NORTHWESTERN
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
The Gift of
FREDERIC H. PATTEE
Copyright. 1898, by
Doubleday & McClure Co.
Contents
PACB
ditor's Introduction ix
ssays :
Biography 3
Boswell's Life of Johnson 32
ife of Sterling:
Coleridge 79
he French Revolution :
Mirabeau 95
The Flight to Varennes 103
Charlotte Corday 127
romwell's Letters and Speeches:
Battle of Dunbar 142
\rtor Resartus:
The Watch-Tower 160
The Everlasting No 165
Ghosts 17S
ast and Present:
I Labor 182
Reward 190
IntroductioQ
Editor's Introduction
The volume of selections from Macaulay in
this series of Little Masterpieces begins with
a passage from his essay on History, and in<
eludes a portion of the essay on Boswell's
" Life of Johnson." Within a few months after
the publication of the latter essay, Thomas
Carlyle, like Macaulay, wrote a brilliant review
of Croker's edition of Boswell. It appeared in
"Frazer's," and was prefaced, in the previous
number of the magazine (April, 1832), by an
essay on Biography, in which Carlyle tells us
not only how History gets made but how it
ought to be written. He holds that History
is the essence of innumerable Biographies,
that the record of the world is the record of
the men—particularly the great men—who
have lived here. If you write the lives of these
men, you have written History.
This essay on Biography, followed by Car-
lyle's estimate of great-souled •• old Samuel,"
is doubly interesting when read in connection
with Macaulay's view of the function of the
ix
Introduction
modern historian, and his picturesque but
infinitely more superficial delineation of Dr.
Johnson. But it furnishes, quite aside from
the interest involved in such a comparison, an
appropriate introduction to the writings of
Carlyle.
The chapter from " The Life of Sterling," ,
describing Coleridge's sojourn at Highgate,
shows consummate skill in portraiture, a type
of literary art in which Carlyle's mastery was
and is indisputable. Indeed " The Life of
Sterling " throughout is a book often used to
point the argument that Carlyle's real strength
was as an artist rather than a prophet.
I have made three selections from •• The
French Revolution": the portraits of Mira-
beau and of Charlotte Corday, and the nar¬
ration of the King's flight to Varennes—a
marvelous piece of workmanship that com¬
bines the rapidity and confusion of reality with
the dramatic tension which only the pure
imagination can produce. There is a similar
art in the description of the Battle of Dunbar,
from "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches";
the same swift, graphic touches, the effective
marshaling of a chaos of petty details ; and
there is here besides what there was not in the
King's flight to Varennes, namely, a Hero
after Carlyle's own heart, trumpets •• shatter-
X
Introduction
transforming the modern world, leavening
little by little the crude democracy which
Carlyle himself was foolish enough to scorn,
and making the earth more heavenly.
Bliss Perry.
xiii
Selected Essays
Essay on Biography*
Man's sociality of nature evinces itself,
in spite of all that can be said, with abundant
evidence by this one fact, were there no other ;
the unspeakable delight he takes in Biography.
It is written, " The proper study of mankind
is man ;" to which study, let us candidly
admit, he, by true or by false methods, applies
himself, nothing loath. •• Man is perennially
interesting to man ; nay, if we look strictly to
it, there is nothing else interesting." How
inexpressibly comfortable to know our fellow-
creature ; to see into him, understand his
goings forth, decipher the whole heart of his
mystery; nay, not only to see into him, but
even to see out of him, to view the world al¬
together as he views it; so that we can
theoretically construe him, and could almost
practically personate him; and do now
thoroughly discern both what manner of
man he is, and what manner of thing he has
got to work on and live on !
A scientific interest and a poetic one alike
inspire us in this matter. A scientific: be-
* FraserU Magazine, 1832.
3
Essay on Biography
cause every mortal has a Problem of Exist¬
ence set before him, which were it only, what
for the most it is, the Problem of keeping soul
and body together, must be to a certain extent
original, unlike every other ; and yet, at the
same time, so like every other; like our own,
therefore; instructive, moreover, since we
also are indentured to live. A poetic interest
still more: for precisely this same struggle
of human Free-will against material Neces¬
sity, which every man's Life, by the mere
circumstance that the man continues alive,
will more or less victoriously exhibit,—is that
which above all else, or rather inclusive of all
else, calls the Sympathy of mortal hearts into
action; and whether as acted, or as repre¬
sented and written of not only is Poetry, but
is the sole Poetry possible. Borne onwards
by which two all-embracing interests, may
the earnest Lover of Biography expand him¬
self on all sides, and indefinitely enrich him¬
self. Looking with the eyes of every new
neighbor, he can discern a new world differ¬
ent for each : feeling with the heart of every
neighbor, he lives with every neighbor's life,
even as with his own. Of these millions of
living men, each individual is a mirror to us;
a mirror both scientific and poetic ; or, if you
will, both natural and magical;—from which
4
Essay on Biography
one would so gladly draw aside the gauze
veil; and, peering therein, discern the image
of his own natural face, and the supernatural
secrets that prophetically lie under the same !
Observe, accordingly, to what extent, in
the actual course of things, this business ot
Biography is practised and relished. Define
to thyself, judicious Reader, the real signi¬
ficance of these phenomena, named Gossip,
Egoism, Personal Narrative (miraculous or
not). Scandal, Railery, Slander, and such like ;
the sum-total of which (with some fractional
addition of a better ingredient, generally too
small to be noticeable) constitutes that other
grand phenomenon still called "Conversa¬
tion." Do they not mean wholly: Biography
Autobiography ? Not only in the com¬
mon Speech of men ; but in all Art too, which
is or should be the concentrated and conserved
essence of what men can speak and show.
Biography is almost the one thing needful.
Even in the highest works of Art, our
interest, as the critics complain, is too apt
to be strongly or even mainly of a Biographic
sort. In the Art we can nowise forget the
Artist: while looking on the Transfiguration,
while studying the Iliad, we ever strive to
figure to ourselves what spirit dwelt in
Raphael; what a head was that of Homer,
5
Essay on Biography
wherein, woven of Elysian light and Tartarean
gloom, that old world fashioned itself together,
of which these written Greek characters are
but a feeble though perennial copy. The
Painter and the Singer are present to us ; we
partially and for the time become the very
Painter and the very Singer, while we enjoy
the Picture and the Song. Perhaps, too, let
the critic say what he will, this is the highest
enjoyment, the clearest recognition, we can
have of these. Art indeed is Art; yet Man also
is Man. Had the Transfiguration been
painted without human hand ; had it grown
merely on the canvas, say by atmospheric
influences, as lichen-pictures do on rocks,—it
were a grand Picture doubtless ; yet nothing
like so grand as the Picture, which, on open¬
ing our eyes, we everywhere in Heaven and in
Earth see painted ; and everywhere pass over
with indifference,—because the Painter was
not a Man. Think of this ; much lies in it.
The Vatican is great; yet poor to Chimbo-
razo or the Peakof Teneriffe ; its dome is but
a foolish Big-endian or Little-endian chip of
an egg-shell, compared with that star-fretted
Dome where Arcturus and Orion glance for¬
ever ; which latter, notwithstanding, who
looks at, save perhaps some necessitous star-
gazer bent to make Almanacs ; some thick-
6
Essay on Biography
quilted watchman, to see what weather it will
prove ? The Biographic interest is wanting;
no Michael Angelo was He who built that
" Temple of Immensity ;" therefore do we,
pitiful Littlenesses as we are, turn rather to
wonder and to worship in the little toy-box of
a Temple built by our like.
Still more decisively, still more exclusively
does the Biographic interest manifest itself,
as we descend into lower regions of spiritual
communication ; through the whole range ot
what is called Literature. Of History, for
example, the most honored, if not honorable
species of composition, is not the whole pur¬
port Biographic ? " History," it has been
said, " is the essence of innumerable Biogra¬
phies." Such, at least, it should be : whether
it is, might admit of question. But, in any
case, what hope have we in turning over those
old interminable Chronicles, with their gar¬
rulities and insipidities; or still worse, in
patiently examining those modern Narra¬
tions, of the Philosophic kind, where '• Phil¬
osophy, teaching by Experience," has to sit
like owl on house-top, seeing nothing, under¬
standing nothing, uttering only, with such
solemnity, her perpetual, most wearisome hoo-
Jioo:—what hope have we, except the for
most part fallacious one of gaining some ac"
7
Essay on Biography
quaintance with our fellow-creatures, though
dead and vanished, yet dear to us: how they
got along in those old days, suffering and
doing; to what extent, and under what cir¬
cumstances, they resisted the Devil and
triumphed over him, or struck their colors to
him, and were trodden under foot by him;
how, in short, the perennial Battle went, which
men name Life, which we also in these new
days, with indifferent fortune, have to fight,
and must bequeath to our sons and grand¬
sons to go on fighting—till the Enemy one
day be quite vanquished and abolished, or else
the great Night sink and part the combatants;
and thus, either by some Millennium or some
new Noah's Deluge, the Volume of Universal
History wind itself up ! Other hope, in study¬
ing such Books, we have none : and that it is
a deceitful hope, who that has tried knows
not ? A feast of widest Biographic insight is
spread for us ; we enter full of hungry antici¬
pations ; alas, like so many other feasts which
Life invites us to, a mere Ossian's " feast of
shells,"—the food and liquor being all emptied
out and clean gone, and only the vacant dishes
and deceitful emblems thereof left! Your
modern Historical Restaurateurs are indeed
little better than high-priests of Famine, that
keep choicest china dinner-sets, only no din-
8
Essay on Biography
ner to serve therein. Yet such is our Biogra¬
phic appetite, we run trying from shop to shop,
with ever new hope; and, unless we couid eat
the wind, with ever new disappointment.
Again, consider the whole class of Fictitious
Narratives ; from the highest category of epic
or dramatic Poetry, in Shakspeare and Homer,
down to the lowest of froth Prose in the
Fashionable Novel. What are all these but
so many mimic Biographies ? Attempts, here
by an inspired Speaker, there by an uninspired
Babbler, to deliver himsdf, more or less inef¬
fectually, of the grand secret wherewith all
hearts labor oppressed: The significance of
Man's Life ; which deliverance, even as traced
in the unfurnished head, and printed at the
Minerva Press, finds readers. For, observe,
though there is a greatest Fool, as a superla¬
tive in every kind ; and the most Foolish man
in the Earth is now indubitably living and
breathing, and did this morning or lately eat
breakfast, and is even now digesting the same;
and looks out on the world with his dim horn-
eyes, and inwardly forms some unspeak¬
able theory thereof: yet where shall the au¬
thentically Existing be personally met with!
Can one of us, otherwise than by guess,
know that we have got sight of him, have
orally communed with him ? To take even
9
Essay on Biography
the narrower sphere of this our English Me«
tropolis, can any one confidently say to him¬
self that he has conversed with the identical,
individual Stupidest man now extant in Lon¬
don ? No one. Deep as we dive in the Pro¬
found, there is ever a new depth opens : where
the ultimate bottom may lie, through what
new scenes of being we must pass before
reaching it (except that we know it does lie
somewhere, and might by human faculty and
opportunity be reached), is altogether a mys¬
tery to us. Strange, tantalizing pursuit!
We have the fullest assurance, not only that
there is a Stupidest of London men actually
resident, with bed and board of some kind, in
London ; but that several persons have been
or perhaps are now speaking face to face with
him; while for us, chase it as we may, such
scientific blessedness will too probably be for¬
ever denied !—But the thing we meant to en¬
force was this comfortable fact that no known
Head was so wooden, but there might be
other heads to which it were a genius and
Friar Bacon's Oracle. Of no given Book,
not even of a Fashionable Novel, can you
predicate with certainty that its vacuity is ab¬
solute ; that there are not other vacuities
which shall partially replenish themselves
therefrom, and esteem it a plenum. How
lO
Essay on Biography
knowest thou, may the distressed Novel«
Wright exclaim, that I, here where I sit, am
the Foolishest of existing mortals ; that this
my Long-ear ol a Fictitious Biography shall
not find one and the other, into whose still
longer ears it may be the means, under Provi¬
dence, of instilling somewhat ! We answer,
None knows, none can certainly know; there¬
fore, write on, worthy Brother, even as thou
canst, even as it has been given thee.
Here, however, in regard to "Fictitious
Biographies," and much other matter of like
sort, which the greener mind in these days in-
diteth, we may as well insert some singular
sentences on the importance and significance
of Reality, as they stand written for us in
Professor Gottfried Sauerteig's Msthetische
Springwurzeln, a work, perhaps, as yet new
to most English readers. .The Professor and
Doctor is not a man whom we can praise
without reservation ; neither shall we say that
his Springwurzeln (a sort of magical pick¬
locks, as he affectedly names them), are ade¬
quate to " start" every bolt that locks up an
esthetic mystery; nevertheless, in his crabbed,
one-sided way, he sometimes hits masses of the
truth. We endeavor to translate faithfully, and
trust the reader will find it worth serious
perusal:—
II
Essay on Biography
"The significance, even for poetic pur¬
poses," says Sauerteig, " that lies in Reality
is too apt to escape us ; is perhaps only now
beginning to be discerned. When we named
Rousseau's Confessions an elegiaco-didactic
Poem, we meant more than an empty figure
of speech; we meant a historical scientific
fact.
" Fiction, while the feigner of it knows that
he is feigning, partakes, more than we sus¬
pect, of the nature of lying; and has ever an,
in some degree, unsatisfactory character. All
Mythologies were once Philosophies ; were be-
lieved. The epic poems of old time, so long as
they continued epic, and had any complete im-
pressiveness, were Histories, and understood
to be narratives of facts. In so far as Homer
employed his gods as mere ornamental fringes
and had not himself, or at least did not ex¬
pect his hearers to have, a belief that they
were real agents in those antique doings ; so
far did he fail to be genuine; so far was he a
partially hollow and false singer ; and sang to
please only a portion of man's mind, not the
whole thereof.
" Imagination is, after all, but a poor mat¬
ter when it has to part company with Under¬
standing, and even front it hostilely in flat
contradiction. Our mind is divided in twain;
12
Essay on Biography
there is contest; wherein that which is weaker
must needs come to the worse. Now of all
feelings, states, principles, call it what you
will, in man's mind, is not Belief the clearest,
strongest; against which all others contend in
vain ? Belief is, indeed, the beginning and
first condition of all spiritual force whatso¬
ever : Only in so far as imagination, were it
but momentarily, is believed, can there be any
use or meaning in it, any enjoyment of it.
And what is momentary Belief? The enjoy¬
ment of a moment. Whereas a perennial be¬
lief were enjoyment perennially, and with the
whole united soul.
" It is thus that I judge of the supernatural
in an Epic Poem, and would say the instant it
has ceased to be authentically supernatural,
and become what you call • Machinery :' sweep
it out of sight {schaff es tnir vont Halse)!
Of a truth, that same • Machinery,' about
which the critics make such hubbub was well
named Machinery, for it is in very deed me¬
chanical, nowise inspired or poetical. Neither
for us is there the smallest esthetic enjoyment
in it, save only in this way, that we believe it
to have been believed—by the Singer or his
Hearers, into whose case we now laboriously
struggle to transport ourselves ; and so, with
stinted enough result, catch some reflex of the
13
Essay on Biography
Reality, which for them was wholly real, anc
visible face to face. Whenever it has come so
far that your • Machinery' is avowedly mechan¬
ical and unbelieved—what is it else, if we dare
tell ourselves the truth, but a miserable,
meaningless Deception, kept up by old use
and wont alone ? If the gods of an Iliad are
to us no longer authentic Shapes of Terror,
heart-stirring, heart-appalling, but only vague-
glittering Shadows—what must the dead
Pagan gods of an Epigoniad be, the dead-
living Pagan-Christian gods of a Lusiad, the
concrete-abstract, evangelical-metaphysical
gods of a Paradise Lost. Superannuated
lumber! Cast raiment at best, in which some
poor mime, strutting and swaggering, may or
may not set forth new noble Human Feelings
(again a Reality), and so secure, or not secure,
our pardon of such hoydenish masking ; for
which, in any case, he has a pardon to ask.
" True enough, none but the earliest Epic
Poems can claim this distinction of entire
credibility, of Reality: after an Eiad, a Skas-
ter, a Koran, and other the like primitive per¬
formances, the rest seem, by this rule of mine,
to be altogether excluded from the list. Ac¬
cordingly, what are all the rest, from Virgil's
jEneid downwards, in comparison ? Frosty,
artificial, heterogeneous things; more of gum-
14
Essay on Biography
flowers than of roses ; at the best, of the two
mixed incoherently together; to some of
which, indeed, it were hard to deny the title
of poems ; yet to no one of which can that title
belong in any sense even resembling the old
high one it in those old days conveyed,—^when
the epithet' divine' or «sacred' as applied to
the uttered word of man was not a vain meta¬
phor, a vain sound, but a real name with
meaning. Thus, too, the farther we recede
from those early days, when Poetry, as true
Poetry is always, was still sacred or divine,
and inspired (what ours, in great part, only
pretends to be), the more impossible becomes
it to produce any, we say not true Poetry, but
tolerable semblance of such ; the hollower, in
particular, grow all manner of Epics, till at
length, as in this generation, the very name of
Epic sets men a-yawning, the announcement
of a new Epic is received as a public calamity.
"But what if the impossible being once
for all quite discarded, the probable be well
adhered to : how stands it with fiction then ?
Why, then, I would say, the evil is much
mended, but nowise completely cured. We
have then, in place of the wholly dead modem
Epic, the partially living modern Novel; to
which latter it is much easier to lend that
above mentioned, so essential 'momentary
IS
Essay on Biography
credence' than to the former; indeed, in.
finitely easier ; for the former being flatly
incredible, no mortal can for a moment credit
it, for a momont enjoy it. Thus, here and
there, a Tom Jones, a Meister, a Crusoe, will
yield no little solacement to the minds of men;
though still immeasurably less than a Reality
would, were the significance thereof as impres¬
sively unfolded, were the genius that could so
unfold it once given us by the kind Heavens.
Neither say thou that proper Realities are
wanting: for Man's Life, now, as of old, is the
genuine work of God ; wherever there is a
Man, a God also is revealed, and all that is
Godlike: a whole epitome of the Infinite, with
its meanings, lies enfolded in the Life of every
Man. Only, alas, that the Seer to discern this
same Godlike, and with fit utterance ««fold
it for us, is wanting, and may long be wanting!
"Nay, a question arises on us here, where¬
in the whole German reading-world will
eagerly join : Whether man can any longer
be so interested by the spoken Word, as he
often was in those primeval days, when rapt
away by its inscrutable power, he pronounced
it, in such dialect as he had, to be transcen'
dental (to transcend all measure), to be
sacred, prophetic and the inspiration of a
god ? For myself, I tick meines Ortes), by
Essay on Biography
faith or by insight, do heartily understand
that the answer to such question will be.
Yea! For never that I could in searching
find out, has Man been, by Time which
devours so much, deprivated of any faculty
whatsoever that he in any era was possessed
of. To my seeming, the babe born yesterday
has all the organs of Body, Soul and Spirit,
and in exactly the same combination and
entireness, that the oldest Pelasgic Greek, or
Mesopotamian Patriarch, or Father Adam
himself could boast of. Ten fingers, one
heart with venous and arterial blood therein,
still belong to man that is born of woman :
when did he lose any of his spiritual Endow¬
ments either ; above all, his highest spiritual
Endowment, that of revealing Poetic Beauty,
and of adequately receiving the same ? Not
the material, not the susceptibility is want¬
ing ; only the Poet, or long series of Poets, to
work on these. True, alas too true, the Poet
is still utterly wanting, or all but utterly :
nevertheless have we not centuries enough
before us to produce him in ? Him and much
' else!—I, for the present, will but predict that
chiefly by working more and more on REAL¬
ITY, and evolving more and more wisely iis
inexhauistible meanings ; and, in brief, speak¬
ing forth in fit utterance whatsoever oui
2 17
Essay on Biography
whole soul believes, and ceasing to speak
forth what thing soever our whole soul does
not believe,—will this high emprise be ac¬
complished, or approximated to."
These notable, and not unfounded, though
partial and deep-%t€va.^ rather than wide-
seeing observations on the great import
of Reality, considered even as a poetic
material, we have inserted the more wil¬
lingly, because a transient feeling to the
same purpose may often have suggested itself
to many readers ; and, on the whole, it is
good that every reader and every writer
understand, with all intensity of conviction,
what quite infinite worth lies in Truth y how
all-pervading, omnipotent, in man's mind, is
the thing we name Belief. For the rest,
Herr Sauerteig, though one-sided, on this
matter of Reality, seems heartily persuaded,
and is not perhaps so ignorant as he looks.
It cannot be unknown to him, for example,
what noise is made about •• Invention ;" what
a supreme rank this faculty is reckoned to
hold in the poetic endowment. Great truly
is Invention ; nevertheless, that is but a poor
exercise of it with which Belief is not con¬
cerned. " An Irishman with whisky in his
head," as poor Byron said, will invent you, in
this kind, till there is enough and to spare.
i8
Essay on Biography
Nay, perhaps, if we consider well, the highest
exercise ot Invention has, in very deed, noth¬
ing to do with Fiction ; but is an invention of
new Truth, what we can call a Revelation ;
which last does undoubtedly transcend all
other poetic efforts, nor can Herr Sauerteig
be too loud in its praises. But, on the other
hand, whether such effort is still possible for
man, Herr Sauerteig and the bulk of the world
are probably at issue ;—and will probably
continue so till that same " Revelation," or
new " Invention of Reality," of the sort he
desiderates, shall itself make its appearance.
Meanwhile, quitting these airy regions, let
any one bethink him how impressive the
smallest historical fact may become, as con¬
trasted with the grandest fictitious event;
what an incalculable force-lies for us in this
consideration : The Thing which I here hold
imaged in my mind did actually occur ; was,
in very truth, an element in the system of the
All, whereof I too form part; had therefore,
and has, through all time, an authentic being ;
is not a dream, but a reality 1 We ourselves
can remember reading, in Lord Clarendon *
with feelings perhaps somehow accidentally
opened to it,—certainly with a depth of im¬
pression strange to us then and now,—that
* History of the Rebellion, ill. 625
19
Essay on Biography
insignificant-looking passage, where Charles,
after the battle of Worcester, glides down,
with Squire Careless, from the Royal Oak,
at nightfall, being hungry : how, " making a
shift to get over hedges and ditches, after
walking at least eight or nine miles, which
were the more grievous to the King by the
weight of his boots (for he could not put them
off when he cut off his hair, for want of shoes),
before morning they came to a poor cottage,
the owner whereof, being a Roman Catholic,
was known to Careless." How this poor
drudge, being knocked up from his snoring,
"carried them into a little barn full of hay,
which was a better lodging than he had for
himself; " and by and by, not without diffi¬
culty, brought his Majesty "a piece of bread
and a great pot of buttermilk," saying can¬
didly that " he himself lived by his daily labor,
and that what he had brought him was the
fare he and his wife had : " on which nourish¬
ing diet his Majesty, "Staying upon the hay¬
mow," feeds thankfully for two days ; and
then departs, under new guidance, having
first changed clothes, down to the very shirt
and " old pair of shoes," with his landlord ;
and so, as worthy Bunyan has it, •• goes on
his way, and sees him no more." Singular
enough, if we will think of it I This, then, was
20
Essay on Biography
a genuine flesh-and-blood Rustic of the year
1651 : he did actually swallow bread and
buttermilk (not having ale and bacon), and
do field-labor : with these hobnailed •• shoes "
has sprawled through mud-roads in winter,
and, jocund or not, driven his team a-field
in summer : he made bargains ; had chaffer¬
ing and higglings, now a sore heart, now a
glad one ; was born; was a son, was a
father; toiled in many ways, being forced to it,
till the strength was all worn out of him ; and
then—lay down " to rest his galled back,"
and sleep there till the long-distant morning !
—How comes it, that he alone of all the
British rustics who tilled and lived along with
him, on whom the blessed sun on that same
" fifth day of September " was shining, should
have chanced to rise on us ; that this poor
pair of clouted Shoes, out of the million mil¬
lion hides that have been tanned, and cut,
and worn, should still subsist, and hang
visibly together ? We see him but for a mo¬
ment ; for one moment, the blanket of the
Night is rent asunder, so that we behold and
see, and then closes over him—forever.
So too, in some BosweU's Life of yohnson,
how indelible and magically bright does many
a little Reality dwell in our remembrance 1
There is no need that the personages on the
2:
Essay on Biography
scene be a King and Clown ; that the scene
be the Forest of the Royal Oak, "on the
borders of Staffordshire ; " need only that the
scene lie on this old firm Earth of ours,
where we also have so surprisingly arrived ;
that the personages be men, and seen with
the eyes of a man. Foolish enough, how
some slight, perhaps mean and even ugly
incident, if real and well presented, will fix
itself in a susceptive memory, and lie ennobled
there ; silvered over with the pale cast of
thought, with the pathos which belongs only
to the Dead. For the Past is all holy to us;
the Dead are all holy, even they that were
base and wicked while alive. Their baseness
and wickedness was not They, was but the
heavy and unmanageable Environment that lay
round them, with which they fought unpre-
vailing: they (the ethereal god-given Force
that dwelt in them, and was their Self) have
now shuffled off that heavy Environment, and
are free and pure: their life-long Battle, go
how it might, is all ended, with many wounds
or with fewer ; they have been recalled from
it, and the once harsh-jarring battlefield has
become a silent awe-inspiring Golgotha, and
Gottesacker (Field of God) !—Boswell relates
this in itself smallest and poorest of occur¬
rences : " As we walked along the Strand to-
Essay on Biography
night, arm in arm, a woman of the town
accosted us in the usual enticing manner.
' No, no, my girl,' said Johnson ; ' it won't
do.' He, however, did not treat her with
harshness; and we talked of the wretched
life of such women." Strange power of
Reality! Not even this poorest of occur¬
rences, but now, after seventy years are come
and gone, has a meaning for us. Do but
consider that it is true; that it did in very
deed occur ! That unhappy Outcast, with all
her sins and woes, her lawless desires, too
complex mischances, her wailings and her
riotings, has departed utterly ; alas ! her
siren finery has got all besmutched, ground,
generations since, into dust and smoke ; of
her degraded body, and whole miserable
earthly existence, all is.away : she is no longer
here, but far from us, in the bosom of Eter¬
nity,—whence we too came, whither we too
are bound ! Johnson said, " No, no, my girl;
it won't do ; " and then " we talked ; "—and
herewith the wretched one, seen but for the
twinkling of an eye, passes on into the utter
Darkness. No high Calista, that ever issued
from Story-teller's brain, will impress us more
deeply than this meanest of the mean ; and
for a good reason : That she issued from the
Maker of Men.
23
Essay on Biography
It is well worth the Artist's while to examine
for himself what it is that gives such pitiful
incidents their memorableness ; his aim like¬
wise is, above all things, to be memorable.
Half the effect, we already perceive, depends
on the object; on its being real, on its being
really seen. The other half will depend on
the observer, and the question now is: How
are real objects to be so seen, on what quality
of observing, or of style in describing, does
this so intense pictorial power depend ? Often
a slight circumstance contributes curiously to
the result—some little, and perhaps to appear¬
ance accidental, feature is presented ; a light-
gleam, which instantaneously excites the
mind, and urges it to complete the picture
and evolve the meaning thereof for itself. By
critics, such light-gleams and their almost
magical influence have frequently been noted :
but the power to produce such, to select such
features as will produce them, is generally
treated as a knack, or trick of the trade, a
secret for being " graphic ;" whereas these
magical feats are, in truth, rather inspirations;
and the gift of performing them, which acts
unconsciously, without forethought, and as if
by nature alone, is properly a genius for de¬
scription.
