of the tower, where they lie among tree-stumps, etc._]

_King_. I shall come soon enough to Gotland, and soon enough shall see
that refuge whence I once bore to save them those most daring wishes of
my powerless youth.

_Hans Lorbass_. Until a heron came.

_King_. Hans, be still!

_Hans Lorbass_. How can I, here in this place, where the sea and
churchyard, yes, even the sea-wind itself, that strips the boughs with
knife-like tongue, all vie with each other to tell us of that day when
an old doting witch-wife with her cursed chatter, betrayed thee from
thy confident path, to pause and play the hero?

_King_. Where is she hiding, that I may rip that shriveled skin of hers
about her ears?

_Hans Lorbass_. She who played our fate in the world is not at home
when we come back so worsted by it.

_King_. Burial-wife!

_Hans Lorbass_ [_laughs mockingly_]. Yes, call away, my friend!... Come
here instead and sit down on this tub. The fire is singing,--the water
will soon boil; come warm thyself.

_King_. Thou art right. This cold sea wind pants like a bloodhound
through the gorge. [_He sits down by the fire._] The country-people say
that spring is coming. Is it true, I wonder?

_Hans Lorbass_. What?

_King_. Why, that spring is coming.

_Hans Lorbass_. Then I believe it, for my leg that I lost begins to
pain me.

_King_. Listen! Back in the hedge a shepherd pipes upon his willow
whistle. The streams are beginning to thaw and run down hill.... Brown
buds come out on all the branches. The very sunsets are different.
Look, high up in the blue the wild geese fly in their triangle.
Northward they go. Not I.... I must. We both must, Hans, for we have
grown old.

_Hans Lorbass_. Because our heads are white? Thou art wrong, master. I
dare venture many a conflict lies in our path before thou goest to thy
fathers' lofty house, and anointest thyself with thy fathers' honors.

_King_. Honors are the mail-coat of the weary. I have need of them.

_Hans Lorbass_. Thou?

_King_. More than thou thinkest for. [_Goes up, laughing bitterly._]

_Hans Lorbass_. Whither now?

_King_. Do not ask.

_Hans Lorbass_. Thou lookest toward the south,--what seekest thou
there? Hast thou not known it all long since? That sunny land, those
blue, flower-sown havens, whither thy hasting step once fled? Thou
knowest they are full of stench and lamentation. Those beauteous women,
fairest of the fair,--or passing as the fairest,--to bow in whose
impious slavery once compassed all thy thoughts? Thou knowest they are
all as empty as drained-out casks. And so, because the desire was
lacking in thee to fill them with thy own soul, thou hast sourly turned
away and sought perfection farther on. Thou hast come hither over lands
and seas, and climbest up into the star-teeming void. Yet thou wilt
never, never reach thy star. And that vailed enchanting distance
itself, if it would once unmask and let thee reach it, how miserable it
would look! Every conflict there would seem only a wrangle, every woman
but a doll! Come now, lay aside thy shoulder-belt stretch thyself out
and eat thy supper.

_King_. Let be, old grumbler! I seek naught in the distance.... But
near by, floating in the haze of the spring evening, I think I see a
dim shape of white battlements.

_Hans Lorbass_. It may well be. The town is only three miles farther
on, and the air is clear. Still I advise thee, do not think upon the
past.

_King_. Why?

_Hans Lorbass_. It was an evil-omened year. The worst of all, I think.
It taught thy wild untrammeled spirit to circle-hopping in a cage, to
limp instead of fly.

_King_. Thou art wrong, my friend. Something wakes in me at sight of
those roofs.... There the wings of happiness once grazed my cheek,
there, though in the midst of torture joy ripened to summer in my
heart. Let me gaze on the place where imploring trustfulness once
confessed itself to me by joyous sacrifice, and the purest of womankind
yielded herself up in sweet urgency, and an oppressed country confided
in me as a master; where even victory surrendered me her standard; let
me gaze upon the spot, and then, instead of stretching forth my kingly
hand in love and gratitude, I must slip past it outlawed, like a beggar
or a thief. I stand here now and gaze through tears at that white glow
of light, and gnaw my lips to bleeding.

_Hans Lorbass_. Master!

_King_. It is nothing,--nothing! All I have ever desired, all my soul's
treasure, all I could not attain, can be spoken in one word. And that I
may not speak. In silence I decide, and put it from me. I tear it from
my breast, where it has clung so long; and with it all my longing pain
blows like a faded leaf a world away.--Now I will lie down and sleep;
for I am weary.

_Hans Lorbass_. And do thy pains and desires all come to an end thus?
Look! Above there, where the sandy turf broadens among frozen clods
past the sun-pierced snow. The wisest of womankind has prepared a bed
for pilgrims such as we. Look!

_King_ [_going toward the open grave_]. I see. It is just suited to a
guest like me. Here, where--[_He starts back in alarm._] Hans!

_Hans Lorbass_. What is the matter?

_King_. Come here. The grave is ready, but it is not empty. Look down
and tell me what thou callest it, crouched there gray in the sand, that
leers at me with staring eyes. Is it a corpse? Is it a spirit?

_Hans Lorbass_. Oh look at it! The badger is at work. Thou hast her
now.

_King_. The Burial-wife? [Hans Lorbass _nods._]

_King_. Out with her!

_Hans Lorbass_ [_stopping him_]. Listen to me. Thou knowest I have
known her longer than thou. Leave her alone. She was wont to lie thus
for hours and days, and heed no words nor prayers; but seemed as dead.
She is proof then against all summons and all blows; but when her time
comes, then her limbs will stir, and she will come up out of the grave.

[Cölestin _and the train with the young_ Prince _enter._]

_Cölestin_. There they stand!

_King_ [_turning fiercely and raising his sword_]. What do you want? A
quarrel? We two are snarling dogs. We blindly seize on everybody near.
Now come on! Speak!

_The Young Prince_. My father!

_King_. Wha--?

_The Young Prince_. My King!

_King_ You would mock the man that fled from you?

_The Young Prince_. Down on your knees and honor him as I do!

_King_ [_dazed_]. Hans!... But stand up!... Am I King? A hapless
wretch,--naught but my man, my sword, and that pot of soup there, to
call my own. I have no more. My very crown, the gloomy throne of
Gotland must be fought for anew; stand up my son. [_He raises him, and
will embrace him, but suddenly pales, staring past the men in great
agitation._] Hans! Dost thou see who stands there in the twilight of
the wood--how spirit-like, how severed from this world--[_He shrieks._]

[_Enter the_ Queen. _Behind her at a short distance, two of her
women._]

_Queen_. Witte!

_King_. Go! I know thee not. And yet--I know thee. Thou art my--peace.
Thou art ... Naught art thou more for me.... My body withers and my
strength is fallen asunder. Therefore I may not say: "Thou art." ...
Only "Thou wast." Still thou wast once of a surety--my wife.

_Queen_. I am to-day--I am a thousandfold! Hast thou forgot what I
promised thee the day thou gavest thyself with hesitation to my
service? I search thy face. I know thou turnest wearied back to thy
northern home. Dost thou forget then where a balsam is prepared to heal
thy bruised feet, dost thou forget where a thousand arms reach out to
greet their loved one? Knowest thou not where thy home stands and calls
to thee? Knowest thou not how well-nigh breathless with its joy my
smile says unto thee: "I charm thee not?"

_King_. Nay, charm me not. I am not worthy. Life has seared me, and put
a shameful kiss upon my brow.

_Queen_. Then let me cool it with my health-bringing hand, and thou
wilt never feel the scar again.

_King_. How can I feel that scar or even the happiness after which I
longed, now that those hours are past which knew thy love for me?

_Queen_. In no other have I trusted. I guarded thy son for thee; and
still thy throne stands empty, waiting its master.

_King_. Then thou hast waited fifteen years and sorrowed not. So shalt
thou learn my mystery. Two kingdoms I have won, to pleasure me; the
first has vanished into air, the second is my shame. Justice became a
mock,--all gifts a usury; and everywhere I turned a murderous laugh
pursued me. Then purity plunged in the mire, then honor mocked its own
best gift: all this the magic of the heron wreaked upon me.... Yea, now
thou knowest; a charm was all my crime and all my fate, year after
year. It blinded me to love and life, to wife and child; it hunted me
away from thee, and drove me from place to place; and when a lucent
flight of happiness sprang up from heaven after my downfall, it drowned
its glory in a flood of tears. Behold! [_He tears open his gorget and
draws out the last of the heron's feathers._] The enchantment's last
beguiling pledge I hold here in my hand. When this feather shrivels in
the flame there sinks an unblessed woman to her death, that woman whose
wraith stood in the heavens for me to gaze upon,--that woman whom I
sought and never found! Behold! I bury the madness in its grave, and
with the act I put the longing from me. [_He tosses the feather into
the flames. There is a flash of lightning, and a roll of thunder
follows it._]

_Queen_ [_sinks down, whispering with failing strength_]. Now are we
two protected from all mischance.... I still ... have been thy
happiness ... even in ... death. [_She dies._]

_Prince_. Mother! Speak one word to me!

_King_. It was thou? It was thou? [_He throws himself upon her body._]

_The Young Prince_ [_in tears_]. Ah, Mother!

_Cölestin_. She has gone, and I, the shadow of a shadow, stay behind.

_The Men_ [_murmur among themselves_]. His is the blame! Tear him from
off her body! [_They draw their swords to attack the_ King.]

_Hans Lorbass_ [_blocking the way with drawn sword_]. Away there!

[_The Burial-wife mounting solemnly out of the open grave._]

_Burial-wife_. Children, cease your strife! Can you not see his spirit
wanders far? He is wrapped about with the whisperings of eternity. The
message of death is on the way, the stone of sacrifice doth reek for
blood. Long has this man belonged to me; and now--[_she raises her arm
and lets it fall_]--I come into my own. [_The_ King _breathes heavily,
stirs, and dies._]

_Hans Lorbass_ [_kneels down beside him with a cry_]. Master, master!

_Burial-wife_. Thus from lust and guilt and sorrow have I cleansed his
soul. To both of them it shall be as though they had not been. Wrap
them about with linen, bear them to my dark abode; then go in silent
thought from hence, for my work is done.

_Hans Lorbass_ [_rises, in anguished bitterness_]. Mine must begin
anew. How gladly have I ever braved fresh dangers as my darling's
slave! That service, too, is past; but now his kingdom calls loudly on
my sword for aid. [_Pointing seaward._] Northward there lies a land
debauched, crying from out its shame for justice, for a righteous law,
for vengeance, for salvation; for a master,--and that shall the man
become!

                               _Translated by Helen Tracy Porter_.

                          MARAH OF SHADOWTOWN.

      The days pass by in Shadowtown
      Wearily, wearily;--
      And Bitter-Sweet Marah of Shadowtown
      Sighs drearily, drearily.

     "Mother, tell him to come to me
      While my hair is gold and beautiful
      And my lips and eyes are young
      While the songs that are welling up in my heart
      May still be sung.

     "The days go by so wearily
      Like crooked goblins, eërily,
      Like silly shadows, fast and still,
      Wind-driven and drearily.

     "Like the gray clouds are my eyes gray, mother,
      Like them, heavy as things grown old
      Only the clouds' tears are but dream-tears--
      Lifeless, cold.

     "Last night I had the strangest dream,--
      It seemed I stood on a barren hill
      Where the wings of the ragged clouds went by
      Hurrying and still.

     "And all of a sudden the moon came out
      Making a pathway over the down,--
      And turned my hair to a gold mist, mother,
      To light the way to Shadowtown.

     "But when I did not see him coming,
      And because the clouds grew dark and gray
      I walked through the shadows down the hillside
      To help him better to find the way.

     "And in some wise I came to a forest
      When all around was so strange and dim,--
      That I thought, 'If I should be lost in the darkness,
      How could my hair be light for him?'

     "But groping, I found I was on a pathway
      Where low soft branches swept my face,--
      When suddenly, close beside, and before me
      I knew dim forms kept even pace.

     "They were so cowering, shivering, white
      That I felt some ill thing came behind
      And I heard a moan on the wind go by
      'Ah, but the end of the path to find!'

     "Then I looked behind, and saw that near
      Like a wan marsh-fog, came a cloud
      Hurrying on,--and I knew it wrapped
      A dead love--as a shroud.

     "And guiltily the figures went,
      Like coward things in a guilty race
      And not one dared to look behind
      For fear he knew that dead love's face.

     "Then suddenly at my side I knew
      He I loved went;--but, for my hair,
      Shadowed and blown about my face,
      He knew me not beside him there.

     "And he, too, cowered with shaking hands
      Over his eyes, for fear to meet
      Haunting and still, my pallid face
      In that strange mist of winding-sheet.

     "So on the shadowy figures went
      Hurrying the loathéd cloud before,--
      Seeking an end of a fated path
      That went winding evermore.

     "Oh, Mother, that path was hideous,--
      Long and ill and hideous--
      And the way was so near to Shadowtown,--
      Fairer to Shadowtown--
      But the gold of my hair shall not light the way
      For anyone else to Shadowtown."

      Gray-eyed Marah of Shadowtown
      Turns away wearily, wearily
      Weaving her gold hair back and forth,
      Thus she sings, and drearily--
     "Little Love, when you shall die, then so shall I,
      Ha, merrily!

