CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
PR 99.025°'"" """""■""y'-lbrary 
 ^''IK,^ P?.«!..?Mothep essays.[By] Wi 
 
 3 1924 013 354 471 
 
THE POET^S POET 
 
 AND 
 
 Other Essays 
 
 WILLIAM A. QUAYLE 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
X 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BV 
 CURTS A JENNINGS. 
 
 First Edition Printed September, 1897 
 Reprinted November, 1897; March, 1899; October, 1901; Decem- 
 ber, 1902; March, 1907; September, 1910; June, 1912; 
 October, 1915 
 
To claim a new message to literary folk 
 
 would be presumptuous. And the author's 
 
 self-justification for this volume is that of a 
 
 lover. A lover's passion makes him voluble. 
 
 The words herein set down are expressions of 
 
 loves historical and literary. And if these 
 
 studies shall stimulate affection for the men 
 
 and works he loves, the author will rest 
 
 content. 
 
 WM. A. QUAYLE. 
 
 3 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB. 
 
 The Poet's Poet, 7 
 
 King Cromwell, 39 
 
 William the Great, of England, 80 
 
 The Greater English Elegies, 124 
 
 Soliloquies of Hamlet and Macbeth, 139 
 
 " The Ebb Tide," 151 
 
 The Jew in Fiction 167 
 
 Robert Burns, 201 
 
 The Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ... 217 
 
 Shakespeare's Women, 246 
 
 * The Deserted Village," 265 
 
 George Eliot as Novelist 273 
 
 " The Ring and the Book," - 292 
 
 Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life, . . . 326 
 
 Poem : An Angel Came, 3$2 
 
 5 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013354471 
 
The Poet's Poet and Other 
 Essays 
 
 The Poet's Poet 
 
 Robert Browning is the poet's poet. And 
 it is a tonic to the soul to recall what sort of 
 man he was. Robert Browning was himself a 
 poem. Pure, virile, versatile, balanced, pro- 
 found, erudite, unsullied with base desire or 
 impure motive; in aspiration outsoaring eagles; 
 in love beautiful as any idyl ever dreamed; 
 with singleness of purpose to be a poet, a poet 
 only; in amplitude of thought swinging across 
 the world; in labors abundant beyond Shake- 
 speare; in character Christian; in faith tri- 
 umphant, and dwelling 
 
 "Nigh to heaven, and loved of loftiest stars," — 
 
 these are set down as main truths which cer- 
 tify Robert Browning to be both poet and 
 poem. And he is the poet's poet because he 
 is a mine from whose exhaustless store gener- 
 ations of poets may dig treasure. He dealt in 
 hints. His poems, says Lowell, "were germs 
 of wholesome ferment for other minds." His 
 
 7 
 
8 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Utterances were seeds, a tree's bulk in an 
 acorn's cup. Poets shall sit before him as 
 painters before a Raphael, and drink inspira- 
 tion which shall prove 
 
 "A joy forever. 
 Whose loveliness increases, and will never 
 Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
 A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
 Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breath* 
 mg. 
 
 The genius of Browning is no more a sub- 
 ject for debate than the genius of Shake- 
 speare. That contemporaries were so slow to 
 appreciate his might is one of the enigmas of 
 our generation. "Here was the greatest Eng- 
 lish poet since Shakespeare," says Edward 
 Berdoe, "pouring out treasures of thought, and 
 we would have none of him." But failure on 
 our part to appreciate this gift of God makes 
 nothing against his genius. Landor was right 
 in saying: 
 
 "Shakespeare is not our poet; but the world's. 
 Therefore for him no speech! and brief for thee, 
 Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 
 No man hath walked along our roads with step 
 So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 
 So varied in discourse." 
 
Tbe Poet's Poet 9 
 
 Mabie was rig'ht: "Since Shakespeare, no 
 maker of English verse has seen life on so 
 many sides, entered into it with such intensity 
 of sympathy and imagination, and pierced it 
 to so many centers of its energy and motive." 
 
 Professor Corson was right: "Browning 
 is the most like Shakespeare in his deep in- 
 terest in human nature, in all its varieties of 
 good and evil;" "and he has worked with a 
 thought-and-passion capital greater than the 
 combined thought-and-passion capital of the 
 richest of his contemporaries." 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whp loved her 
 poet and wrote, celebrative of that love. Son- 
 nets from the Portuguese, has said: 
 
 "Thou hast thy calling to some pakce floor. 
 Most gracious singer of high poems. 
 Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! 
 Unlike our uses and our destinies. 
 Our ministering two angels look surprise 
 On one another, as they strike athwart 
 Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art 
 A guest for queens to social pageantries 
 With gazes from a hundred brighter eyes 
 Than tears can ever make mine, to ply thy part, 
 Of chief musician. What hast thou to do 
 With looking from the lattice lights at me, 
 A poor, tired, wandering singer?" 
 
lO Tfie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 I repeat, I do no more argue the genius of 
 Browning than the genius of Shakespeare. 
 
 Raise this question, What is Browning's 
 weakness? And allow him to have blemishes. 
 We render no service in denying truth. Such 
 championship is treason. No artist is perfect. 
 No poet can claim infallibility in technique. 
 So allow he has faults, such as a lack of sense 
 of proportion, involved thought and treat- 
 ment, infelicitous captions, and apparent cru- 
 dity of style. 
 
 Browning's lack of sense of proportion 
 grows out of his surprising affluence of 
 thought. He sees all, and will tell all. This 
 is the fault of sunlight. It transcribes the 
 whole landscape. It goes into details, forgets 
 nothing. Have you seen a forest mirrored in 
 the quiet of an autumn stream? Did the light 
 forget anything? The sky, gray as a tired face, 
 lay sleeping in the stream. The banks with 
 violet leaves huddled together; with sumacs, 
 stout color-bearers holding up their banners 
 of flame which the morrow would tear to tat- 
 ters; with broken branches lying where the 
 wind had thrown them down and forgotten 
 them; with a patch of grass still green, though 
 all but covered with leaves whose beauty was 
 
The Poefs Poet " 
 
 a memory — ^the bank lay anchored in the 
 stream Hke a boat. And the tall trees girt 
 round with strength, defying storms, the lordly 
 trunk, the graceful drooping of the swaying 
 branches, the exquisite tracery of the maple 
 bark, the clinging ivy whose blushes had not 
 quite faded from the cheek — the trees in this 
 dear woodland seemed rooted in the stream. 
 And the light, rare painter, had forgotten noth- 
 ing. Such vision had Browning, and would 
 photograph the world. "This and this I saw," 
 is what he tells you. He was seer. Nothing 
 eludes him. What not to write was more a 
 trouble to him than what to write. His genius 
 needed narcotic, not stimulant. He sees so 
 much, too much for artistic effect. His very 
 genius was his hurt. Walt Whitman has no 
 trouble about proportion. His ideas are scant 
 as December leaves. Gray was an unusual 
 artist, and experienced no difficulty in subor- 
 dinating parts, because his poet's thought was 
 as scantily furnished as a poor man's parlor. 
 Thoughts were his trouble : while with Brown- 
 ing superabundance is the peril. Poe, genius 
 and artist as he was, wrote his music in one 
 key. One thought stands in the foreground 
 of all his verse. But Browning? Thought, 
 
12 Tbt Poet's Poet and Otfier Essays 
 
 imagination, resources of poetry crowded his 
 mind like an o'erfull fountain. His poems are 
 a wilderness, in whose tangle of vine and 
 undergrowth and trees you find your way hid- 
 den and hindered. The richness of the soil 
 was the traveler's hindrance. 
 
 And his poems are involved. Scarcely one 
 of them which would not bear the prelude of 
 an explanatory note. They are dark rooms, 
 needing a lifted curtain to discover the hidden 
 wealth of statue and picture. In his poems 
 we do not know where to begin. The han- 
 dling is abstruse. The wealth of thought be- 
 wilders. We have lost the points of the com- 
 pass. The movement is so involved, so un- 
 usual, as to appear a process of bewilderment. 
 Tennyson keeps straight on. To follow the 
 course of a stream is not easier than to follow 
 him. Browning impresses us at first acquaint- 
 ance as not so much taking a journey as going 
 on a ramble. His flight is as of a bird to 
 whose wing fatigue is unknown. Browning is 
 mystifying. We never feel quite sure we have 
 his meaning. He keeps somewhat back. 
 Though in many of his poems, if a clue be fur- 
 nished us, the central truth is plain: yet with- 
 out that tlue we walk in darkness. Consider 
 
The Poet's Poet 13 
 
 the following poems: "Abt Vogler," "How it 
 Strikes a Contemporary," "A Toccata of Ga- 
 luppi's," "Andrea Del Sarto," "Fra Lippo 
 Lippi," "Bishop Blougram's Apology," and 
 even "Saul." Not to understand time, place, 
 person, is to find yourself nonplused; but once 
 understood, how intoxicating the poem is! 
 The "Grammarian's Funeral" stirs pulse like 
 a battle's shout and tumult. "Fra Lippo 
 Lippi" is such a study of lust in relation to 
 art as opens a new page of soul-life to our 
 eyes. A "Toccata of Galuppi's" reincarnates 
 the voluptuous life of Venice on the seas as 
 not all history knows to do. "Abt Vogler" 
 and "Andrea del Sarto" are studies in artist 
 psychology; the one in sound, the other in 
 color, from whose witchery we know not how 
 to escape. "Saul," open as it appears, is in- 
 tricate in movement. One of the great poems 
 of the century, it always bewilders. In Brown- 
 ing you never can be sure of yourself. You 
 have a haunting fear lest the meaning you 
 attach is not the poet's meaning; and that he 
 is covertly laughing at you. Still, this very 
 uncertainty comes to be a supreme attraction. 
 We do not drink from empty cups nor from 
 dry springs. In reading this poetry, the thrill 
 
14 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 of discovery is on you. Each new perusal 
 gives a new intent of the poem. You feel a 
 navigator in uncharted seas. I will not thank 
 you for fountains if I can drink them dry. I 
 thank you for the exhaustless. And Brown- 
 ing tantalizes you: he will give you room, 
 sea-room, and a boat, and cry, "Set sail!" 
 
 Browning's titles for his poems are infelic- 
 itous. Some of them are execrable. "Red 
 Cotton Night-cap Country," "A Bean-stripe: 
 also Apple-eating," "Prince Hohenstiel- 
 Schwangau, Savior of Society." We rebel 
 against these titles as we would grow outraged 
 with a surly porter at a gate. There is art in 
 naming poems; and there is something in a 
 name. True, a name comes to be beautiful 
 to us from association with the owner, just as 
 a face does. Some common names are music 
 because of those who bear them. Alfred 
 Tennyson seems a rare name for a poet, as 
 does Robert Browning; but presumptively it 
 is because these men were poets of so great 
 gifts. But some names are intrinsically sweet. 
 ([^It would be hard for a woman who bore the 
 name of Mary not to be lovely!) Shakespeare 
 displayed art in naming his plays, but rarer 
 
The Poet's Poet 15 
 
 art in naming his women. I think he never 
 gave a woman an unlovely name. If she were 
 foul at heart, he would give her this one prop- 
 erty of beauty. Jessica, Miranda, Desdemona, 
 Cordelia, Juliet, Ophelia, Imogen, — why, these 
 names are essential music. And Tennyson is 
 artist in choosing captions for his poems. 
 Arden, Ulysses, ^none, Vivien, Elaine, Enid, 
 Guinevere, — ^these seem to me sweet as the 
 sound of a lute at night. But Browning was 
 careless of these things. Some of his poems are 
 exquisitely named. "Evelyn Hope," "Cleon," 
 "Death on the Desert," "Pheidippides," "Blot 
 in the 'Scutcheon," "Luria," "Sordello,"— who 
 could fault such captions? His women are 
 often gracefully named ; witness, Mildred, Pippa, 
 Colombe, Michal, Palma, Pauline, Constance, 
 Evelyn, and the like. But one thing is clear: 
 he took no large pains with titles. He ought. 
 The portico is something. Often his titles are 
 like the poems, hints; more, they are riddles. 
 But in the main the poems bear descriptive 
 titles, and the poem when read justifies the 
 title. Such are: "Pippa Passes," "In a Bal- 
 cony," "In an Inn Album," "Pietro of Abano," 
 "The Two Poets of Croisic," "In a Gondola;" 
 
I6 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 but I make no doubt that this carelessness in 
 caption is responsible for many a reader turn- 
 ing away, leaving the poem unread. 
 
 And Browning's style of expression is ob- 
 jectionable. His verse is certified to be crude; 
 and so in many instances it is. "Sordello" rep- 
 resents this literary opaqueness, as in a greater 
 or less degree many other poems do. We 
 must admit he is careless, ragged sometimes, 
 slovenly often. Sometimes his verse is not 
 poetry at all, as in "Mr. Sludge the Medium." 
 Shakespeare, without a word of explanation, 
 stepped out of poetry into prose: this Brown- 
 ing does; and the objection to be offered is 
 that he does not label it prose. Stedman 
 quotes with approval the estimate of a friend 
 to this effect: "His work seems that of a grand 
 intellect painfully striving for adequate use 
 and expression, and never quite attaining 
 either;" but I am not of those who concur in 
 Stedman's judgment. Browning, as I read 
 him, was not incapable of exquisite grace or 
 music. When he elected to be, he was as 
 musical as laughter. "Evelyn Hope" is idyllic 
 in sweetness. "Meeting at Night" and "Part- 
 ing at Morning" are beautiful as the love they 
 celebrate. Nobody forgets the song in "Pippa 
 
The Poet's Poet I? 
 
 Passes;" and the words Henry sung under 
 Mildred's window are exquisite as the faultless 
 lyrics in "The Princess." Have you read many 
 sweeter things than the lyric which introduces 
 "The Two Poets of Croisic?" 
 
 "Such a starved bank of moss 
 Till that May morn. 
 Blue ran the flash across: 
 Violets were born. 
 
 Sky — what a scowl of cloud 
 
 Till near and far, 
 Ray on ray split the shroud: 
 
 Splendid, a star! 
 
 World — how it walled about 
 
 Life with disgrace 
 Till God's own smile came out: 
 
 That was thy face." 
 
 Passages by the score could be selected 
 which would justify this claim. The closing 
 of the Pope's monologue in "The Ring and 
 the Book" is deathless music and deathless 
 poetry. I think it evident, therefore, that if 
 Browning was not always musical, it was not 
 because his was not the musician's gift. Many 
 of his lines are as noble as Marlowe's, and his 
 lyrics as dainty as a child's singing in the sun. 
 
iS The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 I go further. In Robert Browning's style is 
 a phenomenal conjoining of meter to thought. 
 Perhaps no English poet has equaled him in 
 this regard. While often not musical, he is 
 at one with his theme. The meter in "The 
 Pied Piper of Hamelin" dances like the chil- 
 dren who followed the piper's music. "How 
 They Brought the Good News from Ghent 
 to Aix" — ^well, we can hear the drum-beat of 
 the horses' hoofs as, with distended nostrils, 
 with panting flanks and foam-flecked sides, 
 they galloped toward the announcement at 
 Aix. "Mr. Sludge" has for theme the ex- 
 posure of a humbug; and the style, uncouth as 
 it is, is adapted to the theme. The lawyer's 
 arguments in "The Ring and the Book" are 
 in cast of argument and style not less admira- 
 bly adapted for what they were intended than 
 Caponsacchi, Guido, Pompilia, or the Pope. 
 I may illustrate my meaning lucidly from 
 "Caliban upon Setebos." In no one of this 
 poet's productions is the style more distorted. 
 You seem walking over the marl of an f xtinct 
 volcano. You can imagine nothing purporting 
 to be poetry more wrenched and misshapen. 
 But consider that in no one of his series of psy- 
 chological studies is Browning's genius more 
 
The Poet's Poet 19 
 
 incontestable than in "Caliban upon Setebos." 
 Caliban in Shakespeare's portrait was little 
 raised above the brute. He is Prospero's ani- 
 mal, cowed, mastered, but brutal and vin- 
 dictive. Browning conceives this poor savage 
 as a speculator in theology. He lies face 
 downward in the slush bordering the sea. He 
 looks downward, as if anybody could get a 
 sight of God without looking upward! Cal- 
 iban's notion of God must be of the murkiest. 
 God is an overgrown Caliban, mayhap a 
 greater Prospero. Caliban's ideas must be dis- 
 torted: his expressions will also be tangled, ir- 
 relevant, shapeless. To me, "Caliban upon Sete- 
 bos" appears a triumph of form as of debased 
 psychology, which grows more astonishing 
 each time I read it. So, then, our conclusion 
 is. Browning's style is far from the crude and 
 abnormal creation many imagine it; often 
 rude, oftener musical or adapted in the highest 
 artistic sense to the part it was to play. 
 
 Thus far we have considered Browning's 
 faults. Our attitude has been negative; but 
 criticism is not the art of finding fault as some 
 suppose, but is rather the art of discriminative 
 observation. Destruction is not criticism in 
 any valid sense. The negative in it corre- 
 
20 The Poet's Poet and Other Basays 
 
 spends to the clearing away the debris pre- 
 paratory to construction. So the critic's chief 
 and nobler business is to discover merit, as a 
 navigator, continent and sea. Criticism is con- 
 structive, and must never content itself with 
 negative processes. To name the faults of 
 Browning, as the faults of any man or poet, is 
 an easy task, since they are apparent. Faults 
 lie in plain sight, while the massive genius of 
 him remains to be discovered. Fault-finding 
 is a superficial business, but discriminative 
 discovery of merit is a profound business. To 
 dismiss Browning as a certain critic did, call- 
 ing his poetry simply "Trash," is a crude but 
 easy process. Let ours be the manlier method 
 of allowing faults where faults exist, but mak- 
 ing our chief concern to discover worth. 
 
 And what is Browning's strength? And 
 this word is apt, seeing he was what he was. 
 Browning is virile. We know it is a man's 
 voice we hear. Allow his strength to be dimly 
 outlined in the following enumeration: Fe- 
 cundity; wealth of theme, knowledge, and 
 thought; dramatic power; profound psychol- 
 ogy; Christian attitude; and inspirational 
 value. 
 
 Browning rivals all our great poets in his 
 
The Poet's Poew 21 
 
 afHuence of creation. Corson says: "His is the 
 largest body of poetry produced by any one 
 poet in English literature." A river formed 
 by innumerable rivulets among the hills — sil- 
 very threads which go afar and drink waters 
 from mossy bank and dewdrop from the 
 morning flowers — a river thus formed is beau- 
 tiful, and its origin has all the grace of poetry; 
 but a river spouting from a fountain, a river 
 at the first, is thrilling as a storm at sea. There 
 is such prodigality of power in Browning. The 
 heavens hold the stars and the oceans, and are 
 not full. This poet has like limitless capacity. 
 He gave in spendthrift fashion, withholding 
 nothing; yet are his powers not exhausted. 
 He, as his own Sordello, was found dead, and 
 death put stop to his music. But had he lived! 
 We no more conceive his productiveness run 
 dry than that of Shelley or Keats, though his 
 life was the age of both. "The Ring and the 
 Book" is epic in size, conception, and treat- 
 ment. Stedman has rightly said of it: "Yet 
 the thought, the vocabulary, the imagery, the 
 wisdom, lavished upon this story would equip 
 a score of ordinary writers, and place them 
 beyond danger of neglect." His resources 
 wring wonder from us as the mountains do. 
 
22 The Poet's Poet and Otiier Essays 
 
 Browning's wealth of theme, thought, and 
 knowledge constitute the second ingredient 
 of his genius. To sit at twilight and barely 
 run over the titles of his poems, will make you 
 query whether you have not inadvertently 
 named some productions belonging to an- 
 other. Such range of theme has not been ap- 
 proached by any other poet. Shakespeare has 
 been distanced here. Browning seems an 
 eagle which, winging flight above the world, 
 saw all his shadow fell across. He is as at 
 home in history as in his own garden. Nothing 
 is foreign to him. The Orient, Greece, Medi- 
 aevalism, and the nineteenth century are all 
 his home paths. "Ferishtah's Fancies," "Ba- 
 laustion's Adventure," "Filippo Baldinucci on 
 the Privilege of Burial," "James Lee's Wife," 
 "Ivan Ivanovitch," are themes taken from the 
 world and the centuries. He is as much at 
 home in Mediaeval Italy as Dante. He is 
 saturated with its history as a floating spar 
 with the salt seas. Nor is it outline he grasps, 
 but minutiae. His knowledge is copious to the 
 point of tediousness. He has gone into many 
 fields; yet not as gleaner, but as reaper. 
 Anachronism in the unessential there is with 
 him as with Shakespeare, but anachronism of 
 
The Poefs Poet 23 
 
 spirit there is not. He is the poet of early 
 Christianity; witness, "Cleon" as the decadence 
 of heathendom and philosophy, and "The 
 Medical Experience of Karshish," and "Death 
 in the Desert." He is poet of the Jew: "Saul," 
 "Rabbi ben Ezra," "Jochanan Hakkadosh," 
 "Holy-cross Day." He is the poet of Prot- 
 estantism: "The Bishop Orders his Tomb," 
 "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," "The 
 Heretic's Tragedy," "Christmas Eve," and 
 "Easter Morning." He is the poet of music, 
 none like him, as witness "Master Hugues of 
 Saxe-Gotha," "Abt Vogler," "A Toccata of 
 Galuppi's." He understood music in a pro- 
 found fashion, as a study of these poems will 
 testify. He is the poet of painting: "Pictor 
 Ignotus," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Andrea del 
 Sarto." He is poet of history, as you may 
 see: "Protus," "Strafford," "Luria," "Clive," 
 "King Victor and King Charles." He is 
 the poet of the heart, as testify "Colombe's 
 Birthday," "A Soul's Tragedy," "In a Bal- 
 cony," "Blot in a 'Scutcheon," "La Saisiaz." 
 He is poet of the intellect: "Sordello" is the 
 poet, "Paracelsus" is the student; and all he 
 has written is interpenetrated by the largest 
 intellectuality. And he is specially the poet 
 
24 Tbe Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 of our own century. A stream will glass every 
 form of bird or cloud which floats above it: 
 so Browning glasses our century. Its pro- 
 foundest life is what he handles: its profound- 
 est problems he probes. He knows the ques- 
 tions of the centuries are the same; but that 
 the age gives color to the immortal queries as 
 cathedral windows to white light. So we may 
 safely call Browning the profoundest philos- 
 opher of our era, and the exponent of its 
 largest life. Even this imperfect statement will 
 make plain that he is universal in theme and 
 knowledge. Besides, in this treatment is noth- 
 ing superficial. His thought digs deep. Who 
 follows the movement of his sword must have 
 a quick eye, and who gets not lost nor be- 
 wildered in following this poet must be pos- 
 sessed of an intellect singularly acute. 
 
 Browning is always dramatic, and has writ- 
 ten the solitary great tragedies since Shake- 
 speare. Burns is always lyric, Keats narrative, 
 Wordsworth didactic, but Browning invari- 
 ably dramatic. His instinct is the actor's. 
 His lyrics, with few exceptions, are dialogfues. 
 He dubbed himself, 
 
 "Robert Browning, writer of plays." 
 
The Poet's Poet 25 
 
 And in such monologues as the Pope's in 
 "The Ring and the Book," he carries on dia- 
 logue with himself. In this poet we are never 
 spectators: we are participants. His narrative 
 poem, "Flight of the Duchess," is practically 
 dramatic as "Pippa Passes." The energies 
 of a mighty age this poet preserved in dramas, 
 which, while not adapted to the theater, are 
 greatly adapted to the human soul. "In an 
 Inn Album" is as black with hypocrisy as 
 lago. "In a Balcony" is steeped in love as 
 Merchant of Venice. "Pippa Passes" is as 
 graphic a study of conscience as Macbeth. 
 "Blot in a 'Scutcheon" is tragic as Romeo and 
 Juliet. "A Soul's Tragedy" is penetrative in 
 insight into character as Hamlet's dissection 
 of motive and character of King Claudius. 
 "Colombe's Birthday" is as lovely a comedy 
 as the Tempest. And as part of this dramatic 
 equipment, mention humor. Nature mixes 
 smiles and tears. Laughter is native to us as 
 weeping. Mrs. Browning mentions how babes 
 
 "Smile in sleep when wondered at for smiling." 
 
 Humor imports laughter. Shakespeare 
 was prince of humorists, as he was prince of 
 poets; and there is ever a smile lurking in his 
 
26 Tfie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 eyes, even when they are filled with tears. 
 Jack Falstaff is the merriest jester artist ever 
 created. His braggart speech and impudent 
 lying do us good as a medicine. He is Shake- 
 speare's extravaganza; but in some form, 
 humor is on every page. It stands close even 
 to the grave. But Browning is no humorist 
 to depict a Falstaff. His is rather the humor 
 of Hamlet, biting as the night air on the mid- 
 night terrace of Elsinore. Browning is ironist. 
 He will laugh, shame things out of the world 
 as Cervantes did ; for there is no arguing down 
 laughter. "Mr. Sludge the Medium," if 
 viewed as a piece of irony, is captivating. Had 
 Stedman taken that view, he would not prob- 
 ably have excoriated this scene as he did. 
 Browning deals in the grotesque. "Fra Lippo 
 Lippi" is as shrewd humor as lives. Because 
 the poet does not hold his sides in laughter, 
 we are not to suppose he never cracks a joke. 
 He is as a Scotchman who jests, but does not 
 laugh. His humor is not rollicking like that 
 of the king's fool; is not hilarious like Hosea 
 Biglow, nor genial as in Charles Lamb; but 
 neither is it saturnine as in Swift. Browning 
 satirizes folly. He will show the ludicrousness 
 of pretense and hypocrisies. "The Ring and 
 
The Poefs Poet 27 
 
 the Book" is full of the most delicious humor. 
 On the way from or to tragedy he will have 
 folly make itself a laughing stock. "Up at a 
 Villa," "Down in the City," are straightly funny, 
 and "Holy-cross Day" is riotously grotesque, 
 Browning is psychologist. His theme is 
 soul. He is not dealing with surfaces, but 
 with the deeps. He works from within out; 
 is no painter, but binds soul on the rack, and 
 makes it tell its secrets. Study Browning al- 
 ways from this point of view, if you would 
 comprehend him. Note you, he will take 
 classic themes, but never to treat them as other 
 poets do — give a look at their ravishing my- 
 thology. Bayard Taylor's "Hylas," Keats's 
 "Hyperion," Swinburne's "Atalanta in Caly- 
 don," Tennyson's "Ulysses" and "Mnone," 
 represent the current method, and bewitching 
 it is; but Browning will pass the mythology 
 element by unheeded, and supply a study of 
 motive. What a study "Cleon" is! Look at 
 his "Echetlos," the unnamed warrior of Mara- 
 thon, or "Pheidippides," the annunciator of 
 Marathon's victory. He looks not so much 
 on the laughing waters of the seas as he sounds 
 the depths. I know not any poet who attempts 
 doing in psychological studies what Browning 
 
28 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 does. Caliban is a study in anthropomorphism 
 bewilderingly great. "Bishop Blougram's 
 Apology" is a study of an unexpected sort. 
 "Experience of Karshish" is profound. 
 "Death on a Desert" goes deep into the Chris- 
 tian consciousness. "Saul" is a march of 
 majesty in its exegesis of man's life in its en- 
 tirety. "The Statue and the Bust" is a weird, 
 wonderful, and solitary study of soul hunger, 
 and the teaching of the fable, if restricted to 
 the author's moral, is signal: 
 
 "And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
 Is the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin." 
 
 A flower blooms because the secret of 
 bloom is at its heart. Blossom is native 
 speech. Browning is as exactly natural because 
 in him the life of the soul speaks. His exacti- 
 tude of utterance grows on you. That one 
 man could have thrown himself into so many 
 souls, and have spoken their speech with never 
 a failure of tone, is the marvel pre-eminent of 
 Robert Browning. It is the heart he speaks 
 for. The most intellectual of poets, he is yet 
 because of deep insight into the soul the apos- 
 tle of the heart. All life's fire burns hot in 
 him: life as a whole shall be his theme. The 
 
The Poef • Poet 29 
 
 purely intellectual will delight him like moon- 
 rise. "The Grammarian's Funeral" speaks for 
 the scholar, as Tennyson's "Ulysses" for the 
 warrior. Aspiration finds a voice in "Rudel 
 to a Lady of Tripoli." In Emerson, the cultur- 
 istic element has quenched the fire of poetry, 
 so that his poems are gray ashes. In Matthew 
 Arnold, poetry dried up, an exhausted fountain. 
 With Browning, intellectuality, splendid as a 
 midday sun, was found to be consonant with 
 heart, which spake for the race of women and 
 of men. Love has had few special pleaders 
 like Robert Browning. 
 
 And he was distinctively religious. Moun- 
 tain air is saturated with odors of the pine, but 
 not more so than Browning's poetry with the 
 Christian spirit. He is optimist, not because 
 he is blind, but because he is Christian. He 
 saw the hills beyond the hills. He has two 
 horizons. He is rebel against mere matter. 
 He is no agnostic. In a doubt age he was 
 "Very sure of God." 
 
 He was as a soldier in the midst of battle: 
 unperturbed, even triumphant. 
 
 "God rules in his heaven, 
 All 's right in the world," 
 
30 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 is what Pippa sings, and is the adequate ex- 
 pression of the Christian attitude. All he 
 wrote was flooded with immortality, as a lake 
 with silver when the moon is risen. Such a 
 staff as "La Saisiaz" props weakness up as if 
 it were a ship's mast we leaned upon. 
 
 "I but open my eyes — and perfection, no more and 
 
 no less, 
 In the kind I imagined full fronts me, and God 
 
 is seen God 
 In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul, 
 
 and the clod." 
 
 "Saul" is the philosophy of the Christian 
 life. Tennyson is theist ; Browning, Christ-ist. 
 Christ is omnipresent in Robert Browning. 
 
 And Browning is an inspirer. The noblest 
 form of literature is inspirational. Encyclo- 
 paedia knowledge is primary and puissant in 
 its way, but gropes along a narrow way. It 
 lacks outlook. It is where a voice calls roe to 
 lift eyes from my common task that the voice 
 becomes potential and useful. Wordsworth 
 says of Milton's sonnet. "In his hand the thing 
 became a trumpet." 
 
 And this characteristic must appear in all 
 true poetry: it inspires. Nor must this uplift 
 pe translated with dull literality. It means 
 
The Poet's Poet 3 1 
 
 much, and its fingers sweep many keys. A 
 great idea startles, arouses by sheer majesty. 
 From such comes intellectual uplift. To look 
 at a thought, be it cold as the dreary North, 
 is an inspiration not to be undervalued. Its 
 labor is eventful in human life. A great 
 thought, whatever its compass, must charm 
 like the sound of a lover's lute. Some 
 thoughts uplift by their beauty. Calm as even- 
 ing, or full of life as a rippling, flashing tide 
 breaking in music on the shore, with beauty 
 for a possession, there is uplift for the soul. 
 Some thoughts have elevation and catholicity, 
 which upbear as the sea a vessel's bulk, seem- 
 ing to touch every faculty of the soul, and 
 possessing power of penetration and diffusion. 
 This effect is indescribable, but perceptible 
 and blessed. In such qualities lies inspira- 
 tional value. I make high claim for Brown- 
 ing here. His verse is often as the hills he 
 graphically describes, 
 
 "Short, sharp, broken like an old lion's cheek teeth :" 
 
 yet the thinker can but be inspired by the 
 omnipresence of thought. Some, even much 
 of his verse is as the verse of Edward Lear — 
 having a profounder meaning than appears to 
 
32 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 a casual reader. Literary opaqueness is not to 
 be construed as depth, but depth there may 
 be despite literary opaqueness. Browning has 
 both the one and the other. His poems grow 
 on us as Nature does. No man can measure 
 their full mass at once. There is always, I 
 may say, the impression of an unsuspected 
 reserve of power, thought, feeling, and beauty. 
 One cares to reread, to go over and over, as he 
 retraces a path in a fair woodland by a brook 
 in autumn. Some of his poems seem huge 
 boulders, flung to lie jagged and massive in 
 their imperial strength: others the tenderest 
 speech of an o'er tender heart; and others ap- 
 pear the stride of a conquering faith. 
 
 In poetry, the two high peaks of the Vic- 
 torian era are Tennyson and Browning. 
 These two are masters. Two men could not 
 differ more in nature or technique. Each is 
 a poet : each is great : each knows what strings 
 have music in them. Neither is a Swinburne, 
 whose poetry is mostly exoteric. They have 
 the subtle, incommunicable insight compel- 
 ling poetry, which seizes the faculties of the 
 soul, and uses them as Apollo the reed he 
 holds. Poetry with Tennyson is not mere 
 form: it is essence. Perfect in metrical 
 
The Poefs Poet 33 
 
 mechanism, the poet's thought is more perfect 
 still. Tennyson and Browning are contem- 
 poraries fit to be intrusted with the destiny of 
 the imperial English speech for half a century. 
 These are poets, with the word underscored as 
 words in a girl's letter. Tennyson's ear is as 
 swift to detect a rhythmic inaccuracy as a 
 musician to discover discord. He gives to his 
 poetic thought a perfect setting. He will make 
 thought and expression twin perfections. He 
 will have the rhythmic bark to which he in- 
 trusts his thought to float as gently as the boat 
 that bears sweet, dead Elaine into her lover's 
 presence. Browning submerges, loses himself 
 in his thought. He is as if intoxicated with 
 his conception. He must catch the perishable, 
 vanishing form of beauty, and hold it at what- 
 ever hazard. He is an artist who sees the day 
 go to his burial with such impressive obse- 
 quies as that he feels himself frenzied lest he 
 should lose one glorious recollection; and so 
 his brush dashes color on the canvas with the 
 mad haste of a Turner. He must hold the 
 hastening glory. Browning has no eye for 
 mere form; he ignores, despises it. He thinks 
 the greater must master. He feels that the 
 thought burning like a furnace within him 
 
34 Tlie Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 will commend itself to men despite its setting. 
 The gem with him is all : the setting is of lesser 
 consequence. So, briefly, these men differ: 
 but it is no purpose of mine to draw a com- 
 parison between them. They need reading, 
 not comparing. Each in his hemisphere flames 
 like Orion. 
 
 Aside from Shakespeare, I have read no 
 poet who inspires as Browning. His ver- 
 satility; his range of theme; his profound eru- 
 dition; his faculty of making himself at home 
 in every age; his ability to seize the salient 
 points in soul experience; his delineations, 
 acid yet apt as photography; his vision from 
 which no spirit can hide its secrets; his evident 
 joy in life as life; his unrest with the visible 
 and tangible; and his firm grasp on the invis- 
 ible and intangible, which gives them back to 
 us the sure realities of human experience; the 
 buoyancy of faith which sees doubts, but 
 plumes flight to soar above them; his love, 
 deep, abiding, tender; his manhood, unsullied 
 and serene; his copiousness of genius and exe- 
 cution, which reminds us of the affluence that 
 feeds the Rhine — these combine to make this 
 poet in his work and in himself an inspiration. 
 At many points he reminds us of Shakespeare. 
 
The Poet's Poet 35 
 
 At other points he has done larger things than 
 this chief. Shakespeare is superior in deline- 
 ating woman as a lover; but in her profoundest 
 life — namely, religious vision, fidelity, and hero- 
 ism — he is lacking. In not any of his women 
 has he touched this splendid possibility. There 
 are. about him limitations, perhaps those of 
 his century; but one rises from the contem- 
 plation of Shakespeare's women, first and last, 
 with the sense of lack upon him. It is not so 
 in Browning. He glasses woman's largest life. 
 He misses no element of power, and in par- 
 ticular does he not miss the chief fact of soul. 
 Shakespeare has no such woman as Pompilia; 
 indeed, universal literature has not her like. 
 She is the noblest female figure given us by 
 creative genius. Browning has given us life- 
 sized woman. She has a lover; but she has her 
 babe and her God. The lover as in Miranda 
 and Jessica, the wife as in Imogen and Desde- 
 mona — are adequate; but Shakespeare has 
 scarcely given us an ideal mother, while 
 woman, the devotee of duty, is hinted in Cor- 
 delia; and woman, the worshiper, is not so 
 much as mentioned. Hamlet is the profound- 
 est study literature has produced of the soij 
 longing for divine verities; but Hamlet has 
 
36 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 no counterpart in Shakespeare's women. But 
 Pompilia might pass for Hamlet's sister, save 
 that she sees God, while Hamlet died groping 
 for the curtain, and not even with convulsive 
 dying grasp pulled it from between God's face 
 and him. 
 
 In Browning, we feel adequacy of treatment, 
 from which comes inspiration. No one can 
 be inspired, except under the sense of a deed 
 adequately performed. When in history or 
 fiction we behold a heroism, we rise from the 
 study inspired because the character measured 
 up to the occasion. For this reason. Hall 
 Caine's Red Jason, Dickens's Sidney Car- 
 ton, Thackeray's Henry Esmond, Hugo's 
 Jean Valjean, Tennyson's King Arthur, 
 take the soul by storm. And Browning is 
 adequate. "The Ring and the Book," "Pippa 
 Passes," "Blot in the 'Scutcheon," "La Sais- 
 iaz," "The Grammarian's Funeral," and 
 "Saul" burn themselves in the soul, because 
 we feel them equal to the occasion. The artist 
 executed the task he undertook. Genius and 
 task were met. In reading, two phases of in- 
 spirational value present themselves — the frag- 
 mentary and the entire. Some authors excel 
 in splinters of inspiration. Such works lend 
 
The Poefs Poet 37 
 
 themselves easily to an anthology. Shake- 
 speare has some plays specially rich in quot- 
 able passages of beauty, excerptible patches of 
 sunlight. Richard II and Merchant of Ven- 
 ice have many such; but the value of the whole 
 is not in necessary ratio to the value of these 
 fragments. In other Shakespearean plays there 
 are few distinct, isolated beauties, while the 
 whole makes a living majesty. Tennyson 
 abounds in passages of beauty so rare that one 
 finds it all but impossible to go on with the 
 reading. He is as a traveler who, on the way 
 to some vantage ground of vision, finds him- 
 self hindered or halted at every step by reit- 
 erated beauties. Who that marks passages of 
 special loveliness does not find "Idyls of the 
 King" one continuous marginal annotation? 
 But in the main the chief afiflatus of "Paradise 
 Lost" springs from the mass of that imposing 
 epic. Some poems inspire us like the bulk 
 of a mountain; we forget the separate ele- 
 ments, lost in presence of the whole. Now, 
 Browning is inspiring for both causes men- 
 tioned. Irregular he is; but it is never well to 
 sleep while reading him; for, when least you 
 think it, he will reward your waking with an 
 apocalypse. Who sleeps when journeying 
 
38 The Poet's Poet ^d Other Essays 
 
 through Switzerland? But I would feel less 
 loss were mine in such a slumber than to 
 drowse while passing over a tract of Brown- 
 ing's poetry. In him, the whole always throws 
 its shadow across the path. I know not one of 
 his poems which does not. leave some thought 
 or question insistent in the mind. Treasures 
 worth a king's ransom are here. He is full 
 of beauty like the spring, and big with eleva- 
 tion. I account it one of life's rare delights 
 to go aside with this Christian prophet. He 
 girds me with strength. In his company (to 
 use his own words) I am 
 
 "Stung with the splendor of a sudden thought," 
 
 and feel 
 
 "Why stay we on the earth except to grow?" 
 
 And viewing Robert Browning, the poet's 
 poet, as we would view a mountain we had 
 climbed, what truer and more gracious words 
 for the expression of our thought than these 
 borrowed from Keats's immortal sonnet? 
 
 "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken; 
 Or like stout Cortes when, with eagle eyes, 
 He stared at the Pacific." 
 
King Q-omwcII 
 
 Fellowship with great ideas amplifies the 
 soul. The study of a sunset or a mountain or 
 the sea exalts him who studies. Great ideas 
 are the heritage of the human mind. But a 
 man is always greater than any material thing. 
 The spiritual always dwarfs the physical. (The 
 mountain, lifting forehead to the heavens, is 
 less a giant than the man who stands at its 
 far base and computes its altitude.") The loco- 
 motive, with its ponderous complexity, is sim- 
 plicity and commonplaceness as compared 
 with Stephenson, who created the iron mon- 
 ster and governs its goings. The ocean, that 
 home of slumbering storms and wrathful tem- 
 pests, that symbol of infinity and omnipo- 
 tence, — ^the ocean is not so great as the dreamy 
 man who stands upon its shore and meditates 
 its mastery. Columbus is greater than the 
 great Atlantic. 
 
 A man is an aggregation of ideas. He 
 embodies some movement; is the amplifica- 
 tion of some concept. He is, therefore, of 
 supreme importance to the world. He is, by 
 
 39 
 
40 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 virtue of his greatness, passed into the circu- 
 lating medium of the intellectual realm, and 
 is not to be underrated. To study him is not 
 servility nor hero worship, but is wisdom and 
 honest dealing with one's own life. Show me 
 greatness, and you have made me your debtor. 
 To be associated with the colossal elevates the 
 spirit. This is a common fact of intellectual 
 history. Every man who has lifted himself 
 from the low levels, where he found his life 
 groveling, knows that except he had touched 
 the hem of greatness' garment, he had never 
 arisen even to his little height. 
 
 Cromwell was a great soul. Near him I 
 feel as if I stood within the shadow of a pyra- 
 mid. The day is gone when men wrangled 
 over his greatness. If any man call the roll of 
 imperial genius, be sure the name of Oliver 
 Cromwell will be there. His burly figure 
 stalks across every stage where genius doth 
 appear. There are some men who are locally 
 great. Their genius is provincial. They be- 
 long to vicinities. Close at hand they seem 
 men of mighty stature; far removed they ap- 
 pear as pigmies on the plain. To this class 
 most men of note belong. They have their 
 day. They serve their generation. Their serv- 
 
King Cromwell 4^ 
 
 ice to the world is not to be underrated. With- 
 out them history would indeed suffer loss. 
 And yet their speech is not a world speech, 
 nor are they world figures. 
 
 There are other men who have no marks of 
 provincialism, either in speech or look. They 
 have hung their blazing orbs so high as to 
 have become the luminaries of the world. 
 Their glory is so illustrious that all men count 
 them stars of the first magnitude. They have 
 "become a name." The earth esteems their 
 fame a precious heritage. To this decimated 
 list the name of Cromwell belongs. However 
 much men differ in their estimates of his char- 
 acter, there is practically no differing on the 
 question of his genius. There is a unanimity 
 of sentiment here, which must strike every 
 reader of biography and history with delighted 
 surprise. 
 
 Gladstone ranks Cromwell with Charle- 
 magne and Napoleon. Clarendon recognizes 
 him as no common man. Nicholson says : "He 
 was a man for all ages to admire, for all Brit- 
 ons to honor in proud remembrance;" and 
 adds: "No royal name, at least since Alfred's, 
 is more worthy of our veneration than that of 
 the usurper, Oliver Cromwell." Thurloe, 
 
42 Tiie Poet's Poet and Other Eicays 
 
 Cromwell's Secretary of State, himself n® 
 mean figure, declares, "A greater soul never 
 dwelt among men." Goldwin Smith says, "A 
 greater proof of practical capacity was never 
 given." Macaulay calls him "the most pro- 
 found politician of his age," and says: "Such 
 was his genius and resolution that he was able 
 to overpower and crush everything that 
 crossed his path, and to make himself more 
 absolute master of his country than any of her 
 legitimate kings had been." Cardinal Mazarin 
 gave his grudging but incontestable testimony 
 to the Protector's greatness, in that he "feared 
 Cromwell more than he feared the devil, and 
 changed color at the mention of his name." 
 The above remark will have the more signifi- 
 cance if it be remembered that the cardinal 
 had a lively belief in a personal devil; and his 
 life was such that it can not be doubted he had 
 a wholesome fear of him. Guizot, who can 
 not be classed among Cromwell's panegyrists, 
 pays this tribute to him: "He is, perhaps,* the 
 only example which history affords of one man 
 having governed the most opposite events, and 
 proved sufficient for the most various des- 
 tinies." This list of testimonials to the great- 
 ness of the man Cromwell may well close with 
 
King Cromwell 43 
 
 the phrase of Carlyle. To him, among his 
 heroes, he is "Great Cromwell." And, indeed, 
 there is no assignable reason why this man 
 should not be placed in the list with a Great 
 Frederick and a Great Charles. By right of 
 his genius, he may well be named Cromwell 
 the Great. 
 
 If I am told that the man about to come 
 upon the stage is one who founded empires, 
 wore a crown of more than royal splendor, 
 won plaudits from unwilling lips — and if such 
 a man come, can it be otherwise than that I 
 shall view him with attentive vision, even with 
 my soul in my eyes! Behold, Cromwell is 
 here! 
 
 He is five feet ten inches high. He is broad, 
 burly, and half-clad in mail. A huge head, 
 "fit to be the workshop of vast matters," is 
 planted on his shoulders. He is fiery, fierce, 
 brave as Achilles, yet tender as a woman. His 
 is an English face. No perfumed Adonis he; 
 no fine-cut Greek features — a Briton all and 
 all. No man can well mistake this man's na- 
 tionality. He looks of the race which pro- 
 duced him; eyes that look into things and be- 
 yond them; silent, melancholic, fitted for a 
 soldier in a world's battle. He seemed a tower 
 
44 The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 which it were folly to attempt to storm ; a bolt 
 shot from a thunder-cloud, impossible to re- 
 sist; a sphinx riddle, no man could solve; a 
 secret that must die untold ; a man you would 
 turn to look upon when you pass, not know- 
 ing why you looked. The Puritan soldier and 
 prince has come. Look! 
 
 Cromwell was born in 1599. As Carlyle 
 has finely said, he was "always a year older 
 than his century." Four years later, Elizabeth 
 died, and the Tudors were but a name in his- 
 tory. He was born during a lull in national 
 alTairs, which was the calm before the fury- 
 burst of the tempest. His life began on the 
 verge of such a precipice that "the murmuring 
 surge that on the unnumbered idle pebbles 
 chafes, could not be heard so high" — a sheer 
 leap down into a seething sea of war, of an- 
 archy, of blood. His life was an arch which 
 spans the chasm between two dynasties. His- 
 tory has shown that he lived in a crisis, and 
 was a man born for crucial moments in the 
 chemistry of nations. Some men are fitted 
 for epoch making — sinewy to withstand the 
 fury of tremendous onset. Athanasius, Savon- 
 arola, Luther, Cromwell, Pym, Lincoln — these 
 
King Cromwell 45 
 
 men seem molded in colossal matrices for un- 
 usual service and superior destinies. 
 
 Cromwell was well born; not greatly born. 
 Here is a wise distinction nature makes, and 
 men might well mark. He was not plebeian, 
 was not prince. The blood of Scotch royalty 
 flowed through his veins, and the strength of 
 English yeomanry was latent in his arm. 
 Through and through, he was a representative 
 of the land of his nativity. He was of the mid- 
 dle rank, which has made England what Eng- 
 land is. He was a farmer, a cattle-breeder, a 
 soldier cast in nobler than Roman mold. He 
 was a man of college training, by forecast a 
 lawyer: by providence and fealty to duty, a 
 farmer, a general, a statesman, a king. 
 
 Every man's genius is colored by his age. 
 His environment does not control, but does 
 put its stamp upon his destiny. The image and 
 superscription of genius is imprinted by the 
 age which produces the man. F§w men are to 
 be understood apart from their times. We must 
 study the topography of genius, if we would 
 comprehend the achievements of generals and 
 the utterances of kings. If you will rehearse 
 to me the story of Prometheus, tell me not 
 
4^ The Poet's Poet and Otiier Essays 
 
 only his name and fame, but that a black, 
 scarred crag of the Caucasus held him, that 
 the vultures gnawed at his vitals, that light- 
 nings hurled their gleaming spears about his 
 head, and thunders made his lonely citadel of 
 pain to rock like fisher's bark on tempest- 
 drenched seas. These things, the dire acces- 
 sories of woe, are necessities for the compre- 
 hension of the Titan tale. So of Moses, I 
 must know not only who, but where: Egypt, 
 born of a slave, adopted by a queen, learned 
 in all the knowledge of that wisest land, a 
 king's heir, self-exiled from the throne, lone 
 Midian with its wandering flock, the sea passed 
 through dry-shod, the desert, Sinai, the law, 
 Pisgah, Nebo — all these things must be told 
 ere I can comprehend the life of the chiefest 
 legislator of the world. 
 
 So must I understand the times in which 
 this man Cromwell wrought if I would com- 
 prehend his achievements. Born in Eliza- 
 beth's reign! What a heyday of glory! What 
 glamour clings about those days! Chivalry, 
 romance, Raleigh, Leicester, din of arms, 
 shout of victory, crash of Armadas, and 
 through all haughty-faced, golden-haired Eliz- 
 abeth, standing an omnipresent personality! 
 
King Cromwell 47 
 
 How these incongruities become congruous 
 when seen in those historic times! But we 
 must look into these things more narrowly. 
 Students of history must look through appear- 
 ances into realities. Elizabeth's age was an 
 age of incomplete reformation, of decaying 
 chivalry, of commerce and colonization, of 
 surprising energy and action, which produced 
 the drama. These points summarize the dis- 
 tinctive features of the Elizabethan era. Look 
 at them briefly. 
 