One grand, invaluable secret there is, how-
34
Essay on Biography
ever, which includes all the rest, and, what is
comfortable, lies clearly in every man's power:
To have an open, loving heart, and what
follows from the possession of such. Truly
it has been said, emphatically in these days
ought it to be repeated : A loving Heart is the
beginning of all Knowledge. This it is that
opens the whole mind, quickens e^ery faculty
of the intellect to do its fit work, that of know¬
ing; and therefrom, by sure consequence, of
vividly uttering-forth. Other secret for
being " graphic " is there none, worth having:
but this is an all-sufficient one. See, for ex¬
ample, what a small Boswell can do ! Hereby,
indeed, is the whole man made a living mir¬
ror, wherein the wonders of this ever-wonder¬
ful Universe are, in their true light (which is
ever a magical, miraculous one) represented,
and reflected back on us. It has been said,
" the heart sees farther than the head : " but,
indeed, without the seeing heart, there is no
true seeing for the head so much as possible ;
all is mere oversight, hallucination and vain
superficial phantasmagoria, which can per¬
manently profit no one.
Here, too, may we not pause for an instant
and make a practical reflection ? Consider¬
ing the multitude of mortals that handle the
Pen in these days, and can mostly spell and
25
Essay on Biography
write without glaring violations of grammar,
the question naturally arises : How is it, then,
that no Work proceeds from them, bearing any
stamp of authenticity and permanence ; of
worth for more than one day ? Shiploads of
Fashionable Novels, Sentimental Rhymes,Tra-
gedies, F arces. Diaries of Travel,Tales by flood
and field, are swallowed monthly into the bot¬
tomless Pool. Still does the Press toil: in¬
numerable Paper-makers, Compositors, Print¬
ers' Devils, Bookbinders and Hawkers grown
hoarse with loud proclaiming, rest not from
their labor: and still, in torrents, rushes on
the great array of Publications, unpausing, to
their final home ; and still Oblivion, like the
Grave, cries. Give ! give ! How is it that of
all these countless multitudes, no one can at¬
tain to the smallest mark of excellence, or
produce aught that shall endure longer than
" snow-flake on the river" or the foam of
penny beer ? We answer : Because they are
foam : because there is no Reality in them.
These Three Thousand men, women and chil¬
dren that make up the army of British Authors
do not, if we will well consider it, anything
whatever, consequently have nothing that
they can record and utter, only more or fewer
things that they can plausibly pretend to re¬
cord. The Universe, of Man and Nature, is
26
Essay on Biography
still quite shut up from them, the " open se¬
cret " still utterly a secret ; because no sym¬
pathy with Man or Nature, no love and free
simplicity of heart has yet unfolded the same.
Nothing but a pitiful Image of their own piti¬
ful Self, with its vanities, and grudgings, and
ravenous hunger of all kinds, hangs forever
painted in the retina of these unfortunate per¬
sons; so that the starry All, with whatsoever
it embraces, does but appear as some ex¬
panded magic-lantern shadow of that same
Image,—and naturally looks pitiful enough.
It is vain for these persons to allege that
they are naturally without gift, naturally
stupid and sightless, and so can attain to no
knowledge of anything ; therefore, in writing
of anything, must needs write falsehoods of
it, there being in it no truth for them. Not
so, good Friends. The stupidest of you has a
certain faculty ; were it but that of articulate
speech (say, in the Scottish, the Irish, the
Cockney dialect, or even in " Governess-Eng¬
lish "), and of physically discerning what lies
under your nose. The stupidest of you would
perhaps grudge to be compared in faculty
with James Boswell; yet see what he has pro¬
duced ! You do not use your faculty honestly;
your heart is shut up ; full of greediness,
malice, discontent; so your intellectual sense
27
Essay on Biography
cannot be open. It is vain also to urge that
James ptoswell had opportunities ; saw great
men and great things, such as you can never
hope to look on. What make ye of Parson
White in Selborne ? He had not only no
great men to look on, but not even men;
merely sparrows and cock-chafers : yet has
he left us a Biography of these ; which, under
its title Natural History of Selborne, still re¬
mains valuable to us, which has copied a lit-,
tie sentence or two faithfully from the In¬
spired Volume of Nature, and so is itself not
without inspiration. Go ye and do likewise.
Sweep away utterly all frothiness and false¬
hood from your heart; struggle unweariedly
to acquire, what is possible for every God-
created man, a free, open, humble soul ; sfeak
not at all, in any wise, till you have some¬
what to speak; care not for the reward of
your speaking, but simply and with undivided
mind for the truth of your speaking : then be
placed in what section of Space and of Time
soever, do but open your eyes, and they shall
actually see, and bring you real knowledge,
wondrous, worthy of belief; and instead of
one Boswell and one White, the world will
rejoice in a thousand,—stationed on their thou¬
sand several watch-towers, to instruct us by
indubitable documents, of whatsoever in our
28
Essay on Biography
so stupendous World comes to light and is/
Oh, had the Editor of this Magazine but a
magic rod to turn all that not inconsiderable
Intellect, which now deluges us with artificial
fictitious soap-lather and mere Lying, into the
faithful study of Reality,—what knowledge of
great, everlasting Nature, and of Man's ways
and doings therein, would not every year bring
us in ! Can we but change one single soap-
latherer and mountebank Juggler, into a true
Thinker and Doer, who even tries honestly
to think and do,—great will be our re¬
ward.
But to return ; or rather from this point to
begin our journey. If now, what with Herr
Sauerteig's Springwurzeln, what with so
much lucubration of our own, it have become
apparent how deep, immeasurable is the
" worth that lies in Reality," and farther, how
exclusive the interest which man takes in His¬
tories of Man,—may it not seem lamentable,
that so few genuinely good Biographies have
yet been accumulated in Literature ; that in
the whole world,one cannot find,going strictly
to work, above some dozen, or baker's dozen,
and those chiefly of very ancient date ? La¬
mentable, yet, after what we have just seen,
accountable. Another question might be
asked; How comes it that in England we
29
Essay on Biography
have simply one good Biography, this Bos-
weirs Johnson; and of good, indifferent, or
even bad attempts at Biography, fewer than
any civilized people? Consider the French
and Germans, with their Mor^ris, Bayles
Jdrdenses, Jochers, their innumerable Mi.
moires, and Schilderungen, and Biographies
Universelles; not to speak of Rousseaus,
Goethes, Schubarts, Jung-Stillings : and then
contrast with these our poor Birches and Kip-
pises and Pecks ; the whole breed of whom,
moreover, is now extinct !
With this question, as the answer might
lead us far and come out unflattering to pa¬
triotic sentiment, we shall not intermeddle;
but turn rather, with great pleasure, to the
fact, that one excellent Biography is actually
English ;—and even now lies, in Five new
Volumes, at our hand, soliciting a new con¬
sideration from us; such as, age after age
(the Perennial showing ever new phases as
our position alters), it may long be profitable
to bestow on it;—to which task we here, in
this position, in this age, gladly address our¬
selves.
First, however, let the foolish April-fool
Day pass by ; and our Reader, during these
twenty-nine days of uncertain weather that
will follow, keep pondering, according to con-
30
Essay on Biography
venience, the purport of Biography in gen¬
eral: then, with the blessed dew of May-day,
and in unlimited convenience of space, shall
all that we have written on 'Johnson and
BosweWs Johnson and Croker's BoswelPs
Johnson be faithfully laid before him.
31
Boswell's Life of Johnson*
We have next a word to say of James Bos-
well. Boswell has already been much com¬
mented upon it; but rather in the way of
censure and vituperation than of true recogni¬
tion. He was a man that brought himself
much before the world ; confessed that he
eagerly coveted fame, or if that were not pos¬
sible, notoriety ; of which latter as he gained
far more than seemed his due, the public
were incited, not only by their natural love
of scandal, but by a special ground of envy,
to say whatever ill of him could be said. Out
of the fifteen millions that then lived, and had
bed and board, in the British Islands, this
man has provided us a greater pleasure than
any other individual, at whose cost we now
enjoy ourselves; perhaps has done us a
greater service than can be specially attribut¬
ed to more than two or three : yet, ungrate¬
ful that we are, no written or spoken eulogy
of James Boswell anywhere exists ; his recom¬
pense in solid pudding (so far as copyright
went) was not excessive; and as for the
♦ Frasers Magazine^ 183a.
32
Boswell's Life of Johnson
empty praise, it has altogether been denied
him. Men are unwiser than children ; they
do not know the hand that feeds them.
Boswell was a person whose mean or bad
qualities lay open to the general eye ; visible,
palpable to the dullest. His good qualities,
again, belonged not to the Time he lived in ;
were far from common then ; indeed, in such
a degree, were almost unexampled ; not rec¬
ognizable therefore by every one ; nay, apt
even (so strange had they grown) to be con¬
founded with the very vices they lay contig¬
uous to, and had sprung out of. That he
was a wine-bibber and gross liver; glutton¬
ously fond of whatever would yield him a little
solacement, were it only of a stomachic char¬
acter, is undeniable enough. That he was
vain, heedless, a babbler; had much of the
sycophant, alternating with the braggadocio,
curiously spiced too with an all-pervading dash
of the coxcomb ; that he gloried much when the
Tailor, by a court-suit, had made a new man
of him ; that he appeared at the Shakspeare
Jubilee with a ribbon, imprinted "corsica
Boswell," round his hat; and in short, if
you will, lived no day of his life without do¬
ing and saying more than one pretentious
ineptitude ; all this unhappily is evident as
the sun at noon. The very look of Boswell
3 ' - 33
Bos well's Life of Johnson
seems to have signified so much. In that
cocked nose, cocked partly in triumph over
his weaker fellow-creatures, partly to snuflf up
the smell of coming pleasure, and scent it
from afar ; in those bag-cheeks, hanging like
half-filled wine-skins, still able to contain
more ; in that coarsely protruded shelf-mouth,
that fat dewlapped chin ; in all this, who sees
not sensuality, pretension, boisterous imbe¬
cility enough ; much that could not have been
ornamental in the temper of a great man's
overfed great man (what the Scotch name
flunky), though it had been more natural
there ? The under part of Boswell's face is of
a low, almost brutish character.
Unfortunately, on the other hand, what
great and genuine good lay in him was no-'
wise so self-evident. That Boswell was a
hunter after spiritual Notabilities, that he
loved such, and longed, and even crept and
crawled to be near them ; that he first (in old
Touchwood Auchinleck's phraseology) "took
on with Paoli " ; and then being off with " the
Corsican landlouper," took on with a school¬
master, " ane that keeped a schule, and ca'd
it an academy": that he did all this, and
could not help doing it, we account a very
singular merit. The man, once for all, had
an " open sense," an open loving heart, which
34
Boswell's Life of Johnson
so few have : where Excellence existed, he
was compelled to acknowledge it: was drawn
towards it, and (let the old sulphur-brand of a
Laird say what he liked) could not but walk
with it,—if not as superior, if not as equal,
then as inferior and lackey, better so than
not at all. If we reflect now that this love of
Excellence had not only such an evil nature
to triumph over; but also what an education
and social position withstood it and weighed
it down, its innate strength, victorious over
all these things, may astonish us. Consider
what an inward impulse there must have been,
how many mountains of impediment hurled
aside, before the Scottish Laird could, as
humble servant, embrace the knees (the bosom
was not permitted him) of the English Dom¬
inie ! Your Scottish Laird, says an English
naturalist of these days, may be defined as
the hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet
known. Boswell too was a Tory ; of quite
peculiarly feudal, genealogical, pragmatical
temper ; had been nurtured in an atmosphere
of Heraldry, at the feet of a very Gamaliel in
that kind ; within bare walls, adorned only
with pedigrees, amid serving-men in thread,
bare livery ; all things teaching him, from
birth upwards, to remember that a Laird was
a Laird. Perhaps there was a special vanity
35
Boswell's Life of Johnson
in his very blood : old Auchinleck had, if not
the gay, tail-spreading, peacock vanity of his
son, no little of the slow-stalking, contentious,
hissing vanity of the gander; a still more
fatal species. Scottish Advocates will yet
tell you how the ancient man, having chanced
to be the first sheriff appointed (after the aboli¬
tion of " hereditary jurisdictions ") by royal
authority, was wont, in dull-snuffling pompous
tone, to preface many a deliverance from the
bench with these words : " I, the first King's
Sheriff in Scotland."
And now behold the worthy Bozzy, so pre¬
possessed and held back by nature and by
art, fly nevertheless like iron to its magnet,
whither his better genius called ! You may
surround the iron and the magnet with what
enclosures and incumbrances you please,—
with wood, with rubbish, with brass: it mat¬
ters not, the two feel each other, they struggle
restlessly towards each other, they will be
together. The iron may be a Scottish squire-
let, full of gulosity and " gigmanity " ; * the
magnet an English plebeian, and moving rag-
and-dust mountain, coarse, proud, irascible,
* " Q. What do you mean by' respectable' ? A. He always
kept a gig." {ThurUlPs 7"rKr/.)—" Thus," it has been sai4
" does society naturally divided itself into four classes: Noble
men. Gentlemen, Gigmen, and Men "
36
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Imperious; nevertheless, behold how they
embrace, and inseparably cleave to one an¬
other ! It is one of the strangest phenomena
of the past century, that at a time when the
old reverent feeling of Discipleship (such as
brought men from far countries, with rich
gifts, and prostrate soul, to the feet of the
Prophets) had passed utterly away from men's
practical experience, and was no longer sur¬
mised to exist (as it does), perennial, inde¬
structible, in man's inmost heart,—James Bos-
well should have been the individual, of all
others, predestined to recall it, in such singu¬
lar guise, to the wondering, and, for a long
while, laughing and unrecognizing world. It
has been commonly said. The man's vulgar
vanity was all that attached him to Johnson ;
he delighted to be seen near him, to be
thought connected with him. Now let it be
at once granted that po consideration spring¬
ing out of vulgar vanity could well be absent
from the mind of James Boswell, in this his
intercourse with Johnson, or in any consider¬
able transaction of his life. At the same
time, ask yourself; Whether such vanity, and
nothing else, actuated him therein ; whether
this was the true essence and moving princi¬
ple of the phenomenon, or not rather its out¬
ward gesture, and the accidental environment
37
Boswell's Life of Johnson
(and defacement) in which it came to light ?
The man was, by nature and habit, vain ; a
sycophant-coxcomb, be it granted : but had
there been nothing more than vanity in him,
was Samuel Johnson the man of men to whom
he must attach himself? At the date when
Johnson was a poor rusty-coated " scholar,"
dwelling in Temple Lane, and indeed through¬
out their whole intercourse afterwards, were
there not chancellors and prime ministers
enough; graceful gentlemen, the glass of
fashion; honor-giving noblemen ; dinner-
giving rich men ; renewed fire-eaters, swords¬
men ; gownsmen : Quacks and Realities of
all hues,—any one of whom bulked much
larger in the world's eye than Johnson ever
did ? To any one of whom, by half that sub-
missiveness and assiduity, our Bozzy might
have recommended himself; and sat there,
the envy of surrounding lickspittles ; pocket¬
ing now solid emolument, swallowing now
well-cooked viands and wines of rich vintage ;
in each case, also, shone on by some glitter¬
ing reflex of Renown or Notoriety, so as to
be the observed of innumerable observers.
To no one of whom, however, though other¬
wise a most diligent solicitor and purveyor,
did he so attach himself; such vulgar courtier,
ships were his paid drudgery, or leisure
.^8
Boswell's Life of Johnson
amusement; the worship of Johnson was his
grand, ideal, voluntary business. Does not
the frothy-hearted yet enthusiastic man, doff¬
ing his Advocate's wig, regularly take post,
and hurry up to London, for the sake of his
Sage chiefly; as to a Feast of Tabernacles,
the Sabbath of his whole year ? The plate-
licker and wine-bibber dives into Bolt Court,
to sip muddy coffee with a cynical old man,
and a sour-tempered blind old woman (feeling
the cups, whether they are full, with her fin¬
ger) ; and patiently endures contradictions
without end ; too happy so he may but be
allowed to listen and live. Nay, it does not
appear that vulgar vanity could ever have
been much flattered by Boswell's relation to
Johnson. Mr. Croker says, Johnson was, to
the last, little regarded by the great world;
from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honor, as
from its fountain, descends. Bozzy, even
among Johnson's friends and special admirers,
seems rather to have been laughed at than
envied ; his officious, whisking, consequential
ways, the daily reproofs and rebuffs he under¬
went, could gain from the world no golden
but only leaden opinions. His devout Disciple-
ship seemed nothing more than a mean
Spanielship, in the general eye. His mighty
" constellation," or sun, round whom he, as
39
Boswcll's Life of Johnson
satellite, observantly gyrated, was, for the
mass of men, but a huge ill-snuffed tallow-
light, and he a weak night-moth, circling
foolishly, dangerously about it, not knowing
what he wanted. If he enjoyed Highland
dinners and toasts, as henchman to a new
sort of chieftain, Henry Erskine, in the domes,
tic " Outer-House," could hand him a shilling
" for the sight of his Bear." Doubtless the
man was laughed at, and often heard himself
laughed at for his Johnsonism. To be envied
is the grand and sole aim of vulgar vanity ; to
be filled with good things is that of sen¬
suality : for Johnson perhaps no man living
envied poor Bozzy ; and of good things (ex¬
cept himself paid for them) there was no ves¬
tige in that acquaintanceship. Had nothing
other or better than vanity and sensuality
been there, Johnsom and Boswell had never
come together, or had soon and finally separ¬
ated again.
In fact, the so copious terrestrial dross that
welters chaotically, as the outer sphere of this
man's character, does but render for us more
remarkable, more touching, the celestial
spark of goodness, of light and Reverence for
Wisdom, which dwelt in the interior, and
could struggle through such encumbrances
and in some degree illuminate and beautify
40
Boswell's Life of Johnson
them. There is much lying yet undeveloped
in the love of Boswell for Johnson. A cheer¬
ing proof, in a time which else utterly wanted
and still wants such, that living Wisdom is
quite infinitely precious to man, is the sym¬
bol of the Godlike to him, which even weak
eyes may discern ; that Loyalty, Disciple-
ship, all that was ever meant by Hero-ivor-
ship, lives perennially in the human bosom,
and waits, even in these dead days, only for
occasions to unfold it and inspire all men
with it and again make the world alive!
James Boswell we can regard as a practical
witness, or real martyr, to this high, ever-
lasting truth. A wonderful martyr, if you
will ; and in a time which made such martyr¬
dom doubly wonderful: yet the time and its
martyr perhaps suited each other. For a de¬
crepit, death-sick Era, when Cant had first
decisively opened her poison-breathing lips to
proclaim that God-worship and Mammon-
worship were one and the same,that Life was
a Lie and the Earth Beelzebub's, which the
Supreme Quack should inherit; and so all
things were fallen into the yellow leaf and
fast hastening to noisome corruption: for
such an Era perhaps no better Prophet than
a parti-colored Zany-Prophet, concealing
from himself and others his prophetic sig<
4»
Boswell's Life of Johnson
nificance in such unexpected vestures,—was
deserved or would have been in place. A
precious medicine lay hidden in floods of
coarsest, most composite treacle ; the world
swallowed the treacle, for it suited the world's
palate; and now, after half a century, may
the medicine also begin to show itself! James
Boswell belonged in his corruptible part, to
the lowest classes of mankind ; a foolish, in¬
flated creature, swirnming in an element of
self-conceit; but in his corruptible there dwelt
an incorruptible, all the more impressive and
indubitable for the strange lodging it had
taken.
Consider, too, with what force, diligence and
vivacity he has rendered back all this which,
in Johnson's neighborhood, his " open sense "
had so eagerly and freely taken in. That
loose-flowing, careless-looking Work of his is
as a picture by one of Nature's own Artists ;
the best possible resemblance of a Reality;
like the very image thereof in a clear mirror.
Which indeed it was : let but the mirror be
clear, this is the great point; the picture must
and will be genuine. How the babbling
Bozzy, inspired only by love and the recogni¬
tion and vision which love can lend, epit¬
omizes nightly the words of Wisdom, the
deeds and aspects of Wisdom, and so by little
42
Boswell's Life of Johrison
and little unconsciously works together for us
a whole Johnsoniad, a more free, perfect,
sunlit and spirit-speaking likeness than for
many centuries had been drawn by man of
man ! Scarcely since the days of Homer has
the feat been equaled; indeed, in many
senses, this also is a kind of Heroic Poem.
The fit Odyssey of our unheroic age was to
be written, not sung ; of a Thinker, not of a
Fighter ; and (for want of a Homer) by the
first open soul that might offer,—looked such
even through the organs of a Boswell. We
do the man's intellectual endowment great
wrong if we measure it by its mere logical
outcome, though here, too, there is not want¬
ing a light ingenuity, a figurativeness and
fanciful sport, with glimpses of insight far
deeper than the common. But Boswell's
grand intellectual talent was,'as such ever is,
an unconscious one, of far higher reach and
significance than Logic ; and showed itself in
the whole, not in parts. Here again-we have
that old saying verified, " The heart sees far-
^ ther than the head."
Thus does poor Bozzy stand out to us as an
ill-assorted, glaring mixture of the highest
and the lowest. What, indeed, is man's life
generally but a kind of beast-godhood ; the
god in us triumphing more and more ovet
43
Boswell's Lite of Johnson
the beast, striving more and more to subdue
it under his feet ? Did not the Ancients, in
their wise, perennially significant way, figure
Nature itself, their sacred All, or Pan, as a
portentous commingling of \ these two ais-
cords ; as musical, humane, oracular in its
upper part, yet ending below in the cloven
hairy feet of a goat ? The union of melodious,
celestial Free-will and Keason with foul Irra¬
tionality and Lust, in which nevertheless dwelt
a mysterious unspeakable fear and half-mad
panic. Awe, as for mortals there well might I
And is not man a microcosm, or epitomized
mirror of that same Universe; or rather, is not
that Universe even Himself, the reflex of his
own fearful and wonderful being, " the waste
fantasy of his own dream ? " No vvonderthat
man, that each man, and James Boswell like
the others, should resemble it ! The pecu¬
liarity in his case was the unusual defect of
amalgamation and subordination ; the highest
lay side by side with the lowest ; not morally
combined with it and spiritually transfiguring
it, but tumbling in half-mectianical juxtaposi¬
tion with it, and from time to time, as the
mad alteration chanced, irradiating it, or
eclipsed by it.
The world, as we have said, has been but un¬
just to him ; discerning only the outer terres>
.44
Boswell's Life of Johnson
tria' and often sc/rdid mass; without eye, as
it generally is, for his inner divine secret; and-
thus figuring him nowis'. as a god Pan, but
simply of the bestial species, like the cattle on
a thousand hills. Nay, sometimes^a strange
enough hypothesis has been started of him ;
as if it were in virtue even of these same bad
qualities that he did his good work ; as if it
were the very fact of his being among the
worst men in this world that had enabled him
to write one of the best books therein ! Falser
hypothesis, we may venture to say, never rose
in human soul. Bad is by its nature nega¬
tive, and can do nothing. Whatsoever en¬
ables us to do anything is by its very nature
^ood. Alas, that there should be teachers in
Israel, or even learners, to whom this world-
ancient fact is still problematical, or even de¬
niable ! Boswell wrote a good Book because
he had a heart and an eye to discern Wisdom,
and an utterance to render it forth ; because
of his free insight, his lively talent, above all,
of his Love and childlike Open-mindedness.
His sneaking sycophancies, his greediness
and forwardness, whatever was bestial and
earthy in him, are so many blemishes in his
Book, which still disturb us in its clearness;
wholly hindrances, not helps. Towards
Johnson, however, his feeling was not Syco-
4S
Boswcll's Life of Johnson
phancy, which is the lowest, but Reverence,
which is the highest of human feelings. None
but a reverent man (which so unspeakably
few are) could have found his way from Bos-
well's environment to Johnson's : if such wor¬
ship for real God-made superiors showed
itself also as worship for apparent Tailor-
made superiors, even as hollow interested
mouth-worship for such,—the case, in this
composite human nature of ours, was not
miraculous, the more was the pity! But
for ourselves, let every one of us cling to this
last article of Faith, and know it as the be¬
ginning of all knowledge worth the name:
That neither James Boswell's good Book, nor
any other good thing, in any time or in any
place, was, is or can be performed by any
man in virtue of his badness, but always and
solely in spite thereof.
As for the Book itself, questionless the uni¬
versal favor entertained for it is well merited.
In worth as a Book we have rated it beyond
any other product of the eighteenth century :
all Johnson's own Writings, laborious and in
their kind genuine above most, stand on a
quite inferior level to it; already, indeed,
they are becoming obsolete for this genera¬
tion ; and for some future generation may be
valuable chiefly as Prolegomena and exposi<
46
Boswell's Life of Johnson
tory Scholia to this Johnsoniad of Boswell.
Which of us but remembers, as one of the
sunny spots in his existence, the day when he
opened these airy volumes, fascinating him
by a true natural magic ! It was as if the
curtains of the Past were drawn aside, and we
looked mysteriously into a kindred country,
where dwelt our Fathers ; inexpressibly dear
to us, but which had seemed forever hidden
from our eyes. For the dead Night had en¬
gulfed it; all was gone, vanished as if it had
not been. Nevertheless, wondrously given
back to us, there once more it lay ; all bright,
lucid, blooming ; a little island of Creation
amid the circumambient Void. There it
still lies : like a thing stationary, imperish¬
able, over which changeful Time were now
accumulating itself in vain, and could not any
longer harm it or hide it.
If we examine by what charm it is that men
are still held to this Life of Johnson, now
when so much else has been forgotten, the
main part of the answer will perhaps be found
in that speculation " on the import oiReality,"
communicated to the world, last month, in
this Magazine. The Johnsoniad of Boswell
turns on objects that in very deed existed ; it
is all true. So far other in melodiousness of
tone, it vies with the Odyssey, or surpasses
47
Boswell's Life of Johnson
It, in this one point; to us these read pages, as
those chanted hexameters were to the first
Greek hearers, are, in the fullest, deepest
sense, wholly credible. All the wit and
wisdom lying embalmed in Boswell's Book,
plenteous as these are, could not have saved
it. Far more scientific instruction (mere ex¬
citement and enlightenment of the thinking
power) can be found in twenty other works
of that time, which make but a quite second¬
ary impression on us. The other works of
that time, however, fall under one of two
classes : Either they are professedly Didactic;
and, in that way, mere Abstractions, Phil¬
osophic Diagrams, incapable of interesting
us much otherwise than as Euclids Elements
may do : Or else, with all their vivacity, and
pictorial richness of color, they are Fictions
and not Realities. Deep truly, as Herr
Sauerteig urges, is the force of this considera¬
tion : The thing here stated is a fact; those
figures, that local habitation, are not shadow
but substance. In virtue of such advantages,
see how a very Boswell may become Poetical I
Critics insist much on the Poet that he
should communicate an " Infinitude " to his
delineation ; that by intensity of conception,
by that gift of "transcendental Thought,"
which is fitly named genius, and inspiration,
48
Boswell's Life of Johnson
he should inform the Finite with a certain
Infinitude of significance; or as they some¬
times say, ennoble the Actual into Idealness.
They are right in their precept; they mean
rightly. But in cases like this of the fohn'
soniad, such is the dark grandeur of that
" Time-element," wherein man's soul here
below lives imprisoned,—the Poet's task is,
as it were, done to his hand. Time itself,
which is the outer veil of Eternity, invests,
of its own accord, with an authentic, felt
" infinitude " whatsoever it has once embraced
in its mysterious folds. Consider all that lies
in that one word Past! What a pathetic,
sacred, in every sense Poetic, meaning is
implied in it; a meaning growing ever the
clearer, the farther we recede in Time,—the
more of that same Past we have to look
through!—On which ground indeed must
Sauerteig have built, and not without plausi¬
bility, in that strange thesis of his : " That
History, after all, is the true Poetry ; that
Reality, if rightly intepreted, is grander than
Fiction ; nay that even in the right inter¬
pretation of Reality and History does genuine
Poetry consist."
