *°° their will accords with the audacity 
 
 of the angle they open, the world is 
 theirs." The writer, like so many who are fond of 
 audacious generalisations, forgot that there are such 
 things as circumstances, environments, surroundings ; 
 and that these need to be taken into account in 
 forecasting or calculating success. There is many a 
 poor fellow in Dartmoor and Portland to-day who 
 opened his compasses all too wide, and found the 
 circumference within prison walls. There is a good 
 deal of wisdom in the ancient inscription over the 
 Grecian temple or rather over its porches : " Be 
 bold ! " " Be very bold ! " " Be not too bold ! " 
 Your lot in life may be cast amongst cowards ; and 
 then the world is a cheese. But it may also be cast 
 amongst strong men ; and then the world is a 
 granite quarry. And, besides, a good many young 
 men are prone to open widely the compasses of their 
 future, until they become a straight line on the 
 paper, the points on a level with the ecHptic. Under 
 such circumstances, the circumference cannot be de- 
 scribed by any means. It is rather a question 
 whether more careers are ruined by sinking into the 
 grave of cowardice, than by being dashed against 
 the granite wall of circumstances against which 
 they have been precipitated. 
 
SUMMER 309 
 
 LV 
 
 Yesterday, I accepted an invitation of long-stand- 
 ing from one of our most distinguished Irish 
 scientists, Mr. Ussher, to visit the , , ^ 
 
 'l C n ^] 1 ^^ t^^ Depths. 
 
 mammoth caves or Lastlepooke. 
 They are in my parish, not two miles northeast 
 from the town; and, like many other treasure- 
 houses of earth, they remained for centuries and 
 aeons unknown and unnoticed, until this gentle saint 
 of science came this way ; and unto him the great 
 revelation was made, — that here, in this cave, 
 hitherto regarded merely as a fox-hole, or a place 
 where the weasel or ferret might breed, were count- 
 less treasures more valuable than so much gold, 
 or costliest diamond. He was at home when I 
 called, — that is, his faithful and most intelligent 
 servitor heard my voice from the awful depths of 
 the cave ; and by candlelight I groped my way 
 along a narrow corridor, on a solitary plank, and 
 stooped not so much in humility, as through reve- 
 rence for hundreds of stalactites that hung down, 
 hard as steel and sharp as lancets, like the bosses on 
 the shield of a Grecian chief After much stum- 
 bling, and a heedless glance at the chambers called 
 the Cathedral, and the Swallow Hall and the 
 Hyena Hall (where Mr. Ussher has discovered the 
 only relics of that animal hitherto found in Ireland) 
 I found myself in the Elephant Hall, where just 
 now they were making excavations. 
 
310 PARERGA 
 
 LVI 
 
 Here Mr. Ussher had already dug up the re- 
 mains of a mighty mammoth ; and just then his 
 . ., , attendant was digging with a pick- 
 
 A Mammoth. , , °° , i '^ i 
 
 axe through a second layer several 
 inches thick of stalagmite, to search the soft red 
 loam or sand beneath. The place was in Cim- 
 merian darkness, the black, glistening walls dimly 
 revealed by the light of a solitary candle. Great 
 cavities yawned beneath us, from which we were 
 only protected by safely standing on the twelve-inch- 
 wide footpath ; great rocks were tumbled all around ; 
 the ceiling of the cave rose above us rugged and 
 threatening; vast recesses everywhere, so gloomy 
 and engulphed, you felt every moment as if some 
 great monster of primordial time would heave out 
 of the darkness his colossal bulk, and make a sum- 
 mary end of the pigmies who were disturbing his 
 eternal sleep. I felt as if the Almighty Maker had 
 plunged me into a dream, and taken me back to 
 the time when chaos rested over all things, and 
 darkness slept on the face of the deep. 
 
 LVI I 
 
 There were sundry other halls to be examined, 
 — Fairy Halls, Earthquake Chambers, etc. But I 
 ,, ., o „ ,. yearned for the sun and the light; I 
 
 Halls of Eblis. -^ , ^ , & '. 
 
 wanted to get away from these wiz- 
 ards and magicians of the caves, clad in their leath- 
 ern tunics and soiled by the chemistry of nature. 
 I crept out into the light humbly ; and wondered 
 what a passionate thing it must be, this rapture of 
 science, that compels that gentleman, of independent 
 
SUMMER 
 
 311 
 
 means, to spend those long, bright summer days, 
 when all Nature is smiling outside, to bury himself 
 with a solitary candle in this tomb of the dead, and 
 rake out of sand and loam fossils that seem to the 
 untutored mind nothing more than mere debris, 
 flung aside by the agency of death, and the con- 
 tempt of Nature. Whilst we were speaking in the 
 little hut outside, where Mr. Ussher keeps and sorts 
 his specimens, his attendant came out of the cave, 
 holding two earth-soiled brown fragments of bone 
 in his hands. The scientist put the fragments to- 
 gether. They mortised neatly into each other; 
 and without further examination he pronounced 
 the bone the tibia of an Arctic bear. 
 
 LVIII 
 
 And then he exhibited his treasures, — the few 
 that he had not yet sent on to Dublin, — several 
 teeth of reindeer, beautifully serrated, ^ ^ 
 
 , , f. ^ . . •' , Cave Treasures. 
 
 the bones or a tmy animal, never 
 found but in Arctic regions, the lemming; and 
 lastly, the incisor tooth of a polar bear, about two 
 inches long, its ivory as polished and perfect as if 
 it were extracted only yesterday. These were taken 
 from the loam or sand under the second layer of 
 stalagmite, which varied in thickness from two 
 inches to six ; and above which was an intercalary 
 bed of loam, beneath a thicker layer of stalagmite 
 on the surface. Mr. Ussher talked away in a quiet 
 monotone of Pleistocene periods, of primary, sec- 
 ondary, tertiary, and quarternary epochs ; of glacial 
 periods ; of certain telluric revolutions, each de- 
 manding eleven thousand years to round and per- 
 fect. 1 heard him as in a kind of dream, for I had 
 
312 PARERGA 
 
 gone off into a reverie, and was travelling through 
 centuries, that would have seemed the links in the 
 interminable chain of antiquity, only that Time, 
 too, no matter how hoary and rusty, is but the 
 youngest child of Eternity. 
 
 LIX 
 
 But what a history was writ in that mute piece 
 of polished bone in my hand ; and how it shamed 
 . „ ... the oldest palimpsest, and the still 
 
 A Bear's Incisor. ,, , .r.^r-- iv/ri 
 
 older handwntmg or man on Moab- 
 ite stones — on walls of Nineveh or Babylon. I 
 saw this northern hemisphere covered with ice. 
 Yonder mountains, in whose fertile valleys men 
 now find sweetness and sustenance, are covered far 
 up towards their summits with perpetual snow. In 
 these crevices and hollows are mighty glaciers. 
 Where yonder castle is built is the top of a moraine, 
 pushed out by the advancing foot of a glacier, mov- 
 ing a few inches in a century. All around here is 
 ice, thick, green, glistening ice, over which, in search 
 of food, the mammoth with his hairy hide and huge 
 eight-foot tusks, the bear, the reindeer, and the 
 little marmot are roaming. There is no trace of 
 man. The mighty saurians and iguanodons are 
 down there in the sea. The world is old, very old ; 
 and yet in its infancy. For ages are yet to go by, 
 century piled upon century, before the earth shall 
 be fit for its primate, man ; and it is only in the 
 dim and far-off and shadowy future the first scenes 
 in the great drama of human existence shall begin. 
 
SUMMER 313 
 
 LX 
 
 Hence the historic scenes of Genesis are quite of 
 recent date compared with this incisor ; Babylon 
 and Nineveh and the Pyramids are „ ^. 
 
 r J rT-.!- L • J • Prehistoric. 
 
 or yesterday. 1 his was buried in 
 deep darkness long centuries before the Milesians 
 set foot in Ireland; before Tirbolgs and Danaans 
 fought yonder in the valley of slaughter; before 
 the Druid priests raised their sacrificial knives at 
 the first ray of the rising sun here in the valleys 
 where Ogham stones are yet found, and huge boul- 
 ders mark the place where a cromlech was erected. 
 Beside its record of countless centuries, how can we 
 compare human history that is measured only by 
 years, and how grotesque seem to be the eras or 
 epochs marked in the minute-hand of human chro- 
 nologies by the birth and death of kings ! " Ever 
 memorable," "historical," "spacious" (a Miltonic 
 word much in use among moderns), — these are the 
 expressions of historians. I suppose similar terms 
 were used of Ptolemaic and other dynasties, — of a 
 Sesostris and a Cyrus. 
 
