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 Other Folk 
 
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A HERO AND SOME 
 OTHER FOLK 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM A, QUAYLE 
 
 Autho* of "THE POET'S POET AND OTHER ESSAYS" 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE 
 NEW YORKs EATON & MAINS 
 
85310 
 
 f — ■ — ■ 
 
 Library of Congreaa 
 
 ^m> Copies Received 
 DEC 7 1900 
 
 (-/■ Copyright enWy 
 
 SECOND €OPY 
 
 Oelivafed to 
 
 ORDER DIVISION 
 
 DEC 8 19UU 
 
 9^ 
 
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 %^<^ 
 
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 ^0 
 
 COPYRIGHT, igoo, BY 
 THE WESTERN METH- 
 ODIST BOOK CONCERN 
 
"1^0 think some one will care to listen to us, and to be- 
 lieve we do not speak to vacant air but to listening 
 hearts, is always sweet. TTiat friends have listened to 
 this author' s spoken and written words with apparent 
 gladness emboldens him to believe they will give him hear- 
 ing once again. 
 
 May some one's eyes be lightened, some one' s burden 
 be lifted from his shoulders for an hour of rest, some 
 one'' s landscape grow larger, fairer, and more fruitful, 
 because these essays have been written. 
 
 William A. Quayle. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 I. Jean Valjean, , 7 
 
 II. Some Words on Loving Shakespeare, 48 
 
 III. Caliban, 75 
 
 IV. William the Silent, 93 
 
 V. The Romance of American Geography, .... 142 
 
 VI. Iconoclasm in Nineteenth-century Literature, i8r 
 
 VII. Tennyson the Dreamer, 198 
 
 VIII. The American Historians, 241 
 
 IX. King Arthur, 262 
 
 X. The Story of the Pictures, 292 
 
 XI. The Gentleman in Literature, 299 
 
 XII. The Drama of Job o ..... . 329 
 
A Hero and Some Other 
 Folk 
 
 % 
 
 Jean Valjean 
 
 THE hero is not a luxury, but a necessity. 
 We can no more do without him than we 
 can do without the sky. Every best man and 
 woman is at heart a hero-worshiper. Emerson 
 acutely remarks that all men admire Napoleon 
 because he was themselves in possibility. They 
 were in miniature what he was developed. For 
 a like though nobler reason, all men love heroes. 
 They are ourselves grown tall, puissant, victorious, 
 and sprung into nobility, worth, service. The hero 
 electrifies the world ; he is the lightning of the soul, 
 illuminating our sky_, clarifying the air, making it 
 thereby salubrious and delightful. What any elect 
 spirit did, inures to the credit of us all. A frag- 
 
 7 
 
8 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 ment of Lowell's clarion verse may stand for the 
 biography of heroism : 
 
 "When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad 
 
 earth's aching breast 
 Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east 
 
 to west; 
 And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within 
 
 him climb 
 To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime 
 Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem 
 
 of Time;" 
 
 such being the undeniable result and history of 
 any heroic service. 
 
 But the world's hero has changed. The old 
 hero was Ulysses, or Achilles, or ^neas. The 
 hero of Greek literature is Ulysses, as -^neas is 
 in Latin literature. But to our modern thought 
 these heroes miss of being heroic. We have out- 
 grown them as we have outgrown dolls and mar- 
 bles. To be frank, we do not admire ^neas nor 
 Ulysses, ^neas wept too often and too co- 
 piously. He impresses us as a big cry-baby. Of 
 this trinity of classic heroes — Ulysses, ^neas, and 
 Achilles — Ulysses is least obnoxious. This state- 
 ment is cold and unsatisfactory, and apparently 
 unappreciative, but it is candid and just. Lodge, in 
 his "Some Accepted Heroes," has done service 
 in rubbing the gilding from Achilles, and show- 
 ing that he was gaudy and cheap. We thought 
 
J:eAN Vai,je;an 9 
 
 the image was gold, which was, in fact, thin gilt. 
 Achilles stilks in his tent, while Greek armies are 
 thrown back defeated from the Trojan gates. In 
 nothing is he admirable save that, when his pout- 
 ing fit is over and when he rushes into the battle, 
 he has mighty and overbears the force opposing 
 him as a wave does some petty obstacle. But no 
 higher quality shines in his conquest. He is vain, 
 brutal, and impervious to high motive. In 
 ^neas one can find little attractive save his filial 
 regard. He bears Anchises on his shoulders from 
 toppling Troy ; but his wanderings constitute an 
 Odyssey of commonplaces, or chance, or mean- 
 ness. No one can doubt Virgil meant to create 
 a hero of commanding proportions, though we, 
 looking at him from this far remove, find him 
 uninteresting, unheroic, and vulgar; and why the 
 goddess should put herself out to allay tempests 
 in his behalf, or why hostile deities should be dis- 
 turbed to tumble seas into turbulence for such a 
 voyager, is a query. He merits neither their 
 wrath nor their courtesy. I confess to liking 
 heroes of the old Norse mythology better. 
 They, at least, did not cry nor grow voluble with 
 words when obstacles obstructed the march. 
 They possess the merit of tremendous action, 
 ^neas, in this regard, is the inferior of Achilles. 
 Excuse us from hero worship, if ^neas be 
 hero. In this old company of heroes, Ulysses is 
 
lo A Hero and Some; Othbr Foi,k 
 
 easy superior. Yet the catalogue of his virtues 
 is an easy task. Achilles was a huge body^ asso- 
 ciated with little brain, and had no symptom of 
 sagacity. In this regard, Ulysses outranks him, 
 and commands our respect. He has diplomacy 
 and finesse. He is not simply a huge frame, 
 wrestling men down because his bulk surpasses 
 theirs. He has a thrifty mind. He is the man 
 for councils of war, fitted to direct with easy 
 mastery of superior acumen. His fellow-warriors 
 called him "crafty," because he was brainy. He 
 was schooled in stratagem, by which he became 
 author of Ilium's overthrow. Ulysses was shrewd, 
 brave, balanced — possibly, though not conclusively, 
 patriotic — a sort of Louis XI, so far as we may form 
 an estimate, but no more. He was selfish^ immoral, 
 barren of finer instincts, who was loved by his 
 dog and by Penelope, though for no reason we 
 can discover. Ten years he fought before Troy, 
 and ten years he tasted the irony of the seas — in 
 these episodes displaying bravery and fortitude, but 
 no homesick love for Penelope, who waited at the 
 tower of Ithaca for him, a picture of constancy 
 sweet enough to hang on the palace walls of all 
 these centuries. We do not think to love Ulysses, 
 nor can we work ourselves up to the point of ad- 
 miration; and he is the best hero classic Rome 
 and Greece can ofifer. No ! 'Register, as the mod- 
 ern sense of the classic hero, we do not like him. 
 
J:ean Vai^jean ii 
 
 He is not admirable, yet is not totally lacking 
 in power to command attention. What is his 
 quality of appeal to us ? This : He is action ; and 
 action thrills us. The old hero was, in general, 
 brave and brilliant. He had the tornado's 
 movement. His onset redeems him. He blus- 
 tered, was spectacular, heartless, and did not guess 
 the meaning of purity; but he was warrior, and 
 the world enjoys soldiers. And this- motley hero 
 has been attempted in our own days. He was 
 archaic, but certain have attempted to make him 
 modern. Byron's Don Juan is the old hero, only 
 lost to the old hero's courage. He is a villain, with 
 not sense enough to understand he is unattractive. 
 He is a libertine at large, who thinks himself a 
 gentleman. Don Juan is as immoral, impervious 
 to honor, and as villainous as the Greek gods. The 
 D'Artagnan romances have attempted the old 
 hero's resuscitation. The movement of the 
 "Three Musketeers" is mechanical rather than 
 human. D'Artagnan's honor is limited to his 
 fealty to his king. He has no more sense of deli- 
 cacy toward women, or honor for them as women, 
 than Achilles had. Some of his doings are too 
 defamatory to be thought of, much less men- 
 tioned. No! Excuse me from D'Artagnan and 
 the rest of Dumas' heroes. They may be 
 French, but they are not heroic. About Dumas' 
 romances there is a gallop which, with the un- 
 
 ?r=T===nit3'. 
 
12 A Hs;ro and Some) Othkr Foi<e 
 
 wary, passes for action and art. But. he has not, 
 of his own motion, conceived a single woman who 
 was not seduced or seducible, nor a single man 
 who was not a libertine; for "The Son of 
 Porthros" and his bride are not of Dumas' cre- 
 ation. He is not open to the charge of having 
 drawn the picture of one pure man or woman. 
 Zola is the natural goal of Dumas ; and we enjoy 
 neither the route nor the terminus. Louis XIV, 
 Charles II, and George IV are modeled after the 
 old licentious pretense at manhood, but we may 
 all rejoice that they deceive nobody now. Our 
 civilization has 'outgrown them, and will not, even 
 in second childhood, take to such playthings. 
 
 But what was the old hero's chief failure? 
 The answer is, He lacked conscience. Duty had 
 no part in his scheme of action, nor in his vo- 
 cabulary of word or thought. Our word "virtue" 
 is the bodily importation of the old Roman word 
 "virtus," but so changed in meaning that the 
 Romans could no more comprehend it than they 
 could the Copernican theory of astronomy. 
 With them, "virtus" meant strength — that only — 
 a battle term. The solitary application was to 
 fortitude in conflict. With us, virtue is shot 
 through and through with moral quality^ as a gem 
 is shot through with light, and monopolizes the 
 term as light monopolizes the gem. This change 
 is radical and astonishing, but discloses a change 
 
Je)an VAi.j:eAN J 3 
 
 which has revolutionized the world. The old hero 
 was conscienceless — a characteristic apparent in 
 Greek civilization. What Greek patriot, whether 
 Themistocles or Demosthenes, applied conscience 
 to patriotism? They were as devoid of practical 
 conscience as a Metope of the Parthenon was de- 
 void of life. Patriotism was a transient sentiment. 
 Demosthenes could become dumb in the presence 
 of Philip's gold; and in a fit of pique over mis- 
 treatment at the hands of his brother-citizens, 
 Themistocles became a traitor, and, expatriated, 
 dwelt a guest at the Persian court. Strangely 
 enough — and it is passing strange — the most 
 heroic personality in Homer's Iliad, the Greek's 
 "Bible of heroisms," was not the Atridse, whether 
 Agamemnon or Menelaus ; not Ajax nor Achilles, 
 nor yet Ulysses; but was Hector, the Trojan, who 
 appears to greater advantage as hero than all the 
 Grecian host. And Homer was a Greek! This 
 is strange and unaccountable irony. Say once 
 more, the old hero's lack was conscience. He, 
 like his gods and goddesses, who were deified in- 
 famies, was a studied impurity. Jean Valjean is 
 a hero, but a hero of a new type. 
 
 Literature is a sure index of a civilization. 
 Who cares to settle in his mind whether the world 
 grows better, may do so by comparing contem- 
 poraneous literature with the reading of other 
 days. "The Heptameron," of Margaret of Na- 
 
14 A Hero and Some Other Folk 
 
 varre, is a book so filthy as to be nauseating. 
 That people could read it from inclination is un- 
 thinkable; and to believe that a woman could read 
 it, much less write it, taxes too sorely our credu- 
 lity. In truth, this work did not, in the days of 
 its origin, shock the people's sensibilities. A 
 woman wrote it, and she a sister of Francis I of 
 France, and herself Queen of Navarre, and a pure 
 woman. And her contemporaries, both men and 
 women, read it with delight, because they had 
 parted com.pany with blushes and modesty. Zola 
 is less voluptuous and filthy than these old tales. 
 Some things even Zola curtains. Margaret of Na- 
 varre tears the garments from the bodies of men 
 and women, and looks at their nude sensuality 
 smilingly. Of Boccaccio's "Decameron," the same 
 general observations hold ; save that they are less 
 filthy, though no less sensual. In the era pro- 
 ducing these tales, witness this fact : The stories 
 are represented as told by a company of gentle- 
 men and ladies, the reciter being sometimes a 
 man, sometimes a woman; the place, a country 
 villa, whither they had fled to escape a plague then 
 raging in Florence. The people, so solacing them- 
 selves in retreat from a plague they should have 
 striven to alleviate by their presence and minis- 
 tries, were the gentility of those days, representing 
 the better order of society, and told stories which 
 would now be venal if told by vulgar men in some 
 
Jean Vai^jean 15 
 
 tavern of ill-repute. That Boccaccio should have 
 reported these tales as emanating from such a 
 company is proof positive of the immodesty of 
 those days, whose story is rehearsed in the 
 "Decameron." Rousseau's "Confessions" is an- 
 other book showing the absence of current mo- 
 rality in his age. Notwithstanding George Eliot's 
 panegyric, these memoirs are the production of 
 unlimited conceit, of a practical absence of any 
 moral sensitiveness ; and while Rousseau could not 
 be accused of being sensual, nor amorous and 
 heartless as Goethe, he yet shows so crude a moral 
 state as to render him unwholesome to any per- 
 son of ordinary morals in the present day. His 
 "Confessions," instead of being naive, strike me 
 as being distinctly and continuously coarse. A 
 man and woman who could give their children 
 deliberately to be farmed out, deserting them as 
 an animal would not, and this with no sense of 
 loss or compunction, nor even with a sense of 
 the inhumanity of such procedure — such a man 
 and woman tell us how free-love can degrade a 
 natively virtuous mind. Such was Rousseau; and 
 his "Confessions" are like himself, unblushing, be- 
 cause shameless. These books reflect their re- 
 spective ages, and are happily obsolete now. 
 Such memoirs and fictions in our day are unthink- 
 able as emanating from respectable sources; and 
 if written would be located in vile haunts in the 
 
1 6 A H:^RO AND Some; Other Foi,k 
 
 purlieus of civilization. Gauged by such a test, 
 the world is seen to be better, and immensely bet- 
 ter. We have sailed out of sight of the old con- 
 tinent of coarse thinking, and are sailing a sea 
 where purity of thought and expression impreg- 
 nate the air like odors. The old hero, with his 
 lewdness and rhodomontade, is excused from the 
 stage. We have had enough of him. Even Cyrano 
 de Bergerac is so out of keeping with the new 
 notion of the heroic, that the translator of the 
 drama must apologize for his hero's swagger. 
 We love his worth, though despising his theatrical 
 air and acts. We are done with the actor, and 
 want the man. And this new hero is proof of a 
 new life in the soul, and, therefore, more welcome 
 than the glad surprise of the first meadow-lark's 
 song upon the brown meadows of the early spring. 
 A reader need not be profound, but may 
 be superficial, and yet discover that Jean Valjean 
 is fashioned after the likeness of Jesus. Michael 
 Angelo did not more certainly model the dome of 
 St. Peter's after Brunelleschi's dome of the 
 Duomo than Hugo has modeled his Valjean 
 after Christ. We are not necessarily aware of our- 
 selves, nor of our era, until something discovers 
 both to us, as we do not certainly know sea air 
 when we feel it. I doubt if most men would rec- 
 ognize the tonic of sea air if they did not know 
 the sea was neighbor to them. We sight the 
 
J:eAN Vai,je;an 17 
 
 ocean, and then know the air is flooded with a 
 health as ample as the seas from which it blows. 
 So we can not know our intellectual air is saturated 
 with Christ, because we can not go back. We 
 lack contemporaneous material for contrast. We 
 are, ourselves, a part of the age, as of a moving 
 ship, and can not see its motion. We can not 
 realize the world's yesterdays. We know them, 
 but do not comprehend them, since between ap- 
 prehending and comprehending an epoch lie such 
 wide spaces, "Quo Vadis" has done good in that 
 it has popularized a realization of that turpitude 
 of condition into which Christianity stepped at the 
 morning of its career; for no lazar-house is so 
 vile as the Roman civilization when Christianity 
 began — God's angel — to trouble that cursed pool. 
 Christ has come into this world's affairs unher- 
 alded, as the morning does not come ; for who 
 watches the eastern lattices can see the morning 
 star, and know the dawn is near. Christ has 
 slipped upon the world as a tide slips up the 
 shores, unnoted, in the night; and because we 
 did not see him come, did not hear his advent, his 
 presence is not apparent. Nothing is so big with 
 joy to Christian thought as the absolute omnipres- 
 ence of the Christ in the world's life. Stars light 
 their torches in the sky; and the sky is wider and 
 higher than the stars. Christ is such a sky to 
 modern civilization. 
 
i8 A Hero and Some; Othe;r Foi<e 
 
 Plainly, Jean Valjean is meant for a hero. 
 Victor Hugo loves heroes, and has skill and in- 
 clination to create them. His books are biog- 
 raphies of heroism of one type or another. No 
 book of his is heroless. In this attitude he dif- 
 fers entirely from Thackeray and Hawthorne, 
 neither of whom is particularly enamored of 
 heroes. Hawthorne's romances have not, in the 
 accepted sense, a single hero. He does not at- 
 tempt building a character of central worth. He 
 is writing a drama, not constructing a hero. In 
 a less degree, this is true of Thackeray. He truly 
 loves the heroic, and on occasion depicts it. 
 Henry Esmond and Colonel Newcome are 
 mighty men of worth, but are exceptions to 
 Thackeray's method. He pokes fun at them even. 
 "Vanity Fair" he terms a novel without a hero. 
 He photographs a procession. "The Virginians" 
 contains no character which can aspire to cen- 
 trality, much less might. He, loving heroes, at- 
 tempts concealing his passion, and, if accused of 
 it, denies the accusation. After reading all his 
 writings, no one could for a moment claim that 
 Thackeray was the biographer of heroes. He is 
 a biographer of . meanness, and times, and sham 
 aristocracy and folks, and can, when he cares to 
 do so, portray heroism lofty as tallest mountains. 
 With Hugo all is different.. He will do nothing 
 else than dream and depict heroism and heroes-. 
 
Jean Valjkan 19 
 
 He loves them with a passion fervent as desert 
 heats. His pages are ablaze with them. Some- 
 body lifting up the face, and facing God in some 
 mood or moment of briefer or longer duration — 
 this is Hugo's method. In "Toilers of the Sea," 
 Galliatt, by almost superhuman effort, and phys- 
 ical endurance and fortitude and fertility in 
 resource^ defeats octopus and winds and rocks and 
 seas, and in lonely triumph pilots the wreck home — 
 and all of this struggle and conquest for love! 
 He is a somber hero, but a hero still, with 
 strength like the strength of ten, since his love 
 is as the love of a legion. -The power to do is 
 his, and the nobility to surrender the woman of 
 his love; and there his nobility darkens into 
 stoicism, and he waits for the rising tide, watch- 
 ing the outgoing ship that bears his heart away 
 unreservedly — waits, only eager that the tide 
 ingulf him. 
 
 In "Ninety-Three," the mother of the children 
 in the burning tower is heroine. In "By Order 
 of the King," Dea is heroic, and spotless as 
 "Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat;" and Ursus, a 
 vagabond, is fatherhood in its sweet nobleness; 
 and Gwynplaine, disfigured and deserted — a little 
 lad set ashore upon a night of hurricane and 
 snow, who, finding in his wanderings a babe on 
 her dead mother's breast, rescues this bit of 
 winter storm-drift, plodding on through un- 
 
20 A He;ro and Some; Other Foi,e 
 
 tracked snows, freezing, but no more thinking to 
 drop his burden than the mother thought to de- 
 sert it — Gwynplaine is a hero for whose deed an 
 epic is fitting. Quasimodo, the hunchback of 
 Notre Dame, found, after long years, holding in 
 his skeleton arms a bit of woman's drapery and 
 a woman's skeleton — Quasimodo, hideous, her- 
 culean, hungry-hearted, tender, a hunchback, yet 
 a lover and a man — who denies to Quasimodo 
 a hero's laurels? In "Les Miserables" are heroes 
 not a few. Gavroche, that green leaf blown about 
 Paris streets; Fantine, the mother; Eponine, the 
 lover; Bishop Bienvenu, the Christian; Jean Val- 
 jean, the man, — all are heroic folk. Our hearts 
 throb as we look at them. Gavroche, the lad, 
 dances by as though blown past by the gale. 
 Fantine, shorn of her locks of gold; Fantine, with 
 her bloody lips, because her teeth have been sold 
 to purchase medicine for her sick child — 'her 
 child, yet a child of shame ; Fantine, her mother's 
 love omnipotent, lying white, wasted, dying, 
 expectantly looking toward the door, with her 
 heart beating hke a wild bird, beating with its 
 wings against cage-bars, anxious for escape; 
 Fantine, watching for her child Cossette, watch- 
 ing in vain, but watching; Fantine, dying, glad 
 because Monsieur Madeleine has promised he will 
 care for Cossette as if the babe were his ; Fantine, 
 dead, with her face turned toward the door, look- 
 
Jean Valjkan 21 
 
 ing in death for the coming of her child, — Fantine 
 affects us Hke tears and sobbing set to music. 
 Look at her; for a heroine is dead. And Eponine, 
 with the gray dawn of death whitening her 
 cheeks and gasping, "If — when — if when," now 
 silent, for she is choked by the rush of blood 
 and stayed from speech by fierce stabs of pain, 
 but continuing, "When I am dead — a favor — a 
 favor, Monsieur Marius [silence once again to 
 wrestle with the throes of death] — a favor — a favor 
 when I am dead [nov^^ her speech runs like fright- 
 ened feet], if you will kiss me ; for indeed. Monsieur 
 Marius, I think I loved you a little — I — I shall 
 feel — your kiss— in death." Lie quiet in the dark- 
 ening night, Eponine ! Would you might have a 
 queen's funeral, since you have shown anew the 
 moving miracle of woman's love ! 
 
 Bishop Bienvenu is Hugo's hero as saint; and 
 we can not deny him beauty such as those "en- 
 skied and sainted" wear. This is the romancist's 
 tribute to a minister of God ; and sweet the tribute 
 is. With not a few, the bishop is chief hero, 
 next to Jean Valjean. He is redemptive, like the 
 purchase money of a slave. He is quixotic; he is 
 not balanced always, nor always wise; but he falls 
 on the side of Christianity and tenderness and 
 goodness and love — a good way to fall, if one is 
 to fall at all. We love the bishop, and can not 
 help it. He was good to the poor, tender to the 
 
22 A He;ro and Somb Other Folk 
 
 erring, illuminative to those who were in the 
 moral dark, and came over people like a sunrise; 
 crept into their hearts for good, as a child creeps 
 up into its father's arms, and nestles there like 
 a bird. Surely we love the bishop. He is a hero 
 saint. To be near him was to be neighborly with 
 heaven. He was ever minding people of God. 
 Is there any such office in earth or heaven? To 
 look at this bishop always puts our heart in the 
 mood of prayer, and what helps us to prayer is 
 a celestial benefit. The pertinent fact in him is, 
 that he is not greatness, but goodness. We do 
 not think of greatness when we see him or hear 
 him, but we think with our hearts when he is before 
 our eyes. Goodness is more marketable than 
 greatness, and more necessary. Goodness, great- 
 ness ! Brilliancy is a cheap commodity when put 
 on the counter beside goodness ; and Bishop Bien- 
 venu is a romancer's apotheosis of goodness, and 
 we bless him for this deification. 
 
 The bishop was merchantman, freighting ships. 
 His wharves are wide, his fleet is great, his car- 
 goes are many. Only he is freighting ships for 
 heaven. No bales of merchandise nor ingots of 
 iron, but souls for whom Christ died, — these are 
 his cargoes; and had you asked him, "What 
 work to-day?" a smile had flooded sunlight 
 along his face while he said, "Freighting souls 
 with God to-day, and lading cargoes for the 
 
Jean Vai^jean 23 
 
 skies." This is royal merchandise. The Doge 
 of Venice annually flung a ring into the sea as 
 sign of Venice's nuptials with the Adriatic; but 
 Bishop Bienvenu each day wedded himself and 
 the world to heaven, and he comes 
 
 "O'er my ear like the sweet south, 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
 Stealing and giving odor." 
 
 Hugo paints with sunset tints and with light- 
 ning's lurid light ; his contrasts are fierce, his 
 backgrounds are often as black as a rain-cloud. 
 He paints with the mad rush of a Turner. He 
 is fierce in hates and loves. He does nothing by 
 moderation. Calmness does not belong to him. 
 He is tempestuous always ; but tempests are mag- 
 nificent and purifying to the air. Hugo is paint- 
 ing, and painting heroes, and his hero of heroes 
 is Valjean. Jean Valjean is conscience. In Mac- 
 beth, conscience is warring and retributive. In 
 Richard HI, conscience, stifled in waking, speaks 
 in dreams, and is menace, Hke a sword swung by 
 a maniac's hands. In Arthur Dim'mesdale, con- 
 science is lacerative. In Jean Valjean, conscience 
 is regulative, creative, constructive, Jean Val- 
 jean is conscience, and conscience is king. What 
 the classic heroes lacked, Jean Valjean possesses. 
 
 The setting of this character is entirely mod- 
 ern. "Les Miserables" is a story of the city and 
 
24 A Hkro and Some; O'Thkr Folk, ; 
 
 of poverty, and can not be dissociated from them 
 by any wrench of thought, however violent. 
 Not that urban Hfe or poverty are new elements 
 in the school of suffering. They are not new, 
 as pain is not new. This is the difference. In 
 the old ages, the city and poverty were taken as 
 matters of course. Comfort was not a classic 
 consideration. The being alive to conditions, 
 sensitive to suffering, eager for diminution of the 
 world's woes, is a modern thought, a Christ 
 thought. Sociology is an application of Christ's 
 teaching. He founded this science. Rome was 
 the monster city of the empire, and possibly the 
 monster city of ancient geography, and con- 
 tained approximately, at its most populous pe- 
 riod, two and one half millions of inhabitants. 
 Man is gregarious as the flocks ; he seems to fear 
 solitude, and flees what he fears. Certain we are 
 that in America, one hundred years ago, less than 
 one-thirtieth of the population was in cities ; now, 
 about one-third is in city communities; and 
 European cities are outgrowing American cities. 
 In other words, at the present time, cities are 
 growing in a ratio totally disproportionate to the 
 growth of population ; and this, not in the New 
 World simply, but in the Old. Ivondon has nearly 
 as many citizens as England had in the time of 
 the Puritan Revolution. Men are nucleating in 
 a fashion foreboding, but certain. A symptom of 
 
Ji^AN Vai,je;an 25 
 
 the city life is, that he who is city bred knows 
 no life apart from his city. He belongs to it as 
 essentially as the Venetian belonged to Venice. 
 The community is a veritable part of the man's 
 self. Note this in Jean Valjean. It never occurs 
 to him to leave Paris. Had he been a tree rooted 
 in the soil along the Seine, he had not been more 
 stationary. Men live, suffer, die, and hug their 
 ugly tenements as parasites of these dilapidations, 
 and draw their life-saps from such a decayed 
 trunk. This human instinct for association is 
 mighty in its impulsion. Not a few, but mul- 
 titudes, prefer to be hungry and cold and live 
 in a city to living with' abundance of food 
 and raiment in the country. Any one can see 
 this at his alley or in his neighboring street. 
 It is one of the latent insanities of the soul. 
 The city is a live wire, and will not let go of 
 him who grasps it. There is a stream of life pour- 
 ing into cities, but no stream flowing into the 
 country. The tide runs up the shore and back 
 into the deep seas; not so these human tides. 
 They pour into the Dead Sea basin of the urban 
 community. Jean Valjean was a complete mod- 
 ern in his indissoluble identification with the city. 
 As a matter of course, his was the criminal in- 
 stinct, superadded to the gregarious instinct, 
 which bides in a city labyrinth rather than the 
 forests of the Amazon. Yet, taken all in all, he 
 
26 A Hkro and Somk Othe;r FoIvK 
 
 evidently is a thorough modern in his urban in- 
 stinct. The world was big, and he had gold for 
 passage across seas; and there he had, in reason, 
 found entire safety; but such a thought never 
 entered his mind. Paris was the only sea he 
 knew; here his plans for escape and plans for life 
 clung tenaciously as a dead man's hand. 
 
 The second element of background for Jean 
 Valjean is poverty. The people of this drama are 
 named "the miserable ones." And poverty is 
 modern and a modern question. All socialists, 
 anarchists, and communists talk of poverty; this is 
 their one theme. Superficial social reformers make 
 poverty responsible for the total turpitude of men. 
 Men are poor, hence criminal. Jean Valjean is 
 poor — miserably poor; sees his sister's children 
 hungry, and commits crime, is a thief; becomes 
 a galley slave as punitive result. Ergo, poverty 
 was the cause of crime, and poverty, and not Val- 
 jean, must be indicted ; so runs the argument. 
 This conclusion we deny. Let us consider. 
 Poverty is not unwholesome. The bulk of men 
 are poor, and always have been. Poverty is no 
 new condition. Man's history is not one of af- 
 fluence, but one of indigence. This is a patent 
 fact. But a state of lack is not unwholesome, but 
 on the contrary does great good. Poverty has sup- 
 plied the world with most of the kings it boasts of. 
 Palaces have not cradled the kings of thought, 
 
service, and achievement. What greatest poet had 
 luxury for a father? Name one. Poverty is the 
 mother of kings. Who censures poverty censures 
 the home from whose doors have passed the most 
 illustrious of the sons of men. Christ's was a 
 poverty so keen and so parsimonious that Occi- 
 dentals can not picture it. More, current social 
 reformers assume that the poor are unhappy; 
 though if such reformers would cease dreaming, 
 and learn seeing, they would reverse their creed. 
 Riches do not command joy; for joy is not a 
 spring rising from the depths where gold is 
 found and gems gathered. Most men are poor, 
 and most men are happy, or, if they are not, they 
 may trace their sadness to sources other than lack 
 of wealth. The best riches are the gifts of God, 
 and can not be shut off by any sluicing; the 
 choicest riches of the soul, such as knowledge and 
 usefulness and love and God, are not subject to 
 the tariff of gold. Poverty, we conclude, is not 
 in itself grievous. Indeed, there are in poverty 
 blessings which many of us know, and from 
 which we would not be separated without keen 
 regret. But penury is hard. When poverty 
 pinches like winter's night, when fuel fails, and 
 hunger is our company, then poverty becomes 
 harsh and unpalatable, and not to be boasted of; 
 though even penury has spurred many a sluggish 
 life to conquering moods. When a man lies with 
 
28 A He;ro and Some Othkr Foi.k,v 
 
 his face to the wall, paralytic, helpless, useless, a 
 burden to himself and others, and hears the rub 
 of his wife washing for a livelihood — and he loves 
 her so ; took her to his home in her fair girlhood, 
 when her beauty bloomed like a garden of roses, 
 and pro'mised to keep her, and now she works 
 for him all day and into the dark night, and loves 
 to; but he turns his face to the wall, puts his one 
 movable hand against his face, sobs so that his 
 tears wash through his fingers and wet his pillow 
 as with driving rain, — ^then poverty is pitiful. Or, 
 when one sees his children hungry, tattered, with 
 lean faces and eyes staring as with constant fear; 
 sees them huddling under rags or cowering at a 
 flicker meant for flame, — then poverty is hard ; and 
 then, "The poor always ye have with you," said 
 our Christ, which remember and be pitiful! 
 
 But such penury, even^ does not require crime. 
 Valjean became a criminal from poverty; but him- 
 self felt now, as the days slipped from his life-store, 
 that crime was not necessary. Theft is bad econom- 
 ics. The criminals on the dockets are not those 
 pinched with poverty, as one may assure himself 
 if he gives heed to criminal dockets. People pre- 
 fer crime as a method of livelihood. These are 
 criminals. The "artful dodger," in "Oliver 
 Twist," is a picture of the average criminal. 
 Honest poverty need not steal. In the writer's 
 own city, the other day, a man accused of theft 
 
Jean Vai^jkan 29 
 
 pleaded his children's poverty as palliative of his 
 crime; but in that city was abundant help for 
 worthy poverty. That man lacked an absolute 
 honesty. He and his could have been fed and 
 clothed, and himself maintained his manly dignity 
 and uncorrupted honesty. To blame society with 
 criminality is a current method, but untrue and 
 unwise; for thus we will multiply, not decimate^ 
 criminals. The honest man may be in penury; 
 but he will have help, and need not shelter in a 
 jail. Thus, then, these two items of modernity 
 paint background for Jean Valj can's portrait; and 
 in Jean Valjean, To-day has found a voice. 
 
 This man is a criminal and a galley slave, with 
 yellow passport — his name, Jean Valjean. Hear 
 his story. An. orphan; a half-sullen lad^ reared 
 by his sister; sees her husband dead on a bed of 
 rags, with seven orphans clinging in sobs to the 
 dead hands. Jean Valjean labors to feed this mot- 
 ley company; denies himself bread, so that he 
 may slip food into their hands ; has moods of 
 stalwart heroism ; and never having had a sweet- 
 heart — pity him ! — toils on, hopeless, under a sky 
 robbed of blue and stars ; leading a life plainly, 
 wholly exceptional, and out of work in a winter 
 when he was a trifle past twenty-six; hears his sis- 
 ter's children crying, "Bread, bread, give bread;" 
 rises in sullen acerbity ; ^ smites his huge fist 
 through a baker's window, and steals a loaf; is 
 
30 A Hkro and Some) Othbr Folk 
 
 arrested, convicted, sent to the galleys, and herded 
 with galley slaves ; attempts repeated escapes, is 
 retaken, and at the age of forty-six shambles out 
 of his galley slavery with a yellow passport, certi- 
 fying this is "a very dangerous man ;" and with 
 a heart on which brooding has written with its 
 biting stylus the story of what he believes to be 
 his wrongs, Jean Valjean, bitter as gall against 
 society^ has his hands ready, aye, eager, to strike, 
 no matter whom. Looked at askance, turned from 
 the hostel, denied courtesy, food, and shelter, the 
 criminal in him rushes to the ascendant, and he 
 thrusts the door of the bishop's house open. Lis- 
 ten, he is speaking now, look at him ! The bishop 
 deals with him tenderly, as a Christian ought ; senti- 
 mentally, but scarcely wisely. He has sentimental- 
 ity rather than sentiment in his kindness; he puts 
 a premium on Jean Valjean becoming a criminal 
 again. To assume everybody to be good, as some 
 philanthropists do, is folly, being so transparently 
 false. The good bishop — bless him for his good- 
 ness! — who prays God daily not to lead him into 
 temptation, why does he lead this sullen criminal 
 into temptation? Reformatory methods should be 
 sane. The bishop's methods were not sane. He 
 meant well, but did not quite do well. Jean Val- 
 jean, sleeping in a bed of comfort, grows restless, 
 wakens, rises^ steals what is- accessible, flees, is 
 arrested, brought back, is exonerated by the bish- 
 
JSAN VAI<JE)AN 31 
 
 op's tenderness, goes out free ; steals from the little 
 Savoyard, cries after the retreating lad to restore 
 him his coin, fails to bring him back; fights with 
 self, and with God's good help rises in the deep dark 
 of night from the bishop's steps; walks out into 
 
 a day of soul, trudges into the city of M , to 
 
 which he finds admission, not by showing the 
 criminal's yellow passport, but by the passport of 
 heroism, having on entrance rescued a child from 
 a burning building; becomes a citizen, invents a 
 process of manufacturing jet, accum^ulates a for- 
 tune, spends it lavishly in the bettering of the city 
 where his riches were acquired; is benefactor to 
 employee and city, and is called "Monsieur;" and 
 after repeated refusals, becomes "Monsieur the 
 Mayor;" gives himself up as a criminal to save 
 a man unjustly accused, is returned to the galleys 
 for the theft of the little Savoyard's forty-sous 
 coin; by a heroic leap from the yardarm, escapes; 
 seeks and finds Cossette^ devotes his life to shel- 
 tering and loving her; runs his gauntlet of re- 
 peated perils with Javert, grows steadily in hero- 
 ism, and sturdy, invigorating manhood ; dies a 
 hero and a saint, and an honor to human kind, — 
 such is Jean Valjean's biography in meager out- 
 line. But the moon, on a summer's evening, "a 
 silver crescent gleaming 'mid the stars," appears 
 hung on a silver cord of the full moon's rim; and, 
 as the crescent moon is not the burnished silver 
 
32 A He;ro and Somk Other Foi.k ; 
 
 of the complete circle, so no outline can include 
 the white, bewildering light of this heroic soul. 
 Jean Valjean is the biography of a redeemed life. 
 The worst life contains the elements of redemp- 
 tion, as words contain the possibility of poetry. 
 He was a fallen, vicious, desperate man; and from 
 so low a level, he and God conspired to lift him 
 to the levels where the angels live, than which 
 a resurrection from the dead is no more potent and 
 blinding miracle. Instead of giving this book the 
 caption, "J^^^^ Valjean/' it might be termed the 
 "History of the Redemption of a Soul ;" and such a 
 theme is worthy the study of this wide world of 
 women and of men. 
 
 Initial in this redemptive work was the good 
 bishop, whose words, "Jean Valjean, my brother, 
 you belong no longer to evil, but to good," never 
 lost their music or might to Valjean's spirit. 
 Some man or woman stands on everybody's road 
 to God. And Jean Valjean, with the bishop's 
 words sounding in his ears — voices that will not 
 silence — goes out with his candlesticks, goes 
 trembling out, and starts on his anabasis to a new 
 life; wandered all day in the fields, inhaled the 
 odors of a few late flowers, his childhood being 
 thus recalled ; and when the sun was throwing 
 mountain shadows behind hillocks and pebbles, as 
 Jean Valjean sat and pondered in a dumb way, 
 a Savoyard came singing on his way, tossing his 
 
Jean VAi,j:eA]sr 33 
 
 bits of money in his hands ; drops a forty-sous 
 piece near Jean Valjean, who, in a mood of in- 
 exphcable evil, places his huge foot upon it, nor 
 listened to the child's entreaty, "My piece, mon- 
 sieur;" and eager and more eager grows a child 
 whose little riches were invaded, "My piece, my 
 white piece^ my silver ;" and in his voice are tears — 
 and what can be more touching than a child's 
 voice touched with tears? "My silver;" and the 
 lad shook the giant by the collar of his blouse — 
 "I want my silver, my forty-sous piece" — and be- 
 gan to cry. A little lad a-sobbing! Jean Valjean, 
 you who for so many years "have talked but little 
 and never laughed;" Jean Valjean, pity the child; 
 give him his coin. You were bought of the bishop 
 for good. But in terrible voice he shouts : "Who 
 is there? You here yet? You had better take 
 care of yourself;" and the little lad runs, breath- 
 less and sobbing. Jean Valjean hears his sobbing, 
 but made no move for restitution until the little 
 Savoyard has passed from sight and hearing, 
 when, waking as from some stupor, he rises, 
 cries wildly through the night, "Petit Gervais! 
 Petit Gervais!" and listened, and — no answer. 
 Then he ran, ran toward restitution. Too late ! too 
 late! "Petit Gervais! Petit Gervais! Petit 
 Gervais !" and, to a priest passing, "Monsieur, 
 have you seen a child go by — a little fellow — Petit 
 Gervais is his name?" And he calls him again 
 3 
 
34 A Hero and Some; Other Foi.k 
 
 through the empty night; and the lad hears him 
 not. There is no response, and for the first time 
 since he passed to the galleys, Jean Valjean's 
 heart swells, and he bursts into tears; for he was 
 horrified at himself. His hardness had mastered 
 him, even when the bishop's tenderness had 
 thawed his winter heart. Jean Valjean was now 
 afraid of himself, which is where moral strength 
 has genesis. He goes back — back where? No 
 matter, wait. He sees in his thought — in his 
 thought he sees the bishop, and wept, shed hot 
 tears, wept bitterly, with more weakness than a 
 woman, with more terror than a child, and his 
 life seemed horrible; and he walks — whither? 
 No matter. But, past midnight, the stage-driver 
 saw, as he passed, a man in the attitude of prayer, 
 kneeling upon the pavement in the shadow before 
 the bishop's door; and should you have spoken, 
 "Jean Valjean !" he would not have answered you. 
 He would not have heard. He is starting on a 
 pilgrimage of manhood toward God. He saw the 
 bishop ; now he sees God, and here is hope ; for 
 so is God the secret of all good and worth, a 
 thing to be set down as the axiom of religion and 
 life. A conscience long dormant is now become 
 regnant. Jean Valjean is a man again! 
 
 Goodness begets goodness. He climbed; and 
 the mountain air and azure and fountains of clear 
 waters, spouting from cliffs of snow and the far 
 
J^AN VAI.JEAN 35 
 
 altitudes, fed his spirit. God and he kept com- 
 pany, and, as is meet, goodness seemed native 
 to him as Hly blooms to lily stems. God was his 
 secret, as God is the secret of us all. To scan 
 his process of recovery is worth while. The 
 bishop reminded him of God. Goodness and love 
 in man are wings to help us soar to where we 
 see that service, love, and goodness are in God — ■ 
 see that God is good and God is love. Seeing 
 God, Jean Valjean does good. Philanthropy is 
 native to him ; gentleness seems his birthright ; 
 his voice is low and sweet; his face — the helpless 
 look to it for help ; his eyes are dreamy, like a 
 poet's ; he loves books ; he looks not manufac- 
 turer so much as he looks poet; he passes good 
 on as if it were coin to be handled; he suffers nor 
 complains; his silence is wide, like that of the still 
 night; he frequently walks alone and in the 
 country; he becomes a god to Fantine, for she 
 had spit upon him, and he had not resented ; he 
 adopts means for the rescue of Cossette. In him, 
 goodness moves finger from the lips, breaks 
 silence, and becomes articulate. Jean Valjean is 
 brave, magnanimous, of sensitive conscience, 
 hungry-hearted, is possessed of the instincts of 
 motherhood, bears being misjudged without com- 
 plaint, is totally forgetful of himself, and is absolute 
 in his loyalty to God — qualities which lift him into 
 the elect life of manhood. 
 
36 A He:ro and SoM:e Other Foi^k 
 
 Jean Valjean was brave. He and fear 
 never met. The solitary fear he knew was fear 
 of himself, and lest he might not live for good 
 as the bishop had bidden him; but fear from 
 without had never crossed his path. His was the 
 bravery of conscience. His strength was pro- 
 digious, and he scrupled not to use it. Self- 
 sparing was no trait of his character. Like an- 
 other hero we have read of, he would "gladly 
 spend and be spent" for others, and bankrupt 
 himself, if thereby he might make others rich. 
 There is a physical courage, brilliant as a shock 
 of armies, which feels the conflict and leaps to 
 it as the storm-waves leap upon the sword edges 
 of the clififs — ^a courage which counts no odds. 
 There is another courage, moral rather than 
 physical. Valjean possessed both, with moral 
 courage in ascendency. He has the agility and 
 strength sometimes found in criminals. He is 
 now in the galleys for life. One day, while en- 
 gaged in furling sail, a sailor has toppled from 
 the yard; but in falling caught a rope, but hangs, 
 swinging violently, like some mad pendulum. 
 The height is dizzying. Death seems certain, 
 when a convict, clad in red, and with a green cap, 
 runs up for rescue, lets himself down alongside 
 of the swaying sailor, now in the last extremity 
 of weakness, and ready to drop like a winter leaf. 
 Valjean (for it is he) oscillates violently to and 
 
Jean VaIvJEAn 37 
 
 fro, while the throng below watch breathlessly. 
 His peril is incredible, but his is a bravery which 
 does not falter, and a skill which equals bravery. 
 Valjean is swayed in the wind as the swaying 
 sailor, until he catches him in his arm, makes 
 him fast to the rope, clambers up, reaches the 
 yard, hauls up the sailor, and carries him to a 
 place of safety. And the throng below, breath- 
 less till now, applauded and cried, "This man 
 must be pardoned." Then it is that he, free once 
 more, leaps down — falls from the dizzying 
 height, the multitude thinks — leaps down into 
 the seas, and wins liberty. Jean Valjean is 
 heroic. His moral courage, which is courage at 
 its noon, is discovered best in his rescue of 
 Fauchelevent, old, and enemy — an enmity en- 
 gendered by Madeleine's prosperity — to Monsieur 
 Madeleine. The old man has fallen under his 
 cart, and is being surely crushed to death. The 
 mayor joins the crowd gathered about the unfor- 
 tunate car-man ; offers a rising price for one who 
 will go under the cart and rescue the old man. 
 Javert is there — keen of eye and nostril as a 
 vulture— and Jean Valjean is his prey. He be- 
 lieves the mayor to be Jean Valjean, and, as 
 the mayor urges some one to rescue the perishing 
 man, says, with speech cold as breath from a 
 glacier, "I have known but one man who was 
 equal to this task, and he was a convict and in 
 
38 A Hkro and Some; Othkr Foi<k 
 
 the galleys." The old man moans, "How it 
 crushes me !" and, hearing that cry, under the 
 cart the mayor crawls; and while those beside 
 hold their breath, he, lying flat under the weight, 
 lifts twice, ineffectually, and, with one herculean 
 effort, lifts again, and the cart slowly rises^ and 
 many willing hands helping from without, the old 
 man is saved; and Monsieur Madeleine arises, 
 pale, dripping with sweat, garments muddy and 
 torn, while the old man whom he has rescued 
 kisses his knees and calls him the good God. 
 And the mayor looks at Javert with tranquil eye, 
 though knowing full well that this act of generous 
 courage in the rescue of an enemy has doomed 
 himself. This is moral courage of celestial order. 
 
 His magnanimity is certainly apparent, — in 
 the rescue of his enemy, Fauchelevent ; in his 
 release of his arch-enemy, Javert; in his presence 
 within the barricade to protect Marius, who had, 
 as a lover, robbed him of the one blossom that 
 had bloomed in the garden of his heart, save only 
 the passing bishop and the abiding God. No petti- 
 ness is in him. He loves and serves after a fashion 
 learned of Christ. If compelled to admire his 
 courage, we are no less compelled to pay hom- 
 age to his magnanimity. 
 
 His was a hungry heart. Love he had never 
 known ; he had never had a sweetheart. And now 
 all pent-up love of a long life empties its precious 
 
Je!an VaIvJKAn 39 
 
 ointment on the head of Cossette. He was all 
 the mother she ever knew or needed to know. 
 Heaven made her rich in such maternity as his. 
 Mother instinct is in all good lives, and belongs 
 to man. Maternity and paternity are met in the 
 best manhood. The tenderness of motherhood 
 must soften a man's touch to daintiness, like an 
 evening wind's caress, before fatherhood is per- 
 fect. All his youthhood, which knew not any 
 woman's lips to kiss ; all his manhood, which had 
 never shared a hearth with wife or child, — all this 
 unused tenderness now administers to the wants 
 of this orphan, Cossette. His rescue of her from 
 the Thenardiers is poetry itself. He had the in- 
 stincts of a gentleman. The. doll he brought her 
 for her first Christmas gift was forerunner of a thou- 
 sand gifts of courtesy and love. See, too, the mourn- 
 ing garments he brought and laid beside her bed 
 the first morning he brought her to his garret, 
 and watched her slumber as if he had been ap- 
 pointed by God to be her guardian angel. To 
 him life henceforth meant Cossette. He was her 
 servant always. For her he fought for his life as 
 if it had been an unutterable good. He lost him- 
 self, which is the very crown of motherhood's de- 
 votion. He was himself supplanted in her affec- 
 tions by her lover, Marius, and his heart was 
 stabbed as if by poisoned daggers ; for was not 
 Cossette wife, daughter, sister, brother, mother. 
 
40 A Hero and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 father, friend — all? But if his heart was breaking, 
 she never guessed it. He hid his hurt, though 
 dying of heartbreak. 
 
 Then, too, Jean Valjean is misjudged, and by 
 those who should have trusted him as they 
 trusted God. We find it hard to be patient with 
 Marius, and are not patient with Cossette. Her 
 selfishness is not to be condoned. Her contrition 
 and her tears come too late. Though Valjean 
 forgives her, we do not forgive her. She de- 
 serves no forgiveness. Marius's honor was of the 
 amateur order, lacking depth and breadth. He 
 was superficial, judging by hearing rather than by 
 eyes and heart. We have not patience to linger 
 with his wife and him, but push past them to the 
 hero spirit, whom they have not eyes to see nor 
 hearts to understand. Jean Valjean misjudged, 
 and by Marius and Cossette! Impossible! Javert 
 may do that; Kantine, not knowing him, may do 
 that, but once knowing him she had as lief dis- 
 trusted day to bring the light as to have dis- 
 trusted him. Misjudged, and by those he loved 
 most, suffered for, more than died for! Poor 
 Valjean! This wakes our pity and our tears. 
 Before, we have watched him, and have felt the 
 tug of battle on him ; now the mists fall, and we 
 put our hands before our eyes and weep. This 
 saint of God misjudged by those for whom he 
 lives! Yet this is no solitary pathos. Were all 
 
Ji;an Vai^jean 41 
 
 hearts' history known, we should know how many 
 died misjudged. All Jean Valjean does has been 
 misinterpreted. We distrust more and more cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. It is hideous. No jury 
 ought to convict a man on evidence of circum- 
 stances. Too many tragedies have been enacted 
 because of such. Marius thought he was discern- 
 ing and of a sensitive honor. He thought it evi- 
 dent that Jean Valjean had slain Javert, and had 
 slain Monsieur Madeleine, whose fortune he has 
 ofifered as Cossette's marriage portion. Poor 
 Jean Valjean! You a murderer, a marauder — 
 you! Marius acts with frigid honor. Valjean 
 will not live with Marius and Cossette, being too 
 sensitive therefor, perceiving himself distrusted 
 by Marius, but comes to warm his hands and 
 heart at the hearth of Cossette's presence; and he 
 is stung when he sees no fire in the reception-'room. 
 The omission he can not misinterpret. He goes 
 again, and the chairs are removed. Marius may 
 have honor, but his honor is cruel, like an inquisi- 
 tor with rack and thumbscrew; and then Jean 
 Valjean goes no more, but day by day suns his 
 heart by going far enough to look at the house 
 where Cossette is — no more; then his eyes are 
 feverish to catch sight of her habitation as 
 parched lips drink at desert springs. Misjudged! 
 O, that is harder to bear than all his hurts! 
 
 Then we will not say of Valjean, "He has 
 
42 A H:eRO AND Some Othe;r Foi.k 
 
 conscience," but rather, we will say, "He is con- 
 science." Valj can's struggle with conscience is 
 one of the majestic chapters of the world's litera- 
 ture, presenting, as it does, the worthiest and pro- 
 foundest study of Christian conscience given by 
 any dramatist since Christ opened a new chapter 
 for conscience in the soul. Monsieur Madeleine, 
 the mayor, is rich, respected, honored, is a savior 
 of society, sought out by the king for political pre- 
 ferment. One shadow tracks him like a night- 
 mare. Javert is on his track, instinct serving him 
 for reason. At last, Javert himself thinks Jean 
 Valjean has been found ; for a man has been ar- 
 rested, is to be tried, will doubtless be convicted, 
 seeing evidence is damning. Now, Monsieur 
 
 Madeleine, mayor of M , your fear is all but 
 
 ended. An anodyne will be administered to your 
 pain. Jean Valjean has known many a struggle. 
 He thought his fiercest battles fought; but all his 
 yesterdays of conflict are as play contests and 
 sham battles matched with this. Honor, useful- 
 ness, long years of service, love, guardianship of 
 Cossette, and fealty to a promise given a dying 
 mother — all beckon to him. He is theirs ; and 
 has he not sufifered enough? More than enough. 
 Let this man alone, that is all. Let him alone ! 
 He sees it. Joy shouts in his heart, "Javert will 
 leave me in quiet." "Let lis not interfere with 
 God;" and his resolution is formed. But con- 
 
Je;an Valjsan 43 
 
 science looks into his face. Ha! the bishop, too, 
 is beside him. Conscience speaks, and is saying, 
 "Let the real Valjean go and declare himself." 
 This is duty. Conscience speaks, and his words 
 are terrible, "Go, declare thyself." Jean Valjean's 
 sin is following him. That evening he had 
 robbed Petit Gervais; therefore he is imperiled. 
 Sin finds man out. But the fight thickens, and 
 Valjean thinks to destroy the mementos of his 
 past, and looks fearfully toward the door, bolted 
 as it is, and gathers from a secret closet his old 
 blue blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old 
 haversack, and a great thorn stick, and inconti- 
 nently flings them into the flames. Then, noticing 
 the silver candlesticks, the bishop's gifts, "These, 
 too, must be destroyed," he says, and takes them 
 in his hands, and stirs the fire with one of the 
 candlesticks, when he hears a voice clamoring, 
 "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!" 
 Conscience and a battle, but the battle was not 
 lost; for you see him in the prisoners' dock, de- 
 claring, "I am Jean Valjean;" and those of the 
 court dissenting, he persisted, declared his recog- 
 nition of some galley prisoners, urging still, "I 
 am Jean Valjean; you see clearly that I am Jean 
 Valjean ;" and those who saw and heard him were 
 dazed ; and he said : "All who are here think me 
 worthy of pity, do you not? Do you not? Great 
 God ! When I think of what I was on the point 
 
44 A Hero and Some Other F01.K 
 
 of doing, I think myself worthy of envy;" and 
 he was gone. And next, Javert is seizing him 
 fiercely, brutally^ imperiously, as a criminal for 
 whom there is no regard. With this struggle 
 of conscience and its consequent victory, "The 
 Charge of the Light Brigade" becomes tawdry 
 and garish. The sight moves us as the majestic 
 minstrelsy of seas in tempest. No wonder that 
 they who looked at Valjean, as he stood de- 
 claring himself to be the real Valjean, were blinded 
 with a great light. 
 
 And his heart is so hungry, and his loyalty to 
 God so urgent and so conquering. Jean Valjean 
 has suffered much. Ulysses, buffeted by wars 
 and stormy seas, has had a life of calm as com- 
 pared with this new hero. Ulysses' battles were 
 from without; Valjean's battles were from within. 
 But if he has suffered greatly, he has also been 
 greatly blessed. Struggle for goodness against sin 
 is its own reward. We do not give all and get 
 nothing. There are compensations. Recom- 
 pense of reward pursues goodness as foam a ves- 
 sel's track. If Jean Valjean loved Cossette with 
 a passion such as the angels know; if she was his 
 sun, and made the spring, there was a sense in 
 which Cossette helped Valjean. There was re- 
 sponse, not so much in the return of love as in 
 that he loved her; and his lov6 for her helped him 
 in his dark hours, helped him when he needed 
 
Jean VaIvJKan 45 
 
 help the most, helped him on with God. He needs 
 her to love, as our eyes need the fair flowers and 
 the blue sky. His life was not empty, and God 
 had not left himself without witness in Jean Val- 
 jean's life ; for he had had his love for Cossette. 
 
 But he is bereft. Old age springs on him sud- 
 denly, as Javert had done in other days. He has, 
 apparently without provocation, passed from 
 strength to decrepitude. Since he sees Cossette 
 no more, he has grown gray, stooped, decrepit. 
 There is no morning now, since he does not see 
 Cossetie. You have seen him walking to the 
 corner to catch sight of her house. How feeble 
 he is ! Another day, walking her way, but not 
 so far; and the next, and the next, walking; but 
 the last day he goes scarce beyond his own 
 threshold. And now he can not go down the 
 stairs ; now he is in his own lonely room, alone. 
 He sees death camping in his silent chamber, but 
 feels no fright. No, no ! rather, 
 
 "Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 
 Approacliing, called. 
 
 For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
 See, through the gray skirts of a lifting squall. 
 The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
 To save the life despaired of, than he saw 
 Death dawning on him, and the close of all." 
 
 But Cossette, Cossette ! To see her once, just 
 once, only once ! To touch her hand — O that were 
 
46 A Hero and Some; Othe;r Foi,k 
 
 heaven! But he says to his heart, "I shall not 
 touch her hand, and I shall not see her face — 
 no more, no more!" And the little garments he 
 brought her when he took her from her slavery 
 with the Thenardiers, there they are upon his bed, 
 where he can touch them, as if they were black 
 tresses of the woman he had loved and lost. The 
 bishop's candlesticks are lit. He is about to die, 
 and writes in his poor, sprawling fashion to 
 Cossette — writes to her. He fronts her always, as 
 the hills front the dawn. He ceases, and sobs 
 Hke a breaking heart, O ! "She is a smile that 
 has passed over me. I shall never see her again !'* 
 And the door dashes open; Marius and Cossette 
 are come. Joy, joy to the old heart! Jean Val- 
 jean thinks it is heaven's morning. Marius has 
 discovered that Jean Valjean is not his murderer, 
 but his savior; that he has, at imminent peril of 
 his life, through the long, oozy quagmire of the 
 sewer, with his giant strength, borne him across 
 the city, saved him; and now, too late, Marius 
 began to see in Jean Valjean "a strangely lofty 
 and saddened form," and has come to take this 
 great heart home. But God will do that himself. 
 Jean Valjean is dying. He looks at Cossette as 
 if he would take a look which would endure 
 through eternity, kisses a fold of her garment, and 
 half articulates, "It — is — nothing to die;" then 
 suddenly rises, walks to the wall, brings back a 
 
JKAN Vai^j^an 47 
 
 crucifix, lays it near his hand. "The Great 
 Martyr," he says; fondles Marius and Cossette; 
 sobs to Cossette, "Not to see you broke my 
 heart;" croons to himself, "You love me;" puts 
 his hands upon their heads in a caress^ saying, 
 "I do not see clearly now." Later he half whis- 
 pered, "I see a Hght!" And a man and woman 
 are raining kisses on a dead man's hands. And 
 on that blank stone, over a nameless grave in the 
 cemetery of Pere la Chaise, let some angel sculp- 
 tor chisel, "Here lies Jean Valjean, Hero." 
 
XI 
 
 Some Words on Loving Shakespeare 
 
 WHAT a soul wants is to feel itself of serv- 
 ice. Life's chances seem drunk up like the 
 dews from morning flowers in burning summer 
 times. To risk literary adventure after these cen- 
 turies of thinking and saying (and such thinking 
 and such saying!), requires the audacity of a 
 simpleton or the boldness of the old discoverers. 
 Every patch of literary ground seems occupied, as 
 those fertile valleys lifting from sea-levels along 
 a shining stream to the far hills and fair. So much 
 has been said on Shakespeare, and he has stung 
 men to such profound and fertile sayings, that to 
 speak of him seems an impertinence. I have 
 never seen an essay on Shakespeare I have not 
 run to read. Whoever holds the cup, I will drain 
 it dry, if filled with wine from this rare vintage. 
 Practically all our great writers have dreamed of 
 him, and told their dreams ; and many a writer 
 who makes no claim to greatness has done the 
 same. Some people you can not keep your eyes 
 off of; and of these Shakespeare is one. Who 
 has n't talked of him ? When Alfred Tennyson lay 
 
 48 
 
SoMK Words on I^oving Shakkspkare 49 
 
 dying in the white moonlight, his son tells how 
 he held the play of Cymbeline in his dying- 
 hands, as was fitting, seeing he had held it in his 
 living hands through many golden years. Than 
 this dying tribute, Shakespeare never had more 
 gracious compliment paid his genius. Who passes 
 Shakespeare in his library without a caress of eye 
 or hand? I would apologize if I were guilty of 
 such a breach of literary etiquette. Boswell's 
 Johnson edited Shakespeare ; and Charles Lamb 
 and Goethe and DeQuincey and Coleridge and 
 Taine and Ivowell and Carlyle and Emerson have 
 written of him, some of them greatly. I wonder 
 Macaulay kept hands from him, but probably be- 
 cause he was the historian of action rather than 
 letters; and after reading what these have said, 
 how can one be but silenced? 
 