Thus for BoswelVs Life of Johnson has
Time done, is Time still doing, what no orna¬
ment of Art or Artifice could have done for
4 49
Boswell's Life of Johnson
It. Rough Samuel and sleek wheedling
James were and are not. Their Life ,and
whole personal Environment has melted into
air. The Mitre Tavern still stands in Fleet
Street: but where now is its scot-and-lot
paying, beef-and-ale loving, cocked-hatted,
pot-bellied Landlord ; its rosy-faced assiduous
Landlady, with all her shining brass-pans,
waxed tables, well-filled larder-shelves; her
cooks, and bootjacks, and errand-boys, and
watery-mouthed hangers-on ? Gone 1 Gone I
The becking Waiter who, with wreathed
smiles, was wont to spread for Samuel and
Bozzy their supper of the gods, has long since
pocketed his last sixpence; and vanished,
sixpences and all, like a ghost at cock-crow¬
ing. The Bottles they drank out of are all
broken, the Chairs they sat on all rotted and
burnt; the very Knives and Forks they ate
with have rusted to the heart, and become
brown oxide of iron, and mingled with the
indiscriminate clay. All, all has vanished ;
in every deed and truth, like that baseless
fabric of Prospero's air-vision. Of the Mitre
Tavern nothing but the bare walls remain
there : of London, of England, of the World,
nothing but the bare walls remain ; and these
also decaying (were they of adamant), only]
slower. The mysterious River of Existence
50
Boswell's Life of Johnson
rushes on : a new Billow thereof has arrived,
and lashes wildly as ever round the old
embankments; but the former Billow with
its loud, mad eddyings where is it ?—Where !
—Now this Book of Boswell's, this is precisely
a revocation of the edict of Destiny ; so that
Time shall not utterly, not so soon by several
centuries, have dominion over us. A little
row of Naphtha-lamps, with its line of
Naphtha-light, burns clear and holy through
the dead Night of the Past ; they who are
gone are still here ; though hidden they are
revealed, though dead they yet speak. There
it shines, that little miraculously lamplit Path¬
way ; shedding its feebler and feebler twilight
into the boundless dark Oblivion,—for all
that our Johnson touched has become illumi¬
nated for us: on which miraculous little
Pathway we can still travel, and see wonders.
It is not speaking with exaggeration, but
with strict measured sobriety, to say that this
Book of Boswell's will give us more real in¬
sight into the History of England during
those days than twenty other Books, falsely
entitled " Histories," which take to themselves
that special aim. What good is it to me
though innumerable Smolletts and Belshams
keep dinning in my ears that a man named
George the Third was born and bred up, and
51
Boswell's Lite of Johnson
a man named George the Second died; that
Walpole, and the Pelhams, and Chatham, and
Rockingham, and Shelburne and North, with
their Coalition or their Separation Ministries,
all ousted one another; and vehemently
scrambled for "the thing they called the
Rudder of Government, but which was in real¬
ity the Spigot of Taxation ? " That debates
were held, and infinite jarring and jargoning
took place ; and road-bills and enclosure-bills,
and game-bills and India-bills, and Laws which
no man can number, which happily few men
needed to trouble their heads with beyond
the passing moment, were enacted, and
printed by the King's Stationer ? That he
who sat in Chancery, and rayed out specula¬
tion from the Woolsack, was now a man that
squinted, now a man that did not squint ?
To the hungry and thirsty mind all this avails
next to nothing. These men and these things,
we indeed know, did swim, by strength or by
specific levity, as apples or as horse-dung, on
the top of the current: but is it by painfully
noting the courses, eddyings and bobbings
hither and thither of such drift-articles, that
you will unfold to me the nature of the cur¬
rent itself; of that mighty-rolling, loud-roar¬
ing Life-current, bottomless as the founda¬
tions of the Universe, mysterious as its
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Author! The thing I want to see is not
Redbook Lists, and Court Calendars, and
p. rliamentary Registers, but the LIFE OF
Man in England; what men did, thought,
suffered, enjoyed ; the form, especially the
spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its out¬
ward environment, its inward principle ; how
and what it was; whence it proceeded,
whither it was tending.
To estimate the quantity of Work that
Johnson performed, how much poorer the
World were had it wanted him, can, as in all
such cases, never be accurately done ; can¬
not, till after some longer space, be approxi¬
mately done. All work is as seed sown ; it
grows and spreads, and sows itself anew, and
so, in endless palirgenesia, lives and works.
To Johnson's Writings, good and solid, and
still profitable as they are, we have already
rated his Life and Conversation as superior.
By the one and by the other, who shall com¬
pute what effects have been produced, and
are still, and into deep Time, producing ?
So much, however, we can already see : It
is now some three quarters of a century that
Johnson has been the Prophet of the English;
the man by whose light the English people, in
public and in private, more than by any other
man's, have guided their existence. Higher
S3
Boswell's Life of Johnson
light than that immediately practical one;
higher virtue than an honest PRUDENCE, he
could not then communicate, nor perhaps
could they have received : such light, such
virtue, however, he did communicate. How
to thread this labyrinthic Time, the fallen and
falling Ruin of Times ; to silence vain Scru¬
ples, hold firm to the last the fragments of old
Belief, and with earnest eye still discern some
glimpses of a true path, and go forward
thereon, " in a world where there is much to
be done and little to be known ": this is what
Samuel Johnson, by act and word, taught his
Nation ; what his Nation received and learned
of him, more than of any other. We can
view him as the preserver and transmitter of
whatsoever was genuine in the spirit of Tory¬
ism ; which genuine spirit, it is now becom¬
ing manifest, must again embody itself in all
new forms of Society, be what they may, that
are to exist, and have continuance—elsewhere
than on Paper. The last in many things,
Johnson was the last genuine Tory ; the last
of Englishmen who, with strong voice and
wholly-believing heart, preached the Doctrine
of Standing-still; who, without selfishness ot
slavishness, reverenced the existing Powers,
and could assert the privileges of rank, though
himself poor, neglected and plebeian; who
54
Boswell's Life of Johnson
had heart-devoutness with heart-hatred ot
cant, was orthodox-religious with his eyes
open; and in all things and everywhere
spoke out in plain English, from a soul where¬
in Jesuitism could find no harbor, and with
the front and tone not of a diplomatist but of
a man.
This last of the Tories was Johnson: not
Burke, as is often said; Burke was essen¬
tially a Whig, and only, on reaching the verge
of the chasm towards which Whiggism from
the first was inevitably leading, recoiled ; and,
like a man vehement rather than earnest,
a resplendent far-sighted Rhetorician rather
than a deep sure Thinker, recoiled with no
measure, convulsively, and damaging what he
drove back with him.
In a world which exists by the balance of
Antagonisms, the respective merit of the Con¬
servator and the Innovator must ever remain
debatable. Great, in the mean while, and
undoubted for both sides, is the merit of him
who, in a day of Change, walks wisely, hon¬
estly. Johnson's aim was in itself an impos¬
sible one : this of stemming the eternal Flood
of Time ; of clutching all things, and anchor¬
ing them down, and saying. Move not!—how
could it, or should it, ever have success ?
The strongest man can but retard the current
55
Boswell's Life of Johnson
partially and for a short hour. Yet even in
such shortest retardation may not an inesti<
mable value lie ? If England has escaped the
blood-bath of a French Revolution : and may
yet, in virtue of this delay and of the experience
it has given, work out her deliverance calmly
into a new Era, let Samuel Johnson, beyond
all contemporary or succeeding men, have
the praise for it. We said above that he was
appointed to be Ruler of the British Nation
for a season; whoso will look beyond the
surface, into the heart of the world's move¬
ments, may find that all Pitt Administrations,
and Continental Subsidies, and Waterloo vic¬
tories, rested on the possibility of making
England, yet a little while, Toryish, Loyal to
the Old; and this again on the anterior
reality, that the Wise had found such Loy¬
alty still practicable, and recommendable.
England had its Hume, as France had its
Voltaires and Diderots ; but the Johnson was
peculiar to us.
If we ask now, by what endowment it
mainly was that Johnson realized such a Life
for himself and others ; what quality of char¬
acter the main phenomena of his Life may be
most naturally deduced from, and his other
qualities most naturally subordinated to, in
our conception ot him, perhaps the answer
Boswell's Life of Johnson
were: The quality of Courage, of Valor;
that Johnson was a Brave Man. The Courage
that can go forth, once and away, to Chalk-
Farm, and have itself shot, and snuffed out,
with decency, is nowise wholly what we mean
here. Such courage we indeed esteem an ex¬
ceeding small malter ; capable of coexisting
with a life full of falsehood, feebleness, pol¬
troonery and despicability. Nay oftener it is
Cowardice rather that produces the result;
for consider. Is the Chalk-Farm Pistoleer in¬
spired with any reasonable Belief and Deter¬
mination ; or is he hounded on by haggard
indefinable Fear,—how he will be cut at pub¬
lic places, and •• plucked geese of the neigh¬
borhood" will wag their tongues at him a
plucked goose ? If he go then, and be shot
without shrieking or audible uproar, it is well
for him : nevertheless there is nothing amaz¬
ing in it. Courage to manage all this has not
perhaps been denied to any man, or to any
woman. Thus, do not recruiting sergeants
drum through the streets of manufacturing
towns and collect ragged losels enough ; every
one of whom, if once dressed in red and
trained a little, will receive fire cheerfully for
the small sum of one shilling per diem, and
have the soul blown out of him at last, with
perfect propriety ? The Courage that dares
57
Boswell's Life of Johnson
only die is on the whole no sublime affair:
necessary indeed, yet universal; pitiful when
it begins to parade itself. On this Globe of
ours there are some thirty-six persons that
manifest it, seldom with the smallest failure,
during every second of time. Nay look at
Newgate: do not the offscourings of Crea¬
tion, when condemned to the gallows as if
they were not men but vermin, walk thither
with decency, and even to the scowls and
hootings of the whole Universe, give their
stern good-night in silence ? What is to be
undergone only once, we may undergo ; what
must be, comes almost of its own accord.
Considered as Duellist, what a poor figure
does the fiercest Irish Whiskerando make in
comparison with any English Game-cock, such
as you may buy for fifteenpence !
The Courage we desire and prize is not the
Courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
This, when by God's grace it has been given,
lies deep in the soul ; like genial heat, fosters
all other virtues and gifts; without it they
could not live. In spite of our innumerable
Waterloos and Peterloos, and such campaign¬
ing as there has been, this Courage we al¬
lude to, and call the only true one, is per¬
haps rarer in these last ages than it has been
in any other since the Saxon Invasion under
58
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Hengist. Altogether extinct it can never be
among men ; otherwise the species Man were
no longer for this world; here and there, in
all times, under various guises, men are sent
hither not only to demonstrate but exhibit it,
and testify, as from heart to heart, that it is
still possible, still practicable.
Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as
Man of Letters, was one of such ; and, in
good truth, " the bravest ol the brave." What
mortal could have more to war with ? Yet,
as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not; he
fought, and even, such was his blessedness,
prevailed. Whoso will understand what it is
to have a man's heart may find that, since the
time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat
in any English bosom than Samuel Johnson
now bore. Observe too that he never called
himself brave, never felt himself to be so ; the
more completely was so. No Giant Despair,
no Golgotha Death-dance or Sorcerer's-Sab-
bath of " Literary Life in London," appalls this
pilgrim ; he works resolutely for deliverance :
in still defiance steps stoutly along. The
thing that is given him to do, he can make
himself do ; what is to be endured, he can
endure in silence.
How the great soul of old Samuel, con¬
suming daily his own bitter unalleviable ah
59
Boswell's Life of Johnson
lotment of misery and toil, shows beside the
poor flimsy little soul of young Boswell; one
day flaunting in the ring of vanity, tarrying
by the wine-cup and crying. Aha, the wine is
red; the next day deploring his down*
pressed, night-shaded, quite poor estate, and
thinking it unkind that the whole movement
of the Universe should go on, while his diges¬
tive apparatus had stopped! We reckon
Johnson's " talent of silence " to be among his
great and too rare gifts. Where there is
nothing farther to be done, there shall noth¬
ing farther be said ; like his own poor blind
Welshwoman, he accomplished, somewhat,
and also " endured fifty years of wretchedness
with unshaken fortitude." How grim was
Life to him; a sick Prison-house and Doubt¬
ing-castle ! " His great business," he would
profess, " was to escape from himself." Yet
towards all this he has taken his position and
resolution: can dismiss it all •• with frigid in¬
difference, having little to hope or to fear."
Friends are stupid, and pusillanimous, and
parsimonious ; " wearied of his stay, yet of¬
fended at his departure "; it is the manner of
the world. "By popular delusion," remarks
he with a gigantic calmness, •• illiterate
writers will rise into renown " : it is portion
of the History of English Literature ; a per-
60
Boswell's Life of Johnson
ennial thing; this same popular delusion ; and
will—alter the character of the Language.
Closely connected with this quality of Valor,
partly as springing from it, partly as pro-
tected by it, are the more recognizable qualU
ties of Truthfulness in word and thought,
and Honesty in action. There is a reci¬
procity of influence here : for as the realizing
of Truthfulness and Honesty is the life-light
and great aim of Valor, so without Valor
they cannot, in any wise, be realized. Now,
in spite of all practical shortcomings, no one
that sees into the significance of Johnson will
say that his prime object was not Truth. In
conversation, doubtless, you may observe
him, on occasion, fighting as if for victory;
— and must pardon these ebulliences of a
careless hour, which were not without tempta¬
tion and provocation. Remark likewise two
things ; that such prize-arguings were ever on
merely superficial debatable questions ; and
then that they were argued generally by the
fair laws of battle and logic-fence, by one
cunning in that same. If their purpose was
excusable, their effect was harmless, perhaps
beneficial; that of taming noisy mediocrity,
and showing it another side of a debatable
matter; to see both sides of which was, for
the first time, to see the Truth of it. In his
6i
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Writings themselves are errors enough,
crabbed prepossessions enough ; yet these also
of a quite extraneous and accidental nature,
nowhere a wilful shutting of the eyes to the
Truth. Nay, is there not every where a heart¬
felt discernment, singular, almost admirable,
if we consider through what confused con¬
flicting lights and hallucinations it had to be
attained, of the highest everlasting Truth,
and beginning of all Truths; this namely,
that man is ever, and even in the age of
Wilks and Whitefield, a Revelation of God to
man ; and lives, moves and has his being in
Truth only ; is either true, or, in. strict speech,
is not at all ?
Quite spotless, on the other hand, is John¬
son's love of Truth, if we look at it as expressed
in Practice, as what we have named Honesty
of action. " Clear your mind of Cant " ; clear
it, throw Cant utterly away: such was his
emphatic, repeated precept; and did not he
himself faithfully conform to it ? The Life of
this man has been, as it were, turned inside
out, and examined with miscroscopes by
friend and foe; yet was there no Lie found
in him. His Doings and Writings are not
shows but performances: you may weigh
them in the balance, and they will stand
weight. Not a line, not a sentence is dis-
62
Boswell's Life of Johnson
honestly done, is other than it pretends to be.
Alas ! and he wrote not out of inward inspir<
ation, but to earn his wages : and with that
grand perennial tide of " popular delusion "
flowing by ; in whose waters he nevertheless
refused to fish, to whose rich oyster-beds the
dive was too muddy for him. Observe, again,
with what innate hatred of Cant, he takes for
himself, and offers to others, the lowest possi¬
ble view of his business, which he followed
with such nobleness. Motive for writing he
had none, as he often said, but money; and
yet he wrote so. Into the region of Poetic
Art he indeed never rose : there was no ideal
without him avowing itself in his work: the
nobler was that unavowed ideal which lay
within him, and commanded saying. Work
out thy Artisanship in the spirit of an Artist!
They who talk loudest about the dignity of
Art, and fancy that they too are Artistic guild-
brethren, and of the Celestials,—let them con¬
sider well what manner of man this was, who
felt himself to be only a hired day-laborer.
A laborer that was worthy of his hire; that
has labored not as an eye-servant, but as one
found faithful! Neither was Johnson in those
days perhaps wholly a unique. Time was
when, for money, you might have ware ; and
needed not, in all departments, in that of the
63
Bosweli's Life of Johnson
Epic Poem, in that of the Blacking-bottle, to
rest content with the mere persuasion that you
had ware. It was a happier time. But as
yet the seventh Apocalyptic Bladder (of Puf¬
fery) had not been rent open,—to whirl and
grind, as in a West-Indian Tornado, all earth¬
ly trades and things imo wreck, and dust, and
consummation,—and regeneration. Be it
quickly, since it must be !—
That Mercy can dweil only with Valor, is
an old sentiment or proposition ; which in
Johnson again receives confirmation. Few
men on record have had a more merciful,
tenderly affectionate nature than old Samuel.
He was called the Bear ; and did indeed too
often look, and roar, like one ; being forced
to it in his own defence: yet within that
shaggy exterior of his there beat a heart
warm as a mother's, soft as a little child's.
Nay generally, his very roaring was but the
anger of affection : the rage of a Bear, if you
will; but of a Bear bereaved of her whelps.
Touch his Religion, glance at the Church of
England, or the Divine Right; and he was
upon you! These things were his Symbols
of all that was good and precious for men;
his very Ark of the Covenant: whoso laid
hand on them tore asunder his heart of hearts.
Not out of hatred to the opponent, but of
64
Boswell's Life of Johnson
love to the thing opposed, did Johnson grow
cruel, fiercely contradictory: this is an im¬
portant distinction ; never to be forgotten in
our censure of his conversational outrages.
But observe also with what humanity, what
openness of love, he can attach himself to all
things: to a blind old woman, to a Doctor
Levett, to a cat " Hodge." " His thoughts in
the latter part of his life were frequently em¬
ployed on his deceased friends; he often
muttered these or such like sentences; • Poor
man ! and then he died.'" How he patiently
converts his poor home into a Lazaretto; en¬
dures, for long years, the contradiction of
the miserable and unreasonable; with him
unconnected, save that they had no other to
yield them refuge ! Generous old man !
Worldly possession he has little ; yet of this
he gives freely; from his own hard-earned
shilling, the halfpence for the poor, that
" waited his coming out," are not withheld :
the poor " waited the coming out" of one not
quite so poor ! A Sterne can write sentiment¬
alities on Dead Asses : Johnson has a rough
voice; but he finds the wretched Daughter
of Vice fallen down in the streets; carries
her home on his own shoulders, and like a
good Samaritan gives help to the help-needing,
worthy or unworthy. Ought not Charity,
5
Boswell's Life of Johnson
even in that sense, to cover a multitude ol
sins ? No Penny-a-week Committee-Lady,
no manager of Soup-Kitchens, dancer at Char¬
ity-Balls, was this rugged, stern-visaged man:
but where, in all England, could there have
been found another soul so full of Pity, a hand
so heavenlike bounteous as his ? The widow's
mite, we know, was greater than all the other
gifts.
Perhaps it is this divine feeling of Affection,
throughout manifested, that principally at¬
tracts us towards Johnson. A true brother
of men is he; and filial lover of the Earth ;
who, with little bright spots of Attachment,
"where lives and works some loved one," has
beautified this rough solitary Earth into a
peopled garden." Lichfield, with its mostly
dull and limited inhabitants, is to the last one
of the sunny islets for him: Salve magna
parens! Or read those Letters on his
Mother's death ; what a genuine solemn grief
and pity lies recorded there ; a looking back
into, the Past, unspeakably mournful, unspeak¬
ably tender. And yet calm, sublime for he
must now act, not look : his venerated Mother
has been taken from him ; but he must now
write a Rasselas to defray her funeral!
Again in this little incident, recorded iii his
Book of Devotion, are not the tones of sacred
66
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Sorrow and Greatness deeper than in many a
blank-verse Tragedy ;—as, indeed, "the fifth
act of a Tragedy," though unrhymed, does
"lie in every death-bed, were it a peasant's,
and of straw :"
"Sunday, October i8, 1767. Yesterday,at
about ten in the morning, I took my leave
forever of my dear old friend, Catherine
Chambers, who came to live with my mother
about 1724, and has been but little parted
from us since. She buried my father, my
brother and my mother. She is now fifty-
eight years old.
" I desired all to withdraw ; then told her
that we were to part forever; that as Chris¬
tians, we should part with prayer; and that
I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer
beside her. She expressed great desire to
hear me ; and held up her poor hands as she
lay in bed, with great fervor, while I prayed
kneeling by her. . . .
" I then kissed her. She told me that to
part was the greatest pain she had ever felt,
and that she hoped we should meet again in
a better place. I expressed, with swelled
eyes and great emotion of tenderness, the
same hopes. We kissed and parted ; I hum¬
bly hope, to meet again, and to part no
more."
67
Boswell's Life of Johnson
Tears trickling down the granite rock: a
soft well of Pity springs within !—Still more
tragical is this other scene: "Johnson men¬
tioned that he could not in general accuse
himself of having been an undutiful son.
•Once, indeed,'said he, *1 was disobedient:
I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter
market. Pride was the source of that refusal,
and the remembrance of it was painful. A
few years ago I desired to atone for this fault.'"
—But by what method ?—What method was
now possible ? Hear it: the words are again
given as his own, though here evidently by a
less capable reporter:—
" Madam, I beg your pardon for the abrupt¬
ness of my departure in the morning, but
I was compelled to it by conscience. Fifty
years ago. Madam, on this day, I committed
a breach of filial piety. My father had been
in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market,
and opening a stall there for the sale of his
Books. Confined by indisposition, he desired
me, that day, to go and attend the stall in his
place. My pride prevented me; I gave my
father a refusal.—And now to-day I have
been at Uttoxeter ; I went into the market at
the time of business, uncovered my head, and
stood with it bare, for an hour, on the spot
where my father's stall used to stand. In
68
Boswell's Life of Johnson
contrition I stood, and I hope the penance
was expiatory."
Who does not figure to himself this spec¬
tacle, amid the " rainy weather, and the
sneers" or wonder, "of the bystanders?"
The memory of old Michael Johnson, rising
from the far distance ; sad-beckoning in the
'• moonlight of memory : " how he had toiled
faithfully hither and thither : patiently among
the lowest of the low; been buffeted and
beaten down, yet ever risen again, ever tried
it anew—And oh, when the wearied old man,
as Bookseller, or Hawker, or Tinker, or what¬
soever it was that Fate had reduced him to,
begged help of thee for one day,—how savage,
diabolic, was that mean Vanity, which an¬
swered, No ! He sleeps now : after life's fit¬
ful fever, he sleeps well: but thou, O Merci¬
less, how now wilt thou still the sting of that
remembrance ?—The picture of Samuel John¬
son standing bareheaded in the market there,
is one of the grandest and saddest we can
paint. Repentance ! Repentance ! he pro¬
claims, as with passionate sobs : but only to
the ear of Heaven, if Heaven will give him
audience; the earthly ear and heart, that
should have heard it, are now closed, unre¬
sponsive forever.
That this so keen-loving, soft-trembling AP
69
Boswell's Life of Johnson
ifectionateness, the inmost essence of his being,
must have looked forth, in one form or an¬
other, through Johnson's whole character,
practical and intellectual, modifying both, is
not to be doubted. Yet through what singu¬
lar distortions and superstitions, moping mel¬
ancholies, blind habits, whims about " enter¬
ing with the right foot," and "touching every
post as he walked along ; " and all the other
mad chaotic lumber of a brain that, with sun-
clear intellect, hovered forever on the verge of
insanity,—must that same inmost essence
have looked forth ; unrecognizable to all but
the most observant 1 Accordingly it was not
recognized ; Johnson passed not for a fine
nature, but for a dull, almost brutal one.
Might not, for example, the first-fruit of such
a Lovingness, coupled with his quick Insight,
have been expected to be a peculiarly cour¬
teous demeanor as man among men ? In
Johnson's " Politeness," which he often, to
the wonder of some, asserted to be great,
there was indeed somewhat that needed ex¬
planation. Nevertheless, if he insisted always
on handing lady-visitors to their carriage;
though with the certainty of collecting a mob
of gazers in Fleet Street,—as might well be,
the beau having on, by way of court-dress,
"his rusty brown morning suit, a pair of old
30
Boswell's Life of Johnson
shoes for slippers, a little shriveled wig stick¬
ing on the top of his head, and the sleeves of
his shirt and the knees ol his breeches hang¬
ing loose : "—in all this we can see the spirit
of true politeness, only shining through a
strange medium. Thus again, in his apart¬
ments at one time there were unfortunately
no chairs. "A gentleman, who frequently
visited him whilst writing his Idlers, con¬
stantly found him at his desk, sitting on one
with three legs : and on rising from it, he re¬
marked that Johnson never forgot its defect;
but would either hold it in his hand, or place
it with great composure against some sup¬
port : taking no notice of its imperfection to
his visitor,"—who meanwhile, we suppose,
sat upon folios, or in the sartorial fashion.
" It was remarkable in Johnson," continues
Miss Reynolds (Renny dear), "that no ex¬
ternal circumstances ever prompted him to
make any apology, or to seem even sensible
of their existence. Whether this was the ef¬
fect of philosophic pride, or of some partial
notion of his respecting high-breeding, is
doubtful." That it was, for one thing, the
effect of genuine Politeness, is nowise doubt¬
ful. Not of the Pharisaical Brummelian Po¬
liteness, which would suffer crucifixion rather
than ask twice for soup : but the noble uni-
71
Boswell's Life of Johnson
versal Politeness of a man that knows the dig.
nity of men, and feels his own ; such as may
be seen in the patriarchal bearing of an Indian
Sachem ; such as Johnson himself exhibited,
when a sudden change brought him into dia¬
logue with his King. To us, with our view
of the man, it nowise appears " strange " that
he should have boasted himsef cunning in the
laws ot Politeness ; nor " stranger still," habit¬
ually attentive to practise them.
More legibly is this influence of the Loving
heart to be traced in his intellectual charac¬
ter. What, indeed, is the beginning of intel¬
lect, the first inducement to the exercise
thereof, but attraction towards somewhat,
affection for it ? Thus too, whoever saw, or
will see, any true talent, not to speak of
genius, the foundation of which is not good¬
ness, love ? From Johnson's strength of Affec¬
tion we deduce many of his intellectual pecu¬
liarities ; especially that threatening array of
perversions, known under the name of "John¬
son's Prejudices." Looking well into the root
from which these sprang, we have long ceased
to view them with hostility, can pardon and
reverently pity them. Consider with what force
early-imbibed opinions must have clung to a
soul of his Affection. Those evil-famed Preju¬
dices of his, that Jacobitism, Church-of-Eng-
12
Boswell's Life of Johnson
landistn, hatred of the Scotch, belief in
Witches, and such like, what were they but
the ordinary beliefs of well-doing, well-mean¬
ing provincial Englishmen in that day ? First
gathered by his Father's hearth ; round the
kind " country fires " of native Staffordshire ;
they grew with his growth and strengthened
with his strength : they were hallowed by
fondest sacred recollections; to part with
them was parting with his heart's blood. If
the man who has no strength of Affection,
strength of Belief, have no strength of Preju¬
dice, let him thank Heaven for it, but to him¬
self take small thanks.
Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble
Johnson could not work himself loose from
these adhesions; that he could only purify
them, and wear them with some nobleness.
Yet let us understand how they grew out from
the very center of his being: nay moreover,
how they came to adhere in him with what
formed the business and worth of his Life, the
sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavor. For it
is on the same ground that he became through¬
out an Edifier and Repairer, not, as the others
of his make were, a Puller-down ; that in an
age of universal Skepticism, England was still
to produce its Believer. Mark too his con¬
duct even here : while a Dr. Adams, with
73
Bos well's Life of Johnson
placid surprise, asks, " Have we not evidence
enough of the soul's immortality ? " Johnson
answers, " I wish for more."
But the truth is, in Prejudice, as in all
things, Johnson was the product of England ;
one of those yeomen whose limbs were
made in England ; alas, the last of such In-
vincibles, their day being now done! His
culture is wholly English; that not of a
Thinker but of a " Scholar : " his interests are
wholly English ; he sees and knows nothing
but England ; he is the John Bull of Spiritual
Europe ; let him live, love him, as he was and
could not but be ! Pitiable it is, no doubt,
that a Samuel Johnson must confute Hume's
irreligious Philosophy by some " story from a
Clergyman of the Bishopric of Durham;"
should see nothing in the great Frederick but
"Voltaire's lackey ; " in Voltaire himself but
a man acerrimi ingenii, paucarum liter^
arum; in Rousseau but one worthy to be
hanged ; and in the universal, long-prepared,
inevitable "Tendency of European Thought"
but a green-sick milkmaid's crotchet of, for
variety's sake, "milking the Bull." Our
good, dear John ! Observe too what it is
that he sees in the city of Paris : no feeblest
glimpse of those D'Alemberts and Diderots,
or of the strange questionable work they did;
74
Boswell's Life of Johnson
solely some Benedictine Priests, to talk
kitchen-latin with them about Editiones Prin-
cipes. " Monsheer Nongtongpaw ! "—Our
dear, foolish John ; yet is there a lion's heart
within him !—Pitiable all these things were,
we say, yet nowise inexcusable ; nay, as basis
or as foil to much else that was in Johnson,
almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed, to
honor England, and English Institutions and
Ways of Life, that they could still equip such
a man ; could furnish him in heart and head
to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love them,
and unyieldingly fight for them ? What truth
and living vigor must such Institutions once
have had, when, in the middle of the Eigh¬
teenth Century, there was still enough left in
them for this.