 '* * My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings! 
 Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! ' 
 Nothing besides remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away." 
 
 LXI 
 
 It was a glorious day as I turned homewards 
 from that black and hideous sepul- „, 
 
 , r 1 1 • -n"! 1 1 Summer Flowers. 
 
 chre or dead centuries. 1 he larks 
 
 were springing upward everywhere, filling the blue 
 
314 PARERGA 
 
 air with pulsations of living song. The sun shone 
 fiercely. Summer showed its least attractive aspect 
 in the hedgerows and trees by the wayside covered 
 with fine, white dust ; and its most attractive aspect 
 in the abundance of wild-flowers that starred and 
 spangled the hedges all along my way. The beau- 
 tiful yellow primrose had disappeared, but the pur- 
 ple eyes of the wild violet looked out everywhere 
 from clump and bush. I gathered a curious bou- 
 quet of valerian, whose purple flowers threw out a 
 heavy odour as of opiates, indicative, I suppose, of 
 its value as a nerve sedative ; of the yellow broom, 
 from whose golden blossoms is extracted sparteine; 
 and of ladies' fingers, as the children call them, 
 which yield that most powerful and least dangerous 
 of anaesthetics, belladonna. Thus Nature, the great 
 mother, scatters the treasures of her vast pharma- 
 copoeia all along our path in life, enshrining in beauti- 
 ful forms the deadliest of her poisons, the most 
 sanative of her remedies, leaving it to the instinct of 
 her children, as she leaves so much else, to select what 
 is useful and reject what is hurtful or dangerous. 
 
 LXII 
 
 And I argued, Are these pretty, ephemeral things, 
 flaunting their splendours for a moment in the sun- 
 ,.. light and then meekly dying away, of 
 
 "All shall go ! " , ° . , ^ . ^ f ■', ' 
 
 less import to humanity than these 
 fossils, dug out with so much labour from the dei'ris 
 of untold centuries ? Is Science but " a blind man's 
 guess," and "History but a nurse's tale?" or, in 
 other words, shall we place the dead past before 
 the living present, and, just out of curiosity, and 
 just to trace the age of our ancient mother back into 
 the night records of a sealed and buried past, shall 
 
SUMMER 
 
 315 
 
 we undervalue this sunlight and shadow, and this 
 life of plant and flower and animal ? Or shall we 
 sit down here under this hawthorn tree, whose fra- 
 grant blossoms are snowing down upon us, and yield 
 ourselves to the melancholy meditation : 
 
 "So careful of the type she seems. But no! 
 From scarfed cliff and quarried stone 
 She cries: *A thousand types are gone! 
 I care for nothing. All shall go ! ' " 
 
 LXIII 
 
 I took up the piece of stalagmite which Mr. 
 Ussher had kindly given me as a souvenir of my 
 visit to the Tartarean regions of di- 
 vine Science, and asked a curly-headed "' ^ ^^'^^^^' 
 youngster, who was playing with cowslip " dodges " 
 with his younger sister, what it was. He instantly 
 conjectured, "A piece of cake." The sister an- 
 swered, "A piece of bacon." Our intelligent com- 
 missioners of education have not brought geology 
 into our primary curriculum as yet. I brought it 
 home, and exhibited it next day to more advanced 
 thinkers, pointing out the eight different layers of 
 granulated and crystallised carbonate of lime. I 
 was then rash enough to state that, to form a layer 
 of carbonate of lime one-twentieth of an inch in 
 thickness from raindrops, percolating through the 
 roof of a cave, would take from two hundred to 
 two hundred and fifty years ; and that therefore that 
 piece of stalagmite was in course of formation about 
 seven or eight thousand years ! They smiled at 
 me with a patronising air of incredulity. Clearly, 
 science is not going to conquer the world by a mag- 
 nificent couj) de main. 
 
3i6 PARERGA 
 
 Section III 
 LXIV 
 
 There was a stampede of small boys to-day, as I 
 
 approached, during early school-hours, the enclosure 
 
 where a number of circus-waggons, 
 
 A Stampede. . ,, , . i i- j . && ^ 
 
 m all their splendid war-paints, were 
 collected. It was a small, third-rate circus, for the 
 great and mighty ones would not condescend to 
 visit an out-of-the-way village like this. But what 
 does that matter to the small boy ? It was a circus, 
 and that was enough. It was a harbinger of Sum- 
 mer for one thing; and old memories, old sensa- 
 tions, old dreams, old fascinations, began to wake 
 up from under the dread realism that comes from an 
 experience of forty years. As the boys who were 
 playing truant scampered off, an old man said to me : 
 
 " Lave 'em alone, yer reverence ! You don't 
 know what a circus is to a boy ! " 
 
 God bless his old child-heart, and his toothless 
 mouth, and his old wrinkled face ! Not know what 
 a circus is to a boy ? And forthwith up there came 
 from the dark realms of memory pictures and pan- 
 oramas, and with them such dear old tender sensa- 
 tions and associations I could almost have cried for 
 their pathos and tenderness. 
 
 LXV 
 
 " Not know what a circus means to a boy ? " As 
 if I ever could forget the delight, the rapture, the 
 
 enthusiasm that filled my heart, when 
 Boy'.J^'^"^ *° ^ the first flaring posters, three yards 
 
 in length and two in depth, greeted 
 our eyes on our way to school. How the yellow 
 
SUMMER 317 
 
 and red figures and letters, the gorgeous ladies and the 
 immortal clowns, danced before our eyes all day 
 and every day, until the circus came, and blotted 
 out those black and white abominations called 
 books ! How we speculated and guessed and 
 argued and fought over the possible incidents that 
 were to make this circus the einzige, the only one that 
 was worth talking about. How we started from 
 bed at unearthly hours when the first rumble of 
 the monster waggons was heard in the street, and, 
 half dressed, feasted our eyes on the golden sculp- 
 tures of lions and dragons that bedizened the great 
 waggons as they thundered beneath our windows. 
 How, despising such paltry things as mere break- 
 fasts, we hastened to feast our eyes on the few 
 things we were permitted to behold through the 
 iron gates of the enclosure ! With what heavy 
 hearts we went to early school ; and how we envied 
 the courage of the truants, who dared the master's 
 anger (and fast and furious was his anger), and 
 " mitched," " slinged," or " slanged" all the forenoon 
 beneath the cars and ropes and masts that lay in 
 glorious confusion all around ! With what a whoop 
 of delight we trooped out of school, half killing 
 each other in our eagerness ; and watched and 
 watched until, amidst our enthusiastic cheers, the 
 white cone of canvas shot up into the sky, and 
 the red pennant floated proudly across the azure. 
 
 LXVI 
 
 " Not know what a circus is to a boy ^. " As if 
 we could ever forget the rapture, the ecstasy of see- 
 ing the twenty dappled horses come ^^ „ 
 
 ,°, ri 11 1 c The Procession. 
 
 slowly out from beneath the arch or 
 
 the old market-house, and the first thunder of the 
 
3i8 PARERGA 
 
 big drum was heard, and we watched, with a wonder 
 and admiration that never yet was given to a crowned 
 head, the proprietor of the circus aloft in plain 
 clothes, as beseemed his dignity, and holding in his 
 hands the twenty long lassoes or reins of polished 
 leather with which he governed and guided his noble 
 steeds. Talk of Phaeton and his chariot of the 
 sun ; of Mazeppa on his thundering steed ! They 
 vanished into insignificance before the sublime spec- 
 tacle of one man guiding twenty restive horses 
 through a cheering and tumultuous crowd 1 And 
 then the gorgeous bandsmen, and then the dainty 
 carriages, on wheels as high as the Ferris-wheel of 
 Chicago ; and the young ladies, so saucy and so 
 insouciances, clothed in gorgeous habits of blue velvet 
 embroidered in silver, or red velvet embroidered in 
 gold ; and the men, like knights of old on their 
 palfreys, and the boys (oh ! how we envied them) 
 on their little ponies ; and last of all, Grimaldi, the 
 immortal clown, his face painted white with red 
 blotches here and there, and his conical cap and 
 his mock terror as he guided the three prettiest 
 little ponies, and seemed to be always in the act of 
 saving himself from falling. How we cheered and 
 yelled and ran ourselves out of breath when the 
 procession, that had set out in so dignified a manner, 
 returned at a gallop, and the whole gorgeous vision 
 vanished like a dream of the night, when the soul, 
 emancipated, wanders like a spirit in the House of 
 Sleep ! 
 