 But it has seemed to me that, while there was 
 a wilderness of writing about Shakespeare as a 
 genius and as a whole, there was co-operative 
 dearth of writings on the individual dramas. 
 Authors content themselves with writing on the 
 dramatist, and neglect to write upon the dramas. 
 If this be true, may there not be an unoccupied 
 plot of ground where a late-comer may pitch tent, 
 as under the hemlocks by some babbling water, 
 and feel himself in some real way proprietary? I 
 have discovered a growing feeling in my thought 
 that enough has not been said, and can not be 
 
 4 
 
50 A Hbro and Some: Othsr Foi^k 
 
 said, about the Macbeths and Tempests and Lears 
 and Hamlets. 
 
 Shakespeare is too massive to be discussed 
 in an hour. One essay will not suffice for him. 
 He is as a mountain, whose majesty and multitu- 
 dinous beauty, meaning, and magnitude and im- 
 press, must be gotten by slow processes in journey- 
 ing about it through many days. Who sits under 
 its pines at noon, lies beside its streams for rest, 
 walks under its lengthening shadows as under a 
 cloud, and has listened to the voices of its water- 
 falls^ thrilling the night and calling to the spa- 
 cious firmament as if with intent to be heard "very 
 far off," has thus learned the mountain, vast of 
 girth, kingly in altitude, perpetual in sovereignty. 
 We study a world's circumference by seg- 
 ments; nor let us suppose we can do other by 
 this cosmopolitan Shakespeare. He, so far as 
 touches our earth horizon, is ubiquitous. L-ook- 
 ing at him sum-totally, we feel his mass, and say 
 we have looked upon majesty. But as a mountain 
 is, in circumference and altitude, always beckon- 
 ing us on, as if saying, "My summit is not far 
 away, but near," and so spurring our laggard 
 steps to espouse the ascent, and toiling on, on, still 
 on, a little further — only a little further — till heart 
 and flesh all but fail and faint, but for the might 
 of will, we fall to rise again, and try once more, 
 till we fall upon the summit, and lie on thresholds 
 
SoMB Words on I^oving Shake;spi)are; 51 
 
 leading to the stars. The mountain understated 
 its magnitude to us — not of intent, but in simple 
 modesty. I think it did not itself know its mass. 
 Greatness has a subtle self-depreciation; and we 
 shall come to know our huge Shakespeare only 
 by approaching him on foot. He must be studied 
 in fragments. His plays, if I may be pardoned 
 for coining a word, need not an omnigraph, but 
 monographs. Let Shakespeare be, and give eye 
 and ear to his history, comedy, tragedy; and 
 when we have done with them, one by one, we 
 shall discover how the aggregated mass climbs 
 taller than highest mountains. This method, in 
 tentative fashion, I propose to apply in some 
 studies in this volume, or other volumes, be- 
 lieving that the company of those who love 
 Shakespeare can never be large enough for his 
 merits, and that many are kept away from the 
 witchery of him because they do not well know 
 the fine art of approaching him. I would, there- 
 fore, be a doorkeeper, and throw some doors wide 
 open, that men and women may unhindered enter. 
 This essay aims to stand as a porter at the gate. 
 We shall never overestimate Shakespeare, be- 
 cause we can not. Some men and things lie be- 
 yond the danger of hyperbole. No exaggeration 
 is possible concerning them, seeing they tran- 
 scend all dreams. Space can not be conceived 
 by the most luxuriant imagination, holding, as 
 
52 A He;ro and Some; Othkr FoIvK 
 
 it does, all worlds, and capable of holding another 
 universe besides, and with room to spare. 
 Clearly, we can not overestimate space. Thought 
 and vocabulary become bankrupt when they at- 
 tempt this bewildering deed. Genius is as im- 
 measurable as space. Shakespeare can not be 
 measured. We can not go about him, since life 
 fails, leaving the journey not quite well begun. 
 Yet may we attempt what can not be performed, 
 because each attempt makes us worthy, and we 
 are measured, not by what we achieve, but by 
 what we attempt, as Lowell writes : 
 
 "Grandly begin! Though thou have time 
 But for one line, be that sublime: 
 Not failure, but low aim, is crime." 
 
 The eaglet's failure in attempted flight teaches 
 him to outsoar clouds. We are not sO' greatly 
 concerned that we find the sources of the Nile 
 as that we search for them. In this lie our tri- 
 umph and reward. 
 
 Besides all this, may there not be a place for 
 more of what may be named inspirational liter- 
 ature? Henry Van Dyke has coined a happy 
 phrase in giving title to his delightful volume on 
 "The Poetry of Tennyson," calling his papers 
 "Essays in Vital Criticism." I like the thought. 
 Literature is life, always tha^, in so far as liter- 
 ature is great ; for literature tells our human 
 
Some Words on Loving Shakespkark 53 
 
 story. Essayist, novelist, poet, are all doing one 
 thing, as are sculptor, painter, architect. Of 
 detail criticism ("dry-as-dust" criticism, to use 
 Carlyle's term) there is much, though none too 
 much, which work requires scholarship and pains- 
 taking, and is necessary. Malone is a requirement 
 of Shakespearean study. But, candidly, is verbal, 
 textual criticism the largest, truest criticism? 
 Dust is not man, though man is dust. No geolo- 
 gist's biography of the marble from Carrara, nor 
 a biographer's sketch of the sculptor, will explain 
 the statue, nor do justice to the artist's concep- 
 tion. I, for one, want to feel the poet's pulse- 
 beat, brain-beat, heart-beat. What does he 
 mean? Let us catch this speaker's words. What 
 was that he said? Let me feel sure I have his 
 meaning. We may break a poem up into bits, 
 like pieces of branches picked up in a woodland 
 path ; but is this what the poet would have de- 
 sired? He takes lexicons and changes them into 
 literatures, begins with words, ends with poems. 
 His art was synthetic. He was not a crab, to 
 move backward, but a man, to move forward ; and 
 his poetry is not debris, like the broken branch, 
 but is exquisite grace and moving music. Tears 
 come to us naturally, like rain to summer clouds, 
 when we have read his words. Much criticism 
 is dry as desiccated foods, though we can not be- 
 lieve this is the nobler criticism, since God's grow- 
 
54 -A. Hkro and Some Othkr FoIvK 
 
 ing fruit is his best fruit. A tree with climbing 
 saps and tossing branches, fertile in shade and 
 sweet with music, is surely fairer and truer than a 
 dead, uprooted, prostrate, decaying trunk. This, 
 then, would I aspire humbly to do with Shakes- 
 peare or another, to help men to his secret; for 
 to admit men to any poet's provinces is nothing 
 other than to introduce them 
 
 "To the island valley of Avilion, 
 Where falls not hail nor rain nor any snow. 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
 Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns. 
 And bowery hollows crowned with summer seas." 
 
 There is no trace of exaggeration in saying: 
 Many people frequent theaters ostensibly for the 
 purpose of understanding the great dramatists, 
 and, leading thereto, seeing noted tragedians act 
 Lear, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and at 
 the end of years of attendance have no conception 
 of these dramas as a whole. They had heard one 
 voice among the many; but when the many voices 
 blended, what all meant they can not begin to 
 guess. What playgoer will give a valid analysis 
 of King Lear? Ask him, and his ideas will be 
 chaotic as clouds on a stormy night. Not even 
 the elder Kean is the best interpreter of 
 Shakespeare ; for the dramatist reserves that 
 function to himself — Shakespeare is his own best 
 
SoM:e Words on I^oving Shakkspieare 55 
 
 interpreter. Dream over his plays by moonlit 
 nights ; pore over his pages till chilly skies 
 grow gray with dawn ; read a play without ris- 
 ing from the ingratiating task, and you, not a 
 tragedian, will have a conception of the play. I 
 will rather risk getting at an understanding of 
 beautiful, bewitching Rosalind by reading and re- 
 reading "As You Like It" than by all theaters 
 and stage-scenes and players. A dramatist is his 
 own best interpreter. The most discerning crit- 
 ics of the great dramas are not theater-goers. 
 The theater runs to eyes; study runs to thought. 
 In a theater the actor thinks for us ; in a study 
 we think for ourselves. For contemporaries of 
 "The Letters of Junius" to attempt guessing who 
 Junius was, was plainly exhilarating as a walk 
 at morning along a country lane. To attempt the 
 interpretation of a Shakespeare's tragedy for 
 yourself is no less so. Believe in your own 
 capabilities, and test your own powers. Con- 
 ceive of Shakespeare's folk, not as dead and past, 
 but as living. These men and women, among 
 whom we move, are those among whom Shakes- 
 peare moved. Ages change customs and cos- 
 tumes, but not characters. Bring Shakespeare 
 down to now, and see how rational his men and 
 women become ; and we, as central to his move- 
 ment, may begin to reckon on the periodicity of 
 souls as of comets. I would have people inherit 
 
56 A He;ro and Some) Other F01.K 
 
 Shakespeare as they inherit Newton's discoveries 
 or Columbus's new world. 
 
 And as we know, we shall learn to trust, 
 Shakespeare. He is uniformly truthful. He may 
 sin against geographical veracity, as when he 
 names Bohemia a maritime province; or he may 
 give Christian reasonings to ancient heathen; but 
 these are errata, not falsehoods ; and besides, 
 these are mistakes of a colorist^ or in background 
 of figure-painting, and do not touch the real prov- 
 ince of the dramatist, whose office is not to paint 
 landscapes, but figures — and figures not of physique, 
 but of soul — ^the delineation of character being the 
 dramatist's business. Here is Shakespeare always 
 accurate. To argue with him savors of petulancy 
 or childish ignorance or egotism. Some people 
 ourselves have met had no sense of character, as 
 some have no sense of color. They do not per- 
 ceive logical continuity here, as in reasoning, but 
 approach each person as an isolated fact, whereas 
 souls are a series — men repeating men, women 
 repeating women, in large measure, as a child 
 steps in his father's tracks across a field of snow 
 in winter. Other people seem intuitively to 
 read character, being able to shut their eyes and 
 see more than others with eyes open, having a 
 faculty for practical psychology, which is little 
 less than miracle, as in Tennyson, who was not 
 a man among men — being shy as a whip-poor-will. 
 
SoM:e Words on L,oving Shakespeark 57 
 
 seclusive as flowers which haunt the woodland 
 shadows — yet those reading him must know how 
 accurately he reads the human heart; and his 
 characterization of Guinevere, Pelleas, Bedivere, 
 Enid, the lover in Maud, a Beckett the Princess, 
 Philip, Enoch Arden, and Dora, are, in ac- 
 curacy, as 
 
 "Perfect music unto noble words." 
 
 Some people are born to this profound in- 
 sight as storm-petrels for the seas, needing not 
 to be tutored, and are as men and women to 
 whom we tell our secrets, scarce knowing why 
 we do. But Shakespeare knows what the 
 sphinx thinks, if anybody does. His genius is 
 penetrative as cold midwinter entering every 
 room, and making warmth shiver in ague fits. 
 I think Shakespeare never errs in his logical 
 sequence in character. He surprises us, seems 
 unnatural to us, but because we have been super- 
 ficial observers; while genius will disclose those 
 truths to which we are blind. Recur to Ophelia, 
 whom Goethe has discussed with such insight. 
 Ophelia is, to our eyes and ears, pure as air. 
 We find no fault in her. Certainly, from any 
 standpoint, her conduct is irreproachable; yet, 
 surprisingly enough, when she becomes insane, 
 she sings tainted songs, and salacious suggestions 
 are on her lips, which in sane hours never ut- 
 
58 A Hero and Some Cipher Foi^k 
 
 tered a syllable of such a sort. And Shakespeare 
 is wrong? No; follow him. Thoughts are like 
 rooms when shutters are closed and blinds down, 
 and can not, therefore, be seen. We tell our 
 thoughts, or conceal them, according to our de- 
 sire or secretiveness, and speech may or may 
 not be a full index to thought; and Shakespeare 
 would indicate that fair Ophelia, love-lorn and 
 neglected; fair Ophelia, whose words and con- 
 duct were unexceptional, even to the sharp eyes 
 of a precisian — fair Ophelia cherished thoughts 
 not meet for maidenhood, and in her heart toyed 
 with voluptuousness. I know nothing more accu- 
 rate; and the penetration of this poet seems, for 
 the moment, something more than human. After 
 a single example, such as adduced, would not he 
 be guilty of temerity who would question Shakes- 
 peare's accuracy in character delineation? The 
 sum of what has been said on this point is, dis- 
 trust yourself rather than Shakespeare; and when 
 your notions and his are not coincident, or when, 
 more strongly stated, you feel sure that here for 
 once he is inaccurate, reckon that he is pro- 
 founder than you, and do you begin to seek for 
 a hidden path as one lost in a wilderness, when, 
 in all probability, you will discover that what you 
 deemed inexact was in reality a profounder truth 
 than had come under your observation. Nor 
 
Some Words on Loving Shakkspeark 59 
 
 would a discussion of Shakespeare's truthfulness 
 be rounded out should his value as historian be 
 omitted. He is profoundest of philosophical his- 
 torians, compelling the motives in historic person- 
 ages to disclose themselves, while, in the main, 
 his historical data are correct as understood in his 
 day. He has not juggled with facts, though in 
 instances where he has taken liberty with events 
 he has, by such change in historic setting, made 
 the main issues more apparent. Some one has 
 said that simply as historian of England Shakes- 
 peare has done nobly by his country, which 
 remark I, for one, think accurate. Beginning 
 with King John, he keeps the main channels of 
 English history to the birth of Elizabeth, where, 
 in a spirit of subtle courtesy, he makes the desti- 
 nation of his historical studies. If the purpose of 
 noble history be to make us understand men and, 
 consequently, measures, then is Shakespeare still 
 the greatest English historian. Richard IH 
 never becomes so understandable as in the drama ; 
 and Henry IV is a figure clearly seen, as if he 
 stood in the sunlight before our eyes, so that any 
 one conversant with these history-plays is forti- 
 fied against all stress in solid knowledge and pro- 
 found insight into turbulent eras of Anglo- 
 Saxon history; for Shakespeare has given us 
 history carved in relief, as are the metopes of the 
 
6o A He;ro and Some; Othe;r Folk 
 
 Parthenon. For knowledge psychologically and 
 historically accurate commend me to William 
 Shakespeare, historian. 
 
 The lover is Shakespeare's main thesis; and 
 his lovers — men and wiomen — never violate the 
 proprieties of love. What his lovers do has been 
 done and will be done. Helena, in "All 's Well 
 that Ends Well," is a true phase of womanhood; 
 and in those days of the more general infidelity and 
 lordship of man, more common than now — 
 though now this picture is truthful — ^woman has a 
 power of self-sacrifice and rigorous self-denial 
 when in love, which, as it is totally unconscious 
 on her part, is as totally inexplicable on our part. 
 Life is not a condition easily explained. The 
 heart of simplest man or woman is a mystery, 
 compared with which the sphinx is an open secret. 
 The vagaries of love in life are the vagaries of love 
 in Shakespeare. Life was his book, which he 
 knew by heart. Rosalind, in "As You Like It," 
 is a portrait both fair and accurate. We have 
 seen Rosalind, and the sight of her was good for 
 the eyes. To read Shakespeare is to be told what 
 we ourselves have seen, we not recognizing the 
 people we had met until he whispers in our ears, 
 "You have seen her and him ;" whereat we answer, 
 "Yes, truly, so we have, though we did not know 
 it till you told us." 
 
 Shakespeare is philosopher of both sexes. 
 
SoMn Words on I^oving Shakespkare 6i 
 
 though this is not the rule, as we will readily agree, 
 thinking over the great portrait painters of char- 
 acter. To state a single illustrative case: Hall 
 Caine must be allowed to have framed some 
 mighty men, tragic, or melodramatic sometimes, 
 somber always, but men of bulk and character. 
 Pete, in "The Manxman/' is a creation sufficient 
 to make the artist conceiving him immortal; and 
 Red Jason is no less real, manly, mighty, self-mas- 
 tering, self-surrendering. Caine's men are giants; 
 but his women do not satisfy and seldom interest 
 us, with an exception in a few cases — as with Na- 
 omi in "The Scape Goat," and Greeba, wife of 
 Michal Sunlocks; though Naomi is little more 
 than a figure seen at a doorway, standing in the 
 sun; for she has not forged a character up to the 
 time when her lover puts arm about her, as she 
 droops above her dying father, when his vast love 
 would make him immortal for her sake. Glory 
 Quayie is interesting, but unsatisfactory. My be- 
 lief is that Tolstoi has drawn no man approaching 
 his astonishing Anna Karenina. Shakespeare is 
 ambidexter here. All things are seemingly native 
 to him ; for he is never at a loss. Not words, 
 thoughts, dreams, images, music, fail him for a 
 moment even. Who found him feeling for a 
 word? Did we not find them ready at his hand as 
 Ariel was ready to serve Prospero? Lear, 
 Prospero, Brutus, Cassius, Falstaff, lago, Mac- 
 
62 A Hero and Somk Othkr FoIvK 
 
 beth, Hamlet, are as crowning creations as Cleo- 
 patra, Miranda, Lady Macbeth, Katharine the 
 Shrew, Imogen, or Cordelia. We know not which 
 to choose, as one who looks through a mountain 
 vista to the sea, declaring each view fairer than 
 the last, yet knowing if he might choose any one 
 for a perpetual possession he could not make de- 
 cision. We are incapable of choosing between 
 Shakespeare's men and his women. 
 
 Small volumes are best for reading Shakes- 
 peare, for this reason : In large volumes the 
 dramas get lost to your thought, as a nook of 
 beauty is apt to get lost in the abundant beauty 
 of summer hills, solely because there are so many; 
 but when put into small volumes, each play be- 
 co'mes individualized, made solitary, and stands 
 out like a tree growing in a wide field alone. Do 
 not conceive of Shakespeare's plays as marble 
 column, pediment, frieze, metope, built into a 
 Parthenon, but conceive of each play as a Parthe- 
 non; for I think it certain each one might have 
 stood solitary on cape or hill, as those old Greeks 
 built temples to their tutelar deities. He wrote 
 so much and so greatly as to bewilder us, just 
 as night does with her multitudinous stars. Who 
 maps the astral globe will divide his heavens into 
 sections, so he may chart his constellations. The 
 like must be done with Shakespeare. A great 
 painting is always at more of an advantage in a 
 
SoMK Words on I,oving Shakejspi^are; 63 
 
 room of its own than in a gallery, since each 
 picture is in a way a distraction, stealing a trifle 
 of beauty from its fellow, though adding nothing 
 to itself thereby. "Come," we say to a dear friend 
 from whom we have been parted for a long time, 
 "come, let me have you alone;" and you walk 
 across a field, and sit in the singing shadows of 
 the pines — you appropriate your friend. Do the 
 same with a poem ; for in such a wilderness of 
 beauty and majest)' as Shakespeare's plays this 
 need becomes imperative. Pursuant to this sug- 
 gestion, I recur to a previous thought on Shakes- 
 pearean criticism that, rich as it is, is defective in 
 this individualization — so much being written on 
 the whole, so little in comparison on the parts. 
 Each drama fills our field of vision, and justifies 
 a dissertation. Each dialogue of Plato demands 
 an essay by Jowett. How well, then, may each 
 dialogue of Shakespeare demand a separate 
 study! There is distinct gain in looking at a 
 landscape from a window, sitting a little back from 
 the window-sill, the view being thus framed as a 
 picture, and the superfluous horizon cut off; and 
 the relevancies, as I may say, are included and the 
 irrelevancies excluded ; for in looking at too 
 much we are losers, not gainers, the eye failing to 
 catch the entirety of meaning. Here is the ad- 
 vantage of the landscape painter, who seizes the 
 view to which we should restrict our eyes, bring- 
 
64 A Hero and Some Other FoIvK 
 
 ing into compass of canvas what we should have 
 brought into compass of sky and scene, but did 
 not. So these window views of Shakespeare are 
 what we greatly need now^ and are what Hudson 
 and Rolfe and Ulrici and the various editors of 
 note have given. 
 
 But after all, the best interpretation of a drama 
 or any poem is to be gained first hand, nothing 
 being clearer than that every poem challenges 
 individual interpretation, as if saying, "What do 
 you think I mean?" There is too much knowing 
 productions by proxy, of being conversant with 
 what every sort of body thinks abodt Hamlet, but 
 ourselves being a void so far as distinctively indi- 
 vidual opinion goes. A poem, like the Scriptures, 
 is its own best interpreter; and there is always 
 scope for the personal equation in judging liter- 
 ature, because criticism is empiricism in any case, 
 being opinion set against opinion. Different 
 people think different things, and that is the end. 
 Literary criticism can never be an exact science, 
 and everybody may have and should have an 
 opinion. Great productions have never had their 
 meaning exhausted, since meanings are an infinite 
 series. So, to get an interpretation of Cymbeline, 
 say, get into the midst of the drama, as if it were 
 a stream and you a boatman in your boat. Com- 
 mit you to the drama's floo4, omitting for a time 
 what others have thought^ and read as if the poem 
 
Some Words on I/Oving Shake^speare; 65 
 
 were a fresh manuscript found by you, and read 
 with such avidity as scholars of the Renaissance 
 knew when a pahmpsest of Tacitus or Theocritus 
 was found. Let your imagination, as well as the 
 poet's, spread wings. Becom'e creative yourself; 
 for this is true : No one can rightly conceive any 
 work of imagination and be himself unimaginative. 
 Read and re-read, and at length, like the cliffs of 
 shore rising out of ocean mists, dim, but stable 
 and increasingly palpable, will come a scheme of 
 meaning. Miss nothing. Let no beauty elude you. 
 Odors must not waste; we, in a spirit of lofty 
 econom.y, must inhale them. Watch the drift of 
 verbal trifles ; for Shakespeare uses no superfluities. 
 His meaning dominates his method ; his modu- 
 lations are prophetic. See, therefore, that he does 
 not elude you, escaping at some path or shadow, 
 but cling to his garments, however swiftly he 
 runs. Such study will bear fruit of sure triumph 
 in your conceiving a hidden import of a great 
 drama. This method of self-assertiveness in read- 
 ing is logical and invigorating. Think as well as 
 be thought for. 
 
 Of all poets, Shakespeare is richest in the 
 material of simile. He thought in pictures, which 
 is another way of saying he wooed comparatives. 
 Thought is inert; and he is greatest in expression 
 who can supply his thinking with ruddy blood, 
 flush the pallid cheek, make the dull eye bright, 
 5 
 
66 A Hejro and Some; Othe;r Foi^k 
 
 and make laughter run across the face like ripples 
 of sunshine across water touched by the wind. 
 In Shakespeare's turn of phrase and use of figure 
 is a fertility of suggestion such as even Dante 
 can not approximate. He is unusual, which is 
 a merit; for thus is mind kept on the alert, like 
 a sentinel fearing surprise. Of this an essay might 
 be filled with illustrations. He does not try to use 
 figures, but can not keep from using them. As 
 stars flash into light, so he flashes into metaphor, 
 metonymy, trope, personification, or simile. Be- 
 cause he sees everything, is he fertile in sugges- 
 tion, and his comparisons are numerous as his 
 thoughts. See how his figures multiply as you have 
 seen foam-caps multiply on waves when the wind 
 rises on the sea! 
 
 "We burn daylight." 
 
 "Nay, the world 's my oyster. 
 Which I with sword shall open." 
 
 "I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted." 
 
 "My library 
 Was dukedom large enough." 
 
 "Into the eye and prospect of his soul." 
 
 "Make a swan-like end, 
 Fading in music." 
 
 "Those blessed candles of the night." 
 
SoMB Words on I^oving Shakespeare 67 
 
 "The schoolboy, with his satchel 
 And shining, morning face." 
 
 "Like an unseasonable stormy day. 
 Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores." 
 
 "He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines." 
 
 "And must I ravel out 
 My weaved-up follies?" 
 
 "Give sorrov/ leave awhile to tutor me 
 To this submission." 
 
 "The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day 
 Is crept into the bosom of the sea." 
 
 "There is some soul of goodness in things evil. 
 Would men observingly distill it out." 
 
 "He hath a tear for pity, and a hand 
 Open as day for melting charity." 
 
 "That daffed the world aside. 
 And bid it pass." 
 
 "He is come to ope 
 The purple testament of bleeding war." 
 
 "She sat, like patience on a monument. 
 Smiling at grief." 
 
 "That strain again; it had a dying fall: 
 O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south. 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
 Stealing and giving odor." 
 
 "For courage mounts with occasion." 
 
68 A Hero and Some; Othkr Foi<k 
 
 "Here I and sorrows sit; 
 Here is my throne; bid kings come bow to it." 
 
 "Death's dateless night." 
 
 "Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, 
 Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." 
 
 "The tongues of dying men 
 Enforce attention like deep harmony." 
 
 "Falstaff sweats to death, 
 And lards the lean earth as he walks along." 
 
 "I have set my life upon a cast. 
 And I will stand the hazard of the die." 
 
 " 'T is better to be lowly born, 
 And range with humble livers in content. 
 Than be perked up in glistering grief, 
 And wear a golden sorrow." 
 
 "An old man broken with the storms of state." 
 
 "Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye." 
 
 "Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops." 
 
 "Within the book and volume of my brain." 
 
 "One vial full of Edward's blood is cracked, 
 And all the precious liquor spilt." 
 
 In such quest as this, one is enticed as if he 
 followed the windings of a stream under the 
 shadows of the trees. Past' waterfall and banks 
 of flowers and choiring of the birds, he goes on 
 
Some; Words on I^oving Shakespsare 69 
 
 forever, except he force himself to pause. 
 Shakespeare is always an enticement, whose 
 turns of poetic thought and verbiage are a pure 
 delight. Note this quality in the quotations — a 
 word naturally expresses a thought. Shakespeare's 
 figures express a series of thoughts as varied land- 
 scapes seen in pictures ; in consequence, to read 
 him is to see resemblances in things, because we 
 have sharpened vision and can not, after reading 
 him, be blind as we were before, but feel the 
 plethora of our world with the poetic. After he 
 has spoken for us and to us, the world's capacity 
 is enlarged ; we are, in truth, not so much as those 
 who have read poetry as we are like those who 
 have seen the world pass before our eyes. We 
 thought the world a stream run dry; but lo! the 
 bed is full of waters, flooded from remote hills, 
 where snowdrifts melt and make perpetual rivers. 
 After hearing him, we expect things of our 
 world; its fertility seems so exhaustless. 
 
 Shakespeare has no hint of invalidism about 
 him, but is the person, not the picture, of perfect 
 health. Not an intimation of the hypochondriac 
 nor of the convalescent do I find in him. He is 
 healthy, and his voice rings out like a bell on a 
 frosty night. Take his hand, and you feel shak- 
 ing hands, not with ^sculapius, but with Health. 
 To be ailing when Shakespeare is about is an 
 impertinence for which you feel compelled to 
 
70 A He;ro and Some; Other Foi,e 
 
 ofifer apology. Does not this express our feeling 
 about this poet? He is well, always well, and 
 laughs at the notion of sickness. He starts 
 a-walking, and unconsciously runs, as a school- 
 boy after school. His smile breaks into ringing 
 laughter; and he, not you, knows why he either 
 smiles or laug'hs. He and sunlight seem close 
 of kin. A mountain is a challenge he never re- 
 fuses, but scales it by bounds, Hke a deer when 
 pursued by the hunter and the hound. He is not 
 tonic, but bracing air and perfect health and youth, 
 which makes labor a holiday and care a jest. 
 Shakespeare is never morose. Dante is the pic- 
 ture of melancholy, Shakespeare the picture of 
 resilient joy. Tennyson beheld "three spirits, mad 
 with joy, dash down upon a wayside flower;" and 
 our dramatist is like them. Life laughs on greet- 
 ing him ; the grave grows dim to sight when he 
 is near, and you see the deep sky instead, and 
 across it wheel wild birds in happy motion. In 
 Tennyson is perpetual melancholy — the mood and 
 destiny of poetry, as I suppose — but Shakespeare 
 is not melancholy, nor does he know how to be. 
 His face is never sad, I think, and he is fonder 
 of Jack Falstafif than we are apt to suppose; for 
 health riots in his blood. He weeps, smiles 
 breaking through his weeping, and he turns from 
 the grave of tragedy with laughter leaning from 
 his eyes, ^schylus is a poet whose face was never 
 
Some Words on IvOving ShakkspEare 71 
 
 lit even with the candle-light of smiles; but 
 Shakespeare, writer of tragedy, is our laughing 
 poet. This plainly confounds our philosophy of 
 poetry, since humor is not poetry; but he binds 
 humor to his car as Achilles, Hector, and laughs 
 at our upset philosophies, crying: "This is my 
 Lear, weep for him ; this my Hamlet, break your 
 hearts for him; this my Desdemona, grow tender 
 for her woe, — but enough : this is my Rosalind and 
 my Miranda, my Helena and Hermione, my Or- 
 lando and Ferdinand, my Bassanio and Leontes; 
 laugh with them" — and you render swift obe- 
 dience, saying, with Lord Boyet, in "Love's Labor 
 
 Lost," 
 
 "O, I am stabbed with laughter!" 
 
 He is court jester, at whose quips the genera- 
 tions make merry. You can not be somber nor 
 sober long with him, though he is deep as seas, 
 and fathomless as air, and lonely as night, and 
 sad betimes as autumn. He is not frivolous, but 
 is joyous. The bounding streams, the singing 
 trees, the leaping stags along the lake, the birds 
 singing morning awake, — Shakespeare incor- 
 porates all these in himself. He is what may be 
 named, in a spiritual sense, this world's animal 
 delight in life. There is a view of life sullen as 
 November; and to be sympathetic with this mood 
 is to ruin life and put out all its lights. Shakes- 
 peare's resiliency of spirit would teach us what a 
 
72 A He;ro and Some) Othejr Folk 
 
 dispassionate study of our own nature would have 
 taught us, that to succumb to this gloom is not 
 natural; to feel the weight of burdens all the time 
 would conduct to insanity or death ; therefore has 
 God made bountiful provision against such out- 
 come in the lift of cloud and lightening of burden. 
 We forget sleep is God's rest-hour for spirit; and, 
 besides, we read in God's Book how, "at eventide, 
 it shall be light," an expression at once of ex- 
 quisite poetry and acute observation. Our lives 
 are healthy when natural. The crude Byronic 
 misanthropy, even though assumed, finds no favor 
 in Shakespeare's eyes. 
 
 Shakespeare is this world's poet — a truth hinted 
 at before, but now needing amplifying a trifle. 
 There is in him this-worldliness, but not other- 
 worldliness, his characters not seeming to the full 
 to have a sense of the invisible world. He is love's 
 poet. His lovers are imperishable because real. 
 He is love's laureate. Yet are his loves of this 
 world. True, there are spurts of flight, as of an 
 eagle with broken wing, when, as in Hamlet, he 
 faults this world and aspires skyward, yet does 
 not lose sight of the earth, and, like the wounded 
 eagle in "Sohrab and Rustum," lies at last 
 
 "A heap of fluttering feathers." 
 
 Plainly, Shakespeare was a voyager in this 
 world, and a discoverer, sailing all seas and 
 
Some) Words on I^oving Shakejspeare 73 
 
 climbing tallest altitudes to their far summits ; but 
 flight was not native to him, as if he had said: 
 
 "We have not wings, we can not soar; 
 But we have feet to scale, and climb." 
 
 I can not think him spiritual in the gracious 
 sense. His contemporary, Edmund Spenser, was 
 spiritual, as even Milton was not. This world 
 made appeal to this poet of the Avon on the radiant 
 earthly side; the very clouds flamed with a glory 
 borrowed from the sun as he looked on them. 
 His world was very fair. In more than a poetic 
 sense was 
 
 "All the world a stage." 
 
 Life was a drama, hastening, shouting, ex- 
 hilarating, turbulent, free, roistering, but as tri- 
 umphant as Elizabeth's fleet and God's stormy 
 waters were over Philip's great Armada. Hamlet 
 was the terribly tragic conception in Shakespeare 
 because he was hopeless. Can you conceive 
 Shakespeare writing "In Memoriam?" Tenny- 
 son was pre-eminently spiritual, and "In Memo- 
 riam" is his breath dimming the window-pane on 
 which he breathed. That was Tennyson's life, but 
 was patently no brave part of Shakespeare. He 
 knew to shape tragedy, such as Romeo and 
 Juliet; but how to send abroad a cry like Enoch 
 Arden's prayer lay not in him. He compassed 
 
74 A He;ro and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 our world, but found no way to leave what proved 
 a waterlogged ship ; and how to pilot to 
 
 "The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
 No traveler returns," 
 
 puzzles Shakespeare's will as it had Hamlet's. 
 
 So not even our great Shakespeare can monopo- 
 lize life. Some landscapes have not lain like a 
 picture beneath his eyes ; he did not exhaust poetry 
 nor life, and room is still left for 
 
 "New men, strange faces, other minds," 
 
 for whom, 
 
 "Though much is taken, much abides; and though 
 We are not that strength which in old days 
 Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are — 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 
 
Ill 
 
 Caliban 
 
 YOUR great poet is eminently sane. Not that 
 this is the conception current concerning 
 him — the reverse being the common idea — that a 
 poet is a being afflicted with some strange and un- 
 classified rabies. He is supposed to be possessed, 
 like the Norwegian Berserker, whose frenzy 
 amounted to volcanic tumult. The genesis of 
 misconceptions, however, is worth one's while to 
 study; for in a majority of cases there is in the 
 misconception a sufficient flavoring of truth to 
 make the erroneous notion pass as true. At bot- 
 tom, the human soul loves truth, nor willingly be- 
 lieves or receives a lie. Our intellectual sin is 
 synecdoche, the putting a part truth for a whole 
 truth. Generalization is dangerous intellectual 
 exercise. Our premise is insufficient, and our 
 conclusion is self-sufficient, like some strutting 
 sciom of a decayed house. Trace the origin of this 
 idea of a poet's non-sanity. He was not ordinary, 
 as other men, but was extraordinary, and as 
 such belonged to the upper rather than the lower 
 world; for we must be convinced how wholly the 
 ancients kept the super-earthly in mind in their 
 
 75 
 
76 A Hi^RO AND Some Othkr Foi.k 
 
 logical processes — an attitude wise and in con- 
 sonance with the wisest of this world's thinking. 
 Heaven must not be left out of our computations, 
 just as the sun must not be omitted in writing 
 the history of a rose or a spike of golden-rod. 
 In harmony with this exalted origin of the poet 
 went the notion that he was under an afflatus. A 
 breath from behind the world blew in his face; 
 nay, more, a breath from behind the world blew 
 noble ideas into his soul^ and he spake as one 
 inspired of the gods. This conception of a poet 
 is high and worthy ; nothing gross grimes it with 
 common dust. Yet from so noble a thought — 
 because the thought was partial — grew the gross 
 misconception of the poet as beyond law, as not 
 amenable to social and moral customs, as one 
 who might transgress the moral code with im- 
 punity, and stand unreproved, even blameless. 
 He was thought to be his own law — a man whose 
 course should no more be reproved or hindered 
 than the winds. The poet's supremacy brought 
 us to a wrong conclusion. The philosopher we 
 assumed to be balanced, the poet to be unbalanced. 
 Shelley, and Poe, and Heine, and Byron, and 
 Burns elucidate this erroneous hypothesis of the 
 poet. We pass lightly their misrule of them- 
 selves with a tacit assumption of their genius hav- 
 ing shaken and shocked their moral faculties as 
 in some giant perturbation. 
 
Cai^iban 77 
 
 I now recur to the initial suggestion, that the 
 great poet is sane. The poet is yet a man, and 
 man is more than poet. Manhood is the regal 
 fact to which all else must subordinate itself. 
 Nothing must be allowed to disfranchise man- 
 hood ; and he who manumits the poet from social 
 and ethical bonds is not logical, nor penetrative 
 into the dark mystery of soul, nor is he the poet's 
 friend. Nor is he a friend who assumes that 
 the poet, because a poet, moves in eccentric paths 
 rather than in concentric circles. Hold with all 
 tenacity to the poet's sanity. He is superior, 
 and lives where the eagles fly and stars run their 
 far and splendid courses; but he is still man, 
 though man grown tall and sublime. To the 
 truth of this view of the great poet bear witness 
 yEschylus, and Dante, and Spenser, and Shakes- 
 peare, and Tennyson, and Browning, in naming 
 whom we are lighting on high summits, as clouds 
 do, and leaving the main range of mountains 
 tintO'Uched. Shakespeare is absolutely sane. 
 Not Blondin, crossing Niagara on a thread for a 
 pathway, was so absolute in his balance as 
 Shakespeare. He saw all the world. Nor is this 
 all; for there are those who see an entire world, 
 but see it distorted as an anamorphism. There 
 is a cartoon world, where everybody is appre- 
 hended as taking on other shapes than his own, 
 and is valued in proportion as he is susceptible 
 
78 A Hero and Some Other Folk 
 
 of caricature. But plate-glass is better for look- 
 ing through than is a prism. What men need is. 
 eyes which are neither far-sighted nor near- 
 sighted, but right-sighted. Shakespeare was that. 
 There is no hint of exaggeration in his charac- 
 ters. They are people we have met on journeys, 
 and some of whom we have known intimately. 
 To be a poet it is not necessary to be a madman — 
 a doctrine wholesome and encouraging. I lay 
 down, then, as one of the canons for testing a 
 poet's greatness, this, "Is he sane?" and purpose 
 applying the canon to Robert Browning, giving 
 results of such application rather than the modus 
 operandi of such results. I assert that he bears 
 the test. No saner man than Browning ever 
 walked this world's streets. He was entirely 
 human in his love of life for its own sake, in his 
 love of nature and friends and wife and child. 
 His voice, in both speech and laughter, had a ring 
 and joyousness such as reminded us of Charles 
 Dickens in his youth. His appreciation of life 
 was intense and immense. This world and all 
 worlds reported to him as if he were an ofificer 
 to Whom they all, as subalterns, must report. The 
 pendulum in the clock on a lady's mantel-shelf is 
 not more natural than the pendulum swung in a 
 cathedral tower, though the swing of the one is 
 a slight and the swing of the other a great arc. 
 Browning is a pendulum whose vibrations touch. 
 
Cawban 79 
 
 the horizons. He does business with fabulous 
 capital and on a huge scale^ and thinks, sees, 
 serves, and loves after a colossal fashion, but is as 
 natural in his large life as a lesser man is in his 
 meager life. "Caliban upon Setebos" is a hint 
 of the man's immense movement of soul and his 
 serene rationality. 
 
 Browning will be preacher; and as preachers 
 Ho — and do wisely — he takes a text from the 
 Scriptures, finding in a psalm a sentence embody- 
 ing the thought he purposes elaborating, as a bud 
 contains the flower. The Bible may safely be 
 asserted to be the richest treasure-house of sug- 
 gestive thought ever discovered to the soul. 
 In my conviction, not a theme treated in the do- 
 main of investigation and reason whose chapters 
 may not be headed from the Book Divine. In 
 his "Cleon," Browning has taken his text from 
 the words of Paul; in "Caliban upon Setebos," 
 his text is found in Asaph's psalm, and the words 
 are, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such 
 a one as thyself." A word will set a great brain 
 on fire, as if the word were a torch and the brain 
 a pine-forest, and to thoughtful minds it must be 
 deeply interesting to know that this study in 
 psychology, which stands distinctly alone in 
 English literature and in universal literature, was 
 suggested by a phrase from the Book of God. 
 
 To begin with, Caliban is one of Shakespeare's 
 
8o . A Hkro and Somk Other Foi<k 
 
 finest conceptions in creative art. Caliban is as 
 certain in our thoughts as Ferdinand, Miranda, 
 or Prospero. He is become, by Shakespeare's 
 grace, a person among us who can not be ignored. 
 Study his biography in "The Tempest/' and find 
 how masterly the chief dramatist was in rendering 
 visible those forms lying in the shadow-land of 
 psychology. As Dowden has suggested, doubtless 
 Caliban's name is a poet's spelling, or anagram, of 
 "cannibal ;" and, beyond question, Setebos is a char- 
 acter in demonology, taken from the record of the 
 chronicler of Magellan's voyages, who pictures the 
 Patagonians, when taken captive, as roaring, and 
 "calling on their chief devil, Setebos." So far the 
 historical setting of Caliban and Sycorax and 
 Setebos. In character, Caliban and Jack Falstafi 
 are related by ties closer than those of blood. 
 Both are bestial, operating in different depart- 
 ments of society; but in the knig'ht, as in the 
 slave, only animal instincts dominate. Lust is 
 tyrant. Animality destroys all manhood, and 
 lowers to the slush and ooze of degradation every 
 one given over to its control, A man degraded 
 to the gross level of a beast because he prefers 
 the animal to the spiritual — this is Caliban. His 
 mind is atrophied, in part, because lust sins 
 against reason. Caliban is Prospero's slave, but 
 he is lust's slave more — a slavery grinding and 
 ignominious as servitude to Prospero can be. i 
 
Cai^iban 8 1 
 
 Prospero must always, in the widest sense, lord it 
 over Caliban, with his diminished understanding 
 and aggravated appetites, who vegetates rather 
 than lives. His days are narrow as the days of 
 browsing slieep and cattle ; but his soul knows the 
 lecherous intent, the petty hate, the cankerous 
 envy, the evil discontents, indigenous only to the 
 soul of man. Plainly, Caliban is man, not beast; 
 for his proclivities, while bestial, are still human. 
 In a beast is a certain dignity, in that action is 
 instinctive, irrevocable, and so far necessary. 
 Caliban is not so. He might be other than he is. 
 He is depraved, but yet a man, as Satan was an 
 angel, though fallen. The most profligate man 
 has earmarks of manhood on him that no beast 
 can duplicate. And Caliban (on whom Prospero 
 exhausts his vocabulary of epithets) attempting 
 rape on Miranda; scowling in ill-concealing hate 
 in service; playing truant in his task when from 
 under his master's eyes; traitor to Prospero, and, 
 as a co-conspirator with villains like himself, 
 planning his hurt; a compound of spleen, malig- 
 nancy, and murderous intent; irritated under 
 conditions ; failing to seize moral and manly posi- 
 tions with such ascendency as grows out of them, 
 yet full of bitter hate toward him who wears the 
 supremacy won by moral worth and mastery, — 
 really, Caliban seems not so foreign to our knowl- 
 edge after all. Such is Shakespeare's Caliban. 
 6 
 
82 A He;ro and Somk Other Foi<k 
 
 Him Browning lets us hear in a monologue. 
 Whoever sets man or woman talking for us does 
 us a service. To be a good listener is to be 
 astute. When anybody talks in our hearing, we 
 become readers of pages in his soul. He thinks 
 himself talking about things; while we, if wise, 
 know he is giving glimpses of Individual menio- 
 rablHa. Caliban is talking. He is talking to him- 
 self. He does not know anybody is listening; 
 therefore will there be in him nothing theatrical, 
 but his words will be sincere. He plays no part 
 now, but speaks his soul. 
 
 Browning is nothing if not bold. He attempts 
 things audacious as the voyages of Ulysses. 
 Nothing he has attempted impresses me as more 
 bold, if so bold, as this exploit of entering into 
 the consciousness of a besotted spirit, and stirring 
 that spirit to frame a system of theology. Nan- 
 sen's tramp along the uncharted deserts of the 
 Polar winter was not more brilliant in inception 
 and execution. Caliban Is a theorist In natural 
 theology. He is building a theological system as 
 certainly as Augustine or Calvin or Spinoza did. 
 This poem presents that satire which constitutes 
 Browning's humor. Conceive that he here satir- 
 izes those omniscient rationalists who demolish, at 
 a touch, all supernatural systems of theology, and 
 proceed to construct purely natural systems in 
 their place as devoid of vitality and inspiration as 
 
Caliban 83 
 
 dead tree-trunks are of vital saps. So conceive 
 this dramatic monologue, and the baleful humor 
 appears, and is captivating in its biting sarcasm 
 and unanswerable argument. Caliban is, in his 
 ovv^n opinion, omniscient. He trusts himself ab- 
 solutely. He is as infallible as the Positivists^ and 
 as full of information as the Agnostics, absurd as 
 such an attitude on their part must appear; for, 
 as Romanes has shown in his "Thoughts on Re- 
 ligion," the Agnostic must simply assert his in- 
 ability to know, and must not dogmatize as to 
 what Is or is not. So soon as he does, he has 
 ceased to be a philosophic Agnostic. Caliban's 
 theology, though grotesque, is not a whit more 
 so than much which soberly passes in our day 
 for "advanced thinking" and "new theolo'gy." 
 
 Some things are apparent in Caliban. He is 
 a man, not a beast, in that no beast has any com- 
 merce with the thought of God. Man is declared 
 man, not so much by thinking or by thinking's 
 instrument — language — as by his moral nature. 
 Man prays ; and prayer is the imprimatur of man's 
 manhood. Camels kneel for the reception of their 
 burdens, but never kneel to God. Only man has 
 a shrine and an altar. Such things, we are told, 
 are signs of an infantile state of civilization and 
 superstition; but they may be boldly affirmed to 
 be, in fact, infallible signs of the divinity of the 
 human soul. Caliban is thinking of his god, 
 
84 A Hi^RO AND Some; Other Foi^k 
 
 brutal, devilish; yet he thinks of a god, and that 
 Is a possibility as far above the brute as stars 
 are above the meadow-lands. He has a divinity. 
 He is dogmatist, as ignorance is bound to be. 
 He knows ; and distrust of himself or his con- 
 clusions is as foreign to him as to the rationalists 
 of our century and decade. Caliban makes a god. 
 The attempt would be humorous were it not pa- 
 thetic. If his conclusions are absurd^ they are 
 what might be anticipated when man engages 
 in the task of god-making. "Caliban upon Sete- 
 bos" is the reductio ad absurdum of the attempt 
 of man to create God. God rises not from man 
 to the firmament^ but falls from the firmament 
 to man. God does not ascend as the vapor, 
 but descends as the light. This is the wide mean- 
 ing of this uncanny poem. It is the sanity of 
 the leading poet of the nineteenth century, and 
 the greatest poet since Shakespeare, wbo' saw 
 clearly the inanity of so-called scientific conclu- 
 sions and godless theories of the evolution of 
 mankind. Mankind can not create God. God 
 creates mankind. All the man-made gods are 
 fashioned after the similitude ol Caliban's Setebos. 
 They are grotesque, carnal, devilish. Paganism 
 was but an installment of Caliban's theory. God 
 was a bigger man or woman, with aggravated 
 human characteristics, as witness Jove and Venus 
 and Hercules and Mars. Greek mythology is a 
 
Caliban 85 
 
 commentary on Caliban's monologue. For man 
 to evolve a god who shall be non-human, actually- 
 divine in character and conduct, is historically im- 
 possible. No man could create Christ. The at- 
 tempt to account for religion by evolution is a 
 piece of sorry sarcasm. Man has limitations. 
 Here is one. By evolution you can not explain 
 language, much less religion. Such is the lesson 
 of "Caliban upon Setebos." Shakespeare created 
 a brutalized man, a dull human slave, whom 
 Prospero drove as he would have driven a vicious 
 steed. This only, Shakespeare performed. Brown- 
 ing proposed to give this man to thought, to sur- 
 render him to the widest theme the mind has 
 knowledge of — 'to let him reason on God. How 
 colossal the conception! Not a man of our cen- 
 tury would have cherished such a conception but 
 Robert Browning. The design was unique, need- 
 ful, valuable, stimulative. The originality, audacity, 
 and brilliancy of the attempt are always a tonic 
 to my brain and spiritual nature. With good 
 reason has this poem been termed "extraordinary ;" 
 and that thinker and critic, James Mudge, has 
 named it "the finest illustration of grotesque art 
 in the language." 
 
 The picture of Caliban sprawling in the ooze, 
 brute instincts regnant, is complete and admirable. 
 Stealing time from service to be truant (seeing 
 Prospero sleeps), he gives him over to pure ani- 
 
86 A Hero and Somk Othkr Foi,k 
 
 mal enjoyment, when, on a sudden, from the 
 cavern where he lies, 
 
 "He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross 
 And recross till they weave a spider web. 
 Meshes of fire, 
 
 And talks to his own self howe'er he please, 
 Touching that other whom his dam called God;" 
 
 but talks of God, not as a promise of a better life, 
 but purely of an evil mind, 
 
 "Because to talk about Him vexes Prospero! 
 And it is good to cheat the pair [Miranda and Pros- 
 pero], and gibe. 
 Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech." 
 
 What a motive for thinking on the august 
 God ! He now addresses himself to the conceiv- 
 ing of a divinity. He thrusts his mother's beliefs 
 aside rudely, as a beast does the flags that stand 
 along its way in making journey to the stream 
 to slake its thirst. He is grossly self-sufificient. 
 He is boor and fool conjoined. Where wise men 
 and angels would move with reverent tread and 
 forehead bent to earth, he walks erect, unhum- 
 bled ; nay, without a sense of worship. How could 
 he or another find God so? The mood of prayer 
 is the mood of finding God. Who seeks Him 
 must seek with thought aflame with love. Cali- 
 ban's reasoning ambles like a' drunkard staggering 
 home from late debauch. His grossness shames 
 
Caliban 87 
 
 us. And yet were he only Caliban, and if he were 
 all alone, we could forget his maudlin speech — 
 but he is more. He is a voice of our own era. 
 His babblings are not more crude and irreveren- 
 tial than much that passes for profound thinking. 
 Nay, Caliban is our contemporaneous shame. He 
 asserts (he does not think — he asserts, settles 
 questions with a word) that Setebos created 
 not all things — the world and sun — 
 
 "But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;" 
 
 and this goodly frame of ocean and of sky and 
 earth came of Setebos. 
 
 "Being ill at ease, 
 
 He hated that he can not change his cold 
 
 Nor cure its ache." 
 
 His god is selfishness, operating on a huge 
 scale. But more, he 
 
 "Made all we see and us in spite: how else? 
 But did in envy, listlessness, or sport 
 Make what himself would fain in a manner be — 
 Weaker in most points, stronger in a few. 
 Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while." 
 
 Made them to plague, as Caliban would have 
 done. And caprice is Setebos's method. He does 
 things wantonly. No noble master passion flames 
 in him. No goodness blesses him. Such a god 
 Caliban makes, so that it is odds whether Caliban 
 make God or God make Caliban. Be sure, a 
 
88 A Hero and Some Other Foi.k 
 
 man-made god is like the man who made him. 
 The sole explanation of God, "who dwelleth in 
 light which no man can approach unto," and who 
 is whiter than the light in which he dwells, is, 
 he is not myth, man-made. God made man, and 
 revealed to him the Maker. Thus only do we 
 explain the surpassing picture the prophets and 
 the Christ and the evangelists have left us of the 
 mighty God. Caliban will persist in the belief 
 that the visible system was created in Setebos's 
 moment of being ill at ease and in cruel sportive- 
 ness. Nature is a freak of a foul mind. But 
 Caliban's god is not soHtary. How hideous were 
 the Aztec gods ! They were pictured horrors. 
 Montezuma's gods were Caliban's. Caliban's 
 Setebos was another Moloch of the Canaanites, or 
 a Hindoo Krishna. And the Greek and Norse 
 gods were the infirm shadows of the men who 
 dreamed them. Who says, after familiarizing 
 himself with the religions of the world, that Cali- 
 ban or his theology is myth? Setebos has no 
 m'orals. He has might. But this was Jupiter. 
 Read "Prometheus Bound," and know a Greek 
 conception of Greek Zeus : 
 
 "Such shows nor right nor wrong in him, 
 Nor kind nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 
 Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs 
 That march now from the tnountain to the sea; 
 Let twenty pass and stone the twenty-first, 
 Loving not, hating not, just choosing so." 
 
Caliban 89 
 
 How hideous this god, decrepit in all save 
 power ! But for argument, suppose 
 
 "He is good i' the main, 
 Placable if his mind and ways were guessed, 
 But rougher than his handiwork, be sure." 
 
 Caliban thinks Setebos is himself a creature, 
 made by something he calls "Quiet;" and what 
 is this but the Gnostic notion of ^ons and their 
 subordination to the great, hid God? No, this 
 brief dramatic lyric is far from being an imagina- 
 tion. Rather say it is a chapter taken from the 
 history of man's traffic in gods. Setebos is cre- 
 ative; lacks moral qualities in that he may be 
 evil or good ; acts from spleen, and by simple 
 caprice ; is loveless ; to be feared, deceived, 
 tricked, as Caliban tricks Prospero, — so run the 
 crude theological speculations of this man. He 
 gets no step nearer truth. He walks in circles. 
 He is shut in by common human Hmitations. 
 Man can not dream about the sky until he has 
 seen a sky, nor can he dream out God till God 
 has been revealed. Caliban is no more helpless 
 here than other men. His failure in theology is 
 a picture of the failure of all men. God must 
 show himself at Sinais and at Calvarys, at cross 
 and grave and resurrection and ascension; must 
 pass from the disclosure of his being the "I Am" 
 to those climacteric moments of the world when 
 
90 A He;ro and Some) Othsr Foi<k 
 
 he discovered to us that he was the "I am Love" 
 and the "I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 God is 
 
 "Terrible: watch his feats in proof! 
 
 One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. 
 
 He hath a spite against me, that I know, 
 
 Just as He favors Prospero ; who knows why? 
 
 So it is all the same as well I find. 
 
 . . . So much for spite." 
 
 There is no after-life. 
 
 "He doth His worst in this our life, 
 Giving just respite lest we die through pain, 
 Saving last pain for worst — with which, an end. 
 Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire 
 Is, not to seem too happy." 
 
 Poor Caliban, not to have known that in the 
 summer of man's joy our God grows glad ! All he 
 hopes is, 
 
 "Since evils sometimes mend. 
 Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime. 
 That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch 
 And conquer Setebos, or likelier he 
 Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die." 
 
 This is tragic as few tragedies know how to 
 be. Setebos is mean, revengeful, fitful^ spiteful, 
 everything but good and noble; and his votary 
 will live to hope that he will either be conquered 
 by a mightier or will slumber forever! 
 
 So Caliban creates a god, a cosmogony, a 
 
CaivIban 91 
 
 theology; gets no thought of goodness from God 
 or for himself; gets no sign of reformation in 
 character; rises not a cubit above the ground 
 where he constructs his monologue; puts into 
 God only what is in Caliban; has no faint hint 
 of love toward him from God, or from him toward 
 God, when suddenly 
 
 "A curtain o'er the world at once! 
 Crickets stop hissing; not a bird — or, yes, 
 There scuds His raven that has told Him all! 
 It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind 
 Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, 
 And fast invading fires begin! White blaze — 
 A tree's head snaps — and there, there, there, there, there, 
 His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! 
 Lo! 'Lieth fiat and loveth Setebos!" 
 
 And there, like a groveling serpent in the ooze, 
 there lies Caliban, abject in fear, with not a ray 
 of love. Hopeless, loveless, see him lie — a spec- 
 tacle sio sad as to make the ragged crags of ocean 
 weep! 
 
 So pitiful a theology, yet no more pitiful than 
 theologies created in our own epoch. Men, not 
 brutal but opinionated, assume to comprehend all 
 things, God included. They destroy and create 
 theologies with the flippant egotism of a French 
 chevalier of the days of the Grand Monarch. 
 They settle matters with a "Thus it is, and thus 
 it is not." Would not those men do well to read 
 
92 A HSRO AND SOMK OTHKR FoI,K 
 
 the parable, "Caliban upon Setebos?" Grant 
 Allen and Huxley would be generously helped; 
 for the more they would lose in dogmatism, so 
 much the more would they gain in wisdom. And 
 what is true of them is true of others of their fra- 
 ternity. This irony of Browning's is caustic, but 
 very wholesome. Barren as Caliban's theology 
 is, certain contemporary theologies are not less so. 
 A day to suffer and enjoy — and then the night, 
 long, dark, dreamless, eternal! 
 
 How sane Browning was ! What breadth of 
 meaning is here disclosed! What preacher of 
 this century has preached a more inspired sermon 
 than "Caliban upon Setebos?" He saw the ir- 
 rationality of rationalism. He knew that knowl- 
 edge of God came, as the new earth, "down from 
 God out of heaven." Men will do better to receive 
 theologies from God than to create them. A life 
 we may live, having the Pattern "showed us in the 
 mount." Christ gives the lie to Caliban's estimate 
 of Deity. Not spite, nor misused might, nor 
 caprice, nor life surcharged with either indiffer- 
 ence or spleen; but love and ministry and fertile 
 thought and wide devotion to others' good, an 
 oblation of Himself — this is God, of whom Cali- 
 ban had no dream, and of whom the Christ was 
 exegete. 
 
IV 
 
 William the Silent 
 
 FEW illustrious characters are so little known 
 as William the Silent. His face has faded 
 from the sky of history as glory from a sunset 
 cloud; though, on attention, reasons why this 
 is so may not be difficult to find. Some of them 
 are here catalogued : He did not live to celebrate 
 the triumph of his statesmanship. The nation 
 whose autonomy and independence he secured is 
 no longer a Republic, and so has, in a measure, 
 ceased to bear the stamp of his genius. The nar- 
 row limits of his theater of action; for the Belgic 
 States were a trifling province of Philip Second's 
 stupendous empire, stretching, as it did, from 
 Italy to the farthest western promontory of the 
 New World. A theater is something. Throw a 
 heroic career on a world theater, such as Julius 
 Caesar had, and men will look as they would on 
 burning Moscow. The scene prevents obscura- 
 tion. And last, Holland has, in our days, passed 
 into comparative inconsequence, and presents few 
 symptoms of that strength which once aspired to 
 the rulership of the oceans. 
 