It is worthy of note that, in our little
British Isle, the two grand Antagonisms of
Europe should have stood embodied, under
their very highest concentration, in two men
produced simultaneously among ourselves.
Samuel Johnson and David Hume, as was
observed, were children nearly of the same
year: through life they were spectators of
the same Life-movements ; often inhabitants
of the same city. Greater contrast, in all
things, between two great men, could not be.
Hume, well-born, competently provided for,
75
Boswell's Life of Johnson
whole in body and mind, of his own deter*
mination forces a way into Literature: John¬
son, poor, moonstruck, diseased, forlorn, is
forced into it " with the bayonet of necessity
at his back." And what a part did they
severally play there 1 As Johnson became
the father of all succeeding Tories ; so was
Hume the father of all succeeding Whigs, for
his own, Jacobitism was but an accident, as
worthy to be named Prejudice as any of
Johnson's. Again, if Johnson's culture was
exclusively English ; Hume's, in Scotland,
became European ;—for which reason too we
find his influence spread deeply over all
quarters of Europe, traceable deeply in all
speculation, French, German, as well as
domestic; while Johnson's name, out of
England, is hardly anywhere to be met with.
In spiritual stature they are almost equal;
both great, among the greatest: yet how
unlike in likeness 1 Hume has the widest,
methodizing, comprehensive eye; Johnson
the keenest for perspicacity and minute
detail: so had, perhaps chiefly, their educa¬
tion ordered it. Neither of the two rose into
Poetry; yet both to some approximation
thereof: Hume to something of an Epic
clearness and method, as in his delineation of
the Commonwealth Wars ; Johnson to many
76
Boswell's Life of Johnson
a deep Lyric tone of plaintiveness and
impetuous graceful power, scattered over his
fugitive compositions. Both, rather to the
general surprise, had a certain rugged
Humor shining through their earnestness:
the indication, indeed, that they were earnest
men, and had subdued their wild world into
a kind of temporary home and safe dwelling.
Both were, by principle and habit. Stoics :
yet Johnson with the greater merit, for he
alone had very much to triumph over;
farther, he alone ennobled his Stoicism into
Devotion. To Johnson Life was as a Prison,
to be endured with heroic faith ; to Hume it
was little more than a foolish Bartholomew-
Fair Show-booth, with the foolish crowdings
and elbowings of which it was not worth
while to quarrel; the whole would break up,
and be at liberty, so soon. Both realized the
highest task of Manhood, that of living like
men; each died not unfitly, in his way:
Hume as one, with factitious, half-false
gayety, taking leave of what was itself wholly
but a Lie : Johnson as one, with awe-struck,
yet resolute and piously expectant heart, tak¬
ing leave of a Reality, to enter a Reality still
higher. Johnson had the harder problem of
it, from first to last: whether, with some
hesitation, we can admit that he was intrinsi-
77
Boswell's Life of Johnson
cally the better-gifted, may remain unde¬
cided.
These two men now rest; the one in West¬
minster Abbey here ; the other in the Calton-
Hill Churchyard of Edinburgh. Through
Life they did not meet: as contrasts, " like
in unlike," love each other; so might thej^
two have loved, and communed kindly,—had
not the terrestrial dross and darkness that
was in them withstood 1 One day, their
spirits, what Truth was in each, will be found
working, living in harmony and free union,
even here below. They were the two half-
men of their time : whoso should combine
the intrepid Candor and decisive scientific
Clearness of Hume, with the Reverence, the
Love and devout Humility of Johnson, were
the whole man of a new time. Till such
whole man arrive for us, and the distracted
time admit of such, might the Heavens but
bless poor England with half-men worthy
to tie the shoe-latchets of these, resemble
these even from afar ! Be both attentively
regarded, let the true Effort of both prosper ;
—and for the present, both take our affec¬
tionate farewell 1
78
Coleridge*
Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate
Hill, in those years, looking down on London
and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped
from the inanity of life's battle; attracting
towards him the thoughts of innumerable
brave souls still engaged there. His express
contributions to poetry, philosophy, or any
specific province of human literature or en-
lightenment, had been small and sadly inter¬
mitted ; but he had, especially among young
inquiring men, a higher than literary, a kind
of prophetic or magician character. He was
thought to hold, he alone in England, the key
of German and other Transcendentalisms ;
knew the sublime secret of believing by " the
reason " what " the understanding " had been
obliged to fling out as incredible ; and could
still, after Hume and Voltaire had done their
best and worst with him, profess himself an
orthodox Christian, and say and print to the
Church of England, with its singular old
rubrics and surplices at Allhollowtide, Esto
perpetua. A sublime man ; who, alone in
* Life of Sierlingy part i., chap. viii.
79
Coleridge
those dark days, had saved his crown of spirit-
nal manhood ; escaping from the black mater¬
ialisms, and revolutionary deluges, with •< God,
Freedom, Immortality" still his: a king of
men. The practical intellects of the world
did not much heed him, or carelessly reck¬
oned him a metaphysical dreamer ; but to the
rising spirits of the young generation he had
this dusky sublime character ; and sat there
as a kind of Magus, girt in mystery and en¬
igma ; his Dodona oak-grove (Mr. Oilman's
house at Highgate) whispering strange things,
uncertain whether oracles or jargon.
The Gilmans did not encourage much com¬
pany, or excitation of any sort, round their
sage : nevertheless access to him, if a youth
did reverently wish it, was not difficult. He
would stroll about the pleasant garden with
you, sit in the pleasant rooms of the place,—
perhaps take you to his own peculiar room,
high up, with a rearward view, which was
the chief view of all. A really charming out¬
look, in fine weather. Close at hand, wide
sweep of flowery leafy gardens, their few
houses mostly hidden, the very chimney-pots
veiled under blossomy umbrage, flowed glori¬
ously down hill: gloriously issuing in wide-
tufted undulating plain-country, rich in all
charms of field and town. Waving blooming
80
Coleridge
country of the brightest green ; dotted all
over with handsome villas, handsome groves ;
crossed by roads and human traffic, here in¬
audible or heard only as a musical hum: and
behind all swam, under olive-tinted haze, the
illimitable limitary ocean of London, with its
domes and steeples definite in the sun, big
Paul's and the many memories attached to it
hanging high over all. Nowhere, of its kind,
could you see a grander prospect on a bright
summer day, with the set of the air going
southward,—southward, and so draping with
the city-smoke not you but the city. Here
for hours would Coleridge talk, concerning all
conceivable or inconceivable things ; and liked
nothing better than to have an intelligent, or
failing that, even a silent and patient human
listener. He distinguished himself to all that
■ ever heard him as at least the most surpris-
, ing talker extant in this world,—and to some
small minority, by no means to all, as the
most excellent.
The good man, he was now getting old,
towards sixty perhaps ; and give you the idea
of a life that had been full of sufferings ; a
life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swim¬
ming painfully in seas of manifold physical
and other bewilderment. Brow and head
were round, and of massive weight, but the
6 8i
Coleridge
face was flabby and irresolute. The deep
eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow
as of inspiration ; confused pain looked mildly
from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment.
The whole figure and air, good and amiable
'otherwise, might be called flabby and irreso¬
lute ; expressive of weakness under possibility
of strength. He hung loosely on his limbs,
with knees bent, and stooping attitude; in
walking, he rather shuffled than decisively
stepped ; and a lady once remarked, he never
could fix which side of the garden walk would
suit him best, but continually shifted, in cork¬
screw fashion, and kept trying both. A
heavy-laden, high-aspiring and surely much
suffering man. His voice, naturally soft and
good, had contracted itself into a plaintive
shuffle and singsong ; he spoke as if preach¬
ing—you would have said preaching earnest¬
ly and also hopelessly the weightiest things.
I still recollect his " object" and "subject,"
terms of continual recurrence in the Kantean
province ; and how he sang and snuffled them
into " om-m-mject," and •'sum-m-mject,"
with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he
rolled along. No talk, in his century or in
any other, couid be more surprising.
Sterling, who assiduously attended him,
with profound reverence, and was often with
82
Coleridge
him by himself, for a good many months,
gives a record of their first colloquy.* Their
colloquies were numerous, and he had taken
note of many ; but they are all gone to the
fire, except this first, which Mr. Hare has
printed,—unluckily without date. It contains
a number of ingenious, true and half-true
observations, and is of course a faithful epi¬
tome of the things said ; but it gives small
idea of Coleridge's way of talking ;—this one
feature is perhaps the most recognizable, " Our
interview lasted fortliree hours, during which
he talked two hours and three quarters."
Nothing could be more copious than his talk ;
and lurthermore it was always, virtually or
literally, of the nature of a monologue ; suf¬
fering no interruption, however reverent;
hastily putting aside all foreign additions, an¬
notations, or most ingenuous desires for elu¬
cidation, as well-meant superfluities which
would never do. Besides, it was talk not flow¬
ing any-whither like a river, but spreading
everywhither in inextricable currents and re¬
gurgitations like a lake or sea; terribly de¬
ficient in definite goal or aim, nay, often in
logical intelligibility; what you were to be¬
lieve or do, on any earthly or heavenly thing,
obstinately refusing to appear from it. So that,
• Biagraphy, by Hare, pp. xvi-xxvi.
83
Coleridge
most times, you felt logically lost; swamped
near to drowning in this tide of ingenious
vocables, spreading out boundless as if to
submerge the world.
To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped
into, whether you consent or not, can in the
long run be exhilarating to no creature ; how
eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is
descending. But if it be withal a confused
unintelligible flood of utterance, threatening
to submerge all known landmarks of thought,
and drown the world and you !—I have heard
Coleridge talk, with eager musical energy,
two stricken hours, his face radiant and moist,
and communicate no meaning whatsoever
to any individual of his hearers,—certain of
whom, I for one, still kept eagerly listening
in hope ; the most had long before given up,
and formed (if the room were large enough}
secondary humming groups of their own.
He began anywhere : you put some question
to him, made some suggestive observation;
instead of answering this, or decidedly setting
out towards answer of it, he would accumu¬
late formidable apparatus, logical swim-blad¬
ders, transcendental life-preservers and other
precautionary and vehiculatory gear, for set¬
ting out; perhaps did at last get under way,
—but was swiftly solicited, turned aside by the
84
Coleridge
{glance of some radiant new game on this
hand or that, into new courses ; and ever into
new; and before long into all the Universe,
where it was uncertain what game you would
catch, or whether any.
His talk, alas, was distinguished, like him-
self, by irresolution : it disliked to be troubled
with conditions, abstinences, definite fulfil¬
ments ;—love to wander at its own sweet will,
and make its auditor and his claims and hum¬
ble wishes a mere passive bucket for itself 1
He had knowledge about many things and
topics, much curious reading; but generally
all topics led him, after a p^ss or two, into
the high seas of theosophic philosophy, the
hazy infinitude of Kantean transcendentalism,
with its " sum-m-mjects " and " om-m-mjects."
Sad enough ; for with such indolent impa¬
tience of the claims and ignorances of others,
he had not the least talent for explaining this
or anything unknown to them ; and you swam
and fluttered in the mistiest wide unintellig¬
ible deluge of things, for most part in a rather
profitless uncomfortable manner.
Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out ol the
haze ; but they were few, and soon swallowed
in the general element again. Balmy sunny
islets, islets of the blest and the intelligible:
—on which occasions those secondary hum-
8S
Coleridge
ming groups would all cease humming, ^nd
hang breathless upon the eloquent words;
till once your islet got wrapt in the mist again,
and they could recommence humming. Elo¬
quent artistically expressive words you always
had ; piercing radiances of a most subtle in¬
sight came at intervals ; tones of noble pious
sympathy, recognizable as pious though
strangely colored, were never wanting long ;
but in general you could not call this aimless,
cloud-capt, cloud-based, lawlessly meandering
human discourse of reason by the name of
"excellent talk," but only of "surprising;"
and were reminded bitterly of Hazlitt's ac¬
count of it: " Excellent talker, very,—if you
let him start from no premises and come to
no conclusion." Coleridge was not without
what talkers call wit, and there were touches
of prickly sarcasm in him, contemptuous
enough of the world and its idols and popular
dignitaries; he had traits even of poetic
humor: but in general he seemed deficient
in laughter ; or indeed in sympathy for con¬
crete human things either on the sunny or on
the stormy side. One right peal of concrete
laughter at some convicted flesh-and-blood
absurdity, one burst of noble indignation at
some injustice or depravity, rubbing elbows
with us on this solid Earth, how strange
S6
Coleridge
would it have been in that Kantean haze-
world, and how infinitely cheering amidst its
vacant air-castles and dim-melting ghosts and
shadows! None such ever came. His life
had been an abstract thinking and dreaming,
idealistic, passed amid the ghosts of defunct
bodies and of unborn ones. The moaning sing¬
song of that theosophico-metaphysical mo¬
notony left on you, at last, a very dreary feeling.
In close colloquoy, flowing within narrower
banks, I suppose he was more definite and
apprehensible : Sterling in after-times did not
complain of his unintelligibility, or imputed
it only to the abtruse high nature of the topics
handled. Let us hope so, let us try to believe
so ! There is no doubt but Coleridge could
speak plain words on things plain ; his obser¬
vations and responses on the trivial matters
that occurred were as simple as the common¬
est man's or were even distinguished by supe¬
rior simplicity as well as pertinency. " Ah,
your tea is too cold, Mr. Coleridge ! " mourn¬
ed the good Mrs. Gilman once, in her kind,
reverential and yet protective manner, hand¬
ing him a very tolerable though belated cup.
—" It's better than I deserve ! " snuffled he, in
a low hoarse murmur, partly courteous, chiefly
pious, the tone of which till abides with me :
" It's better than I deserve ! "
87
Coleridge
But indeed, to the young ardent mind, in¬
stinct with pious nobleness, yet driven to the
grim deserts of Radicalism for a faith, his
speculations had a charm much more than
literary, a charm almost religious and pro¬
phetic. The constant gist of his discourse
was lamentation over the sunk condition of the
world ; which he recognized to be given up
to Atheism and Materialism, full of mere
sordid misbeliefs, mispursuits and misresults.
All Science had become mechanical; the
science not of men, but of a kind of human
beavers. Churches themselves had died away
into a godless mechanical condition; and
stood there as mere Cases of Articles, mere
Forms of Churches ; like the dried carcasses
of once swift camels, which you find left
withering in the thirst of the universal desert,
—ghastly portents for the present, beneficent
ships of the desert no more. Men's souls
were blinded, hebetated ; and sunk under the
influence of Atheism and Materialism, and
Hume and Voltaire ; the world for the present
was as an extinct world, deserted of God,
and incapable of well-doing till it changed its
heart and spirit. This, expressed I think with
less of indignation and with more of long-
drawn querulousness, was always recogniz¬
able as the ground-tone: in which truly a
88
Coleridge
pious young heart, driven into Radicalism
and the opposition party, could not but recog¬
nize a too sorrowful truth ; and ask of the
Oracle, with all earnestness. What remedy,
then ?
The remedy, though Coleridge himself pro¬
fessed to see it as in sunbeams, could not ex¬
cept by processes unspeakably difficult, be
described to you at all. On the whole, those
dead Churches, this dead English Church es¬
pecially, must be brought to life again. Why
not ? It was not dead ; the soul of it, in this
parched-up body, was tragically asleep only.
Atheistic Philosophy was true on its side, and
Hume and Voltaire could on their own ground
speak irrefragibly for themselves against any
Church ; but lift the Church and them into a
higher sphere of argument, they died into in¬
anition, the Church revivified itself into pris¬
tine florid vigor,—became once more a living
ship of the desert, and invincibly bore you
over stock and stone. But how, but how ! By
attending to the " reason " of man, said Cole¬
ridge, and duly chaining up the " understand¬
ing " of man ; the Vernunft (Reason) and
Verstand (Understanding) of the Germans, it
all turned upon these, if you could well under¬
stand them,—which you couldn't. For the
rest, Mr. Coleridge had on the anvil various
89
Coleridge
Books, especially was about to write one grand
Book On the Logos, which would help to
bridge the chasm for us. So much appeared,
however; Churches, though proved false (as
you had imagined), were still true (as you
were to imagine): here was an Artist who
could bum you up an old Church, root and
branch ; and then as the Alchemists professed
to do with organic substances in general,
distil you an " Astral Spirit" from the ashes,
which was the very image of the old burnt
article, its air-drawn counterpart,—this you
still had, or might get, and draw uses from,
if you could. Wait till the Book on the Logos
were done ;—alas, till your own terrene eyes,
blind with conceit and the dust of logic, were
purged, subtilized and spiritualized into the
sharpness of vision requisite for discerning
such an " om-m-mject."—The ingenious young
English head, of those days, stood strangely
puzzled by such revelations ; uncertain wheth¬
er it were getting inspired, or getting infatu¬
ated into flat imbecility; and strange efful¬
gence, of new day or else of deeper meteoric
night, colored the horizon of the future for it.
Let me not be unjust to this memorable
man. Surely there was here, in his pious,
ever-laboring, subtle mind, a precious truth,
or prefigurement of truth • and yet a fatal
90
Coleridge
delusion withal. Prefigurement that, in spite
of beaver sciences and temporary spiritual
hebetude and cecity, man and his Universe
were eternally divine; and that no past noble¬
ness, or revelation of the divine, could or
would ever be lost to him. Most true, surely,
and worthy of all acceptance. Good also to
do what you can with old Churches and
practical Symbols of the Noble : nay quit not
the burnt ruins of them while you find there
is still gold to be dug there. But, on the
whole, do not think you "can, by logical
alchemy, distil astral spirits from them; or if
you could, that said astral spirits, or defunct
logical phantasms, could serve you in any¬
thing. What the light of your mind, which is
the direct inspiration of the Almighty, pro-
.nounces incredible,—that, in God's name,
leave uncredited ; at your peril do not try be¬
lieving that. No subtlest hocus-pocus of
" reason " versus " understanding "will avail
for that feat;—and it is terribly perilous to
try it in these provinces 1
The truth is, I now see, Coleridge's talk
and speculation was the emblem of himself:
in it as in him, a ray of heavenly inspiration
struggled, in a tragically ineffectual degree,
with the weakness of flesh and blood. He
says once, he " had skirted the howling des-
91
Coleridge
erts of Infidelity ; '* tfiis was evident enougfi,
but he had not had the courage, in defiance
of pain and terror, to press resolutely across
said deserts to the new firm lands of Faith
beyond ; he preferred to create logical fata-
morganas for himself on this hither side, and
laboriously solace himself with these.
To the man himself Nature had given, in
high measure, the seeds of a noble endow¬
ment ; and to unfold it had been forbidden
him. A subtle lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous
pious sensibility to all good and all beautiful;
truly a ray of empyrean light;—but embedded
in such weak laxity of character, in such in¬
dolences and esuriences as had made strange
work with it. Once more, the tragic story of
a high endowment with an insufficient will.
An eye to discern the divineness of the
Heaven's spendors and lightnings, the in¬
satiable wish to revel in their godlike radiances
and brilliances ; but no heart to front the
scathing terrors of them, which is the first
condition of your conquering an abiding place
there. The courage necessary for him, above
all things, had been denied this man. His
life, with such ray of the empyrean in it, was
great and terrrible to him ; and he had not
valiantly grappled with it, he had fled from
It; sought refuge in vague day-dreams, hollow
92
Coleridge
compromises, in opium, in theosophlc meta¬
physics. Harsh pain, danger, necessity,
slavish harnessed toil, were of all things abhor¬
rent to him. And so the empyrean element,
lying smothered under the terrene, and yet
inextinguishable there, made sad writhings.
For pain, danger, difficulty, steady slaving
toil, and other highly disagreeable behests of
destiny, shall in nowise be shirked by any
brightest mortal that will approve himself
loyal to his mission in this world ; nay pre¬
cisely the higher he is, the deeper will be the
disagreeableness, and the detestability to flesh
and blood, of the tasks laid on him ; and the
heavier too, and more tragic, his penalties if
he neglect them.
For the old Eternal Powers do live forever;
nor do their laws know any change, however
we in our poor wigs and church-tippets may
attempt to read their laws. To steal into
Heaven,—by the modern method, of sticking
ostrich-like your head into fallacies on Earth,
equally as by the ancient and by all conceiv¬
able methods,—is forever forbidden. High-
treason is the name of that attempt; and it
continues to be punished as such. Strange
enough: here once more was a kind of
Heaven-scaling Ixion ; and to him, as to the
old one, the just gods were very stern 1 The
93
Coleridge
ever-revolving, never-advancing Wheel (of a
kind) was his, through life; and from his
Cloud-Juno did not he too procreate strange
Centaurs, spectral Puseyisms, monstrous
illusory Hybrids, and ecclesiastical Chimeras,
—which now roam the earth in a very lament*
able manner 1
94
Mirabeau*
Which of these Six Hundred individuals,
in plain white cravat, that have come up to
regenerate France, might one guess would
become their king? For a king or leader
they, as all bodies of men, must have : be their
work what it may, there is one man there
who, by character, faculty, position, is fittest
of all to do it; that man, as future not yet
elected king, walks there among the rest. He
with the thick black locks, will it be ? With
the hure, as himself calls it, or black boar'S'
head, fit to be "shaken" as a senatorial
portent ? Through whose shaggy beetle*
brows, and rough-hewn, seamed, carbuncled
face, there look natural ugliness, small-pox,
incontinence, bankruptcy,—and burning fire
of genius ; like comet-fire glaring fuliginous
through murkiest confusions ? It is Gabriel
Honori Riquetti de Mirabeau, the world-com-
peller ; man-ruling Deputy of Aix 1 Accord¬
ing to the Baroness de StaSl, he steps proudly
along, though looked at askance here; and
* The French Revolution, book iv., chap. iv.
95
Mirabeau
shakes his black chevelure, or lion*s-mane;
as if prophetic of great deeds.
Yes, Reader, that is the Type-Frenchman
of this epoch ; as Voltaire was of the last.
He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions,
in his virtues, in his vices ; perhaps more
French than any other man ;—and intrinsically
such a mass of manhood too. Mark him well.
The National Assembly were all different
without that one ; nay, he might say with the
old Despot: " The National Assembly 1 I
am that."
01 a southern climate, of wild southern
blood : for the Riquettis, or Arrighettis, had
to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long cen¬
turies ago, and settled in Provence ; where
from generation to generation they have ever
approved themselves a peculiar kindred:
irascible, indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like
the steel they wore; of an intensity and
activity that sometimes verged towards mad¬
ness, yet did not reach it. One ancient Ri-
quetti, in mad fulfilment of a mad vow, chains
two Mountains together; and the chain, with
its "iron star of five rays," is still to be
seen. May not a modern Riquetti ««chain so
much, and set it drifting,—which also shall be
seen ?
Destiny has work for that swart burly*
96
Mirabeau
headed Mirabeau; Destiny has watched
over him, prepared him from afar. Did not
his Grandfather, stout Col-d"Argent (Silver-
Stock, so they named him), shattered and
slashed by seven-and-twenty wounds in one
fell day, lie sunk together on the Bridge at
Casano; while Prince Eugene's cavalry gal¬
loped and regalloped over him,—only the
flying sergeant had thrown a camp-kettle
over that loved head ; and.Vendd me, drop¬
ping his spyglass, moaned out, " Mirabeau is
dead, then ! " Nevertheless he was not dead :
he awoke to breath, and miraculous surgery ;
—for Gabriel was yet to be. With h\s silver-
stock he kept his scarred head erect, through
long years; and wedded; and produced
tough Marquis Victor, the Friend of Men,
Whereby at last in the appointed year 1749,
this long-expected rough-hewn Gabriel
Honors did likewise see the light: roughest
lion's-whelp ever littered of that rough breed.
How the old lion (for our old Marquis too was
lion-like, most unconquerable, kingly-genial,
most perverse) gazed wondering on his off¬
spring ; and determined to train him as no
lion had yet been ! It is in vain, O Marquis 1
This cub, though thou slay him and flay him,
will not learn to draw in dogcart of Poli¬
tical Economy, and be a Friend of Men i
7 97
Mirabeau
he will not be Thou, but must and will be
Himself, another than Thou. Divorce law¬
suits, " whole family save one in prison, and
threescore Lettres-de-Cachet" for thy own
sole use, do but astonish the world.
Our luckless Gabriel, sinned against and
sinning, has been in the Isle of Rhd, and
heard the Atlantic from his tower, in the
Castle of It, and heard the Mediterranean at
Marseilles. He has been in the Fortress of
Joux; and forty-two months, with hardly
clothing to his back, in the Dungeon of Vin-
cennes:—all by Lettre-de-Cachet, from his
lion father. He has been in Pontarlier Jails
(self-constituted prisoner); was noticed ford¬
ing estuaries of the sea (at low water), in
flight from the face of men. He has pleaded
before Aix Parlements (to get back his wife);
the public gathering on roofs, to see since
they could not hear; " the clatter-teeth {claque-
dents) !" snarls singular old Mirabeau ; dis¬
cerning in such admired forensic eloquence
nothing but two clattering jawbones, and a
head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.
But as for Gabriel Honord in these strange
wayfarings, what has he not seen and tried!
From drill-sergeants, to prime-ministers, to
foreign and dotrestic booksellers, all manner
of men he has seen. All manner of men he
98
Mirabeau
has gained ; for at bottom it is asocial, loving
heart, that wild unconquerable one:—more
especially all manner of women. From the
Archer's Daughter at Saintes to that fair
young Sophie Madame Monnier, whom he
could not but " steal," and be beheaded for
—in effigy! For indeed hardly since the
Arabian Prophet lay dead to Ali's admiration,
was there seen such a Love-hero, with the
strength of thirty men. In War, again he
has helped to conquer Corsica ; fought duels,
irregular brawls; horsewhipped calumnious
barons. In Literature, he has written on
Despotism, on Lettres-de-Cachet! Erotics
Sapphic-Werterean, Obscenities, Profanities ;
Books on the Prussian Monarchy, on Cagli-
ostro, on Calonne, on the Water-Companies
of Paris :—each Book comparable, we will
say, to a bituminous alarum-fire; huge,
smoky, sudden ! The firepan, the kindling,
the bitumen were his own ; but the lumber,
of rags, old wood and nameless combustible
rubbish (for all is fuel to him), was gathered
from hucksters, and ass-panniers, of every
description under heaven. Whereby, indeed,
hucksters enough have been heard to exclaim :
Out upon it, the fire is mine !
Nay, consider it more generally, seldom had
man such a talent for borrowing. The idea,
OQ
Mirabeati
the faculty of another man he can make his {
the man himself he can make his. " All re¬
flex and echo (tout de reflet et de river'
here")!" snarls old Mirabeau, who can see,
but will not. Crabbed old Friend of Men ! it
is his sociality, his aggregative nature ; and
will not be the quality of qualities for him.
In that forty-years " struggle against despot-
>ism," he has gained the glorious faculty of
self-help, and yet not lost the glorious natural
gift of felloiuship, of being helped. Rare
union; this man can live self-sufficing—yet
lives also in the life of other men ; can make
men love him, work with him ; a born king
of men !
But consider further how, as the old Mar¬
quis still snarls, he has •• made away with
(humi, swallowed, snuffed up) all FormulaSj' '*
—a fact which, if we meditate it, will in these
days mean much. This is no man of system,
then ; he is only a man of instincts and in¬
sights. A man nevertheless who will glare
fiercely on any object; and see through it,
and conquer it: for he has intellect, he has
will-force beyond other men. A man not
with logic-spectacles j but with an eye ! Un-
hapily without Decalogue, moral Code or
Theorem of any fixed sort; yet not without a
strong living Soul in him, and Sincerity there;
lOO
Mirabeau
a Reality, not an Artificiality, not a Sham !