 LXVII 
 
 " Not know what a circus is to a boy ? " God 
 „ . , ^ bless your old foolish heart, as if 
 
 Fairyland. t i i r i 
 
 1 could ever forget the transports 
 (calmer, I admit, than those with which we watched 
 
SUMMER 319 
 
 the procession, but still transports) when our elders 
 bought our tickets, and we entered triumphant 
 through the canvas avenue that led to elysium ! 
 The odour of the flaring naphtha and the pine-dust 
 on the arena is in my nostrils to-day, just as the 
 fairy visions of ladies, or sylphs, or fays leaping 
 through paper hoops and alighting safely on the 
 backs of the galloping horses, and the terror of the 
 pole-climber, and the antics of the clowns, and 
 the cracking of whips fill the long-closed avenues of 
 eyes and ears 1 Ah me ! what a fairyland is child- 
 hood ! But that, too, is evanescent. Else why did 
 I experience that sinking of the heart, that depres- 
 sion of spirits, when next morning (and the weath- 
 er, although it was May, seemed to accommodate 
 itself to my moods) I watched the vast cavalcade 
 slowly trooping out from the archway, the two 
 great elephants in front, and saw it disappear 
 around the corner, and listened for the last rumble 
 of the waggons as they proceeded to some far-away 
 and happy place, and wondered why there was not 
 a perpetual circus established everywhere for the 
 delight of small boys and the discomfiture of mer- 
 cenary schoolmasters ? 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 Yet is it not a most beautiful provision of Nature, 
 that which stretches out so long that they seem in- 
 terminable those happy days of child- ^, .,^, ^ 
 
 , J , 1 1 '^^••^ ^ Childhood. 
 
 hood, and only hurries us on to our 
 final rest when sorrows fall thick as snowflakes, and 
 we are painfully treading our via dolorosa towards the 
 grave ? Who can ever forget the long, long, sun- 
 shiny days in Summer, when he played down in the 
 deep dell or glen by the river that dwarfed itself. 
 
320 PARERGA 
 
 apparently for his accommodation here, and ex- 
 panded in lustrous shallows there ; and the long 
 green flags and water-grasses waved so beautifully 
 and so lazily in the silent current, and the purple 
 and yellow iris shone resplendent, and the dragon- 
 fly, clad in his iridescent coat of mail, poised himself 
 on invisible wings amongst the rushes and swordlike 
 flags ; and he watched, with childish proclivities 
 towards destruction, the sticklebacks that hid be- 
 neath the primrosed banks and guarded their young, 
 and captured their food in the white caterpillars that 
 tried to bury themselves in the hollow sheaths of 
 decayed branches deep down in the loam and sand 
 of the stream. And our little loves, and our little 
 hatreds ; and the songs that come back so sweetly 
 from the haunted chambers of memory. Ah ! days 
 of childhood, so long and sweet and sunny and un- 
 clouded, save for the dappling of a moment's shower, 
 or the tiny shadow of some cloudlet of sorrow, ye 
 shall not return ! No ! ye shall not return any 
 more for ever! Vale, vale, longum vale! 
 
 LXIX 
 
 But the old man's observation, besides starting 
 these trains of memory, also suggested a thought, — 
 . „ ^ , that really it is a rare virtue, or ac- 
 
 A Rare Talent. i- i i 111 
 
 comphshment or talent, to be able 
 to enter into the minds of others and see things 
 through their eyes. This is especially true of chil- 
 dren. I have met very few, scarcely one, indeed, 
 in a long experience of teachers and preceptors, who 
 had the genius of understanding the child-mind. It 
 is only those who have the power of retrospection, 
 and who can transport themselves in fancy to the 
 days of childhood, it is only those, who can under- 
 
SUMMER 
 
 321 
 
 stand the complex and mysterious associations of 
 that realm which they have left for ever. I have 
 found it impossible to convince parents that their 
 children have, by nature and heredity, the very sen- 
 timents and passions which animated or tortured 
 themselves in childhood and adolescence. Guided 
 altogether by the senses and the exterior, they are 
 utterly incapable of penetrating the secret recesses 
 of the child-mind ; and they seem to have broken, 
 at the outset, the lamp of experience, which, after 
 all, is the very pharos-light of reason, and which 
 would cast its luminous and penetrating rays far 
 down through the intricate galleries of childhood's 
 thoughts and aspirations. And hence the sowing 
 of baneful seeds, and the planting of poisonous 
 habits, right under the eyes of the parents ; for we 
 know well how secretive and close are the minds 
 of children, and how, even under the detective 
 eye of love and anxiety, many a dark thought or 
 darker deed may be entertained and practised with 
 impunity. 
 
 LXX 
 
 And so, too, in the matter of intellectual training. 
 For centuries the course of instruction in our great 
 universities has remained practically ^^ „^.,^ , 
 
 , J ^L . • • J The Child, the 
 
 unchanged. i he same trivtum and Enigma. 
 quadrivium that filled the hours of 
 students in the universities of Paris and Bologna 
 are the curriculum to-day in Oxford and Cambridge; 
 and even if modern requirements shall introduce 
 innovations in scientific and technical details, it is 
 still certain that Oxford will ever be the classical, 
 and Cambridge the mathematical centre to all Eng- 
 land. But in the matter of primary education, there 
 
322 PARERGA 
 
 is eternal confusion and eternal change. The child 
 is the enigma ! From Pestalozzi down to Her- 
 bart, and from Herbart to Spencer and Arnold, 
 educationalists have been puzzled by the infantine 
 mind. They cannot get behind its secrets. The 
 intricacies and mazes of the tiny labyrinth are so 
 many and so delicate that the mature mind cannot 
 push its way through. Hence the ever-changing 
 programmes, the substitution of one scheme for 
 another, the adoption of hand-and-eye training to- 
 day, and psychological training to-morrow, and the 
 doubt that seems to haunt the minds of all that 
 somehow they are on the wrong track, and can only 
 retrace their steps when perhaps infinite mischief has 
 been wrought in the minds of the rising generation. 
 All seem to admit that primary education hitherto 
 has been a deplorable failure both in the develop- 
 ment of the intellect and the training of the senses. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 But in the higher life, I often think that the 
 same inability to penetrate into the minds and under- 
 stand the feelings of others lies at 
 tha^n o??s^^ the root of all these racial and relig- 
 
 ious prejudices that have wrought 
 such havoc to humanity. It is the rarest of rare 
 talents — this of being able to see things through 
 other eyes than ours. If one considers for a mo- 
 ment that each mind has its own idiosyncrasies, and 
 clings to its own infallibility, it is easy to understand 
 the difficulty of reconciling the repellent tendencies 
 and mutual antipathies that must exist between 
 races and religions. Home influences, early educa- 
 tion, later reading of one-sided and prejudiced 
 
SUMMER 323 
 
 books, the interchange of common and hostile ideas 
 on one subject — must of necessity create a bulwark 
 of prejudice that it seems impossible to break 
 through or subvert. We all know the totally ab- 
 surd opinions that are entertained towards churches 
 of different denominations, — towards members of 
 a hostile race, or a hostile political party. In the 
 vast majority of such cases the prejudices are irre- 
 movable and ineradicable. No amount of reasoning 
 can convince ; no appeal can soften. They have 
 never learned to go outside themselves and see 
 through others' eyes. Man, to be wise, must study 
 the vices and virtues of which human nature is 
 capable, first in himself, and then, in all good faith, 
 in others. 
 
 LXXII 
 
 I well remember a distinguished convert to the 
 Catholic Church telling me that, when a boy, and 
 even when he had passed into adoles- 
 cence, he never passed the humble ^^J^l Preju- 
 and modest Catholic church in the 
 city where he lived, without flying past it at racing 
 speed. When I asked him what he dreaded, he 
 answered he didn't know! It was nothing specific; 
 but some vague sensation that there was something 
 inside these walls horrible beyond imagination ; 
 some occult and dark doings, which were not to be 
 examined or approached, but fled from in terror. 
 It was clearly his early education, — the home and 
 Sunday-school teaching that the Catholic Church 
 stood for something unnameable — that it was the 
 symbol of darkness, the outer shell and simulacrum 
 of everything men shrink from and avoid. Prob- 
 ably that man would have carried these prejudices 
 