 93 
 
94 A Hero and Soms Othe;r Folk 
 
 The Belgic provinces were borrowed from the 
 ocean by an industry and audacity which must 
 have astonished the sea, and continues a glory to 
 those men who executed the task, and to all men 
 everywhere as well, since deeds of prowess or 
 genius, wrought by one man or race, inure to the 
 credit of all men and all races, achievement being, 
 not local, but universal. These Netherlands, lying 
 below sea-levels, became the garden-spot of 
 Europe, nurturing a thrifty, capable people, 
 possessing positive genius in industry, so that 
 they not only grew in their fertile soil food for 
 nations, if need be, but became weavers of fabrics 
 for the clothing of aristocracies in remote nations ; 
 this, in turn, leading of necessity to a commerce 
 which was, in its time, for the Atlantic what that 
 of Venice had been to the Mediterranean ; for the 
 Netherlanders were as aquatic as sea-birds, seem- 
 ing to be more at home on sea than on dry land. 
 This is a brief survey of those causes which made 
 Flanders, though insignificant in size, a princi- 
 pality any king might esteem riches. In the era 
 of William the Silent the Netherlands had reached 
 an acme of relative wealth, influence, and com- 
 manding Importance, and supplied birthplace and 
 cradle to the Emperor Charles V, who, for thirty- 
 seven years (reaching from 1519 to 1556) was 
 the controlling force in European politics. This 
 ruler was grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 
WlI^LIAM THK SlIyENT 95 
 
 and thus of interest to Americans, whose thought 
 must be riveted on any one connected, however 
 remotely, with the discovery of this New World, 
 which supplies a stage for the latest and greatest 
 experiment in civilization and liberty, religion, and 
 individual opportunity. Low as Spain has now 
 fallen, we can not be oblivious to the fact how that, 
 on a day, Columbus, rebuffed by every ruler and 
 every court, found at the Spanish court a queen 
 who listened to his dream, and helped the dreamer, 
 because the enthusiasm and eloquence of this 
 arch-pleader lifted this sovereign, for a moment at 
 least, above herself toward the high level where 
 Columbus himself stood ; and that she staked her 
 jewels on the casting of this die must always 
 glorify Queen Isabella, and shine some glory on 
 the nation whose sovereign she was. For such 
 reason we are predisposed in Charles V's favor. 
 He is as a messenger from one we love, whom we 
 love because of whence he comes. His mother, 
 Joanna, died, crazed and of a broken heart, from 
 the indifference, perfidy, and neglect of her hus- 
 band, Philip, Archduke of Austria. Her story 
 reads like a novelist's plot, and reasonably too; 
 for every fiction of woman's fidelity in love and 
 boundlessness and blindness of affection is bor- 
 rowed from living woman's conduct. Woman 
 originates heroic episodes, her love surviving the 
 wildest winter of cruelty and neglect, as if a 
 
96 A Hero and Somu Othkr FoIvK 
 
 flower prevailed against an Arctic climate, despite 
 the month-long night and severity of frosts, and 
 still opened petals and dispensed odors as blossom- 
 ing in daytime and sunlight of a far, fair country. 
 The story of Joanna and Mary Tudor read sur- 
 prisingly alike. In reading these old chronicles, one 
 would think woman's lot was melancholy as a dreary 
 day of uninterrupted rain. Doubtless her lot is 
 ameliorated in these better days, when she is not 
 chattel but sovereign, and gives her hand where 
 her heart has gone before. But Queen Mary, dy- 
 ing alone, longing for her Philip, who cared for 
 her as much as a falcon for singing-birds, turning 
 her dying eyes southward where her PhiHp was, 
 moaning, "On my heart, when I am dead, you 
 will find PhiHp's name written!" — Mary Tudor 
 was an echo of the pain and cry of Joanna, Phil- 
 ip's grandmother, a princess lacking in beauty of 
 person and in sprightliness and culture of mind. 
 Indeed, her intellect was weak to the verge of 
 insanity; her love for her husband, the Archduke 
 of Austria, doting, and its exhibition extravagant; 
 and her jealousy, for whose exercise there was 
 ample opportunity, insane and passionate. One 
 thing she was, and that — a lover. Her husband 
 was a sun ; and the less he shined on her, the more 
 did she pine for his light. Than this, the history 
 of kingly conjugal relations , has few sadder chap- 
 ters. Archduke Philip was young, engaging. 
 
WlI<LIAM THE S1I.ENT 97 
 
 affable, fond of society, preferring the Netherlands 
 to Spain, and anything to his wife's companion- 
 ship. Joanna and Philip were prospective heirs 
 to the crowns of Castile and Aragon, and, as was 
 clearly wise, were urged by Queen Isabella to 
 oome to Spain, and be acknowledged as expectant 
 sovereigns by the Cortes of both kingdoms. 
 This was done. Here Duke Philip grew restless, 
 eager for the Netherlands, and, despite the en- 
 treaties of Ferdinand, Isabella, and his wife, set 
 out for the Low Countries three days before 
 Christmas, leaving his wafe alone to give birth to 
 a son, than which a more heartless deed has not 
 been credited even to the account of a king. 
 But without him, Joanna sunk into a hopeless and 
 irremediable melancholy; and was sullenly rest- 
 less without him till his return to Brussels in the 
 succeeding year. Philip's coldness inflamed her 
 ardor. Three months after Joanna and Philip 
 had been enthroned sovereigns of Castile, Philip 
 sickened and died with his brief months of king- 
 ship. His death totally disordered an understand- 
 ing already pitifully weak. Her grief was tear- 
 less and pitiful. To quote the words of Prescott : 
 "Her grief was silent and settled. She continued 
 to watch the dead body with the same tenderness 
 and attention as if it had been alive, and though 
 at last she permitted it to be buried, she soon re- 
 moved it from the tomb to her own apartment;" 
 7 
 
98 A He;ro and Some; Other Foi.k 
 
 and she made it "her sole employment to bewail 
 the loss and pray for the soul of her husband." 
 Of such a weak though loyal and sorrowing 
 mother was Charles V bom at Ghent, February 
 24, 1500, who, at the age of sixteen, was left by 
 the will of his godfather, Ferdinand, sole heir of 
 his dominions ; and at the age of nineteen he was 
 chosen Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 
 Fortune conspired to do him homage. Charles 
 was little inclined to the study of the humanities, 
 but fond of martial exercise, and, though neglect- 
 ing general learning, studied, with avidity and 
 success, history and the theory and practice of 
 government, and accustomed himself to practical 
 management of affairs in the government of the 
 Netherlands, as early as 15 15 attending the de- 
 liberations of the Privy Council. He was, as a 
 youth, a prince of whom a realm would naturally 
 feel proud, though he scarcely displayed those 
 qualities which were afterward his chief character- 
 istics. In 1 5 16, King Ferdinand, dying, left 
 Cardinal Ximenes regent of Castile, thus bringing 
 Charles into contact with one of the foremost states- 
 men of Spanish history. Ximenes was rigorously 
 ascetic in his life, and absolutely irreproachable in 
 his morals, in an age when the clergy were 
 excessively corrupt. He doubled his fasts, wore 
 a hair shirt, slept on the bare ground, scourged him- 
 self with assiduity and ardor; became the con- 
 
Wllrl^IAM THIS SlIvENT 99 
 
 fessor of Oneen Isabella, and therefore of great 
 political importance, inasmuch as she followed 
 his counsel, not alone in things spiritual, but 
 also in things temporal. Severe in his sanctity^ 
 he demanded the same of his brethren, and re- 
 formed the Franciscans, over whom he had been 
 put despite frantic opposition. In the face of his 
 own disinclination and determined refusal to ac- 
 cept the ofHce, he was impelled, by means of a 
 second papal bull, to accept the episcopate of 
 Toledo, the highest ecclesiastical honor in Spain ; 
 but under his episcopal robes still wore his coarse 
 monk's frock. The nobles of Castile were agreed 
 to intrust that kingdom's affairs in his hands at 
 the death of Philip, and after the death of Ferdi- 
 nand the regency devolved upon him; and in 
 the midst of a turbulent nobility, he ruled as born 
 to kingship. Charles continued him in power 
 after he had assumed the kingdom, but made such 
 lawless demands on the Spanish people as to 
 bring Ximenes into ill favor among those for 
 whom he administered. At the last he tasted 
 that ingratitude so characteristic of Charles, and 
 was virtually superseded in his regency, but had 
 lived long enough to disclose a mind and force 
 which entitle him to a high rank among the 
 statesmen of the world. At the beginning of his 
 reign, Charles had begun that series of ingrati- 
 tudes and betrayals which ended only with his 
 
 L.cfC. 
 
loo A Hkro and Some; Other FoIvK 
 
 abdication. Charles V was a braggadocio, a ty- 
 rant, a sensualist, without honor, and without 
 nobility. The surprise grows on us, perceiving 
 such a man courted, feted, honored, and arbiter 
 of the destinies of Europe for thirty-seven years. 
 I do not find one virtue in him. In Julius 
 Caesar, a voluptuary and red with carnage, there 
 were yet multitudinous virtues. We do not wonder 
 men loved him and were glad to die for him. He 
 had a soul, and honor, and remembrance of 
 friendship. He was a genius, superlative and be- 
 wildering. We can forget and forgive some things 
 in such a man; but for such a sovereign as 
 Charles V, what can we say, save that he was not 
 so execrable as Philip H, his son? Charles, be- 
 ing Flemish in birth, both Flanders and himself 
 considered him less Spaniard than Belgian. He 
 was Emperor first and King of Spain afterward; 
 and in Flanders he set the pageant of his abdi- 
 cation. 
 
 In the court of Charles V, William the Silent 
 was reared, being sent hither of his father, at 
 Charles's request, to be brought up in the em- 
 peror's household as a prospective public serv- 
 ant, and was dear to the monarch, so far as any 
 one could be dear to him ; and the emperor, at his 
 abdication, leaned on Orange, then a youth of 
 but twenty-one. To what an extent he compre- 
 hended so humane a sentiment, Charles had been 
 
WiiviviAM TH3S Silent ioi 
 
 tender with the Netherlands because of his hfe- 
 long- relation to its people. He looked a Nether- 
 lander rather than a Spaniard, and felt one, so 
 that, so far as he showed favors, he showed them 
 to this opulent people. Charles, with his many 
 faults, had yet a rude geniality, which softened or 
 seemed to soften his asperity toward those 
 about him. 
 
 In Philip, his son, was not even this slight 
 redemptive quality. On October 25, 1555, at the 
 age of fifty-five, worn out prematurely with 
 lecherousness, gormandizing, lust of power, and 
 recent defeats, Charles V abdicated in favor of 
 his son, Philip. As they two stand on the dais 
 at this solemn ceremony, it were well to take a 
 close look at father and son. They are contrasts, 
 as pronounced as valley and mountain^ and yet 
 possess characteristics of evil in common. 
 Charles was knit together like an athlete, his 
 shoulders were broad and his chest deep ; his face 
 was ugly to the measure of hideousness ; his 
 lower jaw protruded so as to make it impossible 
 for his teeth to meet, and his speech was for that 
 reason barely intelligible. A voracious eater, an 
 incessant talker, adventurous, a bom soldier, fond 
 of tournament, spectacular in war and peace and 
 abdication, now crippled in hands and legs, he 
 stands, a picture of decrepitude, ready to give 
 away a crown he can no longer wear. Philip, the 
 
I02 A Hkro and Some) Othkr Foi^k 
 
 son, is thin and fragile to look upon, diminutive 
 in stature; in face, resembling his father in 
 "heavy, hanging lip, vast mouth, and monstrously 
 protruding lower jaw. His complexion was fair, 
 his hair light and thin^ his beard yellow, short, 
 and pointed. He had the aspect of a Fleming, 
 but the loftiness of a Spaniard. His demeanor in 
 public was silent, almost sepulchral. . He looked 
 habitually on the ground when he conversed, was 
 chary of speech, embarrassed, and even suffering 
 in manner." Such is the new king as we see him; 
 and Motley has put our observations into words 
 for us. But if in looks there were manifest 
 resemblances and extreme divergencies, in charac- 
 ter they were wide apart. Charles was soldier, 
 first and always ; Philip was a man for the cabinet, 
 having neither inclination nor ability for general- 
 ship. To lead an army was Charles's pride and 
 delight — things Philip could not and would not 
 attempt. Charles was for the open air, sky, con- 
 tinent; Philip was for the cloister, and spent his 
 life immured as if he had been a monk. In 
 Charles was bravado, impudence, intolerable ego- 
 tism, atrocious lack of honor, but there was a dash 
 about him as about Marshal Ney or Prince Joachin 
 Murat ; Philip was stolid, vindictive, incapable of 
 enthusiasm or friendship. Charles ruled Spain as 
 a principality; Philip held the world as a princi- 
 pality of Spain. As has been indicated, Charles 
 
WlIvIrlAM the: SlIvlBNT 103 
 
 was Spanish in relationship and not in disposi- 
 tion; PhiHp was Spaniard to the exclusion of all 
 else. Charles, if he was anything, was brilliant; 
 Philip was as lacking in color as a bank of winter 
 clouds, no more conceiving brilliancy than he con- 
 ceived of greatness of soul or manly honor. 
 
 In Spanish character were chivalrous qualities, 
 mixed with ferocity and pitiless cruelty. Pizarro 
 and Cortes were attractive; we like to look at 
 them a second time. Much we condemn, but 
 much we admire. Their sagacity, their prowess, 
 their heroic spirit, take us captive despite their 
 baser qualities. In them was duplicity, revenge, 
 bigotry, iheathenish cruelty; but these were not 
 all the qualities the inventory discovered. In 
 Philip, however, were all the Spanish villainies 
 without the Spanish virtues. He is blessed with 
 scarcely a redeeming quality. His excellencies 
 were a stolid inability to believe himself defeated, 
 which, had it been joined to patriotism and intel- 
 ligent action, had risen to the heroic ; he was loyal to 
 his convictions ; and he was painstakingly laborious, 
 and worked in his cabinet like a paid clerk. In 
 truth, his disposition for and ability to work are 
 among the most marked instances in history. Not 
 Julius Caesar himself worked with more unflagging 
 industry. But Philip had no illuminated moments. 
 His toil was blind, like a mole's progress. He 
 read and annotated all state dispatches; wrote 
 
I04 A Hero and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 many long epistles with his own hand^ eschewing 
 secretarial aid. He had a mind capacious for 
 minutiae ; was :olossally egotistical ; was as little cast 
 down by defeat as elevated by triumph, which 
 is in itself a quality of heroic mold, but viewed 
 narrowly turns out to be imperturbable phlegmati- 
 cism and self-assurance, which simply underrated 
 disasters, making himself oblivious to them as if 
 they did not exist. He was possessor of the 
 greatest realm ever swayed by a single scepter. 
 He afifected to be proprietor of the seas; he 
 thought Flanders a garden to be tilled to supply 
 his table, and its wealth, gold for him to squander 
 on Armadas. Italian provinces were his, and 
 Spain was his; and the Western Hemisphere, by 
 his own daring assumption, and the generosity of 
 the papal gift, and the toils of Ponce de Leon and 
 de Soto and Coronado and Pizarro and Cortes, 
 was his. Compared with the wide and bewilder- 
 ing extent of his kingdom, the Roman Empire 
 was a dukedom. His empire spurred him to 
 world-dominion, and he used his patrimony and 
 its fabulous wealth to attempted enforcement of 
 his claim to the sovereignty of England and West- 
 ern Europe. His ambition was in nothing less 
 than Alexander's, but his conception of means 
 adequate to campaigns was meager. A task he 
 could see and a kingdom he' could desire, but 
 adequacy of preparation for world-conquest never 
 
WlIvIwIAM THK S1I.ENT 105 
 
 crept into his thought. He was as niggardly in 
 supplying his generals and armies as Queen Eliza- 
 beth, and all but as voluble in abuse of his serv- 
 ants in the field or cabinet, and as thankless to 
 those who had wrought his will. Parma^ and 
 Requesens, and Don John, and Alva, he drove 
 almost frantic by his excessive demands and ex- 
 pectations, coupled with his entire inadequacy in 
 preparation and supplies. His soldiers were al- 
 ways on the point of mutiny for food, or clothing, 
 or pay, or all together. However, this ought in 
 fairness to be said, that the only contemporary 
 Government which did pay its soldiers pro'mptly 
 and fairly was the Netherlands, one reason worth 
 weighing why, under Prince Maurice in particular, 
 Flemish armies made such vigorous head against 
 Spanish aggressions. 
 
 Just two people Philip gave consideration to — 
 himself and the pope. His narrow nature, while 
 not capable of enthusiasm, was capable of a tena- 
 cious and unflagging loyalty. What in a manly- 
 spirit or in a martyr would have bloomed into 
 nobility, devotion, and self-sacrifice, in a man like 
 Philip became a settled cruelty and bigotry which 
 finds few parallels in the annals of the world. 
 He was a creature of the Church, as he conceived 
 all in his dominions were creatures to him. 
 Free will and the right to conviction he did not 
 claim for himself and would not consider for 
 
io6 A Hero and Somk Other Foi,k 
 
 others. The world was an autocracy, universal, 
 necessary, the pope as chief tyrant and PhiHp 
 under-lord — ^^he must obey the pope; the people 
 must obey him. To Philip these conclusions were 
 axiomatic, and therefore not subjects for debate. 
 That all his subjects did not readily concede to 
 him the right to be the director of their conscience 
 was looked upon as unreasoning stubbornness, to 
 be punished with block and rack, and prison and 
 stake. 
 
 Philip is anomalous. We can not get into a 
 mind like his. Statesman he was not; for the 
 nurture of national wealth, such as Cromwell and 
 Caesar planned for, he was incapable of. His 
 idea of statesmanship was that his kingdom was 
 a cask, into which he should insert a spigot and 
 draw. This was government of an ideal order, 
 Philip being judge. The divine right of kings 
 was a foregone conclusion, antagonism to which 
 was heresy. Here let us not blame Philip ; for 
 this was the temper of his era, and to have antici- 
 pated in him larger views than those of his con- 
 temporaries is not just. To this notion was his 
 whole nature keyed. He commanded the Nether- 
 lands to be faithful Catholics. What more was 
 needed? Let this be the end. So reasoned the 
 Spanish autocrat; and fealty to religious convic- 
 tions on his subjects' part Seemed to him noth- 
 ing but settled obstinacy, to be burned out with 
 
WlIvIylAM THK SlI,:eNT 107 
 
 martyrs' fires or cut out with swords swung by 
 Alva's cruel hands. 
 
 Philip was the ideal bigot. How far bigotry 
 is native to the soul m'ay well be a question for 
 grave discussion, demanding possibly more atten- 
 tion than has been accorded it hitherto. And 
 how far is bigotry to be looked on as a vice? 
 Though this question will be laughed down, as 
 if to ask it were to stultify the asker; but not so 
 fast, since bigotry is not all bad. To hold an 
 opinion is considered a virtue. To hold an opinion 
 of righteousness against all odds for conscience' 
 sake, we rightly account heroism. Is not a lover 
 or a patriot a bigot? Or if not, where does he 
 miss of being? We are to hold opinion and not 
 become opinionated, a thing discovered to be 
 difficult in an extreme degree. 
 
 Bigotry is an excess of a virtue, and to pass 
 from conscientiousness to bigotry is not a long 
 nor difficult journey. All views are not equally 
 true. This every sane mind holds as self-evident. 
 There is a liberalism at this point which would 
 run, if let go its logical course, to the sophist 
 fallacy that truth did not exist, and therefore one 
 view was as just as another — an attitude repugnant 
 to all fine ethical natures. Now, conceiving we 
 have the truth, we must, in reason and in con- 
 science, be in so far intoler.ant to those who an- 
 tagonize the truth. The theist is intolerant toward 
 
io8 A H^RO AND Some; Other Foi<k 
 
 the atheist; truth is intolerant toward falsehood; 
 good is intolerant toward evil; God intolerant 
 toward sin. Righteousness is always intolerant; 
 and any one advocating unlimited intellectual 
 tolerance is breaking down the primary distinctions 
 between falsehood and truth. Some things are 
 true and their opposites false. Jesus put the case 
 in an immortal phrase : ''Ye can not serve God 
 and Mammon." The query, then, is. Where does 
 this intolerance of truth pass into bigotry? For 
 I think it easy to see that this passage is but a 
 step, nor is the dividing line so easy to discover 
 as we might wish. Ask this question, to illustrate 
 our dilemma, "What is the difference between 
 legitimate competition and monopoly?" An an- 
 swer rises to the lip instanter, but is no sooner 
 given than perceived to be invalid. A like close- 
 ness of relation exists between the virtue of in- 
 tolerance and the vice of intolerance, a synonym 
 of which is bigotry. Virtue is intolerant of vice, 
 and there are great verities in the kingdom of 
 God to be held if life must pay the price of their 
 retention. This is the explanation of martyrs, 
 whose office is to witness to truth by cross and 
 sword and fagot. The Reformation stands for 
 the right of free judgment in things appertaining 
 to religion, thought, and politics. Luther was 
 liberator of Europe, and through Europe of the 
 world, in the three departments where life lives 
 
Wii,i,iAM the; Sii<e;nt 109 
 
 its thrilling story. A tolerant intolerance holds 
 with strong hand to truth, but demands for others 
 •what it demands for itself; namely, the right to 
 interpret and follow truth so far as such pro- 
 cedure does not interfere with the rights of an- 
 other. Tolerance of this sort does not destroy, 
 nor yet surrender, conviction. Bigotry demands 
 the enforcement of its opinions upon all, and is 
 a reign of compulsion. Applying this argument 
 to Philip, a noteworthy bigot, we see how it was 
 his right to be a Roman Catholic and to be a 
 zealous propagandist, since kingship does not 
 hinder a king from being a man, with a man's 
 religious rights and duties. Philip's fault lay in 
 his not allowing to others the right of religious 
 freedom himself possessed. He stands, to this 
 hour, a perfect specimen of intolerance. 
 
 Under sovereignty such as this was William 
 the Silent citizen. William, Prince of Orange, was 
 bom in Nassau, April 2.-^, 1533, and was assas- 
 sinated at the convent of St. Agatha, in Delft, 
 July 10, 1584, when a trifle over fifty-one years 
 ol age. Let us get our chronological bearings 
 accurately: Luther died in 1546; Lepanto was 
 fought in 1 571 ; the Massacre of St. Bartholomew 
 occurred in 1572; the Invincible Armada was 
 destroyed in 1588; Philip was crowned king in 
 October of 1555, and died at the Escurial in 1598; 
 the Spanish Inquisition was established in 1480 
 
no A Hkro and Some Other FoIvK 
 
 by Ferdinand and Isabella; the Edict of Nantes 
 was promulgated in 1598; Queen Elizabeth 
 Tudor ascended her throne in 1558; America 
 received her first permanent colony in 1585, at St. 
 Augustine, Florida. From this assemblage of 
 dates, we see in what a ferment of momentous 
 civil, religious, and political events the Prince of 
 Orange found his life cast. We may not choose 
 our time to live, not yet our time to die ; but some 
 eras are spacious above others, not length, but 
 achievement, making an age illustrious. William 
 the Silent's age was a maelstrom of events, and 
 there were no quiet waters; and this appears 
 certain: The dominant force of those turbulent 
 times was religious, by which I mean that religion 
 is the key of all movements, politics being shaped 
 by theological dogmas and purposes. These 
 dates certify to the omnipresence of religious 
 movement; for the Inquisition, Lepanto, the great 
 Armada, the Edict of Nantes, the Massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, are all ecclesiastical in intent, by 
 which is not at all meant they were good, but were 
 perverted religious views, in which human wicked- 
 ness, ambition, and bigotry pre-empted religion, 
 and used it as a medium of expression, and in 
 turn were used by the thing they bad fostered. 
 No moTe prevalent misconception prevails than 
 that religion is the cause of outrageous violence, 
 disorder, and misconduct; the truth being, rather,,, 
 
WllvIvIAM THS SlI<KNT III 
 
 men's passions, under guise of religion, rush their 
 own wanton course. In this particular era of his- 
 tory, all movements were religious, as has been 
 shown; and Philip thought himself the apostle of 
 rehgion, chosen of God, and was used by the 
 Roman CathoHc Church, and, as a wise historian 
 affirms, "In fanatical enthusiasm for Catholicism, 
 he was surpassed by no man who ever lived." His 
 religion and his ambition were fellow-conspirators. 
 Philip II of Spain was a Roman Catholic fanatic ; 
 Charles IX of France was a weak mind, of no 
 definite religious conviction, but used by the 
 Catholics to bring about the massacre of seventy 
 thousand Huguenots ; Henry IV of France was 
 probably a Huguenot in genuine feeling, but a 
 political trimmer, a daring and brilliant soldier, a 
 frenzied devotee of women, religion giving him 
 small concern, and his change from Huguenotism 
 to Catholicism a circumstance as trifling as the 
 exchange of his hunter's paraphernalia for court 
 apparel ; Queen Elizabeth was as nearly devoid 
 of 'religious instincts as is possible for a woman, 
 though her purposes and position in politics drove 
 her to the Protestant cause; William of Orange 
 was born a Protestant, reared a Catholic, first in 
 the household of the Regent of the Low coun- 
 tries, and afterward at the court of Charles V, 
 suffered revulsion of sentiment under the unthink- 
 able atrocities of the Inquisition as carried on in 
 
112 A He;ro and Some; Othbr Foi,k 
 
 the Netherlands, till at last he became a Protest- 
 ant of the most pronounced and honest type. 
 
 In Prince William's time, modern Europe was 
 in the alembic, a circumstance which makes his 
 epoch so engrossing to the student of modem his- 
 tory. Protestantism became a new political, social, 
 intellectual, and religious order. Even apart 
 from his religious significance, Martin Luther is 
 the marked figure of the sixteenth century. Co- 
 lumbus discovered a New World; Luther peopled 
 it with civil and religious forces. Puritanism was 
 the flower of that earlier-day Protestantism. 
 Besides, the Walloons settled New Amsterdam; 
 the Huguenots, the Carolinas ; the Anglicans, 
 Virginia ; the Lutherans, New Sweden. From 
 the standpoint of statesmanship, Luther was 
 shaping peoples for a New World, and was the 
 commanding personality of those stormy years in 
 which, like a warrior who never knew fatigue, he 
 fought the battles of the living God. Unquestion- 
 ably^, the Reformation meant liberty in conscience, 
 intellect and citizenship, which are the quint- 
 essence of modern civilization. In those years, 
 during which William the Silent was a prodigious 
 force. Protestantism was troubling the waters. 
 New religious ideas must ultimate in new political 
 institutions, of which the Dutch Republic was a 
 sort of first draft, and. the United States of 
 America an edited and perfected draft. 
 
WlIvI^IAM THE SlIvENT II3 
 
 Protestantism was in justifiable revolt against 
 Roman Catholicism, a foe to progress and liberty 
 in religion, then and now, and now not less than 
 then. It was intolerance run mad, whose method 
 was the Inquisition. One can not say a good word 
 for this system, where Jesuitism finds home and 
 inspiration, where the end justifies the means, and 
 any diabolism passes for saintliness if done for the 
 advancement of the "true faith." Yet here, as al- 
 ways, we must be on guard, supposing this to 
 be a fruit of religion ; rather is it selfish human 
 nature, taking an ecclesiastical system to do 
 business in, thus availing itself of the religious 
 impulse in the soul to work out a purely earthly 
 interest. Early Christianity, as all pure Chris- 
 tianity^ presses Christ's method of making appeal 
 to the individual, impressing him with a sense 
 of his sin and his lost estate; of the necessity 
 of repentance; of salvation from sin by faith in a 
 Divine Christ. When Christianity came to the 
 throne with Constantine, when ultimately masses 
 of people were baptized on compulsion, Christian- 
 ity took on the pomp and paraphernalia of hea- 
 thenism, so as to make appeal to the sensuous 
 element in heathen nature; in a word, Christianity 
 became as miich or more heathen than Christian, 
 and this mongrel of Christianity and heathenism 
 is Roman Catholicism. Root, stem, and branch, 
 it Is hostile to the Word of God, and, as every 
 
I '' 
 
 114 A Hkro and Somk Othe;r Folk 
 
 such system must do, darkened the consciences 
 of men. We may not forget, however, its essen- 
 tial rehgious and scholastic services in earlier 
 years, nor that it has nurtured some of tihe saints 
 among the centuries. Catholicism has a basis of 
 Christianity, and, could the excrescences be hewn 
 away, and this foundation be again discovered, 
 then for Roman Catholicism would dawn a new 
 and greater era. But as the system stands, it af- 
 fected temporal sovereignty, it humbled kings, and 
 gave away empires. Pope Leo X was not a bad 
 man, being so far superior to Alexander XII as 
 to preclude comparison. Many popes had been so 
 vile as to have shocked even the moral indiffer- 
 ence of those times ; but Leo X, son of Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent, heir of the traditions in com- 
 panionship and the humanities which had made 
 Florence illustrious, — Leo, cultivated, brilliant, 
 clean in his personal life, had assembled around 
 him men reasonably good. His aesthetic inclina- 
 tions were running him deeply in debt, and to fill 
 the bankrupt treasury, His Holiness commissioned 
 Tetzel to sell indulgences — a practice repugnant to 
 moral instinct, to the dignity of the Church, and 
 the honor of our God, and yet a practice contin- 
 ued by Romanism in our own day and under our 
 own eyes. To suppose that Romanism has re- 
 formed is current with intelligent persons, though 
 no supposition could be more erroneous. All those 
 
WlIvLIAM THK SlIvKNT 115 
 
 beliefs prevalent in the days of Luther are afifirmed 
 at this hour, with the addition of the doctrine of 
 papal infallibility and the immaculate conception. 
 To-day indulgences are sold in the United States, 
 noticeably so in Arizona; and a son of a bishop 
 in the Methodist Episcopal Church, because his 
 name chanced to have a foreign flavor, was writ- 
 ten to and offered one year's indulgences for twenty- 
 five dollars ! Catholicism has not changed. The 
 Inquisition was abolished in Spain by Napoleon 
 in 1808, re-established after the Spaniards had re- 
 assumed their government, and finally abolished 
 by the Cortes in 1820. The system of Catholicism 
 is leprous, and in the age of William the Silent 
 had power and political ascendency so as to com- 
 mand rack and fagot, and dungeons so deep as 
 that from them no cry could reach any ear save 
 God's ; and in the person of the mean, sullen, and 
 indefatigable Philip bad apt instrument. 
 
 When the Prince of Orange was ambassador 
 in the court of France, Henry II, supposing him 
 to be privy to his master's plans, on a hunting- 
 excursion, casually mentioned a private treaty 
 with Alva to join with Philip to exterminate 
 heresy from their joint kingdoms. Small wonder 
 if Orange, riding beside French royalty that day, 
 grew pitiful toward unsuspicious, doomed thou- 
 sands, and pitiless toward Philip and his Spanish 
 soldiers and followers, or that, to use his own 
 
ii6 A Hero and Some; Othe;r Foi,e 
 
 words from the famous "Apology," "From that 
 moment I determined in earnest to clear the 
 Spanish venom from the land." Watch his flushed 
 face; his eyes, like coals taken fresh from an altar 
 of vengeance; his hand, nervously fingering his 
 sword-hilt; his form, dilating as if for the first 
 time he guessed he had come to manhood, — and 
 I miss in reckoning if we are not looking on the 
 person of a patriot. For this William of Orange 
 and Nassau is William the Silent, keeping his 
 dreadful secret; but keeping the secret, too, that 
 the Inquisition and Catholicism, and Spain, and 
 Philip have an enemy whose hostility can only be 
 silenced by a bullet. The day the French king 
 gave William this fatal confidence was an epoch 
 in the life of William and of Europe. 
 
 His life divides into two periods, this dialogue 
 between himself and Henry II closing the one 
 and opening the other. With that fatal confidence 
 his youth ended and his manhood began. Get a 
 closer view of his youth. From his fifteenth to 
 his twenty-first year he was in constant attend- 
 ance at the court of Charles V, who loved, 
 trusted, and honored him. He was at this age, 
 rich, frivolous^ spendthrift ; in short, a petted noble- 
 man of the greatest monarch in Christendom. 
 He had evident gifts ; was generous to lavishness ; 
 mortgaged his estate to* gratify his luxurious 
 tastes ; was given to political expediency, caring 
 
Wiivi^iAM the; Sii,:e;nt 117 
 
 less for conviction than popularity with his sover- 
 eign ; wearing his rehgion, if he may be said to 
 have possessed any, as Hghtly as a lady's favor; 
 lacking in reverence, he was flippant rather than 
 irreHgioiis, but a youth of fashion, pleasure, and 
 luxury. Charles V, discovering in him extraor- 
 dinary parts, invested him, at the age of twenty- 
 two, with command of the imperial forces before 
 Marienburg, and at his abdication leaned affec- 
 tionately on William's shoulder. Count Egmont 
 alone excepted, Orange was the most distinguished 
 Flemish nobleman who passed from Charles to 
 Philip as part of the emperor's bequest. Early 
 in Philip's reign, Orange was made one of the 
 king's counselors and Knight of the Golden 
 Fleece, at that time most coveted and honorable 
 of any military knighthood. At the age of 
 twenty-six, he was one of the peace commissioners 
 between Henry II and Philip II_, and at this time 
 he came into possession of that secret which 
 changed his life. Here ends the youth of William 
 of Nassau. Let us get this man more clearly 
 in the eye. He was above middle height, spare, 
 sinewy ; dark in complexion ; ihad gentle brown 
 eyes, auburn hair and beard; face thin, nose 
 aquiline; head small, but well formed; his hair 
 luxuriant, his beard trimmed to a point; about his j 
 neck the superb collar of the Golden Fleece. He 
 is married, and his home is Breda. 
 
ii8 A He;ro and Som:^ Othkr FoIvK 
 
 Between the young king and his Flemish 
 Stadtholder was never any warmth of feeHng. 
 When Orange, pursuant to ihis resolution formed 
 in the French king's presence, spurred the States 
 to demand the removal of the Spanish soldiers 
 from the Netherlands, with a pertinacity dogged 
 and changeless till the king, in sheer desperation, 
 acquiesced in the just demand, though with a 
 c^hagrin of spirit toward the instrument of his 
 defeat which became settled hatred, and never 
 lifted from his heart for a moment in those long 
 succeeding years, when the king, like a recluse in 
 the Escurial, brooded over his defeat. His troops 
 forced from Flemish territories, Philip himself de- 
 parted from a region he had never loved and 
 had scarcely tolerated, departed, not to return 
 any more, save by proxy of fire and sword, and 
 cruel soldiery, and more cruel generals — the piti- 
 less Parmas and Alvas — and departing, he em- 
 braced the other noblemen with such cold warmth 
 as was native to him, but upbraided Orange bit- 
 terly for the action of the States, and when 
 Orange replied the action was not his, but the 
 States-General, Philip, beside himself with rage, 
 cried, "Not the States, but you ! you ! you !" Thus 
 King Philip passed into Spain, and the Prince of 
 Orange into the second era of his life. 
 
 Macaulay has written the life of William III 
 with such warmth, glow, fullness, and art as to 
 
WiL,iyiAM THK Silent 119 
 
 have rendered other biographies superfluous. The 
 history of Wilham III was the history of England 
 during his reign. He was England at its best. 
 William the Silent was the Netherlands at their best. 
 Motley has written "The Rise of the Dutch Re- 
 public," and in so doing has written a glowing 
 narrative of the origin of the Netherland Republic ; 
 and has besides, in the same breath, given a bi- 
 ography of William the Silent. What nobler 
 eulogy could be pronounced than to say a man's 
 life was his country's history during his lifetime? 
 Motley's thrilling narrative is the worthiest life of 
 William written. Read Motley, and the last great- 
 est word shall have been told you regarding this 
 hero of the sixteenth century. In Prescott's 
 "Philip the Second" may be found an incomplete 
 characterization of the prince, without the unfavor- 
 able attitude toward Philip or the laudatory view 
 of William presented in Motley. These two 
 American historians have approached their theme 
 with such ampleness of scholastic research and 
 elaborate access to and use of the correspondence 
 of Margaret, Parma, Alva, Granvelle, Don John 
 of Austria, William, and Philip, as practically to 
 exhaust the sources of information on this tragic 
 reign, at the same time shutting off much oi pos- 
 sibility from the future historian. William has at 
 last, in Motley, found a biographer for whom any 
 illustrious character might be thankful. So elabo- 
 
I20 A He;ro and Some; Othkr FoIvK 
 
 rate and complete were these researches that Miss 
 Putnam, in her "WilHam the Silent/' has scarcely 
 developed a single new fact, and has in all cases 
 conceded the thoroughness and sufficiency of 
 Motley's investigations. The present writer's 
 apology for attempting what has been done so 
 incomparably well is, that he feels an essay of 
 moderate length, which, because of its brevity, 
 may find an audience, is a desideratum in English 
 literature, this essay to point out the heroic pro- 
 portions of William; enough so, if may be, to 
 lend eagerness to those who read, so they may 
 be decoyed into perusing Motley's noble histories. 
 I would help a reader of this essay to see the theater 
 and actors, and to that end lift this curtain. 
 
 Philip having, on August 26, 1559, sailed from 
 Flushing, Spainward, William's lifework properly 
 began. At this date, his attitude has not devel- 
 oped, but stands as a block of marble a sculptor 
 has chiseled enough to show a statue is intended, 
 but not sufficiently to disclose the sculptor's pur- 
 pose. One thing alone was definite and unalter- 
 able, to combat the introduction of the Inquisi- 
 tion and the extermination of the Protestant 
 Netherlanders by aid from the Spanish soldiery. 
 The first checkmate given Philip's nefarious 
 scheme was when the States-General compelled 
 his removal of the troops, 'though at this time 
 William was still Catholic in religion and a loyal 
 
WlIylylAM THK SiI.e;nT 121 
 
 subject of Philip, being in no sense a revolutionist. 
 He was easily the first citizen of the Netherlands ; 
 twenty-six years of age ; not matured, but matur- 
 ing ; not faultless, but in process of being fashioned 
 for a distinguished career of patriotism and 
 catholicity. Our full selves bloom slowly. Our 
 life is no mushroom, but a tree, and a tree requires 
 long growth-periods. Orange was so. A grave, 
 moral, and patriotic purpose in itself suffices to 
 shape a career of grandeur and service. Had he 
 been told he would die a Protestant and a rebel, 
 he would have been instant to deny the charge, 
 and this through no duplicity^ but from lack of 
 knowledge of his own soul temper, coupled with 
 an inability to forecast a stormy future. We can 
 not walk by sight in action and politics any more 
 than in religion — a thing the prince found out as 
 the turbulent years passed. He has been vehe- 
 mently accused of duphcity. He has been depicted 
 as hypocrite and plotter against his rightful 
 sovereign. I find no marks of this on him. 
 That he had ambition is not to be argued; but 
 ambition is no sin if worthily directed. He did 
 things not consonant with our ethics, belonging, 
 in that sense, to his age, an age of diplomatic 
 duplicity. He did not tell all he knew. He had 
 in his pay the king's private secretary, and received 
 a copy of any letter the king wrote ; and when at 
 last the secretary's treason was discovered, he 
 
122 A HSRO AND SOMK OTH^R FoLK 
 
 paid the penalty of his perfidy by being torn in 
 pieces by four horses ; yet bribery of employees 
 was common then, and was a practice of every 
 potentate, and was what P'hilip did in every court 
 in Christendom. Absolute fealty was all but 
 unknown. Each man was believed to have his 
 price, and the belief, in most instances, was not 
 erroneous. Besides, William was in a state of per- 
 petual war with Philip, and war makes its own 
 code, and justifies the otherwise unjustifiable, and 
 but for this subtle surveillance of the king's in- 
 tention, no stand could have been made against his 
 treachery and encroachments ; for he was the sum 
 of duplicities, deceiving everybody^ those nearest 
 to him and most intimately in his counsels no 
 less than his foes. Duplicity was native to him 
 as respiration. Granvelle, who in treacherous 
 diplomacy was not inferior to Macchiavelli, him 
 Philip deceived. Such a king, Wilham met by 
 finesse and deception against finesse and decep- 
 tion. To judge a statesman of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury by the ethics of the nineteenth century is 
 studied injustice. He is accused of evasion in his 
 marriage with Anne of Saxony, and the accusa- 
 tion is, in my conviction, just; but probably at 
 that juncture in his career his religious notions 
 were in a state of ferment, himself as yet knowing 
 not what he would be. In any case, however, to 
 use the words of Putnam, "From the expediency 
 
WlI.I,IAM THK SiI<e;nT 123 
 
 of his youth he grew gradually to a high stand- 
 ard of ihonor." In the stress of the battle for 
 liberty, when he was reduced to counting his very 
 garments, his luxurious habits slipped from him, 
 and disinterestedness grew upon him. Cromwell 
 was formed when first we saw him ; Orange grows 
 before our eyes, as we have watched the blooming 
 of some sacred flower. Orange was no saint. 
 Who so thinks him, thinks amiss. He had 
 manifold faults, as what man has not? But 
 that the growing purpose of his life was heroic 
 and single, and that he devoted a laborious man- 
 hood to the enfranchisement of his country and 
 religion, no fair historian can deny. His career 
 naturally oscillated between the general and the 
 statesman, the statesman being in the ascendant. 
 Some men are primarily soldiers ; secondarily, 
 statesmen; as was Sulla or Marlborough. In 
 others, the statesman stands first, the soldier in 
 them being second, as in Julius Caesar, whose wid- 
 est achievements always spring out of his states- 
 manship as naturally as a plant out of the soil. 
 At this point, Csesar and William the Silent 
 touch, by which is not meant that in either field 
 William approximates Csesar; for Julius Csesar is 
 one of the few greatest products of the world. 
 William fought because he must; he was states- 
 man because he would. 
 
 Philip never swerved from his purpose; but 
 
124 ^ He;ro and Some; Oi'her Foi^k 
 
 though his Armadas were wrecked and his 
 treasure galleons seized, in his cabinet he set 
 himself to rigorous purpose, demanding impos- 
 sibilities of his commanders, paying his soldiers 
 ill if at all, equipping his expeditions insuffi- 
 ciently, but never failing in his demands on 
 his servants. In harmony with this dogged per- 
 sistency of purpose, he never changed from his 
 plan of making the Netherlands Roman Catholic, 
 giving his subjects' scruples no thought. He 
 had commanded — let that suffice; his instruments 
 Margaret, and Alva, and Requesens, and Don 
 John, and Parma, and the Inquisition, with which 
 atrocious instrument of propagandism the reader 
 is doubtless familiar. To 1546 no symptom of dis- 
 loyalty toward the king is visible in William; he 
 was jubilant rather, feeling the grievances could 
 be remedied if only Cardinal Granvelle's authority 
 were lessened. His own involved finances troubled 
 him, and to them he gave such vigilant 'attention 
 as to reduce his debts to the point where they 
 gave him no concern. Above financial difficulties, 
 were those connected with his wife, Anne, who 
 proved half-mad and wholly lacking in virtue, 
 though, in truth, her life was far from being a 
 joyous one, if such were possible to a character 
 like hers. How much of blame attaches to the 
 prince for this estrangement can not now be 
 discovered; suffice it to say, no lack in his con- 
 
Wii^i^iAM the; SiIvKnt 125 
 
 duct could excuse lack of virtue in her. William 
 was lonely, and writes his brother Louis to 
 come to him, if only for a fortnight. So far as 
 surfaces may indicate, his relations with Philip 
 were at this period placid^ and himself loyal, only 
 he is alert always to avert any encroachment of 
 tyranny. Philip, undeterred by all his fair words 
 and promises, supported by royal honor, spoken 
 to Count Egmont, who had been sent to the Es- 
 curial to make formal protest in behalf of the 
 nobles against religious persecution, not so much 
 as a question of tolerance as a question of wisdom, 
 seeing all the nobles were sincere Catholics, and 
 the further impossibility of enforcing such an 
 edict, — Philip, in the face of these advices and in 
 the face of his promises, sent, in 1565, peremptory 
 orders to Margaret of Parma, Regent of the 
 Netherlands, to proceed against heretics. So 
 Philip's duplicity was revealed and the die cast. 
 One thing was fortunate : the worst was known. 
 Protests poured in, a veritable flood — protests 
 against all Inquisitorial methods in a land accus- 
 tomed to liberty — the prince, meantime, remaining 
 moderate, to the exasperation of the Protestants, 
 whose blood boiled at the prospect of an Inquisi- 
 tion in their midst and for their extermination. 
 From Breda, William watched evils take shape, 
 his very calm giving him advantage in forming 
 accurate judgment of the magnitude of opposition 
 
126 A Hkro and Some Othe;r Folk 
 
 on which he might rely, concurring in a remon- 
 strance drawn up in March of 1566; and in the 
 latter part of this month he went to a meeting of 
 the Council at Brussels, where he spoke frankly 
 against the measures of the king, urging modera- 
 tion on this ground, "To see a man burn for his 
 opinion does harm to the people, and does noth- 
 ing to maintain religion;" and in the ensuing 
 April, Brederode presented the remonstrance, 
 Margaret the Regent replying she could not — 
 i. e., dared not — suspend the Inquisition. Thus 
 were the famous "Beggars" ushered into history. 
 Prince William, nothing revolutionary in char- 
 acter, still counseled quiet till all his hopes were 
 frustrated and all his fears realized, when, on 
 August 1 8th, in an annual festival of Antwerp 
 Catholicism, a tumult arose over the wooden 
 Virgin, and rebellion against Philip II was ac- 
 tually inaugurated ; for from this hour the Con- 
 federates armed and strengthened themselves 
 against the policy and duplicity of Margaret the 
 regent and Philip the king, having accurate 
 knowledge of the character of each. Orange is 
 still on the side of submission, and Motley, than 
 whom there is no better authority, thinks Sep- 
 tember the month of his considering seriously 
 forcibly resisting Philip's encroachments ; for now, 
 through a trusted messenger, he puts on guard 
 Count Egmont, whose sanguine temperament leads 
 
 1 
 
WlIvIvIAM THB SlI,:eNT 127 
 
 him still to put reliance in Philip's fair words. 
 Evidently we have come to the beginning of the 
 end. Erelong, William of Orange will be a rebel. 
 The second period of William's life, stretching 
 from Henry H's revelation to the prince's death, 
 is divisible into two parts — part first reaching to 
 the outbreak at Antwerp, in which, though on 
 the defensive, he was yet actually loyal; part 
 second beginning with the Antwerp outbreak, 
 when he saw Philip clearly, and as a patriot, and 
 loving the Netherlands more than he loved a for- 
 eign and tyrannical king, he, in a lesser or greater 
 degree, meditated rebellion. We are now come to 
 the last stage in the journey of the prince. Events 
 had more doom in them than he or any man could 
 guess^ and marched on like an army at double 
 quick. In March, 1567, came Philip's order com- 
 manding every Flemish functionary (each of whom 
 had taken oath at the beginning of his reign) to 
 take a new oath, demanding "every man in his serv- 
 ice, without any exception whatever, should now 
 renew his oath of fealty," said oath reading, "De- 
 manding a declaration from every person in office 
 as to his intention to carry out His Majesty's will, 
 without Hmitation or restriction," which William, 
 refusing to take, ofifered his resignation to the 
 regent; and the breach was made. On April 10, 
 1567, Orange wrote Philip his intention of with- 
 drawing from the Royal Council, and on the day 
 
128 A He;ro and Somej Othkr Foi^k; 
 
 following, leaving his office vacant, departed from 
 Antwerp for Breda; and the breach was complete, 
 and William the Silent was calendared as a traitor. 
 In May, Alva set out from Spain with an army 
 to subdue the rebellious Flemings; and Philip, 
 sinister,, pugnacious, relentless, was seen a Hfe- 
 size figure. Philip was now himself. In Septem- 
 ber, Prince Maurice was born and christened with 
 Lutheran rites, the Prince of Orange thus begin- 
 ning his hegira from the Church of Rome. In 
 the spring of 1568, Orange formally took up arms 
 against these Spanish invaders ; and in October, 
 1573, he formally became a Protestant, thus be- 
 coming a civil and ecclesiastical refugee. 
 
 Thus far events have been given in their 
 chronological order, a process needful no longer, 
 the steps having been shown by which William of 
 Orange, a Catholic prince, loyal to and trusted by 
 Charles V, has come to be a rebel against the 
 Church and Philip II, with a price put upon his 
 head. His remaining life is one long, bloody, tire- 
 less, valorous, magnificent, though often hopeless, 
 effort to consummate the freeing of his native 
 land from ecclesiastical and civil tyranny. 
 
 William the Silent must be studied as soldier, 
 for such he unquestionably was. Men are best 
 pictured by comparisons. William was cool, de- 
 liberate, judicial, eloquent- on occasion, but not 
 magnetic. His qualities were not such as blaze 
 
William the; Silknt 129 
 
 in a battle-charge, such as Marshal Murat knew 
 to lead. Those methods were entirely foreign to 
 him. He has even been accused of cowardice, 
 though, so far as I can judge, without justice. 
 His circumstances — the lack of armies ; the slug- 
 gard patriotism of his countrymen ; his constant 
 negotiations, not to say intrigues, with many 
 persons ; his perpetual efforts to raise moneys to 
 equip forces to carry on the patriotic warfare — 
 seem to have left him scant time to lead armies 
 in person. His retirement to Breda on his first 
 break with his sovereign was deliberate, open, and 
 manly. If naturahy timid, to quote Motley, "he 
 was certainly possessed of perfect courage at last. 
 In siege and battle, in the deadly air of pestilential 
 cities, in the long exhaustion of mind and body, 
 which comes from unduly protracted labor and 
 anxiety, amid the countless conspiracies of as- 
 sassins, he was daily exposed to death in every 
 shape. Within two years, five different attempts 
 against his life had been discovered. Rank and 
 fortune were offered to any malefactor who would 
 compass his murder. He had already been shot 
 through the head and almost mortally wounded. 
 Under such circumstances, even a brave man 
 might have seen a pitfall at every step, a dagger 
 in every hand^ and poison in every cup. On the 
 contrary, he was ever cheerful, and hardly took 
 more precaution than usual." Surely these are 
 9 
 
130 A Hkro and Some; Othsr Folk 
 
 not marks of cowardice. Compare William with 
 Henry IV of France, and Count Egmont, hero 
 of St. Quentin's. They were soldiers, never 
 statesmen. Henry was goaded by impulse. He, 
 on the now classic field of Ivry, calling his soldiers 
 to follow where his white plume leads, is a hero- 
 soldier figure; and Egmont, generous, impulsive, 
 magnetic, chivalrous, devoid of forecast, had, at 
 St. Quentin's, administered such defeat as 
 "France had not experienced since the battle of 
 Agincourt." He was a brilliant soldier, and burnt 
 like lightnings before men's eyes. Both these 
 commanders were dramatic, and compelled vic- 
 tory, so as to merit the rank of soldiers forever. 
 William the Silent falls not in such company. 
 His campaigns were not brilliant, though many 
 generals who are accounted great are devoid of 
 this quality. He was not the soldier his son 
 Maurice was, who was properly ranked as a 
 brilliant soldier, and in quality of action takes his 
 place beside Henry IV and Count Egmont. His 
 soldiership, however, monopolized his genius, 
 using all its fire. Fortunate it was for the Nether- 
 lands that William was more statesman than sol- 
 dier; but equally fortunate for them that he was 
 enough of a soldier to bafifle Requesens, Alva, 
 and Parma. We measure power by obstacles mas- 
 tered. Apply this test to' Orange, and he will 
 stand huge of bulk as mountain ranges ; for Alva 
 
WlIvlrlAM THK SlIvEJNT I3I 
 
 and Parma were among the chief generals of their 
 century, with royal authority and equipment 
 (inadequate enough, truly, but still an equipment), 
 with royal credit and prestige, with the taxes of 
 the provinces to supply the exchequer; and these 
 generals Orange met, hampered with lack of 
 arms, men, funds, moral support; with mercenary 
 troops, unreliable and mutinous, hired much of 
 the time with moneys raised by mortgaging his 
 o\vn estates, and backed up by a supine and a 
 divided people, himself clothed with no authority 
 compelling subordination, and, with the excep- 
 tion of his brother Louis (who was slain at the 
 battle of Mookerheyde), without a single captain 
 of generous military capacity, — with such odds, 
 seemingly insuperable, William of Orange met 
 the chief captains of his generation, and made 
 head against them, creeping forward, as the tides 
 do, till they own the shore. When these facts 
 are co-ordinated, his achievements become phe- 
 nomenal. His resiliency was tremendous. In 
 some significant regards, his military career finds 
 parallel in General Washington. 
 
 In a remarkable particular, William the Silent 
 resembles Quintus Sertorius; namely, that each, 
 while rebel against his Government, fought in 
 the name of his Government. Mommsen says: 
 "It may be doubted whether any Roman states- 
 man of the earlier period can be compared in 
 
132 A He;ro and Some; Otheje. Foi,k 
 
 point of versatile talent to Sertorius," who, though 
 in rebellion against Rome, did all he did in the 
 name of Rome, fought battles, levied tributes, 
 enfranchised cities, remodeled communities ; in 
 short, did in Spain what, in a later period, Julius 
 Cassar did in Gaul. William the Silent for years 
 carried on his warfare in Philip's name, tacitly 
 assuming that Philip's agents were at fault, and 
 not Philip's self, and that himself was the king's 
 true representative in the Low Countries. Will- 
 iam made war in the king's name, Granvelle, in 
 the earlier stages of the rebellion, being named 
 as the agent of oppression ; while, in fact, that re- 
 markable man and sagacious statesman was hope- 
 lessly subordinate to his master, though harmonious 
 with him. As yet, the Netherlands had not 
 conceived the extent of Philip's tyranny, bigotry, 
 and duplicity. Another similarity between the 
 Dutch and Roman outlaw was, that both were 
 statesmen rather than generals, having command- 
 ing outlook on their eras ; and although each was, 
 perforce, captain of a host, his signal service was 
 as shaper of a realm. 
 
 Here lies William the Silent's chosen might. 
 He was bom diplomat. Philip himself kept 
 State secrets be'hind no more impenetrable reserve 
 than William. His statesmanship was wrought 
 into his patriotism like glancing colors in silk; 
 and he stands a patriot whose services no one can 
 
Wii<i,iAM The; Sii.Ent 133 
 
 overestimate, and a champion of liberty the most 
 vaHant and sagacious known prior to the Puritan 
 Rebellion. Seventeen provinces constituted the 
 Netherlands. By the pacification of Ghent, in 
 1576, a union was formed among certain of these, 
 in which, for the first time, rehgious tolerance 
 was asserted and applied — Catholics to allow 
 Protestants to worship as they would, and Prot- 
 estants to do the like by Catholics. This pacifi- 
 cation, in its specifications, was an unheard-of 
 gain for Protesantism and for liberty, and consti- 
 tuted William's chief triumph up to that date. 
 The Netherlands were peopled with varied popu- 
 lations, with all but innumerable conflicting in- 
 terests and dispositions, so much so that union 
 seemed impossible. This is partial explanation 
 w^hy Prince William sufiered more from the in- 
 action and suspicion of his own countrymen than 
 from all Philip's machinations. His patience was 
 something godlike. No people known to his- 
 tory appear to less advantage or show less love 
 of liberty, or even common self-respect, than 
 these Belgic provinces through many years. 
 They were so abject, so schooled to suffer and 
 resent nothing, that even the horrors of the 
 Spanish Inquisition did not lift them into rebellion, 
 nor yet the savage cruelties of Alva, nor the exe- 
 cution of Count Egmont and Count Horn, 
 though the atrocities of Spanish mutineers did at 
 
134 A Hkro and Soms; Othkr Foi,k 
 
 last expedite those deliberations which ultimated 
 in the pacification of Ghent. I have wondered 
 many, many times, Orange did not lose faith in 
 his countrymen and give them over to their servi- 
 tude. His fortitude sustained him, and his pa- 
 tience held as if it had been a steel cable, and his 
 natural cheerfulness was of unquestionable service 
 in keeping him from losing heart. Almost every 
 leader proved false to him, some of his own rela- 
 tions included, and he kept on! He must use 
 the men he had. A great cause requires and 
 equips a great leader. It was so in William. 
 His country and its cause had him, and in him 
 was rich. He saw worth in men, and built on 
 that. That men betrayed him did not unseat his 
 faith in men. He did what every statesman does, 
 had faith in men, appealed to their possibilities, 
 to their prospective rather than their present 
 selves, and so helped them to what they ought 
 to be. He lifted them up to his levels, and they 
 stood peers in manhood and patriotism. Many 
 failed him; but many did not. Much discouraged, 
 but, specially later in his career, much encouraged 
 him. Deeds of heroism so incredible as to read 
 like a romance, — such deeds were not rare, rather 
 common. The siege of Maestrich takes rank 
 among the heroic episodes in the battles for hu- 
 man liberty. One's blood -grows fairly frantic in 
 reading the thrilling story, and a man is glad he 
 
WlIvIvIAM THE SlIvENT 135 
 
 is a man and brother to men wh'o could do feats 
 so superb ; and the flooding of the lands in raising 
 the siege of Leyden is to be classed among the 
 deathless sacrifices for dear liberty. For these 
 and all such lofty flights of courage and success, 
 William was the inspiration. He was never de- 
 feated by defeat. Liberty must not fail. The 
 Provinces trusted him in their hearts, and so long 
 as he remained firm, self-sacrificing, undisturbed, 
 the people (so he argued) could be relied on to 
 trust in him and to justify his trust in them. In 
 behalf of freedom, no sacrifice or achievement 
 was other than feasible to him. He loaded his 
 estate with debt for the common good. Through 
 many years penury was his portion. Great 
 events marshaled themselves about him as if he 
 were their necessary captain. He knew the art 
 of inspiring men, which is, at last, the mightiest 
 resource of a great soul. He knew how to deal 
 with men, — the finest of the arts. In his roused 
 moments his eloquence, whether spoken or writ- 
 ten, swayed men's judgments and nerved their 
 hearts. Motley says, "His influence on his audi- 
 tors was unexampled in the annals of his 
 country or age." His memory lost nothing; his 
 ability to read men ranks him with Richelieu; he 
 was cautious, politic, but not slow, though his uni- 
 form habit of caution robbed his acts of the fine 
 flavor of spontaneity; he was painstaking, and as 
 
136 A Hi^RO AND SOMi; OTHKR FoI,K 
 
 laborious as Philip, which is the last effort of com- 
 parison, seeing Philip's industry was all but 
 without precedent. If he flooded coasts and in- 
 lands by the seas he emptied on them as if the 
 seas were his, he also inundated courts of kings 
 and assemblies of nobles with appeals, remon- 
 strances, or letters of instruction or information. 
 He lacked nothing of being ubiquitous, and was 
 the moving spirit of all occasions where liberty 
 had followers. Nothing eluded nor bewildered 
 him, from which observations Motley's estimate 
 stands justified; for he called him "The first 
 statesman of 'his age." Compare him with Don 
 John of Austria, hero of Lepanto, who was 
 natural son of Emperor Charles V, vivacious, 
 romantic, brilliant, and conqueror of the Turks at 
 Lepanto, whence his name had risen, like a star, 
 to flame at the eastern window of every court in 
 Christendom. Made governor of the Nether- 
 lands, he found himself beset by difficulties 
 through which sword and troop could not cut his 
 way. Harassed by the distrust, unfaithfulness, and 
 meanness of Philip ; hedged by the sagacious 
 statecraft of his adversary, William of Orange, 
 he attempted the role of war; found himself de- 
 feated by an invisible antagonist, whose name 
 haunted his days and nights — ^the name was 
 "Father William" — at last, " flared up like an ex- 
 piring lamp, and died. Such the conqueror of 
 
WlIvIvIAM TI-IS SlIvKNT 137 
 
 Lepanto when brought to cope with Wilham the 
 Silent. Wilham stood possessed of vast charac- 
 ter-resources, so that what was lacking in sup- 
 phes he made up in himself. 
 