And so he, having struggled •• forty years
against despotism," and " made away with
all formulas," shall now become the spokes¬
man of a Nation bent to do the same. For
is it not precisely the struggle of France also
to cast off despotism ; to make away with her
old formulas,—having found them naught,
worn out, far from the reality ? She will make
away with such formulas ;—and even go bare,
if need be, till she have found new ones.
Towards such work, in such manner,
marches he, this singular Riquetti Mirabeau.
In fiery rough figure, with black Samson-locks
under the slouch-hat, he steps along there.
A fiery fuliginous mass, which could not be
choked and smothered, but would fill all
France with smoke. And now it has got air;
it will burn its whole substance, its whole
smoke-atmosphere too, and fill all France with
flame. Strange lot! Forty years of that
smoldering, with foul fire-damp and vapor
enough ; then victory over that;—and like a
burning mountain he blazes heaven high •
and, for twenty-three resplendent months,
pours out, in flame and molten fire-torrents,
all that is in him, the Pharos and Wonder-
sign of an amazed Europe ; —and then lies
hollow, cold forever ! Pass on, thou question-
lOI
Mirabeau
able Gabriel Honors, the greatest of them all;
in the whole National Deputies, in the whole
Nation, there is none like and none second to
thee.
The Flight to Varennes*
On Monday night, the Twentieth of June,
1791, about eleven o'clock, there is many a
hackney-coach, and glass-coach {carrosse de
remise), still rumbling, or at rest, on the
streets of Paris. But of all glass-coaches, we
recommend this to thee, O Reader, which
stands drawn up in the Rue de I'Echelle,
hard by the Carrousel and outgate of the
Tuileries; in the Rue de I'Echelle that then
was; "opposite Ronsin the Saddler's door,"
as if waiting for a fare there ! Not long does
it wait: a hooded Dame, with two hooded
Children has issued from Villequier's door,
where no sentry walks, into the Tuileries
Court-of-Princes; into the Carrousel; into
the Rue de I'Echelle ; where the Class-coach¬
man readily admits them ; and again waits,
Not long; another Dame, likewise hooded
or shrouded, leaning on a servant, issues in
the same manner; bids the servant good¬
night; and is, in the same manner, by
the Glass-coachman, cheerfully admitted.
Whither go so many Dames ? 'Tis his
• The French Revolution, book xi.
X03
The Flight to Varennes
Majesty's Couchee, Majesty just gone to bed,
and all the Palace-world is retiring home.
But the Glass-coachman still waits ; his fare
seemingly incomplete.
By and by, we note a thick-set Individual,
in round hat and peruke, arm-and-arm with
some servant, seemingly of the Runner or
Courier sort; he also issues through Ville-
quier's door ; starts a shoe-buckle as he passes
one of the sentries, stoops down to clasp it
again ; is however, by the Glass-coachman,
still more cheerfully admitted. And now, is
his fare complete ? Not yet; the Glass-
coachman still waits.—Alas ! and the false
Chambermaid has warned Gouvion that she
thinks the Royal Family will fly this very
night; and Gouvion, distrusting his own
glazed eyes, has sent express for Lafayette ;
and Lafayette's Carriage, flaring with lights,
rolls this moment through the inner Arch of
the Carrousel,—where a Lady shaded in
broad gypsy-hat, and leaning on the arm of a
servant, also of the Runner or Courier sort,
stands aside to let it pass, and has even the
whim to touch a spoke of it with her badine,
—light little magic rod which she calls
badine, such as the Beautiful then wore. The
flare of Lafayette's Carriage rolls past: all is
found quiet in the Court-of-Princes ; sentries
104
The Flight to Varennes
at their post; Majesties' Apartments closed
in smooth rest. Your false Chambermaid
must have been mistaken ? Watch thou,
Gouvion, with Argus' vigilance ; for of a
truth, treachery is within these walls.
But where is the Lady that stood aside in
gypsy-hat, and touched the wheelspoke with
her badine ? O Reader, that Lady that
touched the wheelspoke was the Queen of
France ! She has issued safe through that
inner Arch, into the Carrousel itself; but not
into the Rue de TEchelle. Flurried by the
rattle and rencounter, she took the right hand
not the left; neither she nor her, Courier
knows Paris ; he indeed is no Courier, but a
loyal stupid ci-devant Body-guard disguised
as one. They are off, quite wrong, over the
Pont Royal and River ; roaming disconsolate
in the Rue du Bac ; far from the Glass-coach¬
man, who still waits. Waits, with flutter of
heart; with thoughts—which he must button
close up, under his jarvie-surtout I
Midnight clangs from all the City-steeples ;
one precious hour has been spent so; most
mortals are asleep. The Glass-coachman
waits ; and in what mood ! A brother jarvie
drives up, enters into conversation ; is an¬
swered cheerfully in jarvie-dialect: the
brothers of the whip exchange a pinch of
105
The Flight to Varan nes
snufl ; * decline drinking together ; and part
with good-night. Be the Heavens blest!
here at length is the Queen-lady, in gypsy-
hat ; safe after perils ; who has had to inquire
her way. She too is admitted ; her Courier
jumps aloft, as the other, who is also a dis¬
guised Body-guard, has done; and now,
O Glass-coachman of a thousand,—Count
Fersen, for the Reader sees it is thou,—
drive 1
Dust shall not stick to the hoofs of Fersen:
crack ! crack ! the Glass-coach rattles, and
every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen on
the right road ? Northeastward, to the
Barrier of Saint-Martin and Metz Highway,
thither were we bound: and lo, he drives
right Northward ! The royal Individual, in
round hat and peruke, sits astonished ; but
right or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack,
crack, we go incessant, through the slumber¬
ing City. Seldom, since Paris arose out of
mud, or the Long-haired Kings went in
Bullock-carts, was there such a drive. Mor¬
tals on each hand of you, close by, stretched
out horizontal, dormant ; and we alive and
quaking ! Crack, crack, through the Rue de
Grammont; across the Boulevard ; up the
Rue de la Chauss€e d'Antin,—these windows,
•Weber, ii. 340-342; Choiseul, pp. 44-56.
106
The Flight to Varennes
all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau's.
Towards the Barrier not of Saint-Martin, but
of Clichy on the utmost North ! Patience, ye
royal Individuals ; Fersen understands what
he is about. Passing up the Rue de Clichy,
he alights for one moment at Madame Sul¬
livan's : " Did Count Fersen's Coachman get
the Baroness de KorfTs new Berline !"—
" Gone with it an hour-and-half ago," grumbles
responsive the drowsy Porter.—" Ces^ Men"
Yes, it is well;—though had not such hour-
and-half been lost, it were still better. Forth
therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de
Gichy; then Eastward along the Outer
Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can
do!
Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial
night. Sleeping Paris is now all on the right-
hand of him ; silent except for some snoring
hum ; and now he is Eastward as far as the
Barrier de Saint-Martin ; looking earnestly
for Baroness de KorfTs Berline. This Heav¬
en's Berline he at length does descry, drawn
up with its six horses, his own German Coach¬
man waiting on the box. Right, thou good
German : now haste, whither thou knowest!
—And as for us of the Glass-coach, haste too,
oh haste ; much time is already lost! The
august Glass-coach fare, six Insides, hastily
107
The Flight to Varennes
packs itself into the new Berline ; two Body*
guard Couriers behind. The Glass-coach it*
self is turned adrift, its head towards the
City; to wander whither it lists,—and be
found next morning tumbled in a ditch. But
Fersen is on the new box, with its brave new
hammer-cloths; flourishing his whip; he
bolts forward towards Bondy. There a third
and final Body-guard Courier of ours ought
surely to be, with post-horses ready-ordered.
There likewise ought that purchased Chaise,
with the two Waiting-maids and their band¬
boxes, to be; whom also her Majesty could
not travel without. Swift, thou deft Fersen,
and may the Heavens turn it well!
Once more, by Heaven's blessing, it is all
well. Here is the sleeping Hamlet of Bondy ;
Chaise with Waiting-women; horses all
ready, and postilions with their churn-boots,
impatient in the dewy dawn. Brief harness¬
ing done, the postilions with their churn-boots
vault into the saddles; brandish circularly
their little noisy whips. Fersen, under his
jarvie-surtout, bends in lowly silent reverence
of adieu ; royal hands wave speechless in¬
expressible response; Baroness de KorfTs
Berline, with the Royalty of France, bounds
off; forever, as it proved. Deft Fersen
dashes obliquely Northward, through the
io8
The Flight to Varennes
country, towards Bougret; gains Bougfret,
finds his German Coachman and chariot
waiting there; cracks off, and drives undis*
covered into unknown space. A deft active
man, we say; what he undertook to do is
nimbly and successfully done.
And so the Royalty of Franee is actually
fled ? This precious night, the shortest of
the year, it flies and drives ! Baroness de
Korffls, at bottom. Dame de Tourzel, Gover¬
ness of the Royal Children: she who came
hooded with the two hooded little ones ; little
Dauphin, little Madame Royale, known long
afterwards as Duchesse d'Angoulfime. Baro¬
ness de KorfTs Waiting-maid is the Queen in
gypsy-hat. The royal Individual in round hat
and peruke, he is Valet for the time being.
That other hooded Dame, styled Traveling'
companion, is kind Sister Elizabeth ; she had
sworn, long since, when the Insurrection of
Women was, that only death should part her
and them. And so they rush there, not too
impetuously, through the WoodofBondy:—
over a Rubicon in their own and France's
History.
Great; though the future is all vague ! If
we reach Bouill6 ? If we do not reach him ?
0 Louis ! and this all round thee is the great
109
The Flight to Varennes
slumbering Earth (and overhead, the great
watchful Heaven); the slumbering Wood ol
Bondy,—where Long-haired Childeric Do-
nothing was struck through with iron ; ♦ not
unreasonably, in a world like ours. These
peaked stone-towers are Raincy ; towers of
wicked D'Orl^ans. All slumbers save the
multiplex rustle of our new Berline, Loose-
skirted scarecrow of an Herd-merchant, with
his ass and early greens, toilsomely plodding,
seems the only creature we meet. But right
ahead the great Northeast sends up evermore
his gray brindled dawn : from dewy branch,
birds here and there, with short deep warble,
salute the coming Sun. Stars fade out, and
Galaxies ; Street-lamps of the City of God.
The Universe, O my brothers, is flinging wide
its portals for the Levee of the Great High
King. Thou, poor King Louis, farest never¬
theless, as mortals do, towards Orient lands
of Hope; and the Tuileries with Levees,
and France and the Earth itself, is but a
larger kind of dog-hutch,—occasionally going
rabid.
*****
Miserable new Berline ! Why could not
Royalty go in some old Berline similar to that
♦ H^nault, A hrege Chronologiquef p. 36.
110
The Flight to Varennes
of other men ? Flying for life, one does not
stickle about his vehicle. Monsieur, in a
commonplace traveling-carriage is off North¬
wards ; Madame, his Princess, in another,
with variation of route: they cross one another
while changing horses, without look of recog¬
nition ; and reach Flanders, no man question¬
ing them. Precisely in the same manner,
beautiful Princess de Lamballe set off, about
the same hour; and will reach England safe:
—would she had continued there 1 The
beautiful, the good, but the unfortunate; re»
served for a frightful end 1
All runs along, unmolested, speedy, except
only the new Berline. Huge leathern vehicle;
—huge Argosy, let us say, or Acapulco ship ;
with its heavy stern-boat of Chaise-and-pair;
with its three yellow Pilot-boats of mounted
Bodyguard Couriers, rocking aimless round
it and ahead of it, to bewilder, not to guide !
It lumbers along, lurchingly with stress, at a
snail's pace; noted of all the world. The
Bodyguard Couriers, in their yellow liveries,
go prancing and clattering ; loyal but stupid ;
unacquainted with all things. Stoppages
occur; and breakages, to be repaired at
Etoges. King Louis too will dismount, will
walk up hills, and enjoy the blessed sunshine :
—with eleven horses and double drink money,
III
The Flight to Varennes
and all furtherances of Nature and Art, it will
be found that Royalty, flying for life, accom¬
plishes Sixty-nine miles in Twenty-two inces¬
sant hours. Slow Royalty ! And yet not a
minute of these hours but is precious: on
minutes hang the destinies of Royalty now.
* * * * *
lit this manner, however, has the Day bent
downwards. Wearied mortals are creeping
home from their field-labor ; the village-artisan
eats with relish his supper of herbs, or has
.strolled forth to the village-street for a sweet
mouthful of air and human news. Still
summer-eventide everywhere! The great
Sun hangs flaming on the utmost Northwest;
for it is his longest day this year. The hill¬
tops rejoicing will ere long be at their ruddiest,
and blush Good-night. The thrush, in green
dells, on long-shadowed leafy spray, pours
gushing his glad serenade, to the babble of
brooks grown audibler; silence is stealing
over the Earth. Your dusty Mill of Valmy,
as all other mills and drudgeries, may furl its
canvas, and cease swashing and circling.
The swenkt grinders in this Treadmill of an
Earth have ground out another Day; and
lounge there, as we say, in village-groups,;
movable, or ranked on social stone seats; *
* Ra^ptri de M. Remy (in Choiseul, p. 143).
112
The Flight to Varennes
their children, mischievous imps, sporting
about their feet. Unnotable hum of sweet
human gossip rises from this Village ofSainte-
Menehould, as from all other villages. Gos¬
sip mostly sweet, unnotable; for the very
Dragoons are French and gallant; nor as
yet has the Paris-and-Verdun Diligence, with
its leathern bag, rumbled in, to terrify the
minds of men.
One figure nevertheless we do note at the
last door of the Village : that figure in loose-
flowing nightgown, of Jean Baptiste Drouet,
Master of the Post here. An acrid choleric
man, rather dangerous-looking; still in the
prime of life, though he has served, in his
time, as a Cond€ Dragoon. This day, from an
early hour Drouet got his choler stirred, and
has been kept fretting. Hussar Goguelat in
the morning saw good, by way of thrift, to
bargain with his own Innkeeper, not with
Drouet regular Mattre de Post, about some
gif-horses for the sending back of his gig;
which thing Drouet perceiving came over in
red ire, menacing the Innkeeper, and would
not be appeased. Wholly an unsatisfactory
day. For Drouet is an acrid Patriot too, was
at the Paris Feast of Pikes: and what do
these Bouill€ soldiers mean ? Hussars—with
their gig, and a vengeance to it!—have hardly
8 113
The Flight to Varennes
been thrust out, when Dandoins and his fresh
Dragoons arrive from Clermont, and stroll.
For what purpose ? Choleric Drouet steps
out and steps in, with long-flowing night¬
gown ; looking abroad, with that sharpness
of faculty which stirred choler gives to
man.
On the other hand, mark Captain Dandoins
on the street of that same Village ; saunter¬
ing with a face of indifference, a heart eaten
of black care I For no Korflf Berline makes
its appearance. The great Sun flames broader
towards setting: one's heart flutters on the
verge of dread unutterabilities.
By Heaven ! here is the yellow Body-guard
Courrier ; spurring fast, in the ruddy evening
light 1 Steady, O Dandoins, stand with in¬
scrutable indifferent face ; though the yellow
blockhead spurs past the Post-house ; inquires
to find it; and stirs the Village, all delighted
with his fine livery.—Lumbering along with
its mountains of bandboxes, and Chaise behind,
the Korff Berline rolls in ; huge Acapulco
ship with its Dockboat, having got thus far.
The eyes of the Villagers look enlightened, as
such eyes do when a coach-transit, which is
an event, occurs for them. Strolling Dragoons'
respectfully, so fine are the yellows liveries,
bring hand to helmet; and a lady in gypsy-
I Id.
The Flight to Varennes
hat responds with a grace peculiar to her. *
Dandoins stands with folded arms, and what
look of indifference and disdainful garrison-
air a man can, while the heart is like leaping
out of him. Curled disdainful mustachio ;
careless glance,—which however surveys the
Village-groups, and does not like them. With
his eye he bespeaks the yellow Courier Be
quick, be quick ! Thick-headed Yellow can¬
not understand the eye ; comes up mumbling,
to ask in words : seen of the Village !
Nor is Post-master Drouet unobservant all
this while: but steps out and steps in, with
his long-flowing nightgown, in the level sun¬
light ; prying into several things. When a
man's faculties, at the right time, are sharp¬
ened by choler, it may lead to mtich. That
Lady in slouched gypsy-hat, though sitting
back in the Carriage, does she not resemble
some one we have seen, some time ;—at the
Feast of Pikes, or elsewhere ? And this
Grosse Tete in round hat and peruke, which,
looking rearward, pokes itself out from time
to time, methinks there are features in it—?
Quick, Sieur Guillaume, Clerk of the Direc-
toire, bring me a new Assignat! Drouet
scans the new Assignat; compares the Paper-
money Picture with the Gross Head in round
* Declaration de La Cache (in Choiseul, ribi sufra).
"5
The Flight to Varennes
hat there ; by Day and Night! you might say
the one was an attempted Engraving of the
other. And this march of Troops ; this saun¬
tering and whispering,—I see it!
Drouet, Post-master of this Village, hot
Patriot, Old-Dragoon of Condg, consider,
therefore, what thou wilt do. And fast, for
behold the new Berline, expeditiously yoked,
cracks whipcord, and rolls away !—Drouet
dare not, on the spur of the instant, clutch
the bridles in his own two hands ; Dandoins,
with broadsword, might hew you off. Our
poor Nationals, not one of them here, have
three hundred fusils, but then no powder;
besides one is not sure, only morally certain.
Drouet, as an adroit Old-Dragoon of Condd,
does what is advisabiest; privily bespeaks
Clerk Guillaume, Old Dragoon of Cond^ he
too; privily, while Clerk Guillaume is sad¬
dling two of the fleetest horses, slips over to
the Townhall to whisper a word ; then mounts
with Clerk Guillaume ; and the two bound
eastward in pursuit, to see what can be done.
They bound eastward, in sharp trot; their
moral-certainty permeating the Village, from
the Townhall outwards, in busy whispers.
Alas I Captain Dandoins orders his Dragoons
to mount; but they, complaining of long fast,
ii6
The Flight to Varennes
demand bread-and-cheese first ;—^before
which brief repast can be eaten, the whole
Village is permeated ; not whispering now,
but blustering and shrieking ! National Vol¬
unteers, in hurried muster, shriek for gun¬
powder ; Dragoons halt between Patriotism
and Rule of the Service, between bread-and-
cheese and fixed bayonets : Dandoins hands
secretly his Pocketbook, with its secret des¬
patches, to the rigorous Quartermaster: the
very Ostlers have stable-forks and flails. The
rigorous Quartermaster, half-saddled, cuts
out his way with the sword's edge, amid lev¬
eled bayonets, amid Patriot vociferations,
adjurations, flail-strokes; and rides frantic;*
—^few or even none following him ; the rest.
So sweetly constrained, consenting to stay
there.
And thus the new Berline rolls ; and Drou-
et and Guillaume gallop after it, and Dan¬
doins' Troopers or Trooper gallops after them ;
and Sainte-Menehould, with some leagues of
the King's Highway, is in explosion ;—and
your Military thunder-chain has gone off in a
self-destructive manner; one may fear, with
the frightfulest issues.
This comes of mysterious Escorts, and a
new Berline with eleven horses : " he that
* Declarations de La Gacke Choiseul, p. 134).
117
The Flight to Varennes
has a secret should not only hide it, but hide
that he has it to hide." Your first Military
Escort has exploded self-destructive ; and all
Military Escorts, and a suspicious Country
will now be up, explosive ; comparable not
to victorious thunder. Comparable, say
rather, to the first stirring of an Alpine
Avalanche; which, once stir it, as here at
Sainte-Menehould, will spread,—all round,
and on and on, as far as Stenai: thunder¬
ing with wild ruin, till Patriot Villagers,
Peasantry, Military Escorts, ' new Berline
and Royalty are down,—jumbling in the
Abyss !
The thick shades of Night are falling.
Postilions crack and whip : the Royal Berline
is through Clermont, where Colonel Comte de
Damas got a word whispered to it; is safe
through, towards Varennes; rushing at the
rate of double drink-money: an Unknown,
" Inconnu on horseback," shrieks earnestly
some hoarse whisper, not audible, into the
rushing Carriage-window, and vanishes, left
in the night. *August Travelers palpitate;
nevertheless overwearied Nature sinks every
one of them into a kind of sleep. Alas, and
Drouet and Clerk Guillaume spur ; taking side-
roads, for shortness, for safety; scattering
* Campan, U. 159.
118
The Flight to Varennes
abroad that moral-certainty of theirs ; which
flies, a bird of the air carrying it!
And your rigorous Quartermaster spurs ;
awakening hoarse trumpet-tone,—as here at
Qermont, calling out Dragoons gone to bed.
Brave Colonel de Damas has them mounted,
in part, these Clermont men ; young Cornet
Remy dashes off with a few. But the Patriot
Magistracy is out here at Clermont too;
National Guards shrieking for ball-cartridges ;
and the Village " illuminates itself;"—deft
Patriots springing out of bed ; alertly, in shirt
or shift, striking a light; sticking up each his
farthing candle, or penurious oil-cruise, till
all glitters and glimmers ; so deft are they !
A camisado, or shirt-tumult, everywhere;
Storm-bell set a-ringing ; village-drum beat¬
ing furious generale, as here at Clermont,
underillumination ; distracted Patriots plead¬
ing and menacing ! Brave young Colonel de
Damas, in that uproar of distracted Patriotism,
speaks some fire-sentences to what Troopers
he has: " Comrades insulted at Sainte-
Menehould : King and Country calling on the
brave ;" then gives the fire-word, Drav)
swords. Whereupon, alas, the Troopers only
smite their sword-handles, driving them
farther home ! " To me, whoever is for the
King 1" cries Damas in despair ; and gallops,
119
The Flight to Varennes
he with some poor loyal Two, of the Subaltern
sort, into the bosom of the Night.*
Night unexampled in the Clermontais;
shortest of the year; remarkablest of the
century: Night deserving to be named ol
Spurs! Cornet Remy, and those Few he
dashed off with, has missed his road; is
galloping for hours towards Verdun ; then,
for hours, across hedged country, through
roused hamlets, towards Varennes. Unlucky
Cornet Remy; unluckier Colonel Damas,
with whom there ride desperate only some
loyal Two 1 More ride not of that Clermont
Escort: of other Escorts, in other Villages,
not even Two may ride ! but only all curvet
and prance,—impeded by storm-bell and your
Village illuminating itself.
And Drouet rides and Clerk Guillaume;
and the Country runs.—Goguelat and Duke
Choiseul are plunging through morasses,
over cliffs, over stock and stone, in the shaggy
woods of the Clermontais; by tracks ; or
trackless, with guides; Hussars tumbling
into pitfalls, and lying " swooned three
quarters of an hour," the rest refusing to
march without them. What an evening ride
from Pont-de-Sommevelle; what a thirty
* Procis-verha du Dirtctoire de CUrnumt (in Choiseul mi
•89-195).
I30
The Flight to Varennes
hours, since Choiseul quitted Paris, with
Queen's-valet Leonard in the chaise by him !
Black Care sits behind the rider. Thus go
they plunging; rustle the owlet from his
brandy nest; champ the sweet-scented forest-
herb, queen-of-the-meadows spilling her spik¬
enard ; and frighten the ear of Night. But
hark 1 towards twelve o'clock, as one guesses,
for, the very stars are gone out: sounds of
the tocsin from Varennes ? Checking bridle,
the Hussar Officer listens: " Some fire
undoubtedly 1"—yet rides on, with double
breathlessness, to verify.
Yes, gallant friends that do your utmost,
it is a certain sort of fire : difficult to quench.
—The Korff Berline, fairly ahead of all this
riding Avalanche, reached the little paltry
Village of Varennes about eleven o'clock;
hopeful, in spite of that hoarse-whispering
Unknown. Do not all Towns now lie behind
us; Verdun avoided, on our right ? Within
wind of Bouill^ himself, in a manner; and
the darkest of midsummer nights favoring us !
And so we halt on the hill-top at the South
end of the Village ; expecting our relay;
which young BouillS, Bouille's own son, with
his Escort of Hussars, was to have ready ; for
in this Village is no Post. Distracting to
^inkof: neither horse nor Hussar is here!
121
The Flight to Varennes
Ah, and stout horses, a proper relay belong*
ing to Duke Choiseul, do stand at hay, but in
the Upper Village over the Bridge ; and we
know not of them. Hussars likewise do wait,
but drinking in the taverns. For indeed it is
six hours beyond the time ; young Bouill^,
silly stripling, thinking the matter over for this
night, has retired to bed. And so our yellow
Couriers, inexperienced, must rove, groping,
bungling, through a Village mostly asleep ;
Postilions will not, for any money, go on with
the tired horses ; not at least without refresh¬
ment ; not they, let the Valet in round hat
argue as he likes.
Miserable ! " For five-and-thirty minutes "
by the King's watch, the Berline is at a dead
stand : Round-hat arguing with Churn-boots ;
tired horses slobbering their meal-and-water;
yellow Couriers groping, bungling ;—young
Bouill^ asleep, all the while, in the Upper
Village, and Choiseul's fine team standing
thereat hay. No help for it; not with a
King's ransom ; the horses deliberately slob¬
ber, Round-hat argues, Bouill^ sleeps. And
mark now, in the thick night, do not two
Horsemen, with jaded trot, come clank-clank¬
ing ; and start with half-pause, if one noticed
them, at sight of this dim mass of a Berline,
and its dull slobbering and arguing; then
122
The Flight to Varennes
prick off faster, into the Village ? It is
Drouet, he and Clerk Guillaume ! Still ahead,
they two, of the whole riding hurly-burly;
unshot, though some brag of having chased
them. Perilous is Drouet's errand also ; but
he is an Old-Dragoon, with his wits shaken
thoroughly awake.
The Village of Varennes lies dark and
slumberous ; a most unlevel Village, of inverse
saddle-shape, as men write. It sleeps ; the
rushing of the River Aire singing lullaby to
it. Nevertheless from the Golden Arm, Bras
(TOr Tavern, across that sloping Market¬
place, there still comes shine of social light;
comes voice of rude drovers, or the like, who
have not yet taken the stirrup-cup ; Boniface
Le Blanc, in white apron, serving them;
cheerful to behold. To this Bras d'Or
Drouet enters, alacrity looking through his
eyes; he nudges Boniface, in all privacy,
" Camarade, es-tu bon Patriate, Art thou a
good Patriot ? "—" Si je suis ! " answers
Boniface- "In that case," eagerly whispers
Drouet—what whisper is needful, heard of
Boniface alone.*
And now see Boniface Le Blanc bustling,
as he never did for the jolliest toper. See
Drouet and Guillaume, dexterous Old-Dra-
* Deux A mis, vi. 139-178.
123
The Flight to Varennes
goons, instantly down blocking the Bridge,
with a " furniture-wagon they find there,"
with whatever wagons, tumbrils, barrels,
barrows their hands can lay hold of;—till no
carriage can pass. Then swiftly, the Bridge
once blocked, see them take station hard by,
under Varennes Archway: joined by Le
Blanc, Le Blanc's Brother, and one or two
alert Patriots he has roused. Some half-
dozen in all, with National muskets, they
stand close, waiting under the Archway,
till that same Korff Berline rumbles up.
It rumbles up : Alte Id ! lanterns flash out
from under coat-skirts, bridles chuck in
strong fists, two National muskets level them¬
selves fore and att through the two Coach-
doors : " Mesdames, your Passports ? "—
Alas, alas ! Sieur Sausse, Procureur of the
Township, Tallow-chandler also and Gro¬
cer, is there, with official grocer-politeness ;
Drouet with fierce logic and ready wit:—
The respected Traveling Party, be it Baro¬
ness de KorflTs or persons of still higher con¬
sequence, will perhaps please to rest itself in
M. Sausse's till the dawn strike up !
O Louis ; O hapless Marie-Antoinette, fated
to pass thy life with such men 1 Phlegmatic
Louis, art thou but lazy semi-animate phlegm,
then, to the center of thee ? King, Captain-
124
The Flight to Varennes
General, Sovereign Frank ! if thy heart ever
formed, since it began beating under the name
of heart, any resolution at all, be it now then,
or never in this world :—" Violent nocturnal
individuals, and if it were, persons of high
consequence ? And if it were the King him¬
self ? Has the King not the power, which all
beggars have, of traveling unmolested on his
own Highway ? Yes : it is the King; and
tremble ye to know it! The King has said,
in this one small matter ; and in France, or
under God's Throne, is no power that shall
gainsay. Not the King shall ye stop here
under this your miserable Archway ; but his
dead body only, and answer it to Heaven and
Earth, To me. Body-guards ; Postilions, en
avant! "—One fancies in that case the pale
paralysis of those two Le Blanc musketeers ;
the drooping ofDrouet's under-jaw ; and how
Procureur Sausse had melted like tallow in
furnace-heat: Louis faring on ; in some few
steps awakening Young Bouillie, awakening
relays and Hussars : triumphant entry, with
cavalcading high-brandishing Escorts, and
Escorts, into Montmgdi ; and the whole
course of French History different!