 The Reformation had no stronger or more 
 virulent opposer than Henry VHI. He loved 
 a woman not his wife, and wished to divorce 
 his queen. Rome would not grant the king's 
 desire, whereupon Henry denied Papal su- 
 premacy. He married Annie Boleyn, and 
 introduced the Reformation; but such a dis- 
 torted semblance as to fee scarcely recogniz- 
 able. The Reformation came to England to 
 gratify the lust of a lecherous king. The new 
 Church differed from the old in one regard. 
 In the old, the Pope was supreme; in the new, 
 the king was supreme. King and Pope were 
 combined in a single person. Here was the 
 union of Church and State. It must be ap- 
 parent that a change made for such reason^ 
 
4^ The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 and continued under such forms, must be a 
 thing from which pure men would revolt. 
 Elizabeth sustained the same relation to the 
 Church as had her father. With her the 
 Church was a subordinate department of State. 
 She was Protestant by circumstances. Her 
 conscience was no active member of the Royal 
 Council. She was head of the Protestant 
 powers of Europe more as a matter of policy 
 than religion. Indeed, to speak with even 
 reasonable accuracy, she was such solely for 
 politic reasons. It was, let us say sadly but 
 with all certainty, an era of incomplete Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 It was also an age of decaying chivalry. 
 The day of chivalry was growing late. The 
 purity of knighthood was largely a departed 
 glory. Instead of the nobility of sincerity, 
 which made beautiful the face and fame of 
 King Arthur, there was the laugh of insincer- 
 ity and the hollowness of hypocrisy. Chivalrj 
 was a dying splendor. The Sidneys an(* 
 Raleighs were a hopeless minority. The im- 
 purity that blights was rife. The court of 
 Elizabeth was not the home of a Christian 
 queen. The captivating beauty of Spenser's 
 "Fairie Queen" finds no counterpart in the 
 
King Cromwell 49 
 
 chivalry of Elizabeth's reign. "False Duessa" 
 of Spenser's tale might well stand as the sad 
 symbol of EHzabethan chivalry. Elizabeth 
 fostered hypocrisy. She watered with her 
 woman's hand that upas tree. She smiled on 
 knighthood kneeling at her throne, with lies 
 as black as treason on the knight's lips. Chiv- 
 alry, with its storied purity, was not. The 
 Crusader, whose heart was full of nobility, and 
 whose hand was full of deeds of high emprise, 
 was dead. He slumbered in his grave; and 
 with him slept the sacred dust of Christian 
 chivalry. 
 
 This was an age of discovery and coloniza- 
 tion. The English were beginning to guess 
 the secret of their insular position. The sea 
 was beckoning them to sail beyond the sun- 
 set. The fire that burned within the life of the 
 Renaissance burned here. Men urged their 
 way along the yeasting seas; they longed to 
 sight new worlds. A Columbus heart throbbed 
 in many a discoverer's breast. They sought 
 new lands; and new lands found must be peo- 
 pled. Commerce must build her metropolis of 
 trade. Sailors, soldiers, settlers, must go to- 
 gether. These were contemporaries in the new 
 land. Boldness characterized the adventurer in 
 4 
 
5° The Poet's Poet and Other Estays 
 
 Elizabeth's reign. She herself was as brave as 
 Boadicea. Cowardice is not one of Elizabeth's 
 sins, nor is it a sin of her age. There were 
 bold men in those days, and they sailed to the 
 world's limit, and essayed to seize new hemi- 
 spheres for England's supremacy. 
 
 It was the age of the drama. Those were 
 days of action. Tremendous and almost re- 
 sistless energy was here. The blood ran like 
 lightning along men's veins. Magnificent en- 
 ergies were driving along like a whirlwind. It 
 was an actor's age. The drama grew out of 
 the nature of things. That species of poetry 
 grew in Greece when Athens was as sleepless 
 as the ocean. It is the exponent of superla- 
 tive energy. In such an atmosphere the drama 
 grows to its full height. In Elizabeth's reign 
 the drama "rose like an exhalation." In a 
 brief period it grew to such noble propor- 
 tions that it might well lay claim to have 
 wrested the scepter from the hand of Attica. 
 Elizabeth's age shows the drama at its best; 
 since then it has declined, a setting star. 
 
 In an age marked with such peculiarities, 
 Cromwell was born. Elizabeth's was essentially 
 a feudal reign. The Tudors were a feudal house, 
 Elizabeth was a feudal sovereign. She, hating 
 
King Cromwell 5^ 
 
 death, died. Death tore the scepter from her 
 hand, the purple from her shoulders, the crown 
 from her head; he took her from her throne, 
 and hewed her out a tomb. The Tudors were 
 dead; the Stuarts were come. Strength was no 
 more. Weakness clung with timid fingers to 
 the royal prerogatives. In 1603, Elizabeth lay 
 dying; in 1649, Charles Stuart's head dropped 
 on the scaffold at Whitehall — in 1603, a whole 
 people deUrious with loyalty; in 1649, ^1' Eng- 
 land sullen with wrath that slew their king. 
 Truly, "the old order changes, giving place 
 to new." But the change in appearance was 
 only indicative of the change the people had 
 undergone. It was a tide telling how high the 
 sea had risen. We may well challenge history 
 to show so radical a change in so brief a 
 period. It was the sailing into a new, untried 
 sea. It was the passing into a new hemi- 
 sphere lit with new stars; into a realm un- 
 known, vast, curtained with mystery. It was a 
 change so entire, so unparalleled, that no pre- 
 cedent could be adduced. It was sailing when 
 chart and compass and stars are gone. 
 
 This was not the England of Elizabeth, but 
 a new and untried thing. Hers was the Eng- 
 land of the cavalier and the Churchman. This 
 
52 Tbe Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 was the England of the commoner and the 
 Puritan. It resembled the old order only in 
 its possession of tremendous and resistless en- 
 ergy. The river still plunged like a moun- 
 tain torrent toward the sea; but the channels 
 were changed. Puritanism was here. It came 
 like an apparition. It stalked upon the stage 
 of human affairs, and men knew not whence 
 it came, nor whither it hastened. It was a 
 strange thing; it was a great thing. What, 
 then, is Puritanism? This question needs 
 candid answer. More, it demands it. Puri- 
 tanism is not an incomprehensible thing, but 
 is in the main an uncomprehended thing. Men 
 laugh at it, make their common jests at its 
 expense. I had as lief laugh at Niagara or 
 the Matterhorn. Stupendousness is not a fit 
 subject for jest, nor sublimity a theme fitting 
 the humorist's powers; yet the greater part of 
 men's knowledge of Puritanism is that which 
 appertains to its vagaries. It had idiosyn- 
 crasies; all greatness has. It was not perfect, 
 but was such a thing as towered immeasurably 
 above all religious contemporaries. In our 
 day, looking back across that seventeenth cen- 
 tury plain crowded with armies, misted with 
 battle-smoke, tumultuous with battle's din — 
 
King Cromwell 53 
 
 looking back we behold Puritanism a peak 
 lifting itself so high into the azure that, when 
 all else is hid, it stands sublime, a beacon to 
 the world. Puritanism was no tangle of incon- 
 gruities, no maze of absurdities. It was wise 
 above its day. It was a revolt against false- 
 ness, hollowness, hypocrisy. It was an exodus 
 of men from an Egypt of falsehood and insin- 
 cerity into a Canaan of truth. It was the 
 coming to the side of truth; the taking stand 
 within the ranks of God. 
 
 As has been shown, the Anglican Church 
 was half Romanism and more. It lacked those 
 elements which should characterize an ecclesi- 
 asticism. From such a thing the Puritans de- 
 parted; and never had a religious exodus more 
 justification. Puritanism was an incarnation 
 of Christian conscience. That is saying much, 
 but is speaking noble truth. True, it was not 
 the genial and beautiful thing Christ's man- 
 hood was. They patterned rather after Moses 
 and Elijah than after Christ. But better Moses 
 than Pharaoh, better Elijah than Ahab. Those 
 who can scarcely marshal words meet for the 
 task of condemning the Puritan severity of 
 morals and life, find no difficulty in passing 
 the orgies of a brothel court of the second 
 
54 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Charles with a feeble and smiling condemna- 
 tion that amounts to a magnificat of sin. It 
 were well to preserve at least a semblance of 
 fairness in discussing important matters. So 
 Puritanism came. It asked no man's leave. 
 It stood a stern, strong, heroic thing. It 
 championed the cause of purity and devotion 
 to God. It believed in the brotherhood and 
 common equality of man. It believed in one 
 God and one Book. No better and no nobler 
 tribute can be paid that band of Christian men 
 and women whom history names Puritans than 
 to say, as has been said, "They were men of 
 one Book." The Bible was their vade mecum. 
 These men possessed a devotion to duty, as 
 they apprehended it, which was as beautiful 
 as a mother's self-sacrifice; stern and pitiless 
 as the winter's storm toward Romanism and 
 sin in any guise, but tender towards wife, 
 mother, babe, as any heart that ever beat. 
 They were knights in a new and illustrious 
 chivalry. They made battle for purity of 
 thought, lips, and life. My heart, as it be- 
 holds the Puritan, cries, "Hail, all hail!" 
 
 This change was great past all belief. Pray, 
 you, what caused it? But one answer is pos- 
 sible, — the Bible. The Bible is a revolution- 
 
King QomweU 55 
 
 izer. That was the Book. Puritanism pored 
 over it as schoolboys con their lessons with 
 bent heads. They were saturated with the 
 Bible thought and Bible phrase. Their 
 thought framed itself to speech in the Bible 
 sentences. On Dunbar's field, when mists be- 
 gan to lift and the battle came, Puritan Crom- 
 well cried, "Let God arise, and let his enemies 
 be scattered." His was the Puritan speech. 
 His life was molded by God's Book. With it 
 all Puritans held constant companionship. 
 The Bible is a renovator. Let the Bible enter 
 any man's thought, and it will ennoble. Stand 
 a man face to face with the Bible concepts, and 
 he will begin to pant for room. It flings vast- 
 ness into his soul. The Bible begets a new 
 life. Puritanism was new. Men thought these 
 men monstrosities; but they were noble nor- 
 malities. There were in them greatness, wis- 
 dom, goodness. Looking at them, we say, 
 scarcely thinking what we utter, "There were 
 giants in those days." 
 
 Cromwell was a Puritan. He was perme- 
 ated with the decrees. His was a bilious tem- 
 perament. He was moody, silent, brooding, 
 melancholy. All great souls have melancholy 
 hours, and know the ministry of silence. 
 
5^ The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Moses prepared for God's work in the soli- 
 tudes of Horeb ; and every Moses must be girt 
 for his great battles by the ministration of sub- 
 lime silences. Cromwell, in his fen lands, in 
 his silence, mused on God's Word, was con- 
 verted, came into the secret of the Divine, 
 merged his life into the life of God, and came 
 to be a moody soul lit with resplendent Bible 
 lights. Who does not comprehend this will 
 not comprehend Cromwell. The hieroglyph- 
 ics of this man's life are not decipherable if a 
 man holds not this key. He embodied Puri- 
 tanism. To know Milton and Cromwell is to 
 know Puritanism. They are the high tides of 
 that illustrious era. Cromwell had seen false 
 chivalry die; had seen the true chivalry spring 
 into majestic life; had seen the Puritan day 
 grow crimson with the dawn. He dwelt under 
 Stuart tyranny. That family was weak. The 
 Tudors, whatever their faults — and they were 
 many — were strong. Henry VII had a giant's 
 arm. He was of kingly stature and imperial 
 mold. Henry VIII, libertine as he was, had 
 kingly powers and talent for administration 
 akin to genius. Even Mary, with her hands 
 dyed in martyr's blood, was not weak. She 
 had virility not wholly mastered by her 
 
King Cromwell 57 
 
 woman's heart. Her successor might well be 
 named King Elizabeth. She was king, not 
 queen. And when the government passed 
 from a royal line, whose powers and prowess 
 were manifest, into the hands of driveUng in- 
 competency and pedantic weakness, the antith- 
 esis was so startling as to waken men from 
 their quiescent moods, till on the lips of even 
 steadfast loyalty there came the unpremedi- 
 tated query, "Why should this weakness reign 
 over us?" 
 
 Men will forgive much if there be strength. 
 The French tolerated a Louis XIV, and not 
 a Louis XVI, because the one was strong, and 
 the other weak. They tolerated the adminis- 
 tration and gloried in the rule of a Napoleon, 
 and dethroned a Charles X, because Napo- 
 leon, though a tyrant, was strong; and Charles 
 was a tyrant and weak. The Stuarts were 
 weak. There was no strength among them. 
 Charles II, in spite of his monstrous vices, had 
 more of the symptoms of strength than James 
 I, Charles I, or James II. James I was a 
 pedant, an overgrown schoolboy, "the wisest 
 fool in Christendom." Charles I was the crea- 
 ture of favorites, was possessed of no gift of 
 comprehending the people whom he ruled, was 
 
58 Tbt Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 an egotist, and as false as even a king could 
 well be. James II was an intolerant bigot, 
 blind as a mole, and so incapable of learning 
 that even a scaffold dyed with his father's 
 blood could teach him no wisdom. Such were 
 the Stuarts. The Tudors had been tyrannical, 
 but were not pusillanimous in their weak- 
 ness. There was no more despotism in James 
 I than Elizabeth, nor in Charles I than in 
 Henry VIII; but there was strength in the 
 Tudors, and only weakness in the Stuarts. 
 They were a puerile race. Charles had all the 
 Tudor's pride and self-assurance, with none 
 of the Tudor's astuteness or strength; and the 
 result is what any attentive reader of history 
 might forecast. Men rebelled. The Puritan 
 revolution grew as naturally as ever did the 
 wind-flower or the violet. 
 
 Liberty is a perennial reappearance. When 
 man thinks it dead, it but "mews its mighty 
 youth." It marches forward and upward. 
 The contest between cavalier and Puritan was 
 liberty's conflict. The battle belonged, not to 
 England, but to the world. It was the cause 
 of our common humanity. And Cromwell, as 
 the leader in the fray, becomes a figure in 
 liberty's lists, and a character of consequence 
 
King Cromwell 59 
 
 in the history of men. To every lover of lib- 
 erty the name of Oliver Cromwell must have 
 in it a deep and solemn music, like the singing 
 of a psalm. Liberty's battle is on. The King 
 is uppermost. He is victorious. Capacity 
 comes to the front. Cromwell moves into 
 view. He was no seeker of place; place sought 
 him. He tarried at home, and did the work 
 that came to hand. He hated oppression. He 
 loved liberty. What his kinsman Hampden 
 did in the matter of ship-money, that Crom- 
 well did in the matter of the draining of the 
 fens. He felt himself in a high sense a sub- 
 ject of the government of God. He held him- 
 self ready to move obedient to the Divine 
 command. Where duty called, he followed. 
 Liberty called Cromwell: he did not call him- 
 self. The exigencies of the hour pronounced 
 his name. Capacity makes room for itself. It 
 is always so. Gustavus Adolphus came be- 
 cause the place needed him. In the swirl of 
 battle great men appear, because the time calls 
 them. When liberty puts clarion trumpet to 
 her lips, and sounds her note of wild alarm, 
 then a host answers, "Lo, we come." War 
 came in a great nation. This was no race of 
 warriors, and had no long list of miHtary great- 
 
6o The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 ness from which to call leaders. The time 
 came when the nation's life hung by a thread; 
 when freedom's empire was well-nigh lost; 
 and in the time of dire extremity help came. 
 Grant, the invincible, with unostentatious bear- 
 ing, comes and leads a million men to victory. 
 It was the triumph of capacity. Greatness 
 needs no herald before its face, nor asks for 
 place, gift of another's hand ; but does its duty, 
 bides its time. So Cromwell came; illustrious 
 day! He saw what others did not see. This 
 battle was not primarily between social classes^ 
 but between conscience, religion, manhood on 
 the one hand, and no conscience and hollow 
 insincerity on the other. 
 
 "We must have God-fearing men," said 
 Cromwell. This was a speech genius alone 
 could pronounce. That was insight into the 
 very spirit of the times. He knew the thing 
 with which he had to cope. What his coadju- 
 tors took years to learn, his acumen discovered 
 at the first. Others led, he followed. Others 
 in the van, he in the rear. He was not trou- 
 bled about notice or praise. "God noticed 
 him," says Carlyle. He was so faithful to his 
 God and the cause of liberty as an inferior, as 
 to be felt the superior of all. 
 
King OomweQ 6 1 
 
 Some men seem great by lack of standard 
 of measurement. Among a race of Lillipu- 
 tians, a Gulliver becomes a giant. In inferior 
 epochs, a man may tower above his contem- 
 poraries; not because he is so great, but be- 
 cause they are so insignificant. It is possibly 
 so in this instance. But the question need not 
 delay for answer. Look at his contemporaries. 
 Call the names of those men who made those 
 times memorable: Elliot, Pym, Hampden, Mil- 
 ton, Ireton, Thurloe, Blake, — ^this is a roll of 
 greatness. These men would have shone in 
 the constellations of any age. Add the name 
 of Strafford, that imperious aristocrat, the 
 statesman of the first Stuart reign, and we shall 
 find that Cromwell lived among men whom the 
 world reckons great. How then came this 
 Cromwell to stand among them so vast? If 
 the man was not fit figure for the world's 
 Pantheon, there is no explanation for the fact. 
 He was a leader. He rose from the level where 
 he served his country, to where he was the 
 cynosure of every eye and the desire of Eng- 
 land. He hid himself. He put others forward. 
 He asked no rank, but seemed lost in the 
 cause of freedom. 
 
 It is observable that in some eras great men 
 
62 Tlie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 multiply. The times demand greatness. No 
 progress is possible, except nature do bestir 
 herself. See what hosts of notable generals 
 the French Revolution produced. The names 
 of men of superior powers in the American 
 Revolutionary period are legion. It was the 
 same in the crisis of the Rebellion. It is in 
 such times, as if to meet the rush of the tem- 
 pest and to withstand the mad charge of the 
 sea, one gathered the latent, unsuspected en- 
 ergies of his manhood, and dedicated them 
 every one to the task of standing impregnable 
 as a tower. In this struggle for liberty, when 
 great issues hung in the balance, greatness 
 multiplied. Statesmen unknown arose, and 
 did legislate for generations that were yet to 
 be. The call, the answer, were blended in one 
 voice. Great men were clustering about the 
 standards of liberty; and the most command- 
 ing figure on this stormy field is Oliver Crom- 
 well. He is not to be accounted great because 
 he dwelt among a pigmy brood; but rather 
 that, among a coterie of men whose talent was 
 far removed from mediocrity, he, Saul-like, 
 towered a head above them all. Essex must 
 go to the rear; not that Cromwell willed or 
 planned it, but that a greater than he had 
 
King Cromwell 63 
 
 come. Cromwell desired Fairfax to have com- 
 mand of the war against the Scots; England 
 had other desires. She knew the general for 
 the conduct of this war was not Fairfax, but 
 Cromwell. The nation had come to know its 
 leader, and Dunbar and Worcester justified 
 England's choice. This quiet, unassuming 
 man now stands revealed, 
 
 "The pillar of a people's hope, 
 The center of a world's desire." 
 
 He "came, saw, conquered." He massed 
 his God-fearing, praying battalions, and flung 
 them on his enemies like an avalanche. God- 
 fearing men led by a man of God were invin- 
 cible. The world looked and wondered. 
 Battle with these men was duty; for they 
 fought God's battles. Cromwell suspected he 
 was there to win. 
 
 He declared he would slay the king, should 
 they meet in hour of conflict. He knew his 
 era as no other knew it. He conquered the 
 king, the Irish, the Scotch, the Parliament. 
 He merits the name of Cromwell the Con- 
 queror. The train of his victories is like a 
 silver highway on the swelling sea when the 
 great moon is full. 
 
64 The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 It is not possible in a brief sketch to give 
 an adequate estimate of genius such as this 
 man possessed. For such task volumes only 
 can suffice. But the characteristics of the man 
 may be summed up best under a dual heading: 
 First, the accusations brought against him; 
 second, the claims made for him. Under the 
 former of these captions three indictments may 
 be mentioned: He was a hypocrite; he was 
 cruel; he betrayed the cause of Uberty. 
 
 These are grievous charges. They do not 
 militate against his genius; but they, if prov- 
 able, will blast his character like an eternal 
 mildew. Note each accusation. But before 
 that task be attempted, let it be remarked that 
 his contemporary biographers were those 
 whom he had conquered in battle or mastered 
 in diplomacy. They wrote with pen dipped 
 in gall. Suppose the solitary biographer of 
 the Christ had been Annas or Caiaphas, Sad- 
 ducee or Pharisee, what distorted features of 
 the Lord would we behold! It is but too ap- 
 parent that, as seen through their eyes, he 
 would have looked the embodiment of icono- 
 clasm, self-opinionation, and colossal arro- 
 gancy. We have other, truer, and therefore 
 fairer pictures. They who loved him spoke of 
 
King Cromwell 65 
 
 him as he was. They who hated him had cari- 
 catured him, and written beneath the travesty, 
 "This fellow." Cromwell's life was not writ- 
 ten by men who knew and loved him, but by 
 defeated cavaliers, by jealous inferiority, 
 wrathful because of the man's supremacy, or 
 by lovers of liberty who were dreamers, and 
 had not the insight to discern what Cromwell 
 perceived. With such biographers, who can 
 wonder that the Cromwell of history seems a 
 monster, a second Nero, whose memory is fit 
 only for obloquy? This word of warning is 
 absolutely necessary for those who would 
 know the Puritan general and statesman 
 aright. 
 
 To the charge of hypocrisy let it be re- 
 plied, while his enemies are a unit in this 
 accusation, they are not at all agreed as to the 
 particular instances in which his omnipresent 
 hypocrisy was displayed. One says he was 
 profoundly h)^ocritical in advocating Fair- 
 fax's leadership in the war against the Scots; 
 while Mrs. Harrison is sure that, though he 
 was a monster of duplicity, he was honest here. 
 Cromwell was not a hypocrite. If he was a 
 hypocrite, then was a towering genius exercised 
 here as elsewhere. Hypocrisy is acting a part, 
 5 
 
66 The Poet's Poet and Otiier &says 
 
 wearing a mask. Cromwell, if he wore a mask, 
 never dropped it. Not in word spoken or writ- 
 ten, not in public, nor in privacy to his best 
 beloved, did he seem other than we know him. 
 We are told his religious phrases were a hypo- 
 crite's cant; but if any man can candidly read 
 his letters and speeches and so believe, I mar- 
 vel at his insight. What I maintain is that, if 
 the man was a hypocrite, he was the most 
 masterful deceiver history portrays; he was 
 genius in his craft. In truth, the man was the 
 soul of honest intention. He was a believer in 
 God and the Puritan cause, and in his own 
 mission. He thought himself called of God 
 to act his heroic part. He was a believer in 
 Divine decrees. He prayed, agonized, came 
 from his hours of introspection, imbued with 
 the idea of God's commission for a given task. 
 Such a view of Cromwell makes his life ra- 
 tional. We can thus comprehend it. There is 
 logical consecutiveness in his character. But 
 on any other theory there is no clue whereby 
 to escape the labyrinth. The charge of hypoc- 
 risy is an easy method of explaining an ab- 
 struse human problem. It is a method much 
 in vogue for explaining what otherwise is 
 inexplicable. In my judgment there is no 
 
King Cromwell 67 
 
 shred of proof of Cromwell's alleged hypoc- 
 risy. 
 
 "Cromwell was cruel." I incline to the 
 opinion that this will not bear the light of 
 honest investigation. He was stern; he was 
 a Puritan. That character was modeled after 
 the Old Testament, rather than the New. The 
 severity of Moses with the Amalekites was be- 
 fore Cromwell's eyes. Those heathen, to his 
 thought, were not more assuredly the enemies 
 of God than the men against whom the Puri- 
 tan unsheathed his sword. The instance al- 
 ways adduced as proof positive of this charge 
 is the massacre of Drogheda and Wexford. 
 But certain facts must be noted. War is not 
 among the amenities. It is always cruel. But 
 in this epoch, war was clothed with horrors 
 our century can not comprehend. Tilly, in 
 the Thirty Years' War, had been guilty of the 
 most execrable atrocities. The Catholics in 
 Ireland, during the early stages of the Parlia- 
 mentary struggle, had massacred helpless vic- 
 tims with such savage cruelty that England 
 looked upon the perpetrators as fiends incar- 
 nate. They were savage belligerents, whose 
 proclivities for slaughter were so well knowK 
 that it seemed essential to fling an abiding 
 
68 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 terror into their hearts. This was the end in 
 view when Drogheda and Wexford were 
 stormed, and their population slaughtered. 
 The end was gained. The hostile Irish were 
 so totally subdued by the severity that they 
 were guilty of no further outrage. Crom- 
 well's plan, when the whole scope of affairs is 
 considered, was without question the kindliest 
 which could have been devised. This man by 
 nature was not cruel. His government was 
 not one of fierce acerbity. His was a gentle- 
 ness, a tenderness of treatment to the con- 
 quered cavalier, which presents a striking con- 
 trast to the treatment accorded even the dead 
 by re-enthroned royalty. Cromwell's govern- 
 mental policy, viewed as a whole, is in no sense 
 open to the charge of cruelty. 
 
 But "Cromwell betrayed the cause of lib- 
 erty." This, if true, expunges the man's name 
 from the roll of patriotism. A traitor! thing 
 to be despised ! What are the facts? On what 
 grounds do the charges rest? He became 
 Protector. The war was waged for liberty. 
 Puritanism meant equality. A commonwealth 
 shone in glory before their eyes. The ideal 
 government was now to be inaugurated. 
 Vane, Harrison, Haselrig, dreamed their day- 
 
King Qmnwell 69 
 
 dream of democracy. They shut eyes and ears. 
 They were oblivious to the tumultuous seas 
 surging about them. Cromwell knew his 
 country and his time. He held his finger on 
 the nation's pulse. He both heard and saw. 
 He comprehended that the Long Parliament, 
 which had in its life accomplished an epoch- 
 making work, had now lived too long. It was 
 becoming senile. The Commonwealth was 
 speeding to destruction. Anarchy lay but a 
 stone's cast ahead. Clear-visioned Cromwell 
 comprehended this. Than he, no stronger be- 
 liever in human equality lived. He would 
 have England rule itself without the inter- 
 position of army or general; but it was not 
 capable for so herculean a labor. He chose 
 to rule, rather than see the thing for which his 
 army and himself had fought fall into ruin. 
 England was not ready for self-govern- 
 ment. It was not yet grown to man's estate. 
 More than a century must pass before Puri- 
 tanism would grow so great. Confessedly a 
 nation must have assumed the toga virilis be- 
 fore it can be self-controlling. France was 
 incapable of self-government in 1789. The 
 list of victims for the guillotine had not been 
 half so long under a monarchy. It is a grave 
 
70 The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 question whether to this hour the French peo- 
 ple are qualified for this duty. The South 
 American republics afford a melancholy spec- 
 tacle and a suggestive lesson; while Mexico is 
 a republic only in name. Cromwell waited 
 with all patience till he saw whither England 
 was drifting. He knew the brave craft would 
 break to splinters on the rocks. The result 
 subsequent to his death justified his views, 
 and vindicated his motive. It was not a ques- 
 tion of Commonwealth or Cromwell; it was 
 a question of Cromwell or Charles II. Crom- 
 well, the great, the heroic, the true ; or Charles, 
 the insignificant, the cowardly, the false — 
 which shall rule? Dare any man halt between 
 these extremes? This was the status of na- 
 tional affairs which called forth the resolution 
 and insight of the Puritan statesman. His 
 Protectorate, so far from being a betrayal of 
 liberty, was liberty's preservation. 
 
 Having considered the negative phases of 
 this man's character, look at the positive. 
 Cromwell must be studied as soldier, orator, 
 statesman, and man. 
 
 And it is as a soldier the world knows him 
 best. That martial figure rivets the world's 
 gaze. He was the soldier pre-eminent of the 
 
King Cromwell 7 1 
 
 Revolutionary period. He rose to be general 
 of all the army by force of achievement and by 
 right of qualification. He was himself. Hie 
 alone could cope with fiery Rupert. He alone 
 could organize a body of soldiery, whose fame 
 should be as lasting as the world. There was 
 in him the genius of originality and organiza- 
 tion. He worked silently and persistently ; and 
 from that labor comes the Ironsides, a body of 
 citizen-soldiers. Christians, buckling on the 
 arms of temporal warfare — an organization 
 where rank of mind was superior to rank of 
 blood, a place where men might rise by cour- 
 age and capacity, an embryonic military re- 
 public. This was the new model — praying sol- 
 dier! Unique creation ! Antony, Caesar, Fred- 
 erick the Great, were not more original in the 
 cast of their military genius than he. The 
 formation of his army showed his discernment. 
 An army once created, his plan of battle was 
 to drive like a tornado at the enemy's center. 
 He was no Fabius. The peculiarity of the 
 Puritan character was visible in his military 
 tactics. Massive directness, that was all — ^that 
 was enough. Napoleon was to the end an ar- 
 tillery officer. That stamped all his military 
 operations. Cromwell was to the end a cav» 
 
72 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 airy officer. He fought to win; he fought and 
 won. His was no half-hearted battle; but he 
 bared the blade to smite with all the strength 
 that slumbered in his arm. What Tennyson 
 sings of Wellington, might well be sung of 
 Cromwell. He knew no defeat. His name is 
 a synonym of victory. As a general, he is a 
 pride to England, a glory to the world. 
 
 Cromwell as orator! This seems a touch 
 of irony, or at best of acid humor. But he was 
 orator. He had no art of Burke or Fox. He 
 was no Chatham, no Pitt. He had no grace of 
 person, nor fascination of speech. But men 
 heard him. He spoke only when his heart 
 was full. He resorted to speech solely when 
 his silence oppressed him like a nightmare. 
 It was the thought he wished expressed that 
 drove him to speech. His periods were not 
 those of Edward Everett. There was turgidity 
 of style which hints of striving to put much 
 thought within the limits ©f contracted utter- 
 ance. He was warrior even in his orations. 
 His vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon. It is often 
 forceful as a battle charge. He did not know 
 circumlocution. In speech, as in battle, he 
 drove at the center. The shortest method to 
 express the thought was the line of advance. 
 
King CramweU 73 
 
 Some of his battle bulletins seem to me as ex- 
 pressive as words could make them. I think 
 no man could hear Cromwell speak and be un- 
 certain as to his meaning. His metaphors are 
 mixed, his sentences ill-balanced; but ambi- 
 guity was not among his literary faults. There 
 is, in his addresses as handed down to us, 
 something so stalwart, rugged, soldier-like, 
 that I, for one, can not escape their charm. I 
 am well aware to speak of Cromwell as orator 
 is new, but venture to hope there is more than 
 audacity in the claim. 
 
 Cromwell was a statesman. This is high 
 honor to claim for any man. Statesmanship is 
 the ability to discover the trend of events, and 
 to shape the course of national affairs in har- 
 mony therewith. Politicians are many, states- 
 men few. They do not often arise. Mark the 
 procession, of legislators and premiers of any 
 nation. Note them with care. See them with 
 vision unobscured by the mists of contem- 
 poraneous praise and blame; and the conclu- 
 sion will be forced upon us, however unsavory 
 it may prove, that the statesmen in any na- 
 tion's life are lamentably few. Soldier, Crom- 
 well was. The justice of this appellation no 
 one denies ; but the qualities of generalship and 
 
74 The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 statesmanship are not often co-existent. A 
 man may be able to mass battalions and exe- 
 cute maneuvers, and be wholly incapable of 
 mastering even the rudiments of statecraft. Il- 
 lustrations of the truth of this statement mul- 
 tiply in our thought. That Wellington, as a 
 general, was great, let Waterloo declare; but 
 that as a statesman he was below mediocrity, 
 his premiership attests. To the rule as enun- 
 ciated there are noticeable exceptions; but all 
 such imply a plethora of genius. If Crom- 
 well was statesman as well as general, mani- 
 festly he belongs to that illustrious minority 
 who are to be ranked as men of superlative 
 powers. 
 
 It is common to say he was no statesman. 
 Eminent authorities are sponsors for this 
 statement. But if statesmanship implies far- 
 sighted discernment and ability to achieve suc- 
 cess, surely he was a statesman. Cromwell 
 believed in, and unflinchingly advocated, relig- 
 ious toleration. In this the man was a century 
 and more in advance of his times. He brought 
 about the union of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
 land. He befriended the American Colonies — 
 a thing no other English king had done. He 
 disfranchised rotten boroughs — a task requir- 
 
King Cromwell 75 
 
 ing for its accomplishment the advocacy and 
 diplomacy of leading statesmen of our cen- 
 tury. He created the English navy. He at- 
 tempted to reform the criminal law. He so 
 championed the cause of Protestantism that 
 he brought the Duke of Savoy to a humiliating 
 cessation from persecution. His call assem- 
 bled the much ridiculed "Barebones Parlia- 
 ment," concerning which it is only just to 
 make two remarks: It was in a high sense a 
 representative body; and did in its enactments 
 forecast many of the most important acts of 
 subsequent English legislation. Cromwell at- 
 tempted a reform of the Court of Chancery, 
 and succeeded beyond belief. He it was who 
 patronized learned institutions, and first in- 
 sisted that young men should be trained for 
 the public service in the universities. 
 
 These particularizations will suffice to jus- 
 tify the assertion, "Cromwell was a statesman." 
 Many a man has been ranked with statesmen 
 who accomplished not a tithe as much as he. 
 His acts bear the insignia of statesmanship. 
 True it is that many of Cromwell's ventures 
 were not successful. His navies came back 
 defeated; his hopes were unfulfilled. But in 
 his vast schemes it was as in a battle with long 
 
76 The Poet's Poet and Otlier Essays 
 
 battle front. In some places the forces are 
 driven back, in others they charge victori- 
 ously onward; and the army as a whole ad- 
 vances with victory burning on its banners. 
 Cromwell's plans, in part frustrated, in part 
 successful, did in their entirety end in suc- 
 cess. When his position is considered, and the 
 odds against which he waged a sleepless war 
 are numbered, it is not extravagant to affirm 
 that no English-born king has shown himself 
 so astute a statesman as the Puritan general, 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 But far above the what a man achieves is 
 the what he is. Manhood is nobler than 
 genius. No achievement, however brilliant, 
 can compensate for the lack of manliness. The 
 what I am is the superior of what I do. Puri- 
 tanism emphasized the dignity of man. Such 
 character as that movement produced, Eng- 
 land had not seen for centuries. It has too 
 frequently been the case that great intellectual 
 power has been characterized by correspond- 
 ingly great turpitude. Genius gives license 
 for lust. With Cromwell it was not so. He 
 was pure. His life was clean. Henry VIII 
 was a libertine; Charles I, a liar; Charles II, 
 a second Domitian for lascivious revels. 
 
King Cromwell 77 
 
 Cromwell, in striking antithesis, was true to 
 home. He honored his mother. He loved his 
 wife. Their relations were the tenderest. He 
 loved his children. His son, slain in battle, 
 was never absent from his father's loving 
 thought. His daughter dying, the great heart 
 of the soldier broke. About the man was a 
 noble dignity. He had no little lordliness, no 
 assumed superiority which marks the over- 
 elevation of a little soul. He rose not above 
 his place, but to it. He possessed the dignified 
 demeanor of a man "to the manner born." His 
 comportment was such as brought no discredit 
 to the great nation whose head he was. With 
 him, Whitehall was the court of a Christian 
 king. With his successor, it was a home of 
 royal prostitution. Could contrast be more 
 marked? As a man, simple, humble, not in- 
 toxicated by his supreme elevation, but brave, 
 pure, tender — he held to God as his soul's Sov- 
 ereign. The man Cromwell is of colossal 
 mold, fit companion for Cromwell orator, sol- 
 dier, statesman. 
 
 We judge men by what they achieve. Their 
 works do magnify them. The poet's poem is 
 his exaltation, and the painter becomes a 
 name because his canvas glows with hues and 
 
78 The Poefs Poet and Otlier Essays 
 
 forms of imperishable loveliness. This man 
 should be judged by like standard. He was 
 general and ruler. He was great at home and 
 abroad. He commanded the admiration of 
 contemporaries. He made his government to 
 be respected, feared. He gave England im- 
 perishable renown. Assuredly, if this man be 
 judged by what he did achieve, he must be 
 ranked, as says Goldwin Smith, "among the 
 chiefest of the sons of men." 
 
 Cromwell, the great Protector, lies dying. 
 A storm, fierce, wild, terrible, rages. The gen- 
 eral has come into his last battle. He will 
 gird on sword no more. This is his last 
 charge. It is September 3d, anniversary of 
 victory at Dunbar and Worcester. From 
 those conflicts he came forth unscathed. From 
 this he will be carried to his grave. He prays. 
 England prays. The storm exalts itself like a 
 triumphant troop. Illustrious hour in which 
 a great soul may pass "to where, beyond these 
 voices, there is peace." The battle is ended. 
 The hitherto invulnerable chief is slain. Crom- 
 well lies dead. 
 
 In Westminster Abbey there is a place for 
 Mary, who lost Calais, and stained her hands 
 with martyr's blood; but for Oliver Cromwell, 
 
King Cromwell 79 
 
 no place. He sounded his guns on every 
 shore. He lost no principality. He shed no 
 martyr's blood. He championed freedom of 
 conscience. He compelled respect for Anglo- 
 Saxondom. He made England illustrious as 
 the dawn. But for him is no place in the mau- 
 soleum where English honor sleeps. 
 
 In Westminster Abbey there is a place for 
 Charles II, who made the English court a 
 brothel, who sold Dunkirk to England's most 
 inveterate foe for money to squander on har- 
 lots — for him a place in Westminster! But for 
 him who protected the lowliest citizen against 
 the world, who made the Pope to do his bid- 
 ding, who won Dunkirk with his soldier's 
 hand — for Oliver Cromwell, there is no place 
 in Westminster Abbey. Yet let this stand as 
 an illustrious propriety. No cathedral shall 
 hold him. He belongs to all the world. His 
 fame is the common inheritance of the race. 
 
William the Great of England 
 
 The Puritan revolution had come and gone. 
 It its appearance had been sudden and mys- 
 terious, its disappearnce was no less so. It 
 had come unheralded like a new knight into 
 the tournament. It had dashed into the 
 tourney with the swiftness of the wind, but had 
 vanished like Lancelot when he fled into the 
 silence of an unknown place to heal him or to 
 die. The rapidity of either transition is the 
 historical wonder of the seventeenth century. 
 
 When we attempt the enumeration of the 
 foes with which liberty must always battle, 
 the surprise is, not that she does so little or 
 so tardily, but that she achieves at all. Her 
 foes are legion. The lust of power leaps like 
 a rider into the saddle whenever the slightest 
 opportunity offers. But when liberty has 
 come, formed and fortified her camp, raised 
 her standard, numbered her adherents, formu- 
 lated her policy, written her constitution in 
 blood, then the enigma is how, in the bi-ief 
 passing of a lustrum or a decade, the very 
 vestiges of her achievements seemed washed 
 80 
 
William tfie Great of England 8l 
 
 away. That the tide, with the whole ocean 
 swelling in its wake, can erase the rude scrawl 
 of the child's name from the sand, is no sur- 
 prise; but that when the name of liberty has 
 been graven on the rocks with graver's tool, 
 keen enough to carve its way through troops 
 marshaled by kings — that such should be 
 washed out by the impulse of the passing 
 storm is a mystery the mind can never pene- 
 trate. 
 
 Liberty came. The halo of a youth eternal 
 binds her brow; the strength of centuries of 
 slumbering powers seems gathered in her arm. 
 Armies which have slumbered during a decade 
 of centuries, awake, stirred by the resurrection 
 power of freedom's voice. We thought to see 
 a growing glory. We inferred a perpetual 
 regnancy of such benignant principles. We 
 fell asleep for but an hour, when lo! the face 
 of history has changed. The insignia of sub- 
 jugation glittered on citizen and soldier, 
 knight and lord. Liberty seems destined to 
 an eternal sequestration. No man knows her 
 grave, nor marked her burial; but all believe 
 her dead. If some man of supreme faith still 
 turns his inspired face toward the future, his 
 fellows mark him a madman and a fool. 
 6 
 
82 Tlie Poet'i Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Such, in brief, is the survey of the train of 
 events following the enthronement of human 
 brotherhood in the Puritan dominancy. A 
 Cromwell's death, a palsied power, a Richard's 
 abdication, an impending military anarchy or 
 despotism — and Albemarle brought home a 
 banished prince amidst pomp and rejoicing, 
 which had been a royal welcome to a king 
 returning victor from the wars. A dissolute 
 prince has come with bodyguard of harlots, 
 and such welcome as Rome gave Pompey is 
 accorded him. A solecism this, before which 
 apology sits dumb. When had England seen 
 so servile a Parliament as that which knelt, a 
 craven, at the throne of Charles II? His nod 
 was law. They watched his gesture as mu- 
 sicians the baton stroke of their master-spirit. 
 They forecast his wish. They seemed intent 
 on this, that he should heap contumely upon 
 them. Their servility sat upon them like de- 
 lirium. The king was false to every promise. 
 Obligation of king to subject he thought a 
 figment, and laughed down. Men who had 
 suffered loss of property and blood for the 
 loyalty they had shown Charles Stuart's fail- 
 ing fortunes were neither thought upon nor 
 mentioned. That they had served him must 
 
William the Great of England 83 
 
 be its own reward: And he, while men thought 
 him a careless, roystering symbol of kingship, 
 was forging fetters for liberty's limbs. And 
 still men saw the shame he brought, the mon- 
 ster vices which were his daily bread, the sell- 
 ing of national honor for pocket pence to 
 squander on courtesans — saw, nor lifted voice. 
 They saw the glory which Cromwell bought 
 by splendid achievement, pale to gray and 
 gloom; and England became a jest to all Eu- 
 rope! And still they bowed at their Domi- 
 tian's throne. To affirm, under such inculca- 
 tion as these facts afford, that liberty was dead 
 seems but a superfluity. It would rather ap- 
 pear she had never lived. 
 
 If we may reason from their conduct, the 
 Stuarts accounted ingratitude a virtue. Clar- 
 endon, who supplied the statesmanship for the 
 reign of Charles II, as Strafford had done for 
 that of Charles I, discovered that royalty had 
 no remembrance of service loyally and ably 
 performed. If Charles I let Strafford perish 
 on the block despite the royal promise to save 
 him at every hazard, Charles II, despite the 
 long years of his secretary's faithfulness in 
 times of exile, despite every incentive to a 
 gratitude that should have known neither 
 
^4 The Poefs Poet and Other Esuys 
 
 metes nor bounds, drove him from his royal 
 presence. If the king, dying, whispered, "Re- 
 member poor Nell," it is but candor to remark 
 that mistresses were the only persons who 
 could boast his substantial regard. Men, 
 court, and England itself, must be sold in the 
 shambles to gratify the passions of this libidi- 
 nous lord. 
 
 But Charles is dead. James II ascends the 
 throne. His brother was a jester till he died. 
 This man is bigoted, morose, and sullen as 
 winter. Yet with his failings he is superior 
 to Charles by unnumbered gradations. Those 
 who bore the shame of the reign of Charles II 
 should not have murmured at the tyranny of 
 James. Charles masked his malice with a 
 smile; James moved toward his destined end 
 with knit brows. This it was that slew him. 
 If ever there was a desert in the history of lib- 
 erty, it was in the epoch succeeding the pro- 
 tectorate of mighty Cromwell, and extending 
 to the abdication of James II. Yet even that 
 desert was to bloom with beauty; and liberty 
 was only sleeping, and not dead. And this 
 was the hour which was to witness the coming 
 of William, the greatest English king after 
 Cromwell. 
 
Tilliam the Great of England 85 
 
 Of the four Williams named in the list of 
 English kings, two were foreigners. The men 
 of strength were foreign bom. William Rufus 
 and William IV added names to the list of 
 kings, but have made history no richer be- 
 cause they reigned. But of the first and third 
 William, history may well be voluble. They 
 differed in nationality, time, character. One 
 was a Norman, and founded the British Em- 
 pire; the other was Dutch, and refounded, on 
 a nobler plan, the government which had fallen 
 so low men thought it could no more arise. 
 They lived six centuries apart. 
 
 William I was cruel. He seemed to revivify 
 the spirit of Attila and Alaric. He was iron- 
 handed, and, in his bursts of passion, fierce 
 even to frenzy. Self-restraint he did not so 
 much as know by name. He embodied the 
 strength and weakness of Feudalism. A con- 
 tinental feudal lord, he raised himself to be 
 an island king. Atilla the Hun was not more 
 ferocious; and no inroad of buccaneers, Saxon 
 or Danish, was ever more terrible than his con- 
 quest. His caress was cruel. His smile had 
 no sunlight in it. He peopled England with 
 desolation. He banished the Saxon from 
 camp and palace, and thought he had made a 
 
86 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 perpetual banishment. William I was ruthless- 
 ness enthroned. But historians allow the man 
 was no mediocre. In a fierce age he out- 
 matched its fierceness; but there was in him a 
 genius for control. He curbed his fierce bar- 
 ons. His vengeance appalled them. Love he 
 did not expect, and cared not for. Obedience 
 he demanded and enforced with terrible severi- 
 ties. His shaggy brows beetled over eyes 
 that saw. Statesmanship was in him. He was 
 the greatest statesman of his century. 
 
 Six stormy centuries pass. Norman, Plan- 
 tagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, each 
 has his day. Feudalism lives to totter in de- 
 crepitude; and the last feudal baron, king- 
 making Warwick, closes the gate that shuts 
 mediaeval England out for evermore. There 
 is struggle for liberty at Runnymede, at 
 Naseby, in Star-chamber, in Parliament. 
 Tower Hill is crimson with patriot's blood. 
 We seem to be spectators of the horrors of 
 an opium-eater's dream. Another king as- 
 cends the throne. His mien betrays his king- 
 liness. The third William is the antithesis of 
 the first. His is the spirit of modern Europe. 
 His whole life is an apocalypse of self-control. 
 He is a warrior, but not a marauder and as- 
 
"OTilliam the Great of England 87 
 
 sassin calling himself a king. He humbles the 
 pride of the French sovereign, when that mon- 
 arch had prevailed in the face of all Europe. 
 By his accession the English struggle for 
 constitutional liberty was terminated trium- 
 phantly; and it thus happens that William is a 
 man important, not only for himself, but also 
 for the drama in whose closing scene he acted. 
 
 He is a man who challenges remembrance, 
 both for what he was and what he did. But 
 if to this there be added an illustrious field 
 for the display of ability, and momentous 
 events which missed being tragic because he 
 was present, then clearly a more absorbing 
 interest attaches to him. He becomes the 
 more important, and must be interrogated if 
 we are to comprehend one of the most unique 
 and important epochs of modern history. 
 
 William III was a native of the United 
 Netherlands. Born in 1650, died in 1702, his 
 eventful life spanned an eventful half-century. 
 He belonged to a race distinguished alike for 
 industry and love of liberty. The Dutch had 
 wrested the land they inhabited from the 
 ocean. In Caesar's time, Holland was a series 
 of marshes verging on the Northern seas. By 
 a matchless industry, that uninhabited and un- 
 
88 The Poefs Poet and Other Enays 
 
 inhabitable waste had become the most fertile 
 tract in Europe. This land became the refuge 
 for the persecuted Puritans of England; and 
 from its shores, Puritan America set sail. The 
 Dutch had become a race of seafaring mer- 
 chantmen, whose vessels entered every harbor 
 of the earth. They planted colonies in the 
 New World, and founded as their capital that 
 city which has become the metropolis of mod- 
 ern America. It was fitting that a people so 
 distinguished for industry should become re- 
 nowned in the annals of liberty, and so it was. 
 The Dutch set the English an example in re- 
 sisting kingly tyranny. The encroachments 
 of the bigoted, imperious Philip spurred them 
 into rebellion. The Inquisition, with its un- 
 imagined horrors, goaded the people to veri- 
 table frenzy; and some of the most noble rec- 
 ords of human heroism are to be found in the 
 battles and sieges of this remarkable people. 
 Under the leadership of William the Silent, a 
 man of splendid genius, of catholicity of spirit 
 rarely equaled, and of a breadth of view sur- 
 passed only by breadth of patriotism, — under 
 the leadership of such a man the Netherlands 
 became free. 
 
 William III was scion of a noble house, 
 
WiUiam fbt Great of England 89 
 
 and the inheritor of qualities which made Will- 
 iam the Silent a figure fit for the pantheon of 
 the world. In frame, he was slender and 
 feeble. The citadel of his life was beset by 
 asthma and consumption. His life was a con- 
 quest of an indomitable will over seemingly 
 impossible odds. His forehead was capacious, 
 his cheek pale, his expression sullen, his man- 
 ner incongenial. He was taciturn, and sel- 
 dom smiled. He repelled men, rather than at- 
 tracted them. Only in time of battle did his 
 manners become gracious, his smile sunny, 
 and his mien truly lordly. In feebleness of 
 frame, he reminds us of Torstenson, the illus- 
 trious successor of Gustavus Adolphus. In 
 generalship, he was a second William the Si- 
 lent. In statescraft, he stands, as Macaulay 
 affirms, "the peer of Richelieu." 
 
 William III was the great-grandson of 
 William the Silent, and posthumous son of 
 William II, Prince of Orange, "and was," as 
 Kitchen affirms, "destined to be the most dis- 
 tinguished man of his race." That such was 
 to be his elevation, there was nothing to fore- 
 cast. At his birth the sun of the House of 
 Orange seemed set. "Father William" had 
 been slain by a hired assassin of Phillip II. 
 
90 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Prince Maurice, as a brilliant soldier, had con- 
 tinued the heroic enterprise for freedom, to 
 which his father had dedicated his fortune and 
 his life. On his death, in 1625, Frederick 
 Henry, his brother, seized the spear which had 
 fallen from Maurice's dying grasp, and wielded 
 it right royally for two and twenty years. In 
 1648 the Netherlands were recognized as free. 
 They were Spanish dependencies no more. 
 
 The House of Orange had liberated the 
 the Lowlands. Such service, it would appear, 
 merited recognition and reward; but Will- 
 iam II, son of Frederick, was supremely am- 
 bitious, and, it is to be feared, supremely self- 
 ish. His grandfather had been the servant of 
 his country; the grandson estimated the coun- 
 try his body-servant, to do his bidding. Such 
 ambition "o'erleaped itself." At his death the 
 States General abolished the stadtholdership. 
 The government became an aristocratic re- 
 public, with virtual kingly power in the hands 
 of the Grand Pensionary, John DeWitt; and 
 William of Orange grew up the acknowledged 
 head of a semi-monarchical party, at once 
 hated, watched, and feared. His words, looks, 
 and gestures were recorded. Suspicion 
 guarded him on every side. He had been 
 
William the Great of England 9^ 
 
 hedged with enemies from his childhood. 
 Hence, says Protherou, "William learned cau- 
 tion, reserve, insight into character, and the 
 art of biding his time." He had come to guard 
 his thoughts as soldiers do the palace of the 
 king. Any but a prophet would have said 
 the glory of the House of Orange had de- 
 parted. The youth of Frederick the Great 
 gave indefinitely more promise than that of 
 William; and men did not, could not know 
 that this, the last of an illustrious house, was 
 to become the chief personality of contem- 
 poraneous Europe. 
 