 William of Orange, and Philip, King of Spain 
 and the Western Hemisphere, challenge com- 
 parison. Philip was statesman in that his powers 
 were adapted to the cabinet rather than the battle ; 
 and Philip may pass for a statesman in some 
 particulars. Painstaking, laborious, with real 
 ability in choice of servants to execute his will, 
 and keeping eyes on the horizons of the greatest 
 empire the world had seen, he peopled this wide 
 world of his with hopeless projects, since his am- 
 bition was topless as skies of night. His claims 
 were fantastic or greats as you might elect to 
 call them; for he claimed both England and 
 France as provinces of his empire, keeping at the 
 respective courts secret agents, with lavish gold 
 for corrupting those sovereigns' servants. His 
 reign is a sort of free fight with him on every- 
 body, he keeping every item under his own sur- 
 veillance, but displaying no capacity to do other 
 that baldly claim and attempt. He could not 
 compass his designs. There were no compensa- 
 tions in his reign. He lost and never gained. 
 England defeated him at home and abroad. The 
 Dutch defied him, and won their liberty after 
 bitter years of struggle. His every effort to sub- 
 
138 A Hejro and Some) OTHieR F'oi.k 
 
 due them failed. Though the Inquisition murdered 
 from fifty to one hundred thousand of his most 
 industrious subjects, this done, and still failure! 
 He trusted no man. He probably poisoned his 
 own son, Don Carlos. His treachery was black 
 as Caesar Borgia's ; and to his chosen counselors he 
 wrote interminable lies, apparently deeming lying a 
 virtue. He offered fabulous sums of money for 
 the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, of King 
 Henry IV, and of William, Prince of Orange, and 
 finally gave William's estate to the relatives of 
 Gerard, the assassin of the prince. Philip was 
 painstaking, not sagacious. While admiring his 
 Industry, I can not bring myself to the point of 
 believing he had greatness. A superior chief 
 clerk he was, and an inferior king. 
 
 William the Silent, Prince of Orange, money- 
 less, resourceless, defeated the richest empire of 
 the world without winning a single decisive vic- 
 tory. So viewed, he is a statesman of magnificent 
 proportions. At his death, fifteen out of the seven- 
 teen provinces were in rebellion; and had he lived, 
 there can be no rational doubt the remaining two 
 had rebelled and the seventeen become free. As 
 it was, seven provinces won their liberty, and in 
 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, were acknowl- 
 edged as a sovereign State and free from Spain. 
 
 William was importuned, vehemently impor- 
 tuned, to become king. He refused, as Cromwell 
 
Wii^iyiAM the; SiIvKnt 139 
 
 in a later day refused, though, had Cromwell be- 
 come king, there is no reason why he might not 
 have handed down his scepter to his son. What 
 sealed Richard Cromwell's fate was that he was 
 not a king, the English wishing to feel they had 
 a hereditary head. This was the mistake of the 
 Prince of Orange. While his refusal of regal 
 honors reflected credit on his manhood and dis- 
 interested patriotism, that refusal was a weakness 
 to the cause of liberty. About a king men of 
 those days would have rallied as about no Stadt- 
 holder; for the Flemings were never essentially 
 republican in instincts. Freemen they learned to 
 be; republicans they never learned to be. Had 
 William of Orange become king, then had his 
 son, as sovereign, led his subjects to battle. As 
 yet Europe was not ready for a commonwealth. 
 As the case stood^ William lived, loving his 
 country with an ingenuous affection ; was a patriot 
 statesman, whose reward for years of toil, which 
 seamed his brow at the age of forty as if he had 
 been seventy, was an impoverished estate, but an 
 imperishable fame. 
 
 On July 10, 1584, Belthazer Gerard shot 
 "Father William" in his own home, and he, fall- 
 ing, cried: "My God, have pity on my soul! I 
 am sorely wounded! My God, have pity on my 
 soul and this poor people !" and this, save his 
 whispered "Yes" to his sister's eager inquiry if 
 
140 A H:^RO AND Some; OTH:eR Foi^k: 
 
 he trusted his soul to Jesus, were his last words, 
 so that, as his country had been his thought 
 through many turbulent years, so was it his last 
 thought and love — 'a. fitting word for a patriot 
 such as he to leave on his dead lips. Let the his- 
 torian's verdict stand as ours, "His life was a 
 noble Christian epic." 
 
 A statesman is a man of his own and succeed- 
 I Ing ages, and in him^ therefore, is much antici- 
 
 ' patory. He outruns his time. The vision Will- 
 
 iam the Silent had, which outran the simple 
 patriot in him, was the vision of religious toler- 
 ance. This might serve him for crown had he 
 no other. What the world has learned to do, that 
 this Dutch prince taught — virtually first of modern 
 statesmen. In an utterly intolerant age and coun- 
 try, he apostled manly tolerance. In a later day, 
 John of Barneveldt came to the block because he 
 was an Arminian. Protestants, though never 
 wholesale persecutors, had yet to learn this wise 
 man's lesson. And this must rank among the 
 underscored virtues of this old soldier of liberty, 
 that he wished men to worship God without 
 molestation. Nor did this tolerance grow out of 
 indifference to religion. In youth he was care- 
 less of Divine matters, and thought little of 
 religion. But so sagacious and so burdened a 
 man as he grew to feel need of strength beyond 
 the help of man. In his mature years he was 
 
WHvIvIAM THE) S1I.ENT 141 
 
 from conviction a Christian in the Protestant 
 Church, and his Hfe walked on high levels to the 
 end. God was to him as to innumerable souls, 
 "a refuge and strength and a very present help 
 in 'time of trouble;" and in death he committed 
 his soul to God. By worth and service; by forti- 
 tude and patriotism ; by long years of devotion to 
 the task of breaking the scepter of tyranny; by 
 genius burning as the light, and goodness puri- 
 fying itself as years marched past, — by these at- 
 tributes has William the Silent, Prince of Orange, 
 earned a right to stand erect among the world's 
 immortals. 
 
The Romance of American Geography 
 
 IN traveling over the undulating prairies of many 
 States of the Union, huge granite boulders are 
 seen lying solitary, as if dropped by some passing 
 cloud, having no kindred in the rocky formations 
 environing, but being absolute foreigners in a 
 strange land. There they lie, prone, chiseled by 
 some forgotten art, and so solitary as to brmg 
 a tinge of melancholy to the reflection of the 
 thoughtful. In certain regions these boulders are 
 so numerous and so various in size as to be 
 used in building foundations, and sometimes 
 entire habitations. These rocks were dropped in 
 remote centuries by passing icebergs, and are 
 solitary memorials of the ice-drift across our 
 continent. The crafts on which they voyaged 
 were wrecked long ago. They were passengers on 
 
 "Some shattered berg, that, pale and lone, 
 Drifts from the white north to the tropic zone, 
 And in the burning day 
 Melts peak by peak away, 
 Till on some rosy even 
 It dies, with sunlight blessing it." 
 142 
 
Romance; of' American Geography 143 
 
 This instance may be taken as a parable, sug- 
 gesting the history embodied in names of locali- 
 ties, lakes, straits, rivers, cities, hamlets. States. 
 Those names are the debris of a dead era; and 
 for one, I can not escape the wonder and the 
 pathos of these shattered yesterdays, which have 
 a voice, calling, as in hoarse whispers sad with 
 tears, "We are not, but we were." 
 
 Though we are little given to so esteeming 
 the study, there is romance in geography, learned 
 by us when lads and lasses — not because we would, 
 but because we must — and such study was difficult 
 and unsavory. The catalogue of names we learned, 
 perforce, was dreary as the alphabet; and not a. 
 memory of pleasure lingers about the book in 
 which we studied, save that, in cramped, sprawl- 
 ing hand, upon the margin is written the name 
 of some little sweetheart beside our own, — and 
 dead long since. No, geography was not ro- 
 mantic. That was a possession we never suspected. 
 But romance is ubiquitous, like flowers of spring, 
 sheltering where we little anticipate. 
 
 To a lover of history, however, few studies will 
 prove so fascinating as a study of names in 
 geography. Finding a few at random, feel the 
 thrill of the history they embody — history and 
 reminiscence: Providence, Roger Williams named 
 the city so when himself was a refugee ; Fort 
 Wayne, named for General "Mad Anthony" 
 
144 A Hkro and Some; Other Folk 
 
 Wayne, who destroyed the Indian scourge in the 
 Northwest Territory in 1792; Raleigh, so yclept 
 for that chiefest friend of American colonization 
 among Englisihmen, Sir Walter Raleigh ; Council 
 Grove, because, in the Indian days, there, in a 
 grove — rare in the prairie country of Kansas — 
 the Red Men met for counsel; Astoria, bearing 
 name of that famous fortune-maker in the fur 
 country of the West and North; Buffalo Lake, 
 reminding us that there the buffalo tramped in 
 days seeming now so remote, when the buffalo 
 rode, like a mad cavalry troop, across the wide 
 interior plains of our continent ; Eagle River, for 
 here this royal bird used to love to linger as if 
 it were his native stream. These are the scattered, 
 miscellaneous reminiscences of men and acts, and 
 things and achievements. In Kansas is a village 
 called Lane, a name which, to the old settler in 
 Kansas, is big with meaning, seeing it brings to 
 life one of the strange, romantic, contradictory, 
 and brilliant characters of the "Squatter Sover- 
 eignty" days, when Jim Lane wrought, with his 
 weird and wonderful eloquence, his journeys oft, 
 and his tireless industry, in championing the cause 
 of State freedom. Him and his history, reading 
 like a tale told by a campfire's fitful light, this 
 name embodies. What an archive of history does 
 such a name become ! Portage is a name preg- 
 nant with memories of the old days of discovery, 
 
Romance of American Geography 145 
 
 when America was still an unknown limit. "Grand 
 Portage" you shall see on the map, neighboring 
 the Great Lakes, whereby you see, as through a 
 magic glass, the boats, loaded on the shoulders 
 when navigation was no longer possible, and the 
 journey made over the watershed till a stream was 
 followed far enough to float the birch-bark canoe 
 once more. Prairie is another word full of inter- 
 est. Pampas is a word, Peruvian in origin, 
 designating the prairies of South America ; while 
 prairie is a French word, meaning meadow. 
 Pampas is the Peruvian word for field. The 
 words are synonyms, but come from different 
 hemispheres of the world. Does it not seem 
 strange that a word descriptive of these treeless 
 wildernesses of North America should be a 
 gift, not of the Indian hunter who used to scurry 
 across them swift as an arrow of death, but 
 should really be the gift of those hardy and valor- 
 ous French voyagers who had no purpose of fast- 
 ening a name on the flower-sown, green meadows 
 that swayed in the wind like some emerald sea? 
 So the Incas have christened the plains of South 
 America, and the French adventurer the plains 
 of North America! Though, who that crosses 
 our prairies, sweet with green, and lit with flow- 
 ers like lamps of many-colored fires, thinks he is 
 speaking the speech of the French trapper of 
 long ago? Savannah is an Indian word, meaning 
 
146 A Hero and Some Othkr Foi^k; 
 
 meadow, and gives name to these dank meadow- 
 lands under warmer skies, where reeds and 
 swamp-grasses grow; and the name of Savannah 
 in Georgia is thus bestowed. How much we owe! 
 Who has not helped us? Nor does the traveler 
 through the castellated steeps of the "Bad Lands" 
 know, nor probably does he care, that this cap- 
 tion came from the far-traveling French trapper, 
 whose venturesome and tireless feet have made 
 him at home in all places on our continent. How 
 valuable, however, must be these names to one 
 who cares to familiarize himself with the knowl- 
 edge and romance of those pioneers of geography ! 
 Of like origin is "butte." The voyager saw those 
 isolated peaks, too high to be called hills and 
 too low to be called mountains, and said they are 
 buttes (knolls) — names which cling to them as 
 tenaciously as their shadows. 
 
 In a word, I have found this study a breath 
 blown from far mountain ranges of history; and 
 this breath upon the face has made an hour of 
 life grow young and beautiful, for which reason 
 I now write the story of my pleasure. The North 
 American continent lends itself with peculiar 
 grace to such a study as is 'here suggested, because 
 its story lies under the eyes of history. 'T was 
 scarcely an hour ago, in the world's day, since 
 Columbus found out this continent, and, with a 
 giant's hand, swung its huge doors inward for the. 
 
RoMANc:^ OF American Geography 147 
 
 centuries to enter; and all those discoveries are 
 our commonplace knowledge. What tribes were 
 here, Prescott and Parkman have told us in thrill- 
 ing narratives ; and columns of eager colonists 
 we have seen press their way along the seashore, 
 into forests, over mountains, across deserts, never 
 halting, save to catch breath as a climber of a 
 mountain does, — on, on_, till a continent is white 
 with the tents of millions. But the Indian ab- 
 origine, for whom the tepee was portable habita- 
 tion, and the stretch of plain and hill and lake 
 and river, hunting-ground or battle-ground, — the 
 Indian is mainly the reminiscence of an old man's 
 straggling speech ; and these names he has left, 
 clinging to lake and river and hamlet, are his 
 memorial. In Montezuma's empire, where once 
 a barbaric splendor held court and set in tragic 
 splendor, lurid even yet at these centuries' remove, 
 what is left save a vocabulary or a broken idol 
 lying black and foreboding in some mountain 
 stream? Or those discoverers whose adventurous 
 deeds are part of the world's chosen treasure, what 
 but their names are written on the streams or 
 hills? The import of these observations is this, 
 that from American geography we may, with 
 reasonable accuracy and detail, decipher this ro- 
 mantic history. In those newer parts of our 
 continent names have too often lost the flavor of 
 history; have, in truth, done so, save in isolated 
 
148 A Hkro and Somb Otheir Foi^k; 
 
 instances. The "Smithtons" and "Griggsby Sta- 
 tions" are monotonous and uninteresting, and the 
 Tombstones are little short of sacrilege. In the 
 crush of movers' wagons there appeared to be a 
 scramble for names of any sort. Places multiply, 
 imagination is asleep, and names nearest at hand 
 are most readily laid hold of; yet, even in such 
 a dearth of originality and poetry, scant names 
 flash out which remind you of the morning names 
 in our continent's history. A Springdale reminds 
 you that colonists here found a dale, gladdened 
 with living springs : or an Afton suggests how 
 some exiled Scot salved his heart b}^ keeping 
 near his exile a name he loved. Our day will, in 
 the main, attach names for simple convenience, 
 as they put handles on shovels. Such names, of 
 course, are meaningless. The day for inventing 
 names is past, or seems so. We beg or borrow, 
 as the surveyor who marched across the State of 
 New York, with theodohte and chain and a 
 classical atlas, and blazed his way with Rome, and 
 Illyria, and Syracuse, and Ithaca, — a procedure at 
 once meaningless and dense. Greece nor Rome 
 feels at home among us, nor should they. 
 
 History is a method of remembrance, and 
 names are a method of remembrance also, the 
 two conspiring to the same end. When the 
 Saxon, sailing across seas, fgund a rude home 
 in England, he named his new home Saxonland, 
 
Romance; of American Geogiiaphy 149 
 
 and there are East and West and South Saxons ; 
 and so, Essex and Wessex and Sussex. In hke 
 manner, emigrants from various shores across 
 the grim Atlantic kept the memory and names 
 of that dear land from which they sailed; and by 
 running your eyes over those earlier colonies, 
 you shall see names — aboriginal and imported — • 
 and so learn, in an Infallible way, who first 
 pitched tents on that soil. This tracking dead 
 races over seas by the local designations they have 
 left has always fascinated my thought. Those 
 names are verily planted in the earth, and grow 
 like trees that refuse to die. Through centuries 
 of turbulence and slaughter and racial trans- 
 planting, see how some Roman words stay and 
 refuse to go, knowing as little of retreat as a 
 Roman legion ! "Chester" and "coin," as good 
 old English terminals, are tense with interest, 
 since they as plainly record history as did min- 
 strels in old castle hall. Chester is the Roman 
 "castra," camp, and where the name occurs 
 across Britain, indicates with undeviating fidelity 
 that there, in remote decades, Roman legions 
 camped and the Roman argent eagle flashed 
 back morning to the sun. Coin is a contraction 
 for "colonia," indicating that at the place so 
 designated a Roman colonia received honors at 
 the hands of the Roman Senate. In other words, 
 these locative terminals are as certainly be- 
 
150 A Hejro and Some; Othkr Foi^k 
 
 queathed England by the Roman occupancy as 
 is London Tower. "Ton" is historical too, but is 
 footprint of another passing race — namely the 
 Gaul, defeated of Caesar on many a bloody field — 
 and is a contraction of "tuin," meaning garden, 
 appearing in Ireland as "dun/' meaning garrison, 
 both indicating an inclosure, and so becoming a 
 frequent terminal for names of cities, as Hunting- 
 tuin or tun, probably originally a hunting-tower 
 or hamlet. A second form of "ton" is our or- 
 dinary "town," which, as often as we use, we are 
 speaking the tongue of the Trans-Alpine Gauls, 
 taking a syllable from the word of a half-forgotten 
 people. From yet another source is the locative 
 "ham." Chester is of Roman origin, tun is of 
 Gaelic; but "ham" is Anglo-Saxon, and means 
 village, whence the sweet word home. Witness 
 the use of this suffix in Effingham and the like. 
 "Stoke" and "beck" and "worth" are also Saxon. 
 "Thorpe" and "by" are Danish, as in Althorp 
 and Derby. These reminiscent instances from 
 over seas will serve to illuminate the thought under 
 discussion — the historical element embodied in 
 the names of locaHties. As in these three locatives 
 we track three distinct peoples through England, 
 we may, by the same method, fall on the foot- 
 prints of divers civilizations in our New World. 
 Thus far we have touched, at random, as one 
 does on a holiday. Now, seriously, as on a 
 
Romance) op Ame;rican Geography 151 
 
 journey of discovery, may we take staff in hand 
 to trace, if possible, the elusive march of popu- 
 lations by the ashes of their campfires, as Evan- 
 geline did the wanderings of Gabriel, her beloved. 
 The Dutch, more 's the pity, have left scant 
 memorials of their American empire. "Knicker- 
 bocker's History of New York" has effectually 
 laughed them out of court; but, notwithstanding, 
 they were mighty men, whose idiosyncrasies we 
 readily catch at as a jest, but whose greatness 
 breaks on us slowly, as great matters must. 
 "Kill" was a Dutch word, meaning creek, a ter- 
 minal appearing in many of the few words they 
 have left us, sUch as Fishkill, Peekskill, Wynants- 
 kill, Catskill. Along the banks of streams, with 
 names like these, one could see ragged Rip Van 
 Winkle, with his dog and gun, with shambling 
 hunter's gait, or come silently on solemn Dutch 
 burghers, solemnly playing ninepins in the shad- 
 ows. Brooklyn (Breuchelin) is Dutch, as are 
 Orange, Rensselaer, Stuyvesant, Rhinebeck, Rhine- 
 cliff, Vanbrunt, Staatsburg, Rotterdam, Hague, 
 Nassau, Walloonsack, Yonkers, and Zurich. 
 Wallabout, a borough of Brooklyn (Waalbogt), 
 means Walloon's Bay, thus having a religio- 
 historical significance. Nor dare we omit that 
 river, noble as an epic, named after a Dutch 
 discoverer, who, first of Europeans, flung the 
 swaying shadows of foreign sails on its beautiful 
 
T52 A He;ro and Somk Othkr Foi^k; 
 
 waters. Hudson is a prince among triumphant 
 and adventurous discoverers. And I never sail 
 past the Palisades, by summer or gorgeous 
 autumn, when all the hills are blood and flame, 
 without reverting in thought to Hudson, who 
 gave the stream to our geography and his name 
 to the stream, nor forget that he was set adrift 
 in the remote and spacious sea, which likewise 
 bears his name ; though well it may, for it is 
 doubtless his grave; for, set adrift by mutineers, 
 ■he was crushed by icefloes, or fell asleep in death 
 in that winter sea. But Hudson River and Hud- 
 son Bay will make him as immortal as this con- 
 tinent. All men shall know by them that Hein- 
 rich Hudson hath sailed this way. So much, 
 then, for following along dim paths once trod by 
 a Dutch burgher's tramp of empire. 
 
 Of the Swedes, who, under their victorious king, 
 Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant, settled New 
 Sweden (now known as New Jersey), are left only 
 dim footprints, the path of them being all but 
 lost, though, fortunately, sufficiently plain to trace 
 the emigration of a race. These Swedish emi- 
 grants and founders of what they hoped would 
 prove a State, never attained a supremacy, their 
 enemies, who were their immediate neighbors and 
 fellow-emigrants from Protestant States, so speed- 
 ily overwhelming them — first the Dutch, succeeded 
 by the inevitable Saxon. Berg'en, the first Swed- 
 
Romance; of American Geography 153 
 
 ish settlement, in comparative isolation, still 
 whispers the story of Gustavus Adolphus's state- 
 craft and vision, and seems a solitary survivor of 
 an old camp of emigrants voyaging by stream 
 and plain, and all slain by famine and disease and 
 Indian stealth and pioneer's hardship, save him- 
 self. Nordhofif and Stockholm and Pavonta are 
 scattered reminders of an attempted sovereignty 
 which is no more. 
 
 Protestantism made valorous attempt to pre- 
 empt this New World of North America for civil 
 and religious liberty and the Reformed faith. 
 A look at their breadth of plan must be a benefit 
 to us and a praise to those who planned so large 
 things for the glory of God. That they acted 
 independently of each other shows how wide- 
 spread this thirst for liberty and this love for the 
 kingdom of God. I know few things that stir 
 me more. Swedish Lutherans settled New Sweden ; 
 the Dutch Walloons settled New Holland; the 
 Baptists, Rhode Island; the Quakers, Pennsyl- 
 vania ; the Huguenots, the CaroHnas ; the Puritans, 
 New England. The Anglican Church only inci- 
 dentally, and not of intention, settled Virginia. 
 Catholicism seized and holds South America, 
 Central America, and Mexico, but in the United 
 States was represented only by the colony of 
 Maryland, planted by Lord Baltimore, and bears 
 mark of his religious faith in naming his plantation 
 
154 -^ Hkro and Some; Other FoIvK 
 
 after Mary, the Catholic queen, his own name 
 appearing in the name of its present metropolis, 
 Baltimore. In days when in England the Catholic 
 was under ban, he founded this colony as a Ca- 
 naan for Roman Catholics. Spanish Catholics 
 worked their way along the Pacific Coast, and 
 French Catholicism sailed up the St. Lawrence and 
 down the Mississippi, though the latter territory 
 now belongs to the Protestant faith. Admiral 
 Coligny, an illustrious son of France, attempted 
 planting the Huguenots in America, though this 
 colonizing experiment has left scant memorial of 
 Huguenot occupancy, because the destruction of 
 this colony by Spanish Catholics was so sudden and 
 so utter; yet the Carolinas are witness to this 
 hazard and hope, bearing the name of the infamous 
 King Charles IX. How terrible is the irony v/hen 
 we recall how this same ruler, after whom 
 Coligny named his land of refuge for persecuted 
 Protestants, was author of the most malignant 
 religious massacre on record — the Massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew ! In Beaufort and Carteret may 
 be discovered reminiscences of an expedition 
 whose close was disastrous, 3^et heroic. 
 
 Everybody has contributed to giving names 
 to the States ; therefore attention to them as a 
 class is fitting. England gave name to Maryland, 
 as suggested in another paragraph ; to New York, 
 named in honor of the Duke of York, afterward 
 
Romance op American Geography 155 
 
 known as James II, of evil memory; Virginia, 
 so styled by Sir Walter Raleigh, that pattern of 
 chivalry, in honor of his queen, Elizabeth ; New 
 Jersey, after Jersey, the island ; Rhode Island, 
 after the Island of Rhodes; Delaware, after Lord 
 de la Warre, early governor of Virginia; Penn- 
 sylvania, after William Penn, the good; New 
 Hampshire, after Hampshire, in England, as New 
 England was, in love, called after the mother- 
 land; Georgia, named for George II, by philan- 
 thropic General Oglethorpe, who brought hither 
 his colony of debtors, — such the contributions of 
 England to our commonwealth of names. America 
 has supplied one State a name, Washington; and 
 who more or so worthy to write his name upon 
 a State as George Washington, first Commander- 
 in-chief and President ? Spain has christened these 
 Commonwealths : Florida, the land of flowers ; 
 California; Colorado, colored; Nevada. We 
 must thank France for these : Maine, for a prov- 
 ince in France ; Vermont, green mountains ; the 
 Carollnas; Louisiana, a name attached by the 
 valorous La Salle, in fealty to his prince, calling 
 this province, at the mouth of the river he had 
 followed to its entrance into the ocean, after 
 Louis XIV, the then darHng of the French people. 
 Mexico is remembered in two instances : New 
 Mexico and Texas. Italy has a memorial, be- 
 stowed in gratitude by America. The District of 
 
156 A Hkro and Somk Othkk. Foi^k 
 
 Columbia, with its capital, Washington, reminds 
 men forever that Columbus discovered and 
 Washington saved America. Besides this, to 
 Italy's credit, or discredit — I know not which — 
 must be charged the giving title to two continents. 
 Amerigo Vespucci has lent his name to one 
 hemisphere of the world. Other States bear In- 
 dian captions. Those wandering hunters have 
 lost their hunting-grounds ; but we can not forget 
 whose hunting-grounds they were so long as 
 the Indian name clings to the Territory where he 
 is not, but his name shall remain as his monu- 
 ment. Indiana is generic, the land of the Indian. 
 With this exception, the States are called after 
 tribes or by some Indian name : Alabama, 
 Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Ne- 
 braska, Kansas, the Dakotas (who will forget 
 v/hen Hiawatha passed to the land of the Da- 
 kotahs for his wooing?), Wyoming, Oregon, 
 Idaho, and the like. With such names, we are 
 once more sitting in the woodland, by the wig- 
 wam, as we did a century ago. The memory 
 haunts us. Thus much for the racial element in 
 cognomens of States. 
 
 Now again to sec out on the journey on the 
 trail of vanished peoples! 
 
 The Spanish invasion of America, now, as we 
 recall its story, big with pathos and remorse, the 
 pathos predominating, now that the last rag of a 
 
Romance; of Ame;rican Ge;ography 157 
 
 province has been torn from their feeble hands, — 
 the evacuation of Havana, with its sorry pomp 
 of exhuming Columbus's dust, is one of the sad- 
 dest sights history has called men to look upon. 
 Columbus, a foreigner, gave Spain a New World; 
 and foreigners of still another blood have taken 
 away what by right never belonged to Spanish 
 sovereignty. Just as this fate is, we can but feel 
 the immense pathos of the Spanish evacuation of 
 the New World. French discoverers hugged the 
 rivers, as by some deep affinity. Spaniards, con- 
 versely, made march without thought of river- 
 ways. They were accustomed to deserts in their 
 own land, and feared them not in a remote hemi- 
 sphere. They swarmed in the desert. Nothing 
 daunted them, Spain's best blood poured into 
 the New World, a fact which doubtless accounts,, 
 in part, for the devitalized energies and genius 
 of this mother country of their birth and hopes 
 and initiative. "Florida" is a Spanish tide-mark, 
 "St. Augustine" is a gravestone of history, mark- 
 ing the mound where lies the dust of the first 
 permanent colony planted in America. The 
 Spaniard headed loward the southern provinces 
 of America, as the Englishman to the east, and 
 the Frenchman to the north and central prov- 
 inces. Spain held southward. Though the 
 colony of Florida was retained till, in the year 
 1819, the subtle diplomacy of John Quincy 
 
158 A Hkro and Soms Othkr Foi,k 
 
 Adams added this peninsula of flowers to the 
 Union of States, it had no aggressive value as a 
 basis of discovery or colonization. The base of 
 Spanish operations was Mexico, the fair land of 
 their conquest. Spain exploited her energies in 
 Mexico and Peru. She was mad with a lust for 
 gold. Her galleons made these lands bankrupt. 
 But Spaniards dared to lose themselves in desert or 
 forests. The discovery and conquest of Peru is mad 
 with turbulent courage and adventure. This we can 
 not deny; and the discovery of the Amazon by a 
 brother of Pizarro is a story to thrill a sluggard 
 into a sleepless waking. We see these heroic 
 days, and forgive much of Spanish misrule and 
 avarice. De Soto, crowding through jungles of 
 undergrowth and miasms, through tribes of hos- 
 tile men, though stimulated by the wild lust for 
 gold, is for all a brave chapter in the world's 
 biography; and to see him buried in the massive 
 river he discovered is to make other than the 
 tender-hearted weep. To see on the map of the 
 Union "Llano Estacado" is to give, as it were, 
 the initials of heroic names. Spain, which staked 
 these plains, will walk across them no more. They 
 did this service for others. Were they fine-fibered 
 enough to feel these losses, the sorrow we feel 
 for their exit would be intensified; but their cen- 
 turies of misrule have certified to their all but 
 utter lack of any finer sentiment or sense of high 
 
Romance op American Geography 159 
 
 responsibility. Give them what honor we may. 
 Recall their departed glory, and let it light the 
 sky, if only for a moment, like a flash of light- 
 ning. Spaniards were little less given to naming 
 their settlements "Saint" than the French. From 
 Mexico, up the long Pacific Coast, they affixed 
 names which will remain perpetually as the sole 
 memorial that once these banished dons held 
 sway in the United States. These names cluster 
 in the Southern United States, touching imme- 
 diately on their chief dependency, Mexico; but 
 are still in evidence farther away, though growing 
 scanter, as footprints in a remote highway. Rio 
 Grande, Del Norte, Andalusia, and the charming 
 name affixed to a charming mountain range, 
 Sierra Nevada, — how these names rehabilitate a 
 past! Nevada and Andalusia! One needs little 
 imagination to see the flush that gathered on the 
 dusky cheek of the old Spanish discoverer when 
 he calmed, in part, his homesickness by giving 
 his wanderings the name of the dear home from 
 which he came, and kindled his pride into a fire, 
 like the conflagration of mountain pines, by tell- 
 ing the New World the names of his ancestral 
 land. But his "San" and "Santa" are frequent 
 as tents upon a battle-field when the battle is spent. 
 "Corpus Christi" — how Spanish and Catholic 
 that is! San Antonio, Santa Fe, Cape St. Lucas. 
 In Florida : Rio San Juan, Ponce de Leon, Cape 
 
i6o A Hero and Some Other Foi.k 
 
 San Bias, Hernando, Punta Rosa, Cerro de Oro, 
 are indicative of the growing communities in 
 that peninsula after the invasion located at St. 
 Augustine, But of all the parts of the United 
 States, New Mexico is most honeycombed with 
 Spanish locatives. Passing that way, one seems 
 not to be in America, but in Spain. Spain is 
 everywhere. Their names are here strewn thick 
 as battle soldiers sleeping on the battle-field : 
 Las Colonias, Arayo Salado, Don Carlos Hill, 
 Cerillos, Dolores, San Pambo, Caiion Largo, 
 Magdalene Mountains, San Pedro. Thence these 
 names creep up into Utah, though there they are 
 never numerous : Santa Clara, Escalante Desert, 
 Sierra Abaja; and farther north, reaching to all 
 but hand-clasp with the French Du Chasne River, 
 is San Rafael River. St. Xavier, San Miguel, 
 Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San 
 Gabriel, — can you not in these names hear the 
 Spanish languishing speech and see the Jesuit 
 pioneer? Eldorado, Sacramento, El Paso, Los 
 Angeles, are footprints of the Spanish discoverer. 
 And Cape Blanco, in far-away Oregon, probably 
 represents the farthest campfire of the Spanish 
 march. In his area the don was indefatigable. 
 De Soto marched like a conqueror. Coronado 
 found his way into Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado. 
 La Junta, in Kansas, may mark the subsidence of 
 the wave of Spanish invasion, and Kansas was 
 
RoMANCK OF American Geography i6i 
 
 part of the kingdom of "Quivera." Eugene Ware, 
 the Kansas poet, who, under the nom de plume of 
 "Ironquill," has written graceful and musical po- 
 ems, has told of Coronado's excursion into this 
 now populous and fertile region : 
 
 QUIVERA 
 
 "In that half-forgotten era, 
 With the avarice of old. 
 Seeking cities he was told 
 Had been paved with yellow gold. 
 In the kingdom of Quivera — 
 
 Came the restless Coronado 
 
 To the open Kansas plain. 
 
 With his knights from sunny Spain; 
 
 In an effort that, though vain. 
 
 Thrilled with boldness and bravado. 
 
 League by league, in aimless marching. 
 Knowing scarcely where or why, 
 Crossed they uplands drear and dry. 
 That an unprotected sky 
 Had for centuries been parching. 
 
 But their expectations, eager. 
 Found, instead of fruitful lands, 
 Shallow streams and shifting sands, 
 Where the buffalo In bands 
 Roamed o'er deserts dry and meager. 
 
 Back to scenes more trite, j^et tragic. 
 
 Marched the knights with armor'd steeds; 
 
 Not for them the quiet deeds; 
 
 Not for them to sow the seeds 
 
 From which empires grow like magic. 
 
1 62 A H:eRo AND Some; Other Foi<k 
 
 Never land so hunger-stricken 
 Could a Latin race remold; 
 They could conquer heat or cold — 
 Die for glory or for gold — 
 But not make a desert quicken. 
 
 Thus Quivera was forsaken; 
 And the world forgot the place 
 Through the lapse of time and space. 
 Then the blue-eyed Saxon race 
 Came and bade the desert waken." 
 
 In Colorado, El Moro, Las Animas, and 
 Buena Vista are credentials of Spanish occupancy, 
 the last-named place being, so far as I have been 
 able to trace, the farthest camp marked by a 
 name in the Colorado district. They all sought 
 gold, and having failed to find the thing for 
 which they made their quest, ran back, like a re- 
 tiring wave. Coronado and Eldorado are suffused 
 with Spanish life, like a woman's cheek with 
 blushes when her lover comes. Over scorching 
 deserts, and along the western coasts of America,, 
 the' Spaniard toiled, nor halted till the soft Span- 
 ish speech mingled with the swift, ejaculatory 
 utterance of the far French frontier. For this 
 search of theirs we bless them, and shall always, 
 be glad they left their nomenclature to mind us 
 of what this now wrecked people had achieved. 
 
 And our geography is sown thick with remi- 
 niscences of the French occupancy of America. 
 Now he is a total foreigner in this realm he. 
 
Romance of American Geography 163 
 
 helped so largely to discover. Not Acadia was 
 more bereft of the French after their sad ban- 
 ishment than our America is of French rule. 
 New Orleans has its Creole. 
 
 In Quebec, of all American cities, you seem 
 most in the old French regime. The names 
 above the business blocks would make you be- 
 lieve that what you had read of the battle of 
 Quebec was a myth, and that Wolfe truly died 
 and Montcalm lived to celebrate a victory; but 
 when you climb to the fortress, it is the English- 
 man's speech you hear, and the English colors you 
 see floating on the heights. The French empire 
 is melted away like snows of winter in the month 
 of June. But those now remote days, profligate 
 of valor, when French trapper and discoverer, 
 fearless as Eric the Bold, fought their way along 
 lake and river, over plain and mountain, with 
 fierce Indian and fiercer winter, — those remote days 
 are on us once more, when we forget our history 
 and read our geography. There may be no new 
 France in contemporaneous American history, but 
 in contemporaneous geography there is. The 
 French discoverer fires the imagination. I con- 
 fess to wishing I might have tramped by his side 
 through the dense forests; have sailed in his 
 canoe on lake and stream ; have plodded with 
 him, by oar or sail, over the Great Lakes; have 
 joined with him in portage ; have been boon com- 
 
164 A Hkro and Some; Othe;r Foi^k: 
 
 panion with La Salle on his journey to the sea 
 on the wide and majestic Mississippi; have con- 
 sorted with Pere Marquette, Few American his- 
 tories will do more to raise the temperature of one's 
 blood than Parkman's story of the French occu- 
 pancy of North America. 
 
 And one reason why Gilbert Parker's "An 
 Adventurer of the North" and "Pierre and his 
 People," books vivid with a boundless freedom 
 and heroism, hold attention and gather force in 
 one's spirit is, that they unconsciously, yet truly, 
 carry us back to those bold days when such 
 episodes were not the exception, but the rule. 
 Pioneering appeals, in some' degree, to us all; 
 and in Frenchmen were such resiliency of spirit, 
 such abandon to adventure, as that they stand as 
 typical explorers. Who would not have been 
 alongside Hennepin when he, on a snowy winter 
 day, first of all Europeans, saw thunder-voiced 
 Niagara? The English colonies seized, fortified, 
 and held domain in small compass, and guarded 
 it against the world; but this was not the French 
 idea. They spread over a continent, as a sea 
 might have done. The light step of Mercury 
 belonged to the French colonizer. He loved to 
 roam wherever untrod wastes beckoned. Eng- 
 lishmen in America did little discovering; French- 
 men did much. They crossed the continent, and 
 would have done so had it been twice the breadth 
 
Romance; of American Geography 165 
 
 it was. I have already shown how some of our 
 commonest words in Western speech are of this 
 origin. While England hugged the Atlantic sea- 
 board, Frenchmen had navigated the Great Lakes, 
 had sailed the Mississippi to the Gulf, had set the 
 seal of their names on the land they had traversed, 
 had gone in to the shoreless interior of the Far 
 West; and to this day you can track the old 
 hunter to the Pacific Coast by the reminiscent 
 names he has left behind. The continent was his 
 home. To him we owe much more than we 
 shall ever pay; but to recall the debt we owe him 
 may serve to make a wider margin to our own life 
 at least. The vast extent of this pioneer work of 
 France may be seen by recalling that the battle 
 of Quebec gave England undisputed sway over 
 what is now known as British America, and what 
 in the history of the United States was known as 
 "the Territory of the Northwest." This came 
 from those by a single treaty. One defeat cost 
 them an empire. Nor was this all their territory. 
 This treaty of 1763 gave England only French 
 acquisitions east of the Mississippi and north of 
 the Great Lakes, but left French America, west of 
 that river and south of the lakes, intact, which 
 shows how the common consent of nations ac- 
 corded to French valor in exploration the bulk of 
 the North American continent. Essentially chival- 
 rous, the French explorer proved the knight- 
 
1 66 A Hi^RO AND Som:b Othe^r Foi^k 
 
 errant among American discoverers. By the 
 treaty of 1803, Napoleon ceded 1,171,931 square 
 miles to the United States, a tract eight times as 
 large as France itself. France, by rights acquired 
 by discoveries, owned about two-thirds of the 
 continent of North America, and to-day owns not 
 so much as would supply burial room for a child! 
 Saxon as I am, I confess I can not go to Montreal 
 or Quebec, nor look upon the regal St. Lawrence, 
 without a sort of Indian Summer regret filling my 
 sky. The French as explorers were magnificent. 
 And Frenchmen in those days of their dis- 
 coveries were eminently devout^ either in fact or 
 in habits of thought — sometimes one, sometimes 
 both — as may be inferred from the religiosity of 
 the names they so often gave the places of their 
 discovery. In some instances, this fact is to be 
 explained by recalling that Jesuits were the 
 explorers ; but matters conspired to one effect, 
 namely, starring the path of their discoveries by 
 "saints," as with the Spaniards, as has been men- 
 tioned. From the St. Lawrence, which is the 
 noblest stream on which my eyes have ever 
 rested, to the old Saint Louis at the Mississippi's 
 mouth, it seems a march of palmers ; for at every 
 halt they planted a fieur de lis and a cross. In 
 this nomenclature, despite ourselves, is a witchery, 
 under whose spell I plead guilty to falling. On 
 the Atlantic side of Newfoundland is Notre 
 
RoMANc:^ OF American Geography 167 
 
 Dame Bay, while beside the island northward the 
 majestic St. Lawrence mingles the lakes with the 
 sea. Toil your way up the river, as in the long 
 ago the discoverers did, and see on either shore 
 the sacred names : St. Charles, St. Johns, St. 
 Paul's Bay, and on and on^ across or through 
 the continent, St. Mary's, St. Joseph, St. Paul, 
 St. Ivouis. So the voyager made journey. Lake 
 Champlain tells the inroad of a brave French 
 discoverer. Au Sable chasm answers for it that 
 here, on this black water, the ubiquitous voyager 
 has floated. Vermont and Montpelier say, "Re- 
 member who has been here." Detroit (the strait) 
 is a tollgate for the French highway. Marquette, 
 Joliet, La Salle, wake from the dead a trinity of 
 heroic discoverers. Than La Salle, America 
 never had a more valorous and indefatigable ex- 
 plorer. Hennepin minds us of the discoverer of 
 Niagara. Sault Ste. Marie, Eau Claire, St. Croix 
 River, the Dalles, are old camp-grounds of these 
 wanderers. In Indiana, Vincennes is one of the 
 oldest French settlements ; Terre Haute (high 
 ground) and La Porte are sign-manuals of sunny 
 France, St. Joseph, in Missouri, and Des 
 Moines (swamp land), in Iowa, and the name 
 of a beautiful river in Kansas, Marais des Cygnes 
 (the river of swans), tell the trail of the old 
 French trapper. Where has he not been? Go- 
 ing farther westward, find in Wyoming the Belle 
 
1 68 A Hero and Some Other Foi«k; 
 
 Fourche River; in Idaho are St. Joseph Creek, 
 and Coeur d'Alene Lake, and Lake Fend d'Oreille ; 
 in Washington are The Little Dalles, and in 
 Oregon, The Dalles ; and in Utah, the Du Chasne 
 River. Thus we have tracked the French across 
 the continent, from the St. Lawrence to the Pa- 
 cific. What travelers they were ! But southward, 
 along the great River, there we come, not into 
 scattering communities, but into a veritable New 
 France. Their names monopolize geography. 
 Scan a map of Louisiana, and see how populous 
 it is with French patronymic locatives. New Or- 
 leans (pronounce it New Or-le-ans, and hear 
 French pride rising in the word) is there, and 
 St. John Baptist; Baton Rouge, and Thibodeaux, 
 and Prudhomme, and Assumption, and Calcasieu, 
 and Saint Landry, and Grand Coteau, and scores 
 besides, tell how surely Louisiana was a land 
 peopled from the French kingdom and for the 
 French king, and, as those who discovered and 
 those who settled fondly thought, forever. So 
 evanescent are the plans of men 1 The word 
 "bayou," so common in the regions neighboring 
 the Mississippi, is a French word. Prairie, butte, 
 bayou, three terms in perpetual geography of this 
 Western World, are bequests of a departed people. 
 The farthest west and south I have tracked 
 the French discoverer in a nanie is in Nebraska, 
 where they are identified in the name of the River; 
 
Romance of American Geography 169 
 
 Platte. La Plata is the Spanish form^ as will be 
 seen to the south — say in Texas — and here in 
 the north is the French imprint in Platte, that 
 wide but shallow stream, flowing over its beds of 
 shifting sands. Verily, the French regime in 
 America was more than fiction. The names it 
 left will keep an eternal remembrance. 
 
 And the English came, and seeded down a 
 land with their ideas, language, laws, literature, 
 political inclinations, and homestead names. 
 Those early emigrants, though refugees from op- 
 pressive misrule, loved England notwithstanding. 
 Of her they dreamed, to her they clung, from her 
 they imported sedate and musical names for their 
 new homes this side the sea. New England was 
 the special bailiwick for such sowing, though 
 Virginia partakes of this seed and harvest. The 
 rich old English names, having in them so much 
 history and memory, — how good to see them on 
 our soil! Those early colonists were not 
 original, nor particularly imaginative, but loyal 
 lovers they were ; and to give to their home here 
 the name attaching to their home there was pledge 
 of fidelity to dear old England. In Virginia., one 
 will find what he can not find in New England, 
 namely, assertions of loyalty to English princes ; 
 for the Puritans were never other than stanch 
 friends of liberty, a thing which grew upon the 
 citizens of the Old Dominion by degrees, and by 
 
lyo A Hejro and Som:^ Other Foi^k 
 
 slow degrees besides. They were loyalists and 
 royalists. This, New England was not, and could 
 not be. The Old Dominion's name, Virginia, and 
 its first colony, Jamestown, bear attestation to this 
 loyalty of which mention is made, though the 
 State's name was given by that lover of Queen 
 Elizabeth and lover of America, Sir Walter Ral- 
 eigh. Berkeley recalls that querulous old loyalistic 
 governor of Virginia, that fast believer in the di- 
 vine right of kings and of himself; Westmoreland, 
 Middlesex, New Kent, Sussex, Southampton, 
 Surrey, Isle of Wight, King and Queen, Anne, 
 Hanover, Caroline, King William, Princess, 
 Prince George, Charles City, are names which tell 
 of sturdy believers in kings. No such mark can 
 be found in the English colonies to the north. 
 To England they were attached, but not to 
 English kings. Bath, York, Bedford, Essex, 
 Warwick, and time would fail to tell this story 
 through. In Maryland you may note this trans- 
 planted England too: Somerset, Saulsbury, Cecil, 
 Annapolis, Calvert, and St. Mary's, betraying the 
 Roman Catholic origin of the colony, as do 
 Baltimore, Saulsbury, Northampton, and Marl- 
 borough. Who can doubt the maternity of such 
 names as these? 
 
 Now turn face toward New England, and find 
 old England again: Berwick^ Shapleigh, Boston, 
 Litchfield, Clearfield, Norfolk, Springfield, New 
 
Romance; of American Geography 171 
 
 Britain, Hampton, Middlesex, Fairfield, Windham, 
 East Lynne, Roxbury, Kent, Cornwall, Bristol, 
 Enfield, Stafford, Woodstock, Buckingham, Ston- 
 ington. Fair Haven, Taunton, Barnstable, Fal- 
 mouth, Middlebury, Bedford, Dartmouth, Pom- 
 fret, Abington, — but why extend the list, musical 
 as it is with the home days and the home land? 
 But name Plymouth, because it shows the tenacity 
 of English loyalty to England; for though the 
 Mayflower, with her Puritans, might not have an 
 English port from which to set sail for a New 
 World, they do yet name their landing-haven 
 after the English harbor. Blood is thicker than 
 water when the instincts are consulted. Seeing 
 these names, we can not mistake where we are. 
 This is as certainly English as the Pacific-coast 
 line was Spanish and the Mississippi Valley 
 French. These Englishmen imported names as 
 well as populations. And I, for one, like them 
 and their names; for they abound in suggestion. 
 Who settled Connecticut and Massachusetts we 
 know from these locatives we have read and for 
 the names they brought; and for the liberty and 
 reHgion they sailed with across the seas, we re- 
 member them and love them. 
 
 There are miscellaneous names, telling their 
 tale, not of race occupancy, but of who or what 
 has passed this way, of beast, or bird, or event, 
 or man, which have left impress on geography, — 
 
172 A Hero and Some Othkr F01.K 
 
 things we do well to study, and which will al- 
 ways lend a sort of enchantment and vivacious 
 interest to the pages of travel or geography. The 
 villages along a railroad are thus often of capti- 
 vating interest. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 
 Railroad, for instance, may illustrate this point. 
 Its name has interest of no common sort. Atchi- 
 son is named after a famous pro-slavery advocate, 
 who came to Kansas, with his due quota of "bor- 
 der ruffians," for the avowed purpose of making 
 Kansas a slave State. Topeka is an Indian name; 
 Santa Fe is a Spanish landmark, tall as a lighthouse 
 builded on a cliff. At the Missouri line is Kansas 
 City, so named because this metropolis is created 
 by Kansas. The metropolis is in Missouri ; but is 
 made rich and great by Kansas men and products. 
 Kansas has not a large city in its borders, because 
 this Kansas City has engrossed the great business 
 interests of a great Commonwealth. The metrop- 
 olis of Kansas, in other words, is in the State of 
 Missouri, and the name Is as strict a speaking of 
 truth as an apostle could have commanded. 
 
 Passing along the line, find Hollidciy, so named 
 from the projector of a part of this railroad line; 
 on is De Soto, always thrillingly historic ; farther is 
 Eudora (a word of Greek genesis, and meaning a 
 good gift, though likely enough he who christened 
 this village may have known as little of Greek as 
 a kitten) ; on is Lawrence, named for a famous anti- 
 
Romance; op American Geography 173 
 
 slavery agitator and philanthropist of Massachu- 
 setts — for Lawrence is a New England colony, as 
 is Manhattan, farther up the Kansas River, famil- 
 iarly known as the "Kaw," which is the leading 
 river of Kansas; here is Lecompton, which keeps 
 alive the memory of Lecompte, the Indian chief; 
 then comes Tecumseh, as clearly an Indian name 
 as the former; then Topeka^ the capital of Kansas, 
 and wearing an Indian sobriquet; then comes Wa- 
 karusa (Indian, meaning "hip deep," the depth of 
 the stream in crossing) ; then Carbondale, so called 
 because of the coal deposits which created the vil- 
 lage; then Burlingame, a beautiful hamlet, wearing 
 a famous name; then Emporia, a city of trafiEic, so 
 dubbed for reason of thinking it a famous trade 
 center in the earlier days ; Barclay, named for the 
 famous Quaker apologist, because this village is a 
 Quaker colony; Nickerson, for one of the original 
 promoters of this railroad ; Great Bend, referring 
 to a great bend the Arkansas River makes at this 
 place ; Pawnee Rock, from a local rallying-point of 
 the Pawnees when this was an Indian hunting- 
 ground ; Garden City, so named because, by irriga- 
 tion, this locality was redeemed from comparative 
 barrenness; Granada, and Las Animas, and La 
 Junta, reminiscent words from the Spanish march 
 into Kansas; Puebla, clearly designating that 
 strange people whose cliflf dwelHngs are at this 
 hour one of the rarest studies in American archse- 
 
174 ^ Hkro and Som:^ Othe;r Foi,k 
 
 ology. On another branch of this same road: 
 Olathe^ an Indian name; Ottawa; Algonquin, for 
 "trader;" Chanute, from an Indian chief, who was 
 a local celebrity; Elk Falls, referring to those days 
 when this river (the Elk) was famous for that 
 species of graceful motion called the elk; farther 
 are Indian Chief and White Deer, names of evi- 
 dent paternity. I have taken this time to run along 
 this railroad line so as to show the possibilities 
 in this direction anywhere. To learn to read his- 
 tory from the stations as we pass is surely an art 
 worth learning. In passing across the continent I 
 have found it as if a guide had prepared that way 
 before us. The natural history of a region may thus 
 be read without resorting to a book. Count the 
 fauna: Eagle River, Bald Eagle, Buffalo Lake, 
 Great Bear Lake, Salmon Falls, Snake River, 
 Wolf Creek, White Fish River, Leech Lake, 
 Beaver Bay, Carp River, Pigeon Falls, Elk- 
 horn, Wolverine, Crane Hill, Rabbit Butte, Owl, 
 Rattlesnake, Curlew, Little Crow, Mullet Lake, 
 Clam Lake, Turtle Creek, Deerfield, Porcupine 
 Tail, Pelican Lake, Kingfisher, Ravens' Spring, 
 Deer Ears, Bee Hill, Fox Creek, White Rabbit, — 
 can any one mistake the animals haunting these 
 places in earlier days? Trapper's Grove tells a 
 story we feel, but need not rehearse. So, descriptive 
 words in vegetation, or per&on, or characteristic, 
 what volumes are contained in them ! Crystal 
 
Romance op American Ge;ography 175 
 
 River, Little Muddy, Elm Creek, Mission Creek 
 (a stream on which was an Indian mission), Calu- 
 met^ Table Rock, Crab Orchard, Elm Creek, Lost 
 River (the river lost in the sand). Soldier Creek, 
 Battle Creek, Corn Creek, Spring Lake, Hackberry, 
 Cottonwood Falls, Sand Hills, Poplar Hill, Cold 
 Springs, Oak Hill, Cavalry Creek, Bluff Creek, 
 Peace Creek, Cedar Bluff, Council Bluffs, Punished 
 Woman's Lake, Highbank Creek, Big Knife, Black 
 River, Cypress Creek, Black Raven, Brier Creek, 
 Big Lick, Laurel, Hurricane Inlet, Dead Man's 
 Bay, Pine Hill, Magnolia, Mountain Meadow, 
 Medicine Woods, Rush Creek, Salt Plain, Saline 
 River, Lava Bed, Wild Horse, Sinking Creek, 
 Nam'cless, Grassy Trail (in the desert). Azure Cliffs, 
 Miry Bottom, Sand Dune Plateau, Grouse Creek, — 
 these are names as communicative of secrets as a 
 child. Heath, Rock Lake, Wood Lake, Grand 
 Prairie, Lily Creek, Swift Falls, Calamus River, 
 Evergreen Lake, Lone Tree (a prairie locality), 
 Spring Bank, Fort Defiance, Pontiac, Smoky Hill 
 River (these hills are always as if smoky), — what a 
 light these names shed on the region in which they 
 occur ! 
 
 And you can recapitulate American history in 
 its most salient details from a reading of our geog- 
 raphy. Great names stay, and will not be gone. 
 As moss clings to the rock, so do great memories 
 cling to localities. Nature conspires to keep illus- 
 
176 A Hero and Some; Other Foi,k 
 
 trious men from death. Witness such names as 
 follows : Lincoln (General Lincoln of Revolution- 
 ary fame), Madison, Pulaski (the brave Pole who 
 fought for our freedom), Webster, Sumner, Henry 
 (Patrick), Jackson (doughty general and President), 
 Breckinridge, Hancock (signer of the Declaration 
 of Independence), Lafayette, Clay, Pocahontas, 
 Calhoun, Randolph, Monroe, Franklin, Jefferson, 
 Clark (the explorer), Douglas (the "Little Giant"), 
 Adams, Whitman (the Presbyterian missionary, 
 who saved to the United States Washington and 
 Oregon, by a heroic episode which deserves the per- 
 petual gratitude of those States), Custer (the gen- 
 eral slain in Indian warfare), L'^nion (to commemo- 
 rate the preservation of our Union), Benton 
 (Thomas PI., of Missouri, whose daughter was wife 
 of General John C. Fremont), Lewis and Clark 
 (discoverers), Garfield, Kane (Arctic explorer), 
 Lincoln (the emancipator), Polk, Houston, Lee 
 (General Robert E.), Tyler, Van Buren, Scott 
 (General Winfield, of the Mexican War), Pike (the 
 discoverer of Pike's Peak), Marshall (Chief-Justice), 
 Berkely, Hamilton (Alexander, our first lord of 
 the Treasury), Gadsden (he of "the Gadsden Pur- 
 chase"), Marion, Sumter (both of Revolutionary 
 fame), Carteret, Columbus, Stanton, Colfax, 
 Greeley, Chase, Sherman, Seward, Fillmore, Har- 
 lan (Senator), Butler (Ben), Johnson (obstreperous 
 "Andy"), Grant (our chiefest "military hero), Polk 
 
Romance; op American Gejogeaphy 177 
 
 (General), Brown (John Brown, of Ossawatomie)^ 
 Thomas (General), Sheridan, Wallace (General), 
 St. John (Prohibitionist, Republican governor of 
 Kansas), Lane (Jim Lane, of Kansas), McPherson 
 and Sedgewick (both Union generals), Case, Dallas, 
 Boone, DeKalb, McDonough, Schuyler, DeWitt, 
 Putnam, Kossuth, Hancock, PalO' Alto, Cerro 
 Gordo (reminders of the Mexican War), Clayton 
 (of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty), Emmet, Frem^ont, 
 Taylor (President), Warren (General), Clinton (De- 
 Witt), Audubon, Story (Chief-Justice), Buchanan, 
 St. Clair, Montcalm, Kosciusko, Steuben, Tippe- 
 canoe, — to be acquainted with these names is to 
 possess knowledge of the virtual makers of America 
 in the range of statesmanship and military achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 One other item completes this tabulation. The 
 aborigine of America, the Indian, has left "his 
 mark" across and through this Nation. He never, 
 in any true sense, owned this continent. He hunted 
 and fought across it. He swept by, like gusts of 
 winter wind. He staid here, he did not live here. 
 Possession implies more than occupancy; it implies 
 improvement, industry, habitations, cities, destiny, 
 as worked out by sweat of toil. But this American 
 Indian, who, in honor, never possessed the terri- 
 tory, and has left no ruins of cities built by his cun- 
 ning and perseverance, nor codes, nor literature, 
 has left us names of lake, and stream, and moun- 
 
lyS A Hero and Somk Other Folk 
 
 tairij and city. This stolid Indian, though you 
 would scarcely think it of him, had, in common with 
 other nomad and untutored peoples, poetic instincts. 
 Their names, like those of the Hebrews, had mean- 
 ings, and were picturesque and beautiful, some- 
 times, oftentimes, bewitchingly so. Some words 
 have a music, liquid as the whip-poor-will's notes 
 heard in woodlands climbing a mountain side. 
 Minnehaha, "laughing water" — does not the word 
 seem laughing, like a falling stream ? I once heard 
 a distinguished philologist say that, of all the 
 rhythmic words he had hit upon in any tongue, 
 Winona was most exquisite. Surely it is not 
 musical, but music. See the pomp of names, Hke 
 an Indian war march begun : Athabasca, Wyo- 
 ming, Tahoe, Niobrara, Mohawk, Sioux City, Ne- 
 maha, Hiawatha, Seneca, Chippewa, Chicago, 
 Saskatchewan, Pepacton ("meeting of waters"), 
 Winnepeg, Cheyenne, Manitoba, Penobscot, Nar- 
 ragansett, Chicopee, Manhattan, and a host be- 
 sides, a numberless procession. Indian names cling 
 with peculiar tenacity to lakes and rivers ; for those 
 hunters knew all waters, and hunted beside all 
 streams and lakes. They were not seamen, and 
 have left scant memorials of themselves in names 
 that fringe the sea; but to lakes they cling with 
 tireless tenacity. 
 
 Let these words suffice. As one who journeys 
 in circles finds no end of journeying, so I. This 
 
Romance of American Geography 179 
 
 theme runs on, nor stops to catch breath. I make 
 an end, therefore, not because the subject is ex- 
 hausted, but because it is dismissed. But this study 
 in geography is journeying among dead peoples as 
 certainly as if the land were crowded with obelisk 
 and tomb. To those who were and are not, say, 
 Vale ! Vale ! 
 
 "Ye who love the haunts of Nature, 
 Love the sunshine of the meadow, 
 lyove the shadow of the forest, 
 Love the wind among the branches. 
 And the rain-shower and the snowstorm, 
 And the rushing of great rivers 
 Through their paUsades of pine-trees. 
 And the thunder in the mountains. 
 Whose innumerable echoes 
 Flap like eagles in their eyries, — 
 Listen to these wild traditions. 
 Ye who love a nation's legends. 
 Love the ballads of a people. 
 That like voices from afar off 
 Call to us to pause and listen, 
 Speak in tones so plain and childlike. 
 Scarcely can the ear distinguish 
 Whether they are sung or spoken, — 
 Listen to this Indian Legend. 
 Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple. 
 Who have faith in God and nature. 
 Who believe that in all ages 
 Every human heart is human, 
 That in even savage bosoms 
 There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
 For the good they comprehend not. 
 
i8o A He;ro and Some Othe;r Foi.k 
 
 That the feeble hands and helpless, 
 
 Groping blindly in the darkness, 
 
 Touch God's right hand in that darkness. 
 