Alas, it was not in the poor phlegmatic man.
Had it been in him, French History had
never come under this Varennes Archway to
"5
The Flight to Varennes
decide itself.—He steps out; all step out.
Procureur Sausse gives his grocer-arms to the
Queen and Sister Elizabeth ; Majesty taking
the two children by the hand. And thus they
walk, coolly back, over the Market-place to
Procureur Sausse's; mount into his small
upper story; where straightway his Majesty
" demands refreshments." Demands refresh¬
ments, as is written ; gets bread-and-cheese
with a bottle of Burgundy; and remarks,
that it is the best Burgundy he ever drank !
126
Charlotte Corday*
In the leafy months of June and July, sev.
eral French Departments germinate a set of
rebellious^a/^r-leaves, named Proclamations,
Resolutions, Journals, or Diurnals, " of the
Union for Resistance to Oppression." In
particular, the Town of Caen, in Calvados,
sees its paper-leaf of Bulletin de Caen sud¬
denly bud, suddenly eestablish itself as News¬
paper there ; under the Editorship of Girondin
National Representatives!
For among the proscribed Girondins are
certain of a more desperate humor. Some,
as Vergniaud, Valazg, Gensonn^, "arrested
in their own houses," will await with stoical
resignation what the issue may be. Some, as
Brissot, Rabaut, will take to flight, to conceal¬
ment ; which, as the Paris Barriers are open¬
ed again in a day or two, is not yet difficult.
But others there are who will rush, with Buzot,
to Calvados ; or far over France, to Lyons,
Toulon, Nantes and elsewhither, and then
fendezvous at Caen : to awaken as with war-
* The French Revolution, book xvii., chap. i.
127
Charlotte Corday
trumpet the respectable Departments; and
strike down an anarchic Mountain Faction ;
at least not yield without a stroke at it. Of
this latter temper we count some score or
more, of the Arrested, and of the Not-yet-ar¬
rested : a Buzot, a Barbaroux, Louvet, Guadet,
Pfition, who have escaped from Arrestment in
their own homes ; a Salles, a Pythagorean
Valady, a DuchStel, that came in blanket and
nightcap to vote for the life of Louis, who have
escaped from danger and likelihood of Arrest¬
ment. These, to the number at one time of
Twenty-seven, do accordingly lodge here, at
the " Intendance, or Departmental Mansion,"
of the town of Caen in Calvados ; welcomed
by Persons in Authority; welcomed and de¬
frayed, having no money of their own. And
the Bulletin de Caen comes forth, with the
most animating paragraphs: How the Bor¬
deaux Department, the Lyons Department,
this Department after the other is declaring
itself; sixty, or say sixty-nine, or seventy-two *
respectable Departments either declaring, or
ready to declare. Nay Marseilles, it seems,
will march on Paris by itself, if need be. So
has Marseilles Town said. That she will
march. But on the other hand, that Mont^li-
mart Town has said. No thoroughfare ; and
* Meillan, pp. 72, 73 ; Louvet, p. 129.
128
Charlotte Corday
means even to •• bury herself" under her own
stone and mortar first,—of this be no mention
in Bulletin de Caen.
Such animating paragraphs we read in this
new Newspaper ; and fervors and eloquent
sarcasm ; tirades against the Mountain, from
the pen of Deputy Salles; which resemble,
say friends, Pascal's Provincials. What is
more to the purpose, these Girondins have
got a General in chief, one Wimpfen, former-
ly under Dumouriez ; also a secondary ques¬
tionable General Puisaye, and others ; and
are doing their best to raise a force for war.
National Volunteers, whosoever is of right
heart: gather in, ye national Volunteers,
friends of Liberty ; from our Calvados Town¬
ships, from the Eure, from Brittany, from far
and near: forward to Paris, and extinguish
Anarchy ! Thus at Caen, in the early July
days, there is a drumming and parading, a
perorating and consulting Staff and Army ;
Council; Club of Carabots, Anti-Jacobin
friends of Freedom, to denounce atrocious
Moral. With all which, and the editing of
Bulletins, a National Representative has his
hands full.
At Caen it is most animated ; and, as one
hopes, more or less animated in the " Seventy-
two Departments that adhere to us." And in
9 "9
Charlotte Corday
a France begirt with Cimmerian invading
Coalitions, and torn with an internal La Ven-
d6e, this is the conclusion we have arrived at:
To put down Anarchy by Civil War! Durum
et durum, the Proverb says, non faciunt
murum. La Vendde burns : Santerre can do
nothing there ; he may return home and brew
beer. Cimmerian bombshells fly all along
the North. That Siege of Mentz is become
famed ;—lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe
will testify), washed country-people of both
sexes, stroll thither on Sundays, to see the
artillery work and counterwork; " you only
duck a little while the shot whizzes past." *
Cond^ is capitulating to the Austrians ; Royal
Highness of York, these several weeks, fierce¬
ly batters Valenciennes. For, alas, our forti¬
fied Camp of Famars was stormed ; General
Dampierre was killed ; General Custine was
blamed,—and indeed is now come to Paris to
give "explanations,"
Against all which the Mountain and atro¬
cious Marat must even make head as they can.
They, anarchic Convention as they are, publish
Decrees, expostulatory, explanatory, yet not
without severity: they ray forth Commission¬
ers, singly or in pairs, the olive-branch in one
hand, yet the sword in the other. Commis-
* Belagerung von Mainz (Goethe's Worko, xxx. 278»334)«
130
Charlotte Corday
sioners come even to Caen; but without ef¬
fect. Mathematical Romme, and Prieur
named of the C6te d'Or, venturing thither,
with their olive and sword, are packed into
prison: there may Romme lie, under lock
and key, " for fifty days ;" and meditate his
New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria, La
Vendue, and Civil War! Never was Repub¬
lic One and Indivisible at a lower ebb.
Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the
World, History specially notices one thing:
in the lobby of the Mansion de VIntendance,
where busy Deputies are coming and going,
a young Lady with an aged valet, taking
grave graceful leave of Deputy Barbaroux.*
She is of stately Norman figure ; in her twenty-
fifth year; of beautiful still countenance : her
name is Charlotte Corday, heretofore styled
D'Armans, while Nobility still was. Bar¬
baroux has given her a Note to Deputy Du-
perret,—him who once drew his sword in the
effervescence. Apparently she will to Paris
on some errand? "She was a Republican
before the Revolution, and never wanted
energy." A completeness, a decision is in
this fair female Figure: " by energy she
means the spirit that will prompt one to sac¬
rifice himself for his country." What if she,
* Meillan, p. 75; Louvet, p. 114.
131
Charlotte Corday
this fair young Charlotte, had emerged front
her secluded stillness, suddenly like a Star;
cruel-lovely, with half-angelic, half-demonic
splendor; to gleam for a moment, and in a
moment be extinguished : to be held in mem¬
ory, so br'ght complete was she, through long
centuries !—Quitting Cimmerian Coalitions
without, and the dim-simmering Twenty-five
Millions within. History will look fixedly at
this one fair Apparition of a Charlotte Corday ;
will note whither Charlotte moves, how the
little Life burns forth so radiant, then vanishes
swallowed of the Night.
With Barbaroux's Note of Introduction, and
slight stock of luggage, we see Charlotte on
Tuesday the ninth of July seated in the Caen
Diligence, with a place for Paris. None
takes farewell of her, wishes her Good-jour¬
ney : her Father will find a line left, signifying
that she has gone to England, that he must
pardon her and forget her. The drowsy
Diligence lumbers along ; amid drow.sy talk
of Politics, and praise of the Mountain ; in
which- she mingles not; all night, all day,
and again all night. On Thursday, not long
before noon, we are at the bridge of Neuilly ;
here is Paris with her thousand black domes,
the goal and purpose of thy journey ! Arrived
at the Inn de la Providence in the Rue des
1^2
Charlotte Corday
Vieux Augustins, Charlotte demands a room;
hastens to bed ; sleeps all afternoon and night,
till the morrow morning.
On the morrow morning, she delivers her
Note to Duperret. It relates to certain
Family Papers which are in the Minister of
the Interior's hand ; which a Nun at Caen,
an old Convent-friend of Charlotte's, has need
of; which Duperret shall assist her in getting:
this then was Charlotte's errand to Paris ?
She has finished this, in the course of Friday ;
—^yet says nothing of returning. She has
seen and silently investigated several things.
The Convention, in bodily reality, she has
seen ; what the Mountain is like. The living
physiognomy of Marat she could not see;
he is sick at present, and confined to
home.
About eight on the Saturday morning, she
purchases a large sheath-knife in the Palais
Royal; then straightway, in the Place des
Victoires, takes a hackney-coach : " To the
Rue de I'^^cole de M^decine, No. 44." . It is
the residence of the Citoyen Marat !—The
Citoyen Marat is ill, and cannot be seen :
which seems to disappoint her much. Her
business is with Marat, then ? Hapless
beautiful Charlotte ; hapless squalid Marat I
From Caen in the utmost West, from Neu-
133
Charlotte Corday
ch5tel in the utmost East, they two are draw¬
ing nigh each other; they two have, very
strangely, business together.—Charlotte, re¬
turning to her Inn, despatches a short Note to
Marat; signifying that she is from Caen, the
seat of rebellion ; that she desires earnestly
to see him, and " will put it in his power to
do France a great service." No answer.
Charlotte writes another Note, still more
pressing ; sets out with it by coach, about
seven in the evening, herself. Tired day-
laborers have again finished their Week;
huge Paris is circling and simmering, mani¬
fold, according to its vague wont: this one
fair Figure has decision in it; drives straight,
—towards a purpose.
It is yellow July evening, we say, the
thirteenth of the month ; eve of the Bastille
day,—when •• M. Marat,'' four years ago, in
the crowd of the Pont Neuf, shrewdly re¬
quired of that Besenval Hussar-party, which
had such friendly dispositions, "to dismount,
and give up their arms, then : " and became
notable among Patriot men. Four years ;
what a road he has traveled ;—and sits now,
about half-past seven of the clock, stewing in
slipper-bath ; sore afflicted ; ill of Revolution
Fever,—of what other malady this Historv
had rather not name. Excessively sick and
134
Charlotte Corday
worn, poor man : with precisely eleven-pence-
halfpenny of ready-money, -in paper ; with
slipper-bath; strong three-footed stool for
writing on, the while ; and a squalid—Wash-
erwoman, one may call her : that is his civic
establishment in Medical-School Street;
thither and not elsewhither has his road led
him. Not to the reign of Brotherhood and
Perfect Felicity ; yet surely on the way
towards that ?—Hark, a rap again! A
musical woman's voice, refusing to be re¬
jected : it is the Citoyenne who would do
France a service. Marat, recognizing from
within, cries. Admit her. Charlotte Corday
is admitted.
Citoyen Marat, I am from Caen, the seat ot
rebellion, and wished to speak with you.—Be
seated, mon enfant. Now what are the
Traitors doing at Caen ? What Deputies are
at Caen ?—Charlotte names some Deputies.
" Their heads shall fall within a fortnight,"
croaks the eager People's-Friend, clutching
his tablets to write: Barbaroux, PHion,
writes he with bare shrunk arm, turning aside
in the bath : Petien, and Louvet, and—
Charlotte has drawn her knife from the sheath ;
plunges it,' with one sure stroke, into the
writer's heart. " A moi, chere amie, Help,
dear 1" no more could the Death-choked say
135
Charlotte Corday
or shriek. The helpful Washerwoman run¬
ning in, there is no Friend of the People, or
Friend of the Washerwoman left; but his life
with a groan gushes out, indignant, to the
shades below.*
And so Marat People's-Friend is ended:
the lone Stylites has got hurled down suddenly
from his Pillar,—whitherward. He that
made him knows. Patriot Paris may sound
triple and tenfold, in dole and wail; re¬
echoed by Patriot Franee ; and the Conven¬
tion, " Chabot pale with terror, declaring that
they are to be all assassinated," may decree
him Pantheon Honors, Public Funeral, Mira-
beau's dust making way for him ; and Jacobin
Societies, in lamentable oratory, summing up
his character, parallel him to One, whom they
think it honor to call " the good Sansculotte,"
—whom we name not here ; f also a Chapel
may be made, for the urn that holds his
Heart, in the Place du Carrousel ; and new¬
born children be named Marat ; and Lago-di-
Como Hawkers bake mountains of stucco
into unbeautiful Busts ; and David paint his
Picture, or Death-Scene ; and such other
♦ Moniteur^ Nos. 1Q7, 198,199? HisUParl. xxviii. 301-305;
Deux Amis^ x. 368-374.
t See Eloge futiebrede yeaft'Paul Marnt, prononce a Stra»
bourg (in Barbaroux, pp. 125-131); Mercier, etc.
136
Charlotte Corday
Apotheosis take place as the human genius,
in these circumstances, can devisg : but Marat
returns no more to the light of this Sun.
One sole circumstance we have read with
clear sympathy, in the old Moniteur News¬
paper : how Marat's Brother comes from
NeuchStel to ask of the Convention, '< that the
deceased Jean-Paul Marat's musket be given
him."* For Marat too had a brother and
natural affections ; and was wrapt once in
swaddling-clothes, and slept safe in a cradle
like the rest of us. Ye children of men !—A
sister of his, they say, lives still to this day in
Paris.
As for Charlotte Corday, her work is accom«
plished : the recompense of it is near and
sure. The chere amie, and neighbors of the
house, flying at her, she " overturns some
movables," entrenches herself till the gen¬
darmes arrive ; then quietly surrenders ; goes
quietly to the Abbaye Prison : she alone quiet,
all Paris sounding, in wonder, in rage or
admiration, round her. Duperret is put in
arrest, on account of her ; his Papers sealed,
—which may lead to consequences. Fauchet,
in like manner ; though Fauchet had not so
much as heard of her. Charlotte, confronted
with these two Deputies, praises the grave
• Seiuice du i6 Septembre, 1793.
^37
Charlotte Corday
firmness of Duperret, censures the dejection
of Fauchet.
On Wednesday morning, the thronged
Palais de Justice and Revolutionary Tribunal
can see her face ; beautiful and calm : she
dates it " fourth day of the Preparation of
Peace." A strange murmur ran through the
Hall, at sight of her; you could not say of
what character.* Tinville has his indictments
and tape-papers : the cutler of the Palais
Royal will testify that he sold her the sheath-
knife ; •• All these details are needless," in¬
terrupted Charlotte; " it is I that killed
Marat." By whose instigation ?—" By no
one's." What tempted you, then ? His
crimes. "I killed one man," added she,
raising her voice extremely (extremement), as
they went on with their questions, " I killed
one man to save a hundred thousand ; a
villain to save innocents ; a savage wild-beast
to give repose to my country. I was a Re¬
publican before the Revolution ; I never
wanted energy." There is therefore nothing
to be said. The public gazes astonished :
the hasty limners sketch her features, Charlotte
not disapproving: the men of law proceed
with their formalities. The doom is Death
♦ Proces de Charlotte Corday, etc. {Hist. Pari. xxviiL jii«
JJ8).
138
Charlotte Corday
as a murderess. To her Advocate she gives
thanks; in gentle phrase, in high-flown
classical spirit. To the Priest they send her
she gives thanks ; but needs not any shriving,
any ghostly or other aid from him.
On this same evening, therefore, about half-
past seven o'clock, from the gate of the Con-
ciergerie, to a City all on tip-toe, the fatal
Cart issues; seated on it a fair young crea¬
ture, sheeted in red smock of Murderess ; so
beautiful, serene, so full of life ; journeying
towards death,—alone amid the World.
Many take off their hats, saluting reverently ;
for what heart but must be touched ? * Others
growl and howl. Adam Lux, of Mentz,
declares that she is greater than Brutus ;
that it were beautiful to die with her : the
head of this young man seems turned. At the
Place de la Revolution, the countenance of
Charlotte wears the same still smile. The
executioners proceed to bind her feet; she
resists, thinking it meant as an insult ; on a
word of explanation, she submits with cheer¬
ful apology. As the last act, all being now
ready, they take the neckerchief from her
neck : a blush of maidenly shame overspreads
that fair face and neck ; the cheeks were still
tinged with it when the executioner lifted the
♦ Deux A mis, x. 374-384-
139
Charlotte Corday
severed head, to showr it, to the people. " It
is most true," says Forster, " that he struck
the cheek insultingly; for I saw it with
my eyes : the Police imprisoned him for
it."*
In this manner have the Beautifulest and
the Squalidest come in collision, and extin¬
guished one another. Jean-Paul Marat and
.Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday both, suddenly,
are no more. •• Day of the Preparation of
Peace " ? Alas, how were peace possible or
preparable, while, for example, the hearts of
lovely Maidens, in their convent-stillness, are
dreaming not of Love-paradises and the light
of Life, but of Codrus' sacrifices and Death
well-earned? That Twenty-five Million
hearts have got to such temper, this is the
Anarchy ; the soul of it lies in this : whereof
not peace can be the embodiment! The
death of Marat, whetting old animosities ten¬
fold, will be worse than any life. O ye hap¬
less Two, mutually extinctive, the Beautiful
and the Squalid, sleep ye well,—in the
Mother's bosom that bore you both !
This is the History of Charlotte Corday ;
most definite, most complete; angelic-de¬
monic : like a Star ! Adam Lux goes home,
half-delirious ; to pour forth his Apotheosis of
♦ Brie/vMchselt i. 508.
140
Charlotte Corday
her, in paper and print; to propose that she
have a statue with this inscription, Greater
than Brutus. Friends represent his danger;
Lux is reckless; thinks it were beautiful to
die with her.
Battle of Dunbar*
The small Town of Dunbar stands, high
and windy, looking down over its herring-
boats, over its grim old Castle now much
honey-combed,—on one of those projecting
rock-promontories with which that shore of
the Frith ofForth is niched and vandyked, as
far as the eye can reach. A beautiful sea;
good land too, now that the plower under¬
stands his trade; a grim niched barrier of
whinstone sheltering it from the chafings and
tumblings of the big blue German Ocean.
Seaward St. Abb's Head, of whinstone, bounds
your horizon to the east, not very far off;
west, close by, is the deep bay, and fishy
little village of Belhaven : the gloomy Bass
and other rock-islets, and farther the Hills of
Fife, and foreshadows of the Highlands, are
visible as you look seaward. From the bottom
of Belhaven bay to that of the next sea-bight St.
Abb's ward, the Town and its environs form
a peninsula. Along the base of which
peninsula, " not much above a mile and a half
from sea to sea," Oliver Cromwell's Army, on
♦ CromweWs Letters and Speeches, part vi.
142
Battle of Dunbar
Monday, 2d of September, 1650, stands
ranked, with its tents and Town behind it,—
in very forlorn circumstances. This now is
all the ground that Oliver is lord of in Scot¬
land. His Ships lie in the offing, with biscuit
and transport for him but visible elsewhere
in the Earth no help.
Landward as you look from the Town of
Dunbar there rises, some short mile off, a
dusky continent of barren heath Hills; the
Lammermoor, where only mountain-sheep
can be at home. The crossing of which, by
any of its boggy passes, and brawling stream-
courses, no Army, hardly a solitary Scotch
Packman could attempt, in such weather.
To the edge of these Lammermoor Heights,
David Lesley has betaken himself; lies now
along the outmost spur of them,— a long Hill
of considerable height, which the Dunbar
people call the Dun, Doon, or sometimes for
fashion's sake the Down, adding to it the
Teutonic Hill likewise, though Dun itself in
old Celtic signifies Hill. On this Doon Hill
lies David Lesley with the victorious Scotch
Army, upwards of twenty thousand strong;
with the Committees of Kirk and Estates, the
chief Dignitaries of the Country, and in fact
the flower of what the pure Covenant in this
the twelfth year of its existence can still bring
143
Battle of Dunbar
forth. There lies he since Sunday night, on
the top and slope of this Doon Hill, with the
impassable heath-continents behind him;
embraces, as within outspread tiger-claws,
the base-line of Oliver's Dunbar peninsula;
waiting what Oliver will do. Cockburnspath
with its ravines has been seized on Oliver's
left, and made impassable ; behind Oliver is
the sea; in front of him Lesley, Doon Hill,
and the heath-continent of Lammermoor.
Lesley's force is of three.and-twenty thou¬
sand, * in spirits as of men chasing, Oliver's
about half as many, in spirits as of men
chased. What is to become of Oliver ?
Haselrig, as we know, is Governor of
Newcastle. Oliver on Monday writes this
Note ; means to send it off, I suppose, by sea.
Making no complaint for himself, the re¬
markable Oliver; doing, with grave brevity,
in the hour the business of the hour. •• He
was a strong man," so intimates Charles
Harvey, who knew him : " in the dark perils
of war, in the high places of the field, hope
shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it had
gone out in all the others." f Agenuine King
*27,000 say the English Pamphlets; 16,000 foot and 7,000
horse, says Sir Edward Walker (p. 182); who has access to know.
t Passages in his HighnesPs last Sickness, already referrefd
t*
144
Battle of Dunbar
among men, Mr. Harvey. The divinest sight
this world sees,—when it is privileged to see
such, and not be sickened with the unholy
apery of such ! He is just now upon an " en¬
gagement," or complicated concern, "very
difficult."
•• To the Honorable Sir Arthur Haselrig, at
Newcastle or elsewhere : These. Haste,
haste.
** [Dunbar] 2d September, 1650.
" Dear Sir,—We are upon an Engagement
very difficult. The Enemy hath blocked up
our way at the Pass at Copperspath, through
which we cannot get without almost a miracle.
He lieth so upon the Hills that we know not
how to come that way without great difficulty ;
and our lying here daily consumeth our men,
who fall sick beyond imagination.
" I perceive, your forces are not in a capa¬
city for present release. Wherefore, what¬
ever becomes of us, it will be well for you to
get what forces you can together ; and the
South to help what they can. The business
nearly concerneth all Good People. If your
forces had been in a readiness to have fallen
upon the back of CopperspatI), it might have
occasioned supplies to have come to us. But
the only wise God knows what is best. All
10 i4S
Battle of Dunbar
shall work for Good. Our spirits * are com¬
fortable, praised be the Lord,—though our
present condition be as it is. And indeed we
have much hope in the Lord ; of whose mercy
we have had large experience. " Indeed, do
you get together what forces you can against
them. Send to friends in the South to help
with more. Let H. Vane know what I write.
1 would not make it public, lest danger
should accrue thereby. You know what
use to make hereof. Let me hear from you.
I rest,
" Your servant,
•' Oliver Cromwell.
" [P. S.] It's difficult for me to send to
you. Let me hear from [you] after [you re¬
ceive this]." t
The base of Oliver's " Dunbar Peninsula,"
as we have called it (or Dunbar Pinfold where
* minds.
t Communicated by John Hare, Esquire, Rosemont Cottage,
Clifton. The MS. at Clifton is a Copy, without date; but has
this title in an old hand: " Copy of an original Letter of
Oliver Cromwell, written with his own hand, the day before the
Battle of Dunbarr, to Sir A. Haselridge.**—N'oie to Second
Edition. Found since (1846), with the Postscript, printed
from the Original, in Brand's History of Newcastle (London,
1789), ii. 479.—Note to Third Edition. Autograph Original
found now (May, 1847); in the possession of R. Ormston, Esq.
NewCastle-on-Tyne. See postea, p. 143, and Appendix, No
19.
146
Battle of Dunbar
he is now hemmed in, upon " an entangle¬
ment very difficult,") extends from Belhaven
Bay on his right, to Brocksmouth House on
his left; " about a mile and a half from sea
to sea," Brocksmouth House, the Earl (now
Duke) of Roxburgh's mansion, which still
stands tliere, his soldiers now occupy as their
extreme post on the left. As its name indi¬
cates, it is the mouth or issue of a small
Rivulet, or Burn, called Brock, Brocksburn /
which, springing from the Lammermoor, and
skirting David Lesley's Doon Hill, finds its
egress here into the sea. The reader who
would form an image to himself of the great
Tuesday, 3d of September, 1650, at Dunbar,
must note well this little Burn. It runs in a
deep grassy glen, which the South-country
Offices in those old Pamphlets describe as a
"deep ditch, forty feet in depth, and about
as many in width,"—ditch dug out by the
little Brook itself, and carpeted with green¬
sward, in the course of long thousands of
years. It runs pretty close by the foot of
Doon Hill; forms, from this point to the sea,
the boundary of Oliver's position ; his force is
arranged in battle-order along the left bank
of this Brocksburn, and its grassy glen ; he
is busied all Monday, he and his Officers, in
ranking them there. "Before sunrise on
. 147
Battle of Dunbar
Monday" Lesley sent down his horse from
the Hill-top, to occupy the other side of this
Brook; " about four in the afternoon" his
train came down, his whole Army gradually
came down ; and they now are ranking
themselves on the opposite side of Brocksburn,
—on rather narrow ground ; cornfields, but
swiftly sloping upwards to the steep of Doon
Hill. This goes on, in the wild showers and
winds of Monday, 2d September, 1650, on
both sides of the Rivulet of Brock, Whoever
will begin the attack, must get across this
Brook and its glen first; a thing of much
disadvantage.
Behind Oliver's ranks, between him and
Dunbar, stand his tents ; sprinkled up and
down, by battalions, over the face of this
" Peninsula;" which is a low though very
uneven tract of ground ; now in our time all
yellow with wheat and barley in the autumn
season, but at that date only partially tilled,
—describable by Yorkshire Hodgson as a
place of plashes and rough bent-grass ; ter¬
ribly beaten by showery winds that day, so
that your tent will hardly stand. There was
then but one Farmhouse on this tract, where
now are not a few: thither were Oliver's
Cannon sent this morning ; they had at first
been lodged " in the Church," an edifice
148
Battle of Dunbar
standing then as now somewliat apart, " at
the south end of Dunbar." We have notice
of only one other " small house," belike some
poor shepherd's homestead, in Oliver's tract
of ground : it stands close by the Brock Rivulet
itself, and in the bottom of the little glen; at
a place where the banks of it flatten themselves
out into a slope passable for carts ; this of
course, as the one " pass " in that quarter, it
is highly inportant to seize. Pride and Lam¬
bert lodged •• six horse and fifteen foot" in
this poor hut early in the morning : Lesley's
horse came across, and drove them out; kill¬
ing some and "taking three prisoners;"—
and so got possession of this pass and hut;
but did not keep it. Among the three pris¬
oners was one musketeer, " a very stout
man, though he has but a wooden arm," and
some iron hook at the end of it, poor fellow.
He " fired thrice," not without effect, with his
wooden arm ; and was not taken without
difficulty: a handfast stubborn man ; they
carried him across to General Lesley to give
some account of himself. In several of the
old Pamphlets, which agree in all the details
of it, this is what we read :—
"General David Lesley (old Leven," the
Other Lesley, "being in the Castle of Edin-
149
Battle of Dunbar
burgh, as they relate *), asked this man, If the
Enemy did intend to fight ? He replied,
« What do you think we come here for ? We
come for nothing else !'—' Soldier,' says Les¬
ley, ' how will you fight, when you have
shipped half of your men, and all your great
guns ?' The Soldier replied, • Sir, if you
please to draw down your men, you shall find
both men and great guns too !'"—A most
dogged handfast man, this with the wooden
arm, and iron hook on it! " One of the Of¬
ficers asked. How he durst answer the General
so saucily ? He said,' I only answer the ques¬
tion put to me !'" Lesley sent him across,
free again, by a trumpet: he made his way
to Cromwell; reported what had passed, and
added doggedly. He for one had lost twenty
shillings by the business,—plundered from
him in this action. "The Lord General gave
him thereupon two pieces," which I think are
forty shillings ; and sent him away rejoicing.f
—This is the adventure at the " pass " by the
shepherd's hut in the bottom of the glen, close
by the Brocksburn itself.