324 PARERGA 
 
 to his grave if he had not met with some one who 
 saw through his eyes, made account of all his per- 
 verse imaginations, and gradually opened the eyes 
 of his mind to see what horrible and unreal phan- 
 tasms had been haunting it, and how needful it was 
 to employ the prompt exorcism of reason to expel 
 them for ever. And strange to say, this was but an 
 accident, — the accident of his sister's conversion, 
 and the accident of his proceeding to London in a 
 frenzy of zeal and anger, first to remonstrate with the 
 priest who had received her into the Church, and 
 then to convert that priest from the errors of 
 Catholicism. He met his Ananias, and the scales 
 fell from his eyes. 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 But if we were to suppose, per impossibile^ that we 
 could stand by the side of our brothers who differ 
 
 so widely and radically from us, and 
 of^Expedence. ^ith a Sympathy born of Christian 
 
 charity could enter into their passion- 
 ate prejudices and feelings, and make allowance for 
 all the converging causes that led up to this harden- 
 ing of the heart, and think what we ourselves might 
 have been had we been born and educated in similar 
 circumstances, how it would widen our horizon of 
 thought, help us to look around things, instead of 
 merely at them, and help us to deal gently with all 
 those unmeaning and irrational ideas that grow so 
 slowly and take such deep and almost ineradicable 
 root in human souls. The thoughts of men on all 
 possible subjects differ as widely as their features; 
 and even where they externally seem to agree, that is, 
 when placed in words or actions, there is still a pro- 
 found difference. And we must not suppose that 
 
SUMMER 
 
 325 
 
 all the wisdom of world is stored up and centred be- 
 neath the dura mater of our brain, ^i vit sans folic 
 n est pas si sage quil croit ; and whatever wisdom or 
 knowledge we possess comes mainly through ex- 
 perience, which always teaches the kindred and 
 collateral lesson of our own impotence and folly. 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 No man can judge of insanity but the insane. 
 There are as many forms of insanity as there are 
 brain-cells ; and, if you look over the 
 motor and sensory areas, and try to ^^ insane, 
 study the internal construction and ramification of 
 each with its millions of cells, and remember how 
 one diseased cell might easily set up that want of pro- 
 portion in ideas, or that lack of nerve control which 
 we designate as insanity, it is easy to perceive the 
 value of the opinions of experts. There is no stronger 
 argument against capital punishment than the im- 
 possibility of determining who is sane, and who is 
 insane ; and there is something pathetic and tragic 
 in the curious tradition that a man's Hfe may be 
 made dependent on the opinion of two experts who, 
 presumably sane themselves, are utterly unqualified 
 to express an opinion on the condition of the insane. 
 The secret working of the brain-cells of a Plato or 
 a Shakspeare is not more of a mystery to a Hotten- 
 tot, who has just emerged into civilisation than the 
 secret working of the diseased brain is to one who 
 has never had experience in his own mind of that 
 phenomenal, and yet quite common disturbance. 
 Few men pass through life without acting once at 
 least in an insane manner; and if we could read hu- 
 man thoughts as Omniscience does, what a vast and 
 
326 PARERGA 
 
 tumultuous asylum would not this earth appear ! 
 " This beautiful madhouse of the earth," said Jean 
 Paul. " Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound 
 and fury, signifying nothing," saith Shakspeare. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 The senses, the imagination, the words of men, 
 traditions, the habits of life all around us, the stere- 
 j^^j .^ otyped forms and manners of society, 
 
 the lies that are fossilised by the ages, 
 the tricks and pranks that mask deception under an 
 appearance of bonhomie^ and, above all, our own 
 poor selves seem to be engaged in a horrid conspir- 
 acy to make our lives one long delusion until our 
 final consummatum. To know that happiness is in 
 ourselves, and not in our circumstances ; to be able 
 to take the ordinary and accredited beliefs of men 
 and sift them, and examine them, and separate the 
 chaff of folly from the grain of wisdom ; to look 
 out with our own eyes upon the world, and to take 
 sidelights on human happenings and events from 
 others' experience, — is a very rare talent. We run 
 amuck with the crowd when the panic of life seizes 
 us. We follow its train of thought, adopt its hab- 
 its, walk in its ways, although we loathe ourselves 
 for so doing. It is a rare thing to see a strong man 
 step aside and pursue his own course undeterred by 
 human hostile opinion ; who has the strength of 
 silent scorn to uphold him, and let the mad world 
 wag on to destruction. " Oh, all you that pass by 
 the way," saith the beggar with the crucifix, whilst 
 the gay and happy pairs of youthful lovers, conning 
 flowers or toying with jewels, pass down the stair- 
 cases and corridors of life. " Come apart and rest 
 
SUMMER 
 
 327 
 
 a little while," was the sweet invitation of the Divine 
 Being, who knew how easily his poor disciples would 
 throng after the ruck and rout of motley crowds to 
 share in their poor, sickly, and dishonest adulation. 
 " Come apart," — into the desert aloof and alone, — 
 the silent stars above your heads, and the Eternal 
 One by your side. 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 I once knew a man of an imaginative tempera- 
 ment who laboured all his life long under a singular 
 delusion. He was a merchant i" ^ a ^ 
 great city; and, like all other mer- " xamp e. 
 chants, his daily life was the drudgery of living from 
 ten o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the 
 evening in a damp, dirty office, screened away from 
 a vault filled with vast puncheons of wine and spir- 
 its, cobwebbed and grey with the dust of antiquity. 
 The office window, very dirty also, and lined with 
 venerable cobwebs, barely allowed the eye to rest 
 on the blank wall of another warehouse about six 
 feet across a narrow alley. Even in Summer and 
 at noonday the gas flared above his desk ; and 
 through the twilight the figures of men — porters, 
 labourers, customers — passed to and fro all day long 
 to exchange opinions and transact business. The 
 daily programme of the poor slave was : 
 
 Rise at 8 a. m. 
 
 Breakfast at 8.45. 
 
 Train to city. 
 
 Office work from 10 a. m. to 6 p. m. 
 
 Train homewards. 
 
 Dinner at 7 p. m. 
 
 Newspaper. 
 
 Bed, 10 p. M. 
 
328 PARERGA 
 
 Sunday was broken up by a morning service and 
 an afternoon that seemed interminable. He took a 
 yearly holiday at some European watering-place, 
 where he was killed from ennui and society. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 He was a wealthy man, but not a happy man. 
 During his first twenty years, buoyed up and car- 
 ried on by the stream of youthful 
 CeuS^*^^"* hopefulness and ambition, he really 
 exulted in his work, although the 
 frictions of daily life began to wear down his nerves, 
 and the question would persistently arise and refuse 
 an answer: " Whereunto tends all this waste and 
 work ? " Then, one day, he took up a volume of 
 essays dealing with the attractions of country life ; 
 the folly of treading the daily mill until we dropped 
 into the grave ; and the wisdom of saying at some 
 period or other of life, " Soul, sleep now, and take 
 thy rest ! " The idea haunted him for weeks and 
 weeks ; and the recollection of a certain pretty villa 
 down near the sea, where he had spent a few sum- 
 mer weeks, came up at office-time to disturb his 
 serenity, and compel him to think that he was 
 spending all the most glorious years of his life — a 
 slave chained in a cellar. One day, too, a farm- 
 ing acquaintance of his dropped in, and, looking in 
 a half-frightened way about the lugubrious place, 
 said : " Good heavens, man, surely you don't live 
 here? Why, one hour of these wine-smells and 
 spirit-odours would chloroform me into eternity ! 
 Come out, man, and live a human life ! Come out, 
 and see our trees and rivers, and hear the winds 
 whistling, and the brooks laughing, and the birds 
 
SUMMER 
 
 329 
 
 singing, and breathe the honest air of heaven, and 
 not the mephitic vapours of the tomb." The mer- 
 chant shook his head, but the lesson went home. 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 He now bent eagerly to his task, because he had 
 a definite object before him, — namely, to build up 
 as rapidly as possible a fortune that 
 would help him to get away from the i°n?er ^'"^^ 
 chain-gang and the for^at^ and spend 
 the evening of his life in tranquil study (for he was 
 a reader) and calm contemplation and enjoyment 
 of nature unto the end. One morning he noticed 
 a grey patch over his left ear; and he thought, I 
 must push on and work harder, if I am to have time 
 for my evening holiday at the end. And all the 
 time that villa above the sea would float in a misty 
 picture, framed in cloud shadows, but richly gilded, 
 above his dusty, ink-stained desk ; and every night, 
 as he closed the latter with a snap, he looked around 
 and said : " Only a little longer; a few years more, 
 and farewell, you dusty wine-bins and cobwebbed 
 bottles, for ever and ever ! " And then he began 
 to watch the papers for advertisements of sales of 
 seaside villas ; and he began to dream, and dream, 
 and ever dream of vast, beautiful oceans, with the 
 white flame of a sail on the horizon, and long, 
 purple twilights that dreamed themselves away into 
 night, and a dusky library crammed with all pre- 
 cious volumes, and peace, peace, and rest, rest, for 
 the long evening of a happy life ! 
 