 And are lifted up and strengthened, — 
 
 Listen to this simple story. 
 
 Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles 
 
 Through the green lanes of the country. 
 
 Where the tangled barberry-bushes 
 
 Hang their tufts of crimson berries 
 
 Over stone walls gray with mosses. 
 
 Pause by some neglected graveyard, 
 
 For awhile to muse, and ponder 
 
 On a half-efifaced inscription. 
 
 Written with little skill of song-craft, 
 
 Homely phrases, but each letter 
 
 Full of hope and yet of heart-break. 
 
 Full of all the tender pathos 
 
 Of the Here and the Hereafter, — 
 
 Stay, and read this rude inscription." 
 
 Only saying, Read not the "Song of Hiawatha," 
 but the story of dead peoples by the ashes of their 
 campfires, — these names they have left, clinging 
 to places like blue to distant hills. 
 
VI 
 
 Iconoclasm in Nineteenth Century 
 Literature. 
 
 THAT history repeats itself is an apothegm 
 which has descended to us from a dateless 
 antiquity. It has been made to serve so often as to 
 become trite; and yet its use is a necessity, inas- 
 much as it embodies a verity, which to ignore were 
 ignorance and folly linked together; and as we 
 stand on our eminence and scan the way humanity 
 has worn with its multitudinous feet, as the events 
 of the world pass in review before us, some so 
 closely resemble others as that the one seems the 
 echo of the other ; and there appears reason for that 
 fascinating generalization of the . ancient philos- 
 opher, that the epochs and events of the physical 
 realm and history were a fixed and limited quantity, 
 which, revolving in a vast cycle, would bring from 
 time to time the reiteration of the facts or doings 
 of an ancient era. There was no new thing think- 
 able, only a reintroduction of the old. To illustrate 
 this fact in brief, we have but to note the history 
 of philosophy. You read the names of those who 
 figure as founders of philosophical systems, and 
 i8i 
 
1 82 A He;ro and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 those systems seem many. Read the systems as 
 founded, and you find an old-time philosophy, re- 
 juvenated with some little addition of cap or bell 
 better to adapt it to the modern time. The much- 
 lauded Hegelian philosophy is the system of Democ- 
 ritus, with the addition of a little more absurdity in 
 the assertion of the identity of contradictories. The 
 multitudinous philosophies may thus be reduced 
 to a single quaternion, and the reputed inaugurator 
 of a new philosophy is like to be a charlatan. So 
 history seems but a plagiarist. 
 
 There is an epoch in ecclesiastical history known 
 as the War of the Iconoclast ; but that was only an 
 embodiment of what had transpired before, and 
 what has occurred often since. Iconoclasm is a bias 
 of humanity. It grows out of the constitution of 
 man. He is by heredity a breaker of images. If 
 this view be not fictitious, we must not be surprised 
 if there are developments of this spirit in our era or 
 any era. It is a perennial reappearance. Whether 
 it come in religion, statecraft, economic science, or 
 literature, can be of little moment. The fact is the 
 matter of paramount importance. Christianity was 
 the iconoclast which broke in pieces the images of 
 decrepit polytheism, and hewed out a way where 
 progress might march to fulfill her splendid destiny, 
 Luther was the inconoclast whose giant strokes 
 demolished the castle doors of Romish superstition, 
 and broke to fragments the images of Mariolatry. 
 
ICONOCIvASM IN I^ITe;rATURE 1 83 
 
 The practical induction of Bacon, Earl of Verulam, 
 was the death-warrant of the fruitless deductive 
 philosophy which had culminated in the vagaries of 
 Scholasticism. The Declaration of Independence 
 and the Federation of the States were the iconoclast 
 which slew the phantom of the divine necessity of 
 kings. It is thus evident that iconoclasm abounds, 
 and there will be no marvel if it have a place in 
 literature. 
 
 Innovation is a practical synonym of icono- 
 clasm ; for an innovation is putting the new in the 
 place of the old. In ancient literature and liter- 
 atures, prose was an innovation as regards poetry; 
 and later, rhyme was an innovation in the domain 
 of poesy, and an innovation of such a sort that 
 against it the master-poet, Milton^ lifted up his 
 voice in solemn protest, and the solitary epic in 
 English literature is a perpetual protestation 
 against the custom. Shakespeare was an innovator 
 of the laws of the drama when he violated unities 
 of time and place; and In' a sense the drama was an 
 innovation on narrative poetry, and the novel an 
 iconoclast in its attitude to the drama. 
 
 The iconoclasm in literature in our time is ob- 
 jective rather than subjective ; and attention to the 
 spirit of the age will give a practical comprehension 
 of this iconoclastic spirit. 
 
 It must be observed that the literature of an age 
 is largely the product of that age. Times create 
 
184 A H:eRO AND Some: Othe;r Foi<k 
 
 literatures. The literature of any period, in an em- 
 phatic sense, will be directly and easily traceable to 
 something in that age for its peculiarity. 
 
 The Iliad and Odyssey were necessities of the 
 age which gave them birth. In so far as a liter- 
 ature is purely human, in so far will it be stamped 
 with the seal of the times, customs, and thoughts 
 in the midst of which it bloomed into beauty. In 
 early Greek times an epic without its gods and 
 demigods, without resounding battle-shout and din 
 of mighty conflict, had been an anachronism for 
 which there could have been offered no apology. 
 The splendid era of Pericles demanded the tragedy, 
 and such a tragedy as only ^schylus and Sophocles 
 could originate ; while the foibles of an earlier era 
 made the comedy imperative. On like principles, 
 the writings of Lucretius are not enigmatical, but 
 easy of explanation. 
 
 The age which made possible the revels of 
 Kenilworth, made possible also the splendor, like 
 that of setting suns, which characterizes the "Faerie 
 Queen." And the prowess, the achievement, the 
 discovery, the colonization, the high tide of life, 
 which ran like lightning through the Nation's arter- 
 ies, made the drama, not only a possibility, but a 
 fact. It was the embodiment of the mighty activ- 
 ities of a mighty age. The tragedy, to use the 
 splendid figure of Milton, "rose like an exhalation." 
 A solitary lifetime brought it from sunrise to high 
 
ICONOCI.ASM IN lylTERATURE; 1 85 
 
 noon; and from that hour what could the sun do 
 but sink? 
 
 Our century is one of general iconoclasm. It 
 is the Ishmael among the ages. Its hand is against 
 every man. It has reversed the old-time order, 
 that what was believed by our fathers and received 
 by them should be received by us. It takes no 
 truth second-hand. It goes to sources. Its motto 
 is, "I came, I saw, I investigated." It found many 
 things believed of old, which were founded on the 
 sand. Physical science discovered the vast domain 
 of physical law, and that science began to legislate 
 for the universe, forgetting sometimes that it was 
 not a law enactor, but a law discoverer. Investi- 
 gation found that many ideas and systems of ideas, 
 supposed philosophies and sciences, were false and 
 unsubstantial as the "baseless fabric of a vision.'* 
 Things received as truths from time immemorial 
 were shown to be untrue. The tendency of the 
 human intellect is to generalize ; and finding many 
 previously received systems and facts to be without 
 evidence sufficient to substantiate them, there arose 
 the unwilled generalization that all these systems 
 are likewise false. I do not say that man has for- 
 mulated this thought into speech, but that the trend 
 of the intellect in our century has been such as is 
 explicable only on this theory. In many instances 
 the motto of investigation in the domain of history, 
 criticism, and science has been, "Believe all things 
 
1 86 A Hbro and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 false until yon prove them true." If such is the 
 spirit of the age, and if literature be colored with 
 the light of the century which produces it, shall we 
 wonder if the nineteenth-century literature is dis- 
 tinctively an iconoclastic one? 
 
 All about us is the battle of the books. War 
 rages along the entire line. No work of antiquity 
 is free from this belligerency. Mars has the field. 
 The investigation has been crucial. In so far as it 
 has been learning coupled with wisdom, this is well. 
 Truth never flinches before the charge of a wise 
 investigation. But no truth can stand as such be- 
 fore a system of inquiry the canons of which are 
 empirical, fallacious, and false. The task of demo- 
 lition is a fascinating one. It possesses a charm 
 impossible to explain, and impossible to fail to per- 
 ceive. When one has a taste, it is much as with 
 the tiger which has tasted blood. Such procedure 
 seems to open vistas before men. Here are open 
 doors, from behind which seems to come a voice 
 crying, "Enter." 
 
 It will be chronologically accurate if we shall 
 first notice the iconoclastic spirit as exemplified in 
 the attack on the unity of the Iliad ; and I class this 
 with the nineteenth-century doings because it be- 
 longs to the spirit of that century, and was almost 
 within its borders. The Iliad had been the glory 
 of international literature for centuries. Greece 
 held it in veneration from the beginning of its au- 
 
IcoNOCivASM IN L/ITkrature; 187 
 
 thentic history ; and that work had blazed with a 
 solar luster out of the Stygian darkness of prehis- 
 toric times. The book had made an epoch in liter- 
 ature. The cyclic poets, who, for centuries after the 
 appearance of the Iliad and Odyssey, were the only 
 Greek bards, were confessedly disciples of one 
 Homer, the reputed author of the poems which 
 embody the fact of the war of the races. The judg- 
 ment of antiquity was : (a) These two works were 
 ascribed to a single author, (b) This author was 
 the master at whose wave of wand these revels had 
 begun. In other words, Homer wrote the books 
 which bear his name. However much they might 
 discuss the location of the half-fabled Ilium, or 
 marvel over the battles fought "far on the ringing 
 plains of windy Troy/' it was not doubted that a 
 sublime and solitary bard conceived and wrought 
 the wondrous work ascribed to him. It is not 
 shown that this question was even mooted in the 
 former times. Cities contended for the honor of 
 having given this man birth. He was as much a 
 verity as Pericles. Such was the status of the case 
 when our century beheld it first. Bentley had 
 hinted at the probability or possibility of separate 
 authorship; but it remained for German criticism, 
 in the person of Wolf, to make the onslaught on the 
 time-honored belief. The attack was as impetuous 
 as the charge of the Greeks across the plain of the 
 Scamander. It astonished the world. It abashed 
 
1 88 A Hkro and Som]S Othe;r FotK 
 
 scholarship. Grave philosophers and gifted poets 
 were carried away in the rush of the attack. Goethe 
 gave and Schiller withheld allegiance. The Atom- 
 ist and Separatist for a time held the field. Wolf 
 showed, by reasoning which he deemed irrefutable^ 
 that the Iliad couIH not have been composed by a 
 single man. Writing did not exist. The story had 
 many repetitions, contradictions, and inferiorities. 
 Later, the philological argument was used against 
 it. These statements summarize the Wolfian the- 
 ory. The contrariety in dialect form w?s thought to 
 be an invulnerable argument against the unity of 
 authorship ; and for a time the epic of the ancient 
 world was declared to be the work of many hands, 
 the ballads sung by rhapsodists of many names ; 
 and the Iliad, with its astonishing display of genius, 
 was declared to be authorless. Less than a century 
 has elapsed since the theory was propounded. The 
 subject has received a wealth of attention and study 
 unknown before. Discoveries have been made in 
 philology which have practically raised it to the 
 rank of a science ; and to-day the atomistic theory 
 of Wolf is not received. Grote and Mahaffy have 
 theories which vary markedly from the great orig- 
 inal ; and the result of a century of investigation is, 
 that scholars do now generally believe that some 
 one author, or two at most, did give shape to the 
 great epic of the Greek people. Wolf, Lachmann, 
 and Bert have shown the follies of men of genius 
 
 i 
 
IcoNoci^ASM IN I/ITe;rature; 189 
 
 when pursuing a line of evidence to prove a favorite 
 theory. Their assumptions are often absurd, and 
 their conclusions, once admitting their premises, 
 are a logical necessity. The spirit of iconoclasm 
 rested, not with the authority of the book, but 
 assailed the geographic and topographical features. 
 Troy was declared a dream. The Trojan War had 
 never been. But Schliemann has proven to virtual 
 demonstration the existence of, not only a Troy, 
 but the Troy about which Hector and Achilles 
 fought. 
 
 This iconoclasm has nowhere more fully dis- 
 played itself than in its attitude toward the Bible. 
 That book comes properly under the head of liter- 
 ature, for the reason that the general line of attack 
 during this century has been made from a literary 
 standpoint. Of course, there has always been, 
 whether easily discoverable or not, an undertone of 
 skepticism of the rank sort. Oftentimes the battle 
 has been avowedly against the book as a professed 
 inspiration. Strauss and Renan made no cloak for 
 their deed. But in many instances the method of 
 procedure' has been to study, as under a calcium 
 light, the literary style, the linguistic peculiarities, 
 the whole work as a literary composition. In this 
 regard the method of criticism was such as was 
 used in dissecting Homer's works. Each author 
 laid down canons of criticism by which to measure 
 the book in question. He cut the work into frag- 
 
iQo A Hkro and Some Othkr Foi,e: 
 
 merits. He stated such and such parts were the 
 work of an early writer, while certain others were 
 the additions of men unknown, far removed in 
 time and place. For the most part these assump- 
 tions were wholly arbitrary, as may be seen by 
 reading the authors on the various books. The 
 thing which is the m'ost observable is their lack of 
 agreement, while the method used is the dogmatic. 
 They all agree that the book is not of the date nor 
 authorship usually assigned to it ; but what the date 
 and who the author, is very seldom agreed between 
 any two. The criticism is largely of the ipse dixit 
 sort, and the grounds of attack are, though ration- 
 alistic, seldom rationally taken. In the vaunted 
 name of reason, the most monstrous absurdities are 
 perpetrated. The line of argument professed to be 
 used is inductive ; but in reality the inductive ele- 
 ment in this criticism stands second, and the de- 
 ductive element has the chief seat in the synagogue. 
 The assumption in the case, the a priori, sine qua 
 non ("without which nothing") — these are the all- 
 important elements in the discussion. It is the 
 Homeric argument restated. Each man professes 
 to find his hypothesis in the structure and language 
 of the book. In fact, the author usually began 
 with his hypothesis, and seeks to find proofs for the 
 staying his assumptions up. . The Scriptures are 
 open to investigation. They^ challenge it. No one 
 need offer an objection to the most scrutinizing 
 
ICONOCIvASM IN lylTERATURB; IQI 
 
 inquiry. The book is here, and must stand upon 
 its merits. Its high claims need not deter scholar- 
 ship from its investigation. Only, to use the lan- 
 guage of Bishop Butler in regard to another matter> 
 "Let reason be kept to." If we are to be regaled 
 with flights of imagination, let them be thus de- 
 nominated; but let men not profess to be follow- 
 ing the leadership of scholarship and scientific can- 
 dor, when they are in reality dealing in imagination 
 and scientific dogmatism, and appealing to philol- 
 ogy to give them much needed support. After 
 these years of attack from a literary standpoint, the 
 books of the Bible are less affected than the Iliad. 
 The Atomist has signally failed to make a single 
 case. Iconoclasm has performed its task as best 
 it could, and finds its labor lost. The criticism 
 of to-day is, even in Germany, professedly in favor 
 of the integrity of the Scripture. 
 
 But I pass to another part of the literary field. 
 From the Bible to Shakespeare. This, at first 
 thought, may seem a long journey. There appears 
 but little congruity between the two. The only 
 needed connection is the similarity of attack. The 
 same spirit has whetted its sword against each ; but 
 the lack of similarity is more apparent than reaL 
 The Bible is God's exhibit of human nature and 
 its relation to the Divine personality and plans. 
 Shakespeare is man's profoundest exhibit of man 
 in his relation to present and future. The fields 
 
192 A Hkro and Some; Other Foi<k 
 
 are the same. They differ in extent. The pro- 
 foundness of Shakespeare seems a shoreward shal- 
 low when viewed alongside the Bible. The Bible 
 and Shakespeare have a further similarity, not one 
 of character, but of results. 
 
 Each has been a potential factor in the stability 
 of the English language. They each present the 
 noble possibilities of the speech of the Anglo- 
 Saxon. Each has left its indelible impress on 
 speech and literature. Kossuth's mastery of Eng- 
 lish is by him attributed to the Bible, Shakespeare, 
 and Webster's Dictionary. These were his sole 
 masters, and sufficed to give him a command of lan- 
 guage which ranks him among the princes of our 
 English speech. That the authorship of the Iliad 
 and the books of the Bible should be attacked is 
 cause for little surprise. They were works of an- 
 tiquity. It is an observable tendency of the mind 
 to doubt a thing far removed in time. We lose 
 sight of evidence. V/e dispense with the leadership 
 of reason, and let inclination and imagination guide. 
 This is a bias which antiquity must meet and, if it 
 may, master. If the Iliad and the Bible were vul- 
 nerable in this regard, Shakespeare was not. He 
 was a modern. His thought is neither ancient nor 
 mediaeval. He has the characteristics of modern 
 life^ begotten of the hot-blooded era in which he 
 lived. The modern Shakespeare is a target for the 
 iconoclast. It seems but a stone's-cast from our 
 
ICONOCLASM IN lylTERATURS 1 93 
 
 time to the reign of Elizabeth and the day of the 
 EngHsh drama. The time was one of action in 
 every department of society. Conquest, coloniza- 
 tion, literature, were beginning to render the Saxon 
 name illustrious. It was the epoch of chivalry and 
 chivalrous procedure, such as to create a species of 
 literature and bring it to a perfection which half- 
 wrested the scepter of supremacy from the hand of 
 the Attic tragedy. In this literature there is a name 
 which dwarfs all others. Otway, Ford, Massinger, 
 Webster, Ben Jonson, Green, and Marlowe (some 
 of these men of surprising genius) must take a 
 lower place, for the master of revels is come. 
 William Shakespeare is here. His life is not 
 lengthily but plainly writ. He might have said, 
 as did Tennyson's Ulysses, "I am become a name." 
 It would seem that a man at such a time, with such 
 a reputation, would have naught to fear from icono- 
 clasm, however fierce. He, in a sense, was known 
 as Raleigh or Essex were not. He has put himself 
 into human history^ and made the world his debtor. 
 The existence of a man whose personality was ad- 
 mitted by his contemporaries must be believed in. 
 Stories concerning him haunted the byways of Lon- 
 don and literature. Ben Jonson paid him a tardy 
 tribute. Men received him as they received Chau- 
 cer. But the spirit of the age finds him vulnerable. 
 Delia Bacon, Smith, O'Connor, Holmes, and Don- 
 nelly are leaders who deny Shakespeare's identity. 
 13 
 
194 -A. Hero and Some; Other Folk 
 
 I may note Donnelly, an American gentleman of 
 research and painstaking which would be credit- 
 able to a German scholar. He must be allowed to 
 be a man of ingenuity. His method of discovering 
 that Shakespeare was not himself has all the flavor 
 of an invention. It glitters, not with generalities, 
 but ingenuities. A sample page of his folio, cov- 
 ered with hieroglyphics which mark the progress 
 of finding the cipher which he thinks the plays con- 
 tain — such sample page is certainly a marvel, even 
 to the generation which has read with avidity 
 "Robert Elsmere" and "L-ooking Backward." A 
 peculiarity in it all is, that his explanation makes 
 marvelous doubly so. To believe that a man should 
 have hidden his authorship of such works as the 
 plays of Shakespeare makes a draft on the cre- 
 dulity of men too great to be borne. Why Junius 
 should not have revealed himself is not difficult to 
 discover. His life was at stake. But why the 
 author of "The Tempest," or "King Lear," or "The 
 Merchant of Venice," should have concealed his 
 personality so carefully that three centuries have 
 elapsed before men could discover it — ^this is an 
 enigma no man can solve. In general, it is ob- 
 jected by non-believers in Shakespeare that it is 
 impossible to conceive of a man whose rearing pos- 
 sessed so few advantages as did that of Shakes- 
 peare, having written the plays attributed to him. 
 This is really the strong point in the whole dis- 
 
ICONOCLASM IN lylTERATURE 195 
 
 cussion. All other arguments are subordinate. It 
 is admitted that it does seem impossible for the 
 poacher and wild country lad to become the poet 
 pre-eminent in English literature. But this ques- 
 tion is not to be decided by a priori reasoning. The 
 genius displayed in the dramatic works under con- 
 sideration is little less than miraculous. This all 
 concede. Now, history has shown that to genius 
 there is a sense in which "all things are possible." 
 Genius can cross the Alps, can conquer Europe, 
 can dumfound the world. Genius knows no rules. 
 Once allow genius, and the problem is solved. It 
 is conceded that for a common man, or even for 
 one of exceptional ability, to have acquired without 
 help the learning which characterizes the works of 
 Shakespeare is impossible. But the man who wrote 
 Hamlet was no mediocre, be he Bacon or Shakes- 
 peare, He was a superlative genius. This fact 
 admitted, we need have no difficulty with the prob- 
 lem. It becomes a question a child can answer. 
 The "myriad-minded Shakespeare" could do what 
 to an ordinary, or even extraordinary, man would 
 be an absolute impossibility. One critic discovers 
 Shakespeare to be a musician ; another, a classical 
 scholar ; and so he has been claimed in almost every 
 field. He was not all. So critics confound us. 
 They also confound themselves. The genius which 
 could write the plays could master all these, though 
 he squandered his youth. Let the history of genius 
 
196 A Hbro and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 guide from this labyrinth. Was not Caesar orator, 
 general, historian? Was not Napoleon the same? 
 Does not genius destroy all demonstrations with 
 reference to itself ? Do not Pascal, Euler, Da Vinci, 
 and Angelo confound us ? How dare we dogmatize 
 as to the doings of genius ? Read Shakespeare, and 
 find you can not discover the characteristic of the 
 man. You can not in his writings read his interior 
 life. David Copperfield may display Dickens, and 
 Byron's poems may give us the author's auto- 
 biography, and Shelley's writings may give a photo- 
 graph of his intellectual self; but Shakespeare's 
 plays give no clew to his character. He is all. He 
 grovels in Falstafif; he' towers in Prospero. He 
 smites all strings that have music in them. He 
 baffles us like a spirit, hiding himself in darkness. 
 To attribute the authorship of the plays to Bacon 
 is, to my thought, not to rid us of our difficulty, but 
 rather to increase difficulty. Bacon we know. He 
 was jurist, statesman, natural philosopher. Add 
 to these the possibility of his having written 
 Shakespeare, and the magnificence of his achieve- 
 ment would dwarf that of Shakespeare. Space for- 
 bids dwelling on this longer, though the theme is 
 fascinating to any lover of letters. The thought in 
 this paper (and that goes without the saying) is, not 
 to discuss thoroughly these various phases of lit- 
 erary iconoclasm, but rather to call attention to 
 them and to co-ordinate them. 
 
ICONOCI<ASM IN lylTKRATURE 1 97 
 
 I desire to show that these phases of criticism 
 are not difficult of explanation. These are natural, 
 and are the outgrowth of an image-making age. 
 Study the age, understand it thoroughly, and the 
 literature of that period can hardly be a puzzling 
 question. The nineteenth century will stand in 
 history as the chiefest iconoclast which has arisen 
 in the world's first six thousand years. And its 
 science, statecraft, art, and literature will be looked 
 upon ai segments of the one circle, and that circle 
 the century. 
 
VII 
 
 Tennyson the Dreamer 
 
 MY earliest recollections of Alfred Tennyson 
 are associated with the old Harper's volume, 
 green-bound, large-paged, and frontispieced with 
 two pictures of the poet — one of them, a face 
 bearded, thoughtful, with eyes seeming not to see 
 the near, but the remote; a head well-poised and 
 noble^ with hair tangled as if matted by the wind; 
 the face, as I a lad thought, of a dreamer and a 
 poet ; 'and my first impressions, I think, were right, 
 since the years are confirmatory of this first con- 
 viction. The second portrait pictured the poet 
 wrapped in his cloak, standing, lost in thought, 
 alone upon a clifif, gazing solitary at the sea, and 
 listening. If I do not mistake, these pictures caught 
 the poet's spirit in so far as pictures can portray 
 spirit. Tennyson was always alone beside a sea, 
 looking, listening, dreaming; and as dreamer this 
 article purposes portraying him. 
 
 Tennyson was, his life through, a recluse. He 
 dwelt apart. He was as one who stands afar off 
 and listens to the shock of battle, hears the echo of 
 cannon's roar, and so conceives a remote picture 
 
 198 
 
Tennyson the Dreamer 199 
 
 of the tragedy of onset, English poetry began with 
 Chaucer, outrider to a king, associate with State 
 affairs, participant in those turbulencies recorded 
 in Froissart's voluble "Chronicles." He was a 
 courtier. Camp and king's antechamber and em- 
 bassage and battle made the arsis and thesis of his 
 poetry, and his poems are a picture of Edward 
 Ill's age, accurate as if a king's pageant passing 
 flung shadow in a stream along whose bank it 
 marched. Spenser was a recluse, looking on the 
 world's movement as an Oriental woman watches 
 the street from her latticed window. Shakespeare 
 was bon vivant, a player, therefore a brief chronicler 
 of that time and of all times. He floated in people 
 as birds in air. Dramatists have need to study men 
 and women as a sculptor does anatomy. Seclusions 
 are not the qualifications for dramatic art. Dryden 
 was court follower and sycophant and a literary 
 debauchee. Milton was publicist. Burns, loving 
 and longing for courts and society, was enforced 
 in his seclusion, and therefore angry at it. Words- 
 worth dwelt apart from men, as one who lives far 
 from a public thoroughfare, where neither the dust 
 nor bustle of travel can touch his bower of quiet; 
 in its quality of isolation, Grasmere was an island 
 in remote seas. Keats was a lad, dreaming in some 
 dim Greek temple, listening to a fountain's plash 
 at midnight which never whitened into dawn. 
 
 Nor does there seem to be reasonable room for 
 
200 A He;ro and Somk Other FoiyK 
 
 doubt that poetry, aside from the drama, gains by 
 seclusion and sohtude. Much of Bayard Taylor's 
 verse has a delicious flavor of poetry. He could 
 write dreamily, as witness "The Metempsychosis of 
 the Pine" and "Hylas," or he brings us into an 
 Arab's tent as fellow-guest with him; but he be- 
 longed too much to the world. Traveler, news- 
 paper correspondent, translator, ambassador, he 
 was all these, and his varied exploits and attrition 
 of the crowded world hindered the cadences of his 
 poetry. William Cullen Bryant lost as poet by 
 being journalist, his vocation drying up the foun- 
 tains of his poetry. America's representative poet, 
 James Russell Lowell, was editor, essayist, diplo- 
 mat, • poet, — in every department distinguished. 
 His essay on Dante ranks him among the great ex- 
 positors of that melancholy Florentine. Yet who of 
 us has not wisihed he might have consecrated him- 
 self to poetry as priest to the altar? We gained 
 in the publicist and essayist, but lost from the poet. 
 And our ultimate loss out-topped our gain ; for 
 essayists and ambassadors are more numerous than 
 poets. Had Lowell been a man of one service, 
 and that service poetry, what might he not have 
 left us as a poet's bequest ? Would he had lived in 
 some forest primeval, from whose shadows moun- 
 tains climbed to meet the dawns, and streams stood 
 in silver pools or broke into laughter on the stones, 
 and where winds among the pines were constant 
 
Tknnyson the; Dreamer 201 
 
 ministrants of melody ! Solitudes minister to poets. 
 You can hear a fountain best at midnight, because 
 then quiet rules. 
 
 Tennyson was a solitary. Hallam Tennyson's 
 biography of the laureate resents the opinion that 
 his father was unsocial, but really leaves the com- 
 monly-received opinion unrefuted. Tennyson's 
 reticence and love of contemplation and aloneness 
 amounted to a passion. He was not a man of the 
 people. He fled from tourists as if they brought a 
 plague with them. He did nothing but dream. 
 You might as easily catch the whip-poor-will, 
 whose habitation changes at an approaching step, as 
 Tennyson. His was not in the widest sense a com- 
 panionable nature. He cared to be alone and to be 
 let dream, and resented intrusioin and a disturbance 
 of his solitude. Some have dreamless sleep, like 
 the princess in "The Sleeping Beauty ;" others sleep 
 to dream, and to walce them by a hand's touch or 
 a voice, however loved, would be to break the sweet 
 continuity of their dreams. Seeing Tennyson was 
 as he was, his solitude helped him. I think moon- 
 light was wine to his spirit, and the dim voices of 
 rolling breakers heard afar woke his passion and 
 his poetry. The 
 
 "Break, break, break, 
 On thy cold, gray stones, O sea!" 
 
 was what his spirit needed as qualification to 
 
 "Utter the thoughts that arise in me." 
 
202 A HsRO AND SoM:e Othejr FoIvK 
 
 A dramatist needs the touching of Hving hands and 
 sound of Uving human voices, the uproar of the 
 human sea; for is he not poet of street and court 
 and market-place and hoHday? But there is a 
 poetry which needs these accessories as Httle as a 
 lover needs a throng to keep him company. 
 Tennyson's poetry was such. We are not to con- 
 ceive him as Lord Tennyson and inhabitant of the 
 House of Lords. He did not belong there save as 
 a recognition of splendid ability. If we are to get 
 a clew to his genius, he must always be conceived 
 as a recluse, who truly heard the world's words, but 
 at a dim remove. There is remoteness in his 
 poetry. The long ago was the day whose sunlight 
 flooded his path. The illustrious Greek era and 
 the Mediaeval Age were fields where his hosts mus- 
 tered for battle. Consider how little of Tennyson's 
 noblest poetry belongs to his own era. "The May 
 Queen;" "Locksley Hall," and its complement, 
 ^'Sixty Years After;" "In a Hospital Ward;" "The 
 Grandmother ;" his patriotic effusions ; "Maud ;'* 
 and "In Memoriam," sum up the modern contri- 
 butions ; nor is all of this impregnated with a genu- 
 inely modern spirit. "Enoch Arden" might have 
 belonged to a lustrum of centuries ago, and "The 
 May Queen" to remote decades. He writes in the 
 nineteenth century, rarely of it, though, as is in- 
 evitable, he colors his thoughts of long-ago yester- 
 days with the colors of to-day. He is not strictly 
 
TENNYSON THK Dre;ame;r 203 
 
 a contemporaneous poet. "Dora," "The Gardener's 
 Daughter," and others of the sort, have no time 
 ear-marks. "The Princess" discusses a Hving prob- 
 lem, but fro'm the artistic background of a knightly 
 era. "Locksley Hall," earlier and later, "Maud" 
 and "In Memoriam" are about the only genuinely 
 contemporaneous poems. My suggestion is, 
 Tennyson hugs the shadows of yesterdays; nor 
 need we go far to find the philosophy of this seizure 
 of the past. Romance gathers in twilights. It is 
 hard to persuade ourselves that those heroisms 
 which make souls mighty as the gods, belong to 
 here and now. Imagination fixes this golden age 
 in what Tennyson would call "the underworld" of 
 time. Greek mythology was the essential poetry 
 of nature, and medisevalism the essential poetry of 
 manhood. Nothing, as appears to me, was more 
 accurate and in keeping with Tennysonian genius 
 than this choosing Greek antiquity and mediasvalism 
 as the theater for his poetry ; for he was the chief 
 romance poet since Edmund Spenser. Spenser 
 and Tennyson are the poets laureate of chivalry. 
 What Spenser did in his age, that Tennyson did in 
 his. So recall the chronological location of Tenny- 
 son's poetry. "Tithonus," "CEnone," "Ulysses," 
 "Tiresias," "Amphion," "The Hesperides," "The 
 Merman," "Demeter and Persephone." Do we not 
 seem rather reading titles from some classic poet 
 than from a poet of the nineteenth century ? 
 
204 A Hero and Some; Other Foi,k 
 
 The historical trilogy belongs to the mediaeval 
 centuries; "Harold," "a Becket," and "Queen 
 Mary" are of yesterday. Tennyson reached back- 
 ward, as a child reaches over toward its mother. 
 "Boadicea" belongs to a still earlier age of EngHsh 
 history ; and certainly "The Idyls of the King" "Sir 
 Galahad," "St. Simeon Stylites," "St. Agnes," "The 
 Mystic," "Medin and the Gleam," belong to the 
 romantic, half-hidden era of history and of thought. 
 "Sir John Oldcastle" and "Columbus" belong to the 
 visible historic era, while in his wonderful "Rizpah" 
 the poet has knit the present to dim centuries of the 
 remotest past ; and the tragic "Lucretius" takes us 
 once more into the classic period. To the purely 
 romantic belong "Recollections of the Arabian 
 Nights," "The Lotos-Eaters," "The Talking Oak," 
 "A Dream of Fair Women," and "Godiva." Now 
 subtract these poems and their kin from the bulk 
 of Tennyson's poetry, and the remainder will ap- 
 pear comparatively small. Certainly we may affirm 
 with safety that Tennyson was poet of the past. 
 
 You can get the poetry of the Alhambra only 
 by moonlight; and to a mind so wholly poetic as 
 Tennyson's it seemed possible to get the poetry of 
 conduct only by seeing it in the moonlight of de- 
 parted years. To-day is matter-of-fact in dress and 
 design ; medisevalism was fanciful, picturesque^ ro- 
 mantic. Chivalry was the poetry of the Christ in 
 civilization ; and the knight warring to recover the 
 
Tknnyson the Dre;ame;r 205 
 
 tomb of God was the poem among soldiers, and in 
 entire consonance with his nature, Tennyson's 
 poetic genius flits back into the poetic days, as I 
 have seen birds flit back into a forest. In Tenny- 
 son's poetry two things are clear. They are medi- 
 seval in location; they are modern in temper. 
 Their geography is yesterday, their spirit is to-day ; 
 and so we have the questions and thoughts of our 
 era as themes for Tennyson's voice and lute. His 
 treatment is ancient : his theme is recent. He 
 has given diagnosis and alleviation of present sick- 
 ness, but hides face and voice behind morion and 
 shield. 
 
 Tennyson celebrates the return to nature. This 
 return "The Poet's Song" voices: 
 
 "The rain had fallen, the Poet arose; 
 
 He passed by the town and out of the street; 
 A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 
 
 And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
 And he sat him down in a lonely place, 
 
 And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 
 That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, 
 
 And the lark drop down at his feet. 
 
 The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee. 
 
 The snake slipt under a spray; 
 The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 
 
 And stared, with his foot on the prey; 
 And the nightingale thought, *I have sung many 
 songs, 
 
 But never a one so gay; 
 For he sings of what the world will be 
 
 When the years have died away.' " 
 
2o6 A Hbro and Som:^ Othkr Foi^k 
 
 Away from palaces to solitude; out of cities to 
 hedgerows and the woods and wild-flowers, — there 
 is the secret of perennial poetry. And Tennyson, 
 is the climax of this dissent from Pope and Dryden 
 as elaborated in Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, 
 Thomson, and Wordsworth. The best of this 
 wine was reserved for the last of the feast; for 
 Tennyson appears to me the greatest of the nature 
 poets. And this return to nature, as the phrase 
 goes, means taking this earth as a whole, which we 
 are to do more and still more. Thomson's poetry 
 was not pastoral poetry at its best; seeing inani- 
 mate nature is not in itself sufficient theme for 
 poetry, lacking passion, depth, power. Sunrise, 
 and flowing stream, and tossing seas are valuable 
 as associates of the soul and helping it to self- 
 understanding. Tennyson took both men and 
 nature into his interpretation of nature. His 
 voice it is, saying, 
 
 "O would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me!" 
 
 The sea helps the soul's lack by supplying words 
 and music. Tennyson never was at his best in a 
 National Ode, unless one speaks from the elocu- 
 tionary standpoint, because such tasks lack the 
 poetical essential of spontaneity, and because, too, 
 the ithemes seem to carry hirn outside of his nature- 
 mood. Art in our century has gone out of doors. 
 
TiENNYSON THE DrEAMER 207 
 
 Scenery has never had lovers as now ; and partici- 
 pative in this mood is Tennyson. He Hves under 
 the sky. He loved to be alone ; and nature is lone- 
 liness as well as loveliness. Nor is his love of 
 nature a passing passion, but is passionate, intense, 
 endearing. He never outgrew it. "Balin and 
 Balan" is as beautiful with nature-similes as were 
 "Enid" and "CEnone." In Tennyson we have the 
 odors of the country and the sea and the dewy 
 night. He is laureate of the stars. Nature is not 
 introduced, but his poems seem set in nature as 
 daisies in a meadow. He was no city poet. Of the 
 poet Blake, James Thomson writes : 
 
 "He came to the desert of London town 
 Gray miles long. 
 
 He wandered up, he wandered down. 
 Singing a quiet hymn." 
 
 Not so Tennyson. London and he were com- 
 patriots, but not friends; for he belonged to the 
 quiet of the country woods, and the clamor of sea- 
 gulls and sea-waves, whose very tumult drown the 
 voice of care. Tennyson was to express the yearn- 
 ing of his era, and his poems are a cry; for, like a 
 babe, he has 
 
 "No language but a cry." 
 
 Our yearning is our glory. The superb forces of 
 our spirits are inarticulate, and can not be put to 
 
 words, but may be put to the melody of a yearning 
 
2o8 A Hejro and Some Othe;r Folk 
 
 cry. Souls struggle toward expression like a dying 
 soldier who would send a message to his beloved, 
 but can not frame words therefor before he dies. 
 Our pathos is — and our yearning is — 
 
 "O would that my lips could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me!" 
 
 But we have no words; and Holmes, in his most 
 delicately-beautiful poem, entitled "The Voiceless," 
 has made mention of this grief: 
 
 "We count the broken lyres that rest 
 
 Where the sweet wailing singers slumber; 
 But o'er their silent sister's breast 
 
 The wild-flowers, who will stoop to number? 
 A few can touch the magic string, 
 
 And noisy Fame is proud to win them: 
 Alas for those that never sing, 
 
 But die with all their music in them! 
 
 Nay, grieve not for the dead alone, 
 
 Whose song has told their heart's sad story, — 
 Weep for the voiceless, who have known 
 
 The cross without the crown of glory! 
 Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 
 
 O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
 But where the glistening night-dews weep 
 
 On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 
 
 * O hearts that break and give no sign 
 
 Save whitening lip and fading tresses, 
 Till Death pours out his cordial wine. 
 
 Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses, — 
 
TENNYSON the; Dre;ame;r 209 
 
 If singing breath or echoing chord 
 
 To every hidden pang were given, 
 What endless melodies were poured. 
 
 As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven !" 
 
 Souls cry, "Give us a voice ;" and nature enters 
 into our yearning moods. The autumn and the rain 
 grieve with us, and June makes merry with us as at 
 a festival, and the deep sky gives room for the soar- 
 ing of our aspirations, and the solemn night says, 
 "Dream !" And for our heartache and longing, 
 Tennyson is our voice ; for he seems near neighbor 
 to us. He lay on a bank of violets, and looked into 
 the sky, and heard poplars pattering as with rain 
 upon the roof. Really, in all Tennyson's poems 
 you will be surprised at the affluence of his refer- 
 ence to nature. His custom was to make the moods 
 of nature to be explanatory of the moods of the 
 soul. Man needs nature as birds need air, and 
 flowers, and waving trees, and the dear sun. 
 Tennyson will make appeal to 
 
 "The flower in the crannied wall" 
 
 by way of silencing the agnostic's prating against 
 God. Hear him : 
 
 "Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies — 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, * 
 Little flower, — but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." 
 14 
 
2IO A Hi;ro and Some) Othi^r Foi<k 
 
 Here follow a few^ among many, very many, de- 
 licious references to the out-of-door world we name 
 nature, as explanatory of the indoor world we call 
 soul: 
 
 "Who make it seem more sweet to be 
 The little life on bank and brier, 
 The bird that pipes his lone desire 
 And dies unheard within his tree." 
 
 "A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
 A thousand moons will quiver; 
 But not by thee my steps shall be. 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 "Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale." 
 
 "I saw that every morning, far withdrawn. 
 Beyond the darkness and the cataract, 
 God made himself an awful rose of dawn. 
 Unheeded." 
 
 "There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; 
 But thou go by." 
 
 "As through the land at eve we went. 
 
 And pluck'd the ripen'd ears. 
 We fell out, my wife and I, — 
 O we fell out, I know not why. 
 
 And kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 For when we came where lies the child 
 
 We lost in other years, 
 There above the little grave, — 
 O there above the little grave. 
 
 We kiss'd again with tears." 
 
TkNNYSON the) DrE;AME;r 211 
 
 "Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
 When storm is on the heights of the long hills." 
 
 "Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
 When the tide ebbs in sunshine." 
 
 'Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; 
 The cloud may stoop from heaven, and take the shape, 
 With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
 But O too fond, when have I answered thee? 
 Ask me no more." 
 
 "And she, as one that climbs a peak to gaze 
 O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
 Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night." 
 
 "That like a broken purpose wastes in air." 
 
 "To rest beneath the clover sod, 
 
 That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
 Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
 The chalice of the grapes of God." 
 
 "So be it: there no shade can last 
 
 In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
 But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 
 The eternal landscape of the past." 
 
 "I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray." 
 
 "But Summer on the steaming floods. 
 
 And Spring that swells the narrow brooks, 
 And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 
 That gather in the waning woods." 
 
 "From belt to belt of crimson seas, 
 On leagues of odor streaming far, 
 To where in yonder Orient star 
 A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.' " 
 
212 A Heiro and Som:^ Othe;r Foi,k; 
 
 "There rolls the deep where grew the tree: 
 
 earth, what changes thou hast seen! 
 There where the long street roars, hath been 
 
 The stillness of the central sea. 
 
 The hills are shadows, and they flow 
 
 From form to form, and nothing stands; 
 They melt like mist, the solid lands. 
 
 Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 
 
 "If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
 
 1 heard a voice, 'Believe no more,* 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 
 That tumbled in the godless deep." 
 
 "As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 
 Running too vehemently to break upon it." 
 
 "Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the clifif, 
 And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers; 
 And high above a piece of turret stair, 
 Worn by the feet that now were silent, would 
 Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems 
 Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibered arms, 
 And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd 
 A knot, beneath, of snakes; aloft, a grove." 
 
 "For as a leaf in mid-November is 
 To what it was in mid-October, seem'd 
 The dress that now she look'd on to the dress 
 She look'd on ere the coming of Geraint." 
 
 "That had a sapling growing on it, slip 
 From the long shore-clifif's windy walls to the beach, 
 And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: 
 So lay the man transfixt." 
 
Tennyson the Dreamer 213 
 
 "For one 
 That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, 
 All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears 
 The drumming thunder of the huger fall 
 At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear 
 His voice in battle, and be kindled by it." 
 
 "And in the moment after, wild Limours, 
 Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud 
 Whose skirts are loosen'd by the breaking storm. 
 Half ridden off with by the thing he rode. 
 And all in passion, uttering a dry shriek, 
 Dash'd on Geraint." 
 
 "Where, like a shoaling sea, the lovely blue 
 Play'd into green, and thicker down the front 
 With jewels than the sward with drops of dew. 
 When all nigTit long a cloud clings to the hill. 
 And with the dawn ascending lets the day 
 Strike where it clung: so thickly shone the gems." 
 
 "As the southwest that blowing Bala Lake 
 Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the days." 
 
 "In the midnight and flourish of his May." 
 
 "Only you would not pass beyond the cape 
 That has the poplar on it." 
 
 "And at the inrunning of a little brook. 
 Sat by the river in a cove and watch'd 
 The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
 And saw the barge that brought her moving down, 
 Far off, a blot upon the stream, and said, 
 Low in himself, 'Ah, simple heart and sweet, 
 You loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
 Far tenderer than my Queen's!' " 
 
214 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 "Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
 As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
 A little bitter pool about a stone 
 On the bare coast." 
 
 "A carefuler in peril did not breathe 
 For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 
 Than Enoch. . . . And he thrice had pluck'd a life 
 From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas." 
 
 "All-kindled by a still and sacred fire. 
 That burned as on an altar." 
 
 "With kisses balmier than half-opening buds 
 Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd. 
 Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet. 
 Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
 While Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers." 
 
 "Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life 
 Shoots to the fall." 
 
 "That sets at twilight in a land of reeds." 
 
 "And wearying in a land of sand and thorns." 
 
 "Pelleas and sweet smell of the fields 
 Past, and the sunshine came along with him." 
 
 "By a mossed brookbank on a stone 
 I smelt a wildweed flower alone; 
 There was a ringing in my ears. 
 And both my eyes gushed out with tears." 
 
 "Clash like the coming and retiring wave." 
 
 "Quiet as any water-sodden log 
 Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook." 
 
 "The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh." 
 
Tennyson the; Dre;amer 215 
 
 From these quotations, not exhaustive, but rep- 
 resentative, one may see in how gracious a sense 
 Tennyson was a pastoral poet, in that he and his 
 thought haunted the brookside and the mountain- 
 side, the shadow and the sunshine, the dark night, 
 or dewy eve, or the glad dawn, always. Therefore 
 is Tennyson a rest to the spirit. He takes you 
 from your care, and ends by taking your care from 
 you. He quiets your spirit. I go to his poems as 
 I would go to seashore or mountain; and a quiet 
 deep, as the gently falling night, wraps my spirit. 
 Bless him always for the rest he knows to give and 
 cares to give ! 
 
 Tennyson's genius is lyrical rather than either 
 dramatic or epic. What music is like his? Say of 
 his poems, in words of James Whitcomb Riley, 
 
 "O but the sound was rainy sweet!" 
 
 Not great Milton was more master of music than 
 he ; though Milton's was the melody of wide ocean 
 in open sea, or crash of waves upon the rugged 
 rocks, or wrathing up the yellow sands in tumult 
 of majestic menace. Tennyson's music is rather 
 the voice of gentle waters, or the cadence of sum- 
 mer's winds in the tree-tops, or like human voices 
 heard in some woodland. In either poet is no 
 marred music, Mrs. Browning fell out of time; 
 Tennyson never. His verse is like some loved 
 voice which makes perpetual music in our heart. 
 
2i6 A Hkro and Som:^ Othejr Foi<k 
 
 Read all of his poetry^ and how diversified soever 
 his meter is, music never fails ; yet his lyrics are not 
 as those of Burns, whose words sing like the brook 
 Tennyson has sung of. Burns's melody is laughter : 
 it babbles, it sighs for a moment, but will sing. But 
 Tennyson's is not laughter. He is no joyous poet. 
 Burns has tears which wet his lashes, scarcely his 
 cheeks. Tennyson's cheeks are wet. He is the 
 music of winds in pine-trees in a lonely land, or as 
 a sea breaking upon a shore of rock and wreck ; 
 but how passing sweet the music is, stealing your 
 ruggedness away, so that to be harsh in thought 
 or diction in his presence seems a crime ! 
 
 Lyric dififers from epic poetry in sustainedness. 
 One form of poetry runs into another imperceptibly, 
 as darkness into daylight or daylight into dark- 
 ness, so that the dividing line can not be certified. 
 Lyric poetry may be dramatic in spirit, as Brown- 
 ing's "The Ring and the Book ;" or dramatic poetry 
 may be lyric in spirit, as Milton's "Comus," 
 Tennyson has written drama and epic too ; for 
 such, I think, clearly he proposed the "Idyls of 
 the King" to be. This we must say : Despite the 
 genial leniency of Robert Browning's criticism of 
 the dramatic success of "Harold," and "Becket," 
 and "The Cup," we may safely refuse concurrence 
 in judgment. Irving made the failure of the play 
 impossible when he was character in them. There 
 is no necessity of denying that the so-called trilogy 
 
T:^NNYSON THK DrBAM^R 217 
 
 has apt delineation of character, and that Green, 
 the historian^ was justified in saying that "Becket" 
 had given him such a conception of the character 
 of that courtier and ecclesiastic as all his historical 
 research had not given; nor need we deny that 
 these dramas are rich in noble passages. These 
 things go without the saying, considering the au- 
 thor was Alfred Tennyson. In attempting a criti- 
 cism of the dramatic value, however, the real ques- 
 tion is this: Would not "Harold" and "Queen 
 Mary" have been greater poems if thrown out of 
 the dramatic into the narrative form, like "Guine- 
 vere" or "Enoch Arden?" "Maud" is really the 
 most dramatic of Tennyson's poems, and in conse- 
 quence the least understood. Most men at some 
 time espouse what they can not successfully 
 achieve. Was not this Tennyson's case? Are not 
 the portrayal of character and the rhythm and the 
 melody of the drama qualities inherent in Tenny- 
 son, and are they in any distinct sense dramatic? 
 If we declare Tennyson neither epic nor dramatic, 
 but always lyric, adverse criticism melts away like 
 snow in summer. As lyrist, all is congruous and 
 enthralhng. "The Idyls of the King," as a series of 
 lyric romances, is beyond blame in technique. 
 Tennyson tells a story. Dramatic poetry takes the 
 story out of the poet's lips and tells itself. The epic 
 requires a strong centrality of theme, movement, 
 and dominancy, like a ubiquitous sovereign whose 
 
2i8 A Hero and Somk Other Foi,k 
 
 power is always felt in every part of his empire. 
 Viewing "The Idyls of the King" as singing epi- 
 sodes, told us by some wandering minstrel, not 
 only do they not challenge hostile criticism, but 
 they take rank among the noblest contributions to 
 the poetry of any language. "Columbus," "Ulys- 
 ses," "Eleanore," "Enoch Arden," "Lucretius," 
 "The Day-Dream," "Locksley Hall," "Dora," "Ayl- 
 mer's Field," "The Gardener's Daughter," have all 
 the subdued beauty of Wordsworth's narrative 
 poems, and are as certainly lyric as those unap- 
 proachable lyrics in "The Princess." The ocean 
 is epic in its vast expanse ; tragic in its power to 
 crush Armadas on the rocks and let them 
 
 "Rot in ribs of wreck;" 
 
 and lyric in its songs, whether of storm outsound- 
 ing cataracts, or the singing scarce above the breath 
 of waves that silver the shores of summer seas. 
 Commend me to the ocean, and give all the ocean 
 to me. Dispossess me of no might nor tragedy nor 
 melody. Let the whole ocean be mine. So, though 
 Tennyson be not epic as Milton, nor dramatic as 
 Browning, he is yet a mine of wealth untold. He 
 Is more melodious than Spenser (and what a 
 praise!) Tennyson can not write the prose, but 
 always the poetry of life. So interpreted, how per- 
 fect his execution becomes ! His words distill like 
 dews. Take unnumbered extracts from his poems. 
 
Tennyson the Drbamer 219 
 
 and they seem bits of melody, picked out from na- 
 ture's book of melodies, and in themselves and as 
 related they satisfy the heart. Let these songs sing 
 themselves to us : 
 
 "Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; 
 
 The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, 
 With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
 But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 
 
 I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; 
 
 Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
 Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd; 
 
 I strove against the stream and all in vain; 
 
 Let the great river take me to the main; 
 No more, dear Love, for at a touch I yield; 
 Ask me no more." 
 
 "Thy voice is heard through rolling drums. 
 
 That beat to battle where he stands; 
 Thy face across his fancy comes. 
 
 And gives the battle to his hands: 
 A moment, while the trumpets blow. 
 
 He sees his brood about thy knee; 
 The next, like fire he meets the foe, 
 
 And strikes him dead for thine and thee." 
 
 "O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 They faint on hill or field or river; 
 
!:1) 
 
 220 A Hero and Somk Other Folk: 
 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow forever and forever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying." 
 
 "Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
 
 Wind of the western sea, 
 
 Low, low, breathe and blow. 
 
 Wind of the western sea! 
 Over the rolling waters go. 
 Come from the dying moon, and blow, 
 
 Blow him again to me; 
 While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 
 
 Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 
 
 Father will come to thee soon; 
 Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 
 
 Father will come to thee soon; 
 Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
 Silver sails all out of the west 
 
 Under the silver moon: 
 Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep." 
 
 And "Tears, Idle Tears," is beyond all praise. 
 Passion was never wed to music more deliciously 
 and satisfyingly. I am entranced by this poem 
 always, as by God's poem of the starry night : 
 
 "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean; 
 Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
 Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes 
 In looking on the happy autumn-fields. 
 And thinking of the days that are no more. 
 
 Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail. 
 
 That brings our friends up from the under world; 
 
Tennyson the; Dreamer 221 
 
 Sad as the last which reddens over one 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge; 
 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 
 
 Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 
 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 
 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 
 
 Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
 On lips that are for others; deep as love. 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
 O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 
 
 All these lyrics are such deHghts as leave us 
 silent, seeing we have no words to tell the glow of 
 spirit we feel. The genius of lyric poetry is its 
 power of condensation. The drama may expand, 
 the lyric must condense, and Tennyson has the 
 lyric power, summing up large areas of thought and 
 feeling into a single sentence or a few verses, which 
 presents the quintessence of the lyric method. Im- 
 mense passion poured into the chalice of a solitary 
 utterance — this is a song. Let the harpist sit and 
 sing, nor stop to wipe his tears what time he sings, 
 — only let him sing! Tennyson was as some rare 
 voice which never grows husky, but always sounds 
 sweet as music heard in the darkness, and when he 
 speaks, it is as if 
 
 "Up the valley came a swell of music on the wind." 
 
222 A Hero and Somk Othkr Foi.k 
 
 Tennyson is poet of love. Love is practically 
 always the soil out of which his flowers grow. 
 Our American bards say little of love, and we 
 feel the lack keenly. Love is the native noble- 
 man among soul-qualities, and we have become 
 schooled to feel the poets must be our spokes- 
 men here where we need them most. But Bry- 
 ant, nor Whittier, nor Longfellow, nor yet 
 Lowell, have been in a generous way erotic 
 poets. They have lacked the pronounced passion 
 element. Poe, however, was always lover when 
 he wrote poetry, and Bayard Taylor has a re- 
 curring softening of the voice to a caress when 
 his eyes look love. Tennyson, on the contrary, 
 is scarcely less a love poet than Burns, though 
 he tells his secret after a different fashion. Call 
 the roll of his poems, and see how just this ob- 
 servation is. Love is nodal with him as with 
 the heart. Bourdillon was right in saying: 
 
 "The night has a thousand eyes, 
 The day has one; 
 Yet the light of the bright world dies 
 With the dying sun. 
 
 The mind has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the heart but one; 
 Yet the life of a whole life dies 
 
 When love is done." 
 
 In many poets, love is background, not pic- 
 ture, or, to change a figure as is meet, love is. 
 
Tennyson the Dreamer 223 
 
 a minor chord in song. In Shelley, I would say- 
 that love was a sort of afterglow upon the' land- 
 scape, and softens his rigid anarchy into some- 
 thing like beauty. With Tennyson is a very dif- 
 ferent offering to love. It is omnipresent, though 
 not obtrusively so ; for he never obtrudes his 
 main meanings. They rather steal on you as 
 springtime does. You catch his meaning because 
 you are not blind nor deaf. He hints at things 
 as lovers do, and is as one who would not thrust 
 his company upon you, so modest and reticent 
 is he ; yet we do not mistake him. Love is always 
 close at hand, and in some form is never absent. 
 "Mariana," "Lady of Shalott," "Locksley Hall," 
 "Maud," "The Sisters," "The Talking Oak," 
 "Edward Gray," "The Miller's Daughter," "Har- 
 old," "Queen Mary," "Enoch Arden," and "The 
 Idyls of the King," — is not love everywhere? 
 These are poems of love between men and 
 women as lovers ; but there' is other love. In Ten- 
 nyson: love of country, as in his "The Revenge," 
 "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and others ; 
 love of nature, as "The Brook ;" the love of Queen, 
 as in the dedication in "The Idyls of the King;" 
 love of a friend (and such love !) flooding "In 
 Memoriam" like spring tide's; love to God, as 
 "St. Agnes' Eve," "Sir Galahad," and in "King 
 Arthur." By appeal to book do we see how his 
 poems constitute a literature of love ; for he is 
 
224 A Hkro and Somk Othkr FoIvK. 
 
 in essence saying continuously, "Life means 
 love," and we shall not be those to say him 
 nay. May we not safely say no poet has given a 
 more beautiful and sympathetic explication of 
 love in its entirety? Browning has expressed the 
 sex-love more mightily in Pompilia and Capon- 
 sacchi. Tennyson has, however, given no par- 
 tial landscape; he has presented the whole. 
 Love of the lover, of the widowed heart, of the 
 friend, of the parent, of the patriot, of the sub- 
 ject to sovereign, of the redeemed of God. 
 Truly, this does impress us as a nearly-completed 
 circle. If it is not, where lies the lack? Love 
 is life, gladness, pathos, power. A humblest 
 spirit, when touched with the unspeakable grace 
 of love, becomes epic and beautiful, as is illus- 
 trated in "Enoch Arden." Herein see a sure 
 element of immortality in Tennyson. The race 
 will always with alacrity and sympathy read of 
 love in tale or poem; and this poet is always 
 translating love's thought into speech. 
 
 And may not this prevalence of love in his 
 poetry account for Tennyson's lack of humor? 
 In his conversation, as his son tells us, he was 
 even jocular, loving both to hear and to tell a 
 humorous incident, and his laughter rang out 
 over a good jest, a thing of which we would have' 
 next to no intimation in his poetry; for save in 
 "Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue" and 
 
T:]eNNYSON THK DrEAMEIK 225 
 
 "The Northern Farmer," and possibly in "Am- 
 phion," his verse contains scarcely a vestige of 
 humor. Certainly his writings can not presume 
 to be humorous. To Cervantes, chivalry was 
 grotesque ; to Tennyson, chivalry was poetry, — 
 there lay the difference. Our laureate caught not 
 the jest, but the real poetry of that episode in the 
 adventure of manhood; and this I take to be the 
 larger and worthier lesson. Cervantes and Tenny- 
 son were both right. But Tennyson caught the 
 vision of the surer, the more enduring truth. 
 With love, as with chivalry, he saw not the humor, 
 but the beauty of it ; and beauty is always touched 
 with melancholy. I have sat a day through read- 
 ing all this poet's verse, and confess that all the 
 day I was not remote from tears, but was as one 
 walking in mists along an ocean shore, so that 
 on my face was what might be either rain or 
 tears. In Tennyson, 
 
 "Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in its 
 
 glowing hands; 
 Every moment lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 
 Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the 
 
 chords with might; 
 Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music 
 
 out of sight." 
 
 And Tennyson is the picture poet. I feel in 
 reading him as if I were either out of doors with 
 pictures seen at first-hand, or in a gallery with 
 15 
 
226 A He;ro and Some; Othkr FoIvK 
 
 picture-crowded walls. He is painter among 
 poets, his art being at once admirably inclusive 
 and exclusive — including essentials, excluding the 
 irrelevant. He is consummate artist, giving pic- 
 tures of things, and, what is vastly more difficult, 
 pictures of moods. With him, one never feels 
 and sees, but feels because he sees. His ability 
 to recreate moods for us is quite beyond praise', 
 and is such subtle art as defies analysis or char- 
 acterization, but wakens wonder and will not let 
 it sleep. Poets are, as is affirmed by the lord of 
 all the poets, 
 
 "Of imagination all compact;" 
 
 and may we be delivered from a colorless world 
 and an unimaginative life; for such is no life at 
 all ! God would have men dream and prophesy. 
 Because the poet is artist and dreamer, his word, 
 in one form or another, is "like," a word patented 
 by poets ; and all who use it are become, in so far, 
 poets. Now, with Tennyson, all things suggest 
 pictures, as if soul we're itself a landscape ; where- 
 fore, as has been shown, he riots in nature-scenes. 
 A simile, when full, like a June day of heaven, 
 contains a plethora, an ampleness, for which you 
 shall seek in vain to find rules, much less to make 
 them; which is to say that a perfect simile will 
 betimes do something for which no reason can 
 be assigned, yet so answering to the largest poetry 
 
Te;nnyson 'T-H.TSi Drbiamer 227 
 
 of the occasion as to fill the mind with joy, as if 
 one had discovered some new flower in the woods 
 where he thought he knew them all. One in- 
 stance shall suffice as illustrative: 
 
 "An agony 
 Of lamentation like a v/ind, that shrills 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes. 
 Or hath come, since the making of the world." 
 