 These infelicitous surroundings afford some 
 clue to the character of Orange. They do not 
 account for it. Environment never can ac- 
 count for either character or conduct. At best 
 it casts but a feeble light. It is never more 
 than an adjunct. But doubtless those traits 
 of the prince which made him so unpopular 
 as an English sovereign had thus been burned 
 the deeper into his soul. 
 
 Deterrents to popularity were elemental in 
 his career as general and statesman. His face 
 never betrayed him. He hid behind it as be- 
 hind a mask. Though joy laughed in his 
 heart, his face was sunless, his eyes lusterless. 
 
92 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Praise or blame, victory or defeat, he met with 
 visage unperturbed. Men looked in vain to 
 read the secrets he hid in his capacious mind. 
 Diplomats could get no word which should 
 betray the plans he was maturing for the ac- 
 complishment of that end to which he had 
 dedicated every power of his soul — ^that end 
 the humiliation of Louis XIV and the enfran- 
 chisement of Europe. And when the year 
 1672 came, and with it the battalions of Louis's 
 unequaled soldiers to wash like a storm-sea 
 over the Netherlands, William, the lad of 
 twenty-two, was in truth a man of mature in- 
 tellect and vigor, fit to cope with the greatest 
 sovereign of Europe. 
 
 Since the Dutch had, in 1667, become a 
 party to the Triple Alliance, Louis had deter- 
 mined to annihilate Holland. At that time he 
 was the statesman pre-eminent of all Christen- 
 dom. With him diplomacy took shape as an 
 art in government, and with it he conquered 
 in the cabinets of kings. His diplomacy had 
 served to detach every ally from Holland, and 
 leave it as friendless as the beggar shivering 
 at the gate. Thus, alone and armyless, the 
 republic must meet upon the field of blood the 
 best-trained soldiers of the century. The 
 
William the Great of England 93 
 
 provinces were panic-stricken. That was 
 William's hour. He rose to meet the storm. 
 He met it as the sailor the tempest, with cour- 
 age like to joy. He roused his provinces to 
 resistance. He gave his revenues and private 
 fortune to the State, to be used in defense. 
 He took the lead of its armies. He stood in 
 the swirl of battle undisturbed, even joyful. 
 He opened the sluices and flooded vast tracts, 
 as William the Silent had done before him. 
 He was heroism at its best. He formed con- 
 federations against France. He won no battle ; 
 but such was his genius for turning defeat into 
 triumph that Turenne and Conde, though 
 always victors, were always defeated. Conde 
 retired, _Turenne died; but William lived to 
 celebrate, in 1678, the treaty of Nimeguen and 
 the independence of Holland. Small wonder 
 that his countrymen loved him with an affec- 
 tion near to adoration. The ten years which 
 had succeeded this triumphant peace were, on 
 William's part, an era of diplomacy. He 
 headed the coalition of Europe. A country 
 with scant ten thousand square miles of terri- 
 tory dominates in the councils of emperors; 
 so does genius master. 
 
 Had the stadtholder never become a king, 
 
94 Tfae Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 had his base of action never been enlarged 
 from a province to a kingdom, WilHam III 
 would have ranked among the great men of 
 Modern Europe. It was not place made him 
 great. When he became king of England, it 
 was he who honored England, not England 
 which honored him. 
 
 From the time of his marriage with Mary, 
 daughter of the Duke of York, William had 
 turned the attention of his astute intellect to 
 England and English politics. He cast covet- 
 ous eyes upon the throne, because as the sover- 
 eign of one of the great powers of Europe he 
 could more efifectually head the coalitions 
 against the arch enemy of continental powers, 
 the king of France. It is safe to assume that 
 never in waking hours did the prince forget 
 that king whose life was spent in self-adulation 
 and in plans for the aggrandizement of him- 
 self and Catholicism. William was the ac- 
 knowledged head of Protestant Europe. If he 
 cared for England's crown, for such common 
 ambition as the many know, that desire is not 
 apparent. With him the kingship of England 
 was a means, and not, as with others, an end. 
 
 The haughtiness of Louis becomes insup- 
 
William the Great of England 95 
 
 portable. He domineers over Europe. He 
 revokes the Edict of Nantes. James, with 
 that folly characteristic of the Stuarts, goads 
 his people into anger he can not allay. Will- 
 iam is invited to England to save English 
 liberties. He does not haste. He feels the 
 pulse of England, till he knows the hour has 
 come. Then he gathers his troops, sets sail 
 for Torbay, lands on the island kingdom, and 
 heads his columns toward London. The die 
 is cast. The glorious revolution hastens to 
 accomplishment. 
 
 The travesty and the pathos of the revolu- 
 tion of 1688 lies in this, that patriotism played 
 so insignificant a part. Love of freedom was 
 not so much a factor as the hatred for the sa- 
 turnine James. Anomalous as the statement is, 
 love of liberty was inferior to love of per- 
 jury. That so benignant a revolution should 
 have such paternity seems impossible, but is 
 only melancholy truth. Marlborough, who owed 
 all to his master, James, was foremost in con- 
 spiring against him, hoping in change of mas- 
 ters to increase gains. His spirit was the spirit 
 of his compeers. Besides Somers, Notting- 
 ham, and possibly Montague, it is hard to 
 
96 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 name an English statesman of the reign of 
 William III who was a man of incorruptible 
 honor. 
 
 All this goes to show the influence of a 
 reign like that of Charles II. Charles died, 
 but the blight of his reign survived him. Dis- 
 honor was to him instead of honor; and that 
 statesmen trained in such a school should have 
 been traitors for a coronet is not hard to be- 
 lieve. When had political virtue been so low? 
 The virtue of those men who championed the 
 Puritan revolution was so unimpeachable, and 
 their character so clean, that their memory is 
 like precious odors. They had the flavor of 
 divine moralities. They entertained elevated 
 conceptions of honor. But with the return of 
 the Stuarts there was a reinstatement of de- 
 praved political codes. Those who hoped to 
 receive honors from the king's munificence, 
 must bring their purchase-money in their 
 hands. All England was an object of barter. 
 The king received bribes from France; he 
 must also receive bribes from England. Like 
 lord, like liege. The antecedents of the revo- 
 lution of 1688, England may well hope to for- 
 get: the result of it she may well pray to hold 
 in everlasting remembrance. Corrupt govern- 
 
William the Great of England 97 
 
 merits are always a curse to both present and 
 future. The vitiated morals of this period 
 make solemn comment on the curse of corrupt 
 kings. 
 
 But history is one. Unpropitious to liberty 
 as the times seemed, they were not more so 
 than those which antedate the rise of the 
 Dutch Republic. He who reads the records of 
 that era to a certain point will come to ques- 
 tion whether Holland had any man save one, 
 and whether liberty were not a lost art. The 
 Netherlands suffered the Inquisition to do its 
 worst. Its sons wore the shackles of a galling 
 servitude, and refused to break them. Exe- 
 crable cruelties seemed powerless to change 
 them from cowards into men. That Orange 
 could have believed in them through it all is 
 one of the miracles of human faith. Egmont 
 and Horn were purchased with a smile. Many 
 another exchanged his honor as a thing of 
 barter. Yet out of such sterile soil had risen 
 a gigantic growth. And the Batavian Repub- 
 lic stood the foremost republic in Europe and 
 in the world. 
 
 So, in the light of history, England's cause 
 was not altogether, hopeless. The very per- 
 fidy, the dishonor, the shameless treason of 
 7 
 
9^ The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 men highest in the counsels of the king, were 
 made under God the ministers of constitu- 
 tional liberty. 
 
 Four and a half centuries of struggle for 
 constitutional liberty were marshaling squad- 
 rons for their last onset. This was, as we now 
 know, a solemn and majestic moment. In the 
 last charge is always something fathomless 
 in tragic interest. The pathos of that final 
 charge of Napoleon's life-guard is fit to make 
 men weep. All life flung into one awful hour 
 is a spectacle before which silence is the only 
 fitting speech. The Anglo-Saxon is now to 
 make one more massive onset. It is the Mara- 
 thon of king or constitution. From Runny- 
 mede and John to Whitehall and James, the 
 march has been one long struggle between 
 absolutism and constitutional rights. The 
 shout and tumult of battle have been incessant. 
 It was in such a scene that William III was 
 called upon to be the kingly actor. 
 
 Two things are requisite that a drama may 
 be sublime, — noble stage and noble actor. 
 These two elements are met this hour. The 
 destinies of liberty, for which Puritans have 
 been glad to die, were marching to triumph or 
 death. The battle-piece is sublime; and 
 
William the Great of England 99 
 
 Orange is a fit figure to hold his place on such 
 a scene. For such an hour he was the man 
 of destiny. He it was who made victory 
 achievable. His whole life seemed preparation 
 for this exigency of liberty. His was that 
 tutoring of adversity which makes men meet 
 for any hazard. He had been schooled 
 
 "To throw away the dearest thing he owned, 
 As 't were a careless trifle." 
 
 And at the end he might have said with Rich- 
 ard HI, 
 
 "And I have set my life upon a cast, 
 And I will stand the hazard of the die." 
 
 Subtraction is sometimes an easy and lucid 
 method of finding the value of a given quantity. 
 Heat eliminated, the world, which is so fair, 
 would become a barren ice-waste, flowerless 
 as the region of the pole. Moisture subtracted, 
 the planet would wheel to every sunrise one 
 hot Sahara, with no oasis to offer fountain 
 and rest and cooling shade. The earth would 
 be a fevered giant, for whose delirium no febri- 
 fuge could avail. Use this method in determin- 
 ing the value of William of Orange as a factor 
 in that revolution which gave to England a 
 new meridian. Suppose he had not been. 
 
lOO The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 What could England have done? Whither 
 could it have looked for aid? Where was there 
 a man in Europe to whose hands Parliament 
 would have felt safe in intrusting the scepter? 
 
 Is it not clear that but for William that 
 gracious revolution had not been for a century 
 or centuries? It appears plain that, in any 
 conservative estimate, to William, England 
 must be debtor for the clear gain of at least 
 a hundred years of constitutional government. 
 Small wonder then that a test of fealty to the 
 progressive party in English politics has been 
 loyalty to the memory of their great deliv- 
 erer, William of Orange. His presence and 
 coming simplified the problem, and rendered a 
 solution possible. In this light, his value to 
 Anglo-Saxondom and the world is impossible 
 to overestimate. 
 
 The battles for liberty have been won by 
 scant populations. The few sowed, the many 
 reap. The population of the Netherlands, in 
 the era of the struggle for freedom from Span- 
 ish possessions, numbered three millions. 
 That of America at the time of its Revolution 
 was the same. The census of England at the 
 time of the Revolution was five millions. It 
 seems beyond belief that this supreme triumph 
 
William the Great of England loi 
 
 for constitutionality was won by populations 
 only a trifle larger than that of London of 
 the present; but so it was. The few are bene- 
 factors, the many beneficiaries. 
 
 The succession of events following Will- 
 iam's landing and preceding his coronation, is 
 briefly rehearsed. James desires to treat. 
 William astutely accedes to the request. The 
 king takes advice from his timorous heart, and 
 flees; is captured and returned, to the chagrin 
 of the prince; escapes again; destroys the writs 
 of convocation, disbands the army, throws the 
 great seal into the Thames, takes ship with 
 wife and babe for France; and, — /inis to the 
 Stuarts. It is fit termination of Stuart sover- 
 eignty; and for such self-exile there can be no 
 return. 
 
 In the light of succeeding events, England 
 can have no more celebrated anniversary than 
 November 5th, the date of William's landing. 
 How stupendous the undertaking on which 
 he entered, no one but himself comprehended. 
 His solemn farewell to the States of Holland 
 is full of pathos. He says he is leaving them 
 "perhaps not to return." Should he fall in 
 defense of the reformed religion and the inde- 
 pendence of Europe, he commends his beloverf 
 
I02 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 wife to their care. These utterances affirm 
 how well the prince knew the gravity of the 
 undertaking on which he was now embarked. 
 During the reign of Charles II, England had 
 been a dependency of the French crown. 
 James had pledged himself to continue this 
 relation. Add to this the bigotry of James 
 and the complete surrender of his narrow na- 
 ture to Catholicism, . and the rock on which 
 the cause of Protestantism was drifting looms 
 terribly through the fog. 
 
 Such men as Phillip II, Louis XIV, and 
 James II, open a strange chapter to students 
 of psychology. These men were barren in all 
 that affection characteristic of great souls. 
 They were as selfish as the desert, which in- 
 gulfs all streams, but gives back no fountain. 
 Yet the love these men gave Rome was as ex- 
 travagant and absolute as the donors were 
 bigoted and malignant. William did not bat- 
 tle with shadows. He did not misconstrue the 
 writing on the wall. The union of Catholic 
 England and Catholic France with a single 
 ruler for the two, and he such a man as 
 Louis XIV, meant the destruction of liberty 
 and Protestantism so far as this was a possi- 
 bility of human machination. Three years 
 
William the Great of England 1 03 
 
 before, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
 had shown to an astonished Europe the length 
 to which the bigotry of the French sovereign 
 would drive him. These facts loomed omi- 
 nously before the eyes of Prince William, and 
 impelled him to venture all, that he might 
 save all. 
 
 This is a legitimate interpretation of the 
 Declaration of Rights. It has no insular mean- 
 ing. If it meant much to the island kingdom, 
 it meant scarcely less to the continental king- 
 doms. Its stipulations, sown to the tides of air 
 and sea, and borne to every continent, are 
 therefore familiar to the world. In a word, the 
 "Declaration" means the supremacy of the 
 people. The king becomes elective, and ap- 
 pears the creation of Parliament, not Parlia- 
 ment the creation of the king. This was fit 
 climax of Magna Charta; and thus the Eng- 
 lish Constitution, that great, unwritten docu- 
 ment, was completed. On February 13, 1689, 
 at Whitehall, William and Mary became joint 
 sovereigns under such limitations. England 
 became, in fact as well as in legal fiction, a 
 constitutional monarchy; and the Glorious 
 Revolution was consummated. No bloody 
 assize comes with William's reign. That be- 
 
I04 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 longs to the execrable atrocities of Jeffreys 
 and of James. William's motto, "I will main- 
 tain," was supplemented by, "the liberties of 
 England and the Protestant religion." Such 
 was his splendid purpose; such his still more 
 splendid achievement. 
 
 The recording these events which made 
 William king is a task easy of accomplish- 
 ment; but the magnitude of the undertaking 
 was sufficient to have appalled a soul less 
 great. Macaulay says: "One capacious and 
 powerful mind alone took all the difficulties 
 into view, and determined to surmount them 
 all," and "the whole history of ancient and 
 modern times records no such triumph of 
 statesmanship." High tribute this; but the 
 lapse of time demands no revision of state- 
 ment. But the task on which the king en- 
 tered was, if possible, as arduous as the one 
 just completed. The declaration, when once 
 in the nation's blood and circulating in its 
 veins, was to introduce the most memorable 
 changes which have occurred in the whole his- 
 tory of England. 
 
 William was born to be king. The qualities 
 of mind and heart which justify kingship he 
 
'William the Great of England 105 
 
 possessed in an eminent degree. Hallam says: 
 "The desire of rule in William III was as mag- 
 nanimous and public-spirited as ambition can 
 ever be in human bosom." Such a man may 
 be trusted with supreme powers. Had he 
 been an autocrat the thirteen years of his sov- 
 ereignty would doubtless have brought such 
 humiliation to France as Crecy or Malpla- 
 quet wrought. With powers like Napoleon, 
 he had ground Louis into powder. But in 
 his plan he was often like a boat locked in 
 harbor by adverse winds. Time and tide are 
 propitious, but the bark can not slip from the 
 mooring. England could not see through 
 WilUam's eyes. That required his genius. He 
 must first master Parliament, then the coun- 
 cils of Europe. The conflict was a bitter one. 
 Small wonder that sometimes he cried out like 
 a wounded man, and would have resigned the 
 sovereignty, and retired to Holland. 
 
 Yet it was better that one king, attempered 
 for benignant rule, be hampered unduly than 
 other kings of common sort should reign with- 
 out control. The historian above quoted avers 
 that "William was too great for his time," and 
 "the last sovereign of this country whose un- 
 
Io6 The Poefs Poet and Other Essay* 
 
 derstanding and energy of character have been 
 distinguished." For that reason the Declara- 
 tion of Rights must prevail. English liberties 
 must be maintained. In this view the very 
 humiliation of so great a king was a triumph 
 of the Revolution, whose master spirit he was. 
 William saw that continued war with 
 France was the price England must pay for 
 its freedom. That is the key to his diplomacy 
 and sleepless activity. Louis sheltered the de- 
 throned king, and championed his cause with 
 money, arms, diplomatic agents. The war of 
 1689 was the solitary thing which saved the 
 independence of England. The British people 
 had moments of vision ; but the glory of events 
 blinded them. But the king saw on. Will- 
 iam's whole life was one long campaign 
 against France, of which his life as king was 
 only a part. He formed the Grand Alliance, 
 and was its soul. No other could animate so 
 huge a thing. Sublime powers are requisite 
 to breathe life into a great coalition. He 
 spent part of each year on the Continent lead- 
 ing the armies of Europe against their com- 
 mon foe. He routed Louis and James at the 
 battle of the Boyne. That victory assured his 
 throne. He conquered at Namur; but defeat 
 
William the Great of England 107 
 
 on the battle-field was his lot more often than 
 triumph. His victories came when the battle 
 was ended. France won the fight: William 
 carried off the spoils; and in 1697 the peace 
 of Ryswick vindicated the statesmanship of 
 William, when, says Green, "for the first time 
 since Richelieu's day, France consented to a 
 disadvantageous peace; in spite of failures and 
 defeats in the field William's policy had won." 
 The difficulties with which the king coped 
 were legion. A new power given the people 
 made them captious. The king, though the 
 savior of England's liberties, was goaded al- 
 most to madness by being trusted less than the 
 Stuarts. This, as has been shown, was a neces- 
 sity of the Revolution, but none the less harass- 
 ing to a proud spirit for that reason. He was 
 beleaguered by traitors. Members of his cabi- 
 net were plotting for the return of James. As 
 in the case of his famous ancestor, a price was 
 put upon his head. James offered a coronet 
 to the assassin of the king. The treasury was 
 depleted by the iniquitous reigns of Charles 
 and James. The coin was debased. Conti- 
 nental wars were a source of expense till then 
 unknown. Taxes were in consequence high, 
 and dissatisfaction prevalent. The Tories were 
 
lo8 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 avowed Jacobites, and as soon as impending 
 fear fell from them by the coronation of Will- 
 iam, leisure and opportunity were afforded for 
 every species of iniquitous practice which in- 
 fected their blood. No English king besides 
 Cromwell was so beset by foes, and no king 
 except Cromwell was so great. 
 
 In William's time England was a cesspool 
 of political vices. Honor was a word whose 
 significance was lost. To know the extent of 
 the perfidy of this era, let a man read Dal- 
 rymple, Macaulay, and the Shrewsbury corre- 
 spondence. A querulous Parliament, the most 
 stupendous war England had known to that 
 hour, plans which were too large for popular 
 comprehension, — all these made the burdens 
 of the king almost insupportably weighty. 
 Meantime he suffered, but England grew 
 great. The spell of his genius touched even 
 it at the last. 
 
 Before proceeding to the examination of the 
 remarkable constitutional changes which be- 
 long to the reign of King William, it is well 
 to pause for a moment to note those qualities 
 of mind and heart in the king, which, aside 
 from his genius, adapted him for leadership 
 in the regeneration of a kingdom. These, 
 
William the Gteat of England 109 
 
 I take it, are five in number, — his ability to 
 grasp principles, his humaneness, his freedom 
 from bigotry, his self-forgetfulness, and his 
 courage. These qualities go far toward mak- 
 ing an ideal king. The first implies statesman- 
 ship, which was displayed on all occasions, 
 and led to the adoption of Sunderland's policy 
 for organizing the ministry from the party in 
 power, — one of the most sagacious expedients 
 ever resorted to in government. 
 
 William's humaneness was of incalculable 
 worth in England. The people were spend- 
 thrifts of blood. Tower Hill was a place easy 
 of access; English mobs had been proverb- 
 ially ferocious. The terrible penal code in 
 vogue more than a hundred years later leaves 
 no need for further proof of the truth of the 
 statement. William was granite here. No 
 bloodshed must be tolerated on his enthrone- 
 ment. He was as humane as Cromwell in his 
 administration. The result was what we might 
 anticipate. The value of such precedent was 
 priceless. It taught England that political sta- 
 bility could be secured without constant ap- 
 peal to a headsman's ax and gibbet. His act 
 of amnesty was a service to mankind in the 
 spirit it exhibited. In this sketch there is no 
 
I lo The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 desire to obscure any facts in the life of King 
 William. All will bear inspection. Three acts 
 may be adduced, which, more than any others, 
 would seem to smirch his name. The mob 
 massacre of the De Witts, the attack on Mons 
 subsequent to the treaty of peace, and the 
 massacre of Glencoe. It may be said that the 
 most hostile and virulent criticism has not 
 been able, in any proper sense, to connect 
 William with these. Whether he was culpable 
 or not, we do not know. He may not have 
 risen enough above the spirit of his age to have 
 been free from taint; but it is safe to allege 
 that the tenor of his life, the humanity of his 
 behavior, do not favor the theory of his guilt 
 in these cases. Let a man's history answer 
 for his conduct, and the motives which prompt 
 it when that conduct is uncertain. This is a 
 just and magnanimous rule. 
 
 Self-forgetfulness had ample room for exer- 
 cising itself in his case. Had he been other 
 than he was, he could have deluged his realm 
 with blood. He chose to pass by ingratitude, 
 even treason. He won Shrewsbury, and dis- 
 armed Marlborough by seeming unconscious- 
 ness of their treason. With him the end to 
 which his life was dedicated was supreme. He 
 
William the Great of England 1 1 1 
 
 was nothing; it was all. In that attitude lie 
 unknown possibilities for good. 
 
 The king's freedom from religious bigotry 
 is one of his noblest traits. That is always a 
 safe mark of a manly soul. Hallam says, "He 
 was in all things superior to his subjects;" 
 certainly in none more remarkably than this. 
 History has memory of few more noble 
 utterances than his declaration against relig- 
 ious persecution. In this, too, the mantle of 
 William the Silent seems to have fallen upon 
 him. Under him Dissenters were allowed 
 rights which were inalienably theirs. Such 
 was his catholicity of sentiment that he would 
 have removed the ban from the Catholic as 
 well; and it was one of the charges brought 
 against him by virulent opposition that he 
 connived at popery. 
 
 William was courageous. That is a king's 
 trait. He compelled the admiration of the 
 greatest soldiers of Europe by his dauntless 
 courage. As a lad, he led his soldiers, and 
 stood in the midst of battle's tempest. He 
 could in one way, he said, prevent seeing his 
 country conquered, and that was "By dying 
 in the last ditch." Only heroism pronounces 
 such words. His passing into Ireland to van- 
 
112 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 quish James, when treason was rife in Eng- 
 land, Green pronounces one of the bravest 
 deeds of his heroic life. 
 
 Those changes in government, some of 
 which are valuable beyond computation, may 
 be mentioned, but not elaborated. Such are: 
 Triennial Parliaments, vote of annual supplies, 
 the Mutiny Act, establishment of the Bank 
 of England and the reform of the debased 
 coin, the national debt and its effect in render- 
 ing the revolution stable, change of ministry 
 with change of party. Religious Toleration Act, 
 allowing Scotland its own Church, annual as- 
 sembly of Parliament, and the right of Parlia- 
 mentary inquiry. What other period of equal 
 length, or thrice that, can produce such a cata- 
 logue of signal gains for posterity? Divine 
 right of kings became an extinct doctrine, the 
 maintenance of a standing army without the 
 consent of Parliament was rendered impos- 
 sible, the national debt became a defense rather 
 than a danger, — ^these and more were the fruits 
 of a reign of thirteen years. Beyond contro- 
 versy, this proved an illustrious reign. 
 
 William was an unpopular sovereign. At 
 a two-century remove it is hard to give this 
 credence. He had in the largest sense be- 
 
'William the Gteat of England 1 13 
 
 friended England. He had rescued her from 
 an infamy unspeakable. He had lifted her 
 from a state of dependency on her most deter- 
 mined foe, and made her the chief government 
 of Europe. Such services as these merit a re- 
 ward as generous as the service was illustrious. 
 As logic, this reasoning is perfect; as history, 
 it is wide of the truth. England had few more 
 unpopular sovereigns than William. This 
 statement is not flattering to the intelligence 
 of the English people, but is undeniably true. 
 It is not difficult to discover reasons for this 
 unpopularity, a few of which may be assigned. 
 The king's taciturnity militated against 
 him. The easy suavity of manner character- 
 istic of Charles H and Marlborough he did 
 not possess. His was a great nature, but was 
 not voluble. There were deeps in his heart 
 men knew not of. But to his best beloved he 
 appeared a princely soul apart from his inherit- 
 ance. Portland knew him, and his wife loved 
 him to the verge of adoration. His voice was 
 harsh, his manner dry and brusque. He had 
 no easy joviality. He was not a figure framed 
 for court society. Easy affability he did not 
 possess. Worth, manliness, courage, and vir- 
 tue were his ; but these, men could not see, and 
 8 
 
114 The Poefs Poet and Other Eaiays 
 
 SO it is easy to discover that the geniality 
 which had been so marked in the manner of 
 Charles, but was so lacking in that of William, 
 should have brought a contrast to the king's 
 hurt. Men are easily deceived. They do not 
 pierce beneath the thin disguise of externality 
 to discover genuine and unapproachable merit. 
 Another chief cause of William's unpopular- 
 ity was his partiality to his own countrymen. 
 He loaded Portland with honors. He gave 
 great estates to those who had been his life- 
 long friends. There is a sense in which this 
 charge is just. If by undue partiality is meant 
 that he was impolitic, then there can be no 
 controverting facts : it was impolitic. To have 
 dispossessed him of all those friends who had 
 counted life for his sake a worthless thing, 
 would have given him a popularity he did not 
 possess. The Dutch constituents of the king 
 stood, as the politicians supposed, between 
 themselves and preferment. This was a sin 
 they could not pardon. By ingratitude such 
 as the Stuarts had schooled England to expect, 
 William could have crowned himself with 
 ephemeral popularity; but this man was not of 
 the Stuart sort. In that lay his pre-eminent 
 fitness for kingship. He had a heart. He 
 
William the Great of England 1 15 
 
 loved his friends. He really supposed that 
 being a king did not disqualify him from being 
 a man, and acting a manly part. He had a 
 memory for those whose life had been to do his 
 service. He was indiscreet sometimes in load- 
 ing his tried friends with unneeded honors, 
 bvit such error may easily be forgotten. 
 Would the Stuarts had been given to such 
 weakness and such vice! But if sacrifices for 
 his sake were thought on, the second Charles 
 would hold his hand to be kissed by the men 
 who had risked all and lost all for his sake, 
 and pay for a life of service so devoted as to 
 make succeeding generations marvel, by a 
 "God bless you, my old friend." William was 
 a man both before and after his coronation. 
 Gratitude was a peculiarity of his character. 
 He held to his friends with a tenacity which 
 knew no abatement, even when it threatened 
 the stability of his throne. 
 
 There is, too, another fact which must not 
 be forgotten or obscured. The king was 
 among a race of statesmen to whom political 
 virtue was a jest. This melancholy phase of 
 this period has been adverted to, but can not 
 receive too much emphasis. Every man 
 seemed determined to sell his honor's birth- 
 
Ii6 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 right. Members of the king's ministry, the 
 commanders of his fleet and of his army, were 
 traitors to his every interest. Loyalty was a 
 word whose meaning they did not know. The 
 record of the shameless treasons of those times 
 makes modern England blush at the mere re- 
 membrance. That a king thus beset, with his 
 halls crowded with traitors, should have leaned 
 as on a staff upon friends whose loyalty was 
 as certain and inalienable as the affections of 
 the lovely woman who loved to be called his 
 wife, is not strange nor blamable. It is rather 
 the wisdom of the profoundest statesman of his 
 times. 
 
 William was a foreigner. This was a fruit- 
 ful source of unpopularity. He was a native 
 of the one country which had contested with 
 England the sovereignty of the seas. The two 
 commercial countries of Europe were now Eng- 
 land and Holland. Such rivalry as existed 
 between Genoa and Venice burned hot be- 
 tween the country which gave William birth 
 and the one over which he swayed scepter as 
 king. In ports even at the antipodes the 
 Dutch and English merchantmen were com- 
 petitors. Englishmen were therefore jealous 
 of any favor shown to their commercial rivals. 
 
William the Great of England 117 
 
 William belonged to that nation; and every 
 sign of love for his country or his countrymen 
 seemed to their distempered vision a slight to 
 England and Englishmen. He and those he 
 favored were Hollanders. The first they could 
 forget, the second never. 
 
 What England had suffered from the in- 
 troduction of foreign troops ought, however, 
 to be urged as a slight palliation for this feel- 
 ing. Even William's government was con- 
 stantly threatened by the French and Irish 
 army; and during the encroachments of 
 Charles I, with his usual perfidy, he planned 
 deluging his kingdom with Catholic battal- 
 ions. Since the time of William the Con- 
 queror, the English had tended toward insu- 
 larity. Their aversion to foreign encroach- 
 ments had been as bitter as winter. The 
 Church of Rome was detested mainly for this 
 reason. It thus arose naturally, if not wisely, 
 that the foreign troops of William's guard 
 were endured with distrust, and, in 1697, over 
 the manifest protest of the king and in spite 
 of his service, they were compelled to return 
 to Holland. This spirit of rancorous dislike 
 to what was foreign was no insignificant fac- 
 tor in the unpopularity of William. His splen- 
 
Ii8 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 did service, when fresh in memory, in spite of 
 their natural dislike, won him the flitting popu- 
 larity he possessed. 
 
 The English statesmen who gathered about 
 William the king were men of superior abili- 
 ties. Danby, Shrewsbury, Halifax, Devon- 
 shire, Montague, Marlborough, Sunderland, 
 Godolphin, Portland, Somers, were men who, 
 for strength of intellect, grasp of mind, and 
 variety of genius, have not often been paral- 
 leled in the annals of England. With a few 
 notable exceptions, they were as prominent for 
 statesmanlike parts as they were lacking in 
 patriotism. Their genius was as brilliant as 
 their honor was tarnished ; yet "compared with 
 William," says the judicial Hallam, "the states- 
 men who surround his throne sink into insig- 
 nificance." Green calls him "a born states- 
 man." Statescraft seemed his daily bread. 
 His capacity for mastering men, for forming 
 gigantic coalitions, for wringing victory from 
 sore defeat, for bearing up against seas of ad- 
 versity, for holding himself in imperturbable 
 calm amidst the very tragedies of his career, 
 seems incredible. Viewed from whatever 
 point, his plans were great, — great in moral 
 heroism, great in the courage that can brook 
 
William the Great of England II9 
 
 delay, great in achieving results which shall 
 endure. 
 
 Statesmanship is an appeal from bodily to 
 intellectual force. With it armies are of sec- 
 ondary value; and its introduction is a sup- 
 planting of soldier by diplomat. To Louis XI 
 of France men owe a debt difficult to repay, 
 for he it was who shifted the fray from the 
 field of battle to the cabinet. His was a power- 
 ful though a depraved intellect. But, though 
 he substituted cunning for force, in it were the 
 roots from which grew that large and benefi- 
 cent life we name statesmanship. Hitherto 
 France had seemed to have a monopoly of 
 diplomatic skill. William the Silent and Crom- 
 well had been the most illustrious statesmen 
 who had arisen outside of France. Louis XIV 
 had ruled Europe through his crafty di- 
 plomacy. 
 
 Statesmanship in the sense of manipulating 
 great interstate interests, found no place with 
 Caesar or Augustus; for Rome was the one 
 nation, and did not treat, but conquered. And 
 so it is safe to affirm that the greatest inter- 
 national statesmen who had lived thus far were 
 Richelieu and William III, and the coronation 
 of William introduced England into the affairs 
 
I20 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 of continental Europe, as it had not been in 
 its long and splendid history. The wars of 
 the Edwards for the possession of French 
 principalities, as well as the insignia of roy- 
 alty, were mere contests between two king- 
 doms. There the belligerency ended. At that 
 period diplomacy was a thing little under- 
 stood. Gigantic coalitions, such as burdened 
 the world with armies, and made Europe the 
 theater of battle, were inaugurated by the en- 
 thronement of William III. The coalitions of 
 Henry VIII and Elizabeth were bagatelles 
 compared with what came later. Cromwell 
 made England a word of mighty import; but 
 he dominated in the councils as an august 
 power, whose wrath, when kindled but a little, 
 meant disaster. Cromwell was primarily a 
 soldier; William, primarily a statesman. This 
 marks the difference in their genius. By 
 statesmanship, William made England a proud 
 figure in deciding the destinies of Europe, and 
 there could be no more isolation. The cam- 
 paigns of Marlborough and Wellington, with 
 all the supremacy they gave, were fruits of 
 William's diplomacy. "An alliance was made" 
 became a phrase introduced into the nomen- 
 clature of European statescraft as soon as 
 
'William the Gfeat of England I2i 
 
 William came into power. He organized the 
 greatest combination Europe had seen since 
 the Crusades. That is his genius. He lost 
 battles, but ruled Europe. Not the strength 
 of his armies, but the might of his diplomacy 
 made him the prince omnipotent among the 
 statesmen of his time. His coronation 
 changed England from an insular government 
 to a continental realm. He flung her into the 
 vortex of continental affairs, from which there 
 can be no escape. He made England a force 
 even as he had previously made the Batavian 
 Republic. William's death, we are told, 
 "shook the Grand Alliance" to its very base. 
 The interpretation of all the acts of his diver- 
 sified career is to be sought in one word — 
 statesmanship. 
 
 In recalling scenes among the mountains, 
 one will always linger longer than others, like 
 a lover when the guests are gone. Its sub- 
 lime solitudes, its rocky summits whitened with 
 unwasting snows, its armies of silent pines 
 that stand and wait as for the general's "For- 
 ward," the lake whose chalice seems to hold 
 the blue washed from the sky through cen- 
 turies, — even so, one thing greets me first, and 
 challenges me last, in thinking of William III, 
 
122 The Poeft Poet and Other Essays 
 
 imperial crag among the mountain fastnesses 
 of history. His royal statesmanship captivates 
 my thought, and casts its spell over me as a 
 sunset does. 
 
 Yet the choicer characteristics of this man 
 were visible only to the few; and all the splen- 
 dor of his achievements and the supremacy of 
 his genius find fitting complement in his life, 
 and termination in his death. His love, like 
 his genius, was profound; and at the death of 
 Mary, who had been so beautiful in her affec- 
 tion for him, he raved like a storm at mid- 
 night. He died as he had lived — a, man. "No 
 weakness or querulousness," says the brilliant 
 historian of his reign, "disgraced the noble 
 close of that noble career." In the midst of 
 paroxysms of pain, he was thoughtful and 
 courteous. He planned for England to the 
 last; and when too weak to take his place upon 
 the throne, he wrote urging the union of Eng- 
 land and Scotland. To the end, as all his life, 
 his thought was for others, and not for self. 
 Men knew he prayed, from the fragments of 
 petitions that fell from his lips, as we know 
 in darkness the sea is near by the music of 
 waves upon the rocks. He called for the dear- 
 est friend of his life, and when no longer able 
 
\^illiam the Great of England 123 
 
 to speak, took his hand and pressed it fondly 
 to his breast. Thus he died; and above his 
 heart they found a ring of gold and a lock of 
 Mary's hair. So set that sun whose beams 
 have given to England an unsetting day. 
 
The Greater English Elegies 
 
 The elegy springs from the heart as flowers 
 from the grave. It is grief finding a voice. 
 And so long as hearts love and lose, so long 
 will the elegy be native to us as tears. If you 
 shall listen to the voices of the wind at night, 
 you shall seem to hear elegiacs. Nature turns 
 to sobbing with such naturalness as brings 
 her into companionship with hearts that break 
 and voices that find their utterance a sob. 
 Since graves are always freshly made, and 
 lives freshly bereft, the elegy, least of all 
 poetry, can become archaic. 
 
 English literature is genius trying all instru- 
 ments of music. Certain it is that the elegies 
 here characterized have no peers, but stand a 
 sacred and solitary quaternion. They are here 
 mentioned in their chronological order. This 
 apostolic succession runs: Milton, Gray, Shel- 
 ley, Tennyson; and the productions: Lycidas, 
 Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Adonais, In 
 Memoriam, — and the arch spans two centuries 
 of elegiacs. With one exception, the poems 
 are personal. Gray's elegy is impersonal. 
 124 
 
Tbe Greater English Elegies 125 
 
 Sorrow usually dissipates when general. We 
 can not commiserate men-kind save in man- 
 kind. This personal element is apparent in 
 all grief. Elegies are the soul crying aloud, 
 "Absalom, my son, my son !" and in those rare 
 instances when not special we still seem brood- 
 ing as at a grave. This mourning dove is 
 mourning for our dead. We reduce to the 
 singular all pluralizations of grief. In Thana- 
 topsis, an elegy in a noble vein, the spirit is 
 individualized in the closing strain: 
 
 "So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan that moves 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not like the quarry slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and 
 
 soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 It is "thy death" to which all this accord of 
 music points. Milton, Shelley, Tennyson, 
 poets, but men none the less, loved friends, 
 and since death came, each lifted up his voice 
 and wept like one of old. Milton's friend, Ed- 
 ward King, died in shipwreck on the Irish 
 
126 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Sea; Shelley's friend, that modern Greek, John 
 Keats, died under the blue of Roman skies, 
 calling, "I feel the violets growing over me." 
 Tennyson's friend, Arthur Hallam, a youth of 
 rare though unfulfilled promise, died and 
 found the health he sought in heaven. These 
 poems are apostrophes, while Gray's is a 
 monologue, as of one who sits alone in the 
 shadow of the yew in calm beside a grave. 
 
 Life itself is not more stimulating to fancy 
 than death. Poetry seems native to both es- 
 tates. Above the gorge of Niagara, in the 
 fringes of a pine wood, all but in hearing of 
 the clamor of the Falls, you may find a soli- 
 tary grave, sunken, unkept, the grave-stone 
 leaning like age without a staff, and on the 
 stone a name of foreign flavor — ^alas! a 
 woman's name besides — and a phrase to tell 
 where she was born across the seas, and when, 
 an ocean between her cradle and her grave, 
 she died. This, no more; yet your eyes will 
 grow wet with tears as you stoop to read the 
 epitaph. A woman lying so alone! And that 
 stranger's grave presents all the pathos of 
 poetry and all the tragedy of life. Small won- 
 der, then, a poet should kindle to pity and sob 
 the woe we feel. Longfellow has caught this 
 
Tbe Gteater English Hlegies 127 
 
 somber spirit in his lovely prelude to Hia- 
 watha. Hear him mourn: 
 
 "Ye who sometimes in your rambles 
 Through the green lanes of the country, 
 Where the tangled barberry-bushes 
 Hang their tufts of crimson berries 
 Over stone walls gray with mosses, 
 Pause by some neglected graveyard, 
 For a while to muse and ponder 
 On a half-effaced inscription, 
 Written with little skill of song-craft. 
 Homely phrases, yet each letter 
 Full of hope, and yet of heart-break; 
 Full of all the tender pathos 
 Of the here and the hereafter." 
 
 And in this same temper. Gray has wept 
 aloud. The "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" 
 is an exquisite conception, and the execution 
 is as exquisite. He summons all the acces- 
 sories of grief — ivy-mantled tower, twilight 
 solitude, gloaming in which the dim past with 
 its dead dares walk abroad. Death is a leveler; 
 for life's pomp and power, as its mute, inglori- 
 ous inconsequence come to a common home. 
 This is what Horace said; this is what history 
 says; and this is what poetry must, in truth, 
 declare. This elegy is somber as an autumn 
 sky. We see the pageant we name life pass 
 
1 28 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 like a roseate dream. It glows with morning 
 and high hope; but evening dims the glow 
 and night is here before we thought the day 
 had well begun. In this elegy we are scarcely 
 touched to tears. We are something less. 
 
 "The touch of a vanished hand. 
 And the sound of a voice that is still," 
 
 would make us weep;. but Gray had not that 
 dower of passion. Fervor slept in his spirit. 
 Impersonal and passionless, what he can do 
 and does is to bring the gray of gloaming over 
 our spirits; and that is a gracious state for 
 thought, and gives it wings. Gray's elegy 
 leaves us in the churchyard. 
 
 But "Lycidas," in strong contrast, is in- 
 tensely personal. The poem is a sob. 'Tis Mil- 
 ton weeps. A college friend is dead, drowned 
 on the seas, but leaves a friend to weep for him, 
 whose lament will give the dead immortality. 
 In the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," a 
 scholar, a book-lover, a recluse, cons over to 
 himself the story of the flitting pageant men 
 call life. In "Lycidas," a friend mourns for a 
 friend beside the sea, in words sad as the sea's 
 own music. A bereft heart speaks. There is 
 no nobler elegy. "In Memoriam" is sadder, 
 
The Grea.ter English Elegies 129 
 
 but we hear no nobler music. Some of 
 Milton's grandest strength is evidenced in 
 "Lycidas" — his vigor, his music, as if Milton 
 could ever forget music! It was part of his 
 life. No greater' master of musical expression 
 ever attempted putting thought to speech. 
 The word descriptive of Gray's elegy is, "Fin- 
 ished." It is a gem daintily set. "Lycidas" is 
 a gem whose cutting and setting are matters of 
 lesser moment. The gem is rare enough to be 
 a star in a queen's coronet. Not but what 
 "Lycidas" is a finished poem, but that is not its 
 chief excellency. Strength of passion and sub- 
 limity of thought speak. Gray's elegy says, 
 "All things end." Milton's elegy says, "To- 
 day dies, but to-morrow dawns." This friend, 
 wrecked on the seas and buried in its blue 
 sepulcher, is not thought of as dead. Immor- 
 tality is not a phrase, but a fact. His dirge 
 rises into a paean of triumph. The sobbing 
 ceases, and the voice is as 
 
 "The song of them that triumph, 
 The shout of them that feast." 
 
 "Lycidas" is written in the Christian temper, 
 and speaks the Christian hope. It does not 
 despair, although it weeps. "Weeping may 
 9 
 
13° The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 endure for a night, but joy cometh in the 
 morning." "Lycidas" is an ode framed after 
 the Pauline pattern, in which the shout breaks 
 off the lamentation — "O death, where is thy 
 sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Such 
 is the destiny of the Christian elegy. It is as 
 a dawn, which forgets its gray in the crimson 
 and glory of sunrise. 
 
 And now we listen to another lute. Shelley 
 laments his Adonais. In point of eminence, 
 Shelley's theme — Keats — ^is worthiest among 
 the elegies; and he has written a noble lament. 
 Shelley was genius, using light for ink; and 
 "Adonais" is in his softer tones. The wild re- 
 bellion which spake in "Queen Mab," and in 
 "Prometheus Unbound," is all but silent here. 
 Shelley needed softening. So rare his music, 
 more the pity it grew strident so often. This 
 elegy from the standpoint of poetry is sur- 
 prisingly beautiful. Those touches for which 
 his hand was noted, are here in affluence. 
 Chaste passages are abundant as violets in 
 springtime. To read is to reread with grow- 
 ing delight. He does not weary, but entices. 
 Genius bewailing genius is not a sight so com- 
 mon as to grow commonplace. It were diffi- 
 
The Gi«ater English Elegies 131 
 
 cult to conceive a sweeter or more varied ex- 
 pression of grief. 
 
 "Lost echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, 
 And feeds her grief with his remembered lay." 
 
 "Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw 
 down 
 Her kindling buds as if she Autumn were. 
 Or they dead leaves." 
 
 "And love taught grief to fall like music from his 
 tongue." 
 
 Shelley's expression of grief leaves little to 
 be desired, but his earth lacks a sky. He 
 knows no hope, and who lacks hope is a poor 
 comforter to stand beside a grave. Shelley 
 was atheist sometimes, and pantheist at others, 
 His theology, like that of Emerson, was cha- 
 otic and variable. "Adonais" is pantheistic, 
 and pantheism is a poor boon to a sorrowing 
 spirit. 
 
 "Death feeds on thy mute voice, and laughs at our 
 despair." 
 
 But beside our grave the soul cries out, and 
 will not be silenced. Soul cries, "He is not 
 dead; he could not die." The soul feeds on 
 
13^ The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 immortality. So Shelley, the hunger on him, 
 cries: 
 
 "Naught we know dies; shall that alone which 
 knows 
 Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
 By sightless lightning?" 
 
 "He is made one with nature." 
 
 "He is a portion of that loveliness 
 Which once he made more lovely." 
 
 "The One remains, the many change and pass." 
 
 You can not well conceive a sadder strain. 
 Hopelessness made vocal. George Eliot's 
 "O, may I join the choir invisible," is of the 
 same temper, though the pantheism is more 
 adroitly hidden. Both voices choke with de- 
 spair. The antithesis between the triumphant 
 hope of "Lycidas" and the dull despair of "Ado- 
 nais" is sharp and tragic. The poet to weep 
 beside a grave is he whose vision is so keen 
 as to see beyond it. 
 
 Latest begotten of elegies is "In Memo- 
 riam." It is the longest, and, all things con- 
 sidered, the noblest elegy man has indited. 
 This is a sob like Rachel weeping for her 
 slain; a cry like David, "O Absalom, my son!" 
 There is no lack of passion here. "In Memo- 
 
Tlie Gfeater English Elegies 133 
 
 nam" is an argument of human life, and runs 
 the gamut — ^labor, pain, tragedy, consolation, 
 doubt, faith, endurance, triumph, death, im- 
 mortality, the passionate beseeching, 
 
 "O would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me!" 
 
 The age is mirrored. It glooms with doubt, 
 but brightens into hope at last. Tennyson is 
 no agnostic, but theist; who, though doubts 
 assail and storms beat hard, will still hold in 
 the gloom and tempest, knowing the world 
 to be meaningless and life an irony unless 
 God be hid in history. I think Tennyson emi- 
 nently exponential, specially so here. He 
 glasses his age. A work of art, be it painting 
 or poem, will probably present two diverse 
 characteristics — the age element and the age- 
 less element — ^the latter being that fiber of liter- 
 ature which is unchanging and eternal, the 
 former being the contagion of the era. Now, 
 Tennyson belonged to an age when agnosti- 
 cism was wrestling with faith like some tall 
 giant. "We do not know" is the sad maxim of 
 this pathetic philosophy. If we have God to 
 Father, it is still as if we were in perpetual or- 
 phanage. That such philosophy will be som- 
 
134 Tiie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 ber goes without the saying. The gray even- 
 ing of a winter's day is not so despairing as 
 such a theory of existence. And in Tennyson 
 is there impress of this dubitative. His larger 
 vision denies the negation; his lesser, fears lest 
 it be true. The words of King Arthur on the 
 mere's marge are indicative of Tennyson's 
 own attitude, "For all my mind is clouded 
 with a doubt." And with this doubt "In Me- 
 morian" struggles. A beloved friend is dead — 
 untimely death is a perplexing fact of destiny. 
 "Why, why?" sobs the bereft soul; and no one 
 has put sobs to words and music so graciously 
 as Tennyson. 
 
 The poem abounds in nobilities of thought 
 and utterance. It makes articulate the struggle 
 of innumerable souls; and at the last this is 
 the largest service genius performs, to speak 
 our longings, express our pain, give words to 
 our silence, so that we say, "This is my 
 thought." Well, "In Memoriam" has given 
 words to a burdened and a sorrowing heart 
 forever. It can not be dumb any more; and 
 hereafter always the heart will be beholden to 
 Alfred Tennyson. Nor has he uttered simply 
 a cry of pain, but has constructed a philosophy 
 of life. 
 
The Greater English Elegies 135 
 
 "We have but faith; we can not know" — 
 
 this keys the music of this elegy. Yet God 
 is. Here is great certainty: 
 
 "Our little systems have their day, 
 
 They have their day and cease to be; 
 They are but broken lights of thee, 
 And Thou, O Lord, art more than theyl" 
 
 So far the prelude; but the poem launches 
 into the deep of its theme in words like these: 
 
 "I hold it truth with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones. 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 He raises the profound question of the use of 
 suffering, and the "far-oflf interest of tears." 
 "Never morning wore to evening but some 
 heart did break;" and his cause of woe is, 
 
 "My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
 Till all my widowed race be run." 
 
 But concludes : 
 
 "I hold it true whate'er befall, 
 
 I feel it when I sorrow most; 
 'T is better to have loved and lost. 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
136 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 The poet's hope is, We shall not die. There 
 is no melting into nature as with Shelley, but 
 assured immortality: 
 
 "My own dim life should teach me this. 
 That life shall live for evermore. 
 Else earth is darkness at the core, 
 And dust and ashes all that is." 
 
 Though dead, this friend is not forgotten: 
 
 "And dear to me, as sacred wine 
 To dying lips, is all he said." 
 
 'T is immortality is very sure : 
 
 "There no shade shall last 
 In that deep dawn behind the tomb;" 
 
 "And I shall know him when we meet. 
 And we shall sit at endless feast 
 Enjoying each the other's good." 
 
 Then doubt breaks into hope, and dulls its 
 glow: 
 
 "I falter where I firmly trod, 
 
 And falling with my weight of cares 
 
 Upon the great world's altar-stairs. 
 
 That slope through darkness up to God." 
 