330 PARERGA 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 At last the wished-for opportunity seemed to 
 arise in accordance with his wishes. He had seen 
 ^ „ in the late springtime just the thing 
 
 he had dreamed of so long, — the 
 long white villa facing the ocean, the little lawn 
 in front sloping gently downwards ; the sudden, 
 abrupt cliff, the waves crawling or tumbling in 
 hoarse riotousness beneath ; and, behind, the deep, 
 dewy fields of a valley, where a brown cow was 
 grazing calmly, and a few sheep dotted the upland 
 beyond, where the trees fringed the horizon and 
 broke up the blue radiance of the sky. If he could 
 have designed into actual existence the place and 
 the circumstances he had so often desired, it could 
 not have been better framed unto his wishes. With 
 beating heart he read the legend "To Let" on the 
 window-pane, and hastened to inquire — and pur- 
 chase. He was so eager now to get away from the 
 wine-cave and the cellar that he would not hire the 
 place. No ! he should become the absolute owner, 
 so that no man could ever disturb his inheritance of 
 such an elysium. It should be his from the zenith 
 to the nadir, — from the centre of the earth to the 
 dome of heaven ; and no man should venture on 
 the sacred precincts without license or on trespass. 
 He was surprised, almost shocked, to find how little 
 was asked for it. He closed the bargain at once, 
 and became the happy possessor. 
 
SUMMER 331 
 
 LXXX 
 
 Then the ravens began to croak. They pre- 
 dicted that he would tire of the place in a month, 
 in a quarter, at furthest in a year. 
 "Wait," they said, "till November. 
 Wait till the rains come down and the sea is blotted 
 out, and he shall not see from week's end to week's 
 end the face of a human being, except a half-tipsy 
 fisherman or a strait-laced coast-guard. Then he 
 will pine for the electric light and tram, for the roar 
 and bustle of the city." He heard it all, and calmly 
 winked to himself. Envy ! envy ! The bane of 
 gods and men ! The ever-present, never-exorcised 
 demon that haunts all human hearts, and makes 
 them sink at the thought of others' happiness ! 
 No matter: he will go on in spite of all; nay, he 
 will bring down all these croakers in the early Sum- 
 mer and kill them, one by one, by the spectacle of 
 his happiness ! Well, he did bring them down, but 
 happily there was no homicide. They came, ad- 
 mired, rejoiced, and departed. He showed them 
 how easily and pleasantly one could slip down in 
 undress in the early, warm summer morning, and, 
 descending the spiral iron ladder, plunge at once 
 into the glorious sea. He taught them how to 
 lounge, and kill time, and loll upon garden chairs 
 after dinner, and smoke away the long, delicious 
 summer evenings, and play nap in the open air, and 
 drink — sherbet? And if any landsman tired of 
 the sea, he took him to the valley and expatiated 
 upon cows and corn. 
 
332 PARERGA 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 They all admitted that it was glorious, delicious, 
 a fragment of Eden very much improved, because 
 
 for the sluggish Tigris here was the 
 of^de^^"* heaving and restless, the treacherous 
 
 and magic sea. They all said how de- 
 lightful it was to go to sleep with your high windows 
 open, and the breath of the clover was borne into 
 your bedroom with the murmurs of the enchanted 
 sea ; and how transcendently pleasant it was to sit 
 down to one's breakfast after an appetising morning 
 bath, and break your egg or fish whilst you glanced 
 at the broad levels of shining sea before the win- 
 dow. But those evenings, those celestial evenings, 
 when the setting sun empurpled the great cliffs 
 opposite, and the vast mirror of the ocean modestly 
 mirrored in pink and gold the gorgeous decorations 
 of rock and headland ; and tiny feathers of yacht- 
 sails, or the larger canvases of fishing-boats swept 
 as in a hollow mirror from rim to rim of the hori- 
 zon ; and the plash of oars came up from the sea ; 
 and the muffled voices of young girls came borne in 
 upon the warm breeze; and the great moon came 
 up blood-red from her sea-bath and paled into yel- 
 low glory as she mounted her steep escarpment of 
 the sky, — ah, those celestial evenings ! No wonder 
 anxious hearts should whisper, in affected deprecia- 
 tion : " You have no chance of heaven, old man, 
 after this ! " 
 
SUMMER 
 
 333 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 But he would only laugh — the happy possessor 
 always laughs — and puff away at his cigar in happy 
 contentment, and rail at the dusty 
 city, and the noises and the cob- di^^f.* ^ ^"^" 
 webbed cellar, and say : " My dear 
 fellow, half the world does not know what life is." 
 
 And the young men applauded and said : 
 
 " Quite right. When you 've made your pile, it 
 is wise and right to step down and aside, and leave 
 a chance for the young." 
 
 But the old men, although they hankered after 
 such freedom and happiness, whispered to each other 
 as they sped upwards to the city by the evening 
 train : 
 
 " Do you know, I think old seemed to look 
 
 wistfully after us. Wait till November ! I 'd bet 
 a dozen of the best Havanas he'll be back in his 
 office again ! " 
 
 But their wives said : 
 
 " What a delightful place for children to play in 
 for three months of Summer ! What a shame that 
 such a place should be in the hands of a wretched 
 old bachelor ! " 
 
 They had been just praising his cook, and his 
 dinners, and his delicious tea ; they had still wet 
 on their pretty lips : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. , what a Paradise ! " 
 
334 PARERGA 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 And so the weeks sped on. The " Villa " had 
 
 almost become a show place. Every visitor to the 
 
 seaside should see it, and praise it. 
 
 Memory. _,, l 
 
 1 he owner was very nappy. 
 Sometimes, indeed, the days dragged heavily on- 
 ward. It was not always sunshine. There were 
 times when a cold, grey look was on the sea, and 
 the cliffs in the distance across the bay looked black 
 and threatening; and one by one, the visitors were 
 departing for their winter homes, and the faces of 
 the little children began to disappear. Then the 
 terrific tyranny of old habits began to assert itself. 
 The holiday was over ; and every fibre and muscle 
 began to clamour for old occupations, — the never- 
 ceasing, ever-rolling routine of hours consecrated to 
 business, and hostile to slothfulness. He argued 
 and expostulated against the tyranny in vain. He 
 pleaded that he had had a life of unremitting toil and 
 anxiety ; that he had a right to rest in the evening 
 of life ; that he was past labour now ; and that peace 
 and dignity were the rightful perquisites and pre- 
 rogatives of age. In vain ! Every faculty was 
 clamouring for employment, protesting against the 
 degradation of being wasted away in rusty sloth ; 
 and the imagination, spurred by the tyranny of habit, 
 and beaten back upon itself by the frigid aspect of 
 external nature, began to call up with tender and 
 solemn pity the days of labour that had passed ; the 
 fifty years in the warehouse ; and all the many 
 circumstances, which, bald and vulgar and prosaic 
 enough in reality, came now from the caves of the 
 past under the softened and hallowed light of mem- 
 ory, the great transformer, and scene-shifter, and 
 stage-manager of life. 
 
SUMMER 335 
 
 I 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 He tried to shake off the despondency, but in 
 vain. He set himself, during these sad September 
 days, to the task of reading and 
 working. He laid out a programme ^^^°'^ ^"^^" 
 for the winter months. He would read Shakspeare 
 through and through. He commenced. After 
 half an hour's conscientious labour on "Hamlet" 
 he grew tired, and went out. Yes ! there was the 
 calm, irresponsive. Sphinx-like face of the sea, cold 
 and grey like that battered and mutilated demon-face 
 that stares over the desert sands, and seems to be 
 contemplating infinity from eternity. He went 
 back to his beautiful library, sick at heart. The 
 early fires were burning in the grate, — of summer 
 valedictory, of winter premonitory. The beautiful 
 books in all manner of costly bindings gleamed from 
 the shelves ; and between them and above them, 
 shone fair pictures, with deep, rich, gorgeous frames ; 
 and lapping their edges were fairy palms and costly 
 evergreens, purchased in the richest nurseries in the 
 city. What do I want? the man cried. Here is 
 what I have been seeking after for thirty years ; and 
 lo ! it is ashes in my mouth. He went out again. 
 Not a sail flamed across the surface of the deep ; 
 not a fishing-boat made a speck across the grey 
 monotony. And all was silent, songs of maidens, 
 laughter of children, except with the sounds of 
 eternity. 
 
336 PARERGA 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 Two hours to luncheon ! He took his cane and 
 went out. He called on the curate, asked, begged, 
 
 implored him to dine with him. 
 