     "Then let them put us in some deep spot
      Where one the growing of trees' roots hears
      And you at my heart, all wet with tears,
                               All wet with tears.

     "Your wings are draggled and limp and wet,--Little Love,--
      From what rainy land have you come, and far,--
      Or who that has held you was crying so,--
      Who, little Love--?
      My eyes are heavy and wet with tears
      Whose eyes besides are heavy so--?
      --Oh, little Love, how dumb you are!--

     "Then, poor Love, that has lived in my heart
      Come, take my hand, we will go together,
      Hemlock boughs are full of sleep
      Out of the way of the weather.

     "For a cavern of cold gray mist is my heart
      Will not the hemlock boughs be better
      Over our feet and under our heads
      Keeping us from the weather?"

      Her gold hair duskily glints in her hands
      Marah of Shadowtown sings--"Together,--
      You, little Love, and I, will go
      Into the Land of Pleasanter Weather."

                                              _Anne Throop._

                               DIES IRAE.

      Go fight your fight with Tagal and with Boer,
      Cheer in the lust of strength and brutal pride;
      Beat down the lamb to fatten up the fox,
      Shout victory o'er the prostrate shape of truth.

      Take cross and pike and gold and sophistry,
      To pray and prod and purchase, wheedle, wile;
      Stamp out the roses in a waste of weeds,
      Shout while the trembling voice of truth is hushed.

      Shatter with iron heel the poet's dream,
      The prophet's protest, and the ages' hope,
      Of brotherhood and light and love on earth--
      Of peace and plenty and a perfect race.

      Tear down the fabric of ten thousand years,
      The world's best wisdom woven in its woe;
      Lift ruthless hands to rend the fairy fane
      That holds the heart hopes of humanity.

      Let loose greed, envy, lust, and avarice,
      The myriad throated dragon of desire;
      Let might rule, riot, batten on the meek,
      The tyranny of man o'er man seem right.

      Forget the Lord Christ smiled, forgave, and died;
      Frowned down every appeal to brutish strength;
      Bade man put up the sword, lest by the sword
      He perish; prayed evil might be paid by good.

      Forget he turned cheek to the coward blow,
      Cried "Pardon!" yes, seven and seventy times! "Judge not;
      Do not condemn; give coat as well as cloak;
      Resist not evil, wrong's not made right by wrong."

      Forget each drop of blood burns in the race,
      Cries for atonement while the last man lives;
      That murder for the state is murder still,
      The gilded not less guilty though more great.

      Forget, and flay and flame; in din grow deaf
      To piteous cries without, and voice within;
      Conquer, triumph, and when the world is won,
      Turn terroring towards the demon in your heart.

                                         _William Mountain_.

                           *   *   *   *   *

                    GEORGE MEREDITH ON THE SOURCE OF
                                DESTINY.

If, as has so often been said, literature is an expression of life,
surely we may study literature to discover the laws of life. Not all
our writers, but all our masters, have given us records from which we
may learn what has been discerned and accepted concerning life by the
race.

The scientific study of our day has led men to consider genius from the
modern point of view. Is genius a natural product? If so, whence comes
it, and what are its laws? These are among the most interesting
questions of the present time. Formerly, men contented themselves with
calling the literary faculty a "gift," the result of "inspiration." Of
late we have been told that it is a natural race impulse which finds
expression in some individual. Personally, we believe genius to be the
heated, pregnant condition of a great mind under the influence of a
great enthusiasm. However our definitions of genius may differ, on one
point we all agree. We are all sure that genius is true to life, that
genius teaches us the truth.

In its formed philosophical theories it may err, but not in its
perceptions of life. Shelley may teach atheistic views in 'Queen Mab,'
and he may err, for intellectual belief is a matter of opinion.
Nevertheless Shelley's inspired interpretation of life can but be
accepted as real. George Meredith may teach in his 'Lord Ormond and his
Aminta' doctrines of free love, resulting from an attempt to separate
what can not be separated in our human lives,--the physical and the
spiritual loves; and in doing this he may err. Nevertheless, in his
inspired representations of life and character, coming not from thought
alone but from his whole nature, Meredith cannot err.

Those of us who read thoughtlessly, without formed theory, accept
literature as real. Have you never, when asked: "Did you ever know of a
case of love at first sight?" answered carelessly: "Oh, yes! There's
Romeo and Juliet, you know?" Or have you never instanced, as the most
persuasive oration you ever heard, Mark Antony's speech in 'Julius
Cæsar?'

Thinkers who claim a natural mental origin for the literary gift must
believe in its reality as a matter of course. Those who speak
reverently of its "inspiration" claim a spirit of truth, not of error,
for its parent. Even those who enjoy comparisons of the states of
genius and insanity, ranging from Shakespeare, with his words: "The
fool, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact" to the
masterly modern treatment of John Fiske, agree that the sharp division
line of truth and error separates the two. They confess that while the
insane mind may accept hallucinations, the mind of genius deals only
with the truth. The results of both are imaginative; only those of
insanity are imaginary.

All thinkers, then, accept the masterpieces of literature as among
life's real phenomena. Whether Meredith's novels hold this high place
is at present a matter of opinion. For men do not know Meredith very
well. A knowledge of his position on this question of Destiny will help
us to learn whether or not he ranks among the elect.

In our great literature there has always appeared a close sequence
between wisdom and success, righteousness and happiness, and, on the
other hand, between the choice of moral evil and suffering. This
sequence has been not merely expressed in words, but built into the
very structure of the plot through the workings of the imagination
kindled by genius. The law of this succession, and its relationship
with other laws, philosophers have always been seeking. It is this
search that has led men into the mazy discussions of freedom and
fatalism. For in this law lies the crucial point of the question of
human destiny.

'Beowulf,' our first epic, tells us not only much of the manner of life
of our rude Saxon ancestors, but also much of their thought. The note
of fatalism in its chord of life is no weak one. "A man must bear his
fate," the hero says when about to go into a dangerous combat. Yet even
in 'Beowulf' we find the contrasting element, the character choice
appearing.

As a child boldly states a problem as though it were a solution,
Beowulf naïvely says: "Fate always aids the undoomed man, if his
courage holds out." This expression side by side of the two elements of
the question has never been surpassed, and is, in its way, matchless.

Have we learned much more to-day? We cannot fail to recognize the
duality of the truth, but have we been able yet to join the two sides
into one, to discover the unity that surely lies behind the seeming
contrast?

Each side of the question has been largely developed. Some, in a narrow
spirit, have echoed merely Beowulf's, "Fate always aids the undoomed
man"; while others, often as narrowly, have answered, "A man succeeds,
if his courage holds out." Ever in our greatest literature the two
elements have appeared side by side. The mystery has always been
recognized.

That even Shakespeare is reverent before fate, yet believes in the
influence of character on a man's life can easily be seen from words
like Helena's in 'All's Well that Ends Well':--

     "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
      Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated sky
      Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
      Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull."

'Macbeth,' with its successive steps of unhappiness following one
critical evil choice is sufficient proof of Shakespear's belief in the
determining power of character. 'King Lear,' with its sad result of
folly shows his belief in the influence of the critical foolish
decision. In the uncrowned king's conversation with his fool, occur
these words:

_Lear_. Dost thou call me fool, boy?

_Fool_. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born
with.

In Robert Browning literature has brought even up to the present time
the old mystery, the ever continuing struggle between fatalism and
freedom. But to him, as to most thinkers of his day, fate has become
the instrument of a God, a divine Providence rules the world, while
man, too, has his little realm of choice.

At the present time this discussion is carried to a greater extent than
ever before. The one side finds its expression in our modern idealistic
philosophy, the other in our modern sceptical science. Idealistic
philosophy, since Kant, has been trying to lay the responsibility for
all life upon the free moral choice. It has been seeking to prove that
the spiritual is the source of life.

Modern science, on the other hand, with its keen, wide-opened eyes, has
tried to lay all the necessary sequence of law, forgetting at times
that law is but the explanation of the phenomena. Science sometimes
refuses to consider such phenomena as require a new point of view,
beyond the physical and mental,--a moral point of view. By this refusal
to recognize the spiritual part of man, science attempts to avoid a
second mystery. The mystery of the union of the physical and mental
realms it has been forced, long since, to accept. It would shun the
moral realms because that, too, entails its mystery of connection.

Once accept physical life, and science is, in so far, free from
impassable gulfs. Once accept mental life and that realm also becomes
capable of study. Let the free moral nature once be accepted, and again
we shall have reached firm footing. But to cross between these realms
by law, by reason, is impossible; for life, any kind of life, is its
own only explanation.

While the problem of freedom becomes simple for one who, like Meredith,
will take this view, there are many who will not or cannot do so, and
the very impossibility of the question from reason's point of view
makes the path a very labyrinth for them. We all try to solve the
question, and different personalities arrive at different answers; but
all are partial. They vary from the logical, but dead outcome of
Swinburne: "There is no bad nor good," to the struggling faith of Omar
Khayyam:

           "The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
            But here or there as strikes the Player goes;
            And he that toss'd you down into the Field,
            He knows about it all--He knows--He knows."

At such a time as this of ours it is especially helpful to study a
writer like George Meredith, who far from ignoring the many sides of
the problem, yet clings firmly to his faith in character. With no
doubtful accent, he tells us that Character is the Source of Destiny.

As any great writer of the day must do, Meredith accepts much in the
arguments of the fatalists. He does not refuse to see that nature and
circumstances are strong to mould life. He recognizes the great power
of environment and the absolute power, within its realm, of heredity.
Like Beowulf, like Shakespeare, like Browning, he is reverent before
human destiny. Yet in spite of all this, he accepts the moral with its
necessary result of freedom. He declares that, although the laws of
necessity rule up to the crisis of the moral choice, that very choice
sets all the laws of intellect and body working according to itself.

All the stronger for his acceptance of life's necessity becomes his
belief in life's freedom. All the stronger for his concessions becomes
his final dictum. The more intricate the machine, the greater its
master's mind. The narrower the realm of choice, the greater power must
that choice have, to move life as it does.

To show that the same peculiar mixture of belief in fatalism and in the
determining power of character on life exists in Meredith's writings as
in Beowulf and in Shakespeare, let me quote a few words from 'Evan
Harrington':

"Most youths, like Pope's women, have no character at all, and indeed a
character that does not wait for circumstances to shape it, is of small
worth in the race that must be run."

Again he says:

"When we have cast off the scales of hope and fancy, and surrender our
claims on made chance: when the wild particles of this universe consent
to march as they are directed, it is given them to see if they see at
all that some plan is working out: that the heavens, icy as they are to
the pangs of our blood, have been throughout speaking to our souls;
and, according to the strength there existing, we learn to comprehend
them."

That Meredith, although very reverent before human destiny, is not, on
the other hand, one of those who lay the responsibility for their own
lives on "the stars," or "fate," or "Providence," may be shown by a
study of the characters into whose mouths he puts such sentiments.

In 'Rhoda Fleming' who is it but Algernon, "the fool," who says:

"I'm under some doom. I see it now. Nobody cares for me. I don't know
what happiness is. I was born under a bad star. My fate's written."

It is of Algernon, likewise, that the author says:

"Behind the figures he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would
visit her sister this night. 'I can't stop that,' he said: and hearing
a clock strike, 'nor that.' The reflection inspired him with fatalistic
views."

In 'The Tragic Comedians,' who is it but Clotilde, "the craven," who
lays the successive steps which lead to the tragedy in her life, now to
fate, now to other people's power or lack of insight, now to
Providence? She reaps, as Meredith plainly shows us, simply what she
sows.

In 'Sandra Belloni,' it is Mr. Barrett, that sentimentalist of the
better order, of which class the author says: "We will discriminate
more closely here than to call them fools," who lets his whole life be
crushed with the melancholy thought that he is under the influence of
some baneful star. His death, which he lets chance bring or keep away,
is a fitting conclusion to his story. He shuts two pistols up together
in the same case overnight, knowing that one of them is loaded, the
other not. In the morning he takes out one, prepared to fire it upon
himself, in case his beloved does not keep tryst. She does not come, he
fires, the pistol happens to be loaded, and so comes death. It shows
that the "star" of which he thought was not a real star burning clear
in the high heavens. It was rather but a will-o'-the-wisp, born of the
marshy exhalations of his own morbid brain. Meredith reverences the
real star. He kindly ridicules the will-o'-the-wisp.

But there is still another class of fatalists in Meredith's novels. He
recognizes also the fatalism of youth. Such is that of the young
Wilfrid in 'Sandra Belloni,' concerning whom the author informs us that
we "shall see him grow." Meredith is too great a thinker not to see
that this tendency toward fatalism does not belong merely to the
"fool," the "craven," and the "sentimentalist," but that it is a
tendency of our youth. We are all weak when we are growing, he assures
us. Is not ours preëminently a growing age?

But we must not linger too long on the negative side of Meredith's
belief. We have seen that he is willing to recognize that there is a
wonderful, mysterious power governing human destiny. We have seen,
also, that he does not side in the least with those who lay the
responsibility for their own lives on fate. Let us seek for his
positive message.

In the 'Adventures of Harry Richmond' he says:

"If a man's fate were as a forbidden fruit, detached from him, and in
front of him, he might hesitate fortunately before plucking it; but, as
most of us are aware, the vital half of it lies in the seed paths he
has traversed."