 It was 
 
 "God's finger touched him, and he slept." 
 
Tlie Greater English Elegies 137 
 
 Doubt shall not wrest away his hope: 
 
 "If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, 
 I heard a voice, 'Believe no more,' 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 That tumbled in the Godless deep: 
 
 A warmth within the breast would melt 
 The freezing reason's colder part. 
 And, like a man in wrath, the heart 
 
 Stood up, and answered, 'I have felt.' " 
 
 And at the closing of this greatest elegy, 
 the poet, like a swimmer who, shipwrecked, 
 has battled with the sea and overcome its 
 might and wrath, calls: 
 
 "That God which ever lives and loves — 
 One God, one law, one element. 
 And one far-off, Divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves.*' 
 
 And in that conclusion we join as partici- 
 pants in triumph. The battle was not ours, 
 but ours the victory. And in the poet's grop- 
 ing, his catching sight of God, his glooms 
 that all but conquer hope, his holding still to 
 the great God till, in the end, God breaks upon 
 him like a sea, — this struggle and this triumph 
 are for us. 
 
ijS The Poefs Poet aad Other Essayi 
 
 So run the elegies. Gray leaves us in die 
 rhurchyard; Shelley gives us back to airs and 
 earth; Tennyson will have soul 
 
 "Climb the great world's altar-stairs, 
 That slope through darkness up to God;" 
 
 And Milton, without a hush of doubt, shouts 
 "Immortality 1" 
 
The Soliloquies of Macbeth and Hamlet 
 
 Speech is thinking aloud. Soliloquy is 
 thinking aloud to one's self. A monologue, 
 such as was a conversation or lecture of Cole- 
 ridge, is nothing other than a soliloquy. When 
 a soul is absorbed in itself and its concerns, be 
 that soul alone or in company, there will be 
 no surprise if it speak for its own ears. In 
 this fact is a unique psychological condition. 
 Since the soul is conversant with its own 
 reasonings, why speak? If we do not purpose 
 the impartation of truth to another, why coin 
 thinking into words? Yet is this a common 
 ailment. You will have observed, a child 
 thinks aloud; and age is like to do the same. 
 And in the normal state of soul, when life is 
 oppressed, when the vastest issues break like 
 angry oceans in the spirit — ^then thoughts 
 seem bent on uttering themselves. The spirit, 
 oblivious to all things save its own interests, 
 babbles as a brook, though the voice is scarce 
 audible to the speaker's own ears. Absorbed 
 is the condition of the soliloquy; and it is easy 
 to see that a soul in stress will tend to this form 
 of utterance. 
 
 139 
 
14° The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Such is the state of Macbeth and Hamlet. 
 They are unlike, as if they inhabited different 
 stars. One is soldier, the other civilian. Mac- 
 beth is the man of action, Hamlet the man of 
 thought. With Macbeth, the sword is the na- 
 tive speech; with Hamlet, words are drawn 
 daggers. Macbeth is matured manhood; 
 Hamlet is youth with despair tugging at the 
 heart, and watching at the eyes. In these trag- 
 edies, Shakespeare works at the antipodes. 
 He shapes two spirits so diverse as to seem 
 creations of two brains, rather than one, — Mac- 
 beth the soldier, and Hamlet the thinker. A 
 soldier! A man whose argument is war, whose 
 soul intones its speech to battle tumult; to 
 whom march or foray, wild charge or passion- 
 less beleaguerment, defeat or triumph, are the 
 articulate voices of the soul. Arms dazzle. 
 The battle thunder bewilders, confounds, mad- 
 dens, makes heroic. In the' soldier is some- 
 thing tense, like a bent bow. He is perpetually 
 on the verge of heroisms. The soldier is rest- 
 less in peace. War is his joy. It soothes his 
 spirit, as the caress of a fair hand a sick man's 
 pulse. In war, he is alive. His every faculty 
 is alert His ear catches whispers. His eyes 
 sweep the hills to the far blue. He sees all. 
 
The Soliloquies of Macbeth and Hamlet 14^ 
 
 The battle trumpet sets his blood on fire. Un- 
 wittingly to himself his hand will finger his 
 sword hilt. Prince Maurice of Nassau will be 
 lost when battle ceases. William of Orange 
 will drop his mask and glow like a lover when 
 battle thickens about him like winter's storm. 
 The soldier's dream is action; and Macbeth 
 was a soldier. 
 
 Hamlet was thinker. He was a lad at col- 
 lege. Philosophy intoxicated him as rare 
 wine. His was a Platonic mind. Thoughts 
 filled his sky thicker than the stars. Life 
 seemed to him a chance for constructing phi- 
 losophies. See Plato and Kant and Hegel, 
 how their world revolves within their study 
 walls! Life was thought, not action. Swords 
 are toys. Battles are bagatelles. Life's grave 
 and eager ministry is to think, to build immor- 
 talities by intellection; to sight the world's 
 pageant as if a shadow floated o'er the hills. 
 The shadows are poor temporalities; the hills 
 alone are eternal. So will the thinker under- 
 rate the actor, who, to him, seems lacking in 
 depth. His life runs on the surface as bubbles. 
 Plato will at heart pity Themistocles ; and Aris- 
 totle will think Alexander's conquests tawdry; 
 and Hegel will marvel Napoleon did not pre- 
 
H2 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 fer philosophy to imperial sway. The soldier 
 and thinker, the achiever and conceiver, stand 
 at opposite quarters of the sky, like sunrise and 
 sunset. Name them Macbeth and Hamlet. 
 Such is Shakespeare's bold attempt. He will 
 create the dreamer and achiever. And of 
 him who created Falstaff and King Lear, who 
 can say this to be beyond his powers? 
 
 Now, in consonance with this motif of these 
 tragedies is the totality of scheme and move- 
 ment. They never forget. In no display of his 
 surprising powers has Shakespeare shown him- 
 self so much the incomparable genius. In 
 Hamlet action never really wakes : in Macbeth 
 action never sleeps. Events drive like a whirl- 
 wind. Movement is everywhere. Events 
 march as the army of which Macbeth was 
 commander. You note progress, because the 
 movement marches past you. Events trample 
 on each other's heels. The witch's hell-broth, 
 the dawn of illicit desire for kingship, the 
 mounting the steps that lead to the throne; 
 some black as night, some slippery with blood, 
 and all with the shame of crime upon them — 
 treason, murders, suspicions, flights, conspir- 
 acies, remorse, defeats, follow fast like waves 
 toward a shore. You are caught in the vortex 
 
Tfae Soliloquies of Macbeth and Hamlet 143 
 
 of events. There is a maelstrom of movement. 
 The contagion of action fires your blood. That 
 is the drama of Macbeth. 
 
 But Hamlet is becalmed. It looks to 
 achievement, but does not reach it. Incident 
 there is, but no action. We leave matters as 
 we find them, so far as concerns a purpose. 
 Polonius dies of a chance sword-thrust. 
 Ophelia, delirious for love, lies dead in the 
 shadowed stream. Hamlet and Laertes die 
 of poisoned foil-thrust. Queen Gertrude 
 drinks poisoned wine meant for Hamlet; and 
 King Claudius alone is slain by purposed 
 action of the prince. Aside from this, all are 
 happenings, and, in a true sense, that, too, is 
 happening, since he was stung to it by his own 
 murder through the king's plan. The play 
 lacks the quality of achievement. Hamlet 
 planned to avenge his father's death, but knew 
 not how to compass it; and the tragedy dies 
 on the threshold of action. Coleridge has 
 given us truth in his acute criticism. Hamlet 
 is no doer, but is betrayed into action. Mac- 
 beth the doer; Hamlet the dreamer. 
 
 Now knowing Macbeth and Hamlet, we 
 may anticipate their soliloquies. Macbeth will 
 be objective, Hamlet subjective. One strikes 
 
144 Tlie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 against a foe; the other meditates striking him- 
 self. Between Macbeth's thought and resolu- 
 tion there is not a hairbreadth space. Be- 
 tween Hamlet and action is the breadth of a 
 world. Yet, strange as it may seem, Hamlet 
 passes into soliloquy not easier than Macbeth. 
 The man of action and the man of thought, 
 each with burdened spirit, con their thoughts 
 aloud. Tremendous passions speak in each, 
 and passion has one language and one method. 
 In Macbeth's soliloquy, you always feel 
 action hangs on the skirts of thought. In Act 
 I, Scene v, the soliloquy is big with action. 
 Threats leap from his eyes. And in Scene vii 
 Macbeth is still true to his dominating idea: 
 
 "If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well 
 It were done quickly." 
 
 "Do," "do," that is his word. His sword is 
 ready, his fingers on the hilt; look to see it 
 leap from its scabbard. Observe, the deed is 
 uppermost. No introspection is visible. The 
 deed and its consequences fill the mind, like 
 waters, to the brim. In Act II, Scene i, the 
 thought is objective: 
 
 "Is this a dagger which I see before me. 
 The handle toward my hand?" 
 
Tbit Soliloquies of Macbeth and Hatnlet 145 
 
 And the dagger is for Duncan. He medi- 
 tates striking for kingdom. There is menace 
 in his suggestion; and his look at the dagger- 
 handle bodes the sleeping Duncan ill. Were 
 the soliloquy on Hamlet's lips, Duncan might 
 sleep quiet as a child, and dream no harm; but 
 since it is Macbeth thinking aloud, Duncan, 
 Ho! Let danger's nightmare wake thee from 
 thy sleep ! Death stumbles toward thee in the 
 dark! In Act II, Scene ii, the conversation 
 between husband and wife has the seeming 
 of a monologue rather than a dialogue, and 
 still has movement. "Macbeth does murder 
 sleep." Macbeth is always doing. In Scene i 
 of Act III, Macbeth plans death once more. 
 Now it is Banquo. His ambition and his 
 sword know not to sleep. In Scene iii of 
 Act V is Macbeth's last soliloquy. Doom 
 comes toward him ; clouds his sky, makes dark 
 his noon; yet is he not changed. He is doer 
 still. To hold his own amid outnumbering 
 foes, this is his dream. He is the soldier 
 yet. 
 
 "My way of life 
 Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf." 
 
 lO 
 
14^ The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Curses, not honor, his portion — ^but still a king' 
 And scepter and sword will he hold till death 
 shall wrench them from him. 
 
 "Why should I play the Roman fool and die 
 On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the 
 
 gashes 
 Do better upon them." 
 
 Such is this soldier king; and when he dies, 
 't is fighting. He and action are sworn friends. 
 Certain it is, Macbeth is consistent with him- 
 self in life and death. 
 
 In Hamlet are four bona Me soliloquies. 
 These occur, one in Act I, two in Act HI, and 
 one in Act IV; while besides, in Act II, Ham- 
 let's rejoinder to Guildenstern is not so much 
 reply as soliloquy. Soliloquy is natural to 
 Hamlet as turbulence to the seas. His con- 
 versations are monologues. He takes other 
 men's words as points of departure. He deals 
 in dissertations, not conversations. Yet, how 
 singular and acute the Shakespearean treat- 
 ment! If Hamlet fall into soliloquy as natu- 
 rally as stars fall with flash-light to the earth 
 at night, yet is he still more the brooder than 
 the soliloquizer. His lips do not often catch 
 his heart's words. He will be quiet. Mac- 
 
The Soliloquies of Macbeth and Hamlet '47 
 
 beth has given him over to soliloquy as fre- 
 quently as Hamlet; and here is Shakespeare 
 right as always. Hamlet's mood is to think, to 
 dream, rather than speak in whispers even. 
 He will hide his passion. Not even Horatio 
 shall know his heart. 
 
 But play you the eavesdropper. Hear 
 Hamlet count his woes as the nun her beads. 
 In Act I he meditates, though remotely, self- 
 slaughter. He faults the world. 
 
 " 'T is an unweeded garden 
 That grows to seed." 
 
 'Tis "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." 
 'T is a dreary waste, littered with shame and 
 broken hopes and mouthing fears. Having 
 his mother in his thought, he moans, "Frailty, 
 thy name is woman!" His soliloquy is a moan, 
 but has no movement. The end finds him 
 no nearer suicide than the beginning. Nay, 
 he is further removed. He has forgotten his 
 main thesis. But that the world turns him sick 
 in looking at it, we can not argue. 
 
 In Act HI, he still has suicide at heart, but 
 is drawing nearer to it. At the first approach 
 he does but lament, because the Almighty "has 
 fixed his canon against self-slaughter." Now 
 
14^ The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 the view is positive, "To be, or not to be." 
 The point of a bared bodkin gleams before his 
 thought. Death and he are touching hands. 
 But 't is thought, not action. The reasons 
 against outtop the reasDns for. Hamlet re- 
 cedes from suicide now as before. But further, 
 in Act III, he thinks aloud in his own hearing. 
 Now he passes from thought of self-slaughter 
 to that of slaughtering the king. Seeing Claud- 
 ius praying, breathing hard he whispers, 
 
 "Now might I do it pat, now he is praying." 
 
 But if Claudius be slain at prayer, then shall 
 he, by Hamlet's logic, come to heaven; hence 
 he will not kill him thus. 
 
 "But when he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, 
 
 Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven, 
 And that his soul may be as damned and black 
 As hell, whereto it goes." 
 
 These conditions are not met; and action is 
 as far removed as when thought began. Not 
 yet, wait — that is the conclusion. Once more, 
 in Act IV, hear Hamlet soliloquize. He still 
 dreams of action. He is haunted by the pur- 
 pose tf slay the king. His thought cries, 
 
Tile Soliloquies of Macfjeth and Hamlet 149 
 
 Now! Now! but his hand holds back. There 
 is no contagion between thought and sword. 
 He is brave as Achilles. Cowardice is no 
 fault to be charged against Hamlet. But 
 thought is not action. He sees himself dere- 
 lict. Duty cries, Slay the king! All actions 
 do but argue and augment the royal guilt, 
 and mark the royal criminal a target for an 
 angry sword; and as Hamlet goes from us, 
 hear him say, 
 
 "From this time forth 
 My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth." 
 
 Yet are action and Hamlet far apart as are 
 the Pole Star and the Southern Cross. 
 
 If you will compare the chief soliloquies of 
 Macbeth and Hamlet, and bring the conclu- 
 sion into small compass, you shall see the men 
 as by a flash of lightning in the night. 
 
 Macbeth has a dagger before him; Hamlet 
 meditates on a bare bodkin. Hamlet means 
 the bodkin for his own breast; Macbeth the 
 dagger for another's heart. "To be, or not to 
 be," says Hamlet; "To do, or not to do," says 
 Macbeth. One thinks, and drifts farther from 
 his purpose: O, that is Hamlet! One thinks, 
 springs to his feet, grasps dagger-hilt, and 
 
I50 Vbe Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 drives it surely home; and this is Macbeth. 
 Hamlet will soliloquize on suicide; Macbeth 
 will not entertain the thought, though adver- 
 sity drive broken sword against his breast. 
 Hear him upon the battle-field spurn the 
 thought of self-murder. Hear Hamlet medi- 
 tate on assassinating Claudius. He pricks his 
 own slow purpose. He dreams to do, and does 
 not. Had life given him a longer day, he had 
 avenged Hamlet the ghost; 
 
 "But the native hue of resolution 
 Is sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
 
 But Macbeth the soldier is steeped in crime ere 
 his plans are well matured. Duncan, Ban- 
 quo, armed conspiracies — he is against them 
 all. He drives against them like a charge of 
 cavalry. He can not sit and think ; but he can 
 do and die. 
 
 And Hamlet lying white and dead upon the 
 sands of Elsinore ; and Macbeth at Dunsinane 
 fighting as fiends fight or heroes, there slain 
 and borne a trophy to the rightful king — 
 Hamlet and Macbeth — far apart in life, are by 
 the same sword brought to death. Thinker 
 and actor lie silent in one grave. 
 
The Ebb Tide 
 
 There is art in naming a novel. Scott 
 found this his chief difficulty; but how admira- 
 bly he succeeded let his titles attest. Cooper 
 was ultimately compelled to change the cap- 
 tion of his first attempt at fiction. Marion 
 Crawford was so taken with the name of a 
 woman he met that he wrote asking her con- 
 sent to make it the title of his forthcoming 
 novel; and, she consenting, we have "Kath- 
 erine Lauderdale." That a work may survive 
 a bad title is no refutation of the claim here 
 made. A sorrier caption than Besant's "All 
 Sorts and Conditions of Men" is hard to con- 
 ceive; but the volume is virile enough to sur- 
 vive in spite of the ill christening. There is 
 a euphony of name riaturally appealing to the 
 mind. "The Prisoner of Zenda" is a captivat- 
 ing title, as well as a captivating book. 
 "Geoffrey Hamlyn" is well named. "Quentin 
 Durward," "Ivanhoe," "Henry Esmond," 
 "Lorna Doone," "Ben Hur," are all well- 
 chosen titles. But when the theme of a novel 
 is not a proper name, but a phrase, the art be- 
 
 151 
 
152 Tbt Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 comes more involved. A good title conceals 
 meaning, excites interest, and when the book 
 is done should justify itself by its apposite- 
 ness. "The Ebb Tide" answers these de- 
 mands. It gives no hint of meaning, makes 
 picture of the evening sea, rouses involuntary 
 questioning, and when the story is ended satis- 
 fies the reader as being the exact name for 
 such a tale. "The Ebb Tide" is a metaphor. 
 The sea has no bearing on the fiction. Not 
 an ebbing tide is mentioned in the volume. 
 The reference is to life, and not to seas; and 
 when reviewed in thought compasses a pathos 
 of meaning deeper than the silences which 
 underlie the lapping tides of ocean. 
 
 The story is not involved. No digressions 
 or halts for the introduction of new episodes 
 or new characters, as in "Martin Chuzzlewit" 
 or "Middlemarch." The tale keeps straight 
 on like a traveler in unhindered journey. The 
 characters are few. Love has no part in the 
 passing pageant. The book is fiction in form; 
 but, more 's the pity, is truth's story retold. We 
 are haunted by the memory, knowing it is not 
 a dream, but a late recorded history of many 
 unwritten lives. We can not put the pathos 
 from us. It clings like shadow to the moun- 
 
The Ebb Tide i53 
 
 tain. This work is grown out of the soil of 
 Stevenson's health-exile in Samoa. Doubt- 
 less, on the wharves of that far island in the 
 South Seas, he had seen the men whose biog- 
 raphies are here written down. 
 
 The story is this: "Robert Herrick was the 
 son of an intelligent, active, and ambitious 
 man, small partner in a considerable London 
 house. Hopes were conceived of the boy." 
 He was sent to Oxford, and had taste and 
 talent, "but was deficient in consistency and 
 intellectual manhood." He dabbled in Greek 
 and music and mathematics. His fault was the 
 fault of many — lack of integrity of plan. The 
 father failing in business, the son was thrown 
 on his own resources; became a clerk and de- 
 spised his vocation, feeling himself above it. 
 He was honest, courteous, and useless. He 
 did not drink. He had no distinctive vice; 
 but his "course was one unbroken shame." 
 He was worthless to his employers. Talents 
 he had, but appUcation none. He ceases writ- 
 ing home, and thus cuts himself off from his 
 sole anchorage. He can keep no employment 
 long; is buffeted, not by fortune, but by his 
 own inaction and incapacity. He leaves Amer- 
 ica, and sails to the islands of the South Seas, 
 
154 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 where food requires scarce an effort in secur- 
 ing, and where shelter and clothing are neither 
 elaborate nor costly. Besides, there men had 
 climbed to be "queen's consorts and king's 
 ministers." But Herrick changes his name, 
 which certifies his lack of manful purpose. 
 The biographer says wisely, "The alias be- 
 trayed his moral bankruptcy." A place got 
 was lost; and he fails to get bread. This was 
 a habit now. He exhausts credit, he begs; 
 repulsed, he prefers starvation or digs his food 
 from rubbish heaps, his bedroom a disused 
 prison; his companions — one a villain, vain, 
 boastful, vulgar; the other, generous-hearted, 
 weak, drunken, occupationless, ambitionless, 
 but still a man whose hand it was not a shame 
 to take. How low is the man of fine fiber and 
 fair parts fallen ! He sees his estate, blushes in 
 the darkness, revolts, but is quiescent. Burnt 
 with heat by day, shivering with cold by night, 
 starving, a parasite, threatened with arrest as 
 a vagabond, feeling his shame, — ^this is Her- 
 rick. His failures incapacitate him for success. 
 He meditates suicide, for his moral nature is a 
 wreck. 
 
 A ship flying a yellow flag at the mast sails 
 into port. Smallpox has slain a drunken cap- 
 
The Ebb Tide i55 
 
 tain and mate. The seaman is, default of bet- 
 ter material, made captain. Herrick becomes 
 first mate. The captain purposes the theft of 
 cargo and vessel. Herrick is indignant, pro- 
 tests, yields ; but on the voyage as the captain 
 and the clerk — associates in poverty and shame 
 on the island beach — sink in drunken revels 
 which are continuous, he plays the man, pilots 
 the ship, feels terrible disgust, and rising in- 
 dignation. By mismanagement in a squall 
 the captain all but wrecks the ship. Herrick, 
 outraged and angry, is ready for death. The 
 ship, with victualing gone, drifts into an un- 
 known port, held by a white man of command- 
 ing person and imposing spirit, a strange char- 
 acter, but a man gifted to rule, and a pearl 
 merchant with unknown wealth of pearls hid 
 in his safe. He is drawn to Herrick, but de- 
 spises the two associates, and shows it. He 
 reads them all, as if they were open books 
 written in a known tongue. He senses the 
 scholar in Herrick, pities and despises his 
 weakness. Captain Davis, and Huish the 
 clerk, resent the undisguised contempt of the 
 island lord, and plan his murder, the seizing 
 of his wealth, the victualing their ship, and 
 the sailing home to opulence and content. 
 
156 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Herrick, though weak and a consort of thieves, 
 is not a villain. He knows not what to do. 
 Feeling himself a criminal, sharer in a stolen 
 ship, his moral stamina counts for little. De- 
 spising his companions, he still feels the tug 
 of association. Can he betray his friends? 
 He feels he can not. Dare he see this some- 
 time host of theirs foully murdered? He dare 
 not. How can these conflicting claims be ad- 
 justed? And a weak man gives a weak man's 
 answer — suicide. He leaps into the bay, and 
 finding himself afraid to die, makes his way 
 shoreward, and sits dripping on the sand nau- 
 seated with himself. He can not even die. Hu- 
 miliated, shamed, with the spell of his fatal 
 indecision still on him, the island magnate 
 finds him, and he becomes a dependent of this 
 strong man, letting another will do what his 
 has not done. Huish lands, approaches the 
 man he hates, holds up his 'hands; but in one 
 hides a bottle of vitriol, which he purposes 
 throwing in his enemy's face, but is detected, 
 attempts to throw, and, as the bottle leaves 
 his hand, Atwater's Winchester shatters it, 
 and the vitriol boils down on his own face. 
 Another bullet ends the wretch. Davis stands 
 
The Ebb Tide 157 
 
 apart appalled. Herrick sees the tragedy; and 
 the tale leaves him hopeless, lost. 
 
 Tragic enough this fiction is. Not a hint 
 of humor nor a glint of sunshine in the book 
 from lid to lid. Somber, pathetic ! This is no 
 story to read for rest and pleasure. No com- 
 edy laughs on any page. Here is succession 
 of shadows. Shakespeare will smile even be- 
 side the grave; not so Stevenson. 
 
 This work is a collaboration. The name of 
 Osbourne shares the title-page with Steven- 
 son. How large his contribution, we are not 
 told; but I think it clear the result is more 
 satisfactory than such partnerships usually 
 produce. ■ Literary partnerships sin against 
 personality. We care to feel a writer's heart. 
 His selfhood ought to be the background of 
 every page. This sense of individuality an as- 
 sociate authorship destroys. But it is safe to 
 say that in "The Ebb Tide" Stevenson has 
 been the master-spirit. His genius is in the 
 plan. His rare English flashes like light from 
 the pages; and to write a critique of the novel 
 in the name of Stevenson's known character- 
 istics seems just. 
 
 I mention three characteristics of Steven- 
 
158 The Poefs Poet and Other Essay* 
 
 son's genius. These are: Exquisite English, 
 lack of love as a factor in his fictions, and the 
 somberness of his art. 
 
 The English of Robert Louis Stevenson is 
 a perpetual delight. His style, at its best, is 
 music. As a simple study in language, "Dr. 
 Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" is to me a growing won- 
 der. The "New Arabian Nights" is a piece of 
 enchanting verbiage. His felicity of speech, 
 his lucidity, his spontaneity, his naturalness 
 and ease, conspire to make him a prose poet. 
 To read his best productions is a growing joy, 
 because new beauty reveals itself at every step. 
 I read him as I would sit in autumn and watch 
 a mountain stream go laughing in crystal 
 tangles down the hills, and standing in quiet 
 pools to mirror sky and cloud. I never tire. 
 The beauty abides. Stevenson's English is 
 that mountain stream a- journey toward the 
 deep. Take this extract from Robert Her- 
 rick's farewell letter to his sweetheart: "Turn 
 the key in the door; let no thought of me re- 
 turn; be done with the poor ghost that pre- 
 tended he was a man, and stole your love." 
 Or this: "I have no more to say; only linger 
 going out, like an unwilling guest." 
 
 Stevenson's art makes little of love. It 
 
The Ebb Tide 159 
 
 makes more of Mars than Eros. His are nov- 
 els of battle. The struggle element is upper- 
 most. With Dickens, Thackeray, Hall Caine, 
 Blackmore, the love element is nodal. It is not 
 so with Stevenson. Either adventure or tragic 
 effort is the central actor. Run over in 
 thought the novels of the author under dis- 
 cussion, and you will observe how unvaryingly 
 true this criticism is. "The Ebb Tide" is no 
 exception. A fascinating novel, not a story of 
 adventure, runs its course, and, save by bare 
 intimation, love has no voice, no beauty of 
 affection to cast its spell over us. That we 
 read a book of this sort with sustained interest 
 is a high tribute to the author. He entices us 
 to study decadence of character. With chaste 
 verbiage, with accurate delineation, with clear 
 adhesion to the central subject, with interest 
 growing as the pages multiply, — thus are we 
 held. There is undoubted mastery here. And 
 Stevenson must be ranked among the major 
 novelists. It is with soul struggles he deals, 
 though not with manly conquests. 
 
 His genius is essentially somber. Fre- 
 quently, to use a term indigenous to his native 
 land, it is "uncanny." He will write only 
 tragedy. Sunshine, if it play on the pages of 
 
l6o The Poefs Poet and Otiier Baayt 
 
 his creations, darkens in a moment. Perhaps 
 his constant ill-health may be offered as ex- 
 planatory, at least in part. I am of opinion 
 that between Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe 
 there is a distinct spirit of resemblance. Poe's 
 tales are terrible and graphic, realistic as De- 
 Foe, tragic as the "Scarlet Letter," mystical 
 as "Kubla Khan," and lurid with genius. My 
 conviction is that more than an apparent simi- 
 larity exists between the tales of Poe and those 
 of Stevenson. The "New Arabian Nights" 
 and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. 
 Hyde" are definitely like Poe in their flavor. 
 They are extravagant and terrible. Stevenson, 
 whether by intent or not, is pessimistic. "Vir- 
 ginibus Puerisque," that series of essays writ- 
 ten in such spotless English, leaves a not alto- 
 gether pleasant flavor on the lip. In this re- 
 gard his works do really belie him. He was 
 true, tender, loving. But that impress rests 
 on all. His books deal with evil in character. 
 Nothing cheery or heroic emanates from them. 
 "The Master of Ballantrae," perhaps his most 
 virile contribution to fiction, is one increasing 
 gloom. Tragic at its inception, it is mad with 
 horror at its close. "Kidnapped" is graphic 
 as if written with lightning on a sky at night, 
 
The Ebb Tide l6l 
 
 but depressing as the shadow of a grave. The 
 "Misadventures of John Nicholson" is a pro- 
 cession of sufferings and mistakes, with scarce 
 a memory of mellow light. "Dr. JekyI and 
 Mr. Hyde" is as gruesome and dispiriting as 
 can well be pictured. It closes in shadows and 
 the night. There is a shadow on every land- 
 scape. The ruddy hues of Burns find no an- 
 swering glow in Stevenson. His is a genius 
 gloomy as a Scotch glen. 
 
 In this regard, then, "The Ebb Tide" is 
 native to the author. But we are not to infer 
 that, because gloomy, he is unnatural. Ste- 
 venson is no dreamer. He is exact. Accuracy 
 is characteristic of his creations. Scott verified 
 his landscapes and battle-grounds by a tour 
 of investigation. Stevenson verified his por- 
 traitures by observation keen as a Roman 
 stylus. His is no haphazard movement. If 
 he will give us tragedy and not comedy, know 
 that tragedy is an every-day commodity. 
 Life's processes do not all terminate in joy. 
 Tears mix their wine for many a lip. The case 
 of Jekyl and Hyde is historical as Caesar Bor- 
 gia or Lorenzo the Magnificent. The history 
 of evil sheltered, is good turned from the door 
 into the stormy night. Stevenson is logical. 
 II 
 
l62 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 H*" lets sin work to its own conclusion. Hyde 
 is hellish, but natural and familiar. The type 
 of life our author gives portrait of is not a 
 myth. Would it were. "The Master of Bal- 
 lantrae" is accurate portraiture. The char- 
 acteristics therein mentioned may be traced 
 in many a family history. The shameful when 
 written is never palatable. Sin is hideous. 
 That is what Jekyl and Hyde means. That is 
 what "The Master of Ballantrae" means. 
 That is what the pirate captain in "Treasure 
 Island" means. That is what Huish in "The 
 Ebb Tide" means. This Scotch novelist has a 
 lesson to teach, if we can hear. And "The 
 Ebb Tide," melancholy as the story is, is a 
 drama of life. A weak man becomes worthless 
 and a parasite and a criminal. He was not 
 libertine nor drunkard, murderer nor taker of 
 gold; but he became base for all. What mean- 
 ing is here? What is the interpretation of this 
 handwriting on the wall? Let the author give 
 it in his own words: "It is not enough to say, 
 'I will be base.' " Weakness is badness. To 
 do wrong, it is not necessary to have a plan 
 of wickedness. Good is affirmative. Not to 
 do good is to do evil. This man, with a schol- 
 .ar's love and longing; with his tattered Virgil 
 
The Ebb Tide 163 
 
 giving him solace in hours barren of joy; with 
 his memory of rare music, once heard, never 
 forgotten; with his instincts for the better, and 
 his inward detestation of beggary and crime, — 
 he, with memory of the woman he loved fresh, 
 unfading; with love of his home and its dear 
 company drawing him like a magnet, with eye 
 for beauty of beach and cloud and sweep of 
 sea; with the virtues speaking in his ears like 
 rare music, — ^with all of this, he was fallen. 
 Nay, he had even tried. Struggle he had 
 known. He was sinking as a man in a bog, who 
 watches the silent waste suck him down inch 
 by inch. There is deep pathos here. The au- 
 thor has given us reality, and we supposed we 
 read fiction. Lassitude was Herrick's sin. 
 One mighty wrestle, one battle into which he 
 had flung the strength of his life, and he had 
 been saved! And he knew that, but would 
 not make the struggle. His will became ener- 
 vated. At the first he could have changed his 
 career with comparative ease. But he accus- 
 tomed himself to defeat, and bore it meekly. 
 He kissed the hand that smote him, till at the 
 end sloth became a habit, and incertitude 
 sapped his vitality. He lost confidence in him- 
 self, and hope for himself. Can you conceive 
 
l64 The Poefs Poet and Other Escays 
 
 Galiatt in "Toilers of the Sea" a poltroon and 
 a beggar? Why, Galiatt defied sea and death. 
 He warred with the inevitable, and conquered. 
 Heroisms are in reach of all. No monopolies 
 are tolerated here. VVnat Galiatt was, Her- 
 rick might have been. And he knew it! That 
 was his passionless despair. Seeing all gone, 
 he felt he might have retained it as a woman 
 sees her lover pass from her, knowing a word, 
 a cry in the gathering darkness, would bring 
 him back, — but does not utter it. "He might 
 have been!" That haimted him like a voice 
 of love. He could not be deaf to it. And 
 such a man lying a rag upon the shore! Pity, 
 pity! and only himself to blame! If he could 
 have flung defiance, crying, "I could do no 
 other, I was overborne," then had he rested 
 as a man made prisoner in battle outnumbered 
 by foes. The sense of having done our ut- 
 most, upholds like an amazing strength. Her- 
 rick knew better. He knew whose fault it 
 was that he, an Oxford scholar, was unknown, 
 unloved, an outcast in a foreign land under an 
 alien sky, asked the alms of bread. There lay 
 his pain. To know good, is not of necessity to 
 do good^ and the tide receded! Ebb Tide! 
 
The Ebb Tide 165 
 
 God's ocean tides come back and wash the 
 shores again. But life's tide not so. It slips 
 back, goes out, and power passes from us. 
 There is menace in a lapping tide. A moment 
 more, the ebb begins! Robert Herrick made 
 himself the thing he was. Meant for manhood, 
 he made himself fit only for servitude. Some 
 larger spirit than his must command. He 
 knew only to obey. The passing of a soul, 
 this is the drama we have viewed. 
 
 The two potent factors in destiny are self 
 and God. This man made use of neither. 
 Himself lay as an unused oar. And God? He 
 gives no thought to him. What a fatal omis- 
 sion ! We have no hint in all the history that 
 he even knew of God. Reared in a Christian 
 land, he must have known God, but discloses 
 no belief in him nor any recognition of him. 
 To all intents he was atheist. Himself but 
 weakness, he knew no larger strength than 
 his. He being as he was, and ignoring the 
 Supreme strength, what could ensue but weak- 
 ness? Stranded like a ship touched by no 
 wave, with only a memory of buoyant seas 
 upon it — that was Robert Herrick; and the 
 ebb tide would come back no more ! 
 
1 66 Tbe Poet's Poet and Other &sayi 
 
 Somber this book is as a rainy autumn even- 
 ing; but we have read the tragedy of a wasted 
 life, and how could sunlight break in on such 
 a scene? "The Ebb Tide" should pass into the 
 curriculum of reading for every youth and 
 maid. A tale of shipwreck, it is as full of warn- 
 ing as the night that broods above the sea of 
 moaning voices. 
 
The Jew in Fiction 
 
 The Jew is the romance of history. Oldest 
 of living peoples; with authentic kingdom be- 
 fore battle trumpeted at the gate of Troy, 
 whose ten tribes passed into perpetual banish- 
 ment when Greece and Rome were mythic 
 names and waging mythic wars; with history 
 and genius, unprecedented longevity and un- 
 paralleled catastrophe, the solitary people to 
 whose annals miracles indubitably belong, the 
 race to which our world owes its chief mono- 
 theistic systems — a race whose personality has 
 not been impaired by vast attrition, half of 
 which reduced the Roman race to a shadowy, 
 though colossal memory — the Jew is this day 
 sole survivor of the ancient world, and the mir- 
 acle of history. With the Jew this article con- 
 cerns itself. 
 
 And what a name to conjure with! From 
 Israel sprung Abraham and David, Moses and 
 Solomon, Elijah and Isaiah and Spinoza, Saul 
 of Tarsus and Jesus of Nazareth. A plant 
 capable of bursting into such bloom must 
 have been watered with dews from heaven. 
 
 167 
 
1 68 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 One can not well fix thought upon the He- 
 brew without beginning to dream. His career 
 has been so thrilling, and his virility appears 
 so unimpaired, as to waken expectations con- 
 cerning his future. When summer is past, and 
 winter winds begin to blow, we cherish no 
 hope of flowers. We know their day is dead. 
 But the Jew seems not to be on the verge of 
 winter, but rather on the verge of spring. The 
 winds that blow in his face, though cold, are 
 yet freighted with the fragrance of a growing 
 world. That a race should have survived the 
 wreck of thirty centuries and catastrophes un- 
 paralleled in history, and yet have no triumph- 
 ant morrow, seems more than incredible. 
 
 Novelists are what Hamlet called players, 
 "the abstract and brief chronicle of the time." 
 These are historians of a period whose art 
 makes the era a perpetual life. Of them, his- 
 torians have found it needful to learn. To 
 make history live is the art of Herodotus, 
 Macaulay, and Francis Parkman. This the 
 novelist is an adept in doing. He belongs to 
 an age. He glasses its life, as a pool the flag 
 and willows along its banks. His estimate of 
 conditions will be impersonal. In his estimate 
 of social values, he belongs to his age, as 
 
The Jew ill Fiction 169 
 
 waves to a shore. He is not originative, but 
 reiterative. And the large place recent writers 
 of fiction (in prose or verse), have given the 
 Jew, is proof of how large a place in thought 
 he occupies, and the attention given him and 
 his tragic history. Earlier English kings were 
 wont to pull the teeth of Jews for pastime; but 
 Queen Victoria has knighted Moses Monte- 
 fiore; and her reign has seen the first Jew 
 raised to the lord mayorship of London. If, 
 as we may legitimately do, we are to judge 
 from the noveHsts, the day for undervaluing 
 the Jew is past, as is the day of his persecu- 
 tion. Time was when he was hissed, cursed, 
 burned, broken on the wheel, banished, or, at 
 the kindest, ignored. He has outlived con- 
 tumely, and has projected himself into the 
 world's thought. Indeed, the last and hardest 
 thing has always been to ignore him; for, in 
 some sense, he was central wherever he was 
 even a temporary citizen. God has thrown 
 round him a flame, so that, as the burning 
 bush, he is not destroyed. 
 
 In the British Museum, among its most 
 treasured holdings, is the Portland vase, no- 
 blest antique remaining of ancient ceramic art. 
 Were it of solid gold, fetched in some royal 
 
tyo The Poefs Poet and Other Eisays 
 
 galleon, shaped by some artist of renown, and 
 carven with arabesques, cunning, intricate, in- 
 imitable, wonderful, it would not be the pre- 
 cious thing it is. You may find it now guarded 
 jealously like king's jewels. Above its soli- 
 tariness as noblest survival of a noble art, 
 stands this other fact — the vase is a recon- 
 struction. In other years, a madman flung to 
 the floor and shattered this bit of fashioned 
 clay. To-day, however, in a smaller room de- 
 voted to itself, as if it were a royal person, the 
 Portland vase stands as if no maniac's madness 
 had reduced it to fragments. Put together 
 thus cunningly, you would not guess calamity 
 had reduced it to a ruin. And the value of 
 this vase is enhanced, rather than subtracted 
 from, by this disaster. Now the Portland vase, 
 as reproduced from chaos, required the ce- 
 menting all parts into a whole. No tiniest 
 chip, splintered by the fall, but finds place in 
 this survival of classic pottery. In like man- 
 ner we shall need to reconstruct the Jew as 
 a type from all fragments accessible. He will 
 not be adequately pictured by any single artist. 
 He is too many-sided, and will no more be 
 limned by one romancist than woman will, 
 and for the same reason. There are facets 
 
The Jew in Fiction i?" 
 
 innumerable. Who would know woman, will 
 not find it suffice to acquaint himself with 
 Imogen and Enid and Colombe, but must 
 meet Fatima and Vivien, and Mistress Quickly 
 enamored of Sir John Falstaflf. So he who 
 would know the Jew, must see him best and 
 worst; must meet him in the Ghetto as well 
 as in the Rialto; in rags and as minister to 
 kings, the villain Anathoth, and the hero Si- 
 monides. What this paper proposes, is a study 
 of this intricate and fascinating character from 
 the following works: Browning's "Holy-cross 
 Day," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," and "Saul;" Kings- 
 ley's "Hypatia," Scott's "Ivanhoe," Lessing's 
 "Nathan the Wise," Wallace's "Prince of In- 
 dia" and "Ben Hur," Sue's "Wandering Jew," 
 Zangwill's "Children of the Ghetto," Eliot's 
 "Daniel Deronda," and Caine's "The Scape- 
 goat." You will note that the period of study 
 runs through three centuries, from the writing 
 of "Merchant of Venice" at the close of the 
 sixteenth century, to the close of the nine- 
 teenth century and "The Children of the 
 Ghetto." And the landscape on which this 
 Jew appears, extends from the earlier Christian 
 centuries in "Hypatia," to the latest hour in 
 Zangwill. 
 
173 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 As a scene sweeps before you, some impres- 
 sion is inseparable from the whole. You name 
 it beautiful or dreary or sublime. So with 
 these fictions. They give a general sense. Di- 
 verse the characters as a desert from the Vale 
 of Tempe, yet is there a landscape still. The 
 Jew stands before you, the Orient flushing his 
 face, his thousands of years sitting lightly upon 
 him, leaving no wrinkle on his brow, and you 
 feel, "I have met strength this day." You are 
 sensible of having come in contact with a 
 great character. The mightiest act of a race 
 is its test of power, as the farthest flight of an 
 arrow is measure of a bowman's strength. 
 And we may safely infer, from what pre-emi- 
 nence fiction gives him, that the Jew projects 
 above the horizons as mountains do. 
 
 Browning's "Holy-cross Day" is vivid as 
 sunset tints. This artist brush neither forgets 
 nor fails. It conceives and executes with ex- 
 act fidelity. This poem may stand for a picture 
 of the mediaeval Jew, wronged, helpless, de- 
 spised, bending to the storm as trees do, but 
 dogged, determined, imchanged at heart. He 
 no more coalesces with his age than oil and 
 water mix. He is in it, but not of it; and 
 seeming to yield, he is, in fact, as unyielding 
 
The Jew in Fiction 1 73 
 
 as rocky coast to turbulent waves. That low- 
 ering brow, that muttered malediction, that 
 barely concealed hatred of the cross and 
 Christ, — this is the Jew. Hints of his weakness 
 and his strength are here. We pity, but can 
 scarcely admire. His ragged defiance juts 
 into the sea; for his yielding was make-believe. 
 He hates, and is hated; but will, in some meas- 
 ure, subordinate principle to policy. He has 
 protean adjustability. In "Filippo Baldinucci 
 on Burial," you shall see a superior delineation 
 of that hatred toward the Jew which made him 
 gall in hate. If hate were fierce, we can 
 scarcely wonder or blame, since occasion was 
 so pregnant with enmities. 
 
 Of "Jochanan Hakkadosh," rabbi, old, se- 
 date, wisdom's ruddiest wine, dying, ques- 
 tioned and listened to by disciples, who hung 
 upon his words as on strong cables, — he is 
 pessimist, worst of pessimists because old, and 
 because to him life has told its story through. 
 Love, battle, learning, each in its turn is de- 
 clared failure; nor need we wonder when we 
 note God falls not in his category of life events. 
 He, a rabbi, should above all have made dying 
 mention of a Shepherd who had been rod and 
 staff to comfort and defend. The sense of 
 
174 The Poefs Poet aad Other Essays 
 
 God at hand redeems us from the shame of 
 despondency at life. But Rabbi Ben Ezra is 
 antidote to Jochanan Hakkadosh. He is a 
 soul poised and strong. We feel the hid 
 strength of him, and we are helped. Rabbi 
 Ben Ezra is old, but optimist. He interprets 
 life's meaning rightly, and is not disappointed ; 
 neither seeing death is he afraid. With him 
 "The best is yet to be." He will 
 
 "Welcome each rebuff 
 That turns earth's smoothness rough. 
 Each sting that bids not sit nor stand, but go! 
 Be our joys three parts pain! 
 Strive and hold cheap the strain; 
 Learn nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the 
 throe." 
 
 Clearly, here is a man who has found this 
 world's meaning. Earth is a place to grow 
 manhood; and manhood is cheap at any price. 
 Life seems good to him. 
 
 "Let us not always say, 
 'Spite of this flesh to-day 
 I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!' 
 As the bird wings and sings, 
 Let us cry, 'All good things 
 Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more than flesh helps 
 soul I' 
 
The Jew in Fiction 175 
 
 Therefore, I summon age 
 
 To grant youth's heritage, 
 Life's struggle having so far reached its term: 
 
 Thence shall I pass, approved 
 
 A man for aye removed 
 From the developed brute; a God though in the 
 germ." 
 
 "Wait death nor be afraid!" 
 
 For 
 
 "All that is at all 
 Lasts ever, past recall; 
 Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: 
 What entered into thee. 
 That was, is, and shall be: 
 Time's wheel runs back or stops: potter and clay 
 endure. 
 
 So take and use Thy work. 
 
 Amend what flaws may lurk. 
 What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 
 
 My times be in Thy hand! 
 
 Perfect the cup as planned! 
 Let age approve of youth, and death complete the 
 same !" 
 
 It is better to drink from this cup of Rabbi 
 Ben Ezra than to drink rare Falernian. His 
 age ends as age should, a glad look backward, 
 but a gladder look forward! He is the Jewish 
 doctor, grave, sagacious, learned, provident 
 
17^ The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 of good. We seem listening to high-priest 
 Aaron in a monologue. Rabbi Ben Ezra has 
 seen far, and rightly. His have been eagle's 
 eyes. Great truths have swung their suns into 
 his firmament. In his greater moods, he is 
 surely the son of Abraham, and leaves his 
 lesser self abased, his major self exalted, speak- 
 ing, eloquent. 
 
 Saul is unique and noble. The waking of 
 a lethargic soul on contact with youth, vision, 
 genius, faith, is the theme. David, in poem 
 and history, presents both pomp and power of 
 Israel's story. His name pronounced, wakes 
 Israel from the dead. That graceful warrior- 
 poet, untwining lilies from his harp and letting 
 music drip from finger-tips, is a sight we care 
 to keep before our eyes forever. David, a 
 voice for souls — has he not been this through 
 centuries? He has given penitence a voice; 
 he gave our aspiration wings of prayer; he 
 gave to gratitude a song of praise. David is 
 as romantic a figure as ever stepped upon the 
 stage of history — shepherd, warrior, musician, 
 poet, statesman, conqueror, king. Myths meet 
 in him, so rare a trysting-place he seems. A 
 prodigious reason, a fertile imagination, a fail- 
 ing but recovering virtue, a great heart, a gen- 
 
The Jew in Fiction 177 
 
 erous forgiveness, a thrilling eloquence, a gen- 
 ius for conquest, and an upleap of life toward 
 God like spout of fountains, — ^this is David. 
 And in "Saul" he dreams. The very spirit of 
 poetry uses him as he his harp. He dedicates 
 him to the cure of Saul. Man never is so 
 great as when he serves; and young David is 
 lost in service. Conquest loves him now as 
 afterward; and Saul is roused into kingly life, 
 consciousness, and action. The Jew's service 
 to all races is herein set forth by symbol. All 
 souls are debtor to the Jew. His Elijahs and 
 Isaiahs, his Johns and Christ, have brought 
 soul back to itself again. The greater David, 
 Jesus, has done for all what David did for 
 Saul. He hath brought us back to life — and 
 God! 
 
 Lessing's "Nathan the Wise," written to in- 
 culcate catholicity, is noble and un-Jewish. 
 He is figured as man first, Jew afterwards; 
 while his race is Jew first, man afterwards. 
 Lessing's fable of the three rings is sophistical. 
 An element of truth truly is contained. Dog- 
 matism ought not to number us among its 
 votaries. But truth is still truth. All systems 
 are not equally true nor worthy of reception. 
 Truth is one. Character may be catholic in 
 
 12 
 
17^ The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 treatment, but must be intolerant of error. 
 But in greatness of heart, Nathan is true to 
 Jewry. Saul of Tarsus is not nobler than 
 Nathan the Wise. 
 
 Shylock, in "Merchant of Venice," is no 
 caricature. Browning's "Holy-cross Day" 
 presents the Jew in a state of subordination; 
 Shakespeare, in Shylock, presents the Jew with 
 power, and using it — ^the Jew as aggressor. 
 No one doubts that Abraham's sons can hate, 
 or that they love money, and are adepts in pro- 
 curing it. Shylock is true Jew. Command- 
 ing in ability, full of craft and finesse, unfor- 
 getting of injury, relentless in hate, — that is 
 Shylock. The Jew has never lacked genius. 
 By persecution, a race once rooted to the soil 
 like Lebanon's cedars, has become wanderer 
 and exile. His occupation as portable mer- 
 chantman has been thrust upon him. He must 
 have wealth transportable to new shores, else 
 penury would be his portion. This is the gen- 
 esis of the Jew as clothier, jeweler, broker. 
 To-day here, to-morrow yonder; to-day a con- 
 fidant of kings and cabinets, to-morrow har- 
 ried from the realm like noisome pestilence; 
 but he has been genius wherever thrown. 
 He has not lacked sagacity. In spite 
 
The Jew in Fiction 179 
 
 of shipwrecks of fortune so multitudinous 
 as to baffle enumeration or conjecture, his 
 fleets still sailed the seas. Shylock was penu- 
 rious. He and gold were lovers. But the no- 
 bler of ignoble vices masters him. Hate con- 
 quers miserliness. This man who has ridiculed 
 and despised him is now in his power, and no 
 man shall save him. Yellow ducats shall not 
 dull the edge of hate. Shout in his ears, "Take 
 four times the bond's face," and he will not 
 hear you for exulting in his knife, hungry for 
 blood. He is a Jew, and hates the Christian 
 dog. Race, bigotry, misuse, all appeal ^to him, 
 and not in vain. "Vengeance! Vengeance!" 
 Shylock, though a Jew at a disadvantage, is 
 still Jew in lineament, vernacular, trait, con- 
 duct. 
 