 He had not troubled much about him 
 while the summer visitors were flitting around. He 
 strolled over the cliffs. A few peasants were digging 
 out potatoes; the white sheep nibbled lazily the 
 short grass ; far beneath, the waves rolled heavily in, 
 heaving as if in gasps of spent energy their bulk of 
 waters against the broken boulders ; the grey, 
 solemn light lay brooding over sea and land; far 
 away, far, far away, on the horizon line, a plume of 
 dark vapour marked the course of a passing ship. 
 And everywhere silence, deep terrible silence as of 
 chaos before the turbulent voices of humanity were 
 heard ; as of a ruined world, when the voice of 
 humanity will be heard no more, — silence, except 
 for the wash of the waters, that would be soothing 
 perhaps to tired and worn nerves, but that now 
 sounded harsh and hoarse in the ears of the man 
 who had passed out of touch with nature, because 
 he had stepped out of his place, and refused to take 
 his part in the vast working-sheds and laboratories 
 of the universe. 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 He lunched with little appetite, and drank more 
 
 than was good for him. Then he lounged along 
 
 , the lawn and smoked cigar after cigar. 
 
 Twenty times he looked at his watch, 
 
 and counted the hours to dinner. He took up 
 
 "Hamlet" again; and remained for some time 
 
SUMMER 
 
 337 
 
 brooding over the soliloquy of suicide. He flung 
 down the book, and went out. He tried to get 
 into conversation with a few rough, weather-tanned 
 fishermen, who lounged up against the quay-wall. 
 He could only elicit a monosyllable. He walked 
 over the cliffs again ; and after another two hours of 
 misery, he returned to dinner. The good-natured 
 curate was there. Two hours passed pleasantly by. 
 Then a sick-call was brought, and the man was 
 again alone, — alone with one word the curate, with 
 no ill intention, had spoken: "How, in God's 
 name, can you live here, after your experience of 
 city life ? " He brooded over it the whole evening 
 through. He went to bed in a cheerless mood, 
 and dreamt that the spirit of the Sea, the Old Man 
 of the Sea, stood beside his bed, and kept murmur- 
 ing all the night through, — " Alone !"" Alone!" 
 "Alone!" He woke up in the dreary dawn, and 
 heard the hoarse wash of the sea murmuring : 
 " Alone ! " " Alone ! " " Alone ! " 
 
 Lxxxvn 
 
 And suddenly, swiftly, as if in a sudden eclipse 
 of light and cessation of sound, the Winter closed 
 in. There never had been so short 
 
 f, rr^i 1 J 1 Winter closes in. 
 
 a bummer. i here had been no 
 Autumn. The days seemed to close up, as you 
 would close a telescope ; and the nights swooped 
 down and hung their raven wings, poised above the 
 desolation of nature, as if they could never close 
 and vanish again. The dreadful loneliness and idle- 
 ness hung heavy on the spirit of the man. He 
 began to loathe the face of the sea. It seemed to 
 stare back on him from its great expanses, cold and 
 
338 PARERGA 
 
 colourless as a corpse ; and the great cliffs beyond 
 seemed to close in like the walls of a grave of gran- 
 ite, so dark and gloomy, so hard and adamantine 
 they seemed. He ceased gazing on the gloomy spec- 
 tacle, and turned aside to the valley. Here, too, 
 was all the aspect of wintry desolation — heavy fogs 
 morning and evening, withered bracken, blanched 
 grass which the cows ate reluctantly, and broken 
 mangolds which his workman had scattered here 
 and there across the field. And if he lifted his eyes, 
 there afar off was the thin dark line of the horizon, 
 where the cold blue light seemed to shiver under the 
 lowering and ragged skies. 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 To accentuate his misery, the morning paper 
 
 brought news of the great city, — of its theatres, 
 
 with new plays and brilliant compa- 
 
 A Crisis. . r • i i j 
 
 mes ; or its concerts, where world- 
 famed artists sang for money or charity ; of great 
 balls with military bands, and long columns of the 
 names of citizens well-known to him ; and the 
 vision of the brilliant and well-lighted city, of its 
 long rows of gas lamps and electric lamps, of its 
 rumbling tramcars, its wet pavements, the crowds 
 of men and women passing to and fro, and all the 
 human and even tender associations which are every- 
 where leagued with great masses of humanity, rose 
 up before him as he sauntered in melancholy mad- 
 ness above the sea, or stared, with his finger in the 
 pages of the unread book, at the coals that sparkled 
 and burned in the grate by his lonely hearthside. 
 It was so sad, nothing but shame and the dread of 
 being laughed at kept him from fleeing instantly 
 
SUMMER 339 
 
 from the uncanny place. Then one day his two 
 servants gave notice simultaneously. It capped his 
 climax of misery. Next evening he was in the 
 city. 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 Although he had been but a few weeks absent, 
 he felt like a stranger in a strange land. The 
 tumult of the streets thrilled him 
 through and through ; the vibration 
 of the tramcar seemed to penetrate his nerves, and 
 he trembled as he rose up awkwardly from the seat, 
 and groped his way with many a stop and stumble 
 towards the entrance. He glided like a shamed 
 ghost through the streets, afraid to be recognised ; 
 afraid of the Hallo^ old man ! which would mean 
 insufferable things. He watched with the interest 
 of a child who had come up to the city for the first 
 time, the lighted shops, the sparkling jewellery, the 
 long counters in warehouses, with their lines of 
 well-groomed clerks and well-dressed girls, curious, 
 watchful, eager ; he sniffed up the odours from 
 the restaurants as a hungry man maddened with 
 the want of food; he could almost have hugged the 
 newsboys, who shouted : E-e-evning Echo-o-o ! At 
 last he stood at the entrance to the narrow street 
 where the offices and warehouses were, and paused. 
 How would he enter? How face the welcome 
 he was sure to receive; or worse still, the smiles 
 and winks of his employes, with their deadly, yet 
 kindly meaning : / told you ! 
 
340 PARERGA 
 
 XC 
 
 He did the wisest thing he could do under 
 the circumstances. He entered the old premises 
 dramatically. That is — he almost 
 EnS"""^*"" leaped in upon the sawdusted flags, 
 
 shouted to the alarmed porters and 
 labourers : " Clear out of my way ! " pushed one or 
 two aside, who thought an escaped maniac had got 
 amongst them, and then took a hop, step, and 
 jump, and landed safely in his old chair beside the 
 grimy, ink-covered desk. When he was recognised 
 there was a shout of laughter, and all was over. 
 The ancient partner came in. 
 
 " You 've come back ? " 
 
 " Yes ! Don't say, for God's sake, ^ I knew it ! ' 
 or * I told you so ! ' " 
 
 " All right ! " 
 
 " I '11 take my old place and hand you back the 
 rhino ! " 
 
 "Very good. 'Twas a tight shave though. 
 McAUister wanted to throw ten thousand into 
 the concern to-day." 
 
 " You did n't ? " with a face of alarm. 
 
 " No ! I expected something. See ! your name 
 is yet on our bill-heads ! " 
 
 " Thanks, old man ! Now, tell me, is the old 
 house let as yet? " 
 
 " I 'm not sure. I think not. The bills were in 
 the window last Sunday ! " 
 
 " Would you — would you — mind seeing after it 
 for me ? " 
 
 " All right. To-morrow, or perhaps Thursday — " 
 
 " Great Scott, man ! Some pedler will have swal- 
 lowed it up by then. Look here! 'T is only five 
 o'clock. Run down to Henry's, will you ? " 
 
SUMMER 
 
 341 
 
 "All right. You 're in the deuce of a fright." 
 
 "No matter. And ask Henry to put in an ad. 
 to-morrow : 
 
 " To be let or sold. Beautiful marine villa; splen- 
 did sea-view ; lawn ; spiral staircase to sea ; beach ; 
 meadow-lands, etc., etc. But — no name ! mind, no 
 name ! " 
 
 "All right ! Of course, you 're coming to us until 
 you settle ? " 
 
 " May I ? You 're too good. But how can I 
 face Kate? She'll torment the life out of me ! " 
 
 " Never fear ! She 's too glad to see you back. 
 And won't the youngsters kick up the deuce of a 
 shindy ! " 
 
 " Gosh ! I hope they will. Let me see. I have 
 time to run down to the London. I must bring 
 them something. You '11 come back, won't you, 
 and tell us about the house ? " 
 
 XCI 
 
 Then he sank into a pleasant reverie, watching all 
 the while the corpulent and pompous puncheons, 
 and seeming to expect every moment . _ 
 
 , r ° 1 ^ • c • A Reverie. 
 
 a salvo from the vast tiers or wme 
 bottles that seemed like tiny batteries of artillery 
 peeping from their loopholes and embrasures. 
 When no one was looking, he stepped softly down 
 from his desk, and going over he actually kissed 
 the steel ribs of an old Jack FalstafF of a whiskey 
 cask, that had shone and glistened in its dusty cave 
 for half a century. Then closing-time came, his 
 partner returned, and he stepped out on the wet 
 pavement again. For a moment he watched the 
 crowd of people passing and repassing, a motley 
 
342 PARERGA 
 
 crowd, made up of every element of humanity, 
 from the young empresses who, clad in their furs 
 and sealskins, seemed to spurn the very flags be- 
 neath their feet, to the poor, decrepit creatures who 
 begged an alms, or the wretched and degraded hu- 
 manity which gathered around the doors of saloons. 
 Then, with a sigh and a little smile he passed on, 
 paused for a moment, and leaned over the parapet 
 of the bridge and saw a Milky Way of lights on 
 quays and ships and waves, and then, humbled and 
 happy, he accompanied his partner to his hospitable 
 home. 
 