This is certainly a very definite statement of a strong belief in a
man's choice of his own destiny. Again, in 'Modern Love' we find the
following:

                  "In tragic life, God wot,
            No villain need be! Passions spin the plot;
            We are betrayed by what is false within."
                 "I take the hap
            Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails
            Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked,
            I know the devil has sufficient weight
            To bear; I lay it not on him, or fate.
            Besides, he's damned. That man I do suspect
            A coward, who would burden the poor deuce
            With what ensues from his own slipperiness."

The main issue between freedom and fatalism lies in just this question:
Is a man's life determined by what he is or by what he does? Does his
nature, received through inheritance, moulded by circumstance,
determine his acts and so his life? Or does his moral choice determine
these?

Extreme fatalists declare that the former is true. Moralists,
idealists, believers in freedom, support the latter view.

Now Meredith leaves us no doubt as to his position on the point. Again
and again we see his characters choosing their lives. And their choices
rest on no inherited nature, but on character. Thus our author
declares, by his plots, as in plain words, that "Our deathlessness is
in what we do, not in what we are."

As we have said, a writer's thought of life can be best understood from
his plots. He builds life, consciously or unconsciously, as he believes
that nature builds it. Does he let the righteous perish and the evil
man prosper in the end? Then he either does not believe in this law of
ours, or in its present successful working. Perhaps, like Victor Hugo,
he teaches a higher law, that of self-sacrifice. Perhaps, like some
little modern writers, he teaches a lower law of the temporary success,
at times, of hypocrisy and deceit. Whatever he believes in and likes to
think of, his structure will disclose.

Now one very marked thing about Meredith's structure is the agreement
of the two crises, that of character and that of circumstances. When
any one of his characters chooses for good or evil, for wisdom or
folly, at that very time, and by that very choice, he decides his
future happiness and success, or unhappiness and failure. Therein lies
the decision of the question whether that particular novel shall be a
tragedy or a comedy.

When Dahlia Fleming chooses evil, she chooses unhappiness. No kind
Providence intervenes to save her from her harvest. How many of our
little writers of to-day would have caused her marriage with Edward to
take place in the end! Is not Meredith's conclusion far more true to
life?

When Diana of the Cross-Ways resists Percy's temptings and is led by
her hatred of his evil to betray his secret, she chooses for her own
happiness in the end. The storms through which she goes to reach it are
the natural result of her impulsive, unbalanced mind.

Stronger still is the teaching in 'The Tragic Comedians.' When Clotilde
chooses the craven's part to play, she chooses also the craven's
reward.

It is in his scientific insight into moral life that Meredith's growth
beyond Beowulf, Shakespeare, and even Browning appears. We of the
nineteenth century would be sorry to think that we had not one master
who goes even deeper into our modern life than these. We believe that,
as men of the later twentieth century look back upon our day, they will
call George Meredith our greatest literary exponent.

Beowulf asserts the general truth that Circumstance and Character
determine Destiny.

Shakespeare has not gone very much farther in the philosophy of life.
He teaches that character determines character, and that circumstance
determines circumstance; and that, in some way, circumstance obeys
character.

Browning would advance a step and teach us, as his age taught the
world, that the dependence of the external upon the spiritual comes
about through the agency of a personal God.

But Meredith takes up the cry of our scientific age, and says: "The god
of this world is in the machine, not out of it."

This is no irreverent teaching, for Meredith is not irreverent. It is
simply the search for primary causes. It is the result of the same
tendency that leads us to be dissatisfied with calling typhoid fever a
"dispensation of Providence," and to lay it to bad drains. Like
evolution in the physical world, this theory does not tend to remove
God, but to explain more fully his agency and methods. It is no new
theory. But the manner of its teaching is as new as this latter
nineteenth century of ours.

If one were to compare Meredith with Shakespeare on this subject, one
would naturally coordinate Macbeth and Rhoda Fleming, Diana of the
Cross-Ways and King Lear.

'Rhoda Fleming' is, like 'Macbeth,' a tale with a moral purpose. The
dependence of fate on the moral choice is its chief thought. The
book gains force, as all these novels do, from its striking
characterizations. We see Dahlia, the fair-haired one, whose great
failing is weakness,--the fault of a negative character. And we see
plainly the long process of pain to which she thereby subjects herself
in the course of her purification.

Rhoda, her sister has, on the other hand, the defects of the positive
character. She is head-strong, over-proud. It is from these
characteristics that she suffers or leads others to suffer. "The Fates
that mould us, always work from the main-spring."

In her relations with Anthony Hope, Rhoda takes the part of the
tempter. The interview between the two shows such wonderful insight
into character that from this passage alone Meredith might be ranked as
great. Rhoda discovers that she has sold her sister in marriage to a
brute. In her head-strong desire to buy her off from him, she goes to
her uncle to beg for a large sum of money. Anthony, although a poor man
in reality, has always delighted in deceiving his brother and his
nieces on that point. Rhoda finds him struggling with the greatest
temptation of his life. He has carried home money belonging to the bank
of which he is a trusted employee. His love of money, his former
deceit, make him very weak before Rhoda. So he falls. She is allowed to
take with her the money she wants. As the reader looks back over the
story, he sees that the money will prove useless for her ends, and that
his fall will ruin her uncle's life. Meredith here shows himself a
master of tragedy.

The life of the strong, impulsive, young Robert is not so dependent
upon the crises of temptation. For he knows himself and lives with a
constant purpose to conquer himself. His purpose is stronger than his
passions. In respect to his obedience to Socrates's favorite maxim, he
is a man rare even in our self-conscious age. What shall we say of
Edward, "villain and hero in one"? Like Dahlia he loses his life's
happiness through his besetting sin. Several times a courageous word
said that ought to be said, or a brave deed done that should have been
done might have saved him. And each time he proves himself a coward,
until it is too late. Like the children of Israel he would not enter
the promised land for fear of the inhabitants thereof. Like them too,
he atoned by spending his forty years in the wilderness, and there
laying down his life.

We must not neglect the "fascinating Peggy Lovell,"--a coquette whose
charm even a woman can feel. Avarice and love of pleasure are her
besetting sins. And avarice leads her to her fate. She has chosen to
sow her wild oats and to accrue her debts. These she pays, as we all
must in one way or another, with herself. Her way is to marry the man
who can pay them rather than the man she loves.

One and all, major and minor characters, they come to the crises of
their destinies. One after another chooses according to his character
his life. This is Meredith's teaching.

But our author is not always sounding the very depths of life. He is no
preacher, but a painter of human nature. The power of mind has a large
place in his books. "Drink of faith in the brains a full draught," he
tells us; and again:--"To read with a soul in the mirror of mind Is
man's chief lesson."

'Diana of the Cross-Ways' teaches the partial failure, the temporary
unhappiness, that result from lack of mental balance. It is the story
of a charming, brilliant, but impulsive woman who makes many mistakes
and who suffers from them. Diana is capable of loving one unworthy of
her, and for such lack of wisdom she pays dearly. Yet she holds firmly
and purely to the right and so wins happiness in the end. She is
foolish sometimes, but she is not a fool. Hence her story is not a
tragedy.

This novelist-philosopher has taught us, then, that folly tends to
bring failure, but that righteousness is stronger than folly. He is not
content to stop in his teachings even here. In 'The Tragic Comedians'
he goes still further, and deals with the interrelations of the moral
and intellectual. For character rules intellect, as intellect reacts
upon character.

'The Tragic Comedians' begins with the birth of a love. With Clotilde,
daughter of a highly respectable, but very conventional citizen, Alvan,
a Jew and demagogue, a man of widespread and somewhat notorious
reputation, falls in love. Clotilde is a beautiful, bright woman;
interesting, but cowardly. Like all Meredith's heroes and heroines, she
has her besetting sin.

To this sudden, overpowering new love Clotilde yields her heart, but
will not yield her actions. She is afraid. While Alvan would go at once
to her parents to ask for her hand, Clotilde, seeing only too plainly
how little hope there is of obtaining their consent, prefers to dally
with matters, and insists on his postponing the interview. Alvan's
straightforward nature cannot understand such half-way measures. He
leaves her unsought for a time, and begins to fade out of Clotilde's
mind. Suddenly, when in the mountains with a friend, she hears that
Alvan is near. She wants him then, and goes to seek him. Again he
misunderstands her. This time he asks her to run away with him, but she
refuses, seeming not so much shocked as afraid. She answers, not in a
womanly, straightforward way, but with an evasion. Then she consents to
let him speak to her father and mother. She addresses them first on the
subject, but is met with a torrent of angry words. The poor thing
cannot stand that. In her weakness she makes her next great mistake,
and runs away to Alvan, beseeching him to marry her secretly. The woman
who would not listen to his request for this very thing but a day or
two before now begs for it. She finds that it is too late. Her lover,
in his pride, has determined to meet her parents on their own ground.
He will win her, he now declares, by conventional methods. So he takes
her to a friend's home. It is there that the chief crisis of the book
takes place, a crisis which is one of the most interesting I know in
literature. It is a moral crisis.

Clotilde has come to it through various steps of weakness. Alvan has
reached it through pride and its reaction from his former shady life to
a desire for conventionalism. A strong man who had before obeyed
conventional rules might there have thrown them aside. To Alvan, on
account of their long disuse, they seemed more precious than they need.

So Alvan meets the crisis overconfident in his strength. Clotilde meets
it afraid, cowering in her weakness. Of her state Meredith says:

"Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering
thus abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality
abjuring their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the
genius of Power in whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested,
in whatsoever person. We no sooner shut our eyes than we consent to be
prey, we lose the soul of election."

Alvan handed Clotilde back to her parents. She meekly did what he said.
She was hurt. She could not understand his action. Had she but stood up
against this mistake, he might have had pity on her even yet. Or, had
he not changed his own rigid determination, the action might have
prevented that worst result, the weakening of her belief in him. There
is nothing like cowardice to destroy one's faith in others. There is
nothing like courageous action to clear away those mists of doubt.
Clotilde's "craven" will began to demoralize her mind.

But her chance is not over yet. She may still cling to Alvan. Doubtless
he will seek her, he has not given her up. Ah, but circumstances were
too strong. For the craven they are always too strong. By a short
imprisonment, by family storms and prayers, Clotilde is reduced to
external subjection. The disorder of her mind increases.

While submitting to her father's command, while writing words of
dismissal to Alvan, and even accepting the attentions of a former
suitor, she still says in her heart of hearts that she will always be
loyal to him. How peculiar seems the twisting, "serpentine" nature! She
still waits for Alvan to save her from the chains she daily forges for
herself. Meanwhile Alvan does his best. He uses all means,--
conventional and otherwise. He finally forces permission from
Clotilde's father to hold a free interview with Clotilde. She is to
tell him openly and freely whether she will marry him or not. So he
hopes to free her of coercion.

So far as circumstances are concerned, there is now nothing to prevent
a happy ending; but from moral causes it is impossible.

The chains she has forged for herself are too strong. Her fancies have
become diseased by long straining to a cowardly deceit. She think's
Alvan's messengers deceitful too.

So she refuses. She throws away thereby her last chance. And yet--can
we believe it?--she still hopes. Alvan has done his best and has
failed. His friends have tried to help him. Circumstance has given away
before them. And she has thrown away their help--yet she still hopes.
Alvan sends a challenge to her father. Prince Marko accepts it, and now
her shuddering trust is in Providence. Marko will be killed. Now Alvan
shall have her hand. But "Providence" does not save her. Alvan is
killed, and Prince Marko returns Clotilde cannot understand it. She is
stunned, but recovers sufficiently to marry Prince Marko.

"Not she, it was the situation they had created which was guilty," she
had thought.

"The craven with desires expecting to be blest is a zealot of the faith
which ascribes the direction of events to the outer world."

Of Alvan's death, Meredith says some very characteristic words. Let me
quote once again:

"He perished of his weakness, but it was a strong man that fell."

"He was 'a tragic comedian,' one of the lividly ludicious, whom we
cannot laugh at, but must contemplate, to distinguish where their
character strikes the note of discord with life; for otherwise, in the
reflection of their history, life will seem a thing demoniacally
inclined by fits to antic and dive into gulfs."

This, then, is George Meredith's message. We have eaten of the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the power to choose
between the two has entered into our souls. We are under the rule of a
great overhanging law. Destiny's wheels we cannot stop, but through our
capacity for moral choice, our hands lie on the button that moves the
whole machine in its relation to our own individual lives.

This is a great lesson. How strong in its likeness to the teachings of
our great masters of the past! How needful in its new scientific form
to-day! How suggestive as to the universe! Does it not follow that as
our lives are planned so is this universe planned in which we live!
Does it not follow that the spiritual is the central life upon which
all else depends? It is the teaching of the childhood of the race,
broadened through knowledge of life's passion, humbled and heightened
through sight of God's hand, strengthened and widened through the
opening of our eyes in modern science to a fuller and clearer
knowledge, not only of the machinery of the universe, but also of its
motive power.

                                          _Emily G. Hooker_.

                        THE TRAGEDY OF OPHELIA.

                             RENUNCIATION.