 Isaac, in "Ivanhoe," is one face of Shylock; 
 he loves his daughter and his gold. The rack 
 shall not wring from him the hiding-place of 
 his wealth. He protests, makes appeal to 
 Abraham's God to attest his poverty, declares 
 he has been robbed of all his gold by insa- 
 tiable John, a story not at all incredible; but 
 Rebecca is above gold. What no rack can 
 torture from him, fear for his Rebecca ex- 
 tracts with swift immediacy. Isaac is not 
 
I So The Poet's Poet and Other Eisays 
 
 admirable, but is yet not devoid of attractions. 
 His cringing speech we can ill tolerate; but 
 the love of his widowed heart for his Rebecca 
 is beautiful. The Jew is much a lover. Jacob 
 serving for Rachel, and accounting his seven 
 years brief as a winter's day for the love he 
 bore her, is an idyl perennially beautiful as 
 half-blown roses. Whoever studies the Jew 
 in history or in flesh, must be touched by his 
 affection. Fidelity is an attribute of his char- 
 acter. Rebecca, sad, tearless, fair, sad with the 
 pathos of unrequited love, is not fiction. She 
 is true Jewess. Womanhood goes far to find 
 truer interpretation of womanliness than the 
 Jewess gives. Home instinct, which is heart 
 instinct, is an Israelitish virtue. Only the 
 Anglo-Saxon has approximated them in this. 
 Not Roman nor Greek knew like fidelity. For 
 centuries of ancient time the Jew had the sole 
 home among the races; and considering how 
 absolutely essential experience has demon- 
 strated the home to be to civilization, the Jew's 
 major part in its establishment should never 
 be forgotten. Isaac was father and mother to 
 Rebecca, as Simonides to Esther ; and he loved 
 her above his gold. She was his chief joy, and 
 in her was a purity, a quiet self-poise, a hid 
 
The Jew in Fiction 1 8 1 
 
 might of love, a capacity for sufifering and for 
 secret-keeping which glorify all womanhood, 
 and are innate in Jewish character. 
 
 To "Hypatia" we are indebted for two 
 graphic delineations — mother and son, Miriam 
 and Raphael Aben-Ezra. Miriam is a woman 
 in whom all womanliness is dead save mother- 
 love, and minds us of Fantine in "Les Miser- 
 ables." She is apostate to her faith, fallen, 
 vile, procuress, an adept in craft, has a Midas 
 touch which turns all she" touches into gold, 
 is one ubiquitous incognito, holds, the secrets 
 of lives and cabinets, seems aimless as a dis- 
 mantled ship; though, in fact, led of one con- 
 suming passion, — she loves her son, who 
 knows not he has a mother. She watches him 
 as guardian angels do. She fills his hands with 
 wealth, as if he were son of a Cassar. She 
 withholds nought save only knowledge of her- 
 self. At last she dies for him ; and in that death 
 with the white face of her and the great love 
 of her, fallen, but a woman yet with heart 
 deeper than deep seas, these seem half expi- 
 ation of her guilt. Nor is she all un- Jewish. 
 That Jews have become apostate and conjurer 
 is an oft-told story. Baseness is a possible 
 application of might. Miriam was great in her 
 
1 82 The Poefs Poet and Other Esuyt 
 
 fall. Raphael, as first seen, is fop, gambler, 
 spendthrift; or so he seems. He impresses us 
 as being weak as rushes swinging beside sum- 
 mer streams, toys of every wind. But his is 
 assumed frivolity. He wears it as a mask. 
 He is no fiction. History has produced char- 
 acters not a few who disguised depth under 
 apparent superficiality. Raphael's mind has 
 compass, and he is possessed of both brain 
 and worth, and was not the shallow, babbling 
 stream we thought him. Heroisms, mastery of 
 philosophies, acceptance of the Christ, were 
 latent in him. And he adds one more to the 
 list of Jewish strength in fiction, and one more 
 to the roll of those whose awakening to the 
 better gives life renewed hope. 
 
 Zangwill, in "The Children of the Ghetto," 
 concerns himself mainly with the lower strata 
 of Jewry; and Jewry, like humanity, has its 
 lower as its upper. There is no reason to 
 doubt the veracity of this novel. The symp- 
 toms are certainly Jewish. The peripatetic 
 poverty; the man with a memory of love and 
 joy, but no present manhood or power appar- 
 ent of making a home for homeless children; 
 his son, sprung out of this shiftlessness, rising 
 to the point of being scholar and more, when 
 
The Jew in Fiction 183 
 
 death called him and he went; his daughter, 
 gifted with grace of fancy and facility of pen, 
 bearing ostracism stoically as no old Greek 
 knew to do, revealing the secret of the real 
 Jew's condition, finding at last, as a tossed ship 
 after wild storms, a haven of perpetual love, — 
 this we are told in realistic fashion as we are 
 shown the ordinary, unengaging life of a 
 Ghetto, whether at London or at Rome. The 
 fish smells and shrewd bargaining, the quaint 
 customs and love-makings, the petty horizons 
 for the many lives, the cheer and gladness in- 
 separable from life, the exact ritualism not less- 
 ened since Pharisee of old made broad his 
 phylactery, and lengthened prayers, and ob- 
 served jots and tittles of ceremonial law or 
 meaningless formularies, — all this is set down 
 with minute fidelity and graphic portrayal. 
 The rabbi who could watch with unchanged 
 face the breaking of his daughter's heart, but 
 would adhere to immemorial forms at so great 
 a hazard, aspiration refusing to die, but finding 
 in Jewry no sufficient goal, — these seem the log- 
 ical and coherent utterances of one who knew. 
 This nether world is a Jew's world still, for 
 poverty does not expatriate. Fraternity knits 
 Hebrews together with thread? of steel. They 
 
184 The Poefs Poet and Otlier Essays 
 
 keep a solid front to the world. The "Children 
 of the Ghetto" gives views not afforded by any 
 other fiction; and what we care to know is 
 truth, the entire truth. Who paints a portrait 
 studies all moods of the subject. This complex 
 character the Jew will compel many sittings 
 and many attitudes, since he is so composite. 
 Valleys are as natural to the world as moun- 
 tains. All topographical features have their 
 place. Deserts are real as fertile fields; and 
 the Ghetto is real as Rothschild's princeliness. 
 Filth, while no anticipation of the Mosaic code 
 for this chosen people since Leviticus presents 
 a perfect hygienic system — filth is yet a fact of 
 Jewish memorabilia. All civilization has 
 ghettoes, as has the Jew. Humanity must 
 bear the imputation of being unclean in body, 
 as in spirit. And in this Jew's Ghetto are hints 
 of comedy and bits of tragedy, and boisterous 
 merrymaking native to all estates. Poverty 
 is no dethronement of delight. Heroisms, too, 
 are here. Souls are the tenting-grounds of 
 the heroic. No life is cut off from the possi- 
 bility of nobleness; and the revelation of an 
 old father, conscious that his presence jeopards 
 his son's happiness; who feigns a brother in 
 
The Jew in Fiction 185 
 
 far-oflf America, who has sent for him to share 
 his wealth, and so leaves this Ghetto, though to 
 leave is like tearing out his living heart, and 
 turns gray face toward an unknown land, — 
 such sacrifice renews the courage of us all. 
 Beyond dispute we are debtors to this guide, 
 who has led us along so untrod, novel, and fas- 
 cinating a path. 
 
 In Sue's "Wandering Jew" and Wallace's 
 "Prince of India" the fact pertinent to this dis- 
 cussion is the longevity of the Jew — a per- 
 petual wonder, whose coming brings a curse! 
 For in this wanderer's shadow epidemics settle 
 like baleful dew. He curses all he loves. Not 
 health, but disease, is his contribution to his 
 world. He can not die. No one can gainsay 
 this to be a truth of Jewish history. In the 
 "Prince of India" the immortal Jew is malig- 
 nant; in "The Wandering Jew" he is benefi- 
 cent. The Jew is both. Far-reaching in plans, 
 power of accomplishment, perpetual wander- 
 ing as if our earth were one unbroken Sinai 
 wilderness, a life-long hunger at the heart, an 
 inability to die, — are these not accurate as if 
 they were history rather than fiction? 
 
 The "Scape-goat" gives Israel Ben Olliel, 
 
l86 Tfae Poefs Poet and Otiier Essays 
 
 than whom no more pathetic portrait of the 
 Jew has been painted. He repeats his race in 
 intellect, in a strong and unflinching sense of 
 God, in ability to live within himself, in love 
 for wife and daughter, in mastery of men, in 
 invincibility of spirit when once his conscience 
 is let lead, in his dignity which defies humili- 
 ation. Israel Ben Olliel compels your vener- 
 ation, admiration, love; and you can readily 
 believe of him his biographer's statement that 
 his was the noblest head he had seen set on 
 man's shoulders. He was a son of David, born 
 to rule. Even a cruel and vicious ruler became 
 palatable in part when his counsels were di- 
 rected by this astute minister. He knew to 
 suffer; his loneliness is pitiful. His wife drifts 
 from him like some boat borne away by the 
 current of a stream. His little daughter, blind, 
 deaf, dumb, breaking by littles through all 
 these barriers to a command of every faculty; 
 the biting hatred of the synagogue heaping 
 contumely upon him, a whole people cursing 
 a man who was in truth their best friend; dis- 
 grace at his master's hands when he became 
 non-compliant; bereft of power, nothing shel- 
 ters him from mob violence and prison seques- 
 
The Jew in Fiction 187 
 
 tration; but in every place looking the what he 
 was, a mighty spirit habituated to self-control 
 so complete as to let no perturbation fling 
 shadow across his face, his ability to inspire 
 fidelity and love in those who knew him best, 
 so that brave "Ali died with his name upon 
 his lips, and with a dauntless shout of tri- 
 umph," his love of Naomi the beloved, in 
 whom after God his life was set as in a gar- 
 den, — this is Israel Ben Olliel; and both man 
 and face may well arrest us. "It is a big, 
 strong face with a snow-white beard. His 
 hair, too, is long and white. A Jovian head, 
 and a face with some of the grander lines of 
 the ancient and heroic race of Israel." He is 
 sitting in squalor at his poor mud-hut door, 
 bare of foot and head, with worn garment, 
 wandering eyes, bearded chin bowed on his 
 clenched hands, as if snow had slipped from 
 the tent roof and had half hid them, so white 
 and ample his beard, and talking to himself 
 in the English tongue; "and he was mumbling 
 terms of endearment, coupled sometimes with 
 a name;" for he was daughterless. She has 
 been seized by his sometime prince as an ad- 
 dition to his seraglio. So love lives on when 
 
1 88 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 mind lies dead. And now dying, Naomi hold- 
 ing his dear head upon her breast, singing to 
 him, 
 
 "Love, great love, 
 O come and claim thine own, 
 O come and take thy throne. 
 Reign ever and alone, 
 Reign, glorious, golden love," — 
 
 while Israel Ben Olliel makes shift to beat time 
 for her singing, looking love, love only, hfe's 
 day forgotten — it is evening now — ^whispering, 
 "Never was she so dear to me as now. Re- 
 member, remember!" "Listen! When I am 
 there, eh? — you know there — I will want to say, 
 Father, you did well to hear my prayer. My 
 little daughter — she is happy," and murmuring 
 with last articulate word, "God — is — ^great," 
 and taking hand of lover and bringing it to his 
 breast, where lay Naomi's hand "beneath his 
 own trembling one," and "with that last effort, 
 and a look into Naomi's face that must have 
 pursued him home, his grand eyes closed for- 
 ever." Him lying white and still there, say 
 with the Mahdi, "He has gone to the King!" 
 One is not often moved as by that gray face 
 and noble head. 
 
 "Daniel Deronda" is a study of the Jew 
 
The Jew in Fiction 189 
 
 from unexpected quarters. George Eliot was 
 agnostic. To her, "the oracles of God" were 
 mythic voices. God in history, Gentile or 
 Jewish, was never more than suspected; could 
 never be assured, since God was a question- 
 mark. The Jew comes to be of absorbing in- 
 terest only in the light of his theistic history. 
 Hebrews, descendants of Abraham, are of in- 
 terest; Hebrews, the chosen of God, whose 
 history is punctuated with miracle, are of ab- 
 sorbing interest. George Eliot, entertaining 
 nugatory theories of Hebrew history, was yet, 
 as a woman of imagination and heart, caught 
 in the meshes of this stranger romance than 
 Sindbad had ever attempted telling. She was 
 probably more impressed by the miraculous 
 than herself knew. In any case, she has given 
 us a latter-day study of a Jew, thrilled with 
 enthusiasm for Hebrew history and the mor- 
 row of his race; and Mordecai is a character 
 who might have stood in his ranks in the 
 schools of the prophets. Every Jew's char- 
 acter in "Daniel Deronda" is individual, and 
 logical in conception, and apt to its purpose. 
 Deronda's mother is typical, and more than 
 possible. She was restless under the Jewish 
 ban, was defective in imagination as in devo- 
 
igo The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 tion in love. Hebrew past held no glory to 
 light the present. She repudiated her race, 
 and all but repudiated her son. No question 
 the countess has sisters among her people. 
 The Jew sits solitary and apart, as he were an 
 oblation to the gods. This she could not 
 brook. No doubt but that in this isolation is 
 something drastic to many women. If we may 
 interpret the utterances of the recent Conven- 
 tion of Jewesses, they and the countess are of 
 one mind. They resist restriction to race mar- 
 riages. They feel hindered as birds meant for 
 woods, but shut in cages. Love brooks no 
 hindrances, but cares to walk free as the moon 
 across the world. Deronda's mother repre- 
 sents a recalcitrancy in the Jewish heart, this 
 is clear. How widely spread this feeling, is 
 not pertinent to the discussion. That it ex- 
 ists, is justification for our author's character. 
 But we can not be pleased with this countess. 
 She has practically deserted her son, who 
 through years supposed himself dishonored in 
 his birth. Deronda's meeting with his mother 
 was frigid, and entirely lacking in that plethora 
 of maternal tenderness characterizing the 
 Jewess. In any race, however, are abnormali- 
 ties. Woman is meant for and attains ideality, 
 
The Jrw in Fiction 191 
 
 but, falling, falls so low that none but Christ 
 would attempt her restoration. The Cohens 
 are well portrayed. He is the vender, the cun- 
 ning, busy money-getter, and lover of store- 
 shelves and little Jacob and his devoted ad- 
 mirer. I have been on shipboard with such 
 Jewish families as the Cohens; and the sight 
 of them did one good, that lingers in memory a 
 blessing still. Cohen is real, more real than 
 Mordecai, because the matter-of-fact man is 
 the multitudinous man. He fills each census 
 table full; but the common man is man, tender, 
 heroic on occasion, bearing marks of being 
 God's son. Cohen is true to his race, true to 
 every race. 
 
 Then the Anathoths, father, son, daughter. 
 Mirah is least racial of the three. Man, as 
 lover, loses his race qualities. Love obliterates 
 race distinctions, and has one attitude and one 
 speech. Jessica and Mirah and Ophelia alike 
 repeat in whispers to their own hearts in dark- 
 ness, "I love him, I love him." Love flings 
 us out of the tribal into the universal. The 
 larger instincts of soul are world instincts, 
 At every step we transcend both place and 
 clan. The father is baseness, naming himseli 
 a Jew. Not often have we looked on so de- 
 
192 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 graded a man, nor one so lost to virtue. The 
 father of Robert Falconer, as drawn by Mac- 
 Donald, is not so fallen as this man. Anathoth 
 has deserted his children, leaving them to die 
 or survive as they might; but when once they 
 come to positions where he may spoil them, 
 he appears. He is a leech. His food is blood, 
 nor is he choice whose blood it is. He will 
 not be sybarite, only give him blood. He is 
 cringing as Uriah Heep, and finds son and 
 daughter, but to disgrace them as a common 
 thief. Yet he shames not them so much as 
 us. All men are shamed in one man's sin. It 
 reflects evil hues on every face. To fall so low 
 as to lose sense of shame, to see a face flushed 
 with love as Mirah's is, and not enter into com- 
 pact for her happiness, to see Mordecai and 
 signs of dissolution on him, to know a fire 
 burns this husk to a last flaring flame, to be 
 sure you look a modern prophet in the face, 
 and not awake to manhood, — is too pitiful for 
 words. Yet with such a sire, woman could be 
 pure of heart, and man could dwell in a celes- 
 tial sphere wrapt round with clouds of purple 
 and of gold. Mordecai was son of such a sire. 
 He is drawn a prophet and a poet. He was 
 a flame leaping toward heaven. As Hege! 
 
The Jew in Fiction 193 
 
 was absorbed in his philosophy, Mordecai was 
 absorbed in his prophetic dreams. Deronda's 
 mother thought to be Hebrew a calamity; 
 Mordecai thought it to be the sum of bless- 
 ings. Israel was God's chosen among all 
 races, the Benjamin whom God held exceed- 
 ing dear. Mordecai was enthusiast, was pos- 
 sessed by noble dreams. Such as he Isaiah 
 was: That flushed face of genius; those eyes 
 which see through darkness as through light; 
 the voice in which are cadences of exquisite 
 music; that hand, whose touch, as Kingslake 
 in "Eothen" says, "Crept like a whisper up the 
 listening palm;" that sincere, clean, rapt soul, 
 which in the world dwelt in forgotten zones 
 of thought and inspiration. Mordecai is the 
 Jew as dreamer. He might have been mu- 
 sician, painter, orator, poet. Who could put 
 Mordecai on canvas, could paint Ezekiel when 
 beside the river Chebar he "saw visions of 
 God." 
 
 But Daniel Deronda is the Jew as modern 
 gentleman, and is altogether admirable. No 
 blemish scars his character. Even when he 
 sets sail upon a fatuous voyage, we can not 
 wish him other than he was. Innumerable 
 things are worse than being Don Quixote; for 
 13 
 
194 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 he was an idealist and a gentleman. Scholar, 
 man of leisure, modest, pure as air that haunts 
 high mountains, strong enough to have 
 strength to be a strength to Gwendolyn Har- 
 leth and a fulfillment to Mordecai, imaginative 
 enough to dream, the Orient flushing his 
 cheek, the Occident girding his purpose, 
 steady in movement, reserve of power his pos- 
 session, Deronda moves like a brave ship 
 which walks billows as if they were a meadow- 
 land. He is Jew of the highest type; but his 
 ancestry is unknown. George Eliot has evi- 
 denced superior art in disclosing hidden move- 
 ments of spirit, which become explicable only 
 when race ancestry is discovered. This Jew- 
 ish ancestry has not more flushed his cheek 
 than it has colored his mentality and char- 
 acter. Radiant eastern nights seem flooding 
 his soul with spendthrift glory. Finding who 
 he is, he understands himself. Mordecai 
 wakes him as if Deronda were instrument and 
 Mordecai musician. This Jew, a great past 
 seizes, and holds him prisoner; and then he 
 dreams that yesterdays imply to-morrows. 
 Capable of enthusiasm as large life must be, 
 Daniel Deronda is a praise to the race whose 
 product he is assumed to be. 
 
The Jew in Fiction 195 
 
 And "Ben Hur," — with him ends this pro- 
 cession of fiction. Princess Hur, Tirzah, Es- 
 ther, Simonides, Ben Hur, — surely we have 
 watched a royal procession pass! Israel is in 
 the book, — Israel's pomp, disaster, fidelity in 
 love, wealth of tenderness, brilliancy of 
 achievement, unbreakable will, race instinct, 
 the ruddy life outliving tragedy expectant for 
 another day, defeated, triumphant; such is Ben 
 Hur, such is Israel. 
 
 Esther is sweet daughter, worthy her tender 
 and heroic sire, — strong, delicate in love as 
 woman in her finer moments is, she breaks on 
 the spirit as moonrise; Tirzah, sister to Ben 
 Hur, prisoner, leprous, forgotten, discovered, 
 healed of Christ; Princess Hur, pitiful in her 
 woes, but upborne by faith in God. "By the 
 rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept, yea, 
 we wept when we remembered Zion;" but she 
 a prisoner on Zion's hill, and saw no sunrise 
 smite the golden roof of Jehovah's temple! 
 This tragedy of imprisonment is typical tyr- 
 anny, relentless, terrible. A leper, yet drink- 
 ing at the deep fountains of love, she dreams of 
 Ben Hur, hopes for him, prays God for him. 
 Her hope lives on. Ben Hur runs like a living 
 stream through the parched desert of her life. 
 
196 The Poet's Poet and Other Esayt 
 
 With woman's wondrous decentralization of 
 soul, she slurs her own wrong and suffering 
 over thinking of Tirzah, more of Ben Hur. 
 She saw him last lost in the procession mov- 
 ing toward the galleys. Hear her cry, "Ben 
 Hur! Ben Hur! Ben Hur!" And love has al- 
 ways one recourse, love. She was not all be- 
 reft. Tirzah and her love and God did keep 
 her company. Not often has any writer given 
 so pathetic a picture as that of Tirzah and the 
 Princess Hur stealing like shadows of the night 
 down from En Rogel's well to look by night 
 upon the home of their remembered joy. And 
 Ben Hur lies sleeping on the step of Prince 
 Hur's palace, across whose wide doors even 
 eyes dimmed with leprosy can read written, 
 "This is the property of the emperor." Ben 
 Hur turns him restless in his dreams, and 
 moans, "Mother." And Princess Hur sees him 
 for whom all these dead years she has longed 
 as dying lips for the dear kiss of love. Tirzah 
 sees his hand lying palm upward, and will pour 
 kisses in its hollow like rain into a rock; but 
 the mother withholds with strident leprous 
 whisper, "Not for thy life. Leper!" She falls 
 in the dust. A step, a word, a touch, a caress, 
 a kiss, which had meant heaven ; but she whis- 
 
The Jew in Fictian 197 
 
 pers with her hoarse sibilant of leper's speech, 
 "Unclean, unclean!" And this sweet, self- 
 denying life creeps, only to press parched lips 
 to his dusty sandal sole — and creeps back, a 
 shadow among shadows. How high love soars 
 what time her wings are spread! But in Am- 
 rah with her deep fidelity, in Esther, the prin- 
 cess, and Tirzah, aside from their persistency 
 and beauty of love, Jewry finds no articulate 
 speech. 
 
 Simonides and Ben Hur are the Jewish 
 spirits. Simonides is majestic. All we learn of 
 him — and we know him from a lad — is to his 
 praise. He knew how to love with a great and 
 tender passion, such as moved Jacob to serve a 
 slave for Rachel. For love he became a slave 
 forever. That was love! His paternal affec- 
 tion was sweet as odors of lilacs. He might 
 have ruled a Roman empire. His was a faith- 
 fulness which knew no sleeping nor abatement 
 of toil through many years, when hope of his 
 master's return must have died on many days 
 like crimson from evening clouds — his glad 
 surrender of the colossal fortune which his 
 genius for trade had amassed, and with it list- 
 ing himself and Tirzah as chattels of Prince 
 Hur! Cupidity sHnks away ashamed in Simon- 
 
IQS Tile Poefs Poet and Other Eitayi 
 
 ides' presence. Look at him — ^his princely 
 brow, his commanding intellect, his vast mas- 
 tery of the currents of trade, his riches exceed- 
 ing those of the Caesars even. We thought this 
 fiction? 'T is history rather. It is from Roth- 
 schild kings must borrow in their hour of need. 
 In Nathan the Wise, Israel Ben Olliel, and 
 Simonides, find Jewish captivity, character, and 
 genius. But consider Simonides' moral fiber 
 beyond what we have already seen. He is 
 wheeled to and fro — you notice that. Some 
 wreck has crushed him. Nay, that wreck was 
 Gratus, who, having confiscated Prince Hur's 
 palace and estate, hearing Simonides was 
 Prince Hur's steward, broke him on the rack 
 to make him disclose the hiding-place of his 
 gold. The rack creaked, Simonides' face grew 
 white, his muscles lengthened, his arms tore 
 from the sockets, his tendons crack like 
 strings on a musician's instrument — "Tell now, 
 tell now," this it is Gratus says; and Simonides, 
 white now as in death, faints; is taken from 
 the rack a shapeless mass of bones and flesh, 
 to be wheeled to and fro as children are, but 
 his lips are sealed — and he keeps his secretl 
 That is Simonides, and he is an honor to our 
 race. 
 
Tlie Jew in Fiction 199 
 
 And this is Ben Hur beside him. Recite 
 his history, and you seem rehearsing Israel's 
 story. A prince of David's house, loved, opu- 
 lent, he is hurried to galley slavery. Chained, 
 he tugs at the oars; is bent, and not broken. 
 He knits thews like Nimrod's as he plies his 
 oar. Upon a battle-day with pirates, his chain 
 is loosed; he joins the battle, is flung from the 
 wrecked galley, rescues Arrius the duumvir, 
 is adopted as his son and heir, is schooled at 
 the Roman ludi and academe; but not for an 
 hour does he forget mother, Tirzah, Jerusa- 
 lem. They haunt him, as shadows do the hills. 
 He owes a debt; he will be true. He seeks in 
 vain; the waves of years have washed th^ir 
 very footprints from the shore; they are but 
 memories. But at Antioch, capital of Syria, 
 at the circus, he meets the author of his dis- 
 aster, Messala, rich, haughty, imperious; a 
 Roman, therefore cruel. Ben Hur is Jew, and 
 knows how to hate, as he knows how to love. 
 He has sheikh Ilderim's eagles from the desert, 
 and plans to be avenged through them. The 
 Roman circus, the procession of competitors, 
 the exact maneuver, the iron muscles, the self- 
 mastery written on his face, the imperturbable 
 rocking in the reeling chariot, persistency of 
 
200 Tile Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 purpose cruel as the grave, the crash, Messala 
 wounded for life, and the race won! Is not 
 that the Jew? You must love Ben Hur. His 
 youth, his suffering, his unbroken spirit, his 
 constancy of filial love, his resistance in 
 Daphne's grove, his physical might, his vast 
 composure, his settled purpose, his love for 
 Esther, and his final love for Christ, — ^you 
 must love Ben Hur. 
 
 And this pageant is all passed. We hear 
 not footfalls, but echoes; and now, when the 
 procession is vanished, say: "We have seen 
 a prince among races pass." These Jews thrill 
 us as the Romans did not. They mystify us 
 like a prophecy. Their achievements and his- 
 tory, their prowess and capacity, their love and 
 devotion, their sense of God at hand, their 
 unbewildered hope, their fortitude and heroism 
 and disaster and services to mankind, — all 
 break across the spirit like some driving sea; 
 and we are as those bewildered by the shock. 
 
Robert Bums 
 
 Poetry, in common with other utterance, 
 is exponential. Men speak from the heart. 
 In instances not a few, this exponential char- 
 acter is so pronounced that the poetry becomes 
 autobiographical. This was the case with 
 Byron, as it was with Shelley. We seem to be 
 reading confessions as certainly as when we 
 read Rousseau or Goethe. In Shakespeare's 
 dramas, however, personality is absolutely 
 wanting. He is impersonal. We can not re- 
 construct this colossus from his plays; for, like 
 his players, he wears a mask. Of no poet do 
 we know so little, because his speech does not 
 betray him. Even in his sonnets, there is but 
 dubious light thrown on the face of this poet 
 laureate of the world. In "Paradise Lost" we 
 get scarcely a clue to guide us through the 
 maze of the Miltonic life. In Robert Brown- 
 ing the traces of self-revelation are as uncer- 
 tain as a footpath through a woodland in the 
 dark. 
 
 But this Scottish lyrist, Robert Burns, is 
 as communicative as a child. He is no sphinx 
 
 20I 
 
202 The Poet's Poet and Other &says 
 
 to keep secrets hid behind a stony brow. The 
 tell-tale blushes on a woman's cheek are not 
 more self-revealing than the poetry of this 
 rare son of tarn and fell, burn and crag, of 
 loch and ben. I think it quite within bounds 
 of truth to say we learn more of Burns from 
 his poems than from his letters. The letters 
 are stilted, artificial, scarcely sincere, certainly 
 far from natural. In them he is in dress-suit, 
 and is self-conscious. It is, however, as if in all 
 his verse he had said, "I will tell you one thing 
 more about myself." With this flavor on all 
 Bums has written, his poetry becomes pictur- 
 esque as the explanatory clause of a strange 
 life in which the whole world is come to have 
 an interest. His poetry is himself, and himself 
 is Scotland. This I take to be one cause of 
 the perennial popularity of his writings. Since 
 those leaves were blown as by autumn's blast 
 from Scotland's trees, the interest in their 
 beauty has abated not a whit. Men read them 
 now with the same pathetic thought as when 
 the fate of Burns was a fresh memory to the 
 heart. 
 
 Burns is the common people's poet. 
 Charles Dickens was himself when he de- 
 scribed middle class or slum life of that Eng- 
 
Robert Btmu 203 
 
 land whose social historian he was. Outside 
 of such circle his movement is uncertain as a 
 bird lost in the drift of storm. Burns was and 
 is to Scotland what Dickens is to England, 
 with this reservation, that he attempted the 
 one thing his genius was suited to, as music to 
 poet's words. He knew his limitations, nor 
 attempted to pass them. But Burns was more 
 than a singer for Scotland. He speaks for the 
 common man. This is the meaning of his 
 dialect; for Burns is the greatest writer of dia- 
 lect. Out of this he was never at home. He 
 has immortalized a strange, sweet speech. 
 How the Scotch tongue abounds in beautiful 
 diminutives ! The "wee bit, cowerin', timorous 
 beastie" could not have been written in Eng- 
 lish. The verse is absolutely indigenous to 
 Scotland. You can not transplant it. Burns 
 is untranslatable. He belongs, and must be- 
 long, to the land of his nativity, as entirely as 
 the laverock or his mountain daisy. He spoke 
 the people's speech. This is the potent secret 
 of the growing audiences this poet's minstrelsy 
 gathers. We common men people the 
 world. The land is ours; and we must have a 
 voice. Dialect is the language of the common 
 folk. Travel, culture, society, wear away pro- 
 
204 Tiie Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 vincialism in speech by their attrition. Culture 
 tends to make a universal language. But the 
 common man is, in a sense, planted in the soil. 
 He belongs to a locality; and thought and 
 speech are flavored by this environment; and 
 to hear a poet use common men's language 
 is to feel him brother. Of Burns, a world will 
 exclaim, "He sings for us; this is our poet, 
 singing songs we could not articulate." Burns 
 is not visitor in his world; he is inhabitant. 
 He does not look and speak; he lives and 
 speaks. For the toil to which most men find 
 themselves heirs, he stops to sing. The plow 
 stands still mid-furrow while the Mousie is 
 a-writing, or while the Daisy is having her 
 elegy written. The world wants a spokesman; 
 and Bums is he. And our spokesman shall be 
 dear to us, as son to father. Popularity arises 
 from this fact, as may readily be seen. He is 
 the voice of common man, and our voice shall 
 not be permitted to echo itself into silence. 
 This is the very fortress of Burns's strength. 
 He is knit into dialect. Out of it he was an- 
 other and a lesser man. He was no figure for 
 the palace halls — ^Tennyson was that — ^but be- 
 longed to the field and its dewy morning. He 
 seems a piece of nature. He and the daisy are 
 
Robert Bams 205 
 
 alike indigenous to the soil. Toil speaks in 
 him. His were the songs of labor and the 
 songs of love. Toil singing, that is Burns. 
 And labor ought to sing. Toil is not morose, 
 but full of singing and laughter, and calls, 
 "My poet, sing for me." 
 
 Burns has given Scotland an immortal 
 voice. In a later day, Scott, with wizard touch, 
 opened wide the book of Scotch history, lo- 
 cality, and character. But to history and geog- 
 raphy Burns gave little heed, and to character 
 — Scotland's character, Burns's character — 
 he gave all heed. We go to Scotland to-day 
 because Burns and Scott have put the passion 
 in the blood. You will note the difiference be- 
 tween the method of these two. Scott makes 
 history and topography chief. He puts em- 
 phasis on castle, rock, and glen. Burns never 
 does. These, if they appear in his poetry, are 
 there as unconsciously as the rare flavor of 
 Scotch dialect. History he is not alive to. 
 Experience is all, the setting as it may be; 
 since Burns is where he is, it could be no other. 
 But we must always feel he is not writing 
 about Scotland; he is spokesman for his race 
 and common man. He tells their story, and 
 takes us into the confidence of a strange, at- 
 
2o6 Tie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 tractive, and profound clan among earth's peo- 
 ples. The world has not lost interest in Scot- 
 land since Burns spoke for it. Its voices have 
 been in our ears, like the sound of far-off 
 waters heard at night. A fascination has clung 
 about kirk and cottage, which abides like the 
 heather on the moors. Scotch character is 
 unique. Taciturn, undemonstrative, unosten- 
 tatious, seemingly hard, a handshake instead 
 of a kiss, actually leal as morning to the sun, 
 unspeakably tender, self-respecting, a humor 
 indulging in no laughter, but cutting deep; 
 loyal to Scotland, fixed to localities, intense 
 in localism, abstemious, forcing a livelihood 
 from nature's niggardliness, high-idealed, in- 
 tensely religious, a profound moral conscious- 
 ness with its inevitable concomitant an alert 
 conscience, — such, in poor outline, is Scotch 
 character, and a study of perennial attractive- 
 ness. Dr. John Brown, Barrie, and Ian Mac- 
 laren may thank Robbie Burns for their con- 
 stituency. The life this bard of poverty made 
 so much of will be a theme whose interest will 
 never flag. Nor is the land less attractive than 
 the character rooted in its soil. The babble of 
 runnels, the limpid pool, the highland loch, 
 the dash of waterfalls, the dark mountain-side 
 
Robert Bums 207 
 
 shaded with pines standing solemn and 
 changeless, — these constitute a land of un- 
 usual beauty. History, climate, topography, 
 character, all Scotch and all classic now; and 
 Scott and Burns have made them so. Yet now 
 that we think of it, Burns makes little of these 
 accessories. He barely mentions the sea. 
 How strange that is, and what a sense of loss 
 is on us in the lack! Burns is no painter of 
 landscapes. He is figure-painter. A face, his 
 art means that. What scenery we have in him 
 is inferential; but the life of Scotland, the lofty 
 patriotism, his glory in manhood and asser- 
 tions of equality, how these voices make the 
 pulse throb! 
 
 There is in Burns, as an exponent of Scotch 
 character, absolute fidelity, characteristic 
 humor, somber simplicity, adherence to duty, 
 a scorn of sham, strength, music, and heart, — 
 these phrases are descriptive of the salient 
 features of his poetry. His pictures are true. 
 "The Cotter's Saturday Night" illustrates two 
 qualities of Burns, his accuracy of delineation 
 and the somber hues of Scotch thought and 
 action. One sees the scene, not because he 
 tries, but because he can not help it. The 
 measured methodicality of the Scot is seen in 
 
2o8 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 what was done, and in the order of the doing. 
 Can future Scotland fail to know eighteenth 
 century Scotland after this poem has given the 
 picture? A stenographer's report had not been 
 more accurate. The flavor of duty, the going 
 the way ordained, is always inseparable from 
 a noble Scotch life. Fealty to duty is the 
 largest quality of soul, and no people has ever 
 known the art of burning this principle on the 
 heart more indelibly than the Scotch. Their 
 literature is filled with it. Harsh this code of 
 conduct may be, but heroic it always is. It 
 glorifies men and women, and they seem walk- 
 ing in this as in a sunset. The exceeding 
 beauty of the Highland Marys lies in their sim- 
 plicity, fidelity, and purposeful existence. 
 
 Scotch humor is all but unequaled. There 
 is in it a touch of acid; but rare humor it is. 
 Tam O'Shanter — what could be more native, 
 accurate, and grave? Gravity is always an ele- 
 ment in this Scotch humor. One can imagine 
 the great delight with which a coterie of 
 tavern worthies would rehearse this tale as 
 they sat around their cups. "To a Louse on 
 a Lady's Bonnet" seems to me captivating. 
 He who can refrain from laughter in reading 
 this bit of jocularity, surely has no humor in 
 
Robert Burns 209 
 
 himself, and is fit for one knows not what. 
 The "Address to the Deil" is a bit of humor 
 which fairly inebriates. Burns evidently saw 
 the fun of things, and, in that sober Scotch 
 way which eschews laughter, throws auditors 
 into convulsions. 
 
 But humor can never constitute a man a 
 poet. Love, duty, and pathos are materials of 
 poetry. In the noblest verse, as in Tennyson, 
 the element of sadness is omnipresent. Tears, 
 not laughter, are in the poet's eyes. We can 
 lose Burns's bacchanals and feel no loss, but 
 his hymns of the heart we can not do without. 
 Bannockburn! Why, it clashes like Miriam's 
 cymbals! Our blood boils like the sea in 
 tempest. The fervor of heroic days thunders 
 in our ears the call to war. No nobler ode to 
 liberty has been written. 
 
 Burns was erratic, fickle, false, restive, in- 
 temperate, melancholy, and moody as a Scotch 
 sky. His fits seize him. He was a creature of 
 moments. Laughter or weeping, no one could 
 tell which should proceed from this minstrel. 
 A big heart, a feverish passion, a lust for wine 
 and women, a manhood burned out like a 
 candle to the socket, — ^this is Burns. He was 
 a man with his full share of weakness and 
 14 
 
2IO The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 wickedness, but with a large endowment of 
 genius, nobility, and vision; and we pass his 
 aberrancies by tenderly, because of the man- 
 hood he did possess. With Burns the world 
 has forgotten much. His was a trumpet for 
 freedom. That there was. however, something 
 of belligerency in his notions of equality and 
 freedom, we can not in truth deny. He was 
 in fierce unrest with his condition. Content- 
 ment he no more knew than do caged eagles. 
 He saw clearly that a man was a man for his 
 own sake and in his own name ; that blood was 
 not to be tested by age, but by quality. But he 
 rebelled against being poor. He did not feel 
 safe within himself in conscious dignity. He 
 therefore railed at those above him. Calm, dis- 
 passionate, he never was. He did not know 
 how to be unperturbed as fate. What scion 
 of a noble house in this era whose fame is com- 
 parable with the fame of Burns? Why did he 
 not rest his dignity on his worth? He was 
 not thus. Fever was on him. Passion burned 
 on his pages, and made his poems invectives. 
 But aside from this blemish, there is in him 
 vision of man as man and worth as worth, 
 which much of a commonplace as it is with us 
 when America has familiarized the earth with 
 
Robert Burns 211 
 
 this idea, was in the eighteenth century seen 
 dimly when at all. 
 
 Burns's poetry is essential music. Verse 
 may be either the poetry of music or the poetry 
 of thought. Some poets contribute thought 
 to the soul. They must enlarge the mind to 
 contain the thoughts they bring. They are 
 vessels laden with merchandise, piled in hold 
 and high upon the deck. To be a wharf at 
 which such ships unlade is to enlarge the soul 
 till it becomes ample as the shore of ocean. 
 Shakespeare will do this. You must become 
 philosopher if you stay in his company. With 
 him, music is subordinate to logic. Argu- 
 ments march like battle-ranks. He will have 
 you see souls struggle as wrestlers in the 
 Olympic games. You grow fatigued like a 
 traveler climbing steep and long ascents. So 
 with Browning; you may not play but must 
 labor, if you are to be his companion. 
 Weighty truths startle your spirit. Music is 
 secondary. The inspiration is the massiveness 
 of thought. Cyclops lifts for you. Other 
 poets are poets of music. They sing. Their 
 thought is of minor consequence, and would 
 not bear analysis. Yet what thought has the 
 smging lark? You do not ask that, because 
 
212 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 the singing suffices. And this is the true esti- 
 mate; poets of thought and poets of music 
 are not enemies, but friends. Each has his 
 ministry, and his ministry is his apology. 
 Music is an end. Burns is not a thought poet. 
 He has not given one new thought or a vigor- 
 ous idea. Nor is this a discourtesy to say of 
 him; for he was not a thinker, that is all; but 
 he was a singer. Music has power of its own, 
 nor does it need to borrow thought, since it 
 is thought. Music makes you dream. Who, 
 having listened to noble melody (with closed 
 eyes as is best), but has found his soul in a 
 state of ferment ere the music sobbed into 
 silence? Vast unrest seized him. He felt him- 
 self capable of the heroic. He was an unfet- 
 tered might. Music had loosed him and let 
 him go. Do we not see how aspiration is its 
 own justification? How that is life's chief de- 
 sideratum, and therefore how ample a vindi- 
 cation the poet of music has? His music lifts 
 us as mountains do not; and Bums is a mu- 
 sician. 
 
 His genius was lyric, not didactic nor epic. 
 Those who hold Burns might have written a 
 national epic, seem to me to obscure the main 
 truths of his literary character. "The Cotter's 
 
Robert Burns 213 
 
 Saturday Night" is not Burns at his best, 
 though the contribution is one we would 
 not willingly let die. As of old the troubadour 
 sung to the music of the harp, and melody of 
 hand and lip rose together, so this poet's verse 
 is of the lyre. It was meant for singing. It 
 sings itself. You can no more keep Burns's 
 words from music, than you can keep the 
 wimple from singing in the glen. 
 
 His poetry is essential music. Like streams 
 among his native crags, his poems ripple with 
 laughter and delight. Strange melodies are 
 nurtured among those Northern hills. Who 
 that has heard a bagpipe play can well forget 
 its haunting music? And many of Burns's 
 poems were written to fit Scottish airs. They 
 were fitted to music. If ever a purely lyric 
 poet lived and wrote. Burns was that poet. 
 I doubt not his poems sang themselves in his 
 mind. Redundant with love and hope, sick 
 with despair, bugle-note of triumph, philippic 
 against the existing order, whatever theme, 
 whatever temper, music was never wanting. A 
 skylark singing toward the sky in the first 
 flush of morning has not sweeter notes than 
 this child of the Scotch glen. 
 
 But Burns's heart was his noblest potency. 
 
214 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Because his music bubbles from the heart as 
 water from hidden springs, we can not elude 
 its witchery. Logic we may be deaf to; but 
 one language is universal speech; namely, the 
 language of the heart. When his heart speaks, 
 it is that Burns becomes dynamic. He 
 changes love often ; but his love speaks passion 
 at the hour. Love must always have lute and 
 voice. It is the master inspiration of the 
 world. And as long as love lives (and who 
 does not know love to be immortal as the 
 heart?) Burns will be her minstrel. We forget 
 his constancy lasted but a day in the fervor of 
 his protestations of undying affection. With 
 him love seems as love always should, fresh as 
 dew on flowers of morning. To love is to see 
 but her, hear but her. The lovers straying 
 across hills scented with heather-bloom, or 
 down the burn where the waters themselves 
 seem whispering like lovers the oft-repeated 
 story; the parting mixed of kisses and of tears; 
 the praying for the coming of evening star 
 when lips shall meet once more, — these are 
 pictures whose colors are unfading so long as 
 Burns shall sing love lyrics in our ears. Him- 
 self has said, that with him love and poetry 
 awoke together. The sonsie highland lassie 
 
Robert Bums 215 
 
 was inspirer of his poet's song. Love has ever 
 a singing heart; and who that has heard song 
 of a woman looking for her lover must know 
 love has singing lips. Love is tender, and 
 caresses its native speech. Burns is filled with 
 tenderness. Tears keep watch in his eyes. 
 "The Daisy," "To a Mouse," "On Seeing a 
 Wounded Hare Limp by Me," are all utter- 
 ances of the heart not less certainly than his 
 songs of love. Susceptible to every fair face, 
 he was not less so to every inspiration. His 
 moods were changing as moods of sky. Tears 
 chase laughter from his face as drink drove 
 reason from his brain. But love of nobleness 
 was in him; and the passionate gift of song 
 used him as if he had been a lute. Love of 
 truth, country, river, cushat, mousie, daisy, 
 lassie (be she Mary, Eliza, or Jean), — that was 
 Burns's literary biography. Love means mel- 
 ancholy; and it is quite beyond credence how 
 persistently shadows hang over all Burns 
 wrote, until you take his poems and go over 
 them at a sitting. Rollicking he seems to be, 
 but sad at heart you will always find him. The 
 fear of parting is on his meeting with Mary. 
 "The Daisy" is rich in this sentiment, which 
 thrills all his poetry. Every poet is impres- 
 
2l6 Tbe Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 sionable. He runs to catch the form of things. 
 And as sandstone holds prints of waves which 
 long ago ran up the strand of some forgotten 
 sea, so in this poet's songs we trace the play 
 of variant and vagrant moods. And as in 
 voices of the laughing tide, there still remain 
 reminiscences of storms and tales of ship- 
 wreck, in Bums is whisper of 
 
 "And forward though I canna see, I guess and fear." 
 
 "Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate. 
 That fate is thine — no distant date; 
 Stern ruin's plowshare drives, elate 
 
 Full on thy bloom; 
 Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight 
 Shall be thy doom." 
 
The Psychology of Nathaniel Haw- 
 thorne 
 
 Hawthorne looked a genius and a gentle- 
 man. And his face did neither misconceive 
 nor misrepresent him. Genius does not al- 
 ways, nor even as a rule, communicate itself 
 to the features. Many a mediocre looks a 
 sage, and many a sage looks a mediocre. 
 Mind does not undertake to show its creden- 
 tials. The kingdom of intellectuaHty is a hid 
 kingdom. In rare instances, however, mind 
 and body conspire together; and a man looks 
 the thing he is. Bearing, poise of head, se- 
 cret-revealing eyes, mobile features, noble 
 brow, sensitive mouth, — these with mute elo- 
 quence assert, "Genius is come." Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne falls into this company. Looking 
 at his portrait, you would anticipate surpris- 
 ing powers, and be disappointed if he pos- 
 sessed them not. But Hawthorne will not 
 disappoint you. He is America's represent- 
 ative man of letters. 
 
 Compare the faces of Hawthorne and 
 Poe. There is a pronounced similarity. Look 
 
 317 
 
2l8 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 at them. Both speak the possession of genius. 
 Both have sensitive faces, and both are sensi- 
 tive men — Poe with coal-black hair, and eyes 
 which fairly stabbed the air; Hawthorne with 
 ruddy locks and quiet eyes. But both men saw. 
 Both looked behind things. Both dealt with 
 the unusual. They saw no ordinary sights. 
 The thought of both was weird. One saw 
 "The City in the Sea;" the other "Septimius 
 Felton." Scan these faces closely. They are 
 alike. No, they are unlike; and both obser- 
 vations are accurate. Similar they are, and 
 dissimilar they are. Between the two is a 
 great gulf. Poe's was a powerful genius, but 
 it was sensuous. His is a body expression. 
 His tales are terrible and harrowing as Ste- 
 venson or Hall Caine. He deals in machinery. 
 His story moves madly like the maelstrom he 
 depicts. Poe makes much of the external. 
 He paints the visible. He could paint the 
 torture of the damned, if canvas were afiforded 
 him. But Hawthorne stands solitary now. 
 He and Poe have quit company, as travelers 
 whose paths have parted. He makes little 
 of the exoteric. His treatment of a theme is 
 essentially spirituelle. The physical plays 
 scant part on this stage. His theme is soul. 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 219 
 
 not body; his stage hidden, not apparent. 
 With Poe the tragic element is much, the 
 story is primary; with Hawthorne, the story 
 is slight, and there is little physical movement. 
 He is as the Fates, who weave in darkness. 
 Stand and watch a swollen river, whose turbu- 
 lent current bears ice-drifts past you. You see 
 the sullen surface of the stream. It moves 
 visibly and swiftly toward the far-off, unseen 
 ocean; moves pitiless as an inquisitor. You 
 saw the riot of waters. Such is Poe's art. 
 But stand on the same bank when the river is 
 frozen over. You look across a field of snow 
 quiet as an Arctic night; no visible motion, 
 yet underneath, the waters, tireless, night and 
 day, push on toward the sea. We saw them 
 not, but they swept on. This is Hawthorne's 
 art. 
 
 Contrast the paintings of Munkacsy and 
 Hoffman. Munkacsy delights in many fig- 
 ures. In "Christ before Pilate" the Orient 
 seems gathered in the procurator's palace. 
 Two persons are central truly; but the many 
 are present. So in the recent picture, "Before 
 the Strike," the forms multiply like groups 
 of soldiery on eve of battle. He will construct 
 a background of faces. His canvas seems a 
 
220 Tfie Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 battle-piece, so crowded is it with figures. In 
 Hoffman, on the contrary the figures are few 
 at most; as in "Christ and the Young Ruler." 
 He will throw the wealth of his skill into a 
 single face, as he does in "Christ in Geth- 
 semane." And Hawthorne is like Hoffman. 
 He never multiplies figures. He is chary of 
 characters. He is not as Dickons, who fairly 
 bewilders with actors, who fills the stage, and 
 whose creative power, productive as spring, 
 grows a wilderness. Not so Hawthorne. He 
 is a literary solitary who craves few compan- 
 ions. Four is his select number. Judging 
 from his productions; he was believer in the 
 sacred quaternion. There are four characters 
 in "The Blithedale Romance;" four in "The 
 House of Seven Gables;" four in "Septimius 
 Felton;" four in "Marble Faun;" four in 
 "Scarlet Letter." He rivets our gaze on a 
 small company. All his talent is sacred to the 
 elaboration of these four characters; and he 
 brings them out in perpetual relief, as if he 
 had scultpured them against a sky. 
 
 And Hawthorne is locative. He does not 
 transplant characters. They are rooted in the 
 soil as cedars are. There is magic in emigra- 
 tion. The voyage thrills the spirit; and the 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 221 
 
 hope beyond the voyage thrills it more. And 
 the migratory spirit has played no insignificant 
 part in romance. "The Virginians" live and 
 love in two worlds. "King Noanette" shifts 
 continents. "John Inglesant" passes lightly 
 from England to Italy as swallows do. "The 
 Bondman" transports Red Jason from Iceland 
 to the Isle of Mona, and back again, to work 
 out the tragedy and triumph of his career and 
 character. "Evangeline" is a wanderer; and 
 you shall trace her love down the long shore of 
 ocean, and up the great river's bank, by ashes 
 of camp-fire and site of vanished tent. Evan- 
 geline wanders like the moaning wind, 
 
 "That seeks for rest, and rest can never find;" 
 
 "For Faith and Freedom" crosses the ocean, 
 and to the Old World's wrongs adds the New 
 World's deliverance. The sobs of seas, the flap 
 of sails, the rattle of the oars in the rowlocks, 
 and new scenes and rush of unexpected emo- 
 tions, — these are on us when the history 
 changes lands. We are watchers at a ship's 
 prow, expecting discovery. But Hawthorne 
 stays at home like homesick age. He is no 
 wanderer, but holds fast to locality. Find 
 where his story begins, and you will need no 
 
222 The Poet's Poet and Other Eisays 
 
 one to tell you where it ends. He holds to 
 place like a lover. Life and death will need 
 no more room than the radius of a stone's-cast 
 to make their revelations. Recalling that this 
 novelist lived in a New World, where distances 
 were great, where, in consequence, the intel- 
 lectual invitation to peregrination was insidi- 
 ous, where the love of localities had not in the 
 nature of the case seized on civilization — re- 
 calling this, the wonder of Hawthorne's art 
 grows on us. Environment can no more ac- 
 count for literature than for character. Life 
 is not made, but self-made. Hawthorne 
 haunts New England like a ghost. It is a 
 magnet to attract him. Puritan place and 
 temper have cast a spell over him. He is 
 weird as the tossing of tree-tops seen in gath- 
 ering darkness; but his wanderings will not 
 lead him far. The fascination which held 
 Hester Prynne a prisoner in the house of her 
 shame, held Hawthorne and his fictions to a 
 solitary spot. 
 