 XCII 
 
 A few weeks later he came in as usual one morn- 
 ing to business, put up his overcoat and hat, sorted, 
 » . ^, , opened, and read his letters, wrote 
 
 And Then? , T ' , . ,. , ' , 
 
 his replies, gave his little orders here 
 and there, read the morning paper, and went out to 
 a neighbouring restaurant at the men's dinner hour, 
 for a modest lunch. When one o'clock had struck, 
 and the porters and labourers trooped back from 
 dinner, they found him asleep in his office chair. It 
 was unusual, but they did not mind. "Old age!" 
 they said. Later on in the day, he still slept; and 
 then they thought he was unusually still. They 
 shook him up and called his name. There was no 
 answer, — none until the Great Assize. He had 
 died at his task, — chained as he would have said 
 with bitterness a few months ago, chained like a 
 galley-slave to his tapk. But the bitterness had 
 disappeared under the test of experience. He had 
 died in harness, in the midst of his work ; and what 
 death could be more honourable or desirable ? 
 
SUMMER 
 
 343 
 
 XCIII 
 
 But how did I drift into this story ? I had no 
 notion of telling it. How did it originate ? Oh, 
 yes ! I was philosophising in my own 
 senile way on the difficulty of under- Sapp^ness* °^ 
 standing others and interpreting their 
 thoughts, on the visions of childhood and manhood, 
 on the discontent of general humanity at its concom- 
 itant circumstances, and its sad want of knowledge 
 of the fact that our happiness is not to be sought 
 in our circumstances, but in ourselves. Here our 
 Wordsworth comes in triumphant. The poet of 
 meditation, not of action, he draws us close to his 
 breast, which is the breast of mother Nature, and 
 whispers as to a sick child those little lessons of 
 peace and wisdom nowhere else to be found but in 
 the Book of Life. But, like some hidden nook of 
 Paradise, where the sick and the nerveless and the 
 world-worn fly for a while to get away from the fret- 
 fulness and racket of the world, his philosophy palls 
 upon us, when we regain our strength, and we yearn 
 for the bustle and the fight, — for the strenuous life 
 that is only found amidst the crash and clangour of 
 human interests and human hostilities. 
 
 XCIV 
 
 Shall we take Browning's verdict on Wordsworth ? 
 
 "AH I can affirm is that I treasure as precious every 
 poem written during about the first twenty 
 years of the poet's life; after these, the ^Td"swfr?h. 
 solution grows weaker, the crystals gleam 
 more rarely, and the assiduous stirring up of the mixture Is 
 too apparent and obtrusive." 
 
344 PARERGA 
 
 Or, Professor Jowett's ? — 
 
 " His merits are not exaggerated. At his best, he is so 
 extraordinarily good. But the lyrical poems, * We are 
 Seven,' ' Lesson to Fathers,' ' Star-Gazers ' are many of 
 them poor. 'Lucy Gray' and 'The Pet Lamb' better; 
 but the subject is inadequate, too ordinary. I doubt 
 whether nature can really supply all the comfort which he 
 supposes. The constant reflection on nature is forced, like 
 the constant thought about art. You cannot constantly be 
 watching clouds, or listening to winds, or catching the 
 songs of birds. For a moment they give us repose. But 
 the animal enjoyment of the air and light has a great deal 
 to do with the refreshment of our spirits." 
 
 xcv 
 
 There is a great deal of sense and truth in these 
 observations. And Wordsworth's popularity in 
 A xxr 1^ cj 1 our time (confined exclusively to 
 
 A World-Soul. , , i V l l • i , I ^^ ■ 
 
 the thoughtrul and middle-aged) is 
 due to the fact that his poetry is restful — for a 
 while. It is a sedative for tired brains and nerves. 
 He sets you down on a mountain side, or by a 
 brook, or beneath a tree, and smooths out the 
 wrinkles of care, and soothes you by the peace, un- 
 broken save by the murmur of the brook, or the 
 music of the wind. Readers go to him for the 
 same reason that world-workers, tired from the bur- 
 den of toil and responsibility, seek the Alps and 
 solitude, or the sea-beach for its quiet. But as the 
 Professor says, a healthy mind soon grows tired 
 of all this, and yearns for the bustle and action of 
 life again. Of course, there is a deeper reason for 
 the poet's popularity with such souls as Matthew 
 Arnold or George Eliot, namely, that he supplies a 
 natural for a supernatural religion. This is a species 
 
SUMMER 345 
 
 of Buddhism, a belief in a World-Soul^ animating all 
 things, but only smitten into consciousness when 
 actually incorporated with matter. This Words- 
 worth has expressed and embodied in many poems, 
 but chiefly in the second stanza in the " Ode on 
 Intimations of Immortality." 
 
 XCVI 
 
 This is the Erd-Geist of Goethe that burst upon 
 the terrified eye of Faust, and explained first its own 
 mission in the memorable and oft- ^he Erd-Geist 
 quoted lines commencing : of Goethe. 
 
 "In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm," 
 
 and ending with the tremendous words : 
 
 ** So SchafF' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit 
 Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid." 
 
 I do not know whether the observation has been 
 made by others, but it seems certain to me that 
 Wordsworth must have borrowed a great deal of 
 his philosophy, and not a few of his best lines, from 
 the First Part of Faust. At least I think I can 
 trace a resemblance in thought and diction between 
 many of his most beautiful and lofty reflections 
 and similar ideas in Faust. For example : 
 
 ** Poet. — Give me, oh ! give me back the days 
 When I — I too — I was young. 
 And felt as they now feel, each coming hour. 
 New consciousness of power. 
 Oh, happy, happy time, above all praise. 
 Then thoughts on thoughts, and crowding fancies sprung 
 And found a language in unbidden lays, 
 Unintermitted streams from fountains ever flowing. 
 
346 PARERGA 
 
 Then as I wandered free 
 
 In every field, for me 
 Its thousand flowers were blowing! 
 A veil through which I did not see, 
 A thin veil o'er the world was thrown. 
 
 In every bud a mystery. 
 
 Magic in everything unknown. 
 The field, the grove, the air was haunted. 
 And all that age has disenchanted." 
 
 and this, which also resembles Shelley : 
 
 *• Faust. — The courses of the stars to thee 
 No longer are a mystery ; 
 The thoughts of Nature thou canst seek. 
 As spirits with their brothers speak, 
 // /■/, it is the planet hour 
 Of thy own being.'''' 
 
 or the famous characters in the sign of Macrocosmos : 
 
 " The Worlde of Spirits no clouds conceale, 
 Man's eye is dim, it cannot see ; 
 Man's heart is dead, it cannot feele. 
 Thou, who wouldst know the things that be. 
 The Heart of Earth in the sunrise red. 
 Bathe, till its stains of Earth are fled." 
 
 One quotation more, so like Wordsworth that one 
 could almost believe it was written by him : 
 
 *' Oh ! once in boyhood's happy time. Heaven's love 
 Showered down upon me with mysterious kiss 
 Hallowing the stillness of the Sabbath-Day ! 
 Feelings resistless, incommunicable. 
 Yearnings for something that I knew not of. 
 Deep meanings in the full tones of the bells. 
 Mingled — a prayer was burning ecstasy — 
 Drove me a wanderer through the fields and woods ; 
 Then tears ran hot and fast — then was the birth 
 Of a new life, and a new world for me!''' 
 