The "Tragedy of Hamlet" has its origin in the murder of Hamlet's
father, its development in Hamlet's preparation for revenge, and its
consummation in the murderer's death. It is well summed up in the
Anglicized title of the old German play, 'Fratricide Punished,'
('Hamlet,' Variorum Edition, Furness, Vol. II., p. 121). In the
progress of this tragedy Ophelia's own sad story has no part or lot.
She is in it, but not of it, and her relationship to it is an episode.
Like 'The Murder of Gonzago,' however, it is a tragedy within the
tragedy, but it turns wholly upon the loves of Hamlet and Ophelia,
their interruption, and its result. For this reason it is greatly shorn
of detail, and therefore doubtless it has always been regarded as a
mystery.

"The Tragedy of Ophelia" opens with a narrative of Hamlet's ardent
pursuit of Ophelia with vows of love, the surrender of her maiden heart
to him, and their free and bounteous interviews thereafter. Here the
action of the drama begins, and her father, doubting the integrity of
Hamlet's purpose, forbids her further reception of his attentions, and,
apparently without explanation made to Hamlet, she obeys him. Of what
Hamlet thinks or says of this we are not in terms informed, and can
only infer it from his conduct towards her afterwards. But that conduct
was of a most extraordinary character, seeming to many students of the
play to be inexplicable. The explanations of others may be resolved
into three theories, each of which deserves a passing notice. It has
been claimed that insanity will account for it, and indeed Hamlet's
treatment of Ophelia has been the chief argument advanced in proof of
his insanity; but it is incredible that Shakespeare should have devoted
the only two interviews which he had with her, and which had so
important an influence upon her life, to the mere vaporings of a
madman. It has been suggested that he is putting on "an antic
disposition," as he had foretold he would, with a view to deceiving the
King concerning his intentions, and such conduct would have been
fitting with the temptress in Belleforest's 'Hystorie,' (_Ibid_., 91);
but Shakespeare has transformed the creature of that story into
Hamlet's gentle sweetheart, and so to lacerate her soul by way of
subterfuge would have been an act of unjustifiable brutality, of which
he could by no means have been guilty. It has been urged that his
mind's eye is jaundiced by his mother's gross behavior, and that
thereupon he turns distrustfully from womankind; but long after his
mother's wicked marriage, perhaps a month afterwards, he is reveling in
Ophelia's love,--a balm that gracious Nature often pours on bleeding
hearts. And further, from either of these points of view, the sudden
and extravagant change in Hamlet's feelings towards Ophelia, the cruel
harshness of his speech to her soon after, and his subsequent complete
indifference to her, are beyond the requirements of the situation, and
the theories therefore seem rather to perplex than to explain.

Undoubtedly the cause of this is that they seek the solution of the
riddle in the effect on Hamlet's relations to Ophelia of prior
incidents in the play, his father's murder, his mother's marriage to
the murderer, and the ghostly mission of revenge. But there are in the
situation at the end of Act I of 'Hamlet' and wholly unconnected with
these incidents, all the elements of a tragedy, few and simple, but
profoundly significant. Thus, we have a prince who is an ardent lover,
a court lady who has as ardently returned his love, the lady's sudden
and unexplained refusal to see or hear from him, her ambitious and
time-serving courtier father, and for a King a "remorseless,
treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain." Let but a spark of jealous
suspicion reach such a mixture, and there must be an explosion; with a
war-hardened Othello-like titanic rage and murder, but with the softer
Hamlet renunciation and reproach, and with poor Ophelia, who represses
her feelings always, heart-break, insanity, and death.

Now, Hamlet is pictured as one of the most suspicious of men, and in
particular at this juncture about his mortal enemy the King. In
addition, he is very proud and very revengeful, as he admits, and there
is every indication that he has been passionately fond of Ophelia. When
therefore she persistently denies herself to him in private, though
doubtless a regular attendant at the functions of the court, his
suspicions are excited, his pride wounded, his anger aroused; and, with
"the pangs of despis'd love" in his heart, and in his mind a tumult of
conflicting thoughts, he suddenly presents himself before her, resolved
to know the truth. "What damned moments counts he o'er Who dotes, yet
doubts,--suspects, yet fondly loves." In Quarto I she says: "He found
me walking in the gallery, all alone"; that is, in the gallery of the
King's palace,--(compare lines 673 and 803),--and of course within
reach of the King; and, though Shakespeare afterwards transferred this
scene to her chamber in her father's house, it may not be overlooked
that the remarkable interview of which Ophelia tells was conceived
originally as occurring on the impulse of the moment and under stress
of feeling caused apparently, by Hamlet's unexpected and dumbfoundering
discovery:

           "He took me by the wrist and held me hard.
            Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
            And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
            He falls to such perusal of my face
            As he would draw it. Long time stayed he so.
            At last--a little shaking of my arm,
            And thrice his head thus waving up and down--
            He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
            As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
            And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
            And with his head over his shoulder turned
            He seemed to find his way without his eyes;
            For out o' doors he went without their help,
            And to the last bended their light on me."

In that harsh grip is anger, in that long study of her face the search
for truth, in his silence the wounded pride that cannot utter his
suspicions, in the triple nod the confirmation of their verity, in the
sigh the efflux of his love, in the hand-shaking a farewell, and in the
retroverted face a hope yet lingering but doomed to disappointment. For
Ophelia still utters no word of explanation, and Hamlet the lover
leaves her forever.

The renunciation of Ophelia at this interview is generally conceded,
but the reason assigned for it is the incompatibility of Hamlet's
passion for her with his mission of revenge;--a most unsatisfactory
explanation, because after the Ghost's command was laid on him he still
pursued her, for it was after that that she says: "I did refuse his
letters and denied his access to me." There is apparently an interval
of two months between Acts I and II of Hamlet, and during this period
Hamlet has evidently been brooding over his father's murder and
considering the means of executing his dread command, and he has
doubtless been vexing his soul over the conduct of Ophelia until he can
stand the strain no longer. In immediate sequence in the play his
silent interview with her follows upon her denial of herself to him,
and an echo of the bitter feeling then aroused in him is subsequently
heard, when he tells her that the prologue to the players' scene is
brief "as woman's love";--sometimes mistakenly supposed to refer to the
Queen, whose defection did not occur for more than thirty years after
her marriage. If Hamlet's belief in an intrigue between her and the
King be assumed, it fully explains his conduct before, at, and after
his renunciation of Ophelia, and it would seem that no other theory can
explain it adequately.

When Othello is brooding over the supposed delinquencies of Desdemona,
tortured by commingled love and hate, in his wrath he strikes her.
Afterwards he demands: "Let me see your eyes; look in my face"; and as
she does so, and he searches there for her innocence and finds it not,
he bitterly adjures her: "Swear thou art honest," though all the while
assured that she is "false as hell." And he weeps and laments over her
at the very moment that he determines upon an eternal separation.
Othello's interview with Desdemona and this interview of Hamlet's with
Ophelia are identical in outline, and they differ in detail only as the
character of the two men differ. Shakespeare has told us in words that
Othello is jealously suspicious of Desdemona, and with equal
faithfulness he has depicted jealous suspicion in the acts of Hamlet.

This mute interview between Hamlet and Ophelia reminds one of the "Dumb
Shew," which precedes the scene from the drama of 'Gonzago's Murder';
and as in the latter instance the Duke and Duchess afterwards put into
words the thoughts which the pantomime foreshadows, so on examination
will this be found to be the case in the second interview between
Hamlet and Ophelia, which immediately follows upon his great soliloquy.

This second interview concludes Scene i of Act III in Quarto II and in
the Folios, but in Quarto I it is in Act II, and logically it belongs
there. Act I of 'Hamlet' was designed to disclose the relation of the
several characters to each other, and the command imposed on Hamlet to
avenge his Father's death upon the King; and Act II was originally
intended to exhibit Hamlet erratically making ready to obey the Ghost's
command, and the various artifices which the King employs to detect his
hidden purpose. When Ophelia tells her father of Hamlet's wordless
interview with her, Polonius promptly goes to the King with the story
of their amours and his termination of them, and with the announcement
that Hamlet is mad for his daughter's love; and, after hearing his
reasons for this opinion, being impressed by them, naturally the first
thought of the King is: "How may we try it further?" To this Polonius
replies: "I'll loose my daughter to him" during one of his walks in the
gallery here, whilst you and I, unseen but seeing, will witness their
encounter. In Quarto I the meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia follows
at once, and when it fails Polonius undertakes to board him, and when
that fails Rosencrantz and Guildenstern assay him. Afterwards
Shakespeare saw fit to change the order of these scenes, but this
particular scene may properly be considered now, and before others
which it logically precedes.

In the interpretation of this interview, as of the former, commentators
have been misled by the assumption that it is in some way connected
with Hamlet's mission of revenge, and consequently they have found it,
as has been suggested, a veritable _pons asinorum_. Apart from the
three theories above referred to, there is an attempt to explain it on
the hypothesis that when Hamlet meets Ophelia in the palace, whither he
has been sent for by the King for the express purpose of meeting her,
but "as 'twere by accident," he at once suspects the ruse, and
therefore talks in the extraordinary manner recorded of him; that is,
that he is rude and brutal, and refuses to yield to his feelings of
affection, in order to deceive the King, who he well knows is within
hearing, or to punish Ophelia, who he is assured is spying on him. But
this theory seems to be wholly without support in the text. In the
first place, there is not a word which indicates that he suspects the
King's presence, and, on the contrary, the delivery of the soliloquy,
the admission that he is revengeful and ambitious, and the covert
threat to kill the King, all tend to prove that he does not suspect it.
Further, such a suspicion could reasonably originate only in the fact
that the King had sent for him, and that instead of the King he found
Ophelia, but it is to be remembered that in Quarto I the King does not
send for him, and that the meeting is in fact accidental. Conceding the
suspicion, however, for argument's sake, whilst it might induce Hamlet
to be reticent or cautious in his speech, it does not explain why
Shakespeare put into his mouth the denunciatory language he employs,
and this is after all the vital question. It cannot have been in order
to deceive the King by concealing his love for Ophelia, for such
concealment must necessarily undeceive him; the King, Queen, and
Polonius are all deluded into believing him mad for Ophelia's love, and
this test is expected to confirm them in it; but we know that in fact
the King is undeceived, for his comment is: "Love! His affections do
not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness." Were he profuse in his protestations of love,
the King might indeed be deceived into believing that it is not his
conduct, but Ophelia's, which troubles Hamlet; for herein the situation
differs from that narrated by Belleforest, the lady there being a mere
vulgar temptress, whose preconcerted blandishments Hamlet shrewdly
refuses to yield to. As for Ophelia's spying on him, it is untenable;
for she also expects that Hamlet will exhibit affection for her, and,
were he to do so, instead of betraying his secret, she would aid him in
concealing it. It seems plain from his inquiry that Hamlet sees
Polonius during the interview, but it is not probable that he believes
Ophelia to be cognizant of his presence; her answer is a denial of such
knowledge, and Hamlet's succeeding sarcastic speech is meant for the
conscience of Polonius, not for hers. The worst that he could say to
her is said before the discovery of her father, and before her
falsehood, and hence the discovery and the falsehood do not serve to
explain it. Nothing can explain it satisfactorily, but Hamlet's
conviction that she has transferred her affections to the King.

After Hamlet has for some time been in the King's chamber, whether it
is with or without the King's request, he meets Ophelia there, and he
finds her apparently waiting for some one, and whiling away the time by
reading. So it has been pre-arranged, and so it seems to him. Plainly
she has not been waiting for him, for, though he himself has been
waiting, she has not addressed him, and in the end he first accosts
her. Indeed, it has been planned that their meeting shall seem to him
to be "by accident," and, so seeming, the idea of her waiting for him
is precluded. Hence to him, already suspicious of her integrity, she
must have come to meet the King. But he has before this been convinced
of such an intrigue, as above shown, and because of it has renounced
her; and accordingly he petitions her lightly, if not ironically:
"Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd." Their meeting is on
the same day as, or certainly not more than one day later than, the
speechless interview; but Ophelia ignores that, and ignores his
petition also, and inquires into the state of his health "for this many
a day,"--that is, since Polonius has separated them,--to which he
responds gravely, and without show of affection. Thereupon ensues the
following conversation:

     "_Oph_.  My lord, I have remembrances of yours
              That I have longed long to redeliver;
              I pray you now receive them.

     "_Ham_.                   No, not I;
              I never gave you aught.

     "_Oph_.  My honor'd lord, you know right well you did,
              And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
              As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
              Take them again; for to the noble mind
              Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind."

It seems clear that Ophelia returns these remembrances in pursuance of
her father's orders, express or implied; that Hamlet repudiates them
because, proud and sensitive, he would blot their old associations from
his memory; and that Ophelia insists on their return with a sad and
tender recollection of those music-vows of love that he has made so
often. But why she should accuse him of unkindness towards her is not
so clear, since it is she who has broken off their intimacy. Her
meaning is not doubtful in Quarto I, where this reference to Hamlet's
unkindness follows upon his comments on her honesty, and evidently
refers to them. But in Quarto II Shakespeare changes the order of the
conversation, and so apparently intends to make Ophelia's suggestion of
unkindness refer to Hamlet's visit to her closet. Hence he had not only
frightened her at that interview, as she informed her father, but he
had hurt her, she realizes that he had renounced her, and in this
gentle way she now upbraids him. But Hamlet, wrought to sudden fury by
the reminiscence, like Othello, can see nothing but the supposed wrong
which she has done him, and, like Othello, charges her with unchastity,
without indicating the suspected man:

     "_Ham_.  Ha, ha! are you honest?