 Hawthorne is intensely introspective. He 
 is no story-teller in the ordinary sense. He 
 could have been that. Such an imagination 
 as he possessed could have invented new 
 theaters for fiction; but he chose a different 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 223 
 
 route to immortality. What a story-teller 
 Scott was! How events trample on each 
 other, like cavalry horses rushing to battle! 
 What a story-teller Weyman is ! We shall lis- 
 ten many years to hear more stirring and 
 strengthening tales told us than "A Gentle- 
 man of France" and "Under the Red Robe." 
 What a story-teller Doyle is, if you Hsten to 
 his "White Company" and to "Micah Clarke!" 
 To my mind "Micah Clarke" is one of the 
 strong historical romances of the last decade. 
 And what a story-teller Gilbert Parker is! 
 Thanks to him always for "The Seats of the 
 Mighty." "The Three Guardsmen?" Yes, 
 we hear the galloping steeds and the music of 
 sword-play as these valiant musketeers charge 
 past us, unpent tempests. "The Prisoner of 
 Zenda" is a royal specimen of the relator's 
 art. Its dash, naivete, heroism, love, loss, 
 longing, fealty to duty, and stimulation to 
 nobilities in him who reads, — these make a 
 story thrilling as Lancelot's warfare. Haw- 
 thorne rode not in these lists. He made no 
 attempt to do these things. He belonged not 
 to the field, but to the cell. Psychology is his 
 choice of theme. He comes to souls. He will 
 not look at a pageant pass the door, but will 
 
224 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 stand at the door and look into the habitation. 
 He will not let us report for the soul, but will 
 compel the soul to report for itself. This pur- 
 pose, it will be observed, transfers us into the 
 domain of genius. Shakespeare is psycholo- 
 gist, and calls, "Tell me thy comedy;" or "Sob 
 thy tragedy to me." And Hawthorne will in- 
 troduce us to the tragedy of souls. With 
 death as a part of the machinery of fiction he 
 has slight patience. What has the death of 
 Arthur Dimmesdale to offer us matched with 
 his living death? The gibbet on which he 
 bared his secret to the world was welcome to 
 him as any ship that ever bore homesick trav- 
 eler home. 
 
 And more, it is a diseased psychology you 
 must study, if Hawthorne is to be your pre- 
 ceptor. He is not grewsome. No odor of the 
 morgue is perceptible in his tales. Not a de- 
 lirious life as Ulalume, but a diseased and not 
 a healthy life is considered. As a physician, 
 he diagnoses a case These men and women 
 you shall meet are not usual folk. We feel to 
 fear lest we look at ghosts. The color on the 
 cheek is a hectic flush. Mystery hangs about 
 them as mists about the tall cliffs of the sea. 
 When we sight Lady Macbeth walking in her 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 22$ 
 
 sleep through the dark with lit candle and 
 wide-open eyes, we know something is awry. 
 Or if Hamlet's ghost rise from his grave, and 
 stalk a specter of midnight on the cliffs that 
 fringe the surly ocean, Bernardo the soldier, 
 as Horatio the scholar, will guess buried 
 Denmark hides some dread secret at his heart. 
 But we are not more conscious of mystery 
 here than in Hawthorne's dramas. We feel 
 we stand on the porch of tragedy, and if the 
 door were to be pushed open, some specter 
 would thrust us back into the dark. These 
 houses are all haunted. Our shadows frighten 
 us. We walk in mystery as those who walk in 
 mists. Fogs lift ; but this tragic element never 
 lifts its shadow from Hawthorne's page. The 
 romance ended, the mystery is only deepened 
 and mocks you like ghostly laughter. Con- 
 sider the closing of "The Marble Faun." We 
 thought to catch sight of the blue sky at the 
 close, but reckoned wrong. A haunting sense 
 of uncertainty is on you at the close, as 
 through the story. Donatello, Miriam, and 
 Miriam's murdered shadow, what secret of 
 theirs has been told you? Where the dead 
 priest is we know. Graves can be found; but 
 where the living Miriam and Donatello are, 
 15 
 
226 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 who can certify? We are like those who try 
 to track travelers along a coast when their 
 footprints have been washed out by the tide. 
 We are bafHed. All soul-life, I know, is mys- 
 terious, but this is not of that sort. This is the 
 mystery of disease. Menace is in the air. We 
 are neighboring with the abnormal. 
 
 And Hawthorne, as all dramatists, is a stu- 
 dent of morals. You must have noticed how 
 life never can grow great till it passes into the 
 ethical. Bare intellect can never bind us pris- 
 oners to its car. But the ethical grasps us in 
 hands of iron. We are as those who dream. 
 Volition is ethics. Love is ethics. Conduct 
 is ethics. Struggle is ethics. The quality of 
 righteousness is on every field where battle 
 waxes great. Moral issues engage us in Lear, 
 in Valjean, in John Inglesant, and in Sidney 
 Carton. If novelist or dramatist would throw 
 us as a strong wrestler does, his appeal must 
 be to the ethical. The moment life begins to 
 grow, then is the scene shifted from the intel- 
 lectual to the moral. What Hawthorne con- 
 siders is, How do souls behave? "Spirit, what 
 do you? Speak your motive." Right and con- 
 science are themes pre-eminent, which hold 
 mankind, and greet you here. 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 227 
 
 Nor must we neglect the literary setting of 
 these psychological studies. And this natu- 
 rally divides itself into two sections; namely, 
 his style and his diversity. That Hawthorne's 
 English is ideal has become an axiom. Deal- 
 ing with the rudest passion, his style is never 
 turgid. It flows on, flows deep, but is limpid 
 always. Faultless language was one of his 
 credentials. He was not Addisonian; Irving 
 was that. He was himself. He created a style. 
 Air is not more pellucid. I never read after 
 him, that I do not see the stream far among 
 the mountains, whose waters were never dark- 
 ened save by the shadow of passing bird or 
 cloud. Whatever he tells wins you, because 
 of the beauty of his words. You have no 
 doubt heard voices in the dark, which you 
 wished might not hush because the music of 
 them was so sweet. I feel so with Hawthorne. 
 His work is as graceful as the tracery upon a 
 winter's window. 
 
 Since the theme is essentially reduplicative 
 in his various works, one would suppose Haw- 
 thorne would lack diversity. Nothing is re- 
 moter from the fact. He has instead given us 
 captivating diversity. He never palls on us. 
 I read not long ago all his works in immediate 
 
228 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 succession, so that the flavor of each lingered 
 on the lip when all were ended; and my inter- 
 est did not flag. This is the crucial test of 
 variety. I did not seem looking at the same 
 scenes, or on the same faces. And when we 
 recall that in them all are the same forces 
 operative so as to make each a reiteration of 
 the other, the surprise increases. DuMaurier, 
 whatever name he assigned the woman in his 
 society cartoons, gave her the same face. All 
 his women are twins. Sameness wearies us, 
 like a drawling voice. But Hawthorne does 
 not commit this sin. Every portrait stands 
 out as individual as Hawthorne's own face. 
 To instance a case : "Marble Faun," "House of 
 the Seven Gables," and "The Scarlet Letter" 
 are studies in conscience ; yet they are so cun- 
 ningly differentiated as to seem the literary 
 progeny of different authors. That is art. We 
 scarcely can conceive we are looking at the 
 same face, but as the cast of Donatello at the 
 hand of Kenyon, the face was the same, the re- 
 semblance easy to discover; still so different 
 are they in characteristics, so changed is the 
 expression in the two, as that, to the artist 
 himself, it becomes barely believable the casts 
 are meant for the same face. His faces are as 
 
Psychology of Natiuuuel Hawthorne 229 
 
 the figure of the archangel Miriam would have 
 repainted. He stood tall, strong, conquering, 
 wonderful, unwounded, the dragon beneath 
 his feet, but on his shield no dint that tells of 
 battle fierce as death. Miriam would have 
 painted the triumphant angel scarred, bleed- 
 ing, with hacked shield and helmet, and with 
 hacked and broken sword, and yet a con- 
 queror still! Two faces and one personality. 
 Hawthorne's various works are to be 
 studied by the dubious light of a diseased psy- 
 chology. Souls in abnormal states are they 
 all. "The Blythedale Romance" means hyp- 
 notism; "The House of the Seven Gables" 
 means witchcraft; "Septimius Felton" means 
 the elixir of life; "The Marble Faun" means a 
 hybrid existence as animal-man; and "The 
 Scarlet Letter" means conscience a consuming 
 fire. We may agree on these being the cen- 
 tral meanings of these great books. The char- 
 acters few, the plot is brief and lacks intricacy. 
 As stated, the fascination of Hawthorne does 
 not consist in the story. The weird concep- 
 tion and the elaboration of character leave a 
 silhouette lying like a deep shadow across the 
 spirit. We can not well forget Hawthorne's 
 characters. They seem graven with acids on 
 
23° The Poet'i Poet and Other Essays 
 
 the memory. They are weird, but not ex- 
 travagant. Art lies in making the improbable 
 seem probable. DeFoe has had no superior 
 in this province. But the extravagant, as such, 
 lacks, artistically. "Pilgrim's Progress" is an 
 allegory truly, but so natural is it as to seem 
 not parable but biography. Sometimes care- 
 less readers deem a treatment extravagant, 
 which is rather most accurate portraiture. For 
 instance, Stevenson's "The Strange Case of 
 Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" has been classed 
 as absurd and impossible by many readers who 
 did not lack in intelligence ; whereas, in a score 
 of years, no book has been written more ex- 
 actly true. Terribly, tragically true the story 
 is. Not history nor biography has gotten so 
 home to truth as this. Stevenson has written 
 a theological volume and called it fiction, and 
 it is the somber fact of too many souls. Evil 
 indulged in masters the good with malignant 
 certainty — this is the meaning of Jekyl and 
 Hyde; and no one dares deny the fearful fact. 
 So the seeming extravagant may be closest 
 truth. This is true of Hawthorne's fictions. 
 Unreal as they seem, they do touch us at every 
 point. Let "The Blythedale Romance" stand 
 for the malignant influence man may exercise 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 23! 
 
 on man ; "The House of the Seven Gables" for 
 the continued baneful effect of evil, and that a 
 wicked man may cast a shadow black as mid- 
 night on a good life; "Septimius Felton" for 
 the mind infatuated with a solitary idea be- 
 come unbalanced and disqualified for service 
 and manhood; and "The Scarlet Letter" for 
 the doctrine that a good life is the only safe 
 life. With such meanings, how rational and 
 serviceable these weird tales become! He has 
 told the common truths in such uncommon 
 fashion as to write the moral across the sky 
 of every soul. Hawthorne is a professor of 
 moral philosophy, if you will. He is bringing 
 the power of a superlative genius to enforce 
 the truth that there is moral order in the 
 world, and that sin is a violation of compact 
 with your own soul. I shall always hold the 
 superior novelist to be a potent teacher of the 
 better. Our generation has had no more 
 tragic lesson tatight it than in "Anna Kare- 
 nina." False to others, she became therein 
 false to herself. Passion is not the first law of 
 conduct. Duty sits higher at the feast than 
 sex love. No writer on social ethics could 
 have burned the validity of the marriage rela- 
 tion on the reason and conscience as this novel 
 
232 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 has done. Hawthorne is to be accounted a 
 notable moral force. He thrusts home as Riis- 
 tum did, when beside the Oxus he unwittingly 
 fought with his son and slew him. So deep 
 the spear had pierced Sohrab's side, to with- 
 draw it was to die. And when we recall how 
 easy it is to forget the weighty facts of obser- 
 vation and experience, the service rendered 
 by those who make moral truths unforgetable, 
 becomes worthy and memorable. Let us not 
 be deceived; Hawthorne is as accurate as sun- 
 beams. There are no new truths; but genius 
 makes old truths seem new. 
 
 "Fanshawe" Hawthorne disowned, therefore 
 for it no speech. "The Blythedale Romance" 
 is a tale least like its author, and uses the 
 machinery of the then current fiction. In the 
 following regard, however, it was normal to the 
 author's manner; it was a study of the abnor- 
 mal, and the characters were that quaternion 
 grown so familiar in the author's later works. 
 The character of HoUingsworth is finely 
 drawn. He is the vender of reforms. His 
 pockets are full of them; and, like the pseudo 
 reformer, the conditions of getting on with 
 him are that you fall in with his fad. Zeno- 
 bia's love is passion; and Priscilla is an apt 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 233 
 
 picture of the results of a hypnotized subject. 
 Hypnotism emasculates the will, and tends to 
 reduce the free personality to the category of 
 physical phenomena. Miles Coverdale, poet, 
 is the one attractive actor on the stage, and 
 the love of him, revealed at the last as the sun 
 breaks through a cloud at setting, is in keep- 
 ing with Hawthorne's daintiest execution. 
 
 But "The Scarlet Letter," "The Marble 
 Faun," "The House of the Seven Gables," and 
 "Septimius Felton," are masterpieces. They 
 are cameos cut by some rare lapidary. One 
 knows not which to admire the most. Each 
 in its way seems to me perfect. There is no 
 sunshine like that of Indian summer; and in 
 these books we are walking in such a golden, 
 mellow haze. "The Scarlet Letter" is a brave 
 caption, as is "The House of the Seven Gables;" 
 though we are told by James T. Fields that 
 Fields had more to do with coining these titles 
 than Hawthorne. But the result is justifying. 
 We suspect romance from "The House of the 
 Seven Gables." Tragedies look from the win- 
 dows. "The Marble Faun" has about it a sus- 
 picion of delight; and "Septimius Felton" is 
 a euphonious name for a fiction. "The Scarlet 
 Letter" was the romance on which, as on a 
 
234 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 rock, the novelist's fame was builded. Its ap- 
 peal met with instant response. Critics saw 
 America had foimd a voice. A tragedy of con- 
 science longer sustained than Macbeth is here, 
 and one which ought to be compared with 
 "Pippa Passes" and "Macbeth." Hester 
 Prynne, with the scarlet letter blazing on her 
 breast; little Pearl, elfin-like, dancing as sun- 
 beams dance on troubled streams ; Roger Chill- 
 ingworth, dark, taciturn, injured, avenging, 
 relentless, penetrating in his influence and in- 
 sight, inexorable as fate, tenacious of his hate 
 as death, masterful in his personality; and 
 Arthur Dimmesdale, weak rather than wicked, 
 sensitive, gifted with genius and the weakness 
 which goes as the shadow of genius, a lover 
 overborne of passion and a coward, — these are 
 the dramatis personce of a tragedy. Hester 
 Prynne is woman the lover, faithful, injured, 
 silent, wearing shame as if it were a crown, 
 and not a cross; and, though loathed and 
 branded by society, keeping love glowing in 
 her heart like western windows smitten with 
 the sun; watching her love from afar; not curs- 
 ing nor despising him as he deserved, but, as 
 women will, seeing his nobilities exalted and 
 harboring no resentment. Dimmesdale afraid 
 
Psychologry of Nathaniel Hawthorne 235 
 
 to take his place with Hester, but loving her; 
 a saint in the world's thought, his eloquence 
 growing fervid as tropic noon, he was an 
 oracle. Eloquence sat upon his lips. Great 
 passions broke across his spirit, as dashing 
 waves. He was not bad, weak rather. Sinned, 
 he had. He and Hester were joint criminals, 
 she bearing her shame before the world; he 
 canonized by that same world. Conscience 
 cried aloud, "Bear shame with her;" and his 
 spirit cried, "How can I? How can I?" But 
 conscience spake on. Its speech never si- 
 lenced. His life was living martyrdom. At 
 last he seized the gibbet, where Hester Prynne 
 had year by year stood a spectacle of shame, 
 and called Hester and little Pearl to him, and 
 showed his sin and penitence, and died. Fic- 
 tion presents not many scenes likes Dimmes- 
 dale standing at night in the pillory of shame 
 rehearsing his guilty and ghastly past. Noth- 
 ing is forgotten. The Puritan sternness and 
 purity, the attraction of love, which bound 
 Hester to her dishonored home, the lack of 
 sense of injury toward her husband Roger 
 Chillingworth, the ship lying at anchor in 
 which she and hers were to sail across the seas 
 to liberty and love, the ship ready to sail, and 
 
236 Tlie Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Dimmesdale, displaying his scarlet letter, sail- 
 ing away on the ship of death, — ^this is 
 tragedy! 
 
 Donatello is the central figure of "The 
 Marble Faun," and might be set as an illustra- 
 tion of the evolutionary hypothesis. He is an 
 importation of the beautiful Greek mythology. 
 The faun was a Greek conception, part ani- 
 mal, part man. With the Greek all was ani- 
 mate. Plato taught the world had a soul. 
 The Greek world was alive. Nymph, merman, 
 naiad, every mountain and stream and sea had 
 gods. The poesy of the notion was captivat- 
 ing; and the faun was a man having the hairy 
 ears of a squirrel, and this was his bond to the 
 animal world. The Greek received this cur- 
 rent mythology with never a thought of its 
 philosophy. All nature insensibly passed into 
 life. The water's babbling was not inanimate, 
 but rather the voices of the naiads. Beautiful 
 the dream is; but the construction of a philos- 
 ophy is quite another matter. This difficult 
 task Hawthorne attempts in "The Marble 
 Faun." And the subject for elaboration is, 
 What shall awaken our laughing faun, Dona- 
 tello, to manhood? Love does not do it. He 
 is a part of nature, and moody like a pool over 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 237 
 
 which glances the cloud, and in which laughs 
 the sunshine. The carelessness of birds is on 
 him. Forecast he does not know. Care and 
 he are not brothers. But because of love for 
 Miriam, Donatello becomes a murderer. Im- 
 mediately his life is changed. He is murky as 
 a sky filled with storms. Laughter is a for- 
 gotten art, joy a forgotten story; but he be- 
 comes a man. The faun is gone; the man is 
 here. And the ethico-psychological question 
 is raised, "Is sin necessary to manhood?" Did 
 sin make Donatello a man? Was sin neces- 
 sary to the evolution of character? Is sin an 
 essential of progress? This is the question of 
 "The Marblei Faun." It clouds the sky, and 
 fills the air with intimations of tempests. And 
 this is a superior question of morals. And the 
 reply is. Not sin made Donatello a man, but 
 suffering. He needed awakening. A kiss 
 awoke the sleeping beauty; but no kiss could 
 rouse him. The sting of lash and cut of sword, 
 ■ — these must bring some spirits to themselves. 
 And suffering roused Donatello to guess he 
 was a man. With this interpretation, history 
 is consonant. I have read somewhere the 
 statement that "The Marble Faun" is nothing 
 other than a guide-book to Rome. The criti- 
 
238 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 cism seems superficial in the extreme. As well 
 say the ocean's office was to fling back sun- 
 light. In this volume Hawthorne has given 
 himself to a profound study, and as unique as 
 profound. How shall a soul be stung to man- 
 hood? This is a dignified, not to say a sublime 
 question. Conscience put Donatello on the 
 rack. Suffering became a medicine to him. 
 Crime is never essential to progress, though in 
 the present system it would appear suffering 
 is necessary. Who will deny manhood to be 
 cheap at any price? Who will deny either that 
 suffering has brought many a soul to its 
 greater self? Eugenie Grandet, the one fault- 
 less character of Balzac, passed into a calm, 
 sweet, wonderful womanliness through the 
 ministry of suffering. Donatello might have 
 suffered from unrequited love as Eugenie 
 Grandet, and, like herself, have risen to high 
 nobility of character. The chisel cuts shape- 
 less marble into forms of imperishable loveli- 
 ness; and suffering chisels spirit. Better man- 
 hood at any cost. Character is never costly 
 when its worth is rightly conceived. 
 
 "Septimius Felton" is, to my mind, a 
 stronger novel than usually allowed. In a 
 sense, the work was left incomplete; but this 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 239 
 
 was not in the story, rather in the minuter de- 
 tails. To all intents the novel is complete. 
 Not a defect is apparent in the entire narra- 
 tive. The English is exquisite. The style is 
 chaste, even above the high average so natural 
 to Hawthorne. Say with Riley, 
 
 "O, but the words were rainy sweet!" 
 
 Septimius Felton seems a younger Ham- 
 let. He is scholar, and not afraid of action, 
 yet shuns it. The inertia of thought stays his 
 steps. The antithesis between scholar and sol- 
 dier is finely brought out in the juxtaposition 
 of Septimius Felton and Robert Hagbum; 
 and, as always, Hawthorne does what he at- 
 tempts, well. Felton is infatuated by the quest 
 for the elixir of life. What a play for high 
 powers is here afforded! A dim background 
 of a dreamy past spent like a taper burnt out, 
 in this self-same search, is mapped, as in "The 
 House of the Seven Gables" the background 
 of witchcraft is sketched. A consummate artist 
 is Hawthorne, as any who ever attempted fic- 
 tion. He has thrown a spell about you till 
 you are as one walking in the land of lotus- 
 eaters. The extent to which a mind may be 
 absorbed in an idea is one of the surprises of 
 
240 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 psychology; and this tale paints a picture of a 
 man thus absorbed. The bewitchment of the 
 New World is added to the bewitchnlent of 
 the Old in the admixture of Indian magic and 
 herb wisdom as shown in Felton's aunt, and in 
 the encounter between the young British offi- 
 cer and Felton, in which the officer succumbs 
 to the prowess of the young American. In 
 no one of his novels is the plot more cunningly 
 laid than in this. Felton is immersed in his 
 investigation. Like all dreamers, he is clutch- 
 ing the base of the rainbow's arch. To- 
 morrow he will be immortal. How intoxicat- 
 ing visions are! Out of the grave where his 
 slain foe lies buried, springs a flower which is 
 to form the last ingredient of the elixir. One 
 step more — and then? His heart leaps high 
 like fountains. And meantime Sybil Dacy 
 has come, come as a ghost, crept into his 
 life; more, crept into his heart as shadows 
 creep into an evening sky; and he finds him- 
 self a lover. The elixir is completed. They 
 two shall drink. What is a solitary immor- 
 tality? This wine of deathless life glows ruddy 
 in the glass — and Sybil drinks, and when Sep- 
 timius Felton reaches for the draught, she 
 drops the glass upon the hearth, and shivers it 
 
Riychology of Nathaniel Hawtlionie 241 
 
 to atoms. And all the precious liquor spilt! 
 'Tis death, not life, crimsoned the goblet. 
 Rankest poison, meant by her for him, was 
 brewed. The elixir of immortality is here for 
 drinking, and she has drunk some and spilled 
 the rest. There is strange fascination in the 
 story. I have not often been so thrilled as 
 in reading it. Felton, intoxicated with his 
 dream, now with his love, sees as lovers do 
 but two, and a draught and immortality. And 
 when he grasped at immortality he found he 
 held in his hand death's garment instead. 
 Sybil hating him, coming to avenge her lover's 
 slaughter, loves him she came to slay, and 
 drinks the deadly draught she meant for him. 
 Love has one law. Not many passages in 
 literature compare with the closing passages 
 of Sybil Dacy's life. Hear her say with fail- 
 ing sight, "I thought I loved that youth in 
 the grave yonder; but it was you I loved, — 
 and I am dying. Forgive me for my evil pur- 
 poses, for I am dying. Kiss me, thou poor 
 Septimius, one kiss!" and as he stooped to 
 do her bidding, she drew back. "No, there 
 shall be no kiss! There may a little poison 
 linger on my lips. Farewell!" Love and 
 death's night! 
 
 16 
 
242 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 "The House of the Seven Gables," written 
 in less vivid colors than "The Scarlet Letter," 
 is no less vivid a tragedy. The colors are 
 grays. Twilight shadows all. At the last, and 
 the last only, it lifts, and when lifted, lo, it is 
 morning! The background of witchcraft 
 gives the semblance of the unreal to all the 
 tale. The antagonism of Pyncheon and 
 Maule, dating from the poor man's being de- 
 frauded of his little all; the lordly Puritan 
 dedicating his own house by his own tragic 
 death; the baneful influence of a later Maule 
 on sweet Alice Pyncheon; the perpetual mem- 
 ory of the prophecy of old Matthew Maule, 
 "God shall give him blood to drink," until at 
 last, like as the feud betwen Montague and 
 Capulet might have been healed in a united 
 Romeo and Juliet, this feud died in the mar- 
 riage of Phoebe Pyncheon and Holgrave 
 Maule, — surely this narrative is the creation 
 of genius. But chief interest attaches to Clif- 
 ford and Hepzibah Pyncheon and Judge Pyn- 
 cheon. Reynolds painted no portraits so life- 
 like as these. There they sit. Judge Pyn- 
 cheon complaisant, successful, ambitious, un- 
 scrupulous, selfish, tyrannical, suave, and rich. 
 He is what Dimmesdale was not, a hypocrite. 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 243 
 
 He is bad, from heart to finger-tip. No light 
 falls to relieve his character. He is murderer, 
 and has thrown suspicion on his cousin Clif- 
 ford, who was heir to the dead man's wealth, 
 and is condemned to life imprisonment for a 
 crime he did not commit; and Clifford Pyn- 
 cheon falls heir to a blasted name, a ruined 
 life, and finally to a dazed intellect. He is a 
 ship, wrecked on the reef. Judge Pyncheon. 
 The condemned man was sensitive, and in his 
 temperament eminently artistic. He was sen- 
 suous. Physical beauty or ugliness smote on 
 him, as a hand on an instrument. Pure, he 
 had yet lacked character, which is, in itself, 
 a fortress not to be taken by assault, and in 
 prison broke under his load of shame, and 
 became a harmless madman. But Hepzibah 
 his sister, had believed in him, and loved 
 him through all. She never wavered, seeing 
 with woman's insight that not Clifford, but the 
 Judge, was the real murderer. At last the 
 poor shadow of what once was a man crept 
 back unawares to the House of the Seven 
 Gables. There, in poverty, loneliness, pride, 
 and sore disgrace, Hepzibah Pyncheon has 
 lived these years alone. Life meant to her^ 
 Clifford. In the vocabulary of her heart was 
 
244 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 but one word. Her days are wasted like 
 spent sunshine. Clifford at home once more, 
 mad, helpless as a child, is disturbed in his 
 sense of sensuous beauty by his sister's homely 
 face and her shambling movement, at which 
 her dear eyes dim with tears. In her heart 
 is sacrifice sweet as heaven. God, looking at 
 her, grows glad. An echo to her brother's 
 need, Hepzibah Pyncheon is a woman so 
 homely, brave, beautiful in soul, as to make 
 one in love with all womanhood for her dear 
 sake. 
 
 The death of Judge Pyncheon in the hour 
 of his highest honor is a touch of genius, not 
 less wonderful than Arthur Dimmesdale's 
 death, though totally unlike it. This is a 
 study in conscience, as "The Scarlet Letter." 
 In Dimmesdale, conscience had burned the 
 scarlet on his bosom. But Judge Pyncheon 
 is conscienceless, as if he had been not man, 
 but brute. He was his own divinity. Not a 
 sole virtue touches him to beauty. Not a 
 flower blooms on this sterile rock. There is 
 something worse than suffering from con- 
 science, and that is not to suffer at all, to have 
 moral paralysis, to be let alone of God, and 
 so take one's own way down to hell. Better 
 
Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne 245 
 
 a thousand-fold be Arthur Dimmesdale than 
 Judge Pyncheon. Dimmesdale stands on a 
 scaffold, and his world sees him; so he dies. 
 But Pyncheon, with his hidden sin, dies alone. 
 He sits, quiet, nothing disturbs him — he is 
 dead. The house is empty, the night comes 
 on, the tick of his watch in his hand is the 
 solitary whisper in the silence; still he stirs 
 not. Day dawns, the sunlight creeps across 
 his face, the watch runs down — and silence, 
 silence! God hath left him; he is dead. 
 
 These be the creations of one dreamer's 
 brain; and having seen and heard them, their 
 tragedy completed, we turn away, knowing 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne was a genius of such 
 commanding sort as Literature has seldom 
 named among her votaries. 
 
Shakespeare's Women 
 
 Shakespeare's women are the world's 
 women. Provincialism and cosmopolitanism 
 exist in literature as in life. The provincial 
 writer delineates a local type. He is as the 
 old masters, who, though painting the Ma- 
 donna, produced a Dutch, German, or Italian 
 face, according as the artist belonged to the 
 Flemish, German, or Italian school. He 
 painted the women he knew. Our provincial 
 writer gives the characters he knows. The cos- 
 mopolitan writer does no more. He gives us 
 those he knows; but his friendships are as the 
 horizons of the world. They embrace the 
 planet. Shakespeare must, through all ages, 
 remain the type of universal genius. The lute 
 he holds is not of English make. I conceive 
 Charles Dickens to be the master of English 
 types; to this day he is unapproachable. He 
 knows the fiber of English character best and 
 worst; and an acid criticism of Charles Dick- 
 ens's delineations will be in essence a like 
 criticism of English character. Squeers, 
 Uriah Heep, Smike, Copperfield, and Sidney 
 246 
 
ShakeipBife't Vomen 347 
 
 Carton are indigenous to English soil. And 
 Shakespeare knows England, but is not Eng- 
 lish. Walter Savage Landor has acutely ob- 
 served, 
 
 "Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's." 
 
 He knows Englishmen. His characterizations 
 are as exact as photography. Falstaff, the 
 duke of Bedford, Edmund the Bastard, Rich- 
 ard II, Edward I, Henry VIII, are like as life; 
 his coloring, his figures, his background, his 
 self-revelation of character, are worthy the art- 
 ist; but when he has given us the canvas 
 filled with English figures, wassail, war, com- 
 edy, tragedy, ringing laughter, and blind 
 Lear's cry of anguish, the artist has scarce 
 begun his creative work. Dickens is at home 
 in England; in America and Venice he is a 
 traveler; but Shakespeare was by birth a citi- 
 zen of the world, and by chance a citizen of 
 England. In Troy, in Greece, in Rome, in 
 mediaeval Italy, in Denmark, in Scotland — ^in 
 each his dialect seems that of a native. He 
 knows not Englishmen alone, but men. 
 Othello, Timon, Caliban, Prospero, Mark An- 
 tony, Falstaff, Macbeth, Lear, Shylock, lago, 
 Antonio, Hamlet, — ^these all seem as men 
 
248 The Poet's Poet and Otlier Essays 
 
 eager to whisper their dearest secret in this 
 poet's ears. 
 
 From these observations, accurate in point 
 of truth, it will follow that Shakespeare's 
 women are the world's women, thus recurring 
 to the proposition with which this article set 
 out. And how large a business is in hand 
 becomes apparent. This is larger traffic than 
 Prince Hur's argosies ever brought to Simon- 
 ides' wharves at Antioch on the sea. In liter- 
 ature and life woman is a central figure. Men 
 and women are joint actors on every stage 
 where comedy laughs like love on wedding 
 morning, or tragedy bleeds like Hamlet on a 
 crimsoned sand. Women and men are pro- 
 tagonists. They are as similar as stars, they 
 are as dissimilar as middle night and middle 
 day. The psychology of man is the psychol- 
 ogy of woman; the psychology of woman is 
 so unlike that of man as that for the two, dif- 
 ferent disquisitions must be written. Woman 
 is woman in the finest fiber of body and spirit. 
 Man and woman stand at opposite quarters 
 of the sky; and are as Cassiopeia and Orion 
 looking forever into each other's eyes. The 
 qualities of sex are wrought into the very 
 texture of the soul, and are as ineradicable 
 
Shakespeare's 'Women 249 
 
 as the properties of matter. Of man and wo- 
 man we say they are counterparts. These two 
 give all the material of tragedy or joy. They 
 are as necessary each to the other as voice to 
 echo, and echo to voice. As far apart as the 
 diameter of the skies, they are still so near 
 as that their leaning lips may touch. Love is 
 life's sweet commonplace, because Ferdinand 
 and Miranda possess mutual attraction like the 
 tug that pulls the stars together. It is an old 
 history, this record of woman's power. So 
 long as men are men, so long will women be 
 
 "A thing of beauty and a joy," 
 
 but likewise a creature of unexploited powers. 
 Love knows strange witchery and mastery. 
 Merlin and Vivien are portraits hanging on 
 the walls of every age. The world's first morn- 
 ing had its Epithalamium, even as has its 
 golden afternoon. 
 
 But in fealty to history be it said that 
 woman's part in the world's doings is a grow- 
 ing part. The Orient and the early Occidental 
 world saw her with veiled face. But now, as 
 is legitimate, the veil is fallen from her eyes. 
 It is not meet that beauty such as hers should 
 hide its face. It is not possible to estimate 
 
250 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 the value of beauty. Beautiful womanhood is 
 God's visible aesthetics, fairer than a Titian or 
 a Rembrandt. The beautiful tales of early love 
 — of Jacob and Rachel, of Boaz and Ruth — 
 are lovely as an evening sky, yet in them is a 
 sensible lack. Woman seems not to be a le- 
 gitimate figure in the scene. She seems not 
 wholly planned for in the artist's thought. 
 The picture, in other words, seems not to have 
 been painted with her in mind, as a momen- 
 tous figure on his canvas. It is only in later 
 days she stands in her own right, upon the 
 foreground of the scene. The Angelus has 
 interpreted the better times aright. The sol- 
 emn evening, the distant spire from which the 
 music of the evening thrills, the toil not yet 
 completed, and in the foreground, for whose 
 sake the background is, a man and a woman — 
 a woman and a man, with bowed heads under 
 the falling night. Man, woman, and God are 
 the participants in this solemn scene. 
 
 The ancient tragedy must always lack, be- 
 cause woman has not a legitimate place. Her 
 unjust subordination strikes us with a sense 
 of misproportion we can not get rid of. In 
 Homer's epic, while for Helen, Trojan and 
 Greek, between Samos and Scamander, crossed 
 
Shakespeare's ^Comen 251 
 
 spears in swirl of battle, Helen has scarce a 
 presence or a voice; and the parting of Hector 
 and Andromache marks the disparity of man 
 and woman, so that you leave the pathetic 
 picture with a sense of dissatisfaction. Not 
 Rome nor Athens knew woman as man's an- 
 tithesis and equal. The restoration of woman 
 to herself and man was to belong to the mir- 
 acle Jesus wrought for all the world. 
 
 Singular how long it took men to learn the 
 painting of a woman's face! The Greek ideal 
 woman was Juno, or Venus, or Phryne. 
 Homer tells us of the "ox-eyed Juno." The 
 perfect bust, figure, face, the outline faultless, 
 the eyes as dreamy as an Indian summer after- 
 noon, — these were the symptoms of a woman's 
 beauty as the Greek artist hewed her from 
 the marble or made her glow on canvas. The 
 Venus of Milo is illustrative — a faultless form, 
 a face carved by beauty's perfect rule, and yet 
 a soulless face. That was Greek misconcep- 
 tion of womanhood. She had no soul; hers 
 was a sensuous beauty. .lEnone, deserted on 
 Ida's mountain, weeping for her Paris, not 
 less nor more, is all Greek poesy can give. 
 It was the Madonna taught the artist a new 
 and right ideal of woman's face, and so 
 
252 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 the world a new idea of woman. The dreamer 
 painted her again, again, again. Each effort 
 was an imperceptible advance. No Venus 
 form will prove adequate for Mary's immortal 
 beauty. Venus had a lover, Mary had a babe; 
 and there was the necessary intuition that this 
 woman, this Mary, would not simply be a per- 
 fect form, with Oriental richness flooding 
 brow and cheek, for she was groping after the 
 invisible, she was feeling after God; and at 
 the last the mediaeval masters found the se- 
 cret, and painted woman with a soul. And 
 from that day the world's idea of a woman's 
 beauty has been revolutionized. No dryad 
 on the mountain, nor nereid in the laughing 
 sea, nor a Diana at the chase with quiver and 
 with bow, in queenly grace like marble glow- 
 ing with the tints of life, but woman, beautiful, 
 spirituelle, yet human. 
 
 And with this idea the largest art must deal. 
 There is a sense of lack in Antigone; there is 
 no sense of lack in Robert Browning's Co- 
 lombe. In the old-time figure there is imma- 
 turity; in the recent face and form there is 
 maturity and unconscious queenliness. And 
 with the interpretation of woman as thus con- 
 ceived, every poet, whether in prose or verse, 
 
Shakespeare's 'Women 253 
 
 has to do. It seems his necessary calling. 
 Dante and Petrarch have heard the voice 
 whose music was sweeter than siren's song, 
 and Beatrice and Laura are earnests of a right 
 and therefore high conception of regenerate 
 womanhood. And we must know how 
 crowded is the Pantheon of modern literature 
 with woman's figures. Each genius must at- 
 tempt this subtle analysis. Dickens has in 
 the main made his women weak. With the 
 exception of Little Dorrit and Agnes, you will 
 scarcely call to mind a magnetic woman in all 
 that company of female portraitures — children 
 of a fertile imagination. Thackeray's good wo- 
 men are weak, or at most not strong; his strong 
 women are wicked. Becky Sharp has few 
 equals as a delineation — more the pity, she is so 
 bad. How to be deplored that Colonel New- 
 come and Henry Esmond have not women of 
 kindred nobility and strength. In Mary CoUett 
 and Constance, Shorthouse has given us with 
 lavish generosity. George Eliot has in Mag- 
 gie Tulliver and Romola served her kind only 
 less essentially than in Adam Bede and Daniel 
 Deronda. Hawthorne's Hester Prynne must 
 remain one of the triumphs of romancist's 
 power, and stand a protest of living strength 
 
254 The Poet's Poet and Otber Essays 
 
 and nobility to poor, nervous Arthur Dimmes- 
 dale. Tolstoi's Anna Karenina has not been 
 excelled in audacious attempt at portrayal of 
 woman's passion in a hundred years. As a 
 rule. Hall Caine's women have not the 
 strength his men possess. Tennyson has been 
 lavish in his contribution to the literature of 
 womanhood, ^none, Mariana, Enid, Guine- 
 vere, Annie, Elaine, the Princess, Godiva, 
 Eleanore, — ^this is no simple list of names, but 
 rather a collection of portraits which Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds had not known the skill to 
 paint. Longfellow gave us Evangeline; and 
 Browning, with characteristic prodigality of 
 genius, which minds us of the wealth of gifts 
 the summer gives, has dowered womanhood. 
 He is a realist, and has given us good and bad, 
 but has not obscured goodness with evil. Eve- 
 lyn Hope, Mildred, Pippa, Pompilia, Colombe, 
 Fatima, — these are among the voices for 
 whose words the poet makes a silence. Ed- 
 mund Spenser hath left us Una, the poet's 
 dream of purity in an age impure. 
 
 But what of Shakespeare's women? Has 
 the essayist forgotten them? Is this pre- 
 lude? No, rather this is an integral section 
 of the discussion, and not irrelevant matter. 
 
Shakespeare's ^V^omen 255 
 
 All pictures have background. All discussion 
 has relations. Shakespeare's work must stand 
 in contact with the work of others. A poet 
 once having given his dreaming to the world 
 has no power to slay his progeny. The cre- 
 ations of his fancy will live for centuries after 
 the poet's burial; and the product of any gen- 
 ius must stand beside the product of all gen- 
 ius. There is no isolation here. All vital liter- 
 ature, like shipwrecked king, prince, duke, 
 courtiers, and sailors in "The Tempest," tend 
 toward a single point, and there hold convo- 
 cation. Time has no place in such regal gath- 
 ering. The earliest writings are read by the 
 light of the latest dawn; and Shakespeare's 
 creations must stand alongside the achieve- 
 ment of all centuries which preceded him. He 
 is in the mesh, inextricably woven. And be- 
 sides this, there is in him an anachronism neces- 
 sary and apparent. The flavor of an age will 
 cling to all a poet's creation. He sees the world, 
 but through the air which surrounds him. In 
 consequence, a modern poet's portrait of a 
 Grecian woman is not altogether accurate. 
 She is colored with hues the ancients knew 
 not how to mix. This is in particular true of 
 notions of women. Shakespeare's women are 
 
25^ The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 resultants of sixteen Christian centuries. They 
 are not statues, they are not bovine-eyed, they 
 are not attendants, but equals, of man. 
 Shakespeare is not aware that the unconscious 
 attitude of his women is redolent of the Christ 
 elevation of the sex. His Cressida, in her 
 flavor of womanhood, belongs not to the age 
 of Priam, king of Troy, but to the age of Eliz- 
 abeth, queen of England. 
 
 It is Shakespeare's triumph that his actors 
 live, and act because they live. They are not 
 puppets, nor yet are they powdered sem- 
 blances. We had rather doubt the personality 
 and power of Napoleon than the personality 
 and power of Hamlet. That shadow at Elsi- 
 nore, through which a dagger might be 
 plunged, and not a drop of blood be let, is 
 more substantial than Napoleon with the 
 Lombard's iron crown encircling his brow. 
 Shakespeare's women are alive. Their voices 
 are articulate joy or despair. Titania coddling 
 the poor mechanic. Bottom, so blind she is 
 with love, holds not a hint of fiction, but seems 
 fact hard as the core of granite hills. Ariel 
 seems scarce a myth. But if the fairies seem 
 substantial, what crimson blood will tinge the 
 cheek, make ruddy the lip, and thrill the frame 
 
Shakespeare's 'Women 257 
 
 of mortals with bounding and tumultuous life! 
 Assembled here upon this tessellated pavement 
 and under the gorgeous roof of Shakespeare's 
 creation, see our pageant: Hermia, Miranda, 
 Helena, Julia, Sylvia, Francisca, Mistress 
 Ford, Margaret, Dame Quickly, Adriana, 
 Hero, Mariana, Beatrice, Rosaline, Jessica, 
 Katharine, Rosalind, Olivia, Katharine the 
 Shrew, Viola, Hermione, Perdita, Constance, 
 Lady Percy, Volumnia, Virginia, Juliet, Lady 
 Macbeth, Cleopatra, Octavia, Portia, Ger- 
 trude, Ophelia, Emilia, Desdemona, Imogen, 
 and — but why prolong the list? The room 
 seems crowded even now, and through the 
 open door I see them coming still, an appar- 
 ently interminable procession. How strange 
 a company this is! We shall not see its like 
 again. Trojan, Greek, Roman, Venetian, II- 
 lyrian, Sicilian, French, Goth, and Jew — but 
 women all, with but one speech, and that of 
 woman. But how strahge a company! The 
 queen is here, the princess, the lady, the maid, 
 the life as spotless as the lily, the hand all' 
 stained with blood; the wench, garrulous and 
 foul; the shrew, the heart of lust, shameless 
 ingratitude, beautiful filial devotion, wifely 
 fidelity, maternal love, shrewdness, unques- 
 17 
 
258 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 tioning trust, ambition towering like a moun- 
 tain, grief that will not be assuaged, love that 
 thinks it but a trivial thing to die, heroisms 
 framed to make life magnificent, littleness 
 which brings blush to cheek and forehead, the 
 bold wanton, the modesty as sweet as the 
 blooming of violets in the woods, virginhood, 
 wifehood, maternity, penury, plenty, affluence, 
 regnant queen, banishment and solitude, each 
 day a living fear, each night a nightmare, or 
 rest and quiet like a sky at night, — all are here; 
 and the amazement of it all is, one artist is the 
 creator of all this motley, marvelous company. 
 These are types, but types of the race. 
 Shakespeare has taken us so that, as within a 
 temple, we may look against the light, and see 
 the arabesques of beauty. This is genius in 
 the delineation of character, most of all of wo- 
 man's character. We can not comprehend a 
 woman's doings by seeing the acts. We must 
 be imported, must become central in the life 
 of which the acts are peripheral. Thus, and 
 thus only, do we catch the movement of the 
 spirit. Here we note the fascination of art 
 in Shakespeare's exhibit of feminine character. 
 We seem not to be spectators. The spectator 
 looks on; in Shakespeare we take part. The 
 
Shakespeare's Women 259 
 
 doings of the actors seem as native to them 
 as shadows to the hills. Its rationale is 
 apparent. That Lady Macbeth had done 
 as she is represented is axiomatic, so com- 
 pletely has Shakespeare's genius taken us cap- 
 tive. We become so en rapport with the actor 
 as that a different course of conduct seems 
 unimaginable. Then these women are wo- 
 men; they are natural, not mechanical. They 
 are individual; their identity is like that of 
 morning and the sky. Shakespeare does not 
 duplicate. Study an artist's canvas, and you 
 will likely find the signs of a Corot, Millais, 
 or Inness. They are much as the painter de- 
 scribed in Armorelle of Lyonesse, who had 
 many canvases but a single face, with the sea 
 always as background to her single figure. 
 But Shakespeare has no favorites. He can 
 no more repeat himself than nature can. His 
 creations are as distinct, personal, and conso- 
 nant as if they had grown. He seems as an 
 improvisatrice, who can not reproduce a given 
 extemporization, seeing it has gone from her. 
 Here is boundless fertility of creation. Lov- 
 ers and lovers there are among his lovely 
 women, but they are not echoes. Each is as 
 certainly a voice with pitch, cadence, indi- 
 
26o The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 vidual charm, as any voice you can recall 
 among the dearest your ears have heard. 
 
 We must study in masses. The necessary 
 brevity of this article precludes extended por- 
 traiture. Individual characterization is not 
 possible, but we may take classes and study 
 them as a painter his cloud effects. So call up 
 some lovers among these women gathered 
 under Shakespeare's roof. Goneril, Miranda, 
 Ophelia, Jessica, Juliet, Cleopatra, Octavia, 
 Desdemona, Imogen. Each is distinct and 
 individual. They are not simply different 
 names, but different people. You find no 
 difficulty in distinguishing them, as with the 
 two Dromios, in "The Comedy of Errors." 
 Each stands out distinct, like a mountain 
 against the sky; and of each we feel that she 
 is adequate; and when you see a woman lov- 
 ing, you will find her prototype among Shake- 
 speare's womenkind. Allow a hasty and im- 
 perfect characterization of those whose names 
 are written here. Goneril, unchaste, traitor to 
 husband and father, enamored of a braggart 
 and villain, who is no more true to her than 
 she is to others; Goneril, flushed with the 
 fever of passion, knowing how to love with a 
 heart of fire, — she is as Swanhild in Eric 
 
Shakespeare's 'Women 261 
 
 Bright-eyes, whose character you deplore, but 
 for whose love you feel compassion. Miranda 
 is pure as the white cloud, drifting high in the 
 blue summer skies. Leal she is, as day to 
 dawn. Being love, pure, sweet, unquestioned, 
 she is fidelity embodied. Ophelia loved, striv- 
 ing against love, filled with doubt of Hamlet 
 where doubt had no occasion, and, maddening, 
 went love-lorn to her death. Jessica is love- 
 engrossed, hearing naught besides Lorenzo's 
 poet eloquence: 
 
 "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank I 
 Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
 Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night 
 Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
 Sit, Jessica." 
 
 Juliet esteems Romeo greater wealth than 
 worlds. Cleopatra is passion in peerless beauty. 
 Octavia is fidelity of love, that suffers and 
 loves on. Desdemona is love faithful as stars, 
 misjudged, but only loyal still; and her plead- 
 ings with Othello for but another day of life 
 are among the voices of tragedy which never 
 hush. Imogen is love that believes, and loves, 
 and keeps the heart with but a single door. 
 If Leonatus come not, then is life bereft in- 
 deed. Estimates these, but estimates that fall 
 
362 The Poet's Poet and Other Eisays 
 
 short of conveying the idea of character. The 
 subtle but incommunicable beauty we can no 
 more rehearse than describe the dawning of 
 the day. 
 
 Woman is capable of extremes of nobility 
 or evil. Regan, Tamora, Lady Macbeth, dis- 
 close Shakespeare's knowledge of the deprav- 
 ity possible to woman's nature. Regan is in- 
 gratitude. Tamora is the lago of Shake- 
 speare's women. Lady Macbeth is the woman 
 of the world, who will bear no obstacle be- 
 tween her and the coveted goal. This power of 
 a woman for evil has no more potent repre- 
 sentative in fiction than this queen, with the 
 ineradicable bloodstains on her hands. Queen 
 Gertrude was weak rather than vicious; and 
 is a nonpareil study in vacillating woman- 
 hood. Constance stands for mother-love, 
 sleepless, untiring; Cordelia for daughterly 
 self-sacrifice and devotion, so beautiful that, 
 long as crazed Lear tears his white locks in 
 the dark night of storm, there will Cordelia 
 stand the symbol of fidelity, as true as heaven. 
 
 One phase of woman's strength Shake- 
 speare did not portray; one, too, which had 
 given room for all that prodigality of power this 
 arch-genius of our world possessed. I refer 
 
Shakespeare's 'Women 263 
 
 to the religious spirit. Woman is essentially 
 devout. She feels the secret of the Divine. 
 She is a worshiper, and women are always 
 chief among the devotees at any altar. Devo- 
 tion to God is the noblest passion of the soul. 
 It leads to unapproachable heights of hero- 
 ism and purity; and had this master painted 
 womanhood beneath the shadow of Christ's 
 cross, he had completed the circle of human 
 life. 
 
 Shakespeare has given us the world. The 
 heart of man and woman alike he reads as if 
 an open book before his eyes. And it is in- 
 spiring to recall that he has left us a gallery 
 of noble women, 
 
 "Whose loveliness increases 
 And can never pass to nothingness." 
 