* Old Leven is herey if the Pamphlet Knew; but only as a
volunteer and without command, though nominally still Gon*
eral-in-chief.
t Cadwell the Army-Messenger's Narrative to the Parliament
(in Carte's Ormond Papers, i. 382). Given also, with other
details, in King's Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 478, §§ 9, 7, 10; na
479, S I; &c. &C.
150
Battle of Dunbar
And now farther, on the great scale, we are
to remark very specially that there is just one
other " pass" across the Brocksburn ; and
this is precisely where the London road now
crosses it; about a mile east from the former
pass, and perhaps two gunshots west from
Brocksmouth House. There the great road
then as now crosses the Burn of Brock ; the
steep grassy glen, or •• broad ditch forty feet
deep," flattening itself out here once more into
a passable slope : passable, but still steep on
the southern or Lesley side, still mounting up
there, with considerable acclivity, into a high
table-ground, out of which the Doon Hill, as
outskirt of the Lammermoor, a short mile to
your right, gradually gathers itself. There, at
this " pass," on and about the present London
road, as you discover after long dreary dim
examining, took place the brunt or essential
agony of the Battle of Dunbar long ago.
Read in the extinct old Pamphlets, and ever
again obstinately read, till some light rise in
them, look even with unmilitary eyes at the
ground as it now is, you do at last obtain
small glimmerings of distinct features here
and there,—which gradually coalesce into a
kind of image for you ; and some spectrum of
the Fact becomes visible ; rises veritable, face
to face, on you, grim and sad in the depths of
Battle of Dunbar
the old dead ^Time. Yes, my traveling
friends, vehiculating in gigs or otherwise
over that piece of London road, you may
say to yourselves. Here without monument
is the grave of a valiant thing which was
done under the Sun; the footprint of a
Hero, not yet quite undistinguishable, is
here !—
•• The Lord General about four o'clock,"
say the old Pamphlets, " went into the Town
totakesonie refreshment," a hasty late dinner,
or early supper, whichever we may call it;
" and very soon returned back,"—having
written Sir Arthur's Letter, I think, in the
interim. Coursing about the field, with
enough of things to order; walking at last
with Lambert in the Park or Garden of Brocks-
mouth House, he discerns that Lesley is astir
on the Hillside ; altering his position some¬
what. That Lesley, in fact, is coming wholly
down to the basis of the Hill, where his horse
had been since sunrise : coming wholly down
to the edge of the Brook and glen, among the
sloping harvest-fields there ; and also is bring¬
ing up his left wing of horse, most part of it,
towards his right; edging himself, " shog-
ging," as Oliver calls it, his whole line more
and more to the right ! His meaning is, to
get hold of Brocksmouth House and the pass
152
Battle of Dunbar
of the Brook there; * after which it will be
free to him to attack us when he will!—Les¬
ley, in fact, considers, or at least the Com¬
mittee of Estates and Kirk consider, that
Oliver is lost; that, on the whole, he must not
be left to retreat, but must be attacked and
annihilated here. A vague story, due to
Bishop Burnet, the watery source of many
such, still circulates about the world, That it
was the Kirk Committee who forced Lesley
down against his will; that Oliver, at sight
of it, exclaimed, •* The Lord hath delivered "
etc.: which nobody is in the least bound to
believe. It appears, from other quarters,
that Lesley was advised or sanctioned in this
attempt by the Committee of Estates and Kirk,
but also that he was by no means hard to ad¬
vise ; that, in fact, lying on the top of Doon
Hill, shelterless in such weather, was no
operation to spin out beyond necessity ;—and
that if anybody pressed too much upon him
with advice to come down and fight, it was
likeliest to be Royalist Civil Dignitaries, who
had plagued him with their cavilings at his
cunctations, at his << secret fellow-feeling for
the Sectarians and Regicides," ever since this
War began. The poor Scotch Clergy have
enough of their own to answer for in this
♦ Bailie's Letters^ iii. iii.
iS3
Battle of Dunbar
business; let every back bear the burden
that belongs to it. In a word, Lesley de¬
scends, has been descending all day, and
" shog^ " himself to the right,—urged, I be¬
lieve, by manifold counsel, and by the nature
of the case; and, what is equally important
for us, Oliver sees him, and sees through him,
in this movement of his.
At sight of this movement, Oliver suggests
to Lambert standing by him. Does it not give
,us an advantage, if we, instead of him, like to
begin the attack ? Here is the Enemy's right
wing coming out to the open space, free to be
attacked on any side; and the main-battle
hampered in narrow sloping ground between
Doon Hill and the Brook, has no room to
maneuver or assist: * beat this right wing
where it now stands ; take it in flank and
front with an overpowering force,—it is driven
upon its own main-battle, the whole Army
is beaten ? Lambert eagerly assents, •• had
meant to say the same thing." Monk, who
comes up at the moment, likewise assents; as
the other Officers do, when the case is set be¬
fore them. It is the plan resolved upon for
battle. The attack shall begin to-morrow
before dawn.
And so the soldiers stand to their arms, or
* Hodgson.
^54
Battle of Dunbar
lie within instant reach of their arms, all
night; being upon an engagement very diffi¬
cult indeed. The night is wild and wet;—2d
of September means 12th by our calendar:
the Harvest Moon wades deep among clouds
of sleet and hail. Whoever has a heart for
prayer, let him pray now, for the wrestle of
death is at hand. Pray,—and withal keep his
powder dry ! And be ready for extremities,
and quit himself like a man !—Thus they pass
the night; making that Dunbar Peninsula and
Brock Rivulet long memorable to me. We
English have some tents ; the Scots have none.
The hoarse sea moans bodeful, swinging low
and heavy against these whinstone bays ; the
sea and the tempests are abroad, all else asleep
but we,—and there is One that rides on the
wings of the wind.
Towards three in the morning the Scotch
foot, by order of a Major-General say some,*
extinguish their matches, all but two in a
company ; cower under the corn-shocks, seek¬
ing some imperfect shelter and sleep. Be
wakeful, ye English ; watch, and pray, and
keep your powder dry. About four o'clock
comes order to my pudding-headed Yorkshire
friend, that his regiment must mount and
♦ " Major-General Holbura " (he that escorted Cromwell
into Edinburgh in 1648), says Walker, p. 180.
ISS
Battle of Dunbar
march straightway; his and various other
regiments march, pouring swiftly to the left
to Brocksmouth House, to the Pass over the
Brock. With overpowering force let us storm
the Scots right wing there ; beat that, and all
is beaten. Major Hodgson riding along,
heard, he says, "a Cornet praying in the
night;" a company of poor men, I think,
making worship there, under the void Heaven,
before battle joined : Major Hodgson, giving
his charge to a brother Officer, turned aside
to listen for a minute, and worship and pray
along with them ; haply his last prayer on this
Earth, as it might prove to be. But no : this
Cornet prayed with such effusion^ as was
wonderful; and imparted strength to my
Yorkshire friend, who strengthened his men
by telling them of it. And the Heavens, in
their mercy, I think, have opened us a way of
deliverance !—The Moon gleams out, hard
and blue, riding among hail-clouds; and
over St. Abb's Head a streak of dawn is
rising.
And now is the hour when the attack should
be, and no Lambert is yet here, he is ordering
the line far to the right yet; and Oliver occa¬
sionally, in Hodgson's hearing, is impatient for
him. The Scots too, on this wing, are awake ;
thinking to surprise us : there is their trumpet
156
Battle of Dunbar
sounding, we heard it once; and Lambert,
who was to lead the attack, is not here. The
Lord General is impatient;—behold Lambert
at last! The trumpets peal, shattering with
fierce clangor Night's silence ; the cannons
awaken along all the Line: " The Lord of
Hosts ! The Lord of Hosts !" On, my brave
ones, on!—
The dispute " on this right wing was hot
and stiff, for three quarters of an hour."
Plenty of fire, from field-pieces, snap-hances
matchlocks, entertains the Scotch main-battle
across the Brock ;—poor stiffened men, roused
from the corn-shocks with their matches all
out! But here on the right, their horse,
"with lances in the front rank," charge
desperately ; drive us back across the hollow
of the Rivulet;—back a little ; but the Lord
gives us courage, and we storm home again,
horse and foot, upon them, with a shock like
tornado tempests; break them, beat them,
drive them all adrift. " Some fled towards
Copperspath, but most across their own foot."
Their own poor foot, whose matches were
hardly well alight yet! Poor men, it was a
terrible awakening for them : field-pieces and
charge of foot across the Brocksburn ; and
now here is their own horse in mad panic
trampling them to death. Above three thou*
157
Battle of Dunbar
sand killed upon the place: " I never saw
such a charge of foot and horse," says one ;*
nor did I. Oliver was still near to Yorkshire
Hodgson when the shock succeeded ; Hodg¬
son heard him say, " They run ! I profess they
run !" And over St. Abb's Head and the
German Ocean, just then, bursts the first
gleam of the level Sun upon us, •• and I heard
Nol say, in the words of the Psalmist, • Let
God arise, let His enemies be scattered,'
or in Rous's meter,—
" Let God arise, and scattered
Let all his enemies be;
And let all those that do him hate
Before his presence flee t"
Even SO. The Scotch Army is shivered to
utter ruin; rushes in tumultuous wreck,
hither, thither; to Belhaven, or, in their dis¬
traction, even to Dunbar; the chase goes as
far as Haddington; led by Hacker. " The
Lord General made a hall," says Hodgson,
"and sang the Hundred-and-seventeenth
Psalm," till our horse could gather for the
chase. Hundred-and-seventeenth Psalm, at
the foot of the Doon Hill; there we uplift it,
to the tune of Bangor, or some still higher
*Rushworth's Letter to the Speaker (In Parliamentary Hi*
tery, xlx 341).
158
Battle of Dunbar
score, and roll it strong and great against the
sky:—
** Oh, give ye praise unto Uie Lord,
All natUons that be;
likewise ye people all, accord
His name to magnify!
* For great to-us-ward ever are
His loving'kindnesses;
His truth endures forevermore?
The Lord oh do ye bless I
And now, to the chase again.
159
The Watch-Tower*
It was the attic floor of the highest house
in the Wahngasse: and might truly be called
the pinnacle of Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer
up above the contiguous roofs, themselves
rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with
its windows it looked towards all the four
Orte, or as the Scotch say, and we ought to
say, Airis : the sitting-room itself command¬
ed three ; another came to view in the Schlaf-
gemach (bedroom) at the opposite end; to
say nothing ot the kitchen, which offered two,
as it were, duplicates, and showing nothing
new. So that it was in fact the speculum or
watch-tower of Teufelsdrdckh ; wherefrom,
sitting at ease, he might see the whole life-
circulation of that considerable City; the
streets and lanes of which, with all their do¬
ing and driving {Thun und Treiben), were
for the most part visible there.
" I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee¬
hive," have we heard him say, •• and witness
their wax-laying and honey-making, and
poison-brewing, and choking by sulphur,
* Sartor Resartus^ book i., chap. iii.
i6o
The Watch-Tower
From the Palace esplanade, where music plays
while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his
victuals, down to the low lane, where in her
door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin
livelihood, sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see
it all; for, except the Schlosskirche weather¬
cock, no biped stands so high. Couriers ar¬
rive bestrapped, and bebooted, bearing Joy
and Sorrow bagged up in pouches of leather:
there, top-laden, and with four swift horses,
rolls in the country Baron and his household ;
here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier hops
painfully along, begging alms ; a .thousand
carriages, and wains, and cars, come tumbling
in with Food, with young Rusticity, and other
Raw Produce, inanimate or animate, and go
tumbling out again with produce manufac¬
tured. That living flood, pouring through
these streets, of all qualities and ages, know-
est thou whence it is coming, whither it is
going ? Aus der Ewigkeit zu der Ewigkeit
kin: From Eternity, onwards to Eternity!
These are Apparitions: what else ? Are
they not Souls rendered visible : in Bodies,
that took shape and will lose it, melting into
air ? Their solid Pavement is a Picture of
the Sense; they walk on the bosom of Noth¬
ing, blank Time is behind them and before
them. Or fanciest thou, the red and yellow
II i6i
The Watch-Tower
Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on its heels
and feather in its crown, is but of To-day,
without a Yesterday or a To-morrow; and
had not rather its Ancestor alive when Hengst
and Horsa overran thy Island ? Friend, thou
seest here a living link in that Tissue of His¬
tory, which inweaves all Being : watch well,
or it will be past thee, and seen no more."
" Ach, mein Lieber ! " said he once, at mid¬
night, when we had returned from the Coffee¬
house in rather earnest talk, " it is a true sub¬
limity to dwell here. These fringes of lamp¬
light, struggling up through smoke and thou¬
sand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the
ancient reign of Night, what thinks Bodtes of
them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the
Zenith in their leash of siderial fire ? That
stifled, hum of Midnight, when Traffic has
lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of
Vanity, still rolling here and there through
distant streets, are bearing her to Halls
roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for
her ; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or
to moan like nightbirds, are abroad: that
hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slum¬
ber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven ! Oh,
under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and
putrefaction, and unimaginable gases, what a
Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid ! The
162
The Watch-Tower
joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are
dying there, men are being born ; men are
praying,—on the other side of a brick partition,
men are cursing ; and around them all is the
vast, void Night. The proud Grandee still lin¬
gers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within
damask curtains ; Wretchedness cowers into
Vuckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into
ts lair of straw : in obscure cellars. Rouge-
t-Noir languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to
laggard hungry Villains ; while Councillors
)f State sit plotting, and playing their high
thess-game, whereof the pawns are Men,
The Lover whispers his mistress that the
coach is ready ; and she, full of hope and
fear, glides down, to fly with him over the
borders : the Thief, still more silently, sets to
his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait
till the watchmen first snore in their boxes.
Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and danc¬
ing-rooms, are full of light and music and
high-swelling hearts ; but, in the Condemned
Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and
faint, and bloodshot eyes look through the
darkness, which is around and within, for the
light of a stern last morning. Six men are to
be hanged on the morrow: comes no ham¬
mering from the Rabenstein their gallows
must even now be o'building. Upwards of
163
The Watch-Tower
five hundred thousand two-legged animals
without feathers lie round us, in horizontal
position ; their heads all in nightcaps, and
full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud,
and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens
of shame ; and the Mother, with streaming
hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant,
whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten.
—All these heaped and huddled together,
with nothing but a little carpentry and ma¬
sonry between them;—crammed in, like salted
fish in their barrel ;>—or weltering, shall I say,
like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers,
each struggling to get its head above the
others : such work goes on under that smoke-
counterpane !—But I, mein Werther, sit
above it all; I am alone with the stars."
We looked in his face to see whether, in
the utterance of such extraordinary Night-
thoughts, no feeling might be traced there ;
but with the light we had, which indeed was
only a single tallow-light, and far enough
from the window, nothing save that old calm¬
ness and fixedness was visible.
164
The Everlasting No*
Under the strange nebulous envelopment,
wherein our Professor has now shrouded him¬
self, no doubt but his spiritual nature is never¬
theless progressive, and growing: for how
can the " Son of Time," in any case, stand
still ? We behold him, through those dim
years, in a state of crisis, of transition : his
mad Pilgrimings, and general solution into
aimless Discontinuity, what is all this but a
mad Fermentation; wherefrom the fiercer
it is, the clearer product will one day evolve
itself.
Such transitions are ever full of pain : thus
the Eagle when he moults is sickly ; and, to
attain his new beak, must harshly dash off the
old one upon rocks. What Stoicism soever
our Wanderer, in his individual acts and
motions, may affect, it is clear that there is a
hot fever of anarchy and misery raging with¬
in ; coruscations of which flash out : as, in¬
deed, how could there be other ? Have we
not seen him disappointed, bemocked of
Destiny, through long years ? All that the
» Sartor Resartus, book ii., chap. vii.
165
The Everlasting No
young heart might desire and pray foi has
been denied ; nay, as in the last worst instance,
offered and then snatched away. Ever an
" excellent Passivity ; " but of useful, reason¬
able Activity, essential to the former as Food
CO Hunger, nothing granted : till at length, in
this wild Pilgrimage, he must forcibly seize for
himself an Activity, though useless, unreason¬
able. Alas, his cup of bitterness, which had
been filling drop by drop, ever since that first
"ruddy morning" in the Hinterschlag Gym¬
nasium, was at the very lip ; and then with
that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and-Blumine
business, it runs over, and even hisses over in
a deluge of foam.
He himself says once, with more justness
than originality : •* Man is, properly speaking,
based upon Hope, he has no other possession
but Hope ; this world of his is emphatically
the Place of Hope." What then, was our
Professor's possession ? We see him, for the
present, quite shut out from Hope ; looking
not into the golden orient, but vaguely all
round into a dim copper firmament, pregnant
with earthquake and tornado.
Alas, shut out from Hope, in a deeper sense
than we yet dream of! For, as he wanders
wearisomely through this world, he has now
lost all tidings of another and higher. Full
166
The Everlasting No
of religion, or at least of religiosity, as our
Friend has since exhibited himself, he hides
not that, in those days, he was wholly irreli¬
gious : " Doubt had darkened into Unbelief,"
says he ; " shade after shade goes grimly over
your soul, till you have the fixed, starless.
Tartarean black." To such readers as have
reflected, what can be called reflecting, on
man's life, and happily discovered, in contra¬
diction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy,
speculative and practical, that Soul is not
synonymous with Stomach ; who under¬
stand, therefore, in our Friend's words, •• that,
for man's well-being. Faith is properly the one
thing needful; how, with it. Martyrs, other¬
wise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame
and the cross ; and without it. Worldlings
puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in the
midst of luxury : " to such it will be clear that,
for a pure moral nature, the loss of his religi¬
ous Belief was the loss of everything. Un¬
happy young man ! All wounds, the crush of
long-continued Destitution, the stab of false
Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in
thy so genial heart, would have healed again,
had not its life-warmth been withdrawn.
Well might he exclaim, in his wild way; " Is
there no God, then ; but at best an absentee
God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath,
167
The Everlasting No
at the outside of his Universe, and j^^ing if
go ? Has the word Duty no meaning; is
what we call Duty no divine Messenger and
Guide, but a false earthly Phantasm, made up
of Desire and Fear, of emanations from the
Gallows and from Doctor Graham's Celestial-
Bed ? Happiness of an approving Conscience !
Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom admiring men
have since named Saint, feel that he was ' the
chief of sinners ;' and Nero of Rome, jocund
in spirit i^ohlgemuth), spend much of his
time in fiddling ? Foolish Wordmonger and
Motive-grinder, who in thy Logic-mill hast an
earthly mechanism for the Godlife itself, and
wouldst fain grind me out Virtue from the
husks of Pleasure,—I tell thee. Nay ! To the
unregenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man,
it is ever the bitterest aggravation of his
wretchedness that he is conscious of Virtue,
that he feels himself the victim not of suffer¬
ing only, but of injustice. What then ? Is
the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but
some Passion ; some bubble of the blood,
bubbling in the direction others profit by ?
I know not: only this I know. If what thou
namest Happiness be our true aim, then are
we all astray. With Stupidity and sound
Digestion man may front much. But what,
in these dull unimaginative days, are the
i68
The Everlasting No
terrors of Conscience to the diseases of the
Liver ! Not on Morality, but on Cookery, let
us build our stronghold ; there brandishing
our frying-pan, as censer, let us offer sweet
incense to the Devil, and live at ease
on the fat things he has provided for his
Elect!"
Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand,
as so many have done, shouting question
after question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny,
and receive no Answer but an Echo. It is all
a grim Desert, this once-fair world of his;
wherein is heard only the howling of wild
beasts, or the shrieks of despairing, hate-filled
men ; and no Pillar of Cloud by day, and no
Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides the
Pilgrim. To such length has the spirit of
Inquiry carried him. "But what boots it
, (wflf thufs) ? " cries he ; " it is but the com¬
mon lot in this era. Not having come to
spiritual majority prior to the Siicle de Louis
Quinze, and not being born purely a Loghead
{Dummkopf) thou hadst no other outlook.
The whole world is, like thee, sold to Un¬
belief; their old Temples of the Godhead
which for long have not been rain-proof,
crumble down ; and men ask now ; Where
IS the Godhead ; our eyes never saw him ? "
Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild
169
The Everlasting No
utterances, to call our Diogenes wicked. Un«
profitable servants as we all are, perhaps at
no era of his life was he more decisively the
Servant of Goodness, the Servant of God, than
even now when doubting God's existence.
" One circumstance I note," says he ; •' after
all the nameless wo that Inquiry, which for
me, what it is not always, was genuine Love
of Truth, had wrought me, I nevertheless still
loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my
allegiance to her. ' Truth !' I cried, ' though
the Heavens crush me for following her ; no
Falsehood ! though a whole celestial Lubber-
land were the price of Apostasy.' In conduct
it was the 'same. Had a divine Messenger
from the clouds, or a miraculous Handwriting
on the wall, convincingly proclaimed to me
This thou shalt do, with what passionate
readiness, as I often thought, would I have
done it, had it been leaping into the infernal
Fire. Thus, in spite of all Motive-grinders,
and Mechanical Profit-and-Loss Philosophies,
with the sick ophthalmia and hallucination
they had brought on, was the Infinite nature
of Duty still dimly present to me : living with¬
out God in the world, of God's light I was not
utterly bereft; if my as yet sealed eyes, with
their unspeakable longing, could nowhere
see Him, nevertheless in my heart He wag
170
The Everlasting No
present, and His heaven-written Law still
stood legible and sacred there."
Meanwhile, under all these tribulations,
and temporal and spiritual destitutions, what
must the Wanderer, in his silent soul, have
endured ! " The painfullest feelings," writes
he, "is that of your own Feebleness {Un-
kraft) ; ever, as the English Milton says, to
be weak is the true misery. And yet of your
Strength there is and can be no clear feeling,
save by what you have prospered in, by what
you have done. Between vague wavering
Capability and fixed indubitable Performance,
what a difference ! A certain inarticulate
Self-consciousness dwells dimly in us ; which
only our Works can render articulate and de¬
cisively discernible. Our Works are the
mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural
lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that im¬
possible Precept, Know thyself; till it be
translated into this partially possible one.
Know what thou canst work at.
"But for me, so strangely unprosperous
had I been, the net-result of my Workings
amounted as yet simply to—Nothing. How
then could I believe in my Strength, when there
was as yet no mirror to see it in ? Ever did
this agitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite
frivolous question, remain to me insoluble:,
171
The Everlasting No
Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth,
such even as the most have not; or art thou
the completest Dullard of these modern times ?
Alas, the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in your¬
self ; and how could I believe ? Had not my
first, last Faith in myself, when even to me
the Heavens seemed laid open, and I dared
to love, been all too cruelly belied ? The
speculative Mystery of Life grew ever more
mysterious to me: neither in the practical
Mystery had I made the slightest progress,
but been everywhere buffeted, foiled, and con¬
temptuously cast out. A feeble unit in the
middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed
to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby
to discern my own wretchedness. Invisible
yet impenetrable walls, as of Enchantment,
divided me from all living; was there, in the
wide world, any true bosom I could press
trustfully to mine ? O Heaven, No, there was
none! I kept a lock upon my lips: why
should I speak much with that shifting variety
of so-called Friends, in whose withered, vain
and too-hungry souls Friendship was but an
incredible tradition ? In such cases, your re¬
source is to talk little, and that little mostly
from the Newspapers. Now when I look
back, it was a strange isolation I then lived
in. The men and women around me, even
172
The Everlasting No
speaking with me, were but Figures; I had,
practically, forgotten that they were alive,
that they were not merely automatic. In the
midst of their crowded streets and assem¬
blages, I walked solitary; and (except as it
was my own heart, not another's, that I kept
devouring) savage also, as the tiger in his
jungle. Some comfort it would have been,
could I, like a Faust, have fancied myself
tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a
Hell, as I imagined, without Life, though only
diabolic Life, were more frightful: but in our
age of Down-pulling and Disbelief, the very
Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so
much as believe in a Devil. To me the Uni¬
verse was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Voli¬
tion, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead,
immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its
dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb.
Oh, the vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and
Mill of Death ! Why was the Living banished
thither companionless, conscious ? Why, if
there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is
your God ? "
A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might
not, moreover, as the worst aggravation to
them, the iron constitution even of a Teufels-
dreckh threaten to fail ? We conjecture that
he has known sickness; and, in spite of his
173
The Everlasting No
locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of the
chronic sort. Hear this, for example ; " How
beautiful to die of broken-heart, on Paper!
Quite another thing in practice ; every window
of your Feeling, even of your Intellect, as it
were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that
no pure ray can enter; a whole Drug-shop
in your inwards ; the fordone soul drowning
slowly in quagmires of Disgust 1"
Putting all which external and internal
miseries together, may we not find in the fol¬
lowing sentences, quite in our Professor's still
vein, significance enough? "From Suicide
a certain after-shine {Nachschein) of Christ¬
ianity withheld me: perhaps also a certain
indolence of character; for, was not that a
remedy 1 had at any time within reach ?
Often, however, was there a question present
to me: Should some one now, at the turning
of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of
Space, into the other World, or other No-
world, by pistol-shot,—how were it ? On
which ground, too, 1 have often, in sea-storms
and sieged cities and other death-scenes, ex¬
hibited an imperturbability, which passed,
falsely enough, for courage."
" So had it lasted," concludes the Wanderer,
" so had it lasted, as in bitter protracted
Death-agony, through long years. The heart
*74
The Everlasting No
within me, unvisited by any heavenly dew-
drop, was smoldering in sulphurous, slow-
consuming fire. Almost since earliest mem¬
ory I had shed no tear; or once only when
I, murmuring half-audibly, recited Faust's
Death-song, that wild Selig der den er im
Siegesglanze findet (Happy whom he finds
in Battle's splendor), and thought that of this
last Friend even I was not forsaken, that
Destiny itself could not doom me not to die.
Having no hope, neither had I any definite
fear, were it of Man or of Devil; nay, 1 often
felt as if it might be solacing, could the Arch-
Devil himself, though in Tartarean terrors,
but rise to me, that I might tell him a little of
my mind. And yet, strangely enough, I lived
in a continual, indefinite, pining fear ; tremu¬
lous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew
not what: it seemed as if all things in the
Heavens above and the Earth beneath would
hurt me; as if the Heavens and the Earth
were but boundless jaws of a devouring mon¬
ster, wherein I, palpitating, waited to be de¬
voured.
" Full of such humor, and perhaps the
miserablest man in the whole French Capitol
or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dog-day, after
much perambulation, toiling along the dirty
little Rue Saint-Thomas de FEnfer, among
175
The Everlasting No
civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere,
and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar's
Furnace ; whereby doubtless my spirits were
little cheered ; when, all at once, there rose a
Thought in me, and I asked myself: 'What
art thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward,
does thou forever pip and whimper, and go
cowering and trembling ? Despicable biped 1
what is the sum-total of the worst that lies
before thee ? Death ? Well, Death ; and
say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the
Devil and Man may, will, or can do against
thee ! Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not
suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of
Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet it«
self under thy feet, while it consumes thee ?
Let it come, then ; I will meet it and defy it 1 *
And as I so thought, there rushed like a
stream of fire over my whole soul; and I
shook base Fear away from me forever. I
was strong, of unknown strength ; a spirit,
almost a god. Ever from that time, the tem¬
per of my misery was changed : not Fear or
whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and
grim fire-eyed Defiance.
" Thus had the Everlasting No {das
ewige Neiti) pealed authoritatively through
all the recesses of my Being, of my Me ; and
then was it that my whole Me stood up, in.
176
The Everlasting No
native God-created majesty, and with em-
phasis recorded its Protest. Such a Protest,
the most important transaction in Life, may
that same Indignation and Defiance, in a
psychological point of view, be fitly called.
The Everlasting No had said : • Behold, thou
art fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is
mine (the Devil's) ;' to which my whole Me
now made answer: • /am not thine, but Free,
and forever hate thee !'