     "_Oph_.  My lord?

     "_Ham_.  Are you fair?

     "_Oph_.  What means your lordship!

     "_Ham_.  That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit
of no discourse to your beauty.

     "_Oph_.  Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with
honesty?

     "_Ham_.  Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform
honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can
translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but
now the time gives it proof."

Though expressed figuratively, there can be no doubt of Hamlet's
intention in this passage to warn Ophelia against some temptation then
assailing her, which is attacking her virtue through the medium of her
beauty, and which will probably prevail over it. It concerns her
"honesty,"--a virtuous woman being honest in respect of others who have
claims on her, and chaste in respect of herself,--and undoubtedly it
refers to the temptation which assails all women who win unscrupulous
admirers by their charms, and to which they sometimes succumb. In
Ophelia's case it has been to Hamlet an impossible possibility that she
could prove unfaithful to him, but here and now, since he has
discovered her secret visit to the King, it has become reality.

Then, as the scene proceeds, Hamlet in a breath admits and denies his
former love for her, thus plainly repudiating any present affection.
(This conclusion is entirely consistent with his declaration "I lov'd
Ophelia" in the grave-yard scene). Here he renounces her in words, as
formerly he had renounced her by signs. Then he denounces himself and
his "old stock" as being without virtue, and concludes the subject by
declaring: "We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways
to a nunnery." Here he unmistakeably warns her against the King, for of
that old stock only they two are left. To the blandishments of both she
has yielded, as he supposes, and since Hamlet no longer loves her, and
the King but lusts after her, her only safe retreat is in a nunnery. In
those old days a nunnery was often the only refuge for a woman who was
fancied by a king, if she would retain her purity.

At this juncture Hamlet discovers Polonius, as is evident by his
suggestion that he had better remain at home when he desires to play
the fool; if the remark were not intended for his ear, it would be
absurd. Of course he realizes that Polonius has been listening to their
conversation, but he does not betray his knowledge, though the rest of
his comments are perhaps more particularly intended for Polonius's ear.
His words turn "wild and whirling," Ophelia notes the change, and her
responses change in tone accordingly. He protests that though she
marries she must lose that immediate jewel of her soul of which Iago
prates, or that she will transform her husband into the horned monster
of Othello's fears. And then he inveighs against wanton womankind in
general, but in such terms as might befit the woman he supposes that
she has become. He puts on "an antic disposition" for the benefit of
Polonius, but under it all is the pointed notice to Ophelia that their
past relationship can never be renewed, and the masked charge that it
is her adoption of the ways of her frail sisters that has made him
mad,--as her words indicate that she supposes him to be,--and that has
wrecked the future happiness of both of them.

When Hero is charged by Claudio with unchastity, she fancies that
something must be wrong with him, and says: "Is my lord well, that he
doth speak so wild?" Of Othello's accusation Desdemona thinks that
"something, sure, of state ... Hath puddled his clear spirit." In a
similar frame of mind Ophelia entreats: "Ye heavenly powers restore
him," and bewails the overthrow of Hamlet's reason. These three tender
hearted women are singularly alike in their mental attitudes under the
accusation, and but too willing to extenuate the cruel blow and to
forgive it. But both Hero and Desdemona defend themselves against the
charge, whilst Ophelia, maintaining her habitual reticence, neither
admits nor denies anything, and Hamlet's conviction of her wrongdoing
with the King remains unchanged.

Thus far Hamlet has made no direct charge of the transfer of Ophelia's
affections from him to another, but he seems to do this at their next
interview, which takes place at the time of the play of 'Gonzago's
Murder.' There is a bitterness towards her in his speech, a brutality
in his obscene allusions, and a degree of heartlessness in it all,
which can be excused--if indeed it be deemed excusable--only on the
theory that he believes her to have herself become a heartless, wicked
woman. When he is commenting on the facts of the play, and Ophelia
suggests that he is "as good as a chorus," he snarlingly replies: "I
could interpret between you and your love if I could see the puppets
dallying." Everything which Hamlet says is pregnant with meaning, and
Ophelia evidently regards this as a keen thrust at her, which it
plainly is. Both of them know that they two are no longer lovers, and
each of them therefore understands that the allusion is to some other
man with whom she treads "the primrose path of dalliance." As usual
Ophelia does not deny the charge, and it would not be singular if
Hamlet were to accept her silence as an admission of its truth. To whom
she thinks that he refers does not appear, but there can be no doubt
that his conviction is that her new lover is the King.

The next incident indicating this conviction is the interview in which
Polonius undertakes with much complacency to "board" the Prince:

     "_Pol_.  Do you know me, my lord?

     "_Ham_.  Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

     "_Pol_.  Not I, my lord.

     "_Ham_.  Then I would you were so honest a man.

     "_Pol_.  Honest, my lord?

     "_Ham_.  Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one
man picked out of ten thousand.

     "_Pol_.  That's very true, my lord.

     "_Ham_.  For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god
kissing carrion--Have you a daughter?

     "_Pol_.  I have, my lord.

     "_Ham_.  Let her not walk i' the sun. Conception is a blessing,
but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to it.

     "_Pol_.  How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet
he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone,
far gone." [_aside_].

There has been much discussion of this passage, but no satisfactory
solution of it. It is a good sample of the enigmatic style of speech
characteristic of Hamlet, which presumably the audiences of
Shakespeare's day comprehended, which of course the astute Polonius did
not understand, and which puzzles later generations because they have
lost the ancient significance of certain words. Polonius is so
prejudiced in favor of his theory that it was "the very ecstacy of
love" that troubled Hamlet, that he does not even attempt to fathom his
allusions. And yet Hamlet's last remark, warning him about his
daughter, rivets his attention, and he demands to know what is meant by
it; but it is only for an instant, his illusion again diverts him from
the matter, and the chance of explanation thus escapes.

Malone says that "fishmonger" was a cant term for a "wencher"; and in
Barnabe Rich's 'Irish Hubbub' is the expression "senex fornicator, an
old fishmonger." Possibly this is its primary significance in Hamlet's
mind, for shortly afterwards he satirically says of Polonius to the
players: "He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps." In
several instances Shakespeare similarly alludes to "fishing"; as in
'Measure for Measure,' i, 2, 91: "Groping for trouts in a peculiar
river"; 'Winter's Tale,' i, 2, 195: "And his pond fish'd by his next
neighbor"; and possibly in 'Antony and Cleopatra,' i, 4, 4: "He fishes,
drinks, and wastes the lamps of night in revels." The word "monger" in
compound words, as used by Shakespeare, does not always mean a trader
in the article, but sometimes one who merely indulges in the act; as in
'Love's Labour's Lost,' ii, 1, 253: "Thou art an old love-monger";
in 'Romeo and Juliet,' ii, 4, 30: "These strange flies, these
fashion-mongers"; and in 'Measure for Measure,' v, 1, 337: "Was the
Duke a fleshmonger?" In common usage the word has this double
significance, indeed, dependent upon whether its adjunct refers to a
thing or to an act; as, for example, cheesemonger and scandalmonger,
and other similar compounds which will readily suggest themselves.
Hence "fishmonger" means both one given to "fishing" and a trader in
fish. And doubtless the latter is its most important significance in
Hamlet's mind, when Polonius denies that he is a fishmonger, namely
that he is a trader in a food which from time immemorial has been
supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Wherefore we are to understand Hamlet as
meaning that Polonius is not so honest a man as the fishmonger that
Polonius has in mind, or the senex fornicator that he originally
had in mind, but that he is a fleshmonger,--a pander, as Tieck puts
it;--"traders in flesh" such persons are termed in 'Troilus and
Cressida,' v, 11, 46. It is supposed by Tieck that the allusion is to
the way in which Polonius threw Hamlet and Ophelia together, by Friesen
that it refers to his pandering to the desires of Claudius and the
Queen before the old King's death, and by Doering that it points to his
promotion of the o'er-hasty marriage of the King and Queen. But the
foregoing discussion shows that the secondary thought in Hamlet's mind
is that for some personal end Polonius permits Ophelia to accept the
King's attentions, knowing the necessary effect of her youth and beauty
on his licentious nature; for at his last interview with her he saw her
father also, though apparently hiding from both of them, and therefore
believes that he was cognizant of the fact that she had gone to the
palace privately to meet the King. It is evidently this belief which
inspires him with the contempt which he afterwards exhibits towards
Polonius.

His next speech manifests this contempt in a notable degree, but it has
been unappreciated because of the failure to perceive the significance
of the word "sun." It is an argument intended to enforce what he had
already said, and, supplying the omitted portion, the whole runs thus:
You are not honest, and you cannot be honest; "for if the sun (in the
sky) breed maggots in a dead dog, being a (heavenly) god kissing
carrion," even so will the sun of this realm (the King) engender
misdeeds in you, a corrupt man caressed by an earthly god. In
characteristic fashion Shakespeare uses "sun" in a double sense, as he
has just used "fishmonger," and again the occult reference is to
Polonius as a procurer for the King.

And Hamlet follows this up by the warning concerning Ophelia; "Let her
not walk i' the sun (shine of the King's favor); conception is a
blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive (if she does so)."
"Sun" in this passage means "sunshine" or "sunlight," as in ordinary
usage it often does, but it is the light of the sun of royalty that he
has just mentioned.

Hamlet's meaning is made so plain by this construction, that it
scarcely needs argument to enforce it. It may however be remarked that,
assuming its correctness in respect of the declaration that Polonius is
not so honest as a fishmonger, its correctness as to the sun's breeding
maggots in carrion and causing conception in Ophelia necessarily
follows. The three enigmatical statements, thus interpreted, complement
and explain each other, and therefore tend to prove each other; and the
proof is strengthened by the fact that they are the sequelae of a
single thought, namely, his belief in an intrigue between Ophelia and
the King. On the other hand, conceding such a belief, a man of Hamlet's
character would most naturally think these thoughts, and utter them in
characteristic style to Ophelia's father:--The King breeds corruption
in you as does the sun in a carrion dog, you are risking your
daughter's honor to win his favor, and the experiment will probably end
in her dishonor. Hence Hamlet's alleged belief, deduced from his three
interviews with Ophelia, and these three resulting comments tend to
prove each other's correctness.

Again, the sun is plainly credited by Hamlet with a double function,
namely, corruptly breeding life in a dead dog and in a living woman,
and the only possible means of harmonizing the two' statements, and of
making sense out of the latter, is to assume that some man is typified
by the second sun. It is generally admitted that an uncompleted
argument is introduced by the particle "for," and, such being the case,
it is a fair assumption that that also shall contain a reference to
"the sun" as doing something which a man may do. On such an assumption,
the argument is readily followed up: "For if the sun breed maggots in a
dead dog," so must "the sun" breed dishonesty in you, and so may "the
sun" cause your daughter to conceive. These three propositions are
consistent, the logical connection between them is perfect, and their
reason and purpose is clear, if the term "sun" may figuratively
indicate "the King."

Now, it is to be observed that Shakespeare not infrequently refers to
kings as suns, and likens them to gods. When the King has pardoned her
son, the Duchess of York exclaims: "A god on earth thou art"; 'Richard
II,' v, 3, 136. "Kings are earth's gods," says Pericles; 'Pericles,' i,
1, 103. And again he says of the King, his father, that he "Had princes
sit like stars about his throne, And he the sun, for them to
reverence," _Ibid_., II, iii, 40, In 'Henry VIII,' i, 1, 6, Buckingham,
referring to the meeting of the Kings of England and France on the
Field of the Cloth of Gold, styles them "Those suns of glory, those two
lights of men." And Norfolk tells of the wondrous deeds done there,
"when these suns (For so they phrase them) by their heralds challenged
The noble spirits to arms"; _Ibid_., i, 1, 33. Again, adverting to the
manner in which Cardinal Woolsey overshadows all other men in the
King's favor, Buckingham says: "I wonder That such a keech can with his
very bulk Take up the rays o' th' beneficial sun, And keep it from the
earth"; _Ibid_., i, 1, 56. When the Cardinal has procured the King to
arrest him, Buckingham foresees his speedy death, and again uses this
metaphor in a passage which has been much misunderstood, _Ibid_., i. 1,
236: "I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, Whose figure even this
instant cloud puts on By dark'ning my clear sun"; that is, whose body
was even that moment entombed by the darkening of the King's
countenance against him; he was already a dead man. (Compare the
thought: "Darkness does the face of earth entomb When living light
should kiss it"; 'Macbeth,' ii, 4, 10).[1] In like manner, in 'King
John,' ii, i, 500, the Dauphin of France refers to himself as King,
when he says to his father that his shadow, visible in the eye of the
Princess, "Becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow." In Richard II,'
iii, 2, 50, the King, likening himself to the sun, says that, as the
"eye of heaven" reveals the dark deeds of night when he fires the proud
tops of the eastern pines, "So when this thief, this traitor,
Bolingbroke ... Shall see us rising on our throne, the east, His
treasons will sit blushing in his face." And again, _Ibid_., iv, 1,
260, transferring the metaphor to Bolingbroke, he wails: "O, that I
were a mockery King of snow Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, To
melt myself away in waterdrops." In '1 Henry IV,' iii, 2, 79, the King
speaks of "sunlike majesty, When it shines seldom in admiring eyes." In
'Richard III.' i, 1, 1, Gloster says, referring to the King: "Now is
the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York."
In 'Hamlet,' i, 2, 67, the King asks Hamlet: "How is it that the clouds
still hang on you?" and he ironically replies: "Not so, my lord, I am
too much i' the sun." Here again "sun" means "sunshine," and Hamlet,
choosing to understand the King literally, and referring to the fact
that clouds are dissipated by a genial sun, sneeringly protests that he
is too much in the sunshine of royalty to have clouds hanging about
him. Referring to a different effect of the sun's warmth, Prince John
speaks of "The man that sits within a monarch's heart And ripens in the
sunshine of his favor"; '2 Henry IV,' iv, 2, 12. There are other
similar uses of the word "sun," which need not now be cited.