 Considering- the comparison, we must grant 
 that, submitted to the judgment of cold logic, the 
 figure is superfluous and faulty; for, as a simple' 
 matter of fact, a wind blowing where no one 
 comes or has come would be not so lonely as one 
 blown across a habitable and inhabited land. 
 From the standpoint of common observation, the 
 simile might be set down as inaccurate. But 
 who so blind as not to see that there is no un- 
 truth nor superfluity in the poet's art? He 
 means to give the air of utter loneliness and sad- 
 ness, and therefore pictures an untenanted land- 
 scape, across whose lonely wastes a lonely wind 
 pursues its lonely way; and thus having saturated 
 his thought with sadness, he transfers the lone- 
 liness of the landscape to the winged winds. 
 This seems to me the very climacteric of exquisite 
 artistic skill, and I am always delighted to the 
 point of laughter or of tears ; for moods run to- 
 gether in presence of such poetry. No poet of 
 my knowledge so haunts the illustrative. In 
 
228 A HieRO AND Some) Othi^r Foi,k 
 
 reading him, so perfect are the pictures that your 
 fingers itch to play the artist's part, so you might 
 shadow some beauty on every page. Some 
 painter, working after the manner of Turner's 
 "Rivers of France," might make himself im- 
 mortal by devoting his life to the adequate illus- 
 tration of Tennyson, As his verses sing them- 
 selves, so his poems picture themselves. He 
 supplies you with painter's genius. A verse or 
 stanza needs but a frame to be a choice painting. 
 When told that the fool 
 
 "Danced like a withered leaf before the hall," 
 
 we' must see him, so vivid the scene, so lifelike the 
 color. 
 
 I will hang some pictures up as in a gallery : 
 
 ■ "Ever the weary wind went on, 
 
 And took the reed-tops as it went" 
 
 "I, that whole day, 
 Saw her no more, although I linger'd there 
 Till every daisy slept." 
 
 "Love with knit brows went by, 
 And with a flying finger swept my lips." 
 
 "Breathed like the covenant of a God, to hold 
 From thence through all the worlds." 
 
 "Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind. 
 And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep." 
 
 "The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores." 
 
Tennyson the Dreamer 229 
 
 "And in the fallow leisure of my life." 
 
 "Her voice fled always through the summer land; 
 I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! 
 The flower of each, those moments when we met, 
 The crown of all, we met to part no more." 
 
 "Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs 
 Of life." 
 
 "The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit 
 Of wisdom. Wait." 
 
 "Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
 When the tide ebbs in sunshine." 
 
 "Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 
 By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 
 And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
 But such as gather'd color day by day." 
 
 "I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
 That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 
 And can not speak, nor move, nor make one sign. 
 But lies and dreads his doom." 
 
 "Behold, ye speak an idle thing: 
 Ye never knew the sacred dust; 
 I do but sing because I must. 
 And pipe but as the linnets sing. 
 
 I hold it true, whate'er befall; 
 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most; 
 
 'T is better to have loved and lost, 
 Than never to have Joved at all. 
 
230 A Hkro and Some; Othe;r F01.K 
 
 But brooding on the dear one dead. 
 And all he said of things divine, 
 (And dear to me as sacred wine 
 
 To dying lips is all he said). 
 
 And look thy look, and go thy way. 
 
 But blame not thou the winds that make 
 The seeming-wanton ripple break. 
 
 The tender-pencil'd shadow play. 
 
 Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, 
 Ah me! the sorrow deepens down. 
 Whose mufHed motions blindly drown 
 
 The bases of my life in tears. 
 
 Be near me when my light is low, 
 
 When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick. 
 And tingle; and the heart is sick. 
 
 And all the wheels of being slow. 
 
 I can not love thee as I ought, 
 
 For love reflects the thing beloved; 
 My words are only words, and moved 
 
 Upon the topmost froth of thought. 
 
 From point to point, with power and grace 
 And music in the bounds of law. 
 To those conclusions when we saw 
 
 The God within him light his face. 
 
 And while the wind began to sweep 
 A music out of sheet and shroud, 
 We steer'd her toward a, crimson cloud 
 
 That landlike slept along the deep. 
 
Tknnyson the; Dreamer 231 
 
 Abiding with me till I sail 
 
 To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
 And this electric force, that keeps 
 
 A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 
 
 And hear at times a sentinel, 
 
 Who moves about from place to place. 
 And whispers to the worlds of space. 
 
 In the deep night, that all is well." 
 
 "Brawling, or like a clamor of the rooks 
 At distance, ere they settle for the night." 
 
 "In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet." 
 
 "That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows." 
 
 "But as a man to whom a dreadful loss 
 Falls in a far land, and he knows it not." 
 
 "The long way smoke beneath him in his fear." 
 
 "Then, after all was done that hand could do. 
 She rested, and her desolation came 
 Upon her, and she wept beside the way." 
 
 "Seam'd with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek. 
 And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 
 And loved him, with that love which was her doom." 
 
 "And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 
 And poplars made a noise of falling showers." 
 
 "No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
 Of greatness to know well I am not great." 
 
 "Hurt in the side, whereat she caught her breath; 
 Through her own side she felt the sharp lance go." 
 
232 A Hero and Somk Other FoIvK 
 
 "Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
 As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
 A little bitter pool about a stone 
 On the bare coast." 
 
 "Thy shadow still would glide from room to room. 
 And i should evermore be vext with thee 
 In hanging robe or vacant ornament, 
 Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair." 
 
 "Far off a solitary trumpet blew. 
 Then, waiting by the doors, the war-horse neigh'd 
 As at a friend's voice, and he spake again." 
 
 "Through the thick night I hear the trumpet blow." 
 
 "And slipt aside, and like a wounded life 
 Crept down into the hollows of the wood." 
 
 "Then Philip, with his eyes 
 Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
 Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand." 
 
 "Had he not 
 Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
 Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone. 
 Surely the man had died of solitude." 
 
 "Because things seen are mightier than things heard." 
 
 "For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
 See through the gray skirts of a lifting squall 
 The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
 To save the life despair'd of, than he saw 
 Death dawning on him, and the close of all." 
 
 "And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced 
 Back toward his solitary home again, 
 
Tbnnyson the Dreamer 233 
 
 All down the narrow street he went, 
 Beating it in upon his weary brain, 
 As though it were the burthen of a song, 
 'Not to tell her, never to let her know.' " 
 
 "Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
 In tempest." 
 
 "Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, 
 Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere." 
 
 "Prick'd with incredible pinnacles into heaven." 
 
 "An out-door sign of all the warmth within. 
 Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud; 
 But Heaven had meant it for a sunny one." 
 
 "All the old echoes hidden in the wall." 
 
 "Their plumes driv'n backward by the wind they made 
 In moving, all together down upon him 
 Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North sea, 
 Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 
 Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 
 Down on a bark, and overbears the bark, 
 And him that helms it, so they overbore 
 Sir Lancelot and his charger." 
 
 "There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier 
 Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
 The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen. 
 Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine. 
 And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 
 The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down 
 Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars 
 The long brook falling through the clov'n ravine 
 
234 A Hkro and Some; Othkr Folk 
 
 In cataract after cataract to the sea. 
 
 Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 
 
 Stands up and takes the morning; but in front 
 
 The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal 
 
 Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel. 
 
 The crown of Troas." 
 
 "One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand. 
 And some one pacing there alone, 
 Who paced forever in a glimmering land, 
 Lit with a low large moon. 
 
 One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. 
 
 You seem'd to hear them climb and fall 
 And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 
 
 Beneath the windy wall. 
 
 And one, a full-fed river winding slow 
 
 By herds upon an endless plain. 
 The ragged rims of thunder brooding low. 
 
 With shadow-streaks of rain. 
 
 And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. 
 
 In front they bound the sheaves. Behind 
 Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil. 
 
 And hoary to the wind. 
 
 And one, a foreground black with stones and slags. 
 Beyond, a line of heights, and higher 
 
 All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags. 
 And highest, snow and fire. 
 
 And one, an English home — gray twilight pour'd 
 
 On dewy pastures, dewy trees. 
 Softer than sleep — all things, in order stored, 
 
 A haunt of ancient Peace." 
 
Te;nnyson the; Dr^ame;r 235 
 
 Each stanza is a picture, bound, not in book 
 nor gold, but in a stanza. 
 
 "Like flame from ashes." 
 
 "Sighing weariedly, as one 
 Who sits and gazes on a faded fire, 
 When all the goodlier guests are past away." 
 
 "As the crest of some slow-arching wave 
 Heard in dead night along that table-shore 
 Drops flat, and after the great waters break 
 Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves 
 Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud. 
 From less and less to nothing." 
 
 "Belted his body with her white embrace." 
 
 "And out beyond into the dream to come." 
 
 "Thus, as a hearth lit in a mountc.xn home. 
 And glancing on the window, when the gloom 
 Of twilight deepens round it, seems a flame 
 That rages in the woodland far below." 
 
 Looking at these landscapes, can words add 
 weight to the claim for Alfred Tennyson as a 
 painter ? 
 
 And Tennyson Is as pure as the air of mid- 
 ocean. His moral qualities are in no regard in- 
 ferior to his artistic qualities, although from cen- 
 turies of poets we might have been schooled to 
 anticipate that so sensitive and poetic a nature 
 had been sensual, concluding a lowered stand- 
 ard of ethics, theoretical or practical, one or 
 
236 A He;ro and Some) Othejr Foi^k 
 
 both, especially considering his earliest literary- 
 admiration was that poetic Don Juan, Lord By- 
 ron, whose poems were a transcript of his morals, 
 where a luxuriant imagination and a poetic dic- 
 tion we're combined in a high degree, and so the 
 poet qualified to be a bane or blessing of a com- 
 manding order, he choosing so to use his ex- 
 traordinary gifts as to pollute the living springs 
 from which a generation of men and women 
 drank. What we do find Is, a Tennyson as re- 
 moved .rom a Byron in moral mood and life' as 
 southern cross from northern lights. The morals 
 of both life and poems are as limpid as the 
 waters of pellucid Tahoe ; and purest women may 
 read from "Claribel" to "Crossing the Bar," and 
 be only purer from the reading. Henry Van 
 Dyke has written on "The Bible in Tennyson," 
 an article, after his habit, discriminating and ap- 
 preciative, in the course of which he shows how 
 some of the delicious verse's of the laureate are 
 literal extracts from the Book of God, so native 
 is poetry to that sublime volume ; though I in- 
 cline to believe the larger loan of the Bible to 
 Tennyson is the purity of thought evidenced in 
 the poet's writings, and more particularly in the 
 poet's ^ life. Who has not been touched by the 
 Bible who has lived in these later centuries? 
 Modern life may no more' ,get away from the 
 Bible than our planet may flee from its own 
 
 J 
 
Tknnyson tsn Dre)ame;r 237 
 
 atmosphere. We can never estimate the moral 
 potency of such a poet, living and writing for 
 sixty years, though we may fairly account this 
 longevity of pure' living and pure thinking and 
 pure writing among the primary blessings of our 
 century. That two such pure men and poets as 
 Tennyson and Browning were given a single race 
 in a single century is abundant cause for giving 
 hearty thanks to God. They have purified, not 
 our day only, but remote days coming, ^ill days 
 shall set to rise no more, and have givei>. the lie 
 to the poor folly of supposing highest genius and 
 purest morality to be incompatibles ; for in life 
 and poem, and in the' poem of life, they have 
 swept clouds from our sky, until all purity stands 
 revealed, fair as the morning star smiling at 
 Eastern lattices. In Tennyson is no slightest 
 appeal to the sensual. He hates pruriency, mak- 
 ing protest against it with a voice like the' 
 clangor of angry bells. In "Locksley Hall Sixty 
 Years After," he speaks wisely and justly, in 
 sarcasm that bites as acids do : 
 
 "Rip your brother's vices open, strip your own foul pas- 
 sions bare: 
 
 Down with Reticence, down with Reverence — forward, 
 naked — let them stare. 
 
 Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of 
 your sewer; 
 
 Send the drain into the fountain lest the stream should 
 issue pure. 
 
238 A He;ro and Somk Other F01.K 
 
 Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the trough of Zola- 
 ism, 
 
 Forward, forward, aye and backward, downward, too, 
 in the abysm. 
 
 Do your best to charm the worst, to lower the rising 
 race of men." 
 
 And this is Tennyson the aged, whose moral 
 eyes were as the' physical eyes of Moses on Pis- 
 gah, "undimmed." Bless him for his aged 
 anger! Happily, to-day, reaHsm has lost its 
 charm. We have had enough living in sewers, 
 when the suburbs were near with their breezy 
 heights and quiet homes. Stench needs no 
 apostle. The age has outgrown these hectic 
 folk, who, in the name of nature', lead us back 
 to Pompeii. Gehenna needs not to be assisted. 
 Jean Valjean, bent on an errand of mercy, fled 
 to the sewers of Paris, his appeal to the'se foul 
 subways being justified, since he sought them 
 under stress for the preservation of a Hfe. Does 
 this prove that men should take promenades in 
 the sewers as if they were boulevards? An 
 author is not called on to tell all he knows. Let 
 writers of fiction assume that the public knows 
 there are' foul things, and needs not to be re- 
 minded of them, and let the romancist avoid them 
 as he would a land of lepers. 
 
 Those who companied with Tennyson through 
 his beautiful career were helped into a growing 
 
Te;nnyson TH:e Dreamer 239 
 
 love of purity. He had no panegyric for lust and 
 shame and sensuality, but made us feel they were 
 shameful, so that we blushed for those who had 
 not the modesty to blush for themselves. We 
 are ashamed for Guinevere and Lancelot, and are 
 proud of Enid and Elaine and Sir Galahad and 
 King Arthur; and in them, and in others, have 
 been helped to see the heroic beauty of simple 
 virtue. This is an incalculable gain for soul. 
 When we have learned that profligates, whatever 
 their spasms of flash}^ achievements, are poor 
 company, and that the pure are evermore good 
 company, and goodness Is a quest worthier than 
 the quest for the golden grail, we have risen to no- 
 bility of soul which can never becoime out of date. 
 
 Noah was not more' clearly a preacher of 
 righteousness in his day than Tennyson in his, 
 of whom say, as highest encomium we know to 
 pronounce, "He made goodness beautiful to our 
 eyes and desirable to our hearts; and, beyond 
 this, made it easier for us to be good," 
 
 Over all this poet wrote, he might have looked 
 straight in God's eye, and prayed, as King 
 
 Arthur : 
 
 "And that Avhich I have done 
 May he within himself make pure!" 
 
 And we chant, sending our muse after him, — 
 
 "Nor was there moaning of the bar 
 When he set out to sea." 
 
240 A He;ro and Some Othkr Foi,k 
 
 To him saying, "We love him yet, and shall 
 while life' endures," borrowing Whittier's God- 
 speed to the dead Bayard Taylor : 
 
 'Xet the home-voices greet him in the far, 
 Strange land that holds him; let the messages 
 Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas 
 And unmapped vastness of his unknown star! 
 Love's language, heard above the loud discourse. 
 Of perishable fame, in every sphere 
 Itself interprets; and its utterance here, 
 Somewhere in God's unfolding universe. 
 Shall reach our traveler, softening the surprise 
 Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!" 
 
VIII 
 
 The American Historians 
 
 THE average American traveler is better 
 acquainted with foreign lands than with his 
 own country. Nor is he unique in this regard, 
 I have known persons who lived a lifetime 
 within a dozen squares of Westminster Abbey, 
 and were never inside of that historic cathedral, 
 as I have known persons to live forty years not 
 fifty miles distant from Niagara, and never to 
 have heard the organ speech of that great cata- 
 ract. This is a common flaw in intellect. We 
 tend to underestimate the near, and exaggerate 
 the remote. Another application of the same 
 frailty is noticeable in literature. Homegrown 
 literature is, with not a few, depreciated. Ac- 
 cording to their logic, good things can not come 
 out of Nazareth, and imported products are the 
 only viands worth a Sybarite palate. In mediaeval 
 days the form assumed was different, while the 
 principle remained the same. Then the question 
 of value turned upon whether a work was writ- 
 ten in the learned language ; namely, in Latin. 
 If written in the vernacular, the work was im- 
 i6 241 
 
242 A Hbro and Some Other Foi,k: 
 
 mediately set down as vulgar. One of Martin 
 Luther's valuable services was that, when the 
 reverse was prevalent, he honored the vernacu- 
 lar of his country, and insisted that it be taught 
 in the schools, a thing accounted an educational 
 heresy in his time ; and in his translation of the 
 Bible into German, he created German literature. 
 
 Americans are a race of readers, and are the 
 Rome to which all literature turns face and feet. 
 Besides many books not' great, all great books 
 are translated into English. Everybody's book 
 comes to America. We are a cosmopolitan popu- 
 lation In a literary way. If you were to look 
 at the book-counters of each succeeding month, 
 you would see how all the writing world has been 
 writing for us. From such conditions of supply, 
 our taste becomes cultivated. We feel ourselves 
 connoisseurs. If we give a more ready reading 
 to a foreign than to a domestic book, the reason 
 is not of necessity that the home book is defi- 
 cient in interest or literary finish, but may be 
 attributed simply to an undesigned and perhaps 
 unpercelved predisposition toward the imported 
 and the remote. 
 
 I confess to a love for what Is American. I 
 love! Its Government; its prevalent and genuine 
 democracy; its chance for the common man and 
 woman to rise into success and fame and valuable 
 service ; Its Inheritance, unblemished by primo- 
 
The; American Historians 243 
 
 geniture or entail; its universality of education 
 to a degree of intelligence ; its history and ten- 
 dency; and I love its literature, though, as 
 appears to me, our historians have done the 
 highest grade of work of any of our litterateurs — 
 in sa3dng which there is no disparagement of other 
 literary workers, but simply a stated belief in the 
 pre-eminent value of the historian in American 
 letters. What I mean is this : During the fifty 
 years last passed there were poets and novelists 
 in England who, with all deference to our own 
 writers, were equal or superior to the poets and 
 novelists of America. America had no poets who 
 stood the peer of Browning and Tennyson; and 
 amxong novelists, our Hawthorne could not be 
 said to surpass a Thackeray, Dickens, or Eliot. 
 But say, proudly, beyond the sea were no his- 
 torians the masters of Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, 
 and Parkman. This article wishes to point out 
 the quality and range of American historians, with 
 an expressed hope of causing research in this 
 ample and fertile field. 
 
 Though first on the soil of the Western Hemi- 
 sphere, the Spaniard has made no acknowledged 
 and valuable contribution to American history. 
 Nor, indeed, has any nation of this hemisphere, 
 save our own. The French and Spanish Jesuit 
 submitted religious monographs touching the 
 early days of occupancy of New France and 
 
244 -^ Hbro and Some; Othkr Foi^e 
 
 Mexico ; but these will readily be seen to be 
 rather chronicles than histories. And the his- 
 torian, native to the United States, is he in whose 
 hands have been the historical studies of our 
 Western World. La Salle, Hennepin, Marquette, 
 and Las Casas have written faulty but valuable 
 memoirs ; but they do not reach the dignity and 
 value of histories, being what one might name' 
 crude ore rather than refined gold. 
 
 Another thing worthy a glad emphasis is, that 
 America is her own historian. The New World 
 has begotten the writers of its own story. How 
 fully this is true will not be appreciated until a 
 detailed and instantaneous survey is taken. 
 Look down on this plain of history as one does 
 on Tuscany from an Alp. Thus, and thus only, 
 can we value our possession. In this estimate, 
 mention is made of the greater historians, not 
 because others are not worthy of notice, but be- 
 cause the scope of this essay does not allow, inas- 
 much as reference is here had to the specific 
 gravity of the historian and the epoch of our his- 
 tory he has exploited, 
 
 Washington Irving, essayist, biographer, hu- 
 morist, was, before all, a historian in temper, and 
 was drawn as by some subtle and unseen attrac- 
 tion to study that nation to which America 
 owed its discovery. Irving is_ an evident Ameri- 
 can. He loved the' land through whose palisades 
 
The) American Historians 245 
 
 the stately Hudson flowed. What touched Amer- 
 ica touched Irving, and who had loved or helped 
 America had won Irving's heart as a trophy. 
 And such evident patriotism is commendable in 
 citizen and writer. We love not Caesar less, 
 but Rome the more, when we believe in America 
 before all nations of history. I love the patriot 
 above the cosmopolitan, because in him is an 
 honest look, a homeliness that touches the heart 
 like the sight of a pasture-field, with its broken 
 bars, where our childhood ran with happy feet. 
 Carlyle was against things because they were 
 English; so was Matthew Arnold. These men 
 we're self-expatriated in spirit. I like not the 
 attitude. Give us men who love native land be- 
 yond all other lands, and who, removed there- 
 from, turn homesick eyes toward its invisible 
 boundaries. Irving, admirable in many ways, 
 was in no way more' to be admired than in his 
 predilection for his country as a theme for his 
 historian's muse. To him pay tribute, because 
 he is historian of the discovery of our brave 
 Western Hemisphere. Irving has told the story 
 of that great admiral of the' ocean, Christopher 
 Columbus. This memoir may not be exact. 
 Irving may have idealized this pathfinder of the 
 ocean ; though if he has, he has observed the pro- 
 prieties, literary and imaginative, as many suc- 
 cessors have not. Some writers are seemingly 
 
246 A Hero and Som:^ Other Foi<k 
 
 bent on making every great soul commonplace, 
 thinking that if they fail to belittle a distinguished 
 benefactor of the race, if they have not played the 
 Vandal with a swagger and conceit like Jack 
 Falstafif, they have ignominiously failed; when 
 the plain truth is, that if they succeeded in tak- 
 ing the glamour for those heroes of whom they 
 write, they have hurt mankind so far, and have 
 impoverished imagination and endeavor by their 
 invidious task. We need not suppose Christopher 
 Columbus and Washington saints, seeing there 
 is no inclination to canonize them; but we need 
 not hold their follies up to wake the guffaw of 
 a crowd. Such laughter is dearly bought. One 
 thing I hold so true no reasoning can damage 
 it; namely, that a man like Columbus had nobler 
 moods on which he voyaged as his caravel through 
 the blue seas. Columbus was no swineherd, but 
 a dreamer, whose dreams enlarged the world by 
 half, and gave a new civilization room and tri- 
 umph. He was of his age, and his morality was 
 not unimpeachable ; but in him were still great 
 moralities and humanities. He had mountain- 
 tops in his spirits, and on these peaks he stood. 
 What puerile work it is to attempt robbing Co- 
 lumbus of his discoverer's glory by attempting 
 to show how vikings discovered this continent! 
 Such historians might fight a less bloody battle 
 still by showing that the aborigines discovered 
 
The AM:eRiCAN Historians 247 
 
 this continent before the Norsemen did! What 
 boots such folly? What gold of benefit comes 
 of such quests? Certain we are that when Co- 
 lumbus set sail for a New World, no one believed 
 the earth was round as he did, and no one knew 
 the Norsemen had piloted across seas and found 
 land; and Europe was ignorant of any shore 
 westward, and Columbus, in his ignorance, risked 
 all and vanquished all. 
 
 "Dragging up drowned honor by the locks," 
 
 as says our Shakespeare. Columbus is America's 
 benefactor. He showed the Puritans a New 
 World, toward whose shores to sail, and behind 
 whose harbor-bar to cast anchor. Nothing can 
 invalidate these claims. Honor him who honors 
 us in giving us a rendezvous for liberty and 
 civilization. This mood of history Washington 
 Irving caught, and because he did, I honor him. 
 He was sagacious. He did not traduce a hero, 
 but enthroned him. In short, Irving behaved 
 toward Christopher Columbus as a historian and 
 a gentleman, and set Americans a pattern in history- 
 writing in that they should be the' historiograph- 
 ers of their own world. This Nestor's lessons 
 were heard and heeded. If you care to read 
 Irving's various historical writings, the logic of 
 these writings will appear. America was his home 
 and love. He thought to write the story of how 
 
248 A Hero and Som:^ Other Foi,k 
 
 a brave man gave a world this huge room 
 it knew not of. Loyalty made him historian. 
 His researches gave him familiarity with Spanish 
 archives. The movement of the era touched him; 
 for Irving was susceptible to the finer moods of 
 literature, as any who reads the "Sketch-book" 
 knows; and once having set foot on Spanish his- 
 torical ter7'a Urma, he began a journey as a traveler 
 might. America led Irving to Columbus, Co- 
 lumbus led him to Spain, Spain led him to 
 Mohammedism, and Mohammedism led him to 
 Mohammed. How natural his literary travels ! 
 Consider the consecutiveness of his historical at- 
 tempts : "Life of Columbus," "Spanish Voyages," 
 "Conquest of Grenada," "Conquest of Spain," 
 "Moorish Chronicles," and "Life of Mohammed." 
 The influence of this historical research, too, you 
 shall find in reading his romances : "Wolfert's 
 Roost," "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," 
 "Bracebridge Hall," and "Alhambra." 
 
 Patriotism taught Irving's Clio to find her 
 voice. Nor must we forget, in any estimate of 
 Irving's service, his biography of Washington. 
 This is his tribute to the battle-days of his beloved 
 America. 
 
 In strict affinity with Irving in the time of his 
 history is Prescott. This man is a distinguished 
 historian. To history he devoted his life, and to 
 such effect that he is to be ranked among the 
 
Thk American Historians 249 
 
 masters of history among the ages. America at- 
 tracted him as it had attracted Irving. The era 
 of the discovery enticed him as the voyage had 
 enticed Columbus. "Ferdinand and Isabella" are 
 the dominant voices on his stage. Irving made 
 them subordinate, and made Columbus the chief 
 player, which mode Prescott reverses. The 
 union of Castile and Aragon, and the subsequent 
 ■wars against the Moriscoes, which virtually put 
 the knife in their heart and concluded that tri- 
 umph which had been begun by Charles Martel 
 at Tours, is an attractive portion of history. In 
 Prescott, as in Motley, is a wealth of research 
 which fairly bewilders. Nothing is extempora- 
 neous. Archives are ransacked. Moldy corre- 
 spondence is made to tell its belated story. Cer- 
 tainly Prescott is abundant in information. I do 
 not recall, save in Gibbon's, a series of histories 
 where so much new knowledge is retailed as in 
 Prescott. In seeming looseness of phrase, I have 
 used the term "new knowledge," but these 
 words are happily descriptive of "Conquest of 
 Mexico" and "Conquest of Peru," because the 
 fields were practically untrodden to the ordinary 
 reader. Everything is new, like a college to the 
 freshman. We see a New World in more senses 
 than one. The freshness of the facts is exhilarat- 
 ing. We march with Cortes ; we conquer with 
 Pizarro; we inspect Montezuma's palace; we be- 
 
250 A Hkro and Some Other Foi^k:. 
 
 come' interested in the industrial system of the In- 
 cas, a system which should have given Henry 
 George and Edward Bellamy a delight without 
 alloy; we perceive the incredible valor and perse- 
 verance and endurance of Cortes ; we front 
 "new faces, other minds ;" we discover the 
 Amazon through perils and hardships so multi- 
 tudinous and so severe as to tempt us to think these 
 narrations a myth; we see rapacity insatiable' as 
 death, a bloody idol-worship pitiless and terrible; 
 we read Prescott's history with growing avidity 
 and increasing information ; read Prescott, and 
 become wiser concerning the aborigines of the' 
 Americas and the possibilities of human forti- 
 tude and prowess. A study of the Spanish era 
 of discovery and conquest naturally led to a study 
 of Charles V, grandson of Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella, and Prescott has accordingly brought up 
 to date "Robertson's Life of Charles V," append- 
 ing a biography of Charles V subsequent to his 
 abdication ; and as a certificate of indefatigable in- 
 dustry in historical research is an incomplete but 
 exhaustive memoir, entitled, "The Life of 
 Philip IL" This work is written with such fair- 
 ness of spirit and such wealth of information and 
 investigation, such vivid presentation of a reign 
 v/hich had more of the movement of the universal 
 dominion than any since the Roman days, and 
 thus written so as to make us rebellious in spirit 
 
The) Ameirican Historians 251 
 
 In finding the work incomplete. Death came too 
 soon to give our indefatigable author time to com- 
 plete his voluminous history. Read Prescott as 
 a matter of American pride, and because' he has 
 dealt more capably with the era with which he 
 treats than any other historian. 
 
 The United States has supplied her own his- 
 torians, not needing to go abroad for either his- 
 tory or historian. George Bancroft, with a private 
 library larger by almost half than the ten thou- 
 sand-volume library Edward Gibbon used in writ- 
 ing "The Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Kmpire ;" George Bancroft, whose literary life 
 was dedicated to one task, and that the writing 
 the life of his coimtry prior to the Constitution; 
 George Bancroft, publicist as well as student of 
 history, and who in such relation represented his 
 Government with distinction at the courts of 
 Germany and England, — George Bancroft has 
 written a history of the United States which will 
 no more become archaic than Macaulay or Grote. 
 While one' may now and then hear from the lips 
 of the so-called "younger school of American 
 historians" a criticism of George Bancroft, their 
 carping is ungracious and gratuitous. Theirs has 
 not been the art to equal him, nor will be. A 
 literary life devoted to the mastery of one era 
 of a nation's ihistory is a worthy sight, good 
 for the eyes, and arguing sanity of method and 
 
252 A HijRo AND Some Other FoIvK 
 
 profundity of investigation. Whoever has read 
 Bancroft can testify to his readableness, to his 
 comprehensive knowledge, to his philosophical 
 grasp, to his ability to make dead deeds vividly 
 visible, and to his gift of interesting the reader 
 in events and their philosophy. He has written 
 a great history of the United States before the 
 Constitution, so that no author has felt called on 
 or equipped to reduplicate his task in the same 
 detail and manner. 
 
 Where George Bancroft left ofif, Schouler has 
 begun. More dramatic than Bancroft, and in 
 consequence more compelling in interest, the his- 
 tory marches at a double-quick, like a charging 
 regiment. His pictures of John Quincy Adams, 
 Calhoun, Clay, Webster, Sumner, Douglas, Lin- 
 coln, and a host beside', vitalize those men. We 
 live with that giant brood. I have found Schouler 
 invigoratingly helpful. He affords knowledge and 
 inspiration ; a man is behind his pages ; we feel 
 him and acknowledge him. 
 
 One change has come over the spirit of his- 
 tory to which all must bear joyful witness, and 
 that is the passing of the king and the advent 
 of the people. The world has grown more demo- 
 cratic than it knows. The people engage atten- 
 tion now. We do not know so much of Queen 
 Victoria; but of the conquering, splendid race 
 whose hereditary sovereign she is, we know much, 
 
The Ame;rican Historians 253 
 
 very much. The case used to be wholly other- 
 wise, the sovereign monopolizing attention ; but 
 that day is passed. So let it be. This change 
 is one needed, and waited for long, and longed for 
 eagerly, John Richard Green saw the demoneti- 
 zation of kings and a remonetization of the people, 
 and so wrote a revolutionary history, calling it 
 "A History of the English People," in which he 
 subordinated the intrigues of courts and the selfish 
 wars of potentates to the quiet growth of national 
 spirit and the characteristics of domestic life, and 
 the development and solidification of social in- 
 stincts into social customs, and the framing of 
 a literature, the reformation of religion, and the 
 direction of the thought of the many. These con- 
 stituted, as he believed, and as we believe, the 
 genuine biography of a people ; and McMaster has 
 done' for the United States what Green has done 
 for England. His "History of the People of the 
 United States" is so packed with knowledge ; so 
 accurate in laying hold of those things which we 
 did not know, but wanted to know; so free in 
 giving us the inside life of our country, as to 
 make' us wonder what we did before our historian 
 of the people came to lend us knowledge. My 
 conviction is, that a careful reading of McMaster 
 will suffice to cure most of our dyspeptic feelings 
 about national discontent in our time, and dispel 
 the' fabulous notion of an older time in America, 
 
254 -^ H^RO AND SoM]^ Othejr Foi,k 
 
 when everybody was happy and everybody was 
 contented. No such day ever existed. The king- 
 dom of contentment is within us, like the king- 
 dom of God. McMaster tells us the unvarnished 
 tale of inflation and political and financial asinin- 
 ity in the former days, so that when he is done 
 We are less liable to that frailty of the ignorant 
 soul; namely, the moaning, "The former days 
 we're better than these." 
 
 Thus far, those authors have been named who 
 have chronicled the discovery of America, the 
 conquering of the Southern Hemisphere or the' 
 Eastern territory of that era known as the United 
 States. This was done to keep a natural move- 
 ment and logical progress. At this point, how- 
 ever, must be mentioned those voluminous his- 
 tories of the States and Territories of the Pacific 
 Coast, written by H. H. Bancroft. They are 
 treasure-houses of material for the future histo- 
 rian. Hubert Bancroft has become the historian 
 of the Spanish dominion in the United States, and 
 deserves favorable thought for his wealth of re- 
 search into archives which might have been lost, 
 or at least less ample with the advance of time. 
 Topography, geography, archseology, State papers, 
 ' — all have contributed their quota to him, and 
 he has, after the generous manner of the scholar, 
 contributed to us. 
 
 Francis Parkman is a distinguished master in 
 
Thk American Historians 255 
 
 the art of history. His theme is the '"American 
 Indian" and the "French Occupancy of America," 
 and he has told a thrilHng story. He knows the 
 Indian as no one of our historians has known 
 him, and has told of his noble traits, and his 
 ruthless forays, and his sanguine cruelty. His 
 utter lack of thrift ; his feast-and-famine life ; his 
 stealth, stoHdity, duplicity, and ferocity, — all are 
 rehearsed. To read his record of the Indian is 
 to have much of the glamour thrown around him 
 by James Fenimore Cooper stripped from him 
 incontinently and forever. The Indian was self- 
 exterminative. He was the assassin of his race, 
 and civilization was impossible so long as the 
 American Indian was dominant; so that those 
 who shed tears over the white man's conquest of 
 the Indian may not well have weighed their cause. 
 The Indian was not the quiet, inoffensive inno- 
 cent presented in Cuba at its discovery. There 
 were Indians and Indians. Some of them were 
 friendly, peaceful, and kindly; but that this was 
 the character of the American Indian as a whole 
 is totally incorrect. Parkman shows that the 
 Indian was, throughout North America, in his 
 native strength furious in his ferocity, relentless 
 as death, cruel beyond imagination, and occupied 
 a territory he neither cultivated nor attempted to. 
 The Indians were military vagabonds, whose con- 
 tinued control had left America an unpeopled 
 
256 A Hero and Some) Otheje. Foi<k 
 
 wilderness to this day. Huntsmen and warriors 
 they were; citizens and cultivators and civilizers 
 they were not, and never would have been. 
 Parkman tells the truth as history found them, and 
 those truths are well worth our reading, because 
 in their perusal we pass from sentimentality to 
 reason, and see how this America of our day, 
 rich, cultivated, civilized, and possessed of the 
 largest amount of personal liberty ever vouch- 
 safed to a citizen, is a noble exchange for the' 
 thoughtlessness, improvidence, and barbarity 
 which were original holders of this realm. Speak- 
 ing for myself, no author ever helped me to 
 knowledge of the character of the aborigines of 
 North America as Francis Parkman has done. 
 I see that wild past, and feel it. And he has 
 written the thrilling story of the French attempt 
 to build an empire; and the attempt was coura- 
 geous to the verge of wonder. There was in the 
 Frenchman a careless ease and courage and 
 sprightliness of temper, which lifted him above 
 danger, as a boat is Hfted on a billow's shoulders. 
 Those perils were his drink ; with a laugh and a 
 jest he met his appointment with death as he 
 would have met tryst with a woman. In "The 
 Romance of American Geography," I have de- 
 scribed the genius of the French voyager, for 
 which I have an unbounded admiration, and in 
 which I take' an intemperate" delight. He is the 
 
The American Historians 257 
 
 discoverer at his best, but the colonizer at his 
 worst. The Jesuits had a brave chapter in the 
 French occupancy. Their labors and sufterings 
 and voyagings, their fealty to what they thought 
 to be the cause of God, makes us proud of 
 them, as if they were our own fellow-citizens. 
 The settlement of Montreal and Quebec and con- 
 tiguous territory, the religious fervor that mixed 
 with the military spirit as waters of two streams 
 mingle in a mountain-meadow, — read Parkman, 
 and discover the dramatic instincts of these epi- 
 sodes which can be rehearsed no more upon our 
 continent. Their day is past; but it was a great 
 and stirring day. Gilbert Parker's "The Seats of 
 the Mighty" is a chapter torn from Parkman's 
 ^'French Regime in Canada." All his facts and the 
 romance are accurate, and are taken from Park- 
 man's narrative, which misses nothing, but tells 
 all. Parker's "Pierre and ihis People," and "An 
 Adventure of the North" are tales of adven- 
 ture, dewy with the' freshness of a frontier world, 
 and are in brief a section of the old French voy- 
 agers' days. Parkman's "Wolfe and Montcalm" 
 is a picture, painted in smoke and blood, where 
 heroism of Englishmen and Frenchmen mix 
 themselves in an inextricable confusion. Pray you 
 read Parkman, and be transported to a world 
 where great deeds were done by men whose lives 
 were as contradictory as an April day; but "their 
 17 
 
258 A H:eRO AND Some Other Foi<k 
 
 works do follow them" for all that, and do glorify 
 them. Be glad for Francis Parkman, historian. 
 
 Many historians there are. John Fiske has 
 written chapters on the discovery and coloniza- 
 tion days ; Rhodes has written on our Constitu- 
 tional history; Winsor has written on our an- 
 tiquities; Baird has written an exhaustive and 
 competent history of the Huguenots, a series 
 one will do more than well to read. Many schol- 
 ars have written comparatively brief memoirs of 
 the United States. Localities and States and 
 single villages have had their historians ; but the 
 commanding figures whose faces fill the canvas, 
 so to say, — of them this appreciation is written, 
 to point youth to an Oregon of delight, where 
 their leisure may stray with abundant profit and 
 increasing pleasure, and, as I hope, with growing 
 pride in American literature, so that they may 
 make mental boast of America's sons, who have 
 been stanch to enjoy and study the history of 
 their own native land. 
 
 My final word is of that brilliant, irascible, and 
 impressible American, John Lothrop Motley, his- 
 torian of the Dutch Republic ; and fitting it is that 
 a native of the first great stable Republic was 
 drawn to study the European Republic which 
 rose at the touch of William the Silent's genius, 
 and sank back into lethargy of kingship when the 
 blood of the tragic and heroic inauguration was 
 
The American Historians 259 
 
 all spilt. The contact of the United Netherlands 
 with American history and future is known to all. 
 From the Netherlands the Puritans set sail to 
 found what proved to be a colony and Republic. 
 The extent to which the Netherlands exercised 
 an influence in shaping the future of the American 
 Commonwealth has not been determined, and can 
 not be, though Douglas Campbell has maintained 
 that to the Dutch, and not to the English Puritan, 
 nor yet to the Magna Charta, does the American 
 Republic owe its chief debt. The theme is pro- 
 ductive and stimulative and worthy, though the 
 facts are indeterminate. America is attached to 
 the Dutch Republic as a bold attempt whose fail- 
 ure was nobler than many successes. The Puritan 
 exodus from Holland, when Pastor John Robin- 
 son prayed, preached, and prophesied, is one of 
 the most thrilling events recorded of the seven- 
 teenth century — a century crowded with doings 
 that thrill the flesh like a bugle-call. 
 
 Motley's histories are "The Rise of the Dutch 
 Republic," "The United Netherlands," and "John 
 of Barneveld," a series which, for brilliancy of 
 characterization of men and times and events, and 
 interest stimulated and held, may rank, without 
 hyperbole, with the writings of Lord Macaulay. 
 Both are always special pleaders, as I am of opin- 
 ion history ought probably to be, seeing that it 
 is human nature, and will, in all but solitary in- 
 
26o A He;ro and Som:^ Othejr Foi,k 
 
 stances, be the case whether or no ; both are fas- 
 cinating as a romancist ; both are colorists, gor- 
 geous as Rembrandt ; both glorify and .make you 
 admire and love their heroes, whether you are 
 so minded or not; both have made the epoch of 
 which they wrote vivid as the landscape upon 
 which the sunset pours its crimson dyes. Motley's 
 hero was William the Silent, Prince' of Orange; 
 and Macaulay's hero was William III, King of 
 England, Prince of Orange. Motley will bear be- 
 ing ranked as a great historian. He hates Philip 
 II, as I suppose good folks ought who despise 
 egotism, intolerance, vindictiveness, and horrible 
 cruelty. He lauds William the Silent as soldier 
 and statesman. Prince Maurice as a soldier, and 
 John of Barneveld as statesman. Motley marches 
 across old battle-fields like' a soldier clad in steel. 
 He gives portraits of Queen Elizabeth, of Leices- 
 ter, of Granvelle, of Prince Maurice, of John of 
 Barneveld, of Henry of Navarre, of Philip II, of 
 Count Egmont, of Charles V, of Don John of 
 Austria, of Hugo Grotius, and of William the 
 Silent, which are as noble as the portraits painted 
 by Sir Joshua Reynolds. I confess myself a heavy 
 debtor to Motley. He has taught me' so much ; 
 has familiarized me with the great world-figure, 
 William the Silent, so that I feel at home with 
 him and his struggle, and participate with him in 
 them. He has drawn so clearly the figures of 
 
Th:^ American Historians 261 
 
 Romanist, Arminian, and Calvinist, as to make 
 them fairly glow upon his pages. Not as minister 
 to St. James, under President Grant, was Motley 
 at his best; but rifling the archives of Holland 
 and Spain with an industry which knew no 
 bounds, and rehearsing the dry-as-dust discover- 
 ies in histories that glow like a furnace. Here is 
 the field in which he is all but unconquerable. 
 Long live the American historians! 
 
IX 
 
 King Arthur 
 
 PERHAPS no reader of the' world's literature 
 would deny that letters and life had been in- 
 definitely enriched by Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 How ideas affect life when once they have be- 
 come participants therein is the bar at which all 
 ideas must stand for judgment. Carbonic-acid gas 
 enters the lungs, fills them, and blows out the 
 lamp of life. Common air enters the' lungs, crim- 
 sons the blood, exhilarates the spirit, gives elas- 
 ticity to step and thought and pulse; is health, 
 and pours oil into the lamp of life whereby the' 
 flame burns higher, like watch-fires on evening 
 hills. One air brought death; one air brought 
 more abundant life. What do ideas effect, and 
 how do they affect him who entertains them is 
 the final question and the final test. Now, our 
 earth is always trying to grow men. Not har- 
 vests nor flowers nor forests, but man, is what 
 the' earth is proudest of. On transparent June 
 days, standing upon the cliffs of the Isle of Man, 
 I have seen the golden wheatfields on the hills 
 of Wales ; but heaven, looking earth's way, is ob- 
 262 
 
King Arthur 263 
 
 livlous to our tossing plumes of corn or tawny 
 billows of the fields of wheat. Heaven's con- 
 cern is in our crop of manhood; and ships that 
 ply between the shores of earth and shores of 
 heaven are never laden with gold or silver ingots, 
 as Spanish galleons were, nor with glancing silks 
 nor burning gems, but are forever freighted with 
 elect spirits. Men and women are the commodity 
 earth grows that heaven wants. 
 
 What helps the' growth of man is good; what 
 hurts the growth of man is bad. When one has 
 become a shadow, lost to human eyes, test him 
 with this acid. Did he do good? If he did evil, 
 let his name perish; if he did good, let his name 
 blaze in the' galaxy among the inextinguishable 
 stars. If he has made the growth of manhood 
 easier and its method more apparent; if he has 
 opened eyes to see the best, and spurred men to 
 attempt the best they saw; If he has enamored 
 them of virtue as aforetime' they were enamored 
 of vice, — trust me, that man was good. He will 
 endure, and be passed from age to age, like rare 
 traditions through centuries, till time shall die. 
 Submit Alfred Tennyson to this test. Is virtue 
 more apparent, more lovely, and of more luxu- 
 riant growth, like tropic forests, because of him? 
 But one answer is possible, and that answer is, 
 "King Arthur." To our moral riches, Victor 
 Hugo added "J^^" Valjean;" Dickens, "Sidney 
 
264 A He;ro and Somk Othkr FoIvK 
 
 Carton ;" Thackeray, "Colonel Newcome ;" Brown- 
 ing, "Caponsacchi ;" Tennyson, "King Arthur," 
 who stands and will stand as Tennyson's vision 
 of manhood at its prime. 
 
 The theme of this paper, then, is "King 
 Arthur," being a philosophy of manhood as out- 
 lined by Alfred Tennyson; and the purpose of 
 this essay is to bring into vital relation to King 
 Arthur the totality of argument for manhood 
 which Tennyson has constructed in his cycle of 
 poems, thus taking into our field of vision, not 
 simply "The Idyls of the King," adequate as they 
 may be, but, in addition, "Enoch Arden," "Ulys- 
 ses," "The' Vision of Sin," "The Palace of Art," 
 "Maud," "Columbus," "Locksley Hall," "The 
 Lotos-Eaters," and "In Memoriam," and all poems 
 which, by negation or affirmation, may suggest 
 or enforce a thought regarding the furnishing of 
 the soul. 
 
 In those idyls clustering about King Arthur, 
 Tennyson has patently purposed painting the 
 figure of a perfect man. How well he has exe- 
 cuted his design depends on himself much, on 
 the beholder much. Onlookers differ in opinion. 
 Painters have their clientage. Poets are not 
 omniscient ; neither are we, a thing we are prone 
 to forget. For myself, I confess not to see with 
 those who deride the king, nor yet with those 
 who think him statuesque, as if shaped, not out 
 
King Arthur 265 
 
 of flesh, but out of marble. He is not incredible, 
 nor is he a shadow, stalking gaunt and battle-clad 
 across the crags that fringe the' Cornish sea. Not 
 a few among us approximate perfection in char- 
 acter as blameless as Arthur's. I myself profess 
 to have seen a King Arthur, and to have held 
 high converse with him through many years. 
 Whiteness of hfe is not an episode foreign to 
 biography. There are man}^ Hves running white 
 toward heaven as I have seen a path across the' 
 moonlit sea. Not to be credulous is well; not to 
 be incredulous is better, when heavenly visions 
 and heavenly incarnations are' the theme. This is 
 affirmed, that King Arthur is not more unreal than 
 others Tennyson dehneates. His art lacks the 
 power to flood his people's veins with blood to 
 plethora, with such bounding vitality as marks 
 Shakespeare's creations. They lack, sometimes, 
 color on the cheek and lip and sunlight in the 
 eyes. His characters are as if seen in mist. Our 
 failing is, we give credence to fleshly instinct and 
 lust and failure in ideal more readily than to 
 wise manliness and stalwart and heroic worth. 
 But Enoch Arden is no dream. Arthur is no 
 myth. I know a man whose heart is as pure, 
 whose conduct as above' reproach, and whose 
 words are as big with charity, and thoughts as 
 foreign to hypocrisy, as Arthur's were ; for Arthur 
 is not dead. They did not dream who said, 
 
266 A Hbro and Som:^ Other Foi^k 
 
 "Arthur returns." He hides his name, lest he be- 
 come spectacular, a raree-show, for mobs to fol- 
 low and shout hoarse about; but he is here. I 
 met him yesterday; and to-morrow I shall walk 
 with him by the river, whe're the stream makes 
 music, and the trees sing in minors, and the 
 shadows darken on the grass. 
 
 What, then, is this Arthur's character ? Look- 
 ing at him as he sits astride his steed, yonder 
 at Camelot, with his visor up, he is see'n manhood 
 at its prime. A ruddy face, with beard of gold, 
 holding the sun as harvests do. Tourneys done, 
 the king is turned battleward, where he is to die ; 
 and a man's picture comes to have special value 
 at his death. When the wounded king is borne 
 by Bedivere across the echoing crags toward the 
 black funeral barge, we see him again, full in the 
 face, and remember him always. 
 
 King Arthur was a self-made man. His birth 
 was held to be uncertain. "Is he Uther's son?" 
 was on many a lip. So men yet sometimes hold 
 to some poor question of ancestry when worth, 
 evident as light, fronts them. Some there are 
 who live in so narrow a mood as to ask always 
 "Where?" and never "What?" when the latter is 
 God's unvarying method of estimation. This 
 quest for ancestry for Arthur is of service to us 
 as showing he had not empire ready to his hand. 
 His kingdom did not make him ; he made his 
 
King Arthur 267 
 
 kingdom; or, to give the entire history, lie made 
 himself and his kingdom. And this is oft-repeated 
 history. When a man makes a kingdom, he first 
 made himself. He does two things. Might goes 
 not single, loves not solitude, but makes itself 
 company. Milton made himself before he made 
 the Bible epic of the world. He wrought himself 
 and his complex history into his Iliad of heavenly 
 battle. Souls have, in a true sense, a beaten path 
 to tread. There is a highway worn to ruts and 
 dust by travel of the great men's feet. And Arthur 
 had much company, if he knew it not. Such men 
 seem alone, though if they saw all their com- 
 panionships they would know they walked on in 
 a goodly company and great. Greatness has 
 many fellowships, as stars have ; and stars have 
 fellowship of mountains and woods, and kindred 
 stars, and waters where star-shadows lie, and 
 oceans where galaxies tumble like defeated angels. 
 All greatness is self-made. Names are bequeathed 
 us, so much is borrowed. Character and value 
 are self-made. Gold has intrinsic worth. Man 
 has not, but makes his worth by the day's labor 
 of his hands. 
 
 This provision is God's excellent antidote to 
 dissatisfaction with one's estate. If worth could 
 be handed down, like name or fortune, one might 
 as well be a pasture-field, to pass from hand to 
 hand as chattel, instead of man. Far otherwise 
 
268 A Hero and Some Othkr Foi.k 
 
 God's plan. Each spirit works out, and must 
 work out, his own destiny. Destinies are not 
 ready-made but hand-made. King Arthur's fame 
 is not dependent on his ancestry, but on himself. 
 Ancestry we can not control ; self we can. Tenny- 
 son, though part of a hereditary system, sees with 
 perfect clearness how ancestry accounts for no 
 man, and how every man must make his own 
 room in the world; how nobility depends, not on 
 a family's past, but on the individual's present; 
 how wealth and service are the credentials of char- 
 acter society will accept, and the only credentials. 
 This view is scarcely English, but is fully Amer- 
 ican. And Tennyson was not sympathetic with 
 America. Democracies possessed not the flavor 
 of the' fruit he loved. When, however, the biog- 
 raphy of greatness is to be written, who writes 
 the story, if he write it truly, must tell a story 
 of democracy. Tennyson is unconscious demo- 
 crat when he writes Arthur's biography, because 
 as poet he saw. His intuitions led him. He 
 spoke, not as a lover of a certain social and polit- 
 ical system, but as a discerner of spirits. The 
 poet is not his best as a planned philosophizer ; 
 for in that role he becomes self-conscious; but 
 is at his best when the wheel of his burning spirit, 
 revolving as the planets do, throws off sparks 
 or streams of fire. To the accuracy of this ob- 
 servation witness both Browning and Tennyson. 
 
King Arthur " 269 
 
 When they were "possessed," as the Delphic 
 oracle would say, they marched toward truth like 
 an invincible troop. Truth seemed the missing 
 half of their own sphere, toward which, by a subtle 
 and lordly gravitation, they swung. When Tenny- 
 son's instincts speak, he is democrat; when his 
 reason and his prejudice (for he was surcharged 
 with both) speak, he is hot aristocrat. When 
 he is biographer for royal Arthur, his instinct 
 speaks, and his conviction holds that character 
 and deeds do and shall count for more than blood ; 
 and this is no isolated idea advanced touching 
 Arthur, but is prevalent throughout his verse. In 
 "Lady Clara Vere de Vere," his heart speaks, full 
 of eagerness, saying: 
 
 "Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
 'T is only noble to be good. 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 And simple faith than Norman blood." 
 
 Nor is the Laureate's subsequent acceptance 
 of the peerage a retraction of these earlier senti- 
 ments ; for he did but accept the ribbon of an 
 order which was part of the political system of 
 his native land. Himself was self-made'. Who 
 were the Tennysons? Who are the Tennysons? 
 He made a house. And in the list of lords, does 
 any one think there is a name whose device one 
 would rather wear than that of Lord Tennyson? 
 
270 A He;ro and Some Othejr Folk 
 
 Holland has this bit of verse, whose application 
 is apparent : 
 
 "Heaven is not reached at a single bound; 
 But we build the ladder by which we rise 
 From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
 And mount to its summit round by round." 
 
 Genius does the same. The stairs each gen- 
 eration climbed are rotten at its death, so that 
 no foot's weight can be borne upon them after- 
 ward. Man builds his own stairway greatness- 
 ward. In the Idyl of the King, entitled "Gareth 
 and Lynette," is application of this thought of 
 manhood above title or name or blood. Worth, 
 the main thing, is the theme of the idyl. 
 
 Hear Gareth call, like voice of trumpets, 
 
 "Let be my name ; until I make my name 
 
 My deeds will speak." 
 
 He seemed, and was not, a kitchen knave. He 
 seemed not, and he was, a knight of valor and of 
 purity and might, of purpose and of succor. Silly 
 Lynette might rain her superficial insults on him 
 like a winter's sleet — this hindered not his service. 
 He knew to wait, and dare, and do. His fame was 
 in him. A great life bears not its honors on its 
 back, as mountains do their pines, but in his 
 heart, as women do their Ipve. In Tennyson's 
 concept of manhood, worth counts, not rank. To 
 
King Arthur 271 
 
 this argument, words from "In Memoriam" are 
 a contribution : 
 
 "As some divinely-gifted man, 
 
 Whose life in low estate began 
 And on a simple village green; 
 
 Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
 And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
 
 And grapples with his evil star; 
 
 Who makes by force his merit known. 
 And lives to clutch the golden keys. 
 To mold a mighty State's decrees, 
 
 And shape the whisper of the throne; 
 
 And moving on from high to higher. 
 Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 
 The center of a world's desire." 
 
 Such words seem as if fallen from the lips of 
 Lincoln in a dream. "Aylmer's Field" is a pro- 
 test, written in grief and tears and blood against 
 the iniquity of ancestry as divorced from the pure 
 course of nobler love. God made of one blood 
 all kindreds of the earth, and means to mix this 
 blood till time shall die. Hearts give scant heed 
 to heraldry. Life is wider than a baron's field. 
 Arthur Hallam, whose epitaph is the sweetest ever 
 written, and bears title of "In Memoriam," — 
 Arthur Hallam, so greatly loved and missed, was 
 never nobleman in genealogy, but was full prince 
 
272 A Hero and Some Other F01.K 
 
 in youth and ideality and purity and genius and 
 j i promise, worth more than all the ancestries of 
 
 buried kings. More : Tennyson was as much self- 
 made as King Arthur. He made a house which 
 I I ! ! rose to the sound of poet's lute, rehearsing, in 
 
 our days, the story of Orpheus in the remote 
 j yesterdays. So myths come to be history. And 
 
 who would not rather be author of "The Lotos- 
 Eaters," and "Qinone," and "Ulysses," and 
 "Enoch Arden," and "In Memoriam" than to have 
 been possessed, with Sir Aylmer Aylmer, of 
 
 "Spacious hall. 
 Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree 
 Sprung from the midriff of a prostrate king?" 
 
 King Arthur's knights were novi viri. Whence 
 came Lancelot and Geraint and Sir Percivale? 
 And how came they, save' as 
 
 "Rising on their dead selves 
 To higher things?" 
 
 Arthur, at whose back march all the legions 
 of Tennyson's poetry celebrative of manhood, — 
 Arthur asserts the nobleness of manhood, irre- 
 spective of the accidents of wealth or birth. Many 
 scenes in Tennyson are taken from the cottage. 
 "The May Queen," "The Gardener's Daughter," 
 "The Grandmother," "Rizpah," and, above all, 
 "Enoch Arden," are poems showing how poetry 
 
King Arthur 273 
 
 dwells in the hearts of common folks. The verse 
 of books they may not know; the verse of senti- 
 ment they are at home with. Birth is not a term 
 in the proportion of worth; and I hold Arthur 
 one of the strongest voices of our century assert- 
 ive of the sufficiency of manhood. Self-made and 
 greatly made was this king at Camelot. 
 