 He has given us the bawd, the wanton, the 
 frozen heart, the cruel and inexorable will, 
 the weak, vacillating virtue, — all these plague- 
 spots he has seen and pictured. He saw all, 
 painted all. He was faithful as the sun in 
 taking pictures. And in a former day I have 
 wished Shakespeare had not given us Falstafif 
 and Mistress Quickly, but now I am glad for 
 all. The exhaustless fertility of resource is 
 
264 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 evidenced in this, as in no other way. Shake- 
 speare saw the abysms of shame as well as the 
 tall hills of grace and purity, and portrayed all. 
 Woman is wicked as well as virtuous; and he 
 who would glass her for others' eyes must not 
 evade this unsavory portraiture. It is a false 
 psychology as well as ethics, which denies the 
 evil. We can not abolish sin by bald declara- 
 tion. But this Shakespeare does; he leaves 
 the impression that woman wicked is woman 
 abnormal. He gives holy intimation that wo- 
 man normal is woman noble, and so leaves us 
 enamored with womanhood. This is a major 
 service for manhood, because historically a 
 high estimate of woman is a necessary ante- 
 cedent to an exalted manliness in either indi- 
 vidual or race. 
 
 In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare says. 
 
 "Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
 
 Flatter the mountain-top with sovereign eye, 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." 
 
 And when a study of Shakespeare's women 
 is concluded, it leaves a sense as of such im- 
 mortal morning on our spirits. We have up- 
 lift, vision, help. 
 
The Deserted Village 
 
 This is Oliver Goldsmith's chief literary 
 merit — he helped to bring poetry back to it- 
 self. Epochs of poetry are like dynasties of 
 kings. Their genius dissipates. Strength 
 gives place to weakness. With Pope and 
 Dryden poetry had become artificial. Those 
 poets were masters of rhyme and movement. 
 Pope's verse was as the billow's rock, save that 
 each couplet gave the identical beat of its pre- 
 decessor. Variety ceased to have a place. Nor 
 was this the only or chief fault. These writers 
 had immured poetry in palaces. Parnassus 
 had ceased to be a mountain, and had come 
 to be a lady's boudoir or a king's antecham- 
 ber. Clearly this would dry up the saps of 
 inspiration. Poetry belongs under the open 
 sky, beside the momentous sea, and in the 
 solemn silences of night-time and the stars, or 
 with the tragedy and destiny of souls. These 
 things are worthy. The tawdry tinsel of court- 
 life affords no sufiScient theme for poetry. It 
 may suffice for the poetaster, but will not sat- 
 isfy the poet. Goldsmith, living in the literary 
 
 26s 
 
266 The Poet's Poet and Other Eisays 
 
 era following the supremacy of Pope, found 
 himself in the ebb-tide of that method. The 
 tide was moving, but not passed out. It 
 lapped the sands, and trembled for departure. 
 In the age lorded over by that rugged genius, 
 Dr. Johnson, the influence of Addison, Pope, 
 and Dryden was still potent, and all but om- 
 nipotent. 
 
 Ragged and rugged as was the strength of 
 Boswell's hero, he hewed no path for his own 
 feet. His prose is manufactured. It has no 
 distinct personality. It passes credence that 
 such a man as we know Johnson to have been 
 would tolerate the bondage of mere nicety. 
 Yet in that style he wrote, though his spirit 
 must have been a constant rebel against its 
 narrowness; and "Lives of the Poets" and 
 "Rasselas" are written in such balanced sen- 
 tences as present us a dignified contribution 
 to the Addisonian style. In the "Lives of the 
 Poets," not Milton is the hero, but a Dryden 
 or a Pope. This seems incredible, yet is 
 simply true. Not might, but method, was the 
 gauge of merit in that dead day. 
 
 And into such a literary inheritance Gold- 
 smith came. He was gambler, dandy, baccha- 
 nal; he was idle, desultory in study and in 
 
The Deserted Village 267 
 
 movements; he was strolling minstrel, earn- 
 ing a doubtful crust from peasants with his 
 flute; he was consecutively student of law, 
 theology, medicine; he was tutor in a gentle- 
 man's family, then usher in a school, then 
 druggist's clerk, then strolling player, then 
 beggar, and a failure in all save dissipation. 
 Who could well conceive a more unsavory 
 life? A vagabond was Goldsmith; and a vaga- 
 bond in propensions he remained' until he 
 died. But after a fashion he came to himself 
 at last. He found his powers. His weak- 
 nesses clung to him as affectionately as his 
 homeliness, and at length brought him to his 
 grave. But Goldsmith was no martyr, rather 
 the victim of his own follies. An egregious 
 blunderer his whole life through, he was lucid 
 only in writing. His "Vicar of Wakefield" 
 is a classic among novels ; and what was meant 
 to save him from a debtor's prison, has 
 wrought the larger service of keeping him 
 from the prison-house of oblivion. 
 
 His fame as poet rests on two poems. Be- 
 sides these, he wrote scarcely another worthy 
 bit of verse; but to be author of "The Trav- 
 eler" and "The Deserted Village" is not to be 
 a plebeian, even in the royal realm of poetry. 
 
268 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Who speaks of "The Deserted Village" intelli- 
 gently, must approach it in this method. The 
 "Who?" and "What?" always bear with heavy 
 weight on any production. If we are to un- 
 derstand a literary theme, we must come to it 
 with knowledge. With many of Robert 
 Browning's noblest poems we are completely 
 in the dark, if we be not furnished with an 
 explanatory clause. When this is supplied, 
 the poem comes to be a revelation. This word 
 of explanation, while not so necessary in the 
 case of "The Deserted Village," is still a re- 
 quisite for its best understanding. In it Gold- 
 smith's service to English poetry becomes ap- 
 parent. It is a long way from the "Rape of 
 the Lock" to "The Deserted Village;" and in 
 this contribution we have the first declaration 
 for the natural as contradistinguished from 
 the artificial. In other words, in this poem we 
 are coming out under the open sky once more; 
 and poetry has ceased to be apathetic, and has 
 found again the cunning of fingering the stops 
 of the lute of life. The poem is open to criti- 
 cism on the ground of congruity. It is incon- 
 gruous. The village described is English ; but 
 the eviction described is Irish. Nor is the 
 nightingale a bird that sings in Ireland at all. 
 
The Deserted VUlage 269 
 
 though represented as making its plaint over 
 desolated Auburn. Besides this, the political 
 philosophy is erroneous, as has often been 
 pointed out. Commerce, with its postulate of 
 wealth, is not a hurt, but a help. These criti- 
 cisms are just, and a critique of the poem may 
 not pass them by in silence. 
 
 Allowing the criticisms to be admissible, 
 there is a larger truth ; and it is this : The poem, 
 as a whole, is a delight. Its immediate suc- 
 cess was phenomenal. "The Traveler" had 
 prepared the way for "The Deserted Village;" 
 and Irving, in his "Life of Goldsmith," ob- 
 serves, "Its sale was instantaneous and im- 
 mense." Repeated editions were called for 
 within a few days. There was a hungry public; 
 and the heart-element in the tale was satisfy- 
 ing. "The Traveler" is the more perfect poem; 
 "The Deserted Village" the more popular one. 
 The former was philosophic; the latter was 
 domestic; and the same causes which have 
 conduced to the popularity of Ian Maclaren, 
 Barrie, and Thomas Nelson Page wrought in 
 behalf of "The Deserted Village." 
 
 In versification, the style was that of Pope. 
 The motif was as foreign to Pope as meadows 
 fresh with flowers and grass and mosses, to the 
 
270 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 desert blistered in the sun. In other words, 
 in form Goldsmith was still under the domi- 
 nancy of the late literary autocrat; but in spirit 
 he had shown himself a leader, and had been 
 a helper in bringing English poetry back unto 
 its own. "The Deserted Village" is pastoral 
 poetry; and preludes a century of poetry in 
 which no element of strength, grace, natural- 
 ness, or beauty was wanting. 
 
 The home sentiment is the affluent thought 
 of the poem. To that, attribute the tenacious 
 hold these words have had on the heart and 
 memory of the English-speaking world. The 
 Saxon is leal to hearth and native land. The 
 potent element in "Evangeline" is the grip on 
 our sympathies gained by the expatriation of 
 the Acadians. We revolt against the tyranny 
 and inhumanity. The same fact with a diflfer- 
 ent setting is presented in "The Deserted Vil- 
 lage." Thus runs the tale: Where once stood 
 
 "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," 
 
 in quietude, plenty, beauty, joy; where once 
 rang the laughter of merrymaking, and stood 
 the home, the genial inn, the village preacher's 
 modest mansion, the school-house with mem- 
 
The Deserted Village 271 
 
 ories of ferule and fun, now desolation saddens 
 all the scene. 
 
 "No more the grassy brook reflects the day, 
 But choked with sedges works its weedy way;" 
 
 and the cause is the eviction of tenants by a 
 proprietor, that he might inclose the farms 
 in his own private domain. Such the story of 
 "The Deserted Village;" and pathetic it is. 
 It touches the sentiments; and Goldsmith 
 makes this the opportunity for inveighing 
 against luxury that grows with wealth, and 
 wealth that grows with commerce. 
 
 Better to lay the purposed moral aside, and 
 forget the intent of the poet. The world has 
 found its chief concern in the unaffected grace 
 and pathos with which home-life and heart-life 
 have been depicted. The case becomes our 
 own. We turn with fondness at the heart, and 
 tears in the eyes toward the home of childhood. 
 The tenacity of affection with which renters 
 in the Old World cling to the farm on which 
 generations of a single name have grown, until 
 they seem rooted to the soil like the hawthorn, 
 can not be appreciated in our newer continent, 
 where domestic life dawned but yesterday. 
 
272 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Yet are childhood's remembrances the same 
 with all of us. Each heart turns gladly 
 back to the old home; and he has looked on 
 age with unpardonable indifference who has 
 not noted now, as men grow older, the heart 
 clings more lovingly to the old home, to the 
 old memories, to the old paths. This is the 
 major fascination of "The Deserted Village." 
 The verse runs quiet, like some silent river 
 drowsing toward a not distant sea. We drift 
 upon it. The story touches our better mem- 
 ories and our better natures ; and it seems safe 
 to become prophetic in declaring that no day 
 will dawn when those who read English liter- 
 ature will pass "The Deserted Village" without 
 tenderness and tears. 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 
 
 Anglo-Saxon literature has made surpris- 
 ing revelations of power. Coming late, when 
 all the lists seemed filled, it yet made for itself 
 room. It was as the black knight in "Ivan- 
 hoe," unexpected; and once entered the lists, 
 its powers, as his, were unexploited, and the 
 disclosure of them came as the discovery of a 
 new constellation. No form of literature but 
 has beert attempted by this race. Each seemed 
 a challenge. Romance poetry, — who like Ed- 
 mund Spenser? The epic, — has not blind Mil- 
 ton become a chief musician like blind Homer? 
 Lyric poetry, — have we not that rare lyrist, 
 Alfred Tennyson? And in drama, Shakespeare 
 answers the challenge of .^Eschylus, and takes 
 the laurel from that gray head, and puts it on 
 his own ruddy locks. Prose has received no 
 nobler contributions than those of Hooker, 
 Milton, Burke. 
 
 The audacity of genius has characterized 
 
 these literary attempts. Nothing has daunted 
 
 this new knight. Not Launcelot was so incon- 
 
 querable in the lists. The Greek, with his 
 
 i8 273 
 
274 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 affluence of genius, had wrought in every de- 
 partment of letters save the novel. He wrote 
 fiction in drama, or epic, or narrative poem. 
 These were "Tales of the Wayside Inn," or 
 oftener of court and camp; yet with the en- 
 largement of the story-teller's hearing through 
 printing, poetry became too narrow a path; 
 and Marlowe and Spenser gave their pens to 
 Blackmore and Thackeray. I am of opinion 
 that not since men listened to tale in Arab's 
 tent by fountain-side under the stars, has im- 
 agination been so universally eager for a voice 
 as now. There have been eras when the fancy 
 was wilder, when the world seemed unhindered 
 to the shore of the remotest sea, when the im- 
 agination ran more readily and easily to the 
 extravagant ; but never a time when chaste and 
 vivid imagination could boast such constitu- 
 ency as now. Men would have the prose of 
 life lapse into poetry, as the quiet brook into 
 music of waterfall. ' They refuse to be held at 
 the mill of toil, and are as impatient of fetters 
 as a king's son in chains. The lordlier life 
 within must have speech. Spirit will dream, 
 and ask another how to dream. Love whis- 
 pers in every ear. Men, women, youth, age — 
 love kisses the sleeping lips of each, and 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 275 
 
 thrills them to an awakening. Man was 
 never more conscious of heart-hunger than 
 now; and fiction is an answer to this cry for 
 bread. 
 
 The novel is the certain sign that we are 
 not lapsed into commercial serfdom. The de- 
 mand for fiction is a good sign. Let us not 
 imagine otherwise. Prurient stories, in them- 
 selves ill omens, are still an evidence of this 
 passion for imagination. They constitute a 
 misapplication of a divine power. The what 
 we see and are will not suffice. To this truth 
 bear all novels witness. Ulysses was 
 
 "Always roaming with a hungry heart;" 
 
 but Ulysses was brother to us all. Discover- 
 ies, voyagings, pageants, searchings for the 
 holy grail, heroisms greater than Hector's, — 
 all wander in the heart like winds across a 
 moor. We stand ready, a watcher at an east- 
 ern window, waiting for the dawn. We will 
 not sleep, supposing night will never cease. 
 And fiction touches us here. It bids us know 
 audacities of love, fidelity, heroism, suffering, 
 are never dead, and are not of yesterday. They 
 live to-day. They neighbor with us, and we 
 know it not. The face of age masks an im- 
 
276 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 mortal love. That scarred cheek could tell a 
 tale of noble daring fitted to the heart, as if it 
 were harpstrings smitten by a harper's hand. 
 This, I take it, is the essential meaning of the 
 novel; and if so, w^ho could deny the native 
 nobility of this mode of expression? 
 
 And it has been the good fortune of the 
 Saxon to produce the two most representative 
 women of literature, Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
 ing and George Eliot; the one the greatest 
 woman poet, the other the greatest woman 
 novelist. While true, George Eliot wrote a 
 volume of poems, as also one of essays, she 
 is to be classed neither as poet nor essayist, but 
 as novelist. She came into an era rendered 
 illustrious by Dickens and Thackeray. She 
 must hang her light in a sky lit with two suns. 
 The attempt was one of splendid daring. No 
 single age had produced two such writers of 
 fiction. Indeed, few names are to be men- 
 tioned in the same catalogue. Scott, Balzac, 
 Hawthorne, Hugo, Tolstoi, Thackeray, Dick- 
 ens, — what hinders this catalogue to be prac- 
 tically complete? And into lists where these 
 knights rode came George Eliot. Thackeray 
 saw and heralded her genius. Genius will 
 make a place, not find one. Genius does not 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 277 
 
 ask a constituency, but creates one; and that 
 is better. 
 
 I think it safe to affirm woman's powers 
 are better adapted to the novel than any other 
 form of hterature. Lecky was doubtless right 
 in this observation. Woman's gift of fine feel- 
 ing and noble passion can speak with native 
 strength here as nowhere else. George Eliot 
 is a distinguished example of what a woman 
 can do in this field; and yet let it be remem- 
 bered that her work is as strictly masculine 
 as her pseudonym. Her writings do not bear 
 the marks of femininity. Had she kept her 
 incognito, her sex would scarcely have been 
 guessed. However, in her undervaluation of 
 women there is something feminine. Hetty is 
 bad; Gwendolyn Harleth is weak; the be- 
 trothed of Silas Marner is fickle; the heroine 
 of Middlemarch is not strong, to say the least; 
 Romola, the chiefest of her women, is lacking 
 in some qualities certainly indigenous to wo- 
 manhood. But woriJan is given a better part 
 than in any other female novelist. 
 
 Eliot does not write stories, but rather psy- 
 chological or social studies. She has writ- 
 ten no romance fascinating as "Jane Eyre." 
 Charlotte Bronte knew the art of telling a tale 
 
278 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 as George Eliot did not. In my conviction, 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps is her superior in the 
 same regard. But neither does Thackeray's 
 strength lie in story-telling. His story lags 
 like a sleepy urchin, though in "Henry Es- 
 mond" he has shown us what powers were at 
 his command, for it bears us on as a wave; 
 and "Quentin Durward" is not more magic in 
 its movement. Consider our authoress's mer- 
 its. "Midlemarch" drowses. "Silas Marner" 
 is a gem of pastoral in prose, idyllic, simple, 
 inartificial, sweet as new-mown meadows at 
 night, redemptive in tone and effect. "Adam 
 Bede" is a repugnant study in conscience and 
 religion, never rising to the fascinating, but 
 always running at high levels in its humor, 
 insight, discrimination, and probing of the 
 soul. "Felix Holt" is a study in labor, and is, 
 much as the purely purpose fiction is likely to 
 be, heavy. "Daniel Deronda" is, all in all, the 
 most attractive and enchaining story this au- 
 thoress has told. The movement has a swing 
 like a wave, the love is contagious; the char- 
 acter of Gwendolyn Harleth is disappoint- 
 ing, but accurate; Myra artless, attractive, and 
 compelling interest; Lapidoth, an exact por- 
 trait of a shameless, debased soul; Mordecai 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 379 
 
 is magnetic in his fervor, and thrilling in his 
 finer sense of soul. "Romola" is a mediaeval 
 romance, catching admirably both tone and 
 temper of the Savonarola era, and giving a 
 clear insight into the Florence of Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent. The story told leaves you in 
 shadow like a sky suddenly overcast, but you 
 are sure you have read a great book. 
 
 Comparison between George Eliot and Mrs. 
 Humphrey Ward will serve to bring out the 
 qualities of the former; and it seems clear 
 that the niece of Matthew Arnold has as cer- 
 tainly taken Eliot for her pattern as Dante 
 did Virgil. The peculiarity of imitation is 
 that the imitator catches the weakness, but not 
 the strength of the original. Such is the case 
 in this instance. Mrs. Ward apparently aims 
 at giving a study, rather than writing a story. 
 She affects philosophy, political economy, the- 
 ology. She possesses none of the story-teller's 
 art. Her novels are voluminous, tedious, lack 
 movement, and do not rivet attention. You 
 never become interested so as to be loath to 
 lay the volume down. "Robert Elsmere," 
 "Marcella," "Sir George Tressady," are not 
 commonly interesting, but uncommonly long 
 and tiresome. They lack in dramatic power, 
 
28o The Poefs Poet and Othei" Essays 
 
 and have no notion of climax. There is scant 
 movement, little color, and an unpleasant sense 
 of the physician who will insist on inoculat- 
 ing you irrespective of your need. She pro- 
 poses a study; but those who propose this sort 
 of fiction must be gifted with genius, and that 
 of a high order. Thackeray may sermonize 
 if he will, because his rambling utterances are 
 a delight. Balzac may give studies, because 
 he is a marvelous photographer of society con- 
 ditions. Dickens may give a study in poverty, 
 and name it "Oliver Twist," because he knows 
 the art to subordinate the purpose to the move- 
 ment of the narrative, and illumines all the 
 path with the light of that varied genius which 
 used him as amanuensis. So may George 
 Eliot give a study of domesticity in "Middle- 
 march," or of hard human nature in "Mill 
 on the Floss," because she is a great novelist, 
 because she has penetrative vision, construct- 
 ive ability, and consummate grasp of char- 
 acter. Contrast her work with Mrs. Ward's, 
 and the difference is an unbridgeable chasm. 
 The tragic element in "Adam Bede" is 
 growing in interest to the close, and in "Mill 
 on the Floss" the scene of that flood in whose 
 mad waters Tom and Maggie Tulliver find a 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 28 1 
 
 grave, but find love, too, when seeing the 
 beautiful forgiveness on which he has no claim, 
 Tom cries "Magsie!" and then, locked in each 
 other's arms, they defy death. Such termina- 
 tion leaves no sense of lack. The tragedy 
 is complete, and the art which conceived such 
 finale is nothing other than genius. George 
 Eliot thrills us with a sense of power; and who 
 but wishes to be gripped as if by some giant's 
 hand upon the shoulder? You will find noth- 
 ing commonplace about workman or work. 
 Belonging to a brilliant era of romance, her 
 star burns undimned. "Adam Bede," "Mill on 
 the Floss," "Daniel Deronda," and "Romola" 
 are instances of immortal fiction, and "Janet's 
 Repentance" is a tale daintily and pathetically 
 told. 
 
 On considering George Eliot's volumes, 
 certain observations arise spontaneously. One 
 is. Hers was a mind open to nature. Dickens 
 and Thackeray gave slight heed to sky and 
 field for their own sake. Clearly Eliot loved 
 the fields and skies. "Mill on the Floss" is 
 specially rich, I think, in tender sayings about 
 out-of-doors. Not that this writer has touched 
 hands with Blackmore ; but that was not to be 
 expected. There is but one "Lorna Doone." 
 
282 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Such passionate tenderness for nature comes 
 to earth once only in many centuries. But in 
 this authoress, constantly recurring, you shall 
 find let drop words of love for the flow of a 
 river, or tint of cloud, or gracious quiet of the 
 evening, or hint of thinking where words are 
 not articulated. Account this one strength in 
 George Eliot. 
 
 And George Eliot has been declared best 
 equipped of her contemporary novelists, and 
 more the philosopher than Dickens or Thack- 
 eray. One thing is sure, she chose an ampler 
 field than they. You can not designate her 
 patrimony, as you can theirs. Dickens was 
 biographer of slum and middle-class England; 
 Thackeray biographer of aristocratic England; 
 but you can not coin a phrase which shall ex- 
 press the territory pre-empted by George 
 Eliot. But if her work-ground were less ca- 
 pable of defining than theirs, it does not follow 
 she was profounder. Philosophy is not so 
 much vocation as it is attribute. To be scholar 
 it is not necessary to wear cap and gown, nor to 
 be philosopher is it necessary to say, "I will 
 philosophize." Who reads Thackeray must 
 know that no acuter philosopher in character 
 lived in his day. "Sartor Resartus" is not pro- 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 2 S3 
 
 founder philosphy than may be found in 
 "Barry Lyndon" and "Vanity Fair." Eliot 
 was equipped, but is no deeper nor can be 
 nobler than may be found in "Sidney Carton" 
 and "Henry Esmond." In her attempts we 
 observe a girth of circumference which ap- 
 peals to the mind. She was predisposed to 
 framing systems. Order was omnipresent to 
 her thought. Chaos turned to cosmos of some 
 sort with her; for she was hostile to intellectual 
 debris. In according her high rank in scope of 
 plan and in quality of execution we may hasten 
 to agree; but to make her outrank Thackeray 
 and Dickens seems not to be warranted by the 
 facts. 
 
 Another observation is, she has diversified 
 her fields. Her flowers are not all planted in 
 one soil. MacDonald and Black have one vein. 
 We know where their next venture will land its 
 cargo. This is not fortunate. The element 
 of surprise should not absent itself from fic- 
 tion. George Eliot saw this clearly. She made 
 no two ventures on the same waters. The poor 
 weaver, his pain, and pessimism and its cure, — 
 this once, no more; and "Silas Marner," most 
 graceful of her essays in fiction, does the heart 
 good as songs of birds in the fields of spring. 
 
284 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 "Middlemarch" and "Mill on the Floss" are 
 well in the same field, but with emphasis on 
 such diverse traits in character and society 
 as practically to throw them into different 
 worlds. In one the grief of mistnating is the 
 theme ; in the other the harshness of character 
 in father and son, and the sweet tenderness of 
 a girl's life breaking through the one as a 
 daisy through the sod. These fields were vis- 
 ited no more. She was no Ruth to glean in a 
 harvested field, but rather as a traveler who 
 pitches tent but once in any single spot, a 
 camp-fire burnt to ashes, a memory, and away! 
 "Adam Bede" dips pen into the woe of wrong. 
 It is the drama of sin, with shame, sorrow, dis- 
 aster, conscience, Not often has there been 
 given a more graphic touch than when Hetty 
 tells Dinah how she heard her deserted babe 
 crying, even when she saw it was no longer 
 where she had hidden it. Seth makes manli- 
 ness seem a little taller; Dinah is a fair picture 
 as we see her yet; Adam stands strong, a tower 
 meant for defense; Mrs. Poyser's garrulity 
 sounds in our ears to this hour; and the char- 
 acters in "Mill on the Floss" stand out as 
 painted by some master's brush — ^Tom TulK- 
 ver like his father, hard as Hint; the mother 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 2S5 
 
 an echo, but who, at the last, will let mother- 
 love speak, and will go with Maggie into her 
 undeserved disgrace; Philip, pure, manly, 
 faithful, suffering, self-denying, unforgetting; 
 Stephen, passionate in love as sweep of stormy 
 sea, — who will forget them? 
 
 "Romola" leaves England and to-day, and 
 migrates to Italy and history. This is George 
 Eliot's attempt at writing the historical novel. 
 Dickens wrote "Tale of Two Cities;" Thack- 
 eray, "Henry Esmond;" Eliot, "Romola;" and 
 they are worthy of the era and the authors. 
 This is the sole novel of our authoress which 
 does not stay on English soil. Romola holds 
 court in Italy. Lorenzo the Magnificent, Sa- 
 vonarola, Pico Mirandola, Romola, Tito Me- 
 lema, are the actors, and each is worthy of pro- 
 longed study. The era is attractive. The his- 
 toric currents in those days were widening in 
 such fashion as had not been known since 
 Rome died. Call it a brilliant and wicked age, 
 and have done. It was flooded with the pas- 
 sion for scholarship characteristic of the Re- 
 naissance, discoveries awaking, — this the field; 
 and in such field she has shown herself capable 
 of satisfying the imagination and the historic 
 and dramatic sense. "Romola" need not blush 
 
286 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 to stand in the presence of "Ivanhoe." Tito 
 Melema is a great portrait. He is gibbeted 
 forever. His versatile talent; his lack of moral 
 stamina; his feeling his way toward crime as 
 a bather into cold surf; his base ingrati- 
 tude, and the choice of ambition rather than 
 Tightness; his fatal decision to make no search 
 for his foster father, the appropriation of his 
 wealth, and the consequent denial of him re- 
 turned, and Melema's murder by that much 
 injured man, — these constitute a study in in- 
 gratitude not often paralleled in power, and 
 seldom equaled as a characterization. Becky 
 Sharp and Tito Melema may make society 
 for themselves, since they are members of an 
 aristocracy in villainy seldom experienced. 
 
 In "Daniel Deronda" the scene is shifted to 
 the Jew, that most fascinating race of history. 
 That the author was saturated with Jewish 
 history need not to be told any reader of this 
 volume. Her step is of one who knows the 
 path. Daniel Deronda is a rare creation, 
 whether considered as a Jew or as a study in 
 human kind. A pure and noble spirit is a 
 generous contribution to literature; and such 
 Deronda is. The unconscious power of him 
 is magnetic, and to see how he guides Gwen- 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 287 
 
 dolyn Harleth to her better womanhood is 
 inspiring, though to watch her at his marriage 
 and departure as she stands hungry-hearted 
 and hungry-eyed has a pathos too deep for 
 words. Viewing this work as a whole, let this 
 be said: the departure was a success. This 
 study of the Jew is of importance in contem- 
 porary fiction, in which the Jew is moving to 
 such a chief place. 
 
 Another observation on Eliot is, her im- 
 personality. She obscures her own views. 
 This Thackeray and Dickens never did. They 
 were always telling what they thought. 
 George Eliot was an agnostic in philosophy, 
 and a freelover in social ethics; but would any- 
 body guess the one or the other from her 
 novels? There is something singular here. 
 In her romances marriage is nowhere in- 
 dicted, but on the converse seems to be held in 
 high esteem. There is a contradiction here. 
 She would seem to have been malleable in 
 opinion, subject to environing influences. 
 George Henry Lewes discovered her to her- 
 self as novelist, and exercised a singular domi- 
 nancy over her. His opinions in philosophy 
 and social morality were hers; and whether 
 she were conscious to herself of insincerity in 
 
288 The Poefs Poet and Other &says 
 
 her affected opinions, certain it is she nowhere 
 intimates them in her novels. In poetry, she 
 speaks in her own proper person; but with her 
 fiction, the character elaborates itself, and 
 speaks words native to itself. She does not use 
 her creations as venders of her notions. I 
 think George Eliot's work eminently imper- 
 sonal; and the more I read, the more does this 
 fact impress me. And this is a rare trait. It 
 was Shakespeare's trait, though in him it arose 
 from the many-sidedness of genius. 
 
 In George Eliot, to know to what this is 
 attributable is not easy. Her philosophical self 
 and her romancist self were two persons. In 
 philosophical moods she was so cold as to deny 
 life chance to bloom. Now if she was sure 
 "the times were out of joint," then to her fell 
 the task of setting right so far as in her lay. 
 Wrong cries for righting, as all the reformers 
 know. Now, to suppose George Eliot to have 
 held at heart the views of her head, and not 
 have apostled them, is to arraign her courage; 
 and to question her honesty, is to arraign her 
 sincerity. Such the Scylla and Charybdis 
 one must pass in any criticism of her char- 
 acter and work. Ruskin tells his theories; 
 to this end, as he supposed, was he born. 
 
George Etiot as Novelist 289 
 
 Matthew Arnold was an apostle of an out- 
 grown aristocracy, misconceiving the shore 
 on which he walked; and his poetry is apostle 
 of his agnosticism, as Shelley's of his anarchy. 
 Now is it conceivable that George Eliot truly 
 held abberrant theories of marriage and the- 
 ology, and did not attempt discipling the 
 world? Between thought and heart there was 
 some hiatus. At head she was agnostic; at 
 heart, I take it, she was yearningly Christian. 
 She could not advocate her barren faith when 
 love lit her study-lamp. Therefore the imper- 
 sonality of her views may be set down as indis- 
 position to champion a system of thinking to 
 which her heart gave no assent. She was dis- 
 tinctively religious in her natural symptoms. 
 To doubt this would make the interpretation 
 ■ of Seth and Mordecai and the "Scenes from 
 Clerical Life" impossible. A religious atmos- 
 phere suits her better moods. In intellect- 
 ual theory. Buckle and Lewes and Eliot be- 
 longed to the same school. But recall the 
 insistency of Buckle's advocacy of his material- 
 istic theories, and the unhesitating teaching of 
 Lewes; and the utter absence of such advo- 
 cacy in Eliot's fiction more than implicative 
 in spirit of championing opposite opinions; 
 19 
 
290 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 and we can not refrain from believing she 
 doubted the validity of her own intellectual 
 attitude. Compare Mrs. Humphrey Ward, 
 who has religious theories to vend in her 
 shambling "Robert Elsmere." Here a resusci- 
 tated infidelity on the invalidity of the proof of 
 miracles is donated a coat and hat and name; 
 and the authoress supposes she has given a 
 man. Mrs. Ward and George Eliot are of the 
 same faith; how explain the latter's failure in 
 indoctrination, save on the theory of her dis- 
 trust of her religious conclusions? A discrep- 
 ancy between the teaching of the head and of 
 the heart is not an infrequent spectacle. 
 George Eliot's example in social morality was 
 unquestionably deleterious. The morality of 
 marriage and its essentiality to our social sys- 
 tem and order is too apparent to need defense. 
 Heart and history testify in its behalf. To at- 
 tack this system in example is a crime. 
 George Eliot should have seen that while a 
 phase of the marriage laws was a hurt to her 
 individually, they were still a society safeguard 
 and purity's necessity, while her marriage to 
 Mr. Cross proves conclusively she might have 
 found nuptial companionship with other than 
 George Henry Lewes. As it was, she gave the 
 weight of her conduct to a system to which 
 
George Eliot as Novelist 291 
 
 she was in no true sense allied. That our at- 
 titude is often shaped by our self-wishes the 
 instance of John Milton as related to divorce 
 testifies. George Eliot was better than her 
 theories would lead us to conclude, and her 
 silences in her fictions are testimonies to her 
 consciousness of incertitude and insincerity. 
 
 Viewing the author as related to her work, 
 we must confess to a sense of lack. The large 
 things she did, praise her; but the larger thing 
 she might have done, upbraids her. 
 
 George Eliot's agnosticism is hopeless and 
 pitiful. A woman without God is like a ship 
 for which there is no sea. She seemed a vessel 
 thrown on the high bar, to which no wave ever 
 comes to bear it back into the deep. From this 
 characteristic it follows that what may be 
 named inspirational values were largely want- 
 ing in her. Inspiration implies a sky; and sky 
 was what George Eliot always lacked. Her 
 face was plain, her voice exceeding sweet, her 
 genius commanding, her vision circumscribed, 
 her hope dead; and so she leaves us with a 
 sense of lack, as if we looked at an eagle teth- 
 ered in a meadow. It was meant, as she was 
 meant, for the mountain and the blue vault 
 and the sun. 
 
The Ring and the Book 
 
 "The Ring and the Book" is the most 
 satisfactory poem ever written; which judg- 
 ment this paper attempts to justify. The poem 
 is a mediaeval cathedral, and to be compre- 
 hended must be given both a general and a 
 minute survey. We must estimate a cathe- 
 dral's size, dignity, proportions, style of archi- 
 tecture, leap of spire, sense of sublimity, and 
 hold this total impression, as a lake holds 
 mountains mirrored. We weigh the mass, 
 make a synthesis. We then proceed to the 
 study of details. The spring of the arch, effect 
 of aisle, nave, choir, transept, chapels ; the win- 
 dows, whose storied panes glorify the light; 
 the organ, with sob of storm and soul, echoing 
 along the pillars and dying in the arches; the 
 solemn silence, more impressive than organ 
 note, — ;these constitute an analysis ; and by the 
 dual survey we hold the cathedral a feudatory 
 of the mind. "The Ring and the Book" is a 
 Gothic cathedral, impressive and sublime. A 
 general survey will reveal certain facts, among 
 them these : 
 
 The book is epic in proportions, containing 
 292 
 
The Ring and the Book 293 
 
 twenty-one thousand verses. It is twice the 
 length of "Paradise Lost," and six times as 
 long as "Hamlet," one-sixth longer than 
 Homer's "Iliad," and a third longer than 
 Dante's "Inferno." It is greater than the bulk 
 of many a great poet's works. Its wealth of 
 thought, eloquence, loveliness of diction, pro- 
 found soul-scrutiny, fertility of imagination, 
 mastery of the resources of poetry, pregnant 
 utterance, high ideality, are fitted to immortal- 
 ity as finger to the lute. The book is very 
 long, but none too long when studied and 
 loved. Its epic length is due to its epic mass 
 of thought. An ocean's flood requires an 
 ocean's bed. Compare "The Ring and the 
 Book" with Spenser's "Fairie Queen," and 
 discover striking similarities. Both are pure 
 in moral tone as mountain air; both are medi- 
 aeval in location and temper; both catch the 
 spirit of knight errantry; both are dedicated 
 to holiest uses, the illumination of the under- 
 standing, and the purifying of the heart; both 
 delight us like the songs of birds at dawn; 
 and the authors of both are poets such as liter- 
 ature has had few of. The "Fairie Queen" is 
 an allegory; "The Ring and the Book" a his- 
 tory. One is descriptive; the other analytical 
 
294 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 I read "The Fairie Queen" with growing pas- 
 sion. Edmund Spenser is England's noblest 
 troubadour, and, aside from Tennyson, most 
 musical of English poets. It were a sign of 
 literary health if at this fountain, youth would 
 drink as at mountain springs. Spenser charms 
 as the sound of rain upon the roof at night, 
 and is grateful to the weary thought as the 
 house of sleep which himself has described 
 with such dreamy imagination and perfect 
 melody : 
 
 "And more to lulle him in his slumber soft 
 
 A trickUng streame from high rock tumbling 
 downe, 
 And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft, 
 
 Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the 
 
 sowne 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne. 
 No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes. 
 As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne. 
 Might there be heard; but careless quiet lyes 
 Wrapt in eternal silence farre from enemyes.'' 
 
 But comparison will leave the crown on 
 Browning. His is the philosopher's art set to 
 the music of poetry. His thought cuts deep 
 like a crusader's sword. He digs into the 
 soul, and lets it bleed. All realms of recent 
 
Tbe Ring and the Book 295 
 
 thinking, hemispheres unknown to Spenser, 
 are put under tribute. All are his vassals. 
 He pours forth light as the sun. The history 
 in "The Ring and the Book" is mediaeval, but 
 the thought is modern as this noon. Brown- 
 ing's is an amplitude of genius Spenser did 
 not possess. To an epic narrative he has 
 superadded a dramatic penetration. Spenser 
 is more melodious than Browning; and 
 Browning is more profound than Spenser. 
 
 "The Ring and the Book" is Browning's 
 masterpiece, sustaining the same relation to 
 his multitudinous poems as Hamlet to Shake- 
 speare's remaining dramas. "Colombe's 
 Birthday," "Blot in the 'Scutcheon," and 
 "Pippa Passes" are usually acorded rank in 
 point of finish, delicacy, and dramatic perfec- 
 tion; but they are brief. They are half-hours 
 of sunshine; "The Ring and the Book" is a 
 day. Comparison between an author's own 
 efforts is never absolutely just. Every man 
 has his best. Power is not steady. Brown- 
 ing's variety of theme and breadth of treat- 
 ment afford ample opportunity for comparison 
 and criticism. He is the most unequal of 
 poets. And then, too, the personality in read- 
 ers is so diverse. Moods change an emphasis 
 
296 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 of appreciation, as sky the color of the sea. 
 Ourselves are a variable quantity. The sub- 
 jective in the reader will be as influential an 
 element in choice of a favorite poem as the 
 objective in the writer. In criticism, critics 
 can not get on the same ground. To a lover, 
 his love's voice will be the sweetest of voices; 
 and why quarrel with him? To ask a com- 
 pany which of an author's poems each prefers 
 is stimulative, since there is thus disclosed this 
 individuality in choice to which reference is 
 here made. Browning's lesser dramas are beau- 
 tiful, but brief. They are snatches of music 
 sung by happy hearts on happy days ; but "The 
 Ring and the Book" is an oratorio. They are 
 dedicated to bringing a single thought from 
 bud to bloom. In "Pippa Passes" that 
 thought is Conscience regnant; in "Blot in 
 the 'Scutcheon," tarnished virtue has in itself 
 no more a remedy within itself to recall its 
 lost self than a faded flower to recover its 
 vanished loveliness; in "Colombe's Birthday," 
 the triumph of love in a good woman's heart. 
 In "The Ring and the Book" these themes are 
 amalgamated as grains of gold to form a ring 
 for love to wear upon its finger. The weight- 
 iest questions of life are discussed, and in such 
 
Tiie Ring and the Book 397 
 
 satisfactory fashion as makes it the most ade- 
 quate poem of literature. An epic in twelve 
 books, a tragedy in a single act! For my 
 part, I feel with this massive poem as I do in 
 watching Niagara, a grave, laughterless de- 
 light. Smiles vanish from the face in looking 
 on Niagara, or reading "The Ring and the 
 Book." 
 
 And "The Ring and the Book" is unique. 
 Poetry has not its like. It stands solitary, as 
 a forsaken soldier. What poem do you recall 
 resembling this in the least? The tragedies of 
 ^schylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Goethe, 
 have set no fashion for it. Contrast any 
 dramas these authors have written with the 
 poem discussed, and this uniqueness will strike 
 you with sudden joy. In ^schylus's "Pro- 
 metheus Bound," you are confronted with con- 
 tinuity in action and progress in movement. 
 Characters rise, speak, pass, or, if reintro- 
 duced, their coming marks the lapse of time. 
 Moments have swept them on as to a new 
 stage. Prometheus is chained to his crag, 
 and the crag is buckled to the world ; but that 
 world has moved. While we have listened to 
 Prometheus, Kratos, and the Oceanides, he 
 has drawn a trifle nearer the end of his pain. 
 
SgS The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 We are conscious of progress toward conclu- 
 sion. In Sophocles's "Antigone," the same 
 is true. Antigone goes toward her doom, 
 sometimes with bowed head and hindered step 
 and slow; sometimes driving swiftly as if run- 
 ning a race toward death, but always motion. 
 There is neither stagnation nor yet movement 
 in circles, but progress evident as day. In 
 "Faust" is perennial action. Mephistopheles, 
 Faust, Margaret, — cynical diabolism in Meph- 
 istopheles; in the others, ambition, love, 
 temptation, yielding, sin, retribution, — love 
 and conscience in Margaret, and selling of soul 
 and remorse terrible and useless in Faust, but 
 action, always action! Characters run toward 
 their doom. Fever is in the tragedy's pulse. 
 We feel as certain events rush toward a tragic 
 termination, as Niagara's rapids toward a 
 precipice. Let King Lear speak for Shake- 
 speare's method. Events tend toward a crisis. 
 The drift of seas past a headland is not more, 
 or so apparent. Goneril and Regan and Ed- 
 mund; Cordelia and King Lear, old and ab- 
 dicating his throne; his misjudgment of Cor- 
 delia, coupled with cruel thoughts and words; 
 he is despised of his daughters; he gradually 
 comes to himself, state and power gone as 
 
The Ring and the Book 299 
 
 certainly as color fades from evening cloud; 
 his anguish at heart; his finding in Cordelia 
 more than he had lost in kingdom; his gray, 
 blind despair when on the stormy moor with 
 disheveled locks he walks a madman, and at 
 the last bearing his dead Cordelia in his arms, 
 his life the passion of sob, he dies, — these are 
 currents swift as swollen mountain torrent. 
 In all, we find as definite motion as when a 
 ship sails along a coast, and sees the headlands 
 slipping behind like drifting fisher's boats. 
 
 In "The Ring and the Book" the plan is 
 diametrically diverse. There is no movement. 
 All the story is told in the first thousand 
 verses; and twenty thousand verses are con- 
 sumed in rehearsing a tale once told. If there 
 be such another production in literature, I do 
 not know of it. In plot, "The Ring and the 
 Book" is absolutely unique. 
 
 A closing observation on the work, as a 
 whole, is that all Browning's characteristics 
 riot here. He is as a herald who, having flung 
 aside all weights, runs his solitary race, a nude 
 personality. Here see his versatility, intellec- 
 tuality, dramatic instinct, and originality. 
 That a poet could so variegate a single story 
 as to tell it over nine times, and it not weary 
 
300 The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 you, is sufficient proof of versatility. To this 
 add the exactitude with which he develops 
 natures so variant as those of Count Guido, 
 Caponsacchi, Pompilia, and the Pope, and 
 wonder blinds us, as looking full in the sun's 
 face. His intellectuality is evidenced in his 
 grasp on the strategic nature of the story; in 
 his penetration into motive; in his profound 
 disquisition on contemporary social questions; 
 in his practically illimitable command of apt, 
 pertinent, luminous, and beautifully poetical 
 illustration; in the serene sky he keeps, noth- 
 ing bewildered by the jungle growth of inter- . 
 acting motives and complications of argument. 
 Dramatic here, as always. Browning has writ- 
 ten the longest drama in literature. Each 
 actor speaks his part, then leaves the stage. 
 But his very story is dramatic, and suggests 
 a stage with many players. You, by Brown- 
 ing's subtle power of suggestion, hear a dia- 
 logue where none is spoken. His dramatic 
 impulse guides Browning unerringly, as in- 
 stinct the sea-fowl along "his solitary way." 
 I call this power masterfully dramatic. No 
 one questions his originality. There is no- 
 body like him. No one could think him a bor- 
 rower. Bayne and Stedman may discuss 
 
Tbe Ring and the Book 301 
 
 Tennyson's debt to Theocritus; but to whom 
 is Browning debtor? Lender he is, not bor- 
 rower. He is opulent in originality. His 
 themes are new as unexplored seas. This 
 trait is observable in all Browning's poetry; 
 but in no place so noticeable as in "The Ring 
 and the Book." The audacity of the under- 
 taking is a delight; but the consummate genius 
 exhibited in execution is a larger delight. To 
 tell all one had to tell in a prelude, and ask 
 readers to stay twenty thousand verses longer? 
 Nothing more original has ever been con- 
 ceived than this poem. And when we con- 
 sider how he came last of our great poets, 
 when each had harvested and gleaned the 
 field, and that we are so impressed with the 
 originality of no poet since Homer, wonder- 
 grows. 
 
 Now to the special survey of this medi- 
 aeval cathedral : Astronomers who would watch 
 a transit of. Venus go half about the world to 
 find a spot for planting their telescope. We 
 dare not be less wise in watching the transit 
 of a soul. Catch the movement of the central 
 sun, and the movements of all planets will be- 
 come apparent. And Pompilia is central sun 
 of "The Ring and the Book." She is the 
 
302 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 dramatis persona. In the light of her character 
 all else becomes visible. Woman's centrality 
 in the drama of life is thus expressed. Count 
 Guido the husband, and Caponsacchi, priest, 
 deliverer and lover, are chief foils; while Pi- 
 etro and Violante, professed father and mother 
 of Pompilia, one half, and the other half Rome, 
 the deliberate judgment of Rome, lawyers, and 
 gray, pure Pope, are ancillary merely. 
 
 The geography of .these twelve books is, 
 prelude stating data of the tragedy, opinion of 
 Rome sympathetic toward Guido, followed by 
 opinion sympathetic toward Pompilia, closing 
 with the deliberate judgment of those capable 
 of coming to a wise conclusion in view of all 
 the evidence ; then Count Guido, fresh from the 
 rack, tells his story; after him Caponsacchi, 
 with news of Pompilia's murder at the hands 
 of Guido and his confederates freshly come 
 to him; then Pompilia, lying wounded, white, 
 faint, dying, breathes out her story tender as 
 a tale of hapless love, pleas of prosecution and 
 defense filled brimful of scholastic subtleties, 
 the Pope soliloquizes in words of beauty, pa- 
 thos, depth, and discernment; and on his last 
 night on earth, Guido, in presence of cardinal 
 and abate, speaks once more, and, as before, 
 
The Ring and the Book 303 
 
 utters only lies, until his last word, when one 
 truth is spoken, then our poet's postlude; and 
 "The Ring and the Book" is ended. Such the 
 scaffolding of this poem. 
 
 The crime of marriage for position is theme 
 of "The Ring and the Book," and we are in 
 the midst of a grave social question. Mar- 
 riage is the basis of society. Roman Cathol- 
 icism says. Marriage is a sacrament; the State 
 says. Marriage is a civil contract; atheism says, 
 Marriage is slavery; Protestantism says. Mar- 
 riage is a divine institution, implying a union 
 of souls solemnized by a religious ceremony; 
 and God says. Marriage is a necessity of civili- 
 zation and righteousness. Marriage, what 
 shall we do with it? is a current problem. 
 Grant Allen and Hardy say. Abolish it. George 
 Eliot and George Henry Lewes say. Abolish it. 
 Marriage is a living theme; and most pro- 
 found of all discussions of this vital topic is 
 "The Ring and the Book." Browning has 
 given two discussions of marriage; one in 
 James Lee's wife, the other in Pompilia. The 
 former is a sweet woman, loving her husband, 
 and waking up to the sad truth which clouds 
 her life like autumn afternoon. She is out- 
 side her husband's world. He does not think 
 
304 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 of her. She is no necessary part of his heart's 
 furnishing. And she is lonely, bereft, a widow 
 without widow's weeds, — a widow, and no 
 grave on which she may plant flowers and 
 rain her tears. She is going away from him, 
 hopelessly, loving him still, longing for him; 
 and could she hear his voice crying, "Come 
 back, my love," her heart would leap with joy. 
 But no recalling voice is heard, and she sails 
 away, lonely and alone. 
 
 "The Ring and the Book" is a study in 
 marriage for position — the barter of a woman 
 for a count's cdat-of-arms. The exchange of 
 wealth for ancestry, how recent this sale 
 sounds! Is it of Pompilia this story speaks? 
 Surely we had been able to supply another 
 name not so entirely unfamiliar to our ears. 
 And if crime ever received terrible arraign- 
 ment, marriage for position has received that 
 arraignment from Robert Browning. "The 
 Ring and the Book" is the tragedy of mar- 
 riage not for love, but for place. The story 
 is : Pompilia, a child of thirteen, beloved, pure, 
 beautiful, and rich, is by her mother's mistaken 
 love espoused and wedded to a nobleman for 
 his name. He is an aristocrat, vile, past life's 
 prime, very poor, and trades his blood for 
 
The Ring and the Book 305 
 
 gold. Violante meant her matchmaking in 
 love. She longed to see Pompilia, her beloved, 
 happy and great; as if anything could com- 
 pensate for lack of love! Strange a mother 
 should know no better. She meant to make 
 her daughter happy as singing birds, and did 
 make her more miserable than words know 
 how to tell, and became in effect her mur- 
 derer. Pompilia was child in years, but more 
 a child in thought. She knew nothing of mar- 
 riage beyond the name. She was simple as a 
 flower, and happy as the birds in dewy dawns. 
 Care floated no cloud across her sky. All was 
 love and laughter; but a priest, brother to 
 Count Guido, saw how he might recover his 
 brother's lost fortune and his own, and with 
 simple Violante plans this union between his 
 brother and her daughter; and Violante, with- 
 out the knowledge of Pietro, takes Pompilia 
 to a cathedral in the hush of a rainy evening, 
 and weds her to Count Guido. The wedding 
 done, Pompilia is left alone, and thinks the 
 matter ended. But Guido claims his wife. 
 Pietro objects and yields, he and Violante 
 going to the count's villa at Arrezzo, to be 
 near their child, who is sunshine to their age. 
 Guido hates this child-wife, and, with machi- 
 20 
 
3o6 The Poef s Poet and Other Essays 
 
 nations base as lago's plottings, schemes to 
 rid him of his wife, but become possessor of 
 her gold; for he had wed gold, and not wo- 
 man. He succeeds in driving father and 
 mother away, and then exercises all his dia- 
 bolical cunning to drive his wife into impru- 
 dence. He places her in the theater so her 
 beauty may be observed; writes madrigals 
 with his own hand, affecting they come from 
 an enamored priest, writing this priest letters 
 of passionate love to which Pompilia's name 
 is attached; persecutes her with the presence 
 and advices of a maid. Guide's paramour; 
 makes her estate worse than death. She longs 
 to die, seeks help from confessor, then a 
 bishop; is made sport of, is rebuffed; prays 
 still with breaking heart, and at last suffers 
 as one benumbed, careless for life, but eager 
 if eagerness knows her face, for death. Then 
 in the drowse of this lethargy, she finds herself 
 keeper of a life other than hers, God's promise 
 of a babe; then, then only, she appeals to 
 Caponsacchi to lend his help. He answers, 
 "I am yours." They escape, are overtaken by 
 Guido, who has plotted for this; Pompilia is 
 not restored to him by the Church, her babe 
 is born; then, since the babe is Guido's, and 
 
The Ring and the Book ^0^ 
 
 through it he may inherit the mother's for- 
 tune, he murders Violante, Pietro, and Pom- 
 piha, is captured, tried, condemned, beheaded ; 
 and his poison blood leaks through the scaf- 
 fold planks. So 
 
 "Let this old woe step on the stage once more." 
 