The last reference to Ophelia's supposed relation to the King occurs
when Polonius comes to announce the presence of the players:

     "_Ham_.  'O Jephthah, judge of Israel,' what a treasure hadst
thou!

     "_Pol_.  What treasure had he, my lord?

     "_Ham_.  Why 'One fair daughter, and no more, the which he loved
passing well.'

     "_Pol_.  Still on my daughter [_aside_].

     "_Ham_.  Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

     "_Pol_.  If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that
I love passing well.

     "_Ham_.  Nay, that follows not.

     "_Pol_.  What follows then, my lord?

     "_Ham_.  Why, 'As by lot, God wot.'"

Here Hamlet again mystifies Polonius about his daughter, quoting from
an old English ballad. Jephthah is pilloried in history as the man who
sacrificed his daughter in payment for his worldly success. Shakespeare
also refers to him in '3 Henry VI,' v, 1, 91: "To keep that oath were
more impiety than Jephthah's when he sacrificed his daughter." Hamlet
dubs Polonius "Jephthah," because he believes that he has paid for
political preferment by yielding his daughter to the King. And when
Polonius says that, if he is to be called Jephthah, he admits that like
Jephthah he loves his daughter, Hamlet replies in characteristic vein,
"Nay, that follows not"; meaning that it follows instead that like
Jephthah he has sacrificed her. But when Polonius presses him to say
what does follow, he conceals his real meaning, as his custom is, and
diverts the old man's mind by answering the line from the ballad. As
was the case with regard to Ophelia, Hamlet is reluctant to make the
open charge against her father.

Thus in every instance in which Hamlet comes in contact with Ophelia,
or refers to her, his actions and his words consistently point to the
fact that he renounces her because he believes her to have thrust him
aside while engaging in an intrigue with the King. And the fact that
from this point of view there is a connected story of their relations
told by the several interviews above discussed, that Hamlet's conduct
and language in them all are adequately explained, and that a single
belief of his accounts for each of them, is strong confirmation of the
theory's correctness. It is in harmony with the general scheme of the
drama also, all of whose important movements hinge on "purposes
mistook"; and it furnishes Hamlet with an adequate motive for his
treatment of Ophelia, and removes from him the stigma of mere
brutishness or insanity. Coleridge well says that there must have been
"some profound heart truth" under the story, and the theory herein
advanced seems to disclose it.      _David A. McKnight_.

Washington, D. C., February 26, 1898.

                           *   *   *   *   *

                    CLEWS TO EMERSON'S MYSTIC VERSE.

                            (Third Paper.)

"When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit
seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more
dead than a great reckoning in a little room."--_Touchstone_.

The phantasmal lords of life of the poem 'Experience,' which we
considered at the close of the last paper, were presumably suggested to
Emerson by the following lines from Tennyson's 'Mystic,' published in
1830 (Emerson imported these early volumets of young Tennyson, and
never tired of praising them to his friends):--

           "Always there stood before him, night and day,
            Of wayward vary-colored circumstance
            The imperishable presences serene,
            Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound,
            Dim shadows but unwaning presences
            Four-faced to four corners of the sky."

The "silent congregated hours," "daughters of time, divinely tall,"
with "severe and youthful brows," in this same poem of Tennyson gave
Emerson his "daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days," congregated in
procession. Tennyson's mystic, who hears "time flowing in the middle of
the night" recalls Emerson's 'Two Rivers,' in which the living All, the
Infinite Soul, is figured as a stream flowing through eternity:--

           "I hear the spending of the stream,
            Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
            Through love and thought, through power and dream."

At the close of the poem 'Wealth' there is a bit of scientific
nature-ethics which is a little obscure. The greater part of the
poem is a series of graphic pictures, detailing the process of
world-development through the geologic ages down to the advent of man.
Suddenly, at the end,--just as at the end of the prose essay on the
same subject,--he remembers his manners and makes his bow to the august
Soul, kindles a light in the Geissler tube of nature, sets it aglow
interiorly with spiritual law:--

           "But, though light-headed man forget,
            Remembering Matter pays her debt:
            Still, through her motes and masses, draw
            Electric thrills and ties of Law,
            Which bind the strength of Nature wild
            To the conscience of a child."

The logical link connecting this part with the rest has dropped out in
the poem, but is clear enough in the essay. The lines mean simply this:
that, though man may forget to obey the laws of the universe, Nature
never forgets her debt of obedience; she bites and stings the
transgressor and caresses and soothes him who obeys. In her own
submission to law she has that artlessness and quasi-moral sense that
affines her to the moral nature of a child. The "awful victors" and
"Eternal Rights" of 'Voluntaries' are only "remembering Matter" in
another mask: with all their innocent obedience they are themselves
terrible executors:--

           "They reach no term, they never sleep,
            In equal strength through space abide;
            Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep,
            The strong they slay, the swift outstride."

In the following high pantheistic strain the seer chants the old rune
that God is all:--

           "The living Heaven thy prayers respect,
            House at once and architect,
            Quarrying man's rejected hours,
            Builds therewith eternal towers;
            Sole and self-commanded works,
            Fears not undermining days,
            Grows by decays,
            And, by the famous might that lurks
            In reaction and recoil,
            Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil;
            Forging, through swart arms of Offence,
            The silver seat of Innocence."

                                               --'Spiritual Laws.'

When the Living Universe builds a house, it builds it out of its own
soul substance; while man sleeps and loiters, the Unconscious
ceaselessly toils. In the phrase "grows by decays," Emerson embodies, I
believe, the law of the conservation of energy. The magazine of divine
power is exhaustless; does energy sink out of sight here, it is only to
reappear yonder; the tree decays, but out of its fertilizing substance
new plants may spring up; the coal under the steam boiler of the
locomotive is consumed, but the swart goblin has lost no whit of his
might: he just slips darkling up into the steam, makes the driving-rods
his swift-shuttling arms, and, grasping with his steel fingers the
felloes of the wheel, whirls you half a thousand miles over the green
bulge of the earth ere set of sun, The mystic Power grows by decays;
and also, by "the famous might that lurks in reaction and recoil,"
reconciles apparent antinomies and opposites, and is the agent that
visits evil upon the head of the evil doer and mercy upon the merciful.
If a heavy body be rolled up an inclined plane, it acquires potential
and kinetic energy just equal to the force expended in getting it
there, and in reaction develops such a famous might that, if massive
enough, it will knock you down if you stand in its way. If you lift the
big pendulum of the clock in the corner, you also confer latent, or
reactionary, energy upon it. Only it is of course hyperbolical for the
poet to say that reaction is potent enough to actually freeze flame and
make ice boil your kettle. That is only one of Emerson's rhetorical
Chinese crackers, his startling thaumaturgic way of illustrating his
thesis.

The key-thought of the essay 'Spiritual Laws,' to which the occult
lines we are considering were prefixed, is, Be noble; for, if you are
not, your face and life will, by the law of reaction and return,
publish your lapse. Punishment and reward are fruits that ripen
unsuspected in the deeds of men.

The pertinency and application of many of Emerson's titles are not at
once apparent.

In 'Merops' the bard affirms that in his high philosophical soarings he
cares not whether he can at once ticket his intuitions and perceptions
with names or not. Merops was changed into an eagle, says Ovid, and
placed among the constellations,--hence, I suppose, is selected by
Emerson as a good type of the kind of soaring thinker he is describing.
That he also has in mind that Merops was the putative father of
Phaëthon is shown perhaps by the allusion (in the last stanza) to
Phaëthon's mishap:--

           "Space grants beyond his fated road
              No inch to the god of day,
            And copious language still bestowed
              One word, no more, to say."

'Alphonso of Castile' is a dramatic monologue containing a whimsical
suggestion for compounding a Man out of ordinary weak-timbered manikins
by killing nine in ten of them and "stuffing nine brains in one hat."
It is put into the mouth of Alphonso, King of Castile, born in 1221,
called _El Sabio_, "The Wise." He was a man who suffered much in his
life. He wrote a famous code of laws, and first made the Castilian a
national language by causing the Bible to be translated into it.
Emerson chooses him as the vehicle of his own whimsey about the
condensed homunculus chiefly on account of one famous sentence
attributed to him: "Had I been present at the creation, I could have
given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."
Emerson, in his rhymed soliloquy, put into Alphonso's mouth,
sarcastically twits Nature with her depleted stocks, her run-out
strains of lemons, figs, roses, and men. The remedy proposed in the
case of man, and outlined above, has the true Emerson-Swift bouquet, is
colored and veined with a right Shakespearian scorn of the mob.

'Mithridates' is a monologue put into the mouth of Mithridates the
Great, King of Pontus, who is said to have discovered an antidote for
poisons which made him poison-proof against his many enemies:--

           "I cannot spare water or wine,
              Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
            From the earth-poles to the line,
              All between that works or grows,
            Everything is kin of mine.

            Give me agates for my meat;
             Give me cantharids to eat;
            From air and ocean bring me foods,
            From all zones and altitudes."

As late as 1787 "mithridate" was the name for an antidote against
poison included in the London pharmacop[oe]ia. In Jonson's 'Every Man
in his Humour,' Kitely, thinking he is poisoned, calls for mithridate
and oil. It was composed of many ingredients and given in the form of
electuaries. In our modern pharmacopoeias we have plenty of antidotes
against virulent poisons; _e. g_., atropine for the deadly amanita
mushroom. And counter-poisons are often used, as the tincture of
foxglove for aconite, atropine for morphia, or morphia for belladonna.
According to the tradition, Mithridates gradually inured his system to
counter-poisons, and became poison-proof. At any rate, Emerson uses him
for his metaphor, which, in untropical speech, is this: "lam tired of
the nambypamby and goody-goody; give me things strong and rank; give me
evil for a change and a spur.

           "Too long shut in strait and few,
            Thinly dieted on dew,
            I will use the world, and sift it,
            To a thousand humors shift it,
            As you spin a cherry.
            O doleful ghosts and goblins merry!
            O all you virtues, methods, mights,
            Means, appliances, delights,
            Reputed wrongs and braggart rights,
            Smug routine, and things allowed,
            Minorities, things under cloud!
            Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
            Vein and artery, though ye kill me!"

In brief, "I have run the gauntlet of experience, sounded all the
depths of passion, joy, woe, evil. I am dipped in Styx, more
invulnerable than Siegfried, and strong now to use the world and be
used by it." The mood of the poem is the wild longing that sometimes
comes over the good man to break loose and have his fling, come what
may, cry, _Vive la bagatelle!_ or run amuck and tilt at all he meets.
It is needless to say that the staid Emerson never carried this mood
farther than to smoke a cigar now and then, or take an Adirondack
outing. His contemporary, the untrammelled Whitman, could both preach
and practise (within the bounds of reason) the Mithridatic doctrine;
and he was a more many-sided and symmetrical man in consequence.

The last two lines of 'Mithridates,' as printed from the autograph
copy, were,--

           "God! I will not be an owl,
            But sun me in the Capitol."

These lines Emerson wisely dropped.

'Forerunners' ("Long I followed happy guides)" mean one's brave hopes
and ideals of good to come, our dreams and aspirations. The lines

           "No speed of mine avails
            To hunt upon their shining trails"

Thoreau evidently utilized as text for his well-known fable in 'Walden'
of the lost hound, bay horse, and turtle-dove.

The portrait of Hermione, the patient-sweet wife of Leontes in 'The
Winter's Tale' of Shakespeare, serves Emerson, in his poem 'Hermione,'
as the model of a perfect wife, and a more acceptable one to this age
than Chaucer's abject Griselda. Such a lady as Shakespeare's Hermione,
beautiful in person and of rare self-control and virtue, is an
adumbration or epitome of the universal beauty. Looking at nature, the
American poet finds the features of his Hermione there: "mountains and
the misty plains, Her colossal portraiture." I suppose that this
sketch, tender and delicately toned as if with a silver point, is
autobiographical, and is a shadowing forth of the character of
Emerson's first wife, the ethereal souled Ellen Tucker, who died of
consumption after only a year and a half of married life. When her
"meteor glances came," he says, he was "hermit vowed to books and
gloom," and dwelling alone. In the lines

           "The chains of kind
            The distant bind;
            Deed thou doest she must do,"

he anticipates (does he not?) the telepathy of our days,--kindred minds
seeking similar places and thinking like thoughts, although in this
case, to be sure, the kindred soul is thought of as merged with the
inorganic world,--the winds and waterfalls and twilight nooks.

Search the whole world through, you shall find no predecessor of
Emerson the poet. The only verse resembling his in general style is
that of the enigmatic 'Phoenix and the Turtle,' attributed to
Shakespeare, and much admired by Emerson:--

           "Let the bird of loudest lay,
            On the sole Arabian tree.
            Herald sad and trumpet be,
            To whose sound chaste wings obey."