 King Arthur was optimist. He expected good 
 in men, was not suspicious. "Interpreting others 
 by his own pure heart," you interject, "He was 
 duped." The' harlot Vivien called him fool, and 
 despised him ; but she was fallen, shameful, treach- 
 erous, and, what was worse, so fallen as not to 
 see the beauty in untarnished manhood, which is 
 the last sign of turpitude. Many bad men have 
 still left an honest admiration for a goodness 
 themselves are alien to. Vivien was so lost as 
 that goodness, manhood, knightliness, sweet and 
 tall as mountain pines, made no appeal to her. 
 iPilth is dearer to some than mountain air. She 
 was such. A fallen woman, given over to her 
 fall, is horrible in depravity. Merhn saw that her 
 estimate of Arthur was the measure of herself. 
 Beatrix Esmond did not appreciate Henry Es- 
 mond ; for the Pretender was her measure of soul. 
 Though to her praise be it said that, in her old 
 age, Esmond dead, she thought of him as women 
 think of Christ. Arthur believed in men, sup- 
 posing them to be transcripts of himself; and in 
 18 
 
274 -^ Hero and Somk Other Foi,k 
 
 so doing in details, he erred. His philosophy of 
 goodness was erroneous ; for he held to the theory 
 of goodness by environment, fencing knights and 
 ladies about with his own fine honor and chastity, 
 supposing pure environment would make them 
 pure, forgetting how God's kingdom is always 
 within. Environment is not gifted to make men 
 good. Arthur believed men pure, nor was he 
 wholly wrong. The men about him gave the lie 
 to his expectation; but these moral ragamufhns 
 did not invalidate the king's faith. The road taken 
 was not the world. Lancelot and Guinevere and 
 Gawain and Modred, false? False! Pelleas, see- 
 ing Ettarre lustful and untrue, digging rowels into 
 his steed and crying, "False ! false !" was not wise 
 as Arthur. The' optimist is right. Some were 
 false, 't is true ; but others were true as crystal 
 streams, that all night long give back the heavens 
 star for star. There were and are true men and 
 women. Our neighborhood, if so be it is foul, 
 is not the earth. Enid, and Elaine, and Sir Gala- 
 had, and Sir Percivale, and Gareth, and others 
 not designated, were pure. Snows on city streets 
 are stained with soot and earth; snows on the 
 mountains arc as white as woven of the beams 
 of noon. King Arthur, expecting the better of 
 the world, in so doing followed the example of 
 his Savior, Christ, who was most surely optimist. 
 King Arthur, in his midnight hour, when knight 
 
King Arthur 275 
 
 and wife and Lancelot deserted him, when his 
 "vast pity almost made him die," still kept the 
 lamp of hope aflame and sheltered from the wind, 
 lest it flame, flare, and die. His fool still loved 
 him and clasped his feet; and bold Sir Bedivere 
 staid with him through the thunder shock of that 
 last battle in the west. Not all were false. Some 
 friends abide. Though his application was not al- 
 ways wise, his attitude was justified. Having done 
 his part, he had not been betrayed; for he was 
 still victor. Lancelot and Guinevere were de- 
 feated, ruined, as were Gawain and Ettarre, who, 
 as they wake', find across their naked throats the 
 bare sword of Pelleas ; then Ettarre knew what 
 knight was knightly. Goodness wins in the long 
 battle, though supposed defeated in the petty 
 frays. Tennyson makes his ideal man an optimist. 
 "Maud" is a study in pessimism. The lover's blood 
 is tainted with insanity. He raves, is suspicious, 
 is at war with all things and all men ; rails at 
 the social system, not from any broad sympathy 
 with better things, but from a strident selfishness, 
 rasping and self-proclamatory, lacking elevation, 
 save as his love puts wings beneath him for a 
 moment and Hfts him, as eagles billow up their 
 young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up 
 by ranting. We pity, then despise him, then pity 
 him once more, and in sheer charity think him 
 raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King 
 
276 A Hkro and Some Otheir Foi,k 
 
 Arthur, and how splendid does King Arthur look ! 
 The lover was pessimist and wrong; Arthur was 
 optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked 
 at by the careless or vicious swords of cumulating 
 hatreds, underestimations, selfishness, and lewd- 
 ness of lesser and cruder souls, knowing, as he 
 did, how God is on goodness' side, knew, there- 
 fore, who is on God's side keeps hope in good, 
 believing better things. Those who, thinking 
 themselves shrewd, and are perennially suspicious, 
 do really lack in shrewdness, lacking depth. The 
 far view is the serene view. Pelleas, too, is a 
 study in lost faith. He was near-sighted in his 
 moral life, and so, in losing faith in Ettarre, lost 
 faith in womanhood, a conclusion not justified 
 from the premises ; and you hear him in the wild 
 night, crying as beasts of the desert cry, and what 
 he hisses as you pass is, "I have no sword." 
 Arthur kept his sword till time came to give it 
 back to the "arm clothed in white samite." He 
 threw not his sword away until his hand could 
 hold it no longer. Hands and swords must keep 
 company while life and strength remain, and who 
 breaks or throws sword away from sheer despair 
 has lost sight of duty, in so far that our business 
 is to do battle valiantly and constantly for right- 
 eousness, and keep the sword at play in spite of 
 dubious circumstances. Battles are often on the 
 point of being won when they look on the point 
 
King Arthur 277 
 
 of being lost, as was the case with Pelleas, whose 
 hope died just at the hour when hope ought to 
 have begun shouts befitting triumph; for that 
 night when he lay his naked sword across Kttarre's 
 naked neck, she, waking and finding whose' sword 
 was lying, like a mad menace, on her breast, re- 
 covered her womanhood, loved the knight, who 
 came and went, and slew her not, as his right was, 
 and loved him to her death; while he, the cause 
 of her reformation, swung through the gloomy 
 night with faith and courage lost. He should 
 have held his faith, however his trust in one had 
 been shamed and sunk. Faith in one snuffed out 
 is not in logic to lose faith; for all are more than 
 one. Trust Arthur; he was right. Pessimism is 
 no sane mood. All history conspires to justify 
 his attitude. Himself inspires optimism in us, and 
 the three queens wait for him, and the black 
 funeral barge that bears him, not to his funeral, 
 but to some fair city where there seems one voice, 
 and that a voice of welcome to this king; and 
 besides all this, his name lights our nights till 
 now, as if he were some sun, pre-empting night 
 as well as day. Has not his optimism been justi- 
 fied a hundred-fold ? Do those who view the pres- 
 ent only, think to see all the landscape where 
 deeds reap victories ? Time is so essential in the 
 propagandism of good. Time is the foe of evil, 
 but sworn ally of good. God owns the future. 
 
27^ A He;ro and Some; Other FoIvK 
 
 King Arthur considered life a chance for serv- 
 ice. Life is no abstraction, no theoretical science ; 
 rather concrete, experimental. Magician Merlin's 
 motto, too. We may think or act, though this 
 of conduct. We may think or act, though this 
 disjunctive is wrong, wholly wrong. There is no 
 separation between act and thought in a wise es- 
 timate. They are not enemies, but friends. We 
 are to think and act. We are, in a word, not to 
 dream or do, but dream and do, the dreaming 
 being prelude to the doing. Who dreams not is 
 metalHc. Dreams redeem deeds from being 
 stereotyped, and make motions sinuous and 
 graceful as a bird's flight across the sky; and 
 when they impregnate conduct, deed becomes in- 
 stinct with a melody thrilling and swe'et as a wood- 
 thrush note. Arthur was no mystic. He did not 
 dwell apart from men; he was a part of men. 
 "The Mystic" is an admirable conception of the 
 soul, living remote from society and action, see- 
 ing our world as through a smoke. Mysticism 
 has its truth and power. Many of us bluster and 
 do, and do not stand apart and dwell enough with 
 the unseen. 
 
 "Always there stood before him, night and day, 
 The imperishable presences serene, 
 One mighty countenance of perfect calm;" 
 And 
 
 "Angels have talked with him and showed him thrones." 
 
King Arthur 279 
 
 So much in him is needed to a soul hungry 
 to be fortified for danger, duty, manliness. De- 
 spise not a mystic's brooding, but recall that 
 brooding is not terminal; that he who broods 
 alone' has left life wearying around him as he 
 found it, while his need was to change the cir- 
 cumambient air of thought and action into some- 
 thing better than it was ; and for such change he 
 must associate him with the lives he fain would 
 help. Arthur brooded and dreamed, and saw the 
 Christ, and then conceived his worthiest service 
 to be to interpret the What he heard and Whom 
 he saw to men ; and in pursuance of such purpose 
 he lived with knights, ladies, soldiers, and country- 
 men. Him they saw and knew. "St. Simeon 
 Stylites" is an application of another side of the 
 same thought. Heroism is in this pillar saint, but 
 a mistaken heroism. He stands, 
 
 "A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud." 
 
 But to what purpose? Hear him call, 
 
 "I smote them with the cross," 
 
 and feel assured from such a word that he who 
 spoke, had he been where the battle raged, had 
 left his stroke on many a shield; for his words 
 have the crash of a Crusader's ax. What a loss 
 it was to men that St. Simeon carrie not down 
 from his pillar, clothed himself, made himself clean 
 
28o A He;ro and Somk Other Foi.k 
 
 and wholesome, instead of filthy and revolting, 
 and dwelt with people for whom Christ died. A 
 religious recluse is a religious ignoramus, since 
 he does not know that the one-syllable word in 
 the vocabulary of Christ is, "Be of use." The 
 problem of living, as Arthur saw vividly, was not 
 how to get yourself through the world unhurt, but 
 how to do the most for some one besides yourself 
 while you are in the world; and this attitude is 
 otherness, altruism. Nurture strength to use. 
 Pass your might on. Knighthood was to serve 
 everybody else first, after the fashion of the 
 Founder of knighthood, even Christ, "who came, 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister." King 
 Arthur served. Play battles stung him not to 
 prowess, but, as Lancelot saw, in the actual battle, 
 the hero was not Lancelot, but Arthur. May be 
 a too deep seriousness was in him. I think it 
 probable. He had been more masterful in wield- 
 ing men had he been colored more by laughter 
 and jest. We must not take ourselves, nor yet 
 the world, with too continuous seriousness. There 
 are intervals between battles when warriors may 
 rest, and intervals in the' stress of deeds and sor- 
 row where room is given for the caress and whole- 
 some jest. That arch-jester, Jack Falstafif, had 
 much reason with him. We like him, despite him- 
 self, and despite ourselves, because there was in 
 him such comradery. Though he was boister- 
 
King Arthur 281 
 
 ous, yet was he jovial. All characters, save Christ, 
 have limitations. Arthur had his. Lack of spright- 
 liness was his mistake and lack. But the work 
 to be done fills him with might unapproachable,, 
 so that, 
 
 "Like fire, he meets the foe, 
 And strikes him dead for thine and thee." 
 
 He is no play soldier, and foemen mark his 
 sword as a thing to fear. A mutilated herdsman, 
 rushing into Carlaen, and shaking bloody story 
 from his hideous wounds, which, Arthur hearing,, 
 though a tourneyment would blow its bugles on 
 the plain erelong, forgets the coming joust, re- 
 membering only a wrong to be avenged, and evil- 
 doers to be' punished or destroyed, so they may 
 no longer be a noxious presence in the land, and 
 goes, and at tourney's close comes back, through 
 the dark night, wet with rain ; but he has cleansed 
 the hostile land of villains on that day. In human 
 nature is a bias to escape the world, to get out 
 of the turmoil, to seek cloisters of quiet, which 
 bias "The Holy Grail" attacks. Arthur was no 
 friend to the pursuit of the grail ; not that he 
 loves not, with a passion white as sun's flame, the 
 good and pure, but that he has sagacity to see 
 such quest will scatter the round table and its 
 fellowship, and would dispeople his forces, whose 
 presence makes for peace and sovereignty in all 
 
^82 A He;ro and Some) Other Foi,k 
 
 his realm and compels the sovereignty of law. 
 Him, their king, these errant knights heeded not, 
 so enticing and noble seemed the warfare they 
 espoused, and thought their sovereign cold and 
 calculating, while, in fact, he knew them for vision- 
 aries. He was right. Without them he was 
 bankrupt in strength to compel social betterment. 
 The visionary, in so far as he is simply visionary, 
 is foe to progress; for progress comes by battle 
 and by association in affairs, and he who would 
 be helper to the better life of man must mix with 
 the currents of his time. Snowdrifts in the moun- 
 tains and on the northern slopes that hold snows 
 in their shadows for the summer's use; and dark 
 mountain meadows, where fogs and rains soak 
 every particle of sod, and waters percolate through 
 the spongy root and soil to form bubbling 
 streams; and the pines, whose shadows make a 
 cool retreat where streams may not be drained 
 dry by the sun; the silver threads of tributary 
 hrooks ; the sponge of mountain mosses, which 
 squeezes its cup of water into a larger laver, — all 
 these seem remote from the broad river on whose 
 flood merchants' fleets are slumbering, nor seem 
 participants with these floodgates to the sea; yet 
 are they adjuncts, though so far removed, and 
 pay their tribute to the flood. 
 
 Their service was as pronounced and valuable 
 as if they had been huge as Orontes. There is 
 
King Arthur 283 
 
 an absence which is presence, and there is a pres- 
 ence which is absence; and what is asked of all 
 men, near or far, is that they be helpers to the' 
 general good. They must not, by intent or mis- 
 take, escape their share of the public burden. 
 
 A poet seems apart, and is not, but is to be 
 esteemed a portion of this world's most turbulent 
 life. To intend to have a share in this world's 
 business is important. To shun the taking up 
 your load when need is, is to be coward when 
 your honor bids you be courageous. This means, 
 be a citizen, neglect no ofhce in that worthy re- 
 lation ; be not wandering knights, pursuing fire- 
 flies, supposing them to be stars ; but be as Arthur, 
 who found the Holy Grail, and drained its sacra- 
 mental wine in truest fashion, in "staying by the' 
 stuff ;" in being statesman, soldier, defender of the 
 weak, reformer, liver of a clean life in public 
 place, builder of a State, negotiator of schemes 
 which make for the diminution of earth's ills and 
 increase of earth's fairer provinces. Edward the 
 Confessor was a monk, wearing a king's crown 
 and refusing to discharge a king's offices, and 
 thought himself a saint by such omission, when 
 what God and the realm wanted and needed was 
 a man to rule and sufifer for the common weal. 
 Arthur was not a thing "enskied and sainted;" 
 rather a wholesome man, whose duty lay in work- 
 ing for men. Sir Percivale became a monk ; other 
 
284 A Hejro and Some Other Foi,k: 
 
 knights returned no more', thus spilling the best 
 blood of the table round. Meantime the king's 
 enemies multiplied, and these visionaries deci- 
 mated the ranks of opposition to the wrong; but 
 come what would, King Arthur served. An ap- 
 peal to him for help found answer, though treasons 
 plotted at his back. As to his last battle, though 
 his heart was breaking, he marched nor paused, 
 perceiving, so long as he was king, he must up- 
 hold the order of the State'. He was no dilettante. 
 Great service called him, and he thought he heard 
 the voice of God. Duty is a ponderous word in 
 Arthur's lexicon. In "Lucretius," Tennyson 
 shows the moral apathy of materialism by letting 
 us look on at a suicidal death, and hear the cry, 
 half-rage and half-despair, "What Is duty?" and 
 in that fated cry, atheism has run its course. Here 
 it empties Into its dead sea, and materialism finds 
 its only possible outcome. This materialist of long 
 ago Is the mouthpiece for his fraters in these 
 last days. There Is one speech, and that a speech 
 of dull despair, for those who say there Is no 
 God ; and for them who have no God, there is 
 no duty, for duty is born of hold on God. King 
 Arthur, sure of God, therefore never asking, 
 "What is duty?" but in its stead urges the nobler 
 query, "Where 'is duty?" and so infused himself 
 into the blood of empire ; aye, and more, into the 
 spiritual blood of uncalendared centuries. 
 
King Arthur 285 
 
 And King Arthur was pure. Vice is so often 
 glorified and offers such chromo tints to the eye 
 as that many superficial folks think virtue tame 
 and vice exhilarating. Here lies the difficulty. 
 They look on those parts which are contiguous 
 to vice, but are really not parts of it. In the 
 self of vice is nothing attractive. Lying, lusl, 
 envy, hate, debauchery, — which of these is not 
 tainted? Penuriousness is vice unadorned, and 
 who thinks it fair ? Like Spenser's "false Duessa," 
 it is revolting. Drunkenness, bestiality, spleen, — 
 what roseate views shall you take of these? Who 
 admires Caliban? And Caliban is vice, standing 
 in its naked vileness and vulgarity. Man, meant 
 for manhood, self-reduced to brutehood, — that is 
 drunkenness. In an era when Dumas by fascinat- 
 ing fictions was making vice ingratiating, Tenny- 
 was rendering virtue magnificent. Can any per- 
 son of just judgment rise from reading "Idyls of 
 the King" without feeling a repugnance toward 
 vice', like a nausea, and a magnetism in virtue? 
 An admiration for Arthur becomes intense. The 
 poet draws no moral from his parable : doing what 
 is better, he puts morals into one's blood. While 
 never railing at Guinivere, he makes us ashamed 
 of her and for her, and does the same with Lance- 
 lot. He makes virtue eloquent. King Arthur is 
 neither drunkard nor libertine, therein contradict- 
 ing the pet theories of many people's heroes. He 
 
286 A He;ro and Some Other Folk 
 
 loves cleanness and is clean. He demands in man 
 a purity equal to woman's; setting up one stand- 
 ard of mortals and not two. The George Fourth 
 style of king, happily, Arthur is not; for George 
 was a shame to England and to men at large, 
 while Arthur is a glory, burning on above the 
 cliffs of Wales, like some brave sunrise whose 
 colors never fade'. To men and women, he is 
 one law of virtue and one law of love. When 
 the years have spent their strength, then vice 
 shows itself hideous vice. The' glamour vanished, 
 no one can love or plead for wickedness. Virtue 
 is wholly different; for to it the ages burn in- 
 cense each year, rendering its loveliness more ap- 
 parent and bountiful. Virtue grows in beauty, 
 like some dear face we love. Heroism is virtue; 
 manliness is virtue; devotion is virtue. Sum up 
 those remembered deeds of which the centuries 
 speak, and you will find them noble, virtuous. 
 Seen as it is, and with the light of history on 
 its face, vice is uncomely as a harlot's painted 
 face. King Arthur is virile and he is noble, en- 
 gaging and fascinating us like a romance written 
 by a master, full of persuasive sweetness and en- 
 during help. 
 
 Besides, King Arthur was a religious man. 
 This is the transparent explanation of his career. 
 He is an attempted incarnation of the precepts 
 and love of Christ. This long-vanished prince 
 
King Arthur 287 
 
 knew that if a king might but repeat the miracle 
 of Jesus' life in his own history, he would have 
 achieved kingship indeed. "Mea vita vota" was 
 Dempster's motto, — a sentiment Arthur knew by 
 heart. His life was owed to God, and right man- 
 fully he' paid his debt. Arthur exalted God in 
 his heart and court and on hard-fought field. So 
 intense and vivid his sense of God, he reminds 
 us of the Puritan; but the Puritan touched to 
 beatific beauty by the interpretation of love God's 
 Christ came to give. Tennyson always made 
 much of God, saw Him immanent in every hope 
 of human betterment, saying, as we remember and 
 can not forget : 
 
 "Our little systems have their day — 
 
 They have their day and cease to be: 
 They are but broken lights of thee; 
 And thou, O Lord, art more than they." 
 
 "The Idyls of the King" and "In Memoriam" 
 might felicitously be called treatises on theology 
 written in verse. St. Augustine and Wesley were 
 not more certainly theologians than this poet 
 Laureate. The rest and help that come' to men 
 in prayer is burned into the soul in "Enoch 
 Arden :" 
 
 "And there he would have knelt, but that his knees 
 Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug 
 His fingers into the w^et earth and prayed." 
 
288 A Hkro and Some; Othe;r Foi,k 
 
 And 
 
 "He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
 Upbore him, and firm faith and evermore 
 Prayer from a living source within the will. 
 And beating up through all the bitter world. 
 Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
 Kept him a living soul." 
 
 And Arthur, dying, whispers : 
 
 "More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
 Rise, like a fountain, for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
 If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer. 
 Both for themselves and those that call them friend? 
 For so the whole round world is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 
 
 No wonder is there if King Arthur was 
 upheld : such faith makes impotence giant- 
 strengthed. He does not tremble. The earth 
 may know perturbations, but not he. To tourna- 
 ment or battle, or to death, he goes with smiling 
 face. His trust upholds him. So good is faith. 
 "In Memoriam" is the biography of doubt and 
 faith at war. The battle waxes sore, but the day 
 is God's. The battle ebbs to quiet. Calm after 
 tempest. Tennyson could not stay in doubt. 'T is 
 not a goodly land. If trepidation has white lip 
 and cheek, 't is not forever. Living through an 
 age of doubt, Tennyson, so sensitive to every cur- 
 
King Arthur 289 
 
 rent of thought as that he felt them all, and in 
 that feeling and interpretation and strife for mas- 
 tery over the doubt that kills, made his book, 
 as Milton has it, "The precious life-blood of a 
 master spirit ;" and ends with : 
 
 "Sunset and evening star, 
 And one clear call for me. 
 
 For though from out our bourn of Time and Place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face. 
 
 When I have cross'd the bar." 
 
 "In Memoriam" is thought, King Arthur is 
 action ; and action is antidote for doubt. Charles 
 Kingsley's advice, 
 
 "Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long," 
 
 is always pertinent and reasonable. This is ex- 
 planation of that profound saying of Jesus, "If 
 any man will do my will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine." Life is exegesis of Scripture. Who 
 do God's will catch sight of God's face, and their 
 hearts are helped. Lowell's "Sir Launfal" urges 
 this same truth. He who, for weary and painful 
 years, had haunted the world, seeking the Holy 
 Grail and finding not the thing he sought, comes 
 home discouraged to find in winter his castle had 
 forgotten him, and he was left a wreck of what he 
 had been in his better days ; yet finds, in giving 
 19 
 
290 A HsRO AND Some; Othbr FoIvK 
 
 alms to a leprous beggar at his castle gate to 
 whom he had denied alms in the spirit of alms 
 when he set out to hunt the Holy Grail, that in 
 so giving he found the Christ. Action helps God 
 into the heart. Doubts are, many of them, brain- 
 born and academical; and such, service helps to 
 dispel. To Arthur, God was vital fact. To Him 
 he held as tenaciously as to his sword; and he 
 was comforted. All good things are included in 
 religion, and all great things. If men become 
 martyrs, they become at the same time function- 
 aries in the palace of every worthy spirit. I sup- 
 pose the hunger for discovery and knowledge are 
 nothing other than the soul's hunger after God. 
 He is the secret of great discontent. The soul 
 wants God, and on the way to Him are astron- 
 omies, and literatures, and new-found hemi- 
 spheres. Aspiration finds voice in Christianity. 
 "Columbus," a poem of resonant music, speaks 
 aspiration. Him — 
 
 "Who pushed his prows Into the setting sun, 
 And made West East, and sailed the dragon's mouth. 
 And came upon the mountain of the world, 
 And saw the rivers roll from paradise," — 
 
 him, God-inspired as himself holds, saying: 
 
 "And more than once, in days 
 Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope 
 Sank all but out of sight, I h^ard His voice: 
 Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand; 
 
King Arthur 291 
 
 Fear not, — and I shall hear his voice again — 
 I know that He has led me all my life, 
 And I am not yet too old to work His will — 
 His voice again." 
 
 And King Arthur finds God helps him into all 
 things worth while. Bravery, determination, kind- 
 ness, purity, magnanimity, safe faith in God's su- 
 premacy, — all spring about him as he walks as 
 flowers about a path in summer-time. Nothing 
 good was foreign to him. 
 
 Christianity is the one philosophy of manhood 
 in whose harness are no vulnerable parts. "The 
 Palace of Art" presents the poet's perception of 
 the failure of culture. Ethics, not aesthetics, com- 
 pel manhood; and behind ethics, theology. God 
 must live in life, if life shall put on goodness as 
 a royal robe. 
 
 And such a man as Arthur has passed into the' 
 enduring substance of this world's best thought 
 and purpose. We see him — not saw him. He is 
 never past, but ever present. We see him dying, 
 and with Sir Bedivere, who loved him, cry, 
 
 "Thy name and glory cling 
 To all high places, like a golden cloud. 
 Forever!" 
 
 „. 
 
The Story of the Pictures 
 
 A MAN and a woman were dreaming. Both 
 were young; and one was strong and one 
 was fair. They were lovers, and the world vv^as 
 very beautiful, and life as rhythmic as a poet's 
 verse. Things which to some' seem remote as 
 heaven, to youth and love seem near enough to 
 touch, if one do but stretch out the hand. This 
 youth and maid were dreaming, and their hands 
 were clasped, and sometimes they looked in each 
 other's eyes — sometimes out across the fields, 
 sloping toward sunset. The world seemed young 
 as they, and the sky was fairly singing, with 
 voices sweet as kisses from dear lips long ab- 
 sent, — those voices saying, saying always, "Life 
 is fair — is fair;" and receding, as blown by on a 
 gentle wind, drifted "Life is fair;" and the lovers 
 looked at each other and were glad. 
 
 He was an artist, and his idle hand wrought 
 pictures unconsciously. He did not think things, 
 but saw things. His lips were not given to fre- 
 quent speech, even with the woman he loved. He 
 saw her, whether he sat thus beside her or whether 
 292 
 
Thk Story of thk Pictures 293 
 
 he sat apart from her with seas between — he saw 
 her always ; for his was the gift of sight. He 
 saw visions as rapt prophets do. Life was a 
 pageant, and he saw it all. 
 
 His brush is part of his hand, and his palette' 
 is as his hand's palm. Painting is to him mono- 
 logue. He is telling what he sees ; talking to him- 
 self, as children and poets do. Now, he talks to 
 the woman he loves and to himself in pictures, 
 she saying nothing, save as her hand speaks in 
 a caress, and that her eyes are dreamy sweet; 
 and the artist's hand dreams over the paper with 
 glancing touch, and this picture grows before 
 their eyes : A man and a woman, young and fair, 
 are on a hilltop alone, looking across a meadow- 
 land, lovely with spring and blossoms and love- 
 making of the birds ; and ponds where lily-pads 
 shine in the sun, like metal patines, floating on 
 the pool; and a flock lying in a quiet place; and 
 a lad plowing in a field, the blackbirds follow- 
 ing his furrow ; and a blue sky, with dainty clouds 
 of white faint against it, like breathing against a 
 window-pane in winter; and a farmhouse, where 
 early roses cluster, and little children are at play, — 
 this, and his brush loiters, and the' woman knows 
 her artist has painted a picture of youth; and 
 both look away as in a happy dream. 
 
 The artist paints again: and the landscape is 
 in nothing changed. It might have been a re- 
 
294 A H:eRO AND SoMK Othkr Foi,k 
 
 print rather than a repainting. A morning land, 
 where' beauty and bounty courted Hke man and 
 maid. No tints were lost. The sunlight was un- 
 failing, and roses clustered with their spendthrift 
 grace and loveliness; and the woman, looking at 
 her lover, wondered why he painted the' same 
 landscape twice, but, waiting, saw the artist paint 
 two figures, a man and woman at life's prime. 
 She sees they are the youth and maid of the first 
 picture, only older — and what besides? Then they 
 were a promise, a possibility, now they are — what 
 are they? They are the same; they are not the 
 same. She is disappointed in them ; not because 
 their beauty has faded, but that their look has 
 changed. Their faces are not haggard, nor cut 
 with strange arabesques of pain and care, nor are 
 they craven or vicious ; but the artist speeds his 
 hand as if at play, while every touch is bringing 
 the faces out until they obliterate the former 
 beauty utterly. The landscape is still dewy fresh 
 and fair — ^the faces have no hint of morning in 
 them. Faces, not bad, but lacking tenderness; 
 expression, self-sufficient; eyes, frosty cold; and 
 the woman's eyes light on the children, playing 
 beside the white farmhouse, and in them is no 
 inexpressible tenderness of mother-love, mute, like 
 a caress ; prosperous faces the world has gone 
 quite well with, that is plain, but faces having no 
 beckoning in them, no tender invitation, like a 
 
The; Story of the Pictures 295 
 
 sweet voice, saying, "Enter and welcome." And 
 she who looked at the pictures sobbed, scarcely- 
 knowing why, only the' man and woman sorely 
 disappointed her when they had grown to matu- 
 rity; poetry and welcome and promise had faded 
 from them as tints fade from a withered flower. 
 So much was promised — so little was fulfilled. 
 
 Meantime, while' these lovers sit on the hill- 
 side, and the artist has been talking in pictures 
 as the clouds do, the sun has sloped far toward 
 setting. The west is aflame, like a burning 
 palace ; the crows are flapping tired wings toward 
 their nests ; the swallows are sporting in the air, 
 as children do in surf of the blue seas; smoke 
 from the farm chimneys visible begins to lie level 
 across the sky, and stays like a cloud at anchor. 
 But the artist's hand is busy with another pic- 
 ture. 
 
 And the landscape is the same. Mayhap he is 
 not versatile ; and, think again, mayhap he has 
 purpose in his reduplication. Like wise men, let 
 us wait and see. A springtime-land as of old, and 
 two figures ; and the woman he loves watches, 
 while' her breathing is strangely like a sob. Now 
 the figures are a man and a woman, stooped and 
 gray. "Age," she says, "you paint age now, and 
 age — is not beautiful;" and he, answering with 
 neither lips nor eyes, paints swiftly on. The man 
 is aged and leaning on a staff. His strength is 
 
296 \ H:eRO AND SOMK Othkr FoIvK 
 
 gone. His staff is not for ornament, but need. 
 The woman is wrinkled, and her hair is snowy 
 white ; and the girl at the artist's side tries vainly 
 to suppress a sob. She, too, will soon be gray, 
 and she loves not age and decrepitude ; and the 
 face in ithe picture is faded, no rose-tints in the 
 cheeks. So old and weak — old age is very pitiful. 
 But the picture is not finished yet. Wait ! Wait 
 a little, and give the artist time. It is not evening 
 yet. Sunset lingers a little for him. His hand 
 runs now like a hurrying tide. He is painting 
 faces. Why linger over the face of age? If it 
 were youth — ^but age? But he touches these aged 
 faces Idvingly, as a son might caress his aged 
 father and mother with hand and with kiss ; and 
 beneath his touch the aged faces grow warm and 
 tender, passing sweet. To look at them was rest. 
 Their eyes were tender and brave. You remem- 
 ber they were old and feeble folk — young once', 
 but long ago; but how noble the old man's face, 
 scarred though it is with saber cut! To see him 
 makes you valiant; and to see him longer, makes 
 you valiant for goodness, which is best of all. 
 
 And the woman's face is lit with God's calm 
 and God's comfort. A smile is in her eyes, and a 
 smile lies, like sunlight, across her lips. Her hair 
 is the silver frame that hems some precious pic- 
 ture in. She is a benediction, blessed as the rest- 
 ful night to weary toilers on a burning day. And 
 
The Story of the; Pictures 297 
 
 the artist, with a touch quick as a happy thought^ 
 outlined a shadow, clad in tatters, and a child clad 
 in tatters at her side; and the girl, leaning over 
 the painting, thought the chief shadow was Death. 
 But the artist hasted; and on a sudden, wings 
 sprung from the shoulders of tattered mother and 
 child, and they two lifted up their hands; the 
 woman, lifting her hands above the dear forms 
 of old age, spread them out in blessing, and the 
 little child lifted her hands, clasped as in prayer; 
 and these angels were Poverty, praying for and 
 blessing the man and woman who had been their 
 help. 
 
 And the artist lover, under the first picture, 
 in quaint letters, such as monks in remote ages 
 used, wrote this legend, "To-morrow;" and the 
 woman, taking the pencil, wrote in her sweet girl- 
 ish hand, "Youth is Very Beautiful." The artist 
 took back his pencil, and under the second pic- 
 ture scrolled, "These Loved Themselves Better 
 Than They Loved Others ;" and the woman wrote, 
 "Their To-morrow was Failure." Under the third 
 picture the artist wrote, "These Loved God Best 
 and Their Neighbors as Themselves ;" and the 
 woman took the pencil from his hand and wrote, 
 "Old Age is Very Beautiful— More Beautiful Than 
 Youth," and a tear fell and blotted some of the 
 words, as a drop of rain makes a blurred spot on 
 a dusty pane. And the lover said, "Serving others 
 
298 A Hiiro and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 is better than serving ourselves;" and the girl's 
 sweet voice answering, hke an echo, "Serving 
 others is better than serving ourselves." 
 
 And the sun had set. The glow from the sky 
 was fading, as embers on a hearth, pale to gray 
 ashes ; and an owl called from an elm-tree on the 
 hillside, while these two arose, with faces like the 
 morning, and, taking the pictures, walked slowly 
 as lovers will ; and so, fading into the deepening 
 twilight, I heard her saying, "Serving others is 
 life at its best," and him replying, "Jesus said, 
 'The poor yef have always with you ;' " and their 
 footsteps and voices died away together in the 
 gloaming; and a whip-poor-will called often and 
 plaintively from the woodland across the field. 
 
XI 
 
 The Gentleman in Literature 
 
 HUMOR is half pathos and more. This sword 
 has two edges. On the one, shining Hke 
 burnished silver, j^ou may see smiles reflected as 
 from a mirror; on the other, tears stand thick, 
 like dews on flowers at early morning of the later 
 spring. Humor is a dual faculty, as much mis- 
 conceived by those who listen as by those who 
 speak. We do not always have wit to know the 
 scope of what we do. Thoughts of childhood, 
 says the poet, are long, long thoughts ; but who 
 supposes childhood knows they are? Nor is this 
 altogether a fault. To feel the sublime sequence 
 of all we did would burden us as Atlas was bur- 
 dened by holding up the sky. Life might easily 
 come to be sober to somberness, which is a thing 
 unwholesome and undesirable. SunHght must 
 have its way. Darkness must not trespass too far ; 
 and every morning says to every night, "Thus far, 
 but no farther." 
 
 To many readers, Don Quixote seems fantastic, 
 and Cervantes a laughter-monger. Cervantes had 
 suffered much. His life reads like a novelist's 
 299 
 
300 A Hkro and Somk Othe;r Folk 
 
 tale. He belooged to the era of Spenser and 
 Shakespeare; of Philip II and William the Silent; 
 of Leicester and Don John of Austria; of The 
 Great Armada and the Spanish Inquisition; of 
 Ivope de Vega and Cervantes — for he was, in the 
 Hispanian peninsula, his own greaitest contem- 
 porary — and to this hour this battle-scarred soldier 
 of fortune stands the tallest figure of Spanish lit- 
 erature. His was a lettered rearing, and a young 
 manhood spent as a common soldier. At Lepanto 
 he lost hand and arm. In five long, weary, and 
 bitter years of slavery among Algerine piraites, he 
 held up his head, being a man; plotted escape in 
 dreams and waking; fought for freedom as a pin- 
 ioned eagle might ; was at last rescued by the 
 Society for the Redemption of Slaves ; sailed home 
 from slavery to penury; came perilously near the 
 age of threescore, poverty-stricken and unknown, 
 when, like a sun which leaps from sunrise to noon 
 at a single bound, this maimed soldier sprang 
 mid-sky, impossible to be ignored or forgotten, 
 and disclosed himself, the marked Spaniard of his 
 era; and on the same day of 1616, Cervantes and 
 Shakespeare stopped their life in an unfinished 
 line, and not a man since then has been able to 
 fill out the broken meaning. This man had not 
 wine, but tears to drink. Yet he jests, and the 
 world laughs with him ; though we feel sure that 
 while his age and after ages laugh and applaud. 
 
The GKNTi:<:eMAN in I^itkrature 301 
 
 Miguel Cervantes sits with laughter all faded from 
 his face, and the white look of pain settled about 
 his lips, while tears "rise in the heart and gather 
 to the eyes." Tears sometimes make laughter 
 and jest the wilder. Men and women laugh to 
 keep their hearts from breaking. 
 
 Cervantes has ostensibly drawn a picture of a 
 madman, and in fact has painted a gentleman. 
 What his intent was, who can be so bold as to say? 
 What part of his purpose was, we know. He 
 would excoriate a false and flippant chivalry. Con- 
 temporaneous chivalry he knew well; for he had 
 been a common soldier, wounded and distressed. 
 He had seen what a poor triviality that once noble 
 thing had grown to be. Institutions become effete. 
 Age is apt to sap the strength of movements as 
 of men. Feudalism and the Crusades had com- 
 missioned the knight-errant; and now, when law 
 began to hold sword for itself, the self-constituted 
 legal force — knight-errantry — was no longer 
 needed. But to know when an institution has 
 served its purpose is little less than genius. Some 
 things can be laughed down which can not be 
 argued down, A jest is not infrequently more 
 potent than any syllogism. Some things must be 
 laughed away, other things must be wept away; 
 S'O that humor and pathos are to be ranked among 
 the mighty agents for reform. And one purpose 
 Cervantes had was to laugh a tawdry knight- 
 
302 A Hbro and Some Othe;r Foi<k 
 
 errantry off the stage. In long years of soldiery, I 
 doubt not he had grown to hate this empty boast, 
 and his nursed wrath now breaks out like a vol- 
 cano. This was his apparent purpose — but who 
 can say this was all his purpose? "King Lear" 
 has a double action. Mayhap, Don Quixote has 
 a double meaning. We are always attaching 
 meanings to works of genius. But you can not 
 tie any writer's utterance down to some poior alti- 
 tude. Great utterances have at least a half-infinite 
 application. Tennyson felt this, saying — as we 
 read in his son's biography of him — regarding 
 explanations of his "Idyls of the King:" "1 hate 
 to be tied down to 'this means that,' because the 
 thought within the image is much more than any 
 one interpretation ;" and, "Poetry is like shot-silk, 
 with many glancing colors. Every reader will find 
 his own interpretation according to his ability, and 
 according to his sympathy with the poet." What 
 is true of poetry is true of all imaginative literature. 
 An author may not have analyzed his own motive 
 in its entirety. In any case, we may hold to this, 
 Don Quixote was a gentleman^ and is the first 
 gentleman whose portrait is given us in literature. 
 We have laughed at Don Quixote, but we have 
 learned to love him. The "knight of the rueful 
 countenance," as we see him now, is not himself 
 a jest, but one of literature's 'most noble figures; 
 and we love him because we must. Was it mere 
 
The GentIvEman in L^iterature 303 
 
 chance that in drawing this don, Cervantes clothed 
 him with all nobilities, and shows him — living and 
 dying — good, courageous, pure ; in short, a man ? 
 This scarcely seems a happening. Seas have subtle 
 undercurrents. I venture, Don Quixote has the 
 same, and marks the appearance of a gentleman 
 in literature, since which day that person has been 
 a recurring, ennobling presence on the pages of 
 fiction and poetry. 
 
 A gentleman is a comparatively recent creation 
 in life, as in letters. Christ was the foremost and 
 first gentleman. After him all gentility patterns. 
 With the law of fhe imagination we are familiar, 
 which is this : Imagination deals only with materials 
 supplied by the senses. Imagination, in other 
 words, is not strictly originative, but, rather, ap- 
 propriative, giving a varied placing to images on 
 hand, just as the kaleidoscope makes all its mul- 
 tiform combinations with a given number of pieces. 
 Imagination does not make materials, is no magi- 
 cian, but is an architect. Admitting this law, we 
 can readily see how the creation of a gentleman 
 does not lie in the province of imagination. 
 Homer's heroes are the men Homer knew, with 
 a poetic emphasis on strength, stature, prowess. 
 His era grew warriors and nothing else, and so 
 Homer paints nothing else. Human genius has 
 limits. Man is originative in character; and 
 poets — "of imagination all compact" — catch this 
 
304 A H:eRO AND Some Othkr Foi^k 
 
 new form of life, and we call the picture poetry. 
 All civilization, to the days of Jesus, produced but 
 one character, so far as we may read, worthy to 
 be thought entire gentleman, and this was Joseph, 
 the Jew, premier of Egypt. He is the most manl}'- 
 man of pre-Christian civilizations. Or probably 
 Moses must be listed here. Classic scholarship 
 can show no gentleman Greece produced. Greek 
 soil grew no such flowers beneath its radiant 
 sky. Plato was a philosopher — not gentleman. 
 Socrates was an iconoclast, but not a manly man 
 and helpful spirit. Greek heroes were guilty of 
 atrocious and unthinkable sins. Test them by this 
 canon of Alfred Tennyson : "I would pluck my 
 hand from a man, even if he were my greatest 
 hero or dearest friend, if he wronged a woman or 
 told her a lie ;" and, so tested, where must Greek 
 heroes be classified? Greece and Rome produced 
 heroes, but not gentlemen. Julius Csesar was the 
 flower of the Latin race. Nothing app'roximates 
 him. Great qualities cluster in him like stars in 
 the deep sky. But his ambition was like to that 
 of Milton's Satan, and his lust was a bottomless 
 pit. As a national heroic figure, Julius Caesar is 
 dazzling as a sun at summer noon ; but as a gen- 
 tleman he cuts poorer figure than Lancelot or Sir 
 Tristram. The gentleman is not an evolution, but 
 a creation, Christ created the. gentleman as cer- 
 tainly as he created the world. 
 
Th:^ Gentleman in IvITerature 305 
 
 Now, literature is what Emerson says genius 
 is, a superlative borrower. The state of a civiliza- 
 tion at a given time will gauge the poet's concept. 
 He can not pass beyond the world's noblest no- 
 tions to his hiour. If Greece and Rome produced 
 no man, settle to it that Greek and Roman litera- 
 tures will produce no man. Sculptor, as Phidias ; 
 statesman, as Pericles ; dramatist, as ^schylus ; 
 general, as Themistocles ; stem justice, as Aris- 
 tides, — Greece can show; and such characters the 
 historians, dramatists, and epic poets will delineate 
 and celebrate. Horace is a looking-glass, and 
 holds his genius so as to catch the shadows of 
 men passing by. This poets do, and can do no 
 more. They are not strictly creative. We mis- 
 take their mission. God has somehow kept the 
 ■creative power in his own possession. Men can 
 appropriate; God can create. So what we find is, 
 that ancient literature never attempted depicting 
 a gentleman. Those days had no such persons. 
 But Christ came and set men a-dreaming. He 
 filled men's souls to the brim with expectation 
 and wonder akin to fear and anticipation of im- 
 possibilities ; and what he was, men fondly and 
 greatly dreamed they might aspire to be. And 
 thus the gentleman became a prospective fact in 
 life and after life, in literature ; for we think it 
 has been fairly shown how literature produces no 
 type till life has produced it first. Literature is 
 
3o6 A H:eRo and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 not properly productive, but reproductive ; not cre- 
 ative, but appropriative. As men climb a moun- 
 tain on a dark^ still night, to watch a sunrise, so 
 the race began to climb toward manhood. The 
 nig*ht was long, and this mountain taller than 
 Himalayas ; and man slept not, but climbed. His 
 groping toward this sunrise of soul is the epic of 
 history. Dante knew not a gentleman, and could 
 not dream him therefore. Mediaevalism learned to 
 paint the Madonna's face, but not manhood's look. 
 Character is the last test of genius. Man saw gray 
 streaks of dawn, rimming far, ragged peaks, and 
 still he climbed; and, on a morning, beheld the 
 sunrise ! And if you will note, 't is Don Quixote 
 standing on the mountain's crest. 
 
 Some things can be adequately represented in 
 marble. For "the Laocoon" marble is probably 
 the best method of expression. Fear, superhuman 
 effort, anguish, brute strength mastering human 
 strength, — these are the thoughts to be expressed, 
 and are brought out in marble with singular 
 clearness and fidelity. For some things color is 
 a necessity, and marble would be totally inade- 
 quate. "The Greek Slave" may be put in stone; 
 the bewildering face of a world's Christ can never 
 be seriously attempted in marble, the futility of 
 such attempt being so apparent. Color, lights 
 and shadows are essential to give hints of deep 
 things of deep soul. Hoflfman must have canvas. 
 
The; Genti.kman in IyiT:eRATURK 307 
 
 and colors. You must paint the Christ. And 
 some facts can not be painted. They are abstract, 
 and can not be intimated by anything short of 
 words. You can paint a man — Saul of Tarsus, or 
 Charlemagne — but can not paint a gentleman; for 
 he represents no single majesty, but an essential 
 and intricate balance of all useful, great, and noble 
 qualities. He can be painted only by words ; so 
 that literature is the solitary means of making ap- 
 parent the shadow of that divine thing, a gentleman. 
 Don Quixote becomes intensely interesting, 
 then, as a new attempt in creative genius. But 
 dare we think a gentleman could be ludicrous 
 and fantastic? for this the don was. We revolt 
 against the notion that so gracious a thing could 
 be grotesque. Yet is this our mature thought? 
 Do not the facts certify that from this world's 
 unregenerate standpoint manliness is grotesque? 
 Was not Christ looked upon as mad? Did not 
 his ideas of manliness appear as nothing other than 
 fantastic, when he would substitute love for might, 
 meekness for braggadocio, and purity of heart for 
 an omnipresent sensuality? What were his ideals 
 of manhood but battling with windmills or being 
 enamored of a myth ? Tested by standards of this 
 world's make, his notions and conduct were sheerly 
 fantastic. As recorded on one occasion, "They 
 laughed him to scorn ;" and this they did many 
 another time, covertly or openly. Indeed, grasp- 
 
3o8 A Hejro and Soms Othe;r Folk 
 
 ing the state of civilization as then existing, and 
 comprehending Christ's non-earthly idea of what a 
 gentleman was, we can not be slow to perceive 
 how ludicrous this conception would be to the 
 Roman world. Tall dreams seem madness. Ham- 
 let's feigned madness puzzles us even yet. Many 
 an auditor heard Columbus with a smile ill-con- 
 cealed behind his beard. All high ideality sounds 
 a madman's babble. To see a true life live truly 
 will strike many as a jest, and others as pathos 
 too deep for sobs. 
 
 Don Quixote conceived a man ought to live 
 for virtue. To be self-dedicated to the help of 
 others ; to be courageous as an army which had 
 never met defeat; to be self-forgetful, so that hun- 
 ger, pain, thirst, fatigue, become trifles ; to have 
 love become absorbing; to fill the mind's unfaith- 
 omed sky with dreams outshining dawns ; to count 
 honor to be so much more than life, as that honor 
 is all and life is naught ; to interpret all men and 
 women at their best, and so to expect good and 
 not suspicion evil; to meet all men on the high 
 level of manhood ; and to love God with such 
 persistency and eagerness as that the soul's soli- 
 tudes are peopled with him as by a host^ — if this 
 be not a gentleman, we have misconceived the 
 species. Read this history of his early and later 
 battles for right, and you will' not find an impurity 
 of word, suggestion, thought. God's lilies are not 
 
Thk Gi;ni%e;man in IvITSratur^s 309 
 
 cleaner, I confess that the knight's love for 
 Dulcinea del Tobosa moves me to tears. I never 
 can smile or jest at him when his heart and lips 
 hold with fealty to an ideal love. His love created 
 her. He found her a clod, but flung her into the 
 sky and made her a star. Is not this love's uniform 
 history? Blinded, not of lust or ambition, but 
 of ideality. Saul met Christ at noon, and was 
 blinded by his vision ; and would not all brave men 
 covet blindness thus incurred? And better to be 
 blinded, as Don Quixote, by a ravishing ideal, 
 than to see, besotted in soul and shut out from God. 
 That humorous figure astride lean Rosinante, es- 
 quired by pudgy, sensible Sancho; eager for 
 chances to be of use ; faithful to his love as dawn to 
 sun ; strong in his desire of being all eyes to see 
 distress, all ears to hear a call for succor; sitting 
 a dark night through in vigil, tireless, courageous, 
 waiting for day to charge on what proved to be 
 fulling hammers, making tumult with their own 
 stamping; or, again, asleep in the inn bed, fighting 
 with wine-skins and dreaming himself battling 
 with giants, — this does not touch me as being hu- 
 morous so much as it does as being pathetic, un- 
 speakably pathetic, and manfully courageous. I 
 see, but do not feel, the humor. I have followed 
 Don Quixote as faithfully as Sancho Panza on his 
 "Dapple ;" have seen him fight, conquer, sufifer 
 defeat, ride through his land of dreams ; have seen 
 
3IO A He;ro and S0M15 Other Folk 
 
 his pasteboard helmet; have noted melancholy set- 
 tle round him as shadows on the landscape of an 
 autumn day; have seen him grow sick, weaken, 
 die; but have known in him only high dreams, 
 attempted high achievings ; have found him 
 honor's soul, and holding high regard for women; 
 have been spectator of goodness as unimpeach- 
 able as heaven^ and purity deep, like that which 
 whitens round the throne — ^a human soul given 
 over to goodness, and named, for cause, "Quixada 
 the Good." And his goodness seems a contagion. 
 For two and a half centuries since Cervantes 
 painted this picture of a gentleman, literature has 
 given less or more of heed to similar attempts; 
 though as result, as I suppose, there are but 
 two life-size pictures which unhesitatingly we name 
 gentlemen as soon as our eyes light on them. Pro- 
 file or silhouette of him there has been, but of the 
 full-length, full-face figure, only two. Shakespeare 
 did not attempt this task. Aside from Hamlet — 
 who was not meant to sit for this picture, though 
 he had been no ill character for such sitting — 
 there is not among Shakespeare's men an intima- 
 tion of such undertaking. Would this princely 
 genius had put his hand to this attempt, though, 
 as seems clear to me, Shakespeare did not conceive 
 a gentleman. His ideas were not quite whitened 
 with Christ's morning light enough to have per- 
 ceived other than the natural man. Shakespeare's 
 
The GentivKman in I^iterature 311 
 
 men are always "a little lower than the angels ;" 
 whereas a gentleman might fittingly stand among 
 angels as a brother. This one star never swung 
 across the optic-glass of our great Shakespeare. 
 That spiritual-mindedness which is life he scarcely 
 possessed. This was his limitation. Spenser 
 stood higher on this mount of vision. He con- 
 ceived and executed a picture of pure womanhood, 
 and, had he attempted, might have sketched a 
 wondrous face and figure of a gentleman. Even 
 as it was, he gave intimations of this coming 
 king. He seems one who gathers fuel for a fire^ 
 but never sets the flame. His figures shift, and 
 present no^ central character of manhood who 
 grows and furnishes standard of comparison. Mil- 
 ton's genius was cast in a cyclopean mold, and 
 needed distances remote as heaven and hell to 
 give right perspective to his figures, and his su- 
 preme art concerns itself with Saltan, and arch- 
 angels, and God. 
 
 Of this ideal gentleman we have had growing 
 hints. Literature, more and more, concerns itself 
 with spiritual quantities. The air of our century 
 is aioimatic with these beautiful conceptions, as 
 witness Jean Valjean, Dr. MacLure, Deacon 
 Phoebe, Sidney Carton, Daniel Deronda, Donal 
 Grant, Bayard, Red Jason, Pete, Captain Moray, 
 John Halifax, and Caponsacchi, Some of these 
 pictures seem more than side views. But a gen- 
 
312 A HijRO AND Some; Other Folk 
 
 tleman should be, must be, nobly normal. He is 
 a balance of virtue. Symmetry impresses us in him, 
 as when we look at the Parthenon. All his powers 
 are in such delicate balance as that they seem 
 capable of easy perturbation, yet are, in fact, im- 
 perturbable as stars. The gentleman in life is 
 becoming a common figure. We have known 
 such — so strong, quiet, heroic, calm, sure of the 
 future, knit to God, big with fidelity and faith, 
 that they translated into literal speech the holy 
 precepts of the Book of God. So tested, this world 
 grows surely better. Man has lost in romantic 
 glitter of costume and bearing, but has gained im- 
 measurably in manhood. The gospel is peopling 
 the world with men. To suppose God meant to 
 change men to saints was a misconception. St. 
 Simeon Stylites was that old misconception real- 
 ized. We can but honor him, so vast his hunger, 
 so noble his strife, so courageous his attitude, 
 when he shouts, "I smote them with the cross;" 
 but St. Simeon did not realize God's notion. 
 Goodness is fraternal, accessible, genial. John 
 Storm, in Hall Caine's "The Christian," is sus- 
 ceptible to the same criticism. He is not balanced. 
 He means well, but is erratic, fitful, lacking center. 
 He is like a bird lost in storms, flying in circles. 
 He thought to be a saint, whereas Christ did not 
 come to make saints, but to make men; and the 
 sooner we realize that a "saint" or a "Christian'* 
 
Th:^ Geinti^kman in I^iteraturk 313 
 
 is not the end of the gospel, the better will it be 
 for Christianity. Christianity is God's method of 
 making men; and Christianity is not an end, but 
 a means. When God gets his way, he wants to 
 have this world populated with men and women. 
 Whether Caine meant John Storm for an ideal 
 Christian we can not say. There is strength here, 
 as in all he has written; but Storm's lacks are 
 many and great. He is enthusiast, but flig-hty. 
 He means well, but is spasmodic in its display. 
 Storm might have grown into a hero had he lived 
 longer, and, as a flame, leaped high at some point 
 in his career. Both as man and Christian, he dis- 
 appoints us. Red Jason, in "The Bondman," is 
 a worthier contribution to the natural history of 
 the gentleman. View him how you will, he is 
 great. His moral stature lifts itself like the mass 
 of a mountain. His nature seems a fertile field, 
 seeded down to heroisms, and every seed germinat- 
 ing and growing to maturity. Jason has virtues 
 vast of girth as huge forest-trees, but he is scarcely 
 companionable. Glooms gather round him as 
 night about a hamlet in a valley. He is moral, 
 imposing, heroic, yet is there something lacking — • 
 is it voice, self-poise, what? — lacking of being 
 quite a gentleman. Nor was he shaped for such 
 a role by his creator, but was meant to sit for the 
 portrait of a hero. And such he is to the point 
 of moving the spirit, as by the lightning's touch. 
 
314 A Hbro and Some; Othe;r FoiyK 
 
 Goethe was not capable of conceiving a gen- 
 tleman. His "Wilhelm Meister" and himself fall 
 so low in the scale of worth as to preclude his 
 seeing so serene a face. Goethe's sky was clouded, 
 and fine lines of finest character are only brought 
 out under unhindered sunlight. Manhood is a 
 serene thing. Though storm-bolts rain about it 
 thick as hail, the quiet of deep seas reigns in it. And 
 Dumas's men are each a bon vivant, save the son of 
 Porthos. These dusty and bloody guardsmen had 
 not enough moral fiber to fill a thimble. They 
 think the world of men and women a field for 
 forage. This physical dash and courage, this gal- 
 loping of steeds, and sabers pummeling steeds' 
 sides, stands instead of character. In "Marius 
 the Epicurean," Walter Pater has given, as I 
 think, a true picture of one who in the Roman 
 era aspired to be a man. He is cold, and in con- 
 sequence barren ; but such is an accurate reading 
 of Roman attempts at manhood; for ordinary 
 Epicureanism was fervid to sensuality, and the 
 Stoic was frigid. To heathen conception there 
 was no middle ground. The warm color on cheek, 
 the morning in the eyes, the geniality in the hand, 
 the fervor at the heart, the alert thought, the winged 
 imagination, the sturdy will, the virile moral 
 sense, the responsive conscience, the courage which 
 laughed to die for duty, — ^these could not be amal- 
 gamated. Heroic qualities have always been na- 
 
Ths Genti^kman in I^itkrature 315 
 
 tive to the soul as warmth to the south wind. All 
 history is rich with tapestries of tragic and colossal 
 heroisms, so as to make us proud that we are men. 
 Heroisms are harsh, but manliness is tender. And 
 in this seeming irreconcilability lies the difficulty 
 of constructing a gentleman. 
 
 But attempts thicken. In our century they 
 group together like violets on a stream's bank 
 fronting the sun in spring. Literary artists, know- 
 ing how difficulties hedge this attempt, hesitate. 
 There are many hints of the gentleman. Let us be 
 glad for that, seeing we are enriched thereby. "Rab 
 and His Friends" gives so strong a picture of 
 stolid strength in love's fidelity, which knows to 
 serve and suffer and die without a moan or being 
 well aware of aught save love. And Dr. MacLure 
 is a dear addition to our company of manhood, 
 shouldering his way through Scotland's winter's 
 storm and cold because need calls him ; serving as 
 his Master had taught him so long ago ; forgetting 
 himself in absorbing thought for others; lonely as 
 a fireless hearth ; longing for friendship which would 
 not fail ; reaching for Drumsheugh's hand, and hold- 
 ing it when death was claiming the good physician's 
 hand. We could easily conceive we had been seated 
 at the deathbed of a gentleman. Deacon Phoebe 
 stands as a character in Annie Trumbull Slosson's 
 "Seven Dreamers," a book which, outside Cable's 
 "Old Creole Days," is to me the most perfect series 
 
3i6 A He;ro and Somb Other FoIvK 
 
 of brief character-sketches drawn by an American 
 author, and entirely worthy to stand by "A Window 
 in Thrums," and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," 
 and "In Ole Virginia." Deacon Phoebe has for- 
 gotten himself. Unselfishness does not often rise 
 to such heights. This "dreamer" of "Francony 
 Way" is full brother to Sidney Carton, born across 
 the seas. Self-forgetfulness, so beautiful as that 
 even name and sex become a memory dim as a dis- 
 tant sail upon an evening sea, — this must be a sight 
 fitted to bring laughter to the heart of God. Deacon 
 Phoebe is one trait in a gentleman. Sidney Carton 
 is of the same sort, save that the hero element 
 stands more apparent. His is a larger field, a more 
 attractive background, thus throwing his figure into 
 clearer relief. Deacon Phoebe was the self-abase- 
 ment of humility, Sidney Carton is the supreme sur- 
 render of love ; but the end of both is service. There 
 ought to be a gallery in our earth from which men 
 and women might lean and look on nobilities like 
 Sidney Carton. That beatified face ; that hand hold- 
 ing a woman's trembling hand, what time he whis- 
 pered for her comfort, "I am the resurrection and 
 the life," as the crowded tumbrel rattled on to the 
 guillotine, and he faced death with smile as sweet 
 as love upon his face, and love making a man thus 
 divine, — this is Sidney Carton, ,who stirs our soul 
 as storms stir the seas. Bonaventure, as drawn by 
 Cable, is of similar design. He is unconscious as 
 
ThK GlENTlvEMAN IN I^ITERATURE 317 
 
 a flower; but had learned, as his schaolmaster- 
 priest had taught him, to write "self" with a small 
 "s;" so an untutored soul, lacerated with grief, 
 pierced by suffering, gave himself over to goodness 
 and help, becoming absorbed therein. Such is Bon- 
 aventure. He was what Tennyson has said of "the 
 gardener's daughter," "A sight to make an old man 
 young." 
 
 Love has learned to work miracles In character. 
 Rains do not wash air so clean as love washes char- 
 acter, whiting "as no fuller on earth can white" it. 
 And how constantly manhood neighbors with love 
 is a beautiful and noteworthy circumstance. Here 
 place Pete, in "The Manxman." You can not over- 
 praise him. Some esteem him a fabulous character ; 
 but knowing his island and people well, I feel sure 
 he is flesh and blood, though flesh and blood so 
 uncommon and superior stagger our faith for a 
 moment. It is the glory of our race that at rare 
 springtime it bursts into such bloom that painter 
 and poet are both bankrupt in attempting to copy 
 this loveliness. Pete is such an effort of nature. 
 PTis letters to himself, written as from his Mdfe, to 
 cover her shame and desertion, present a spectacle 
 so magnanimous and pathetic as "to upbraid us that 
 we had never learned nobilities so subhme. Love 
 made him great. And Macdonald^ in Donal Grant, 
 has shown us a strong, pure soul of moral strength, 
 religious appetencies, determined goodness, of ele- 
 
3i8 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 vation of character, of strength and wisdom, so that 
 in his accustomed walk he might have met Sir 
 Percivale or Sir Launfal. Good, and given over to 
 God, he was found out by love; and love did with 
 him as with us all — love glorified him. In his clean 
 life is something sturdy you might lean on, as on 
 a staff, and have no fear. So is Enoch Arden made 
 hero by love. In love, remembrance, and absence 
 of self, he is manhood. We have all wept with 
 Arden, finding our faces wet with tears, though not 
 knowing we wept. His story never grows trite. 
 Each time we read, new light breaks from this 
 character as if it were a sun. The sight of him 
 when he, like a poor thief, looking in at the window, 
 
 "Because things seen are mightier than things heard, 
 Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and feared 
 To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry 
 Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, 
 Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. 
 
 And feeling all along the garden wall, 
 
 Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found. 
 
 Crept to the gate, and open'd it and closed 
 
 As lightly as a sick man's chamber door 
 
 Behind him, and came out upon the waste;" 
 
 and when, 
 
 "Falling prone, he dug 
 His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd, — " 
 
 the sight of him is as unforgettable as a man's first 
 look upon the woman he loves. The poet was right. 
 