" It is from this hour that I incline to date
my Spiritual New-birth, or Baphometic Fire-
baptism ; perhaps I directly thereupon began
to be a Man."
12
*77
Ghosts *
•• Again, could anything be more miraculous
than an actual authentic Ghost ? The English
Johnson longed, all his life, to see one ; but
could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and
thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on
coffins. Foolish Doctor ! Did he never, with
the mind's eye as well as with the body's, look
round him into that full tide of human Life
he so loved ; did he never so much as look
into Himself ? The good Doctor was a Ghost,
as actual and authentic as heart could wish;
well-nigh a million of Ghosts were traveling
the streets by his side. Once more I say,
sweep away the illusion of Time ; compress
the threescore years into three minutes : what
else was he, what else are we ? Are we not
Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an
Appearance ; and that fade away again into
air and Invisibility ? This is no metaphor, it
is a simple scientific fact: we start out of
Nothingness, take figure, and are Appari¬
tions ; round us,-as round the veriest specter,
is Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as
• Sartor Sesartus, book iii., chap. viii.
178
Ghosts
years and aeons. Come there not tones of
Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-
strings, like the Song of beatified Souls ? And
again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our
discordant, screech-owlish debatings and re-
criminatings) ; and glide bodeful, and feeble,
and fearful ; or uproar (poltern), and revel
in our mad Dance of the Dead,—till the scent
of the morning air summons us to our still
Home ; and dreamy Night becomes awake
and Day ? Where now is Alexander of
Macedon": does the steel Host, that yelled in
fierce battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela, re¬
main behind him ; or have they all vanished
utterly, even as perturbed Goblins must ?
Napoleon too, and his Moscow Retreats and
Austerlitz Campaigns I Was it all other than
the veriest Specter-hunt; which has now,
with its howling tumult that made Night
hideous, flitted away ?—Ghosts ! There are
nigh a thousand million walking the Earth
openly at noontide; some half-hundred have
vanished from it, some half-hundred have
arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once.
" O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to
consider that we not only carry each a future
Ghost within him; but are, in very deed.
Ghosts ! These Limbs, whence had we them ;
this stormy Force ; this life-blood with its
179
Ghosts
burning Passion ? They are dust and shadow;
a shadow-system gathered round our Me;
wherein, through some moments or years, the
Divine Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh.
That warrior on his strong war-horse, fire
flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his
arm and heart, but warrior and war-horse
are a vision ; a revealed Force, nothing more.
Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a
firm substance; fool ! the Earth is but a
film ; it cracks in twain, and warrior and
war-horse sink beyond plummet's sounding.
Plummet's? Fantasy herself will not follow
them. A little while ago, they were not; a
little while, and they are not, their very ashes
are not.
"So has it been from the beginning, so
will it be to the end. Generation after gen¬
eration takes to itself the Form of a Body;
and forth issuing from Cimmerian Night, on
Heaven's mission appears. What Force
and Fire is in each he expends: one grind¬
ing in the mill of Industry ; one hunter-like
climbing the giddy Alpine heights of Science ;
one madly dashed in pieces on the rocks of
Strife, in war with his fellow :—and then the
Heaven-sent is recalled ; his earthly Vesture
falls away, and soon even to Sense becomes
a vanished Shadow. Thus, like some wild-
i8o
Ghosts
flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's
Artillery, does this mysterious Mankind
thunder and flame, in long-drawn, quick-suc¬
ceeding grandeur, through the unknown
Deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breath¬
ing Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane ;
haste stormfully across the astonished Earth ;
then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's
mountains are leveled, and her seas filled up,
in our passage : can the Earth, which is but
dead and a vision, resist Spirits which have
reality and are alive ? On the hardest
adamant some footprint of us is stamped in ;
the last Rear ol the host will read traces of
the earliest Van. But whence ?—O Heaven,
whither ? Sense knows not; Faith knows
not; only that it is through Mystery to Mys¬
tery, from God and to God,
' We ar^ such stuff
As Dreams are made of, and our little Life
Is rounded with a sleep t *
i8i
Labor*
For there is a perennial nobleness, and
even sacredness, in Work. Were he never
so benighted, forgetful of his high calling,
there is always hope in a man that actually
and earnestly works : in Idleness alone is
there perpetual despair. Work, never so
Mammonish, mean, is in communication with
Nature; the real desire to get Work done
will itself lead one more and more to truth, to
Nature's appointments and regulations, which
are truth.
The latest Gospel in this world is, Know
thy work and do it. " Know thyself:" long
enough has that poor •' self" of thine torment¬
ed thee ; thou wilt never get to " know " it, I
believe ! Think it not thy business, this of
knowing thyself: thou art an unknowable
individual: know what thou canst work at;
and work at it, like a Hercules ! That will
be thy better plan.
It has been written, •' an endless signifi¬
cance lies in Work ; " a man perfects himself
by working. Foul jungles are cleared away,
* Past and Present, book iii., chap. si.
182
Labor
b ir seed-fields rise instead, and stately cities;
ft) id withal the man himself first ceases to be
jt ngle and foul unwholesome desert thereby.
C insider how, even in the meanest sorts of
Labor, the whole soul of a man is composed
into a kind of real harmony, the instant he
sets himself to work ! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow,
Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these
like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the
poor dayworker, as of every man: but he
bends himself with free valor against his task,
and all these are stilled, all these shrink mur¬
muring far off into their caves. The man is
now a man. The blessed glow of Labor in
him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all
poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself
there is made bright blessed flame !
Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of
cultivating us. A formless Chaos once set it
revolving, grows round and even rounder;
ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, into
strata, spherical courses ; is no longer a Chaos,
but a round compacted World. What would
become of the Earth, did she cease to revolve ?
In the poor old Earth, so long as she revolves,
all inequalities, irregularities disperse them¬
selves ; all irregularities are incessantly be¬
coming regular. Hast thou looked on the
Potter's wheel,—one of the venerablest objects;
183
Labor
I
old as the Prophet Ezechiel and far older ?
Rude lumps of clay, how they spin themselves
up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful
circular dishes. And fancy the most assiu.
uous Potter, but without his wheel; reducejl
to make dishes, or rather amorphous botches,
by mere kneading and baking! Even such
a Potter were Destiny, with a human soul
that would rest and lie at ease, that would
not work and spin ! Of an idle unrevolving
man the kindest Destiny, like the most assid¬
uous Potter without wheel, can bake and
knead nothing other than a botch ; let her
spend on him what expensive coloring, what
gilding and enameling she will, he is but a
botch. Not a dish ; no, a bulging, kneaded,
crooked, shambling, squint-cornered, amor¬
phous botch,—a mere enameled vessel of dis¬
honor ! Let the idle think of this.
Blessed is he who has found his work ; let
him ask no ^ther blessedness. He has a
work, a life-purpose ; he has found it, and
will follow it! How, as a free-flowing chan¬
nel, dug and torn by noble force through the
sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an
ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows;
—draining oft the sour festering water, grad¬
ually from the root of the remotest grass-blade ;
making, instead of pestilential s wamp, a green
I8A
Labor
fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream.
How blessed for the meadow itself, let the
stream and its value be great or small! La¬
bor is Life ; from the inmost heart of the
Worker rises his god-given Force, the sacred
celestial Life-essence breathed into him by
Almighty God ; from his inmost heart awak¬
ens him to all nobleness,—to all knowledge,
" self-knowledge " and much else, so soon as
Work fitly begins. Knowledge ? The knowl¬
edge that will hold good in working, cleave
thou to that; for Nature herself accredits
that, says Yea to that. Properly thou hast no
other knowledge but what thou hast got by
working; the rest is yet all a hypothesis of
knowledge ; a thing to be argued of in schools,
a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic-
vortices, till we try it and fix it. " Doubt, of
whatever kind, can be ended by Action
alone."
And again, hast thou valued Patience, Cour¬
age, Perseverance, Openness to light; readi¬
ness to own thyself mistaken, to do better
next time 2 All these, all virtues, in wrest¬
ling with the dim brute Powers of Fact, in
ordering of thy fellows in such wrestle, there
and elsewhere not at all, thou wilt continually
learn. Set down a brave Sir Christopher in
'8S
Labor
the middle of black ruined Stoneheaps, of
foolish unarchitectural Bishops, redtape Of¬
ficials, idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders of the Faith ;
and see whether he will ever raise a Paul's
Cathedral out of all that, yea or no ! Rough,
rude, contradictory are all things and persons,
from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen,
up to the idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders, to blus¬
tering redtape Officials, foolish unarchitectural
Bishops. All these things and persons are
there not for Christopher's sake and his
Cathedral's ; they are there for their own sake
mainly ! Christopher will have to conquer and
constrain all these,—if he be able. All these
are against him. Equitable Nature herself,
who carries her mathematics and architec¬
tonics not on the face of her, but deep in the
hidden heart of her,—Nature herself is but
partially for him ; will be wholly against him, if
he constrain her not! His very money, where
is it to come from ? The pious munificence of^
England lies far-scattered, distant, unable to
speak, and say, •• I am here ;"—must be spoken
to before it can speak. Pious munificence, and
all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods ;
impediments, contradictions manifold are so
loud and near! O brave Sir Christopher^
trust thou in those, notwithstanding, and
front all these ; understand all these; by
i86
Labor
valiant patience, noble effort, insight by man's-
strength, vanquish and compel all these,—and,
on the whole, strike down victoriously the
last topstone of that Paul's Edifice: thy
monument for certain centuries, the stamp
"Great Man" impressed very legibly on Port¬
land-stone there 1
Yes, all manner of help, and pious response
from Men of Nature, is always what we call
silent; cannot speak or come to light, till it
be seen, till it be spoken to. Every noble
v/ork is at first " impossible." In very truth,
for every noble work the possibilities will lie
diffused through Immensity ; inarticulate, tm-
discoverable except to faith. Like Gideon
thou shalt spread out thy fleece at the door
of thy tent; see whether under the wide arch
of Heaven there be any bounteous moisture,
or none. Thy heart and life-purpose shall be
as a miraculous Gideon's fleece, spread out in
silent appeal to Heaven ; and from the kind
Immensities, what from the poor unkind
Localities and town and country Parishes there
never could, blessed dew-moisture to suffice
thee shall have fallen !
Work is of a religious nature :—work is of
a brave nature ; which it is the aim of all re¬
ligion to be. All work of man is as the swim¬
mer's ; a waste ocean threatens to devour
187
Labor
him ; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its
word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty
rebuke and buffet of it, behold how it loyally
supports him, bears him as its conqueror
along. " It is so," says Goethe, " with all
things that man undertakes in this world."
Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king,—Col¬
umbus, my hero, royalest Sea-king of all! it
is no friendly environment this of thine, in the
waste deep waters; around thee mutinous
discouraged souls, behind thee disgrace and
ruin, before thee the unpenetrated veil of
Night. Brother, these wild water-mountains,
bounding from their deep basin (ten miles
deep, I am told), are not entirely there on thy
behalf! Meseems they have other work than
floating thee forward :—and the huge Winds,
that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics
and Equators, dancing their giant-waltz
through the kingdoms ofChaos and Immensity,
they care little about filling rightly or filling
wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails
in this cockle-skiff of thine ! Thou are not
among articulate-speaking friends, my
brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb
monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the world
here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts,
but thine, there lies a help in them ; see how
thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt
i88
Labor
wait till the mad Southwester spend itself,
saving thyself by dexterous science of defense,
the while ; valiantly, with swift decision, wilt
thou strike in, when the favoring East, the
Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou
wilt sternly repress ; weakness, despondency,
thou wilt cheerily encourage : thou wilt swal¬
low down complaint, unreason, weariness,
weakness of others and thyself;—^how much
wilt thou swallow down ! There shall be a
depth of Silence in thee, deeper than this Sea,
which is but ten miles deep: a Silence un-
soundable ; known to God only. Thou shalt be
a great Man. Yes, my World-Soldier, thou
of the World Marine-service,—thou wilt have
to be greater than this tumultuous unmeas¬
ured World here round thee is ; thou, in thy
strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt
embrace it, harness it down; and make it
bear thee on,—to new Americas, or whither
God wills!
189
Reward*
•' Religion," I said ; for properly speaking,
all true Work is Religion: and whatsoever
Religion is not Work may go and dwell
among the Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning
Dervishes, or where it will; with me it shall
have no harbor. Admirable was that of the
old Monks, " Labor are est Orare, Work is
Worship."
Older than all preached Gospels was this
unpreached, inarticulate but ineradicable,
forever-enduring Gospel: Work, and therein
have well being. Man, son of Earth and of
Heaven, lies there not, in the innermost heart
of thee, a Spirit of active Method, a Force for
work :—and burns like a painfully smolder¬
ing fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it,
till thou write it down in beneficent Facts
around thee ! What is immethodic, waste,
thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable;
obedient and productive to thee. Whereso¬
ever thou findest Disorder, there is thy eternal
enemy; attack him swiftly, subdue him ;
make Order of him, the subject not of Chaos,
* Past and Present^ book iii., chap. xii.
190
Reward
but of Intelligence, Divinity and Thee ! The
thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out, that
a blade of useful grass, a drop of nourishing
milk, may grow there instead. The waste
cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down,
spin it, weave it; that, in place of idle litter,
there may be folded webs, and the naked skin
of man be covered.
But above all, where thou findest Ignorance,
Stupidity, Brute-mindedness,—yes, there, with
or without Church-tithes and Shovel-hat, with
or without Talfourd-Mahon Copyrights, or
were it with mere dungeons and gibbets and
crosses, attack it, I say; smite it wisely, un-
wearily, and rest not while thou livest and it
lives ; but smite, smite, in the name of God 1
The Highest God, as I understand it, does
audibly so command thee ; still audibly, if
thou have ears to hear. He, even He, with
his ««spoken voice, awfuler than any Sinai
thunders or syllabled speech of Whirlwinds ;
for the Silence of deep Eternities of Worlds
from beyond the morning-stars, does it not
speak to thee ? The unborn Ages ; the old
Graves, with their long-moldering dust, the
very tears that wetted it now all dry,—do not
these speak to thee, what ear hath not heard ?
The deep Death-kingdoms, the Stars in their
never-resting courses, all Space and all Time,
191
Reward
proclaim it to thee in continual silent admo<
nition. Thou, too, if ever man should, shalt
work while it is called To-day. For the Night
Cometh, wherein no man can work.
All true Work is sacred ; in all true Work,
were it but true hand-labor, there is some¬
thing of divineness. Labor, wide as the
Earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of
the brow; and up from that to sweat of the
brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all
Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all
Sciences, all spoken Epics, all acted Heroisms,
Martyrdoms,—up to that " Agony of bloody
sweat," which all men have called divine ! O
brother, if this is not " worship," then I say,
the more pity for worship; for this is the
noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky.
Who art thou that complainest of thy life of
toil ? Complain not. Look up, my wearied
brother; see thy fellow Workmen there, in
God's Eternity; surviving there, they alone
surviving: sacred Band of the Immortals,
celestial Bodyguard of the Empire of Man¬
kind. Even in the weak Human Memory
they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as
gods; they alone surviving; peopling, they
alone, the unmeasured solitudes of Time!
To Thee Heaven, though severe, is not un¬
kind ; Heaven is kind,—as a noble Mother;
192
Reward
as that Spartan Mother, saying while she gave
her son his shield, " With it, my son, or upon
it!" Thou too, shalt return home in honor;
to thy far-distant Home, in honor; doubt it
not,—if in the battle thou keep thy shield!
Thou, in the Eternities and deepest Death-
kingdoms, are not an alien ; thou everywhere
art a denizen ! Complain not; the very Spar¬
tans did not complain.
And who art thou that braggest of thy life
of Idleness ; complacently shewest thy bright
gilt equipages ; sumptuous cushions ; appli¬
ances for folding of the hands to mere sleep ?
Looking up, looking down, around, behind or
before, discernest thou, if it be not in Mayfair
alone, any idle hero, saint, god, or even devil ?
Not a vestige of one. In the Heavens, in the
Earth, in the Waters under the Earth, is none
like unto thee. Thou art an original figure
in this Creation ; a denizen in Mayfair alone,
in this extraordinary Century or Half-Century
alone 1 One monster there is in the world :
the idle man. What is his " Religion ? "
That Nature is a Phantasm, where cunning
Ijcggjtty or thievery may sometimes find good
victual. That God is a lie ; and that Man
and his Life are a lie.—Alas, alas, who of us
<** there that can say, I have worked ? The
faithfulest of us are unprofitable servants; the
13 ^93
Reward
faithfulest of us know that best. The faith*
fulest of us may say, with sad and true old
Samuel, " much of my life has been trifled
away !" But he that has, and except " on
public occasions " professes to have, no func¬
tion but that of going idle in a graceful or
graceless manner; and of begetting sons to
go idle ; and to address Chief Spinners and
Diggers, who at least are spinning and dig¬
ging, "Ye scandalous persons who produce
too much"—My Corn-Law Friends, on what
imaginary still richer Eldorados, and true
iron-spikes with law of gravitation, are ye
rushing 1
As to the Wages of Work there might in¬
numerable things be said; there will and
must yet innumerable things be said and
spoken, in St. Stephen's and out of St. Ste¬
phen's ; and gradually not a few things be
ascertained and written, on Law-parchment,
concerning this very matter:—"Fair day's-
wages for a fair day's-work " is the most un-
refusable demand ! Money-wages " to the
extent of keeping your worker alive that he
may work more ; " these, unless you mean to
dismiss him straightway out of this world, are
indispensable alike to the noblest Worker and
to the least noble !
194
Reward
One thing only I will say here, in special
reference to the former class, the noble and
noblest; but throwing light on all the other
classes and their arrangements of this diffi¬
cult matter: The " wages " of every noble
Work do yet lie in Heaven or else Nowhere.
Not in Bank-of-England bills, in Owen's
Labor-bank, or any the most improved es¬
tablishment of banking and money-changing,
needest thou, heroic soul, present thy account
of earnings. Human banks and labor-banks
know thee not; or know thee after genera¬
tions and centuries have passed away, and
thou art clean gone from •• rewarding,"—all
manner of bank-drafts, shop-tills, and Down-
ing-Street Exchequers lying very invisible, so
far from thee ! Nay, at bottom, dost thou
need any reward ? Was it thy aim and life-
purpose to be filled with good things for thy
heroism ; to have a life of pomp and ease, and
be what men call " happy," in this world, or
in any other world ? I answer for thee de¬
liberately, No. The whole spiritual secret of
the new epoch lies in this, that thou canst an¬
swer for thyself, with thy whole clearness of
head and heart, deliberately. No !
My brother, the brave man has to give his
Life away. Give it, I advise thee thou
dost not expect to sell thy Life in an adequate
195
Reward
manner? What price, for example, would
content thee ? The just price of thy Life to
thee,—why, God's entire Creation to thyself,
the whole Universe of Space, the whole
Eternity of Time, and what they hold : that
is the price which would content thee ; that,
and if thou wilt be candid, nothing short of
that! It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst
have all. Thou art an unreasonable mortal;
—or rather thou art a poor infinite mortal,
who, in thy narrow clay-prison here, seemest
so unreasonable ! Thou wilt never sell thy
Life, or any part of thy Life, in a satisfactory
manner. Give it, like a royal heart; let the
price be Nothing: thou hast then, in a cer¬
tain sense, got All for it! The heroic man,—
and is not every man, God be thanked, a
potential hero ?—has to do so, in all times
and circumstances. In the most heroic age,
as in the most unheroic, he will have to say,
as Burns said proudly and humbly of his little
Scottish Songs, little dewdrops of Celestial
Melody in an age when so much was un-
melodious: " By Heaven, they shall either be
invaluable or of no value ; I do not need your
guineas for them !" It is an element which
should, and must, enter deeply into all settle¬
ments of wages here below. They never will
be " satisfactory " otherwise ; they cannot, 0
196
Reward
Mammon Gospel, they never can t Money
for my little piece of work " to the extent that
will allow me to keep working ; " yes, this,—
unless you mean that I shall go my ways be¬
fore the work is all takeri out of me : but as
tS " wages "—!—
On the whole, we do entirely agree with
those old Monks, Laborare est Orare. In a
thousand senses, from one end of it to the
other, true Work is Worship. He that works,
whatsoever be his work, he bodies forth the
form of Things Unseen; a small Poet every
Worker is. The idea, were it but of his poor
Delf Platter, how much more of his Epic
Poem, is as yet •* seen," half-seen, only by
himself; to all others it is a thing unseen,
impossible ; to Nature herself it is a thing
unseen, a thing which never hitherto was ;—
very " impossible," for it is as yet a No-thing !
The Unseen Powers had need to watch over
such a man ; he works in and for the Unseen.
Alas, if he look to the Seen Powers only, he
may as well quit the business ; his No-thing
will never rightly issue as a Thing, but as a
Deceptivity, a Sham-thing,—which it had
better not do!
Thy No-thing of an Intended Poem, O Poet
who hast looked merely to reviewers, copy-
rights, booksellers, popularities, behold it has
197
Reward
not yet become a thing; for the truth Is not
in it! Though printed, hotpressed, reviewed,
celebrated, sold to the twentieth edition:
what is all that ? The Thing, in philosophical
uncommercial language: is still a No-thing,
mostly semblance, and deception of the sight;
—benign Oblivion incessantly gnawing at it,
impatient till Chaos to which it belongs do
reabsorb it!—
He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and
Silent, from him will never come real disability
and speech. Thou must descend to the
Mothers, to the Manes, and Hercules-like long
suffer and labor there, wouldst thou emerge
with victory into the sunlight. As in battle and
the shock of war,—for is not this a battle ?—
thou too shalt fear no pain or death, shalt
love no ease or life ; the voice of festive Lub-
berlands, the noise of greedy Acheron shall
alike lie silent under thy victorious feet.
Thy work, like Dante's, shall " make thee lean
for many years." The world and its wages,
its criticisms, counsels, helps, impediments,
shall be as a waste ocean-flood ; the chaos
through which thou art to swim and sail.
Not the waste waves and their weedy gulf-
streams, shalt thou take for guide: thy star
alone,—" Se tu segui tua stella ! " Thy star
alone, now clear-beaming over Chaos, nay
198
Reward
now by fits gone out, disastrously eclipsed :
this only shalt thou strive to follow. O, it is
a business, as I fancy, that of weltering your
way through Chaos and the murk of Hell 1
Green-eyed dragons watching you, three-
headed Cerberuses,—not without sympathy
of their sort! " Eccovi P uom cK i state alF
Inferno." For in fine, as Poet Dryden says,
you do walk hand in hand with sheer Mad¬
ness, all the way,—who is by no means pleas¬
ant company 1 You look fixedly into Mad¬
ness, and her undiscovered, boundless, bot¬
tomless Night-empire; that you may extort
new Wisdom out of it, as an Eurydice from
Tartarus. The higher the Wisdom, the
closer was its neighborhood and kindred with
mere Insanity ; literally so :—and thou wilt,
with a speechless feeling, observe how high¬
est Wisdom, struggling up into this world,
has oftentimes carried such tinctures and
adhesions of Insanity still cleaving to it hither !
All Works, each in their degree, are a mak¬
ing of Madness sane ;—truly enough a reli¬
gious operation ; which cannot be carried on
without religion. You have not work other¬
wise ; you have eye-service, greedy grasping
of wages, swift and ever swifter manufacture
cf semblances to get hold of wages. Instead
of better felt-hats to cover your head, you
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I
have bigger lath«and-plasterhats set traveling
the streets on wheels. Instead of heavenly
and earthly Guidance for the souls of men,
you have " Black or White Surplice " Contro¬
versies, stuffed hair-and-leather Popes ;—ter¬
restrial Law-wards, Lords and Law-bringers,
" organizing Labor " in these years, by pass¬
ing Corn-Laws. With all which, alas, this
distracted Earth is now full, nigh to bursting.
Semblances most smooth to the touch and
eye ; most accursed nevertheless to body and
soul. Semblances, be they of Sham-woven
Cloth or of Dilettante Legislation, which are
not real wool or substance, but Devii's-dust,
accursed of God and man! No man has
worked, or can work, except religiously ; not
even the poor day-laborer, the weaver of your
coat, the sewer of your shoes. All men, if
they work not as in a Great Taskmaster's eye,
will work wrong, work unhappily for them¬
selves and you.
Industrial work, still under bondage to
Mammon, the rational soul of it not yet awak-
ened, is a tragic spectacle. Men in the rap-
idest motion and self-motion; restless, with
convulsive energy, as if driven by Galvanism,
as if possessed by a Devil; tearing asunder
mountains,—to no purpose, for Mammonism
is always Midas-eared ! This is sad, on the
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face of it. Yet courage : the beneficent Des.
tinies, kind in their sternness, are apprising
us that this cannot continue. Labor is not a
devil, even while encased in Mammonism ;
Labor is ever an imprisoned god, writhing
unconsciously or consciously to escape out of
Mammonism ! Plugson of Undershot, like
Taillefer of Normandy, wants victory ; how
much happier will even Plugson be to have a
Chivalrous victory than a Chactaw one. The
unredeemed ugliness is that of a slothful
People. Show me a People energetically
busy; heaving, struggling, all shoulders at
the wheel; their heart pulsing, every muscle
swelling, with man's energy and will;—I show
you a People of whom great good is already
predicable ; to whom all manner of good is
yet certain, if their energy endure. By very
working they will learn ; they have. Antaeus¬
like, their foot on Mother Fact: how can they
but learn ?
The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-worker,
who can command Workers, and get work
out of them, is already a considerable man.
Blessed and thrice-blessed symptoms I discern
of Master Workers who are not vulgar men ;
who are Nobles, and begin to feel that they
must act as such ; all speed to these, they are
England's hope at present I But in this Plugk
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son himself, conscious of almost no nob/eness
whatever, how much is there ' Not without
man's faculty, insight, courage, hard energy,
is this rugged figure. His words none of the
wisest; but his actings cannot be altogether
foolish. Think, how were it, stoodest thou
suddenly in his shoes 1 He has to command
a thousand men. And not imaginary com¬
manding ; no, it is real, incessantly practical.
The evil passions of so many men (with the
Devil in them, as in all of us) he has to van¬
quish ; by manifold force of speech and of
silence, to repress or evade. What a force
of silence, to say nothing of the others, is in
Plugson 1 For these his thousand men he
has to provide raw-material, machinery ar¬
rangement, house-room; and ever at the
week's end, wages by due sale. No Civil-List,
or Goulbum-Baring Budget has he to fall back
upon, for paying of his regiment; he has to
pick his supplies from the confused face of
the whole Earth and Contemporaneous His¬
tory, by his dexterity alone. There will be
dry eyes if he fail to do it!—He exclaims, at
present, black in the face," near strangled
with Dilettante Legislation; " Let me have
elbow-room, throat-room, and I will not fail 1
No, I will spin yet, and conquer like a giant;
what 'sinews of war' lie in me, untold re«
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sources towards the Conquest of this Planet,
if instead of hanging me, you husband them,
and help me !"—My indomitable friend, it is
true J and thou shalt and must be helped.
This is not a man T would kill and strangle
by Corn-Laws, even if I could ! No, I would
fling my Corn-Laws and Shot-belts to the
Devil; and try to help this man. I would
teach him, by noble precept and law-precept,
by noble example most of all, that Mammon-
ism was not the essence of his or of my station
in God's Universe; but the adscititious ex¬
crescence of it; the gross, terrene, godless
embodiment of it; which would have to be¬
come, more or less, a godlike one. By noble
real legislation, by true noble's work, by un¬
wearied, valiant, and were it wageless effort,
in my Parliament and in my Parish, I would
aid, constrain, encourage him to effect more
or less this blessed change. I should know
that it would have to be effected ; that unless
it were in some measure effected, he and I
and all of us, I first and soonest of all, were
doomed to perdition !—Effected it will be;
unless it were a Demon that made this Uni¬
verse ; which I, for my own part, do at no
moment, under no form, in the least believe.
May it please your Serene Highnesses, your
Majesties, Lordships and Law-wardships, the
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proper Epic of this world is not now " Arms
and the Man ; ** how much less, " Shirt>frills
and the Man :" no, It is now " Tools and the
Man :" that, henceforth to all time is now our
Epic; and you, first of all others, I think,
were wise to take note of that!
824.8 C28bes
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Oak Grove
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Library
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