Emerson's verses have also a slight Persian tinge now and then, caught
from his studies of Saadi and Hafiz. In his fine lyric cry 'Bacchus,'
in which he calls for a wine of life, a cup of divine soma or amrita,
that shall sinew his brain and exalt all his powers of thought and
action to a godlike pitch,--

           "Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
            In the belly of the grape,

            *   *   *   *

            That I intoxicated,
            And by the draught assimilated,
            May float at pleasure through all natures;

            *   *   *   *

            Quickened so, will I unlock
            Every crypt of every rock,"--

he unconsciously gave his lines, I think, the outward form of some
verses by Hafiz, in which that singer intimates that, give him the
right kind of wine, and he can perform wonders as if with Solomon's
ring or Jemschid's wine-cup mirror. Emerson himself in one of his early
editions gives a spirited verse translation of Hafiz's poem. Mr.
William R. Alger ('Specimens of Oriental Poetry,' Boston, 1856)
translates Hafiz thus:--

           "Bring me wine! By my puissant arm
            The thick net of deceit and of harm
            Which the priests have spread over the world
            Shall be rent and in laughter be hurled.
            Bring me wine! I the earth will subdue.
            Bring me wine! I the heaven will storm through.
            Bring me wine, bring it quick, make no halt!
            To the throne of both worlds will I vault.
            All is in the red streamlet divine.
            Bring me wine! O my host, bring me wine!"

'Etienne de la Boéce' gets its title (with Emersonian variations) from
the name of one of Montaigne's most intimate friends,--Estienne de la
Boëtie. Montaigne tells us about him in Chapter xxvii of his Essays,
affirming that he would have accomplished miracles, had he lived. He
died when only thirty-three at Bordeaux (1563). His scholarship was
solid, his translations from the Greek excellent. He was so eager to
read Greek that he copied whole volumes with his own hand. A French
critic says, "Les qualités qui brillaient en lui imprimaient à toute
sa personne un cachet distingué et un charme sévère." Yet he seems to
have been something of an imitator of his great friend; and it is in
this aspect of his life that Emerson regards him, using him, perhaps
somewhat unjustly to his powers and developing genius, as the type of a
too imitative disciple:--

           "I serve you not, if you I follow,
            Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow;

            *   *   *   *

            Vainly valiant, you have missed
            The manhood that should yours resist."

Probably most Americans, if asked to explain the relevancy of the title
of Emerson's poem 'Guy,' would be unable to answer offhand. The verses
celebrate the lucky man:--

                     "The common waters fell
            As costly wine into his well.
            The zephyr in his garden rolled
            From plum-trees vegetable gold.
            Stream could not so perversely wind
            But corn of Guy's was there to grind."

The reference, of course, is to a man well known in England,--Thomas
Guy (d. 1724), founder of Guy's Hospital in London. He was the George
Peabody of his day. Beginning life as a bookseller, he made a good deal
of money in printing Bibles, but acquired most of his enormous fortune
by financial speculations. He was extremely economical; for example,
always ate his dinner on his shop counter, first spreading out a
newspaper to catch the crumbs. His charities were boundless. To his
hospital he gave $1,000,000; and at his death his will was found to
contain an enormous number of special benefactions, including bequests
to over ninety cousins. Emerson in his poem compares Guy to Polycrates,
who was King of Samos some five hundred years before Christ. He says
that Polycrates "chained the sunshine and the breeze"; that is, the
very elements seemed to be in his pay. This run of luck was without a
break up to his death; his fleet of a hundred ships was the largest
then known; he conquered all his enemies, and amassed great treasure.
His ally, Amasis, King of Egypt, was so alarmed at his prosperity,
fearing the envy of the gods, that he advised him to make some
noteworthy sacrifice. The story goes that Polycrates accordingly threw
his emerald signet-ring into the sea, but it came back to his kitchens
in the belly of a large fish, as in the Arabian Nights story. The fears
of Amasis were finally justified; for the Persian satrap Or[oe]tes
enticed Polycrates to the mainland, and crucified him.

'Xenophanes' embodies poetically the doctrine of the earnest old
Greek agnostic and monist of that name, that God, or the All, is
uncreated, immovable, and one,--not immovable in its parts, but as a
whole, and just because it is all. Xenophanes saw the grandeur and
incomprehensibility of the universe, he violently opposed what seemed
to him the disgraceful polytheism of Homer, and anticipated the modern
atomic theory and the doctrine of the unity of life as revealed by the
spectroscope and the discovery of the conservation and mutual
convertibility of forces. Or, as Emerson puts it in his haunting
numbers,--

           "By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave
            One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,
            One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,
            One aspect to the desert and the lake.
            It was her stern necessity."

The title of the poem 'Hamatreya' seemed at first to baffle a perfect
and indubitable explanation. The word can be found in no English or
foreign dictionary that the largest libraries afford. We are indebted,
however, to Col. T. W. Higginson (_The Critic_, Feb. 18, 1888) for not
only giving us a clew to the title, but for pointing out the portion of
the Vishnu Purana (Wilson's translation, 1840) on which Emerson based
his 'Earth Song' in 'Hamatreya,' and, in fact, got the hint for the
whole poem; namely, at the close of Book IV. Maitreya is a disciple of
Parasara, who relates to Maitreya the Vishnu Purana. Among other things
he tells Maitreya of a chant of the Earth, who said, "When I hear a
king sending word to another by his ambassador, 'This earth is mine:
immediately resign your pretensions to it,' I am moved to violent
laughter at first; but it soon subsides in pity for the infatuated
fool." Again, the Purana says, "Earth laughs, as if smiling with
autumnal flowers, to behold her kings unable to effect the subjugation
of themselves"; which is Emerson's

           "Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
            Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs."

And again: "These were the verses, Maitreya, which Earth recited, and
by listening to which ambition fades away, like snow before the sun."
Here are Emerson's lines:--

           "When I heard the Earth-song,
            I was no longer brave;
            My avarice cooled
            Like lust in the chill of the grave."

Colonel Higginson suggests that Emerson may also have had in mind, in
writing 'Hamatreya,' Psalm, xlix. 11. As he rightly says, the title
evidently is meant to give a hint of the Hindoo source of the argument
of the poem. It is in line with the uniform custom of Emerson in giving
historical catch-words, especially proper names, as his titles. After
an exhaustive search through all the Hindoo scriptures, I have reached
a conviction which approaches absolute certainty that Hamatreya is
Emerson's imperfect recollection of Maitreya or that he purposely
coined the word. Emerson, it is nearly certain, read the Vishnu Purana,
translated by H. H. Wilson (a large and costly work), by the copy then
in the Harvard Library or the Boston Athenaeum, perhaps taking brief
notes, but omitting to write down "Maitreya." In his exhaustive index
of proper names, appended to the Vishnu Purana, Wilson has no such word
as Hamatreya, nor does it occur anywhere in the book. To clinch the
argument, Prof. Charles R. Lanman, the well-known Sanskrit scholar of
Harvard University, writes me that "Hamatreya is not a Sanskrit word."
"The Atreyas," he says, "were the descendants of Atri." "It is an easy
mistake to make _Hamatreya_ out of _Maitreya_. I really think you will
have to assume a simple slip here."

Emerson is not wilfully obscure. But he comes dangerously near to being
so in the demand he often makes upon his readers for out-of-the-way
knowledge. 'Casella' is the title of an Emersonian quatrain,--

           "Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
            For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove.
            Never was poet, of late or of yore,
            Who was not tremulous with love-lore."

The reference is to Dante's friend Casella ("Casella mio"), whom he
meets in Purgatory, and who sweetly sings (as of yore on earth he was
wont) a canzone by Dante himself,--"_Amor, che nella mente mi
ragiona_." Emerson's favorite poet, Milton, in his sonnet to Henry
Lawes, alludes, as Mr. Norton points out, to this friendship:--

           "Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher
            Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing
            Met in the milder shades of Purgatory."

The title [Greek: adakrun nemontai aiona] is from Pindar, I believe.
Emerson took it from _The Dial_, where (July, '43) it appears as the
motto to a poem by Charles A. Dana on 'Manhood.' It means, literally,
"They pass a tearless life"; or, very freely rendered, "They live a
life of smiles,"--a sentiment explained by the first lines,--

           "A new commandment, said the smiling Muse,
            I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach."

Even in so slight a matter as choosing a name for his verses 'To Rhea,'
Emerson's philosophical belief is glimpsed; for Rhea was the mother of
gods, and such he believed all women to be. The thought of this
remarkable poem, which its author feigns to have received from the
thousand chattering tongues of the poplar-tree, is extremely subtle and
somewhat difficult to formulate. The analysis is this. If you, a wife,
have lost your supremacy in your husband's affections, take a strange
and noble revenge, not by hating, but, in a kind of calm altruistic
despair, endowing him with all the gifts and blessings at your command.
The poem is headed 'To Rhea' (Rhea being the wife of the cruel Saturn,
who devoured his own children) as to a wife whose husband had merely
"drank of Cupid's nectar cup," married her from sex-instinct alone, and
then, the "bandages of purple light" fallen from "his eyes," treated
her with indifference. But she continues to love him; and more the poet
gives her the advice just noted, illustrating by the supposed case of a
god loving a mortal maid, and warily knowing that she, with her
inferior ideals, can never adequately requite his love, yet nobly
endowing her with all gifts and graces, which are the hostages he pawns
for freedom from "his thrall." He does this in an altruistic spirit, in
order by her to "model newer races" and "carry man to new degrees of
power and comeliness." But what thrall? We must walk warily here. In
order not to seem to give his verses an autobiographical cast (although
the god, the "wise Immortal," of them is really such a type as the seer
Emerson himself), he withdraws into dim recesses and speaks in subtlest
metaphors. The thrall, I think, is the bondage a lover or husband is in
to his beloved, in whom the solecisms and disenchantments of possession
have supplanted the poetic illusions of romantic love. The man of
supreme wisdom, by the magic of self-sacrifice and boundless profusion
of gifts turns the trap or prison in which nature has caught him into a
bower of Eden. By the road of generosity he escapes. He cunningly
builds up in her mind gratitude and friendship in place of the lost
romanticism. There is in this treatment of love a touch of the
coldblooded philosophy of the Emersonian critique of friendship. But if
it is not a marriage of ideal kind, such as that of the Brownings,
which he celebrates, he at least embodies in his verse the shrewd
love-philosophy of the practical-poetical Englishman, united to the
average woman for the furtherance of the ends of the species.

Mr. George Brown, in his Emerson primer, thinks that the key-thought of
'Rhea' is in these lines from 'The World-Soul' about the gods:--

           "To him who scorns their charities
            Their arms fly open wide."

But the parallelism somewhat halts. For mark: In the one case
Napoleon's maxim is embodied, that God is on the side of the strongest
battalions. The one who scorns the favoritisms and alms of Heaven, and
yet, will he nill he, receives its aid, is really the strong God
himself in mask, the noble and resolute man executing his will in time
and space. But in the case supposed in 'Rhea,' of husband and wife, the
ones who scorn love are those not deserving of gifts at all (although
Nature finds her account in them), but persons who receive gifts in
charity from one altruistically nobler than themselves. It is just this
idea of sublime self-sacrifice that gives to 'Rhea' its strange
subtlety and its uniqueness among poems on love. There is a consolatory
under-thought in the palimpsest, too. By his illustration of the god
and the mortal maid the poet wishes Rhea to divine that, if wives make
moan over husbands' lost love, husbands no less often have reason to
lament the cooled affection of wives.

The central idea in 'Uriel' is that there is no such thing as evil.
This thesis is put into the mouth of Uriel, one of the seven
archangels, because he was the "interpreter" of God's will. So Milton
says, in the _locus classicus_ on Uriel in Book III of 'Paradise Lost.'
He also says he was

           "The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in heav'n."

His station was in the all-viewing sun. Uriel, in Milton, tells how,
when the universe was yet chaos,

           "Or ever the wild Time coined itself
            Into calendar months and days,"

he saw the worlds a-forming,--earth, sun, and stars. Emerson (or
"Sayd") takes Milton at his word, and leads us back into that dark
backward and abysm of time, and lets us overhear a conversation between
Uriel and the other seraphs. At his speech "the gods shook," because if
there is no sin, if all comes round to good, even a lie, then good-bye
gods, hells and heavens, and their punishments. But note that, though
the All turns your wrong to good in the end, yet you, an individual,
suffer for your wrongdoing.

In a genial paper in the _Andover Review_ for March, 1887, Dr. C. C.
Everett says that Dr. Hedge suggested to him that 'Uriel' probably took
its origin in the discussions of the Boston Association of Ministers on
the theme (then rife), "There is no line in nature": all is circular,
and by the law of reaction every deed returns upon the doer. At any
rate, it was written in 1838, soon after his Divinity School Address.
('Emerson in Concord,' by Edward Emerson.)