 Pompilia is the fairest portrait of woman 
 put on canvas by any artist to this hour. A 
 bud not yet become a flower, a sunbeam glint- 
 ing on a stream, no more! when suddenly her 
 life meets scourge and fire like martyr at the 
 stake; passes through flame, and comes forth 
 with not the smell of fire upon it; meets life's 
 fearful problems; lives tragedy through to its 
 bloody goal; struggles with every shape of 
 shame which courts a soul, and comes through 
 all spotless as unflecked clouds that float 
 across the roof of heaven. Concerning her, 
 hear the Pope say: 
 
 "First of the first. 
 Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now 
 Perfect in whiteness." 
 
 "At least one blossom makes me proud at eve. 
 Born mid the briers of my inclosure." 
 
 "My flower. 
 My rose, I gather for the breast of God." 
 
3o8 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Pompilia represents triumph over heredity. 
 The nameless daughter of a shameless mother 
 makes a world debtor for her gracious life. 
 Guido had heredity for a help. Pope Innocent 
 was right in saying concerning him: 
 
 "I find hitn bound then, to begin life well; 
 Fortified by propitious circumstance, 
 Great birth, good breeding, with the Church for 
 
 guide, 
 How lives he? Cased thus in a coat of proof, 
 Mailed like a man-at-arms, though all the while 
 A puny starveling.'' 
 
 Of Count Guido much might in reason have 
 been prophesied; but he is less than man. He 
 shames the race that bore him. He was a 
 parasite on society. Not one poor nobility 
 blesses his life; he did not even know how to 
 die. Cowards do often, while pallor whitens 
 cheek and lip, yet gather up their little manli- 
 ness to die. But Guido died coward as he 
 lived, a shriek upon his lips. So base a soul 
 has not often been conceived. His face and 
 figure are limned with rarest art. He is man 
 at his worst. lago was not so vile as he; for 
 lago plotted against Othello's wife; Guido 
 
The Ring and the Book 509 
 
 plotted against his own. He comes fresh from 
 the rack with a lie upon his lips. He affects 
 to have been injured : 
 
 "This getting tortured merely in the flesh 
 Amounts to almost an agreeable change. 
 Four years have I been operated on 
 I, the soul, do you see — its tense and tremulous 
 part — 
 
 My self-respect, my care for a good name 
 
 Pride in an old one, love of kindred — ^just 
 
 A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like. 
 
 That looked up to my face when the days were 
 
 dim, 
 And fancied they found light there — no one spot, 
 Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang." 
 
 Huger hypocrisy does not breathe. The 
 rack, he says, was tenderness matched with 
 his hurt. With swollen joint and shoulder 
 sprung from socket, with obsequious looks 
 and words, he attempts ogling this court, and 
 besmirching Pompilia. He has murdered her; 
 now he will murder her good name, the soli- 
 tary good he has not already bereft her of. 
 With consummate skill he makes covert ap- 
 peal to every prejudice lying hid at the jurors' 
 hearts, his noble house, his priestly apprentice- 
 
3IO The Poet's Poet and Otiier Essays 
 
 ship, the slumbering hatred of patrician for 
 plebeian ; he forgets no one of them. The rack 
 has quickened all his intellectual powers until 
 his mediocre capacity stands him for genius. 
 He is fighting a battle for life. That calls his 
 mightiest forth. When he is done, you loathe 
 him as you do a serpent, only more, seeing he 
 has made himself so venomous and slimy. 
 You can not name a virtue in him. God saw 
 none. 
 
 An old libertine covetous for gold. He 
 will steal from his own child, and he a two- 
 weeks' babe! He wedded a child for gold. He 
 saw she was simple and pure. The sight of 
 her helplessness might have turned a flint to 
 tenderness. It touched not Guido. He 
 hounds her with a pertinacity and diabolism 
 which would have shamed lago. Every snare 
 a foul mind could conceive, he set. He calls 
 a harlot to his help to trip his wife. She was 
 hunted ! 
 
 The look upon her face would make 
 marble weep; he did only redouble diligence 
 to snare her, finding no fault in her. A ser- 
 pent charming a singing-bird unto its death 
 is too fair a -figure for this man. He is des- 
 
Tlie Ring and Ibt Book 311 
 
 picably mean. His vices are the very de- 
 pravity of vice. 
 
 "Not one permissible impulse moves the man, 
 From the mere liking of the eye and ear, 
 To the true longing of the heart that loves, — 
 No trace of these; but all to instigate 
 Is what sinks man past level of the brute." 
 
 "All is lust for money; to get gold, — 
 Why lie, rob; if it must be, murder!" 
 
 "Always subordinating (note the point!) 
 Revenge, the manlier sin, to interest. 
 The meaner." 
 
 And 
 
 "Those letters false beyond all forgery." 
 
 His hypocrisy clings to him close as skin to 
 flesh. On that night preluding his execution, 
 you may hear his 
 
 "O, that men would be good!" 
 
 He is the Pharisee by trade. His life is one 
 long villainy. He had no better moments. 
 He had so accHmated his soul to shame as to 
 be steeped in it. He did not pray, seeing he 
 was practical atheist. God was not, for he 
 
312 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 called nature God. God was no factor in his 
 life. He had been afforded training by the 
 Church. His was no lack of opportunity. His 
 light was sufficient. He sinned against abun- 
 dant knowledge. He was sterile of virtue, as 
 a bleak rock of plant and soil. His life had 
 been a lie; his testimony fresh come from the 
 rack's twinge, and in death-chamber waiting 
 the scaffold, was one reverberated perjury. 
 One splinter of truth was struck from him 
 as he stumbled to the scaffold, as lightning 
 breaks splinters from the rock. Pope Inno- 
 cent soliloquizes: 
 
 "For the main criminal I have no hope 
 Except in such a suddenness of fate. 
 I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 
 I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 
 Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all; 
 But the night's black was burst through by a 
 
 blaze — 
 ■ Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and 
 
 bore, 
 Through her whole length of mountain visible; 
 There lay the city thick and plain with spires. 
 And, like a ghost, disshrouded, white the sea. 
 So may the truth be flashed out by one blow. 
 And Guido see one instant, and be saved." 
 
The Ring and the Book 3'3 
 
 Then hear Guido shriek: 
 
 "Who are these you have let descend my stair? 
 Ha, their accursed psalm I Lights at the sill! 
 Is it 'Open' they dare bid you? Treachery! 
 Sirs, have I spoken one word all this while 
 Out of the world of words I had to say? 
 Not one word! All was folly — I laughed and 
 
 mocked! 
 Sirs, my first true word, all truth and no lie, 
 Is, save me notwithstanding! Life is all! 
 I was just stark mad, — let the madman live. 
 Pressed by as many chains as you please to pile! 
 Do n't open! Hold me from them! I am yours; 
 I am the grandduke's — no, I am the Pope's! 
 Abate, Cardinal, Christ, Maria, God, 
 Fompilia, will you let them murder me?" 
 
 And a scaffold wet with blood, villain's 
 blood; and Count Guido Franceschina is the 
 voice of a curse lingering in the air! What a 
 consummate work of genius is this portrait- 
 ure I Such was, the scion of a noble house, a 
 man of ancestry and inspiring environment. 
 
 But Pompilia, of whom nothing could be 
 expected, seeing heredity was so foul, Pompilia 
 lived a life lovely as any dream of God. That 
 is life. We are not creatures, but creators. 
 God and a soul are competent to triumph ovef 
 
314 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 heredity. But Pompilia is alone. All are 
 against her. Her mother sold her as a babe. 
 Husband, maid, Church, are her foes. She has 
 no love, no memory of one bright day, im- 
 mortal as the heart. Know you anybody so 
 alone as she? Chaucer's Griselda was up- 
 holden by the memory that her wedded love 
 had been so beautiful while it was hers. Enid 
 could not forget her husband had loved her 
 utterly upon a day. Desdemona had Emilia 
 for as fast a friend as ever championed a cause. 
 She had lago; but she had Othello, too. She 
 was sure he loved her, and never surer than 
 when at his hands she died. His murder was 
 certificate of his love. But Pompilia had no- 
 body. She was so alone ! Maid traitor to her, 
 and seeking her ruin, Guido never loved her, 
 and indifference was kindled into hate. Alone! 
 Poor Pompilia! Poor Pompilia! When Gwen- 
 dolyn Grandcourt felt her better self going 
 from her, Daniel Deronda was her stay. Pom- 
 pilia was utterly alone. No human sympathy 
 touches her. She was bereft — but she' had 
 God! This is the secret of her purity and 
 triumph. Fighting this fight for truth, she 
 felt for God. And as her days gloomed 
 blacker than night, and she found life all but 
 
Tfie Ring and the Book 315 
 
 ■ dragged from its moorings, God was all her 
 help. Guide was atheist; Pompilia was stout 
 to hold to God. She groped, God seemed so 
 far removed, poor child! — so far removed, and 
 seemed to hide his face. Then Pompilia 
 reached hands high in the darkness, and on a 
 sudden, when hope felt like a breaking staff, 
 she caught the hand of the Eternal Strength. 
 She prayed ; that saved her. Betrayed of man, 
 she held to God, and he did not betray her; 
 but brought her through deep waters in safety 
 unto heaven. 
 
 One day there was turned a page of life on 
 which suffering was not written. At the play, 
 whither Guido had taken her to snare her, sit- 
 ting in the gallery, where he had seated her, 
 himself invisible, she saw the sad and noble 
 face of Caponsacchi. He was looking at her 
 as a watcher at the stars, and saw a face of 
 surprising beauty, but of unutterable sadness. 
 Laughter knew not how to run across that 
 face^ once the home of joy. And sight of this 
 man's face made it possible for Pompilia to 
 know great love before death brought silence. 
 And Caponsacchi was only less noble in man- 
 hood than Pompilia in womanhood. Liter- 
 ature must wander far before another such 
 
316 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 poem as Caponsacchi's narrative shall be told. 
 He was priest and man; and what more could 
 praise utter? He saw and loved, and beneath 
 her lattice he watched, suspicioning she might 
 have need of him, — ^watched with such large 
 fidelity as love uses at a bed of pain. Guido 
 wrote letters to him purporting to come from 
 Pompilia; but this lover was not deceived. He 
 trusted the face he had seen, and felt confirmed 
 in his belief she could not be of such a sort. 
 She sent him no word nor gave him any look, 
 but her sad face haunted him. If she drew 
 near a casement and sav/ him, she slipped back 
 into darkness. Truth was in him and pene- 
 tration. He was writer of poems for the bish- 
 op's need. He was a man through all, nor 
 molded to be a court puppet. He haunted 
 lattice and street as whip-poor-wills do the 
 woods at night. Her unutterable sadness 
 makes mute appeal to him, and is graven on 
 his memory as by graver's sharpest tool. At 
 last Pompilia, in extremity of distress, appeals 
 to his chivalry. He knows he risks all in help- 
 ing; but no danger was hazard if he might 
 bring her succor. The love for remote stars 
 had not been purer than his love for her. He 
 planned the escape, was censured of his order. 
 
The Ring and tlie Book 317 
 
 was laughed at as if his had been a youthful 
 escapade. They reckoned him among them- 
 selves; for knighthood like his they could not 
 conceive, he being as remote from them as 
 if he had been full citizen of heayen. His was 
 that large self-forgetfulness in which love 
 takes delight. He sees need, duty; what need 
 he more? Innocent looking on him with 
 tears' dim mists in his eyes, whispers, 
 
 "Thou, pledged to dance not fight 
 Sprang'st forth the hero I" 
 
 Let his self-forgetfulness gleam out like 
 fires from precious stones in this: 
 
 "For Pompilia, be advised. 
 Build churches, go pray! You will find me there, 
 I know, if you come — and you will come I know. 
 Why, there 's a Judge weeping! Did I not say 
 You were good and true at bottom? You see the 
 
 truth— 
 I am glad I helped you: she helped me just so." 
 
 And Pope Innocent: 
 
 "Thou whose sword-hand was used to strike the lute, 
 Whose sentry-station graced some wanton's gate. 
 Thou did'st push forward and show mettle, shame 
 The laggards, and retrieve the day. Well done! 
 Be glad thou hast let light into the world, 
 
31 8 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Through that irregular breach o' the boundary, — 
 
 see 
 The same upon thy path and inarch assured. 
 Learning anew the use of soldiership, 
 Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear, 
 Loyalty to the life's end!" 
 
 And such manhood had serene rewards. 
 He was held in Pompilia's heart as any saint. 
 It was worth all it cost, and more. She says: 
 
 " 'T is now when I am most upon the move 
 I feel for what I veril/ find — again 
 The face, again the eyes, again through all. 
 The heart and its immeasurable love 
 Of my one friend, my only, all my own. 
 Who put his breast between the spears and me. 
 Ever with Caponsacchi! Otherwise, 
 Here alone would be failure, loss to me — 
 How much more loss to him, with life debarred 
 From giving life, love locked from love's display, 
 The day-star stopped its task that makes night 
 
 ■ morn ! 
 O lover of my life, O soldier-saint. 
 No work begun shall ever pause for death! 
 Love will be helpful to me more and more 
 I' the coming course, the new path I must tread — 
 My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for 
 
 that! 
 Tell him that if I seem without him now, 
 That 's the world's insight. O, he understands! 
 
Tbe Ring and the Book 319 
 
 He is at Civita— do I once doubt 
 
 The world again is holding us apart? 
 
 He had been here, displayed in my behalf 
 
 The broad brow that reverberates the truth, 
 
 And flashed the word God gave him back to man!" 
 
 To reflect God, that is life's goal; and to 
 have lived a life at whatever cost which leaves 
 such impress, would turn the gall it drank 
 to wine, and change gloom to glory, And 
 this lover came to teach her love. He came 
 into a barren heart bereft of all, and sorely 
 needing help and love. God was her stay, but 
 love like his illumines God. It is not hard 
 to hold that God is love, when once we know 
 some woman or some man is love. 
 
 Only when Pompilia finds herself a prom- 
 ised mother, does she plan to flee. Her life 
 might die; she could be glad for that; but now 
 she is not her own. Another life holds her 
 skirts. She throws herself on Caponsacchi, 
 crying, "Help, O help !" They flee. The story 
 hastes. Her babe is born. Guido comes to 
 the door of her father's home, and it is Christ- 
 mas time! He whispers, "Caponsacchi!" 
 whereat the door is opened — ^then murder 
 thrusts and slays Pietro, Violante, Pompilia. 
 She lives to tell her story. God was good to 
 
320 The Poet's Poet and Other Bssnys 
 
 her in this. To tell her woe as she lies, white, 
 weak, dying, — this is Pompilia's vindication, 
 if she needed one. Truth sits upon her 
 dying lips, as on her living lips. To hear this 
 dying story is to listen to an angel speak. 
 She utters no recriminatory words. No bitter- 
 ness mixes with her speech. Upon her ears 
 the music of her morning breaks. In sight 
 and sound of heaven she falters forth her story, 
 tells it so that help high as mountains lifts us 
 toward God. She has no words of blame; 
 rather words of palliation. Nor is she con- 
 scious of this merit. She blames not her 
 mother, who bore her in shame and sold her: 
 
 "If she sold . . . what they call sold ... me her 
 child, 
 I shall believe she hoped in her poor heart 
 That I at least might try be good and pure, 
 Begin to live untempted, not go doomed 
 And done with ere once found in fault as she." 
 
 In behalf of Violante, she whispers, 
 
 "Do let me speak for her you blame so much." 
 
 "Yes, everybody that leaves life sees all 
 Softened and bettered; so with other sights; 
 To me, at least, was never evening yet 
 But seemed far beautifuler than its day, 
 For past is past." 
 
The Ring and the Book 321 
 
 And for Guido, the reef on which her life was 
 wrecked — for Guido, her murderer, she has 
 forgiveness : 
 
 "For that most woeful man, my husband once, 
 Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath, 
 1 — pardon him? So far as lies in me, 
 I give him for his good the life he takes. 
 Praying the world will therefore acquiesce. 
 Let him make God amends!" 
 
 Since in God's face 
 
 "Is light, but in his shadow healing too; 
 Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!" 
 
 Caponsacchi must not grieve as though in 
 him were blame: 
 
 "Say, from the deed no touch 
 Of harm came, but all good, all happiness, 
 Not one faint fleck of failure." 
 
 "This one heart gave me all the spring." 
 
 And Pompilia died, a woman of only seven- 
 teen years! Yet she had lived life through. 
 The Pope saw that. He was one clean, strong 
 man grown gray. How he saw virtue shine! 
 How undimmed his sight for seeing goodness. 
 Naught escaped him there. No fog hung on 
 this landscape. His monologue is beautiful as 
 a psalm sung in the evening's twilight. "This 
 
322 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 gray, ultimate decrepitude" sees Guido, Ca- 
 ponsacchi, and Pompilia as seen of God. In 
 matters moral, his sight is keen as eagle's; 
 and Innocent knew Pompilia had lived a life 
 whose girth outspanned this dull world. She 
 had loved. Great love swept round her like a 
 sea. She had known motherhood, God's de- 
 light for woman: 
 
 "They loved me as I love my babe 
 ( — Nearly so, that is — quite so could not be — )" 
 
 "Then I must lay my babe away with God, 
 Nor think of him again for gratitude." 
 
 "Till my boy was born, 
 Born all in love, with naught to spoil the bliss 
 A whole long fortnight; in a life like mine 
 A fortnight filled with bliss is long and much. 
 All women are not mothers of a boy, 
 Though they live twice the length of my whole life, 
 And, as they fancy, happily all the same." 
 
 She had met evil, and had triumphed and 
 grown strong: 
 
 "Was the trial sore? 
 Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! 
 Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
 And master, and make crouch beneath his foot 
 And so be pedestaled in triumph?" 
 
The Ring and the Book 323 
 
 "So my heart be struck, 
 What care I, by God's gloved hand or the bare? 
 Nor do I much perplex me with aught hard, 
 Dubious in the transmitting of the tale; 
 No, nor with certain riddles set to solve. 
 This life is training and a passage: pass — 
 Still, we march over some flat obstacle 
 We made give way before us: solid truth 
 In front of it, what motion for the world? 
 The moral sense grows but by exercise. 
 'T is even as a man grew probatively 
 Initiated in Godship, set to make 
 A fairer moral world than this he finds. 
 Guess now what shall be known hereafter." 
 
 And well for her. She had conquered. 
 
 "Life is probation, and the earth no goal 
 But starting-point of man." 
 
 And she has begun so nobly! The storm was 
 terrible, but Pompilia has come through un- 
 scathed. Nay, the very storm has cleared her 
 sky of vapors, and she saw to the dim out- 
 posts of the world, and beheld God, her lover 
 never failing. Life was brief indeed, but long 
 enough to get hold on God; and that is life 
 at its best. 
 
 "For I trust 
 In the compensating, great God." 
 
 "So what I hold by is my prayer to God." 
 
324 Tbe Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 And God did not forget her! How blessed 
 that is ! She had found God the mighty. She 
 and Christ were nearer than earth can ever 
 bring two hearts. She had learned that duty 
 was larger than earthly love. The tragedy of 
 divided love is not so pathetic as the tragedy 
 of duty foresworn for love. Love and duty, 
 both met! And how she loves! I know not 
 any poetry more deep in its sad music than 
 the closing of Pompilia's story. Her voice 
 grows weak and eyes grow dim, and since she 
 can not hold Caponsacchi's hand in passing 
 into silence, her heart reverts to him : 
 
 "Tell him 
 It was the name of him I sprang to meet 
 When came the knock, the summons, and the end. 
 'My great heart, my strong hand are back again!' 
 I would have sprung to these beckoning across 
 Murder and hell gigantic and distinct 
 O' the threshold, posted to exclude me heaven; 
 He is ordained to call, and I to come! 
 
 So let him wait God's instant men call years; 
 Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul. 
 Do out the duty! Through such souls alone 
 God, stooping, shows sufficient of his light 
 For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise." 
 
The Ring and the Book 325 
 
 And now her attempted word sinks low to 
 whisper, and her whisper no mortal ear can 
 catch, a quiver of the lids, a quick, glad smile 
 as if in going she had met a friend she loved — 
 and Pompilia is 
 
 "Passed 
 To where beyond these voices there is peace.'' 
 
 She has conquered heredity, environment, 
 shameless duplicity, and found how God would 
 keep them who trusted in him. And death 
 came? What of that? She had lived life, had 
 seen God with naked eyeball. And death 
 was no more than a stepping across a runnel 
 far among the hills, a step — and then — ^the 
 blue of distant mountains, the shifting shadows 
 of the clouds, the voice of waters, the infinite 
 blue, and — the deathless morning and the 
 face of God! 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 
 
 A SURFACE difference between marble and 
 flesh is one of color. Flesh has color; marble 
 is colorless. And this may be set down as an 
 unvarying truth, li^e is always tinted, borrow- 
 ing pigments from within and without. A sea 
 has color of its own. Mid-Atlantic's blues are 
 ravishing; but whoever has sailed the seas, 
 knows their color is a variable quantity. They 
 do not hold their own tenaciously. A sea with 
 inherent hues still borrows colors from the 
 clouds. I have seen oceans gray as dawn, 
 dreary as winter clouds, silver as moonlight, 
 crimson as heroes' blood, murky as rainy twi- 
 lights, black as storm. This is a common- 
 place of the seas; they have been colored by 
 the skies. In this regard character is not in- 
 frequently like the seas. Environment may 
 color it. Similarity ends here; for seas have 
 no choice, since skies are their masters. But 
 character determines color for itself. The 
 moment we approach character, necessity is an 
 obsolete word. Character is shapable truly 
 but is more truly originative and shaping. 
 Oceans are results; characters are causes. 
 3*6 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 3^7 
 
 In two dramas, "The Merchant of Venice" 
 and "Saul," Shakespeare and Browning have 
 offered estimates of Hfe. Consider how Shy- 
 lock sees the world, and how David sees the 
 world. And the world is a stable quantity. 
 An enumeration of qualities is possible. Some 
 things our world is; some things our world is 
 not. Idealism is not a sincere philosophy. 
 Man does not create a world by thought. He 
 is inhabitant, not creator. Earth is no objecti- 
 fied thought. Kant and Plato misled us. 
 They trifled with our consciousness. Thought 
 feels a world is dual, not singular. Self and 
 non-self make up the category of existence. 
 The world is certain, as solid. Reid's philos- 
 ophy holds. Man is right. Could man take 
 inventory of this planet's stock, he might, the 
 inventory ended, say, "This is your world." 
 How, then, shall we account for the variant 
 views men hold of life? How explain men's 
 seeing a different world? Does not the idealist 
 seem right? To one man the earth is a witch's 
 caldron,' a receptacle of filth; to another, a 
 theater for sublime activities. What, then, are 
 there two worlds; or is each an objectification 
 of individual thought? No! Neither view is 
 correct. There is one world, real, substantial, 
 
328 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 gripped of gravitation, and lighted by the sun. 
 Both men were accurate of vision. What both 
 saw was there. Earth is a caldron boiling to 
 the rim with shame; earth is a theater for 
 heroisms; and who sees the whole world sees 
 this. A profound philosophy eliminates neither 
 factor, sees both, catalogues both. Earth is a 
 totality. Light 
 
 "Fires the proud tops of the eastern pines;" 
 
 but darkness, too, has silent and solemn pomp, 
 and exercises sovereignty through many a 
 midnight. What boots it to deny self-evident 
 truths? An entire world is a true world. Man 
 sees a segment, and names his petty section 
 all. A valley shut in of solemn mountains is 
 a poem, but is not the earth. Who named it 
 so, misnamed it. What is needed is a com- 
 plete philosphy. A solitary hemisphere needs 
 a new world to fill out its lacking bulk. Rus- 
 kin saw other world than Carlyle saw. The 
 cosmos each saw was real enough. The actual 
 world was what both saw. Therefore we may 
 set this down as truth. The world is all we see. 
 The fallacy is, man insists his narrow horizon 
 includes the world. The value of Shylock and 
 David as exponents is that they stand at oppo- 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 3^9 
 
 site poles. Shylock was pessimist; David was 
 optimist. 
 
 A man has dual value, as a person and as a 
 representative. Who sees Shylock and David, 
 sons of one race, will look again. Shylock 
 with his furrowed face, his beetling brows, his 
 eyes flashing like dagger's points, his cruel 
 setting of the lips boding no pity, his face 
 from which laughter has died out so long ago 
 you can not realize sunlight ever brightened 
 the somber landscape, tangled and disheveled 
 locks threaded with silver, evident force on face 
 and form, — this is Shylock. David is a youth. 
 The joy of morning brightens on him, and the 
 voice of morning sings in him. His cheek is 
 ruddy, his locks are tangled gold. The odors 
 of the Bethlehem hills still scent his garments, 
 genius lights his eyes like Oriental dawns, a 
 poet's touch twangs the harp he holds, dreams 
 waken where he comes, and his fingers which 
 
 "Glimpsed down the strings of his harp 
 In a tremulous refrain," 
 
 have a prophecy of might to grip a sword or 
 scepter, — this is David. And Shylock is talk- 
 ing of restitution, and David is talking of 
 restoration. Shylock there is self; David 
 
330 The Poet's Poet and Othet Eoayc 
 
 there is Saul. Shylock is pessimist; David is 
 optimist. 
 
 Timon of Athens is Shakespeare's conscious 
 pessimist, Lear and Shylock his unconscious 
 pessimists. Timon despises and curses. Shy- 
 lock, seeing his hour, seizes it and demands. 
 Timon is words; Shylock is deeds. Two in- 
 terpretations of Shylock obtain. Shylock is 
 base, revengeful, shameless, crammed with 
 causeless hate, holding ducats above daugh- 
 ter, — is, in short, the sum of villainies; or 
 Shylock is a wronged race, hated, spit upon, 
 used as men use tongs to handle coals, a man 
 sinned against rather than sinning, a noble 
 self-respect, an outraged spirit, might grown 
 cruel through persecution, his hate justifiable 
 resentfulness ; Shylock needs condoning, mer- 
 its sympathy. Adopt which view you will, he 
 is the person of the comedy. His is the strong 
 spirit of the play. Whom will you match with 
 him? Surely not Bassanio nor Antonio; not 
 Portia nor Lorenzo nor Jessica. We could 
 not compare him with the duke of Venice nor 
 the princes of Morocco and Aragon. Bassanio 
 is singularly lacking in color. Character is 
 not catalogued in his possessions. Antonio 
 excites our surface sympathy. We see him 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 331 
 
 at his best. Friendship gets him in danger of 
 his death. He is pictured as the compassion- 
 ate and injured gentleman, and we sob, "Poor, 
 poor Antonio!" but have in reason been spec- 
 tators of the one heroism of his Hfe. And this 
 nobility colors all our interpretation of him. 
 But of anticipated heroism there seems no in- 
 timation. Strength was no possession of his 
 soul. His hand on ours does not make us 
 thrill as to the touch of love. 'T is lesser man- 
 hood we behold in him. We see it as a flash- 
 light view. The overbearing merchant is 
 shown us by indignant Shylock. Let us con- 
 clude, Antonio is no man to hold our admira- 
 tion. He does not bear acquaintance. His 
 nobility, like dew on flowers, disappears as 
 day progresses. Lorenzo is a lover consum- 
 mate in the art of making love. Poetry clings 
 to his words. Moonlight and music conspire 
 to glorify him. His voice is sweet as winds 
 whispering in the pines. The whole world 
 loves a lover, therefore is Lorenzo safe, but 
 stands on no merit save that he is a lover. 
 Jessica is much besides ideal. She is blind 
 love, no more. That she would flee and filch 
 is scarcely to her credit. But Portia? She is 
 Shakespeare's "intellectual woman!" Portia 
 
332 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 is a woman. Her heart pleads. Her turning 
 of the bond against Shylock is not law, but a 
 trick; a poor subterfuge, with no semblance of 
 law upon it; feminine alertness, not legal sa- 
 gacity. Nothing about Portia argues intel- 
 lectuality. As a woman in love she is charm- 
 ing, as what woman is not? 
 
 Shylock, if these estimates be even proxi- 
 mately true, has no fellow in the play. We 
 can not ignore him. Strength, cunning, pene- 
 tration, remembrance of wrong, iron determi- 
 nation, — these are patent in Shylock. He is a 
 Jew, and loves money and is genius in its 
 acquisition; but he loves his daughter: that is 
 Jewish, too. Human instincts speak in Jewish 
 bosoms. They know how to love as to hate. 
 As a Jew's portrait, Shylock is accurately 
 painted. What Shakespeare meant in "Mer- 
 chant of Venice" nobody can tell. Whether 
 he favored Shylock or despised him must re- 
 main a secret forever. But he has dowered 
 him with race characteristics and capacity. 
 Shylock is no common man. In Antonio we 
 see the best side out; but those times we saw 
 him, he not knowing we were looking, were 
 in no wise creditable to him. Shylock, on the 
 contrary, has his worst side out. His knife, 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 333 
 
 itching for a pound of flesh nighest Antonio's 
 heart, horrifies us; but all incidental observa- 
 tions of him are in his favor. He has self- 
 respect; he resents the contumely piled upon 
 him like bales upon a beast of burden ; though 
 he loves money inordinately (and with reason, 
 seeing it is his sole protection in a civilization 
 hating the Jew as if he were a plague), he loves 
 his daughter too; and, finding she has taken a 
 ring, moans, "It was my turquoise; I had it of 
 Leah when I was a bachelor." Love of money 
 runs into penuriousness as an ultimatum. Jew 
 is come to mean usurer, and not wholly with- 
 out reason. Shakespeare has given the temper 
 of mediaeval Venice toward the Jew. Venice 
 hated, vilified, robbed him when it might, bor- 
 rowed when it must. 
 
 This environment colored Shylock. It edu- 
 cated his worst and dwarfed his best. He be- 
 came as the trees on the verge of Niagara, 
 twisted, dwarfed, malformed. The winds from 
 the abyss of watei-s have wrestled with them, 
 buffeted them, till they are distortions. En- 
 vironment emphasized traits in Shylock, but 
 created none. Shakespeare is exact. En- 
 vironment is not creative, does not make col- 
 ors, but simply deepens tints. Shylock's traits 
 
334 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 are the Jew's traits. Money was his power 
 and safety, but a Jew loves money when safety 
 is not involved. The passion for gold is as old 
 as Abraham. He grew rich. Jacob grew rich 
 while serving for Rachel. Jews are masters of 
 the art of acquiring riches. Antonio hated Shy- 
 lock ; but Shylock hated Antonio. Christianity 
 and Judaism are mutually intolerant, each 
 holding itself custodian of truth; and truth is 
 intolerant, and may easily grow to be brow- 
 beating in self-assertiveness. Shylock hated 
 opposition, hated the Gentile. I doubt not he 
 thought the race element in his hatred large, 
 and the individual element insignificant; but 
 . this was self-deception. His hunger for re- 
 venge was not ethnic, but personal. Shylock 
 would have hid his hate behind impersonality. 
 He was wronged indeed, but wrong as well. 
 Would he had been larger! This is Shylock. 
 He is not himself. He has let adverse circum- 
 stances master his nobilities. Thus does he 
 look on the world, a pessimist. "The times 
 are out of joint," and he mistakes Venice for 
 the world. He has not kept face toward God. 
 He has watched Venice, when he should have 
 watched motions of the constellations march- 
 ing their armies toward God. He miscon- 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 335 
 
 strued life, because he hated the world. 
 Things, all things were awry, he put down as 
 a foundation truth. We scarcely have it in 
 heart to blame him, his provocation was so 
 great. His world hissed him. Not a friend 
 reached hand toward him in day or dark. He 
 was alone. He was watched as carrion birds, 
 waiting for food, sit by to see a soldier die. 
 Hear him: "He hath disgraced me, and hin- 
 dered me half a million ; laughed at my losses, 
 mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, 
 thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, 
 heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? 
 I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not 
 a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, af- 
 fections, passions? fed with the same food, 
 hurt with the same weapons, subject to the 
 same diseases, healed by the same means, 
 warmed and cooled by the same winter and 
 summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, 
 do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not 
 laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? if you 
 wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like 
 you in the rest, we shall resemble you in that. 
 If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humil- 
 ity? revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, 
 what should his sufiferance be by Christian ex- 
 
336 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 ample? why, revenge. The villainy you teach 
 me, I will execute; and it shall go hard, but I 
 will better the instruction." Clearly, Shylock 
 was bitter, exceeding bitter against the world. 
 Lear was; Timon of Athens was; but the fal- 
 lacy of pessimism lies here : It bases argument 
 on unsupported propositions. The premises 
 are insufficient. One hypocrite does not jus- 
 tify us treating all men as such. One friend 
 proven untrue, does not prove friendship a 
 delusion. The narrow view is not the true 
 view. One lattice will not give all the heavens. 
 There is a scowl on Shylock's face. It never 
 lifts. He has jaundiced eyes, and white light 
 looks something else ; stars have lost brilliancy, 
 and come to be as the spent flame on autumn 
 leaves. Shylock was hostile to life. He was 
 against conditions universal, will war with all, 
 will treat the world as Eric Brighteyes his 
 foes, puts back against the rock, clutches his 
 enemy, hurls him from the cliff, though he and 
 his foe fall to their death together. However 
 natural Shylock's attitude, it was wrong. Life 
 is not to be antagonized, but used; and to be- 
 come belligerent is to destroy it. To hack 
 with scimiter or crusader's ax is not life elo- 
 quent, generative, productive. Shylock was 
 
Shyloek and David as Literpreten of Life 337 
 
 all for venegance, and forgets God's saying, 
 "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." He took 
 his case in his own hands, when righteousness 
 dares leave its case to God. Pessimism 
 blighted Shyloek, as it will blight any soul. 
 He was great enough to have kept the color 
 of his own spirit, and not like the sea to have 
 borrowed his hues. Clearly Shyloek did not 
 get the right estimate of life. 
 
 Contrast Browning's "Saul" with "Merchant 
 of Venice." The poem gives outlook shore- 
 less as the open heavens. Saul, king of Israel, 
 is sunk in lethargy. Coma has seized him. 
 In his darkened tent 
 
 "He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms 
 
 stretched out wide 
 On the great cross-support in the center, that goes 
 
 on each side; 
 He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as caught 
 
 in his pangs ... 
 So agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and 
 
 dumb." 
 
 And David comes, 
 
 "God's child with his dew 
 On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living 
 
 and blue. 
 Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings. 
 As if no wild heat were raging to torture the desertl" 
 
 22 
 
338 The Poet's Poet and Other Esays 
 
 He "knelt down to the God of his fathers," 
 and rising, begins to play upon his harp. Life 
 sweeps its vision past the poet's eyes. Brown- 
 ing is right; let the poet alone to see. That 
 is his office. He is God's laureate to celebrate 
 God's triumphs and God's truths. A perverted 
 vision sees part; an unhindered vision sees 
 all. Life is one vast circumference, vaster than 
 any of us have guessed. We must allow it 
 growth-room. David is optimist. The air 
 through which he looks is lately washed by 
 rains, so as to be pure. No smoke nor dust 
 hinders sight. Pessimism sees through an 
 imperfect visual medium. Objects are given 
 wrong colors. Imperfect perspectives are con- 
 ceived. But David looks through serene air. 
 Both near and far are distinct. He gets all 
 objects on the landscape, and gets them in 
 their right relations, a thing so necessary and 
 so difficult. The import of Saul is, Discover, 
 employ, and enjoy life. Let its entirety have a 
 minstry to your spirit. Antagonism of the 
 world, is Shylock; employment of the world, 
 is David. 
 
 This is Browning's superior message to his 
 generation. He is little given to complaining. 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 339 
 
 Complaining is never profitable business. 
 Railing is non-productive. Browning is con- 
 structive. Here discover the secret , of his 
 might. He is not untangling a skein, but 
 weaving at a loom; his end being not threads, 
 but weft. His question is always 
 
 "Why stay we on the earth except to grow?" 
 
 Earth, then, is a garden in which we be 
 planted, a space in which to grow and con- 
 ditions to supply the aliment for growth. 
 Tennyson trusts 
 
 "That somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill;" 
 
 but Browning is definite. He knoi/us. Evil, 
 by antagonisms, does good even here. Neither 
 will he remove its possibility of profit to a re- 
 mote hereafter. Evil is evil still, but over- 
 borne. Hindrances removed or surmounted 
 by our strength give courage, vigor, self-poise, 
 mastery. Here is his teaching Biblical. God 
 did not make evil, but does make "the wrath 
 of man to praise him." Sin is the misuse of 
 free will; and misuse is a prerogative of the 
 
34° The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 free spirit, as is right use. But God is in his 
 world to hinder wrong and help righteousness. 
 The sway of evil is not as appears. Toplady 
 has sung this philosophy thus : 
 
 "But should the surges rise 
 And rest delay to come. 
 Blest be the tempest, kind the storm 
 Which drives us nearer home." 
 
 Evil is potent; God is omni-potent. So 
 Browning conceives life as a whole, whose 
 uses are salutary and uplifting. In many 
 poems he presents faces of this truth; in Saul 
 the entire path is trod. From start to goal, 
 nothing is omitted. David is spokesman for 
 life. He begins well: 
 
 "Then I, as was meet 
 Knelt down to the God of my fathers." 
 
 Prayer is helper to true views. This is a 
 profound fact in the profoundest philosophy. 
 Prayer clarifies air and vision. Then, saith he, 
 
 "I tuned my harp — ^took off the lilies we twine 
 round its chords, 
 Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide— 
 those sunbeams like swords! 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 34 ^ 
 
 And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as 
 
 one after one 
 So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be 
 
 done." 
 
 Then the tunes for the birds and the crickets. 
 Then he played "The help-tune of the reap- 
 ers;" then, "The last song when the dead man 
 is praised on his journey," crooning 
 
 "Bear, bear him along 
 With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets." 
 
 Nature, the open where birds and flowers are, 
 and 
 
 "Where the long grasses stifle the waters in the 
 stream's bed," 
 
 toil, "the glad chant of marriage," and the 
 solemn chant of death; 
 
 "Then the chorus intoned 
 As the Levites go up to the altar in glory en- 
 throned." 
 
 Pray what lacks this of being life's procession? 
 No syllable is wanting from the word. Life's 
 music may be free from care, or burdened with 
 toil, or glad with wedding march, or sad with 
 
342 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 funeral dirge, or solemn with psalm and 
 prayer; for life is all this. But life is a joy, 
 and not a curse to be borne like an o'er-heavy 
 cross. 
 
 "O, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock 
 
 up to rock, 
 The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, 
 
 the cool silver shock 
 Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of 
 
 the bear. 
 And the sultriness showing the lion is crouched 
 
 in his lair. 
 And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with 
 
 gold-dust divine. 
 And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the 
 
 full draught of wine, 
 And the sleep in the dried river-channel where 
 
 bulrushes tell 
 That the water was wont to go warbling so softly 
 
 and well. 
 
 How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit 
 
 to employ 
 All the heart and the soul and the senses forever 
 
 in joy! 
 Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, 
 
 whose sword thou did'st guard 
 When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for 
 
 glorious reward? 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 343 
 
 Did'st thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held 
 
 up as men sung 
 The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her 
 
 faint tongue 
 Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one 
 
 more attest 
 I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, 
 
 and all was for best! ' " 
 
 Who does not recognize this as true? The 
 bounding step, the resiliency of youth, the 
 cloudless hope, the joy in mere physical ex- 
 istence, the delight in simple life, in whose air 
 birds carol and flowers grow beautiful! Ec- 
 stasy is on us. The laughter and singing of 
 little children is native to them as babbling 
 and brightness to the brooks. There is a 
 sheer, unreasoning laughter of spirit, and a 
 muscular delight whose rejoicing is in exist- 
 ence as strong men in triumph of battle. You 
 are eager for life, as a fair woman for her 
 lover's coming. The world is bounteous in 
 beauty. Flowers and clouds and landscapes 
 and fair women are God's visible aesthetics. 
 "Enjoy the day," sang epicurean Horace; and 
 he was right, if we may put an interpretation 
 on his words. Enjoy the world. It is a foun- 
 tain spouting waters in summer from a preci- 
 
344 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 pice of snow, cold, crystal clear, intoxicating 
 to the eye, limpid as a good man's soul, and 
 a sheer delight to parched lips, — drink and 
 be glad! Let your soul laugh, like sunbeams 
 kissing flowers. Recall the beauty of New 
 England hills. The climbing mountain, the 
 blue far vistas, the music-murmur of pines, 
 the drift of slow clouds across your plot 
 of surprising azure, the sagging meadow, 
 tall with grasses, and the brooks, — ^who can 
 tell of them as they are? The noisy stream 
 coming from hidden sources, bustling, busy, 
 intent, going racing toward the sea, — how the 
 waters hurry round the pebbles, how they 
 visit old and gnarly tree-roots, and gather in 
 a pool pellucid as light where the fish lie 
 aslumber at noon; how it laves the mosses 
 and catches reluctant pine-cones and bears 
 them as freight on its rocking tide! Like a 
 cheerful face, the brook's smile is for every- 
 thing. It has no favorites. Little children or 
 solemn kine may stand in its clear waters. It 
 can not wait, but wild with glee dances down 
 the mountain-side. How wild the laughter of 
 it! How its voices tangle with our dreams! 
 How it bids everybody "Be glad, be glad!" 
 How it stands in deep hollows, and rests as 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 345 
 
 if grown weary with its racing, then eddies 
 and spurts, and good-bye — and is gone down 
 and on, and yonder sings its way into a river, 
 and the river babbles over its stones and 
 rushes down rapids in foam and tangle and 
 silver, and leaps in a waterfall; and all the night 
 you sleep with the waters singing like some 
 serenader at your window, and your dreams 
 are helped as by an unseen angel's singing. 
 Or on a sunny day, lie in the meadows, and 
 listen to hidden waters where beneath grasses 
 they find a tortuous channel. But for the 
 voice you would not know a thread of stream 
 passed near you. But push grasses aside, and 
 see how a chalice full of crystal reflects your 
 face, and into it, as some mimic silver chimes 
 soft and sweet as voices of our beloved, a 
 stream is falling. Who can forget these voices 
 of the hidden waters? Or who can deny life 
 has delight, when such memories haunt the 
 mind's daylight and dark? But life is more, 
 always more. God knows where all life is, 
 but we get it by fragments as children get 
 knowledge. 'Tis a long though delightsome 
 voyage to circumnavigate this sea. Life is 
 ample as eternity. Beginnings alone are here. 
 Life is enjoying; but life is also achieving 
 
346 The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 To lie by brooklets, dreaming in the sun, is not 
 life at its best. We are to do. We are parts 
 of history. We come and pass, but leave a 
 shadow and a footprint where we trod. We 
 change the world we came to. And so this 
 poet David must strike harp to sing kingship 
 
 now: 
 
 "Each deed thou hast done 
 Dies, revives, goes to work in the world until e'en 
 
 as the sun 
 Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil 
 
 him, though tempests efface. 
 Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must 
 
 everywhere trace 
 The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each ray 
 
 of thy will. 
 Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, 
 
 shall thrill 
 Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, until 
 
 they, too, bring forth 
 A like cheer to their sons; who in turn fill the South 
 
 and the North 
 With the audience thy deed was the germ of. Ca- 
 rouse in the past!" 
 
 And he thrills the dreaming spirit to the 
 point of march, conquest, enthronement. Our 
 long to-day is arena where power struggles 
 and achieves. Make self a prince, a mighty 
 memory on whose wings the ages shall be 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 34 7 
 
 upborne. Achieve! Life is more than play- 
 ground. It is harvest-field and battle-field. It 
 is a place to suffer and bear silent sorrow, and 
 exert the effort of a Hercules, and know the 
 prose of toil and poetry of battle. All life is, 
 live! Edward Rowland Sill is right: 
 
 "Forenoon and afternoon and night, — Forenoon, 
 And afternoon, and night, — forenoon and — ^what! 
 The empty song repeats itself. No more? 
 
 Yea, that is life: make this forenoon sublime. 
 This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer. 
 And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won." 
 
 Enduring is itself conquest. All that as- 
 serts the mastery of man over environment 
 and his own conscious and necessary regality 
 are to be set down in the column of achieve- 
 ment. To think, to become transcendent, to 
 defy spaces and geographies, to use stars as 
 lamps to light us on our journey, to hold 
 communion with immortals, be they poets, 
 philosophers, generals, discoverers, seers, to 
 feel the vigor of creation on us, and become 
 "makers" as poets are, to feel that all human 
 achievements lie at our feet like waves break- 
 mg on a shore, — to think. And this is a terri- 
 tory of the domain of life. Here men become 
 
348 The Poet's Poet and Other Essays 
 
 equals. Here riches and birth become tawdry. 
 Here centuries meet as brothers. This is the 
 democracy of thought, and thought is achieve- 
 ment splendid and immortal. 
 
 But living, enjoying, achieving, is that life's 
 circumference? By man's philosophy it may 
 be, but by a Divine philosophy it is not. Love 
 is left yet, and God and these make life com- 
 plete. A poet says: 
 
 "Love maketh life and life's great work complete. 
 Some day will come the setting of the sun. 
 And this brief day of the long work be done. 
 There will be folded hands, lips without breath; 
 But we shall have passed on — love knows no 
 death." 
 
 Love is greater than achieving. Conquest 
 may be for self, and often is ; but love is always 
 for others. Let Saul rise to love. Let his 
 conquests become subsidiary. 
 But — God! He is life's goal. 
 
 "Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — 
 No song more! outbroke" — 
 
 And God burst on the soul! I climbed a 
 mountain of the Sierras. The way was steep; 
 the boulders were huge, the pines stood mar- 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreteis oi JLife 349 
 
 shaled like troops of soldiers, when, on a 
 sudden, I found me on a height; and a lake 
 bluer than skies of Italy filled all my field of 
 view. The background was snowy peaks, and 
 the hollow filled to the brim with a wonder of 
 blue waters. I saw nothing else. This seized 
 my senses. Thus David caught sight of God. 
 Moral truth made his landscape. God swal- 
 lowed up all besides. He was blinded by it, 
 and broke off his music. When God is seen, 
 who shall attempt song or harp? 
 
 "I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw 
 
 and I spoke; 
 I a work of God's hand for that purpose, received 
 
 in my brain, 
 And pronounced on the rest of his handiwork — 
 
 returned him again 
 His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I 
 
 saw. 
 I report as a man may of God's work — all 's love, 
 
 yet all 's law. 
 Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Every 
 
 faculty tasked 
 To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a 
 
 dew-drop was asked. 
 Have I knowledge? Confounded it shrivels at 
 
 Wisdom laid bare. 
 Have I forethought? How purblind, how blank 
 
 to the Infinite Care 1 
 
35° The Poefs Poet and Other Essays 
 
 Do I task any faculty highest'to image success? 
 I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and 
 
 no less. 
 In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is 
 
 seen God 
 In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul 
 
 and the clod. 
 And thus looking within and around me, I ever 
 
 renew 
 (With that stoop of the soul which in bending 
 
 upraises it too) 
 The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's 
 
 all-complete, 
 As by each new obeisance of spirit I climb to his 
 
 feet." 
 
 "I seek and find it. O Saul, it shall be 
 A face like my face that receives thee; a man like 
 
 to me. 
 Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand 
 
 like this hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! 
 
 See the Christ stand!" 
 
 So "Saul" sets, a blaze of glory. 
 
 And who is right, Shylock or David? Life 
 is antagonism, Shylock said. Life is being, 
 enjoying, enduring, suflfering, thinking, achiev- 
 ing, believing, loving, seeing God and getting 
 Christ, said David. David is right. Life is 
 not so much exclusion as inclusion. And as 
 
Shylock and David as Interpreters of Life 35 1 
 
 the horizon holds hill, valley, hamlet, solitude, 
 woodland, sunrise, and sunset, home with little 
 children and God's quiet acre, — so life con- 
 tains ourselves, from the mere joy of living, 
 through loving, up to mighty joy of holding 
 God by the right hand so we shall not be 
 moved. This is David's amazing estimate; and 
 it assures the spirit, answers our deepest need, 
 gives wings and might, courage and conquest; 
 and calms our unrest, 
 
 "Like the benediction 
 That follows after prayer." 
 
An Ai^el Came 
 
 One noon I met an angel by the way. 
 And giving hand of welcome, bade him stay 
 
 Beneath my roof and rest. 
 He looked aweary, having traveled far; 
 From heaven he came, in that remoter star 
 Than men have mapped on the celestial sphere. 
 With grave, sweet face, he stood. His voice was 
 clear 
 
 As silver bells. He dressed 
 In mystic, seamless garment, dyed with blood; 
 And round him, glory whitened like a flood 
 Of morning light. My home with many a guest. 
 Brave men and pure, had oftentime been blessed; 
 
 But now, — an angel stood 
 Tall and compassionate, beneath my roof! 
 At heart, I thought, "How shall I give him proof 
 That he is welcome?" "This home," I said, 
 "Is thine. Wait thou until the heat be fled, 
 
 And by the stream and wood 
 Cool shadows gather. Angel, be my guest, 
 Sit thou in quietude and take thy rest." 
 
 "My name is — " "Nay," the gracious angel said, 
 "Thy name is known in heaven;" and then he fled 
 Swift like the light across the ample sea, 
 But left an angel at my heart with me. 
 352 
 
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