SUMMER 
 
 347 
 
 And this last : 
 
 "Yavst {alone). — Yes, lofty Spirit, thou hast given me all. 
 All that I asked of thee, and not in vain. 
 In unconsuming fire revealed, hast thou 
 Been with me, manifesting gloriously 
 Thy Presence — thou hast looked on me with 
 
 love. 
 — Hast given me the empire o'er majestic 
 
 Nature ; 
 Power to enjoy and feel ! 'T was not alone 
 The stranger's short, permitted privilege 
 Of momentary wonder that thou gavest. 
 No, thou hast given me into her deep breast 
 As into a friend's most sacred heart to look. 
 Hast brought me to the tribes of living things. 
 Thus teaching me to recognise and love 
 My brothers in still grove, or air, or stream. 
 And when in the wide wood the tempest raves 
 And shrieks, and rends the giant pines, uproots. 
 Disbranches, and with mad'ning grasp uplifting 
 Flings them to earth, and from the hollow hill 
 Dull moaning thunders echo their descent; 
 Then dost thou lead me to the safe retreat 
 Of some low cavern, there exhibiting 
 To my awed soul its own mysterious nature ! 
 Of my own heart the depths miraculous ! 
 Its secret inward being all exposed ! 
 And when before my eye the pure moon walks 
 High over head, diffusing a soft light. 
 Then from the rocks, and over the damp wood 
 The pale, bright shadows of the ancient times 
 Before me seem to move, and mitigate 
 The too severe delight of earnest thought ! " 
 
 XCVII 
 
 It is quite true that Wordsworth, Christian man 
 as he was, flung "Wiihelm Meister " across the 
 room in a fit of honest and virtuous , . . 
 
 ... .... , Plagiarism. 
 
 indignation ; and it is also true that, 
 
 on the suggestions of Emerson, he took up the 
 
348 PARERGA 
 
 study of the master-mind of Germany again. And 
 I cannot think I am mistaken in saying that there 
 is every probability that he took the germs of his 
 philosophy from that great philosophical poem, 
 from which I have quoted, and the First Part of 
 which saw the light in 1808. This means no de- 
 traction from Wordsworth's honour, no depreciation 
 of his genius. It is now admitted that there is and 
 can be no such thing as plagiarism in great poets. 
 Genius has a right to absorb everything and trans- 
 mute it into its own substance and form. No one 
 complains that every play that passes under the 
 hallowed name of Shakspeare had been actually 
 presented on the boards of London theatres long 
 before the immortal " link-boy " came up from 
 Stratford-on-Avon. And there are very few if any 
 of our great singers who can be called original. If 
 Coleridge purloined from Schelling, Wordsworth 
 might have adapted from " Faust " ; and no one 
 has a right to object. 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 But it confirms the opinion that there is a certain 
 
 naturalism in Wordsworth, and a certain seeking 
 
 after repose, which would be surpris- 
 
 Naturalism. . . * , ,, „, .'^ . 
 
 mg m such an excellent Christian 
 were he not imbued, like his great compeer, with 
 certain forms and doctrines of German transcen- 
 dentalism. Coleridge must have influenced Words- 
 worth. It was inevitable. And he must have 
 indoctrinated him in all those mysteries which then 
 passed as religious from the Rhine to the Oder. 
 And so, as Marcus Aurelius's " Meditations " is the 
 " Gospel for those who do not believe," Words- 
 
SUMMER 349 
 
 worth's nature and its voices are a religion for 
 those who will not accept Christianity. And the 
 repose which he finds under the wings of the Erd- 
 Geist in mountain, vale, and river, has more resem- 
 blance to the Nirvana of the East than to the 
 " warfare " and eternal struggle of the spirit which, 
 in the Pauline theology, are the daily and hourly 
 occupation of the Christian. But that Wordsworth's 
 poetry is an opiate, and a useful opiate to tired and 
 irritable nerves, especially those of genius, is incon- 
 testable ; and hence his poetry will always be a 
 manual in the hands of brain-workers, or the weary 
 seekers after the solution of problems that are 
 insoluble. 
 
 XCIX 
 
 In this connection a few lines from Heinrich 
 Heine may be appositely quoted. Speaking of 
 Goethe, with his cold, sterile crea- „ . 
 
 1 , . , , 1 . Heine on Goethe. 
 
 tions, and his unwholesome doctrine, 
 
 so warmly and widely revived in our days of " Art 
 
 for Art's sake alone," Heine writes : 
 
 " It is true that Goethe also depicted a few of the great 
 struggles of freedom, but he portrayed them as an artist. 
 Christian zeal was odious to him, and he turned from it ; 
 and the enthusiasm for philosophy, which is characteristic 
 of our epoch, he either could not understand, or purposely 
 avoided understanding, for fear of ruffling his customary 
 tranquillity of mind. In his hands the living spirit became 
 dead matter, and he invested it with a lovely and pleasing 
 form. . . . The example of the master misled the disciples, 
 and there arose in Germany that literary epoch, which I 
 once designated as the ' art period,' and which, as I then 
 showed, had a most disastrous influence on the political 
 
350 PARERGA 
 
 development of the German people. At the same time I 
 by no means deny the intrinsic worth of the Goethean 
 masterpieces. They adorn our beloved fatherland just as 
 beautiful statues embellish a garden ; but they are only 
 statues after all. One may fall in love with them, but 
 they are barren. Goethe's poems do not, like Schiller's, 
 beget deeds. Deeds are the offspring of words j but 
 Goethe's pretty words are childless. That is the curse of 
 all that has originated in mere art." 
 
 Lo ! as I write, the Summer has vanished. The 
 days are drawing in with a swiftness and suddenness 
 that are startling. How little sun- 
 shine there is in human lives ! That 
 flushed and ardent maiden, who came to us after 
 her gentle sister of the Spring, seems to have simply 
 looked in at us in these cold northern climes; and 
 then, as if she had discharged a disagreeable duty, 
 rushed back to her own native tropics again. And 
 still, transient as are her visits here, strange to say, 
 but little use is made of them. Hard-worked men, 
 who should have rushed away pell-mell from stifling 
 cities, from their cobwebbed offices and dingy dun- 
 geons, to enjoy the long, sweet, warm days by the 
 sea, and the still sweeter evenings and twilights that 
 stretch on to midnight, put off" their holidays till the 
 days and nights are equal in September, and the 
 Winter is rushing in, jangling his fetters and man- 
 acles of frost. How explain it? I suppose there 
 is only one way, namely, that what man seeks, in 
 the long run, is not, pace Wordsworth and Matthew 
 Arnold, sea, nor sky, nor plain, nor dumb, cold 
 nature at all, but the eternally interesting face of 
 his fellow-man, even when seen through a cloud of 
 
SUMMER 
 
 351 
 
 tobacco-smoke across the green baize of a billiard- 
 table in some primitive seaside hotel, or the thick 
 atmosphere of a continental train anywhere from 
 Calais to Rome. 
 
 CI 
 
 As I closed these random reflections on things in 
 general, I sat in my garden in the twilight of a long 
 summer evening. The sun had set, 
 and the faint light was wavering be- DiSogue" 
 tween day and night. A huge bat 
 was flying round and round in circles that seemed 
 to be grooved for him in the air. Over my head a 
 tiny spider hung down on a single thread. There 
 was an odour of jasmine and mignonette in the 
 warm air. Close to my head was a thick clump of 
 laurel; and one white tea-rose hung her beautiful 
 petals against it as if for support. On the rim of 
 one fair petal was a brown line, the first symptom 
 and harbinger of decay. The air was so still I could 
 hear her say : 
 
 " Why am I sad ? " you ask. " Because in a few 
 weeks, a few days, I shall be dead, — buried there 
 beneath the brown earth, whilst you are a perennial, 
 an immortal ! " 
 
 "And is death an evil, and is immortality on 
 earth a boon .? " asked the spirit of the laurel. 
 
 " Certainly," said the rose. " Even my short life 
 beneath the blue sky, kissed by the winds, fanned 
 by the wings of birds, has been supremely happy." 
 
 " True, but see what is before me ! " said the 
 spirit of the laurel. " I have no Summer like you, 
 because I am not a flower. But I have a Winter 
 before me, and many, many Winters. Think of 
 
352 PARERGA 
 
 eight hours of palHd sunshine, and sixteen hours 
 of darkness deep as the pit; think of the rough 
 winds that tear through me, the frosts that bite me, 
 the snows that lean their icy burden on me, the 
 lightnings that blast me, the men who shear and 
 clip every Httle tiny shoot I put forth, until now, 
 in my old age, I am childless and flowerless as the 
 grave. Oh, my little sister, grieve not. You have 
 been loved. That atones for death. Do not covet 
 an immortality of loveless desolation ! " 
 
 And the rose said : 
 
 " Yea. Be it so. Only let me lean against thee 
 unto the last." 
 
 The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
 C74 891 
 

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