The god of boundaries in ancient Rome--Terminus--gives his name to the
cheeriest of monodies or anchoring songs sung by the gayest of old
sailors on the sea of eternity, and at last approaching port. Terminus,
like Hermes, the Greek god of bounds, was shown in his statues without
hands or feet, to indicate that he never moved. Was Emerson a little
rusty in his classical lore, or did he boldly and knowingly defy
classical verities when he says the divinity came to him "in his fatal
rounds"? He seems to have attributed to Terminus patrolling functions
like those of his own New England village fence-viewers. Or, rather,
speaking in noble and more adequate terms, has he not added to the
world's mythologies a new and poetical deity,--the god of the bounds of
human life, a kind of avant-courier or Death's dragoman to announce to
men their approaching end? 'Terminus' was written about 1866, when
Emerson was in or near his sixty-third year, and sixteen years before
his death.                               _William Sloane Kennedy._

                           *   *   *   *   *

                  A DEFENCE OF BROWNING'S LATER WORK.

If a defence of Browning's work were to include all he has written
since the date when Edmund Gosse said his books were chiefly valuable
as keeping alive popular interest in the poet, and as leading fresh
generations of readers to what he had already published, it would needs
begin as far back as 1868; and considering the amount of work done
since that time would require at least a volume to do the subject
justice.

Fortunately it has long been admitted that Homer sometimes nods,
though not with such awful effect as was said to attend the nods of
Jove--Hence, in spite of Mr. Gosse's undoubted eminence as a critic, we
may dare to assume that in this particular instance he fell into the
ancient and distinguished trick of nodding.

If Mr. Gosse were right, it would practically put on a par with a mere
advertising scheme many poems which have now become household
favorites. Take, for example, 'Hervé Riel.' Think of the blue-eyed
Breton hero whom all the world has learned to love through Browning,
tolerated as nothing more than an index finger to 'The Pied Piper of
Hamelin!' Take, too, such poems, as 'Donald,' whose dastardly
sportsmanship is so vividly portrayed that it has the power to arouse
strong emotion in strong men, who have been known literally to break
down in the middle of it through excess of feeling; 'Ivan Ivanovitch,'
in which is embodied such fear and horror that weak hearts cannot stand
the strain of hearing it read; the story of the dog Tray who rescued a
drowning doll with the same promptitude as he did a drowning child--at
the relation of whose noble deeds the eyes of little children grow
eager with excitement and sympathy. And where is there in any poet's
work, a more vivid bit of tragedy than 'A Forgiveness!'

And would not an unfillable gap be left in the ranks of our friends of
the imaginative world if Balaustion were blotted out? The exquisite
lyric girl, brave, tender and with a mind in which wisdom and wit are
fair playfellows.

As Carlyle might say, "Verily, verily Mr. Gosse, thou hast out-Homered
Homer, and thy nod hath taken upon itself very much the semblance of a
snore."

These and many others which might be mentioned as having appeared since
the date when Mr. Gosse autocratically put up the bars to the poet's
genius are now so universally accepted that any defence of them would
be absurd.

There are again others whose tenure of fame is still hanging in the
balance like 'The Red Cotton Night-cap Country,' 'The Inn Album,'
'Aristophanes' Apology,' 'Fifine at the Fair'; but as they have had
already some able defenders, I shall not attempt any defence of them
further than to say, in passing, that the longer I know them, and the
more I read them, the more I am impressed with their masterly portrayal
of human motives as they either reflect a given social environment or
work contrary to it. Only a genius of the greatest power could have
grasped and moulded into palpitating life beings of the calibre of the
brilliant complex and illogical Aristophanes, or the dunderheaded, well
meaning and equally illogical Miranda and set them to act out their
little parts in a living historical environment--one in decadent Athens
with her petty political and literary rivalries and dying religion; the
other in ultramontane France where superstition and materialism were
fighting for the mastery. Such art as is illustrated in these poems on
in 'Fifine at the Fair' or in 'The Inn Album,' may not be of the kind
to give one direct ideals for the conduct of life; but it represents
the most splendid realism from which as from life itself deep moral
lessons may be drawn. There is an actuality of realism in these poems
of Browning's that puts into the shade, that of the great apostle of
realism, Zola, for his realism too often presents what I venture to
call obverse idealism--evil apotheosized, not evil struggling toward
good as it invariably appears in life.

Among the poet's later works, 'Ferishtah's Fancies' and 'The Parleyings
with Certain People of Importance in Their Day' have perhaps been more
obscured by mists of non-appreciation than any others. I shall,
therefore, confine myself for the present to making here and there a
rift in these mists in the hope that some glimpses of the splendor of
the giant form behind them may be gained.

Without particularizing either critics or criticism, it may be said
that criticism of these poems divides itself into the usual three
branches,--one which objects to their philosophy, one which objects to
their art, one which finds them difficult of comprehension at all. This
last criticism may easily be disposed of by admitting it as in part
true. The mind whose highest reaches of poetic inspiration are
ministered unto by such simple and easily understandable lyrics as
'Twinkle, twinkle little star' might not at once grasp the significance
of the Parleying with George Bubb Dodington. Indeed, it may be surmised
that some minds might sing upon the starry heights with Hegel and
fathom the doctrine of the equivalence of being and non-being and yet
be led into a slough of despond by this same cantankerous George.

But a poetical slough of despond may be transfigured in the twinkling
of an eye--after a proper amount of study and hard thinking--into an
elevated plateau with prospects upon every side, grand or terrible or
smiling.

Are we never to feel spurred to any poetical pleasure more vigorous
than dilly-dallying with Keats while we feast our eyes upon the
wideness of the seas? Or lazily floating in a lotus land with Tennyson,
say, among the meadows of the Musketaquid, in canoes with silken
cushions? Beauty and peace is the reward of such poetical pleasures.
They fall upon the spirit like the "sweet sound that breathes upon a
bank of violets, stealing and giving odor," but shall we never return
from the land where it is always afternoon? Is it only in such a land
as this that we realize the true power of emotion? Rather does it
conduce to the slumber of emotion; for progress is the law of feeling
as it is the law of life, and many times we feel,--yes--feel--with
tremendous rushes of enthusiasm like climbing Matterhorns with great
iron nails in our shoes, with historical and archaeological, and
philosophical Alpen-stocks in our hands, and when we reach the summit
what unsuspected beauties become ours.

Advancing a step more seriously into the subject, I may say that these
two series of poems form the key-stone to Browning's whole work. They
are like a final synthesis of the problems of existence which he has
previously made analyses of from myriad points of view in his dramatic
presentation of character. It has been said that in these poems his
philosophy loses its intuitional and assured point of view, to become
hard-headed and doubting. But does not a careful comparison with his
early work disprove this assertion?

In his two early poems, 'Pauline' and 'Paracelsus,' before the poet's
personality became merged in that of his characters, he presents us
with his poetic creed and his theory of the universe in no mistakable
terms. In 'Pauline' we get a direct glimpse of the poet's own artistic
temperament, and may literally put our fingers upon those qualities
which were to be a large influence in moulding his work.

As described by himself the poet of 'Pauline' was

           "Made up of an intensest life
            Of a most clear idea of consciousness
            Of self, distinct from all its qualities,
            From all affections, passions, feelings, powers;
            And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all:
            But linked in me to self-supremacy,
            Existing as a centre to all things,
            Most potent to create and rule and call
            Upon all things to minister to it."

This sense of an over-consciousness is the mark of an objective
poet--one who sympathizes with all the emotions and aspirations of
humanity,--interprets their actions through the light of this sympathy,
and at the same time keeps his own individuality distinct. The poet of
this poem discovers that he can no longer lose himself with enthusiasm
in any phase of life; but what does that mean to a soul constituted as
his? It means that the way has been cleared for the birth of that
greater, broader love of the fully developed artist-soul which, while
entering into sympathy with all phases of life, finds its true
complement only in an ideal of absolute Love.

This picture of the artist aspiring toward the absolute by means of his
large human sympathy may be supplemented by the theory of man's
relation to the universe involved in 'Paracelsus' where it is shown
that the Absolute cannot be fully realized by mankind either through
knowledge or love. Aprile's doctrine has an element of fatalism in it.
He sees and loves God in imperfection, but does not seem to have much
notion of progress. On the other hand, Paracelsus sees God only in
perfected Mankind, until he is really made wise to know that

           "Even hate is but a mask of love's
            To see a good in evil and a hope
            In ill success,"

and so is led to combine his own former standpoint with Aprile's by
perceiving God and God's love in progress from lesser to ever greater
good, and that evil and failure are the spurs that send man onwards to
a future where joy climbs its heights "forever and forever."

From this point in his work Browning, like the Hindu Brahmah, becomes
manifest not as himself, but in his creations. The poet whose portrait
we get in 'Pauline' is the same poet who sympathetically presents a
whole world of human experiences to us, keeping his own individuality
for the most part intact, and the philosopher whose portrait is drawn
in 'Paracelsus' is the same who interprets these human experiences in
the light of the great life-theories therein presented.

But as the creations of Brahmah return into himself, so the human
experiences Browning has entered into artistic sympathy with return to
enrich his completed view of the problems of life, when like his own
Rabbi Ben Ezra, he reaches the last of life for which "the first was
planned" in these 'Fancies' and 'Parleyings'.

Though these two groups of poems undoubtedly express the poet's own
mature conclusions, they yet preserve the dramatic form. Several things
are gained in this way. First, the poems are saved from didacticism,
for the poet expresses his opinion as an individual and not as a seer,
trying to implant his theories in the minds of disciples. Second,
variety is given and the mind is stimulated by having opposite points
of view presented, while the thought is infused with a certain amount
of emotional force through the heat of argument.

It has, of course, been objected that philosophical and ethical
problems are not fit subjects for discussion in poetry. It should be
remembered, however, that there is one point the critic of Æsthetics
has not yet learned to realize; namely, that the law of evolution is
differentiation, in art as well as in cosmic, organic, and social life.
It is just as prejudiced and unforeseeing in these days to limit poetry
to this or that subject, or say that nothing is dramatic that does not
deal with immediate action, as it would have been for Homer to declare
that no poem would ever be worthy the name that did not contain a
catalogue of ships.

These facts exist! We have dramas dealing merely with action, dramas,
in which character development is of prime importance; dramas, wherein
action and character are entirely synchronous; and those in which the
action means more than appears upon the surface, like Hauptmann's
'Sunken Bell,' or Ibsen's 'Master Builder,' then why not dramas of
thought and dramas of mood when the brain and heart become the stage of
action instead of an actual stage. Surely, such dramas are a natural
development of this Nineteenth Century. As the man in 'Half Rome' says

"Facts are facts and lie not, and the question 'How came that purse i'
the poke o' you admits of no reply.'" Art has a great many forms of
drama in its poke already, so we would better be careful how we make
authoritative statements on the subject.

Another advantage, gained from the dramatic form and this is most
important, is that the poet has been enabled by means of it to hold the
mirror up to the turmoil of thought that has racked the brains and
hearts of the last half of the Nineteenth Century. Victorian England in
its thought phases lives just as surely in these poems as Renaissance
Italy in its art phases in 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' 'Andrea del Sarto,'
'Pictor Ignotus' and 'The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's;' and
this is true though the first series is cast in the form of Persian
Fables and the second, in the form of Parleyings with worthies of past
centuries.

We who have grown up under the dispensation, so to speak, of the
doctrine of evolution, now acknowledged to be the guiding principle in
every department of knowledge find it hard to enter into the spirit of
that mid-century Sturm and Drang period which resulted upon the
publication of Darwin's 'Origin of Species.' This book is the landmark
of the century, and commemorates at once the triumph of knowledge, and
its failure. The triumph of science in the realm of phenomena, its
failure to pierce into the ultimate causes of these phenomena. What a
hard fight scientific methods of investigating the phenomena of nature
and life had had up to that time, in the teeth of opposition from the
less instructed religious world, has been summarized for us in the
fascinating pages of Andrew D. White's 'Warfare Between Theology and
Science.' One by one, Science won the outposts held by prejudice and
conservatism. It had to be admitted that the earth was not flat and
that it did not float upon an infinite sea supported on the back of a
tortoise. It had to be admitted, even, that it did not occupy the chief
seat in the synagogue of the firmament, but went rolling about the sun
like any common little asteroid. Finally, the great guns of science
were trained upon man himself and he was forced to retire from his
lofty position of Lord of Creation to the much more humble one of
outcome of creation.

To a large proportion of mankind it seemed as if, should these things
be admitted as truth, the whole fabric of society must fall to pieces
and religion become a mockery. Those who felt so fought, as for their
life, against the conclusions of science. There was a large minority,
however, which, intellectually constrained to accept the conclusions of
science, yet differed much in temperament and were by consequence,
affected in very different ways by the new truths. There were men like
Matthew Arnold who no longer believed in the revelations of the past,
yet who clung to the beauty of religious forms, in despair at the
thought of the wilderness life would be without them. There were others
like George Eliot, who became positivists, and gained comfort only in
the thought of a religion of humanity and an immortality of nothing
more tangible than human influence. There were those like William
Morris who accepted cheerfully this life as being all and who devoted
their energies to making it as lovely as possible and working to make
it more lovely for the future. There were still others, like Clifford,
entirely hopeless, but who like Childe Roland put the slug horn to
their lips, and lived brave, noble lives in the certainty of coming
annihilation; a divine melancholy seized upon some, such as we see
reflected in much of Tennyson's verse.

But there were a few who beheld the triumph of science undismayed, for
they saw that her sway could not pass beyond the realm of phenomena,
that the failure of the intellect to penetrate behind the mysteries of
nature and life must be the saving of religion. Herbert Spencer is