The Genti.eman in I^iterature 319 
 
 Arden was a "strong, heroic soul," and when he 
 woke, arose, and cried, "A sail ! a sail !" it was Gk)d's 
 nobleman who sighted it. 
 
 "Daniel Deronda" and "John Halifax, Gentle- 
 man," may wisely be classed together as attempts 
 of competent artists to sketch a gentleman. 
 Whether they have failed in the attempt I would 
 not make bold to say, but for some reason the 
 characters impress me as being scarcely adequate. 
 Both faces are open, and lit as by a lamp of truth; 
 their lives are sweet as meadows scented with new- 
 mown hay ; we become sworn friends to both with- 
 out our willing it; they have nothing to take back, 
 because words and deeds are faithful to their best 
 manhood; they are strong, and women lean on 
 them, which, aside from God's confidence, is the 
 highest compliment ever paid a man. Deronda is 
 a man among aristocrats, Halifax a man among 
 plebeians and commercial relations ; but manhood 
 is the same quality wherever found; for God has 
 made all soils salubrious for such growth. But 
 these do not compel, though they do charm us. 
 Bayard, in "A Singular Life," may fall in with 
 Deronda and Halifax. Tragedy darkens at "the 
 far end of the avenue." Bayard is a social reformer 
 in attempt, though of the safe and right type, mean- 
 ing to change men, that there may be wrought a 
 change in institutions. He runs a tilt with Calvinian 
 orthodoxy as Methodism does, and loves God and 
 
320 A Hero and Some Othkr Foi^k 
 
 his fellow-men and a good woman, and finds no 
 toil burdensome if he may be of spiritual help and 
 healing. "A singular life" he lives ; but singular 
 because it is the gospel life, and he merits the name 
 the slums gave him, "The Christ-man." He is 
 helpful, few more so, and knows power to stir us, 
 which in the event is the superb quality in char- 
 acter. Captain Moray, in "The Seats of the 
 Mighty," and Henry Esmond, in "Henry Esmond," 
 are gentlemen of military mold, and we love them 
 both because they make for lordly inspiration in the 
 soul. Esmond must always keep his hold on men 
 as a hero. These two soldiers need no one to re- 
 mind us they know how to die; and know that 
 other, larger thing — how to live. Esmond, over 
 a long stretch of life lying in our sight, walked ever 
 as a prince. Any national literature might be glad 
 for one such as he. Our imagination takes wings 
 when we think of him. Such cleanness, such lack 
 of self^ such self-poise and firmness, such singleness 
 of love and devotion, such inaptitude for anything 
 not noble, such tense heroic purposes, such stalwart 
 intention to make himself a man ! He is greatness, 
 and his story to be read as a tonic. He recruits 
 heroisms in the heart, and rests us when we grow 
 weary. Thackeray is reported by Anthony Trol- 
 lope to have called his creation, Esmond, "a prig." 
 He might better have called iiim a gentleman; for 
 such he is, or narrowly lacks of being. Indeed, did 
 
Thk Gknti,e;man in IvITErature 321 
 
 not Thackeray present another who is ahogether 
 gentleman, Esmond would be catalogued as this 
 ideal character; for he misses it so little, if at all, 
 and is by odds most magnetic of Thackeray's cre- 
 ations. And Browning's "Caponsacchi" and 
 Hugo's "Valjean" have the true instincts of gentle- 
 men, Valjean redeemed himself from worse than 
 galley slavery — from debauched manhood to spir- 
 itual nobility, bewildering in holy audacity and 
 achievement. Were there a pantheon for souls who 
 have struggled up from the verge of hell to stand 
 in the clear light of heaven, be sulC Valjean would 
 be there. Volumes are requisite for his portrait, 
 and we have only room for words ! Of Capon- 
 sacchi, take the pope's estimate as accurate, "Thou 
 sprang'st forth hero." And Pompilia conceived him 
 rightly, for he minded her of God. What farther 
 need be said ? Is not that panegyric enough for any 
 man? Because he was so strong, so fearless, so 
 pure, so gifted with great might to love, so keen to 
 see Pompilia was pure as a babe's dreams, and the 
 light on his forehead falls from the lattices over- 
 head — ^the lattices of heaven — we love him. Had 
 his figure been fully drawn we should have had a 
 gentleman. Nor are we sure he ought not to be so 
 catalogued; as he is, we find no fault in him. He 
 minds us of the morning star. 
 
 Two characters in literature since Don Quixote 
 are life-size gentlemen, and these are Colonel New- 
 21 
 
322 A HsRO AND Some; Other Foi,k 
 
 come and King Arthur, as drawn by Thackeray 
 and Tennyson, men of one era and pure souls. In 
 these characters is evident dehberation of intent 
 to create gentlemen. This article has given no heed 
 to biography or history, because these concern 
 themselves with truth as observed, and are there- 
 fore not imaginative. What we are considering is 
 an ideal person, fashioned after the pattern discov- 
 ered in good lives, which happily grow more and 
 more plentiful as years multiply. Besides, biog- 
 raphy can never get at the real man ; for biography 
 is a story of doing, while what we need is a story 
 of soul. In Boswell's "Jo^^iison" or in Anthony 
 Trollope's "Autobiography" there is approach to 
 what we care to know; but in the life of Jowett or 
 Tennyson, though both are admirable specimens 
 of biography, what man among us but closed those 
 books with a sense of, not dissatisfaction, but un- 
 satisfaction ? What we were really hungry for was 
 not there. What Jowett was, which made him a 
 part of the life-blood of English thought and Eng- 
 lishmen — who found that out? Some things never 
 can be told, unless the poets or prose dramatists 
 tell them. Poetry and fiction do what history and 
 biography fail to do — make us interior to a soul's 
 true life. 
 
 Colonel Newcome is all gentleman. He hangs 
 a curtain of silence over one' room in his life. 
 To his wife, mother of his beloved Clive, he will 
 
The Gknti^kman in IyITErature 323 
 
 make no reference. Not bad, but frivolous and 
 weak and querulous, she was; but Colonel New- 
 come never whispers it. What had made many 
 misanthropes, made him a better man. No bitter- 
 ness tainted his spirit. Pure women put him in a 
 mood of worship, as they ought to put us all. He 
 could, in conduct, if not in memory, forget hurts 
 and wrongs, which Is one mark of a large spirit. 
 His was, his biographer afiflrms, "a tender and a 
 faithful heart." In him paternity and maternity 
 met, which is a conjunction we have not given heed 
 to as we ought in thinking on the heart. Mother- 
 hood is In the best fatherhood. Not long since I 
 met a minister who, on my mentioning a black and 
 scrawny village, said, with lovellt face and ringing, 
 jubilant voice, "O yes, that is where my boy was 
 born!" How true hearts do remember! And Col- 
 onel Newcome loved his son with such sweet and 
 wide fidelity as makes the heart covet him for father. 
 All those days of separation from his son_, he 
 thought of him "with such a constant longing af- 
 fection." And his joy on seeing his son once more 
 is the joy of one getting home to heaven. "To ask 
 a blessing on bis boy was as natural to him as to 
 wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the 
 day is over. His first and last thought was always 
 the child." He expects good of people, will say 
 no ill of any, can not understand Sir Brian New- 
 come's frigid reception, and Is hurt by It as by a 
 
324 A He;ro and Som:e Othkr Folk 
 
 poisoned arrow shot by the hill tribes in far India; 
 he can not tolerate foul thought or speech, burns 
 hot with righteous wrath against Captain Costigan 
 when he sings a vile song, thundering, "Silence!" 
 " 'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We 
 must forgive other people's trespasses if we hope 
 forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as 
 he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently." 
 How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed 
 him up not a trifle ! How alert to love, how open 
 to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure ! 
 What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particu- 
 larly to women ! How wide those windows of his 
 soul open toward heaven ! How magnanimous, 
 how sad his face and heart, how sensitive his nature, 
 to any lack of love on dear Clive's part ! Though 
 to his own heart he will not admit such lack exists, 
 sitting above in his cheerless room, listening to his 
 son's merry-making, that son glad to be left free 
 of his father's presence, — how bravely he bore pov- 
 erty when financial ruin came, not missing wealth 
 for himself, but for him he loved, and how he 
 grieved for those who had lost through him ! He 
 was not faultless. Men are not often that; but his 
 anger rose from his heart. His indignation was 
 for those he loved. We can see him now, as if he 
 lived among us yet. His honest, melancholy face ; 
 his loose clothes hanging on his loose limbs ; sitting 
 silent, with his sad eyes ; a bankrupt, giving over 
 
ThK G:eNTl,:eMAN IN lylTEjRATURB 325 
 
 his pension for reimbursing those who had lost by 
 him; and his eagerness for wealth for love's sake, 
 always thinking of somebody else, — such is this 
 gentleman who trusts in God. And thus simple, 
 noble, unhumiliated : 
 
 "I chanced to look up from my book toward 
 the swarm of blackcoated pensioners, and among 
 them — among them — sat Thomas Newcome. His 
 dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book ; 
 there was no mistaking him. He wore the black 
 gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Grey 
 Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his breast. 
 He stood among the poor brethren, uttering the 
 responses to the psalm. . , . His own wan face 
 flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook 
 in mine. 'I have found a home, Arthur,' said he; 
 for save this he was homeless. As death came 
 toward him his mind wandered, driven as a leaf is 
 driven by wandering winds. He headed columns 
 in Hindustan ; he called the name of the one woman 
 he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was 
 for others, for Clive^ dear, dear Clive. He said, 
 'Take care of him when I 'm in India ;* and then, 
 with a heartrending voice, he called out, Xeonore, 
 Leonore !' She was kneeling by his side now. The 
 patient voice sank into faint murmurs ; only a moan 
 now and then announced that he was not asleep. 
 At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll, and 
 Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly 
 
326 A Hero and Some; Other F01.K 
 
 beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a pecu- 
 liar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted 
 up his head a little, and quickly said, 'Adsum !' and 
 fell back. It was the word we used at school when 
 names were called ; and lo ! he, whose 'heart was as 
 that of a little child, had answered to his name, and 
 stood in the presence of his Master." 
 
 Small wonder if, in India, they called Thomas 
 Newcome "Don Quixote." 
 
 And King Arthur is Alfred Tennyson's dream 
 of a gentleman. Arthur is manhood at its prime. 
 He was strong, a warrior, a self-made man, since 
 the foolish questioned, "Is he Uther's son?" Mys- 
 tery and miracle mix with his history, as is accurate, 
 seeing no life grows tall without the advent of mir- 
 acle. He is rescuer of a realm from anarchy, 
 founder of the Round Table — an order of knight- 
 hood purposed to include only pure knights — was 
 not spectacular; for we read that others were 
 greater in tournament than he, but he greater than 
 all in battle, from which we see how great occasions 
 called out his greatness. He measured up to needs. 
 Though often deceived, he was optimist, hoping 
 the best from men. He counted life to be a chance 
 for service. There was a hidden quality in him, as 
 when he, unknown to all, went out from Camelot to 
 tilt with Balin and overthrew him. His life was 
 pure as the heart of "the lily maid of Astolat," and 
 demanded in man a purity as great as that of 
 
The GentIvKman in I^iterature 327 
 
 woman. His love was mighty, unsuspicious, tender. 
 He was himself a king, born to rule, fitted to in- 
 spire. No littleness sapped his greatness. He re- 
 joiced in others' strength, prowess^ victory. His 
 was an eye quick to discover merit in woman or 
 man, as in Lynette. His heart v/as tender, and a 
 cry for help awoke him from deep sleep. He hated 
 foulness as he hated hell. He was like a sky, so 
 high, pure, open. Himself makes an era, for his 
 age clusters about him as if he were a sun to sway 
 a system. Like Cordelia, in "Lear," he is a figure 
 in the background ; yet, despite his actual slight 
 participancy in the "Idyls of the King," he always 
 seems the one person of the poem. What is Lance- 
 lot matched with him, or pure Sir Galahad? If 
 knighthood misconceived King Arthur then, men 
 do not misconceive him now. A great spirit must 
 not murmur if misconceived. The world will clus- 
 ter to him hereafter, himself being God's hand to 
 lift them to his Alp of nobleness. Arthur's life up- 
 braids men for their sin. His very purity alienated 
 Guinevere. Goodness has tempests in its sky, and 
 storms make morning murk as night ; and one true 
 knight, King Arthur, goes sick at heart to battle 
 with rebels in the West. Lancelot and Guinevere 
 are fled ; Modred has raised standard of rebellion ; 
 some knights are dead, slain in battle or searching 
 for the Holy Grail ; some have left off knighthood, — 
 and Kine Arthur is defeated ! Nav, this can not 
 
328 A H:^RO and Somb Other Folk 
 
 be. He rides into the battle, having forgiven Guin- 
 evere "as Eternal God forgives" — the battle where 
 
 "Host to host 
 Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn. 
 Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
 Of battle-axes on shatter's helms, and shrieks 
 After the Christ, of those who falling down 
 lyook'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist." 
 
 And, the battle ended, Arthur moans, "My house 
 hath seen my doom ;" but he has not forgotten God, 
 nor hath God forgotten him. God is his destination, 
 and he trusts him now as in the golden yesterdays : 
 
 "I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 May He within himself make pure!" 
 
 And Arthur found, not sorrow nor defeat, but vic- 
 tory ; for 
 
 "Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
 As from beyond the limit of the world, 
 Like the last echo born of a great cry. 
 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
 Around a king returning from his wars." 
 
 And one of earth's gentlemen was welcomed home 
 to heaven. 
 
XII 
 
 The Drama of Job 
 
 THE sun monopolizes the sky. Stars do not 
 shine by day, not because they have lost their 
 luster, but because the sun owns the heavens, and 
 erases them as the tide erases footprints from the 
 sands. In similar fashion a main truth monopolizes 
 attention to the exclusion of subordinate truths. 
 The Bible's main truth is its spiritual significancy, 
 containing those ethical teachings which have revo- 
 lutionized this world, and which are to be redemp- 
 tive in all ages yet to come. The Bible, as God's 
 Book for man's reading and redemption, has proven 
 so amazing as a moral force, illuminating the mind ; 
 purifying the heart ; freeing and firing the imagina- 
 tion ; attuning life itself to melody ; peopling history 
 with new ideas ; seeding continents with Magna 
 Chartas of personal and political liberties ; making 
 for religious toleration ; creating a new Ideal of man- 
 hood and womanhood ; presenting, in brief bio- 
 graphical sketches, perfect pictures of such men as 
 the world has seen too few of; and portraying 
 Christ, whose face once seen can never be for- 
 gotten, but casts all other faces and figures into 
 shadow, leaving Him solitary, significant, sub- 
 
 3^9 
 
330 A Hke-o and Some; Other Foi,k 
 
 lime, — this is the Bible. So men have conceived 
 the Scriptures as a magazine of moral might; and 
 the conception has not been amiss. This is the 
 Bible's chief merit and superior function, and this 
 glory has blinded us to lesser glories, which, bad 
 they existed in any other literature, would have 
 stung men to surprise, adm.iration, and delight. 
 "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a pleasure 
 simply as an expression of sensuous delight set to 
 music. The poem is a bit of careless laughter, ring- 
 ing glad and free as if it were a child's, and passing 
 suddenly to a child's tears and sobbing. This soli- 
 tary virtue has breathed into the Rubaiyat life. The 
 Bible is a series of books bound in a single volume, 
 because all relate to a single theme : history, biog- 
 raphy, letters, proverbial philosophy, pure idyls, 
 lofty eloquence, elegiac poetry, ethics, legal codes, 
 memorabilia, cominentaries on campaigns more in- 
 fluential on the world's destiny than Caesar's, epic 
 poetry, lyrics, and a sublime drama. The Bible is 
 not a book, but a library ; not a literary effort, but 
 a literature. It sums up the literature of the Hebrew 
 race, aside from which that race produced nothing 
 literary worthy of perpetuation. One lofty theme 
 stung them to genius, their mission and literature 
 converging in Christ and there ending. The Bible 
 as literature marks the book as unique as a literary 
 fact as it is as a religious fact; in either, standing 
 solitary. That lovers of literature have passed these 
 
The Drama of Job 331 
 
 surprising literary merits by with comparative in- 
 attention is attributable, doubtless, to the over- 
 shadowing moral majesty of the volume. The 
 larger obscured the lesser glory. But, after all, can 
 we feel other than shame in recalling how our col- 
 lege curricula contain the masterpieces of Greek, 
 Latin, English, and German hterature, and find no 
 niche for the Bible, superior to all in moral eleva- 
 tion and literary charm and inspiration? "Ruth" 
 is easily the superior of "Paul and Virginia" or 
 "Vicar of Wakefield." "Lamentations" is as noble 
 an elegy as sorrow has set to words ; the Gospels 
 are not surpassed by Boswell's "Johnson" in power 
 of recreating the subject of the biography; the 
 Psalms sing themselves without aid of harp or 
 organ; "The Acts" is a history taking rank with 
 Thucydides ; and Job is the sublimest drama ever 
 penned. If these encomiums are high, they must 
 not be deemed extravagant, rather the necessary 
 eulogy of truth. 
 
 What are the sublimest poems of universal liter- 
 ature ? Let this stand as a tentative reply : ^schy- 
 lus's "Prometheus Bound," Dante's "Divine Com- 
 edy," Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Milton's "Paradise 
 Lost," and Job, author unknown. To rank as a 
 subhme production, theme and treatment must both 
 be sublime, and the poem must be of dignified 
 length. Prometheus has a Titan for subject; has 
 magnanimity for occasion ; has suffering, on account 
 
332 A He;ro and Some Other Folk 
 
 of his philanthropy, as tragic element ; and the bar- 
 ren crags of Caucasus as theater; and the style is 
 the loftiest of ^schylus, sublimest of Greek drama- 
 tists. Perhaps "CEdipus Coloneus" is nearest ap- 
 proach among Greek tragedies to the elevation of 
 "Prometheus Bound," and Shelley's "Prometheus 
 Umbound" has much of the Greek sublimity and 
 more than the Greek frigidity. Dante is nearest 
 neighbor to ^schylus, though fifteen hundred years 
 removed, and the "Divine Comedy" has all ele- 
 ments of sublimity. The time is eternal. The havoc 
 of sin, the might of Christ, rhe freedom of the hu- 
 man spirit, the righteousness of God, the fate of 
 souls, are materials out of which sublimer cathedral 
 should be built than ever Gothic Christians wrought 
 in poetry of stone. "Hamlet" is the sublimity of 
 a soul fighting, single-handed, with innumerable 
 foes, and dying — slain, but undefeated. "Paradise 
 Lost" might easily be mistaken for the deep organ 
 music of a stormy ocean, so matchless and sublime 
 the melody. In theme, epic ; in treatment, epic ; in 
 termination, tragic, — which melts into holy hope 
 and radiant promise as a night of storm and fearful 
 darkness melts into the light and glory of the dawn 
 and sunrise when the sky is fair. I can hear and 
 see this blind old Puritan, chanting the drama of a 
 lost cause as a David lamenting for his Absalom 
 dead. Milton is sublime in history, misfortune, 
 range of ideas, warrior strength,and prowess to fight 
 
Thk Drama of Job 333 
 
 and die undaunted. Not even his darkness makes 
 him sob more than a moment. A rebellion in 
 heaven, a war in consequence ; the flaming legions 
 of the skies led by Christ, God's Son; a conflict, 
 whose clangor fills the vaulted skies in heaven with 
 reverberating thunders, ending in defeat for evil 
 which makes all Waterloos insignificant ; the fall of 
 Satanic legions from the thrones which once were 
 theirs, when, with dolorous cry, they stumbled into 
 hell ; the counterplot of Lucifer ; the voyage across 
 the wastes "'of chaos and old night;" the horrid 
 birth of Sin; the apocalypse of Sin and Death in 
 Eden ; and the Promise, whose pierced hand, held 
 out, saved from utter ruin those who, 
 
 "Hand in hand with wandering steps and slow. 
 Through Eden took their solitary way." 
 
 Musician, instrument, and oratorio, — all sub- 
 lime. Last named, though first written, is the 
 drama of Job, in which all things conspire to lift 
 the argument into sublimity. Are seas in tempests 
 sublime? What are they, matched with Job's 
 stormy soul? Are thunders reverberating among 
 mountains sublime? What are they when God's 
 voice makes interrogatory? But above all, God 
 walks into the drama as his right is to walk into 
 human life ; and God's appearance, whether at Sinai 
 or Calvary, or in the weary watches of some heart's 
 
334 -^ Hkro and Some; Other Foi^k 
 
 night of pain, makes mountain and hour and heart 
 sublime. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle once, reading at prayers in a 
 friend's house from the Book of Job, became ob- 
 Hvious to surroundings, and read on and on, till 
 one by one the listeners arose and slipped out in 
 silence, leaving the rapt reader alone, he holding 
 on his solitary way until the last strophe fell from 
 the reader's lips ; nor can we wonder at him, for 
 such must be the disposition of every thoughtful 
 peruser of Job. As we will not care to lay Hamlet 
 down till Fortinbras is taking Hamlet, with regal 
 honors, from the scene, so we cling to Job till we 
 see light break through the clouds, and the storm 
 vanish, and the thunder cease. 
 
 Job is a prince, old, rich, fortunate, benevolent, 
 and good. Life has dealt kindly with him, and 
 looking at his face you would not, from his wrinkles, 
 guess his years. The great honor him ; the good 
 trust him ; the poor, in his bounty find plenty ; no 
 blessing has failed him, so that his name is a syn- 
 onym of good fortune, — such a man is chief person 
 of this drama, written by some unknown genius. 
 Singular, is it not, that this voice, from an antiquity 
 remoter than literature can duplicate, should be 
 anonymous? Not all commodities have the firm's 
 name upon them. Some of ,the world's noblest 
 thoughts are entailed on the generations, they not 
 knowing whence they sprang. He who speaks a 
 
The; Drama op Job 335 
 
 great word is not always conscious it is great. We 
 are often hidden from ourselves. But our joy is, 
 some nameless poet has made Job chief actor in the 
 drama of a good man's life. "The steps of a good 
 man are ordered of the Lord," the Scriptures say, 
 and such a man was Job ; and the theme of this 
 drama is, how shall a good man behave under cir- 
 cumstances ruinously perverse, and what shall be 
 his fate? The theme has rare attraction, and ap- 
 peals to us as a home message, dear to our heart 
 as a fond word left us by a departing friend. 
 
 The drama has prologue, dialogue, and epi- 
 logue. The actors are Job's friends. Job's self, 
 Satan, and God. 
 
 Temporarily, as an object lesson to children in 
 the moral kindergarten, God gave prosperity under 
 the Mosaic code as proof of piety. This regime was 
 a brief temporality, God not dealing in giving vis- 
 ible rewards to goodness, else righteousness would 
 become a matter of merchandise, being quotable 
 in Dun's. When we reason of righteousness, that 
 the good are blest seems a necessary truth ; yet they 
 do not appear so. They are afflicted as others, "the 
 rain falls on the just and the unjust ;" may, more, 
 the wicked even seem favored ; "he is not in trouble 
 as other men ;" prosperity smiles on him, like a 
 woman on her favored lover; and the spirit cries 
 out involuntarily, as if thrust through by an angry 
 sword, "How can these things be ?" And this bitter 
 
336 A Hkro and Some; Othkr Foi,k 
 
 cry, wrung from the suffering good man. Is theme 
 for the drama of Job ; and In this stands soHtary as 
 it stands subhme. 
 
 A first quahty of greatness in a literary produc- 
 tion is, that it deals with some universal truth. 
 "How can good men suffer if God be good ?" How 
 pressingly important and importunate this ques- 
 tion is ! "Does goodness pay ?" is the commercial 
 putting of the question. Such being the meaning 
 of Job, how the poem thrusts home, and how mod- 
 em and personal is it become ! When conceived as 
 the drama of a good man's life, every phase of the 
 discussion becomes apparently just. Nothing is 
 omitted and nothing is out of place. 
 
 Job sits in the sunshine of prosperity. Not a 
 cloud drifts across his sky, when, without word of 
 warning, a night of storm crushes along his world, 
 destroys herds and servants, reduces his habitations 
 to ruins, slays his children, leaves himself in poverty, 
 a mourner at the funeral of all he loved. Then 
 his world begins to wonder at him ; then distrust 
 him, as if he were evil; his glory is eclipsed, as it 
 would seem, forever; and, as if not content at the 
 havoc of the man's hopes and prosperity and joy, 
 misfortune follows him with disease ; grievous 
 plagues seize him, making days and mights one 
 sleepless pain; and his wife, who should have been 
 his stay and help, as most women are, became, in- 
 stead of a solace and blessing, querulous, crying, 
 
The Drama of Job 337 
 
 like a virago, shrilly, "Curse God, and die !" Job 
 opens with tragedy; Lear, and Julius Csesar, and 
 Othello, and Macbeth, and Hamlet, close with trag- 
 edy. Job's ruin is swift and immediate. He has 
 had no time to prepare him for the shock. He was 
 listening for laughter, and he hears a sob. You 
 can fairly hear the ruin, crashing like falling towers 
 about this Prince of Uz ; and you must hear, if you 
 are not stone-deaf, the pant of the bleeding runner, 
 who half runs, half falls into his master's presence, 
 gasping, "Job, Prince Job, my master — ruin ! ruin ! 
 ruin ! Thy — herds — and thy servants — ruin — alas ! 
 Thy herds are taken — and thy servants slain — and — 
 I — only — I — am — left;" and ere his story is panted 
 forth, another comes, weary with the race, and 
 gasps^ "Thy flocks — are slain — with fire — from 
 heaven — and thy servants — with them — and I — 
 alone — ^am — am — " when another breathless runner 
 breaks that story off, crying, "Thy sons — and 
 daughters — " and Job turns his pale face, and fairly 
 shrieks, "My sons and daughters — what? Say on !" 
 "Thy sons and daughters were feasting — and — the 
 storm swept through — the — sky, and crushed the 
 house— and slew — thy daughters — and — ^thy — sons 
 — and I, a servant, I only, am escaped — alone — to 
 tell thee ;" and Job wept aloud, and his grief pos- 
 sesses him, as a storm the sea — and was very pitiful 
 — 'and he fell on his face, and worshiped ! The apoc- 
 alypse O'f this catastrophe is genius of the most 
 
338 A He;ro and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 splendid order. Tragedy has come ! But Job rises 
 above tragedy, for he worshiped. 
 
 In his "Talks 'on the Study of Literature," Arlo 
 Bates, in discussing Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg 
 oration, instancing this sentence, "We here highly 
 resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain," 
 says, "The phrase is one of the most superb in 
 American literature, and what makes it so is the 
 word 'highly/ the adverb being the last of which 
 an ordinary mind would 'have thought in this con- 
 nection, and yet, once spoken, it is the inevitable 
 and superb word." To all this I agree with eager- 
 ness ; but submit that, in this phrase from Job, "I 
 only am escaped alone to tell thee," the word 
 "alone" is as magical and wonderful; and I think 
 the author of this drama may well be claimed as 
 poet laureate of that far-off, dateless time. 
 
 And the good man's goodness availed him noth- 
 ing? What are we to think of Job now? Either a 
 good man is afflicted, and perhaps of God, or Job 
 has been a cunning fraud, his life one long hypoc- 
 risy, his age a gray deception. Which? Here lies 
 the strategic quality in the drama. The three 
 friends are firmly persuaded that Job is unrighteous 
 and his sin has found him out. His dissimulation, 
 thoug'h it has deceived man, has not deceived God. 
 Such their pitiless reasoning; and the more blind 
 they are, the more they argue, as is usual; for in 
 argument, men convince themselves, though they 
 
The Drama of Job 339 
 
 make no other converts. In Job's calamity, all 
 winds blow against him, as with one rowing shore- 
 ward on the sea, when tides draw out toward the 
 deep and winds blow a gale off shore out to the 
 night ; and they blow against Job, because he is not 
 what he once was. His life, once comedy, glad or 
 wild with laughter according to the day, is now 
 tragedy, with white face and bleeding wounds, and 
 voice a moan, like autumn winds. Alas ! great 
 prince, thy tragedy is come ! Tragedy ; but God 
 did not commission it. This drama does not mis- 
 represent God, as many a poem and many a sufferer 
 do. Satan — this drama says — Satan sent this ruin. 
 God has not seared this man's flesh with the white 
 heats of lightning, nor brought him into penury 
 nor suspicion, nor made his heart widowed. God 
 is dispenser of good, not evil ; for while an argument 
 is not to be enforced against punitive justice, seeing 
 justice is a necessity of goodness, yet we are to 
 affirm that the notion of God slaying Job's children 
 (or anybody's children, so far as that runs), or blot- 
 ting out his prosperity, is obnoxious to reason and 
 to heart. This drama perpetrates no such blunder. 
 Satan sent these disasters ; for with him is evil pur- 
 pose. The very nobility of Job stings him to enmity 
 and madness; for iniquity is his delight, and ruin 
 his vocation and pleasure. A power without man 
 working evil is consonant with history and experi- 
 ence, and to suppose this power a person rather 
 
340 A Hero and Some Other Foi,k 
 
 than an influence is as rational as to suppose God 
 not a barren principle, but a Person, fertile in love 
 and might and righteousness. In the drama of 
 Job, God is not smirched. He is not Hurter, but 
 Helper. In "Prometheus Bound," Zeus is tyrant; 
 in Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," Zeus is tyrant 
 run mad. In Job, God is majesty enthroned; 
 thoughtful, interested, loving; permitting, not ad- 
 ministering evil ; hearing and heeding a bewildered 
 man's cry, and coming to his rescue, like as some 
 gracious emancipator comes, to break down prison 
 doors and set wronged prisoners free. In Job, God 
 is not aspersed, a thing so easy to do in literature 
 and so often done. Here is no dubious biography, 
 where God is raining disaster instead of mercies. 
 To misrepresent God seems to me a high crime and 
 misdemeanor — ^nay, the ^ high crime and misde- 
 meanor ; because on the righteousness of God hangs 
 the righteousness of the moral system embracing 
 all souls everywhere, and tO' misconceive or mis- 
 interpret God, sins against the highest interests of 
 the world, since life never rises higher than the 
 divinity it conceives and worships. The permissive 
 element in Divine administration is here clearly dis- 
 tinguished. Complex the system is, and not sum- 
 totally intelligible as yet, though we may, and do, 
 get hints of vision, as one catches through the thick 
 ranks of forest-trees occasional glimpses of sky-line, 
 where room is made by a gash in the ranks of 
 
'rH]^ Drama of Job 341 
 
 woods, and the open looks in like some one stand- 
 ing outside a window with face toward us. 
 
 This drama of goodness gives words and form 
 to our perplexity. How can a good life have no 
 visible favors? How are we to explain prosperity 
 coming to a man besotted with every vice and re- 
 pugnant to our souls, while beside him, with heart 
 aromatic of good as spice-groves with their odors, 
 with hands clean frO'm iniquity as those of a little 
 child, with eyes calm and watching for the advent 
 of God and an opportunity to help men, — 'and 
 calamities bark at his door, like famine-crazed, 
 raveno'us wolves at the shepherd's hut; and pes- 
 tilence bears his babes from his bosom to the grave ; 
 and calumny smirches his reputation ; and his busi- 
 ness ventures are shipwrecked in sight of the har- 
 bor; and his wife lies on a bed of pain, terrible as 
 an inquisitor's rack ; penury frays his garments, and 
 steals his home and goods, and snatches even the 
 crust from his table, — and God has forgotten good- 
 ness? Here is no parable, but a picture our eyes 
 have seen as we have stumbled from a garret, 
 blinded by our tears as if some wild rain dashed in 
 our faces. 
 
 God does not care ; more, God's lightnings sear 
 the eyeballs of virtue, tall and fair as angelhood, — 
 this is our agonized estimate betimes, and we are • 
 troubled lest, unwittingly and unwillingly, we ma- 
 lign God. To an explanation of this fiery tangle 
 
342 ^. Hero and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 of adversity the drama of Job sets itself. How pro- 
 digious the task ! 
 
 But the poem breathes perfume in our faces as 
 we approach until we think we neighbor with honey- 
 suckle blooms. What hinders to catch the fra- 
 grance for a moment ere we enter this room of suf- 
 fering lying a step beyond? "Job" has beauty. 
 "Job" has bewildering beauty. This is no hasty 
 word, rather deliberate and sincere. An anthology 
 from Job would be ample material for an article. 
 All through the poem, thoughts flash into beauty 
 as dewdrops on morning flowers flash into ame- 
 thyst, and ruby, and diamond, and all manner of 
 precious stones. In reading it, imagination is al- 
 ways on wing, like humming-birds above the 
 flowers. You may find similes that haunt you like 
 the sound of falling water, and breathe the breath 
 of surest poetry in your face. 
 
 "Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark: 
 Let it look for light, but have none; 
 Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning." 
 
 "There the wicked cease from troubling. 
 And the weary are at rest," — 
 
 a beautiful thought, which Tennyson has put 
 bodily into his "Queen of the May," where, as here, 
 the words sob Hke a child sobbing itself to sleep 
 w'hen its mother is dead and missed. 
 
The Drama of Job 343 
 
 "There the prisoners are at ease together; 
 They hear not the voice of the taskmaster." 
 
 And to prisoners of hope, how healing such 
 words are, and full of balm ! But to us who have 
 known not the blinding grief of prisoners, the poetry 
 of the thought is "rainy sweet." 
 
 "My roarings are poured out like water." 
 
 "Men which are crushed before the moth!" 
 
 "For man is born unto trouble 
 As the sparks to fly upward." 
 
 "The counsel of the froward is carried headlong: 
 They meet with darkness in the daytime, 
 And grope at noonday as in the night." 
 
 "For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, 
 And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee; 
 And thou shalt know that thy tent is in peace." 
 
 Can one recall a description of peace more 
 searching and ample, not to say fraught with more 
 tender suggestion? 
 
 "My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, 
 As the channel of brooks that pass away." 
 
 For my part, I know no cry that paints pain 
 with surer pathos than a passage now to be quoted. 
 
344 -^ Hi^RO AND SoMB Oth:er Foi,k 
 
 I see and hear the lonely sufferer, and watch beside 
 his bed as if to subdue his pain. 
 
 "Is there not warfare to man upon the earth? 
 Are not his days like the days of a hireling? 
 As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow, 
 And as a hireling that looketh for his wages? 
 So am I made to possess months of vanity, 
 And wearisome nights are appointed to me. 
 When I lie down, I say, 
 When shall I arise? But the night is long; 
 And I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawn- 
 ing of the day. 
 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, 
 And are spent without hope." 
 
 "I would not live alway: 
 Let me alone; for my days are vanity." 
 
 In a passage now to be adduced is sublimity 
 passing the sublimity of Milton the sublime : 
 
 "God, which removeth the mountains, and they know 
 
 it not 
 When he overturneth them in his anger; 
 Which shaketh the earth out of her place, 
 And the pillars thereof tremble; 
 Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; 
 And sealeth up the stars; 
 Which alone stretcheth out the heavens. 
 And treadeth upon the waves of the sea; 
 Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades, 
 And the chambers of the South; 
 Which doeth great things, past' finding out; 
 Yea, marvelous things without number: 
 He breaketh me with a tempest." 
 
The; Drama of Job 345 
 
 Before words like these one may well stand 
 dumb, with the finger of silence on the lips. Hear 
 Job wail : 
 
 "Now my daj^s are swifter than a post: 
 They are passed away as the swift ships. 
 As the eagle that swoopeth on the prey, 
 My soul is weary of my life." 
 
 "Thou shalt forget thy misery: 
 Thou shalt remember it as waters that are passed away." 
 
 "He poureth contempt upon princes. 
 And looseth the belt of the strong; 
 He discovereth deep things out of darkness. 
 And bringeth out to light the shadow of death." 
 
 This "bringeth out to light the shadow of death'^ 
 appears to me as bold and transfiguring a figure as 
 is to be found in literature. It is majesty itself. 
 
 "They grope in the dark without light, 
 And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man." 
 
 "Wilt thou harass a driven leaf, 
 And wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?" 
 
 "I am like a garment that is moth-eaten." 
 
 "He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; 
 He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." 
 
 "He breaketh me with breach upon breach; 
 He runneth upon me like a giant." 
 
346 A Hkro and Som:^ Othe;r Foi,k 
 
 "Aforetime I was as a tabret." 
 
 "His strength shall be hunger-bitten, 
 And calamity shall be ready at his side." 
 
 "My purposes are broken off." 
 
 "His remembrance shall perish from the earth, 
 And he shall have no name in the street." 
 
 "Ye break me in pieces with words." 
 
 How vigorously descriptive this is of what many 
 a man has endured from hammering speech of 
 violent men ! 
 
 "They waited for me as for the rain." 
 
 "He overturneth the mountains by the roots." 
 
 "Out of the north cometh golden splendor." 
 
 "God hath upon him terrible majesty." 
 
 "Deck thyself now with excellency and dignity; 
 And array thyself with honor and majesty." 
 
 Has not this putting all the strength and* beauty 
 of a Shakespe'arean couplet? Shakespeare uses 
 such figures as this often, and in them he is his 
 greater self. His is the splendor of imagination 
 and clearness of vision of a prince of poets. Time 
 liastes. This task is decoying. To cease is a hard- 
 
Thb Drama of Job 347 
 
 ship ; for "Job" lends itself with such wealth to these 
 nohler passages as to urge on our quest. Whole 
 chapters are poems, rich as if carven on blocks of 
 solid gold. They blaze with splendor. But the 
 drama bears on its way hke an invading army, and 
 will not wait. 
 
 Disiaster has overtaken a good man with its 
 utter demolition; but, as has been shown, the pro- 
 logue of the drama settles the paternity of the dis- 
 aster. Evils coime, but not necessarily from God. 
 In a complex moral system, God has found it good 
 to administer by general rather than by special 
 laws, and their operation does not work exact jus- 
 tice to either wickedness or purity. God's adminis- 
 tration being an eternal one, he dares take scope 
 to bring rewards to goodness and to evil. God does 
 not need to haste. He has eternity, and dares 
 therefore be pacific and not perturbed. Haste 
 savors of lack in time. God must not haste. That 
 he could pour swift retribution on the head of of- 
 fending men, we dare not doubt. That he does not 
 is patent. Another scene is plainly the purpo'se of 
 God, He has a scene behind a scene. If this world 
 were an end, there is rank and unforgivable in- 
 justice done. Men have not been dealt fairly with, 
 and may, with legitimacy, make acrimonious reply ; 
 but we are clearly taught that this world is a stage 
 for the display of character, not for its reward, and 
 the next scene will be for the reward of character. 
 
348 A Hero and Some; OTH:eR Foi<k 
 
 and not for its display. God will recompense, but 
 we are not told God does recompense. Such is the 
 lofty argument of the drama, and may be named as 
 major theme. 
 
 Prince Job, smitten from his throne of prosper- 
 ity and influence into a pit of ignominy, in his 
 abasement cries, "Wherefore do the wicked live, 
 become old, yea, are mighty in power?" And in 
 his conscious integrity he might well shrill a cry 
 to his own breaking heart. Job is sure (some things 
 calamity reveals) integrity is not awarded according 
 to its character and worth, while his three friends 
 see in Job's downfall a disclosure of his wickedness. 
 They urge him to repent. They think there can be 
 no arguing against do'om. God has smitten him 
 for his sins, — this they all agree, and say no other 
 thing. Poor Job ! His friends consider his hypoc- 
 risy proven, and his wife has become foreigner to 
 him in his day of disaster; disease climaxes his 
 calamities, and he half says, half moans : "When I 
 lie down, I say. When shall I arise and the night 
 be gone ? and I am full of turnings to and fro until 
 the dawning of the day. My days are swifter than 
 a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. I 
 will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will con- 
 fess the bitterness of my soul." Surely his afifliction 
 breaks like so'me desperate -sea, and he is as a 
 sailor hurled on jagged rocks, bleeding, half- 
 drowned, shivering cold, and again the storm-waves 
 
The; Drama op Job 349 
 
 leap like mad tigers at his throat, and the sailor 
 scarce knows well how to beat one stroke more 
 against the sea. This is Job. He is bewildered. 
 His first cry is as of one whose reason staggers. 
 His face, his voice, his words — -all are unnatural. 
 To hear, I would not know nor think this was 
 Prince Job. Strangely, sadly, terribly changed he 
 is when he cries: "Let the day perish wherein I 
 was born. Let that day be darkness. Let dark- 
 ness and the shadow of death stain it. Let the 
 blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, 
 let darkness seize upon it. Let it not be joined 
 unto the days of the year. Let it not come into 
 the number of the months. Lo, let that night be 
 solitary; let no joyful voice come therein. Let the 
 stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look 
 for light, but have none ; neither let it see the 
 dawning of the day." "Wherefore is light given 
 to him that is in misery ; and life unto the bitter 
 in soul, which long for death, but it cometh not; 
 and dig for it more than for hid treasures ; which 
 rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can 
 find the grave? For the thing which I greatly 
 feared is come upon me. I was not in safety, 
 neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble 
 came." Alas, Prince Job, your voice is a-sob with 
 tears ; and we had not known it was he ! But did 
 grief ever tell its beads with deeper music? Has 
 not this bankrupt prince given sorrow words for- 
 
350 A He;ro and Somk Other F'oi^k 
 
 ever? His pain and grief are unutterable in sad- 
 ness, yet is he not alone. Multitudes have taken 
 up his lament. There is no pathos deeper than his,, 
 "digging for death more than for hid treasures." 
 I fear Job's grief unmans him, and he hath gone 
 mad with Lear. Pray, think you he is not as pas- 
 sionate, gray Lear, mad as the stormy night? It 
 seems so, but is not so. He is baffled. He is a 
 good man^ but blinded for a moment, as a light- 
 ning-flash stupifies the sight. His cry is the cry 
 wrung from the white lips of pain through the 
 ages. We can not blame him, but only be pitiful 
 to him. His disasters are so varied and so ter- 
 rible; but we feel sure of him, and if he have 
 lost footing and sight, 't will not be for long. 
 
 But there he sits in ashes, fit to make marble 
 weep; and his three friends — stately, aged, gray, 
 friends of many years — come to comfort him ; for 
 which service he has need, sore need. There are 
 times when a heart is hungry for tenderness, when 
 a word of love would be a gift of God, when a 
 touch of some tender hand would be a consolation 
 wide as heaven ; and such a word and hand had 
 melted Job to tears, and his tears would have done 
 him good, as prayer does. Sometimes tears clear 
 the throat and heart of sobs that choke. But 
 these men were inquisitors rather than comforters ; 
 they were philosophers, when they ought to have 
 been men. They sat in silence seven days, but. 
 
The Drama of Job 351 
 
 should have maintained their quiet. These men 
 lacked imagination, which is a fatal omission from 
 character; for they who came to comfort, became 
 polemic, pitiless, belligerent, and their voices sound 
 metallic. If a child had crept toward the afflicted 
 prince, and had reached out a pitiful hand, and, 
 with childish treble, had said, "Poor Job ; poor 
 Job !" that word had salved his wounds, and helped 
 him through his morass of pain and fear and 
 doubt. But instead, his friend Eliphaz hectors his 
 pain by saying, in stately fashion, "Thy words 
 have upholden him that was failing, and thou hast 
 strengthened the feeble knees ; but now it has come 
 upon thee, and thou faintest." Shame, Eliphaz ! 
 What a bungler ! A child had known better. What 
 ails you? Do you not know this man needs ten- 
 derness, and not lectures and disquisitions in 
 moralities? Can you not see his heart is breaking, 
 and his eyes turn to you as if he were watching 
 for the coming of some succor infinite? Have you 
 no balm with fragrance? But he hears us not, 
 or heeds us not, but measures out his periods as 
 if he were orator at some state occasion : "Behold, 
 happy is the man whom God correcteth : therefore 
 despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. 
 Lo, this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and 
 know thou it for thy good." Pray, is this friend 
 mad, or foe, or fool, that he knows no better than 
 to pour comtempt on distress? Will not a foe, 
 
352 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 
 
 even, have pity on an enemy wounded and bleed- 
 ing and prostrate in the dust ? But this man thinks 
 he has a mission to teach an overthrown prince 
 a lesson, harsh, cold, unrelenting, lacking senti- 
 ment. Job's pitiful affliction is enough to lift such 
 a man into pity. No, no ; he urges his lesson, like 
 some dull schoolmaster who will instruct his pupil 
 while he knows him dying. 
 
 Job's broken voice calls, "O that my grief 
 were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid 
 in the balances together. Is my strength the 
 strength of stones, or is my flesh brass? I will 
 speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will com- 
 plain in the bitterness of my soul. So that my 
 soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my 
 life. I loathe it; I would not live alway; for my 
 days are vanity. To him that is afflicted, pity 
 should be shewn from his friend." And to this 
 pitiful appeal for considerate judgment, and for a 
 word or look of compassion, another friend finds 
 answer, with cruelty like the touch of winter on 
 an ill-clad child : "If thou wouldst seek unto God 
 betimes, and make thy supplication to the Al- 
 mighty ; If thou wert pure and upright ; surely now 
 he would awake for thee, and make the habitation 
 of thy righteousness prosperous." What winter 
 wind is bitter and biting as these words? 
 
 Job's friends now are his worst calamities. 
 They are thrusting Into his naked and diseased 
 
The; Drama of Job 353 
 
 flesh a cruel spear, and into his heart a sword. Are 
 these men clad in steel that they are so imper- 
 vious to pity? And yet, if we pause tO' consider, 
 this dramatist has not spoken rashly nor unnat- 
 urally; for we can recall that often, often, when 
 the window-panes of a life are smoky with the 
 breath of suffering, just such criticisms as these 
 are offered voluminously. We are hard folks. 
 There seems a strain of cruelty in our blood which 
 sometimes gloats over suffering as at a carnival. 
 Were these men vultures, that wait to watch with 
 joy a wounded soldier die? Of what is our 
 nature builded, that we are cruel as the unrea- 
 soning beasts? These harsh friends are voices 
 from our own pitiless hearts, and ought to make 
 us afraid. 
 
 There are three friends in number, but there 
 is one voice and two echoes, — three men debating 
 with one moaning sufferer, and each saying the 
 same thing. Had only one of them been present, all 
 the three said had been spoken. These men were 
 poor in ideas ; for amongst the three is only one 
 thought, as if they had one sword among them, 
 which betimes each one brandishes. Besides, they 
 have a polemic's pride ; they are eager to make 
 out a case, and thirst to prove poor Job a sinner. 
 One of them (it might as well be any other of 
 them) runs on : "The hypocrite's hope s'hall perish : 
 whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall 
 23 
 
354 ^ Hkro and Some Other Folk 
 
 be a spider's web. Behold, God will not cast away 
 a perfect man ; but the dwelling-place of the wicked 
 shall come to naught." This is savage cruelty, 
 pouring nitric-acid into sword-gashes. Nothing 
 moves your plain man; for he deHghts in making 
 people wince. He is not angry, but natural, and 
 his naturalness is something worse than the 
 choleric man's anger. He is saying: "Ah, Job, 
 see now — comfort, comfort? Why the house of 
 the wicked shall come to naught." And has not 
 Job's house been splintered by the tempest? And 
 this friend of many years is saying, "Hypocrite!" 
 But this word recalls Job to himself. He rises 
 above his pain, scarcely feeling the twinges. His 
 thought is drawn away from his physical calamity, 
 and that is a goo'd anodyne for torture. His char- 
 acter is attacked, and he must run to its succor 
 as he would to the rescue of wife or child. Now 
 Job ceases sobbing, and becomes attorney for him- 
 self. He pleads his cause with full knowledge 
 of his own heart. He therefore speaks ex cathedra 
 so far. Job is on the defensive — 'not against God, 
 but against men. His "tongue is as the pen of 
 a ready writer." Job is himself again. His per- 
 turbation is passed as a cloud swims across the 
 sky. 
 
 Job is the misjudged man, than which few 
 things are harder to bear. That enemies miscon- 
 strue your motives and misjudge your conduct is 
 
Ths Drama of Job 355 
 
 to be expected, though even then the spirit is lac- 
 erated; but when friends misjudge us, our pain 
 seems more than we can bear. This was Job's case. 
 His familiar friends become His accusers, rasp- 
 ing such words, " How much more abominable 
 and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like 
 water!" and Job's cry crosses the centuries and 
 reaches our ears this day, "Have pity upon me, 
 have pity upon me, O ye my friends ; for the hand 
 of God hath touched me!" Old Lear's cry, "Stay 
 a little, Cordelia," is no more pitiful than this 
 strong man reaching for a hand and finding none, 
 and pleading for sympathy, and pleading in vain. 
 I see him sitting, with his gray beard blowing 
 about him like a pufif of fog; I hear him when 
 his pitiful voice intones its grief as if it were a 
 chant; I see the pleading in his eyes, and it fills 
 my breast with heart-break. You who love great 
 delineations of passion, what think you of our 
 dramatist's vision of Job? You who count King 
 Lear among the demigods of creative art, what 
 think you of this Lear's older brother? His nature 
 is so deep we can not fling plummet to its bottom. 
 Lear was weak and wrong; but Job, with all his 
 grief upon him, like a cloud upon a mountain's 
 crest — ^Job has violated nO' propriety of man or 
 God, so far as we have seen, and his cry fills the 
 desert on whose verge he sits, and clamors like the 
 Avinds on stormy, winter nights. 
 
If 
 
 356 A H:eRO AND Some Othejr Foi^k 
 
 Job, misjudged, has the mercy of conscious in- 
 tegrity. Himself rises to his own vindication, a 
 course just and compatible with sincerity and 
 modesty. You will misjudge Job if you think him 
 egotist. He is rather one who knows himself, 
 and feels sure of his purity in motive; has self- 
 respect therefore — a hard thing for a soul to have, 
 and the possession of which is a benediction. To 
 know we meant well, to be able to justify us to 
 ourselves, is next in grace to being justified of 
 God; for next to Him, self is the most exacting 
 master and judge. He feels misjudged, knows 
 these men have misinterpreted him, being de- 
 ceived by his calamities, and he therefore is thrown 
 on the defensive, and becomes his own attorney, 
 pleading for his life, "Pray you, my friends, do 
 not misjudge me," is his tearful plea, while they 
 press their cruel conclusions as a phalanx of spears 
 against his naked breast. This conception will clear 
 Job of the blame of being self-righteous. I do not 
 find that in his utterances ; but do find sturdy 
 self-respect, and assertion of pure motive and pure 
 action ; for his argument proceeds thus : "I know 
 my heart ; I know all my purposes ; I meant right, 
 and tried to do right. You think me hypocrite. 
 I pray you rectify your judgment, since neither in 
 intent nor yet in execution haye I been other than 
 I seemed, and who can bring accusations against 
 my doings? God breaketh me with a tempest, yet 
 
Thk Drama op Job 357 
 
 will I cry to him, Do not condemn me : show 
 me wherefore thou contendest with me. I call on 
 God to vindicate me, who knoweth my life to the 
 full. Will God break a leaf, driven to and fro by 
 the wind? Though to you, my friends, I seem 
 smitten of God, your logic is wrong. I am not 
 vile. O that I knew where I might find Him! I 
 would order my cause before him, seeing he knows 
 the way that I take." Job is himself confounded 
 by his calamity, so that he does not see clearly; 
 finding no reason why God should afiflict him, he 
 being as he is and as he has been, just in pur- 
 pose; for Job had yet to learn that lesson he has 
 taught us all; namely, that not God, but Satan, 
 sent his disaster. He thought God was sowing 
 ruin, as the rest thought ; whereas God was letting 
 Satan work his evil way, while God was to vindicate 
 his servant by an apocalypse of himself. Job, 
 though bewildered as to the meaning of his trou- 
 bles, asserts his innocency; and as he presents his 
 case, his sky clears, and his voice strengthens, 
 and his argument rises in its eloquence, sonorous 
 as the sea : "Know now that God hath overthrown 
 me. He hath fenced my way, that I can not pass. 
 He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the 
 crown from my head. His troops come together, 
 and raise up their way against me, and encamp 
 round about my tabernacle. My kinsfolk have 
 failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. 
 
358 A Hero and Some; Other Foi.k 
 
 They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, 
 count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their 
 sight. I called my servant, and he gave me no 
 answer. My breath is strange to my wife, though 
 I entreated for my children's sake of mine own 
 body. Yea, young children despised me; I arose, 
 and they spake against me. All my inward friends 
 abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned 
 against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to 
 my flesh. Have pity upon me! Why do ye per- 
 secute me as God? Have pity upon me!" If in 
 literature there is a more passionate passage to 
 incarnate in words a life wholly bereft and utterly 
 alone, I know not of it. CEdipus Coloneus had 
 Antigone, and King Lear had the king's fool and 
 loyal Kent, and Prometheus had visitors betimes, 
 who brought him balm of sympathy; but Job's 
 servants will not obey him, and little children make 
 sport of him, and his wife turns away from him, 
 and will not hear his sobbing words, nor hear him 
 as he calls the names of their children whom he 
 loved. Tragic Job ! Not Samson, blind and jeered 
 at by the Philistine populace in Dagon's temple, 
 is sadder to look upon than Job, Prince of Uz, 
 in the solitude of his bereavement. This old 
 dramatist, as I take it, had himself known some 
 unutterable grief, and out 6i the wealth of his 
 melancholy recollections has poured tears like 
 rain. He has no master in pathos. 
 
The; Drama of Job 359 
 
 This lament of Job is one aspect, and but one; 
 for as he rises toward God, his calamities seem 
 slipping away from him as night's shadows from 
 the hills at dawn. God knows his case, and Job, 
 conscious of his integrity, looks God in the face, 
 and his voice lifts into triumph, passing out of 
 complaint and bemoaning into sublime utterances, 
 which constitute the sublimest oration man ever 
 pronounced, and is contained in those parts of 
 the poem reaching from chapter xxvi to chap- 
 ter xxxi, inclusive. I have read this oration, 
 recalling the occasion which produced it, and noted 
 the movement of this aged orator's spirit, and have 
 compared it with Marc Antony's funeral oration 
 over Caesar, given, by co'mmon consent, the chrefest 
 place among orations in the English tongue. For 
 that noble utterance my admiration is intense and 
 glowing. I answer to it as waters to the touch of 
 violent winds ; and in conclusion, from compar- 
 ing the orator Marc Antony with the orator Job 
 of Uz, I am compelled to confess that I love not 
 Antony the less, but Job the more. Marc Antony's 
 oration was diplomatic, tragic, masterful, pathetic; 
 but Job's oration is spent in the realm of the 
 pathetic and sublime. The theme is the appeal to 
 God. He has turned from man and toward God. 
 His thought swings in circles majestic as the cir- 
 cuits of the stars. He fronts himself toward the 
 Eternal as if to certify, "To God I make my plea." 
 

 360 A H:^RO AND SoMK Other Foi^k 
 
 His harshness is kinder than the kindness of man. 
 Job's orbit includes Hfe. He runs out to God, 
 but he runs to God. Himself is point of departure 
 on this long journey. This oration is an apology, 
 a plea of a great soul, pleading for what is above 
 life. The words have pathos, but they lift to sub- 
 lime heights. Job sweeps on like a rising tide. 
 His false co'mforters sit silent, perplexed, but 
 silenced. His argument rises as a wind, which first 
 blows lightly as a child's breath on the cheek, 
 then lifts and sways the branches of the trees, then 
 trumpets like a battle troop, then roars like storm- 
 waves beating on the rocks, until we hear naught 
 but Job. What begins an apology, ends a psean. 
 At first, he spoke as, "By your leave, sirs," Later, 
 he seizes the occasion ; masses his lifetime of ex- 
 perience and thought and faith and attempted 
 service; deploys his argument to show how God's 
 wisdom fills the soul's sky, as if all stars had 
 coalesced to frame a regal sun ; makes his argument 
 certify his conscious integrity in motive and con- 
 duct, until he thunders like a tempest: "My desire 
 is that the Almighty would answer me. I would 
 declare unto him- the number of my steps ; as a 
 prince would I go near unto him," — and on a 
 sudden his trumpet tones sink into softness, and his 
 dilated frame stoops like a broken wall, and he 
 murmurs, "The words of Job — are ended." Yet so 
 potent his self-defense, that his three comforters 
 
Thk Drama of Job 361 
 
 sit silent as the hushed night. Their argument 
 is broken and their Hps are dry. The words of 
 the comforters, hke the words of Job, are ended. 
 Ehhu, a youth, has been Hstening. Age has 
 had its hour and argument, and age is silenced, 
 when, like the rush of a steed whose master is 
 smitten from the saddle, this impetuous youth 
 speaks. At this point, genius is evidenced by this 
 unknown dramatist. A young man speaks, but 
 his are a young man's words, hurried, fitful, tinc- 
 tured with impertinence, headlong, in statement and 
 method; for he is youth, not experienced, not de- 
 liberate, and easily influenced by the aged argu- 
 ment, and taking strong ground, and is infallible 
 in his own eyes ; and in him are visible the swagger 
 and audacity of a boy. He makes no contribution 
 to the argument. His is a repetitional statement, 
 though himself does not know it. He thinks he 
 is original. How delightful the audacity of his 
 opening: "If thou canst answer me, set thy words 
 in order before me. Stand up. Behold, I am 
 according to thy wish in God's stead." Clearly 
 this is a young man speaking. A novice he, yet 
 with all the assurance of a man whose years have 
 run more than fourscore. He is bursting with 
 speech and impudence, not perceiving that to 
 answer where old men have failed is a valorous 
 task, to say the least; and to attempt answer to 
 Job, who has unhorsed every opponent in the lists. 
 
362 A Hejro and Soms Othkr F01.K 
 
 is a strong man's work ; but beyond this, Elihu 
 undertakes to answer for God. He will be in 
 God's stead. See in this a young man's lack of 
 reverence. What the old men hesitated to attempt, 
 knowing the work lay beyond their united powers, 
 this youth flings into as he would into a swelling 
 stream, swollen by sudden rains among the up- 
 lands. His ears have been keen. Nothing has 
 escaped him. All the words of everybody he has 
 in mind, his memory being perfect, since he is 
 young and no faculty impaired, and as the debate 
 has proceeded and he has seen old men overborne 
 by the old man Job, his impetuous youth has seen 
 how he could answer. This is natural, as any one 
 conversant with himself (not to go further in in- 
 vestigation) must know. We itch to reply, think- 
 ing we see the vulnerable joint in the harness. 
 Job has spoken last, and silenced his adversaries, 
 and Elihu recalls practically but one thought df 
 Job's reply; namely, that he was not unrighteous 
 in intent, and gets, as most of us do, but a part 
 of the afflicted man's meaning, and concludes that 
 Job is glaringly self-righteous, missing the true 
 flavor of Job's answer; for what Job was, was 
 self-respecting. And so Elihu gives Job a piece of 
 his mind ; takes up the thread of argument where 
 the old men had broken it, and drives on, with many 
 words and few ideas, to prove Job is wrong and 
 bad, and that God has simply meted out justice, 
 
The; Drama of Job 363 
 
 no more. Elihu's words fairly trample on each 
 other's heels, and though only giving a weakened 
 statement of what had been said before, like a 
 strong voice weakened by age, he thinks his is 
 a sledgehammer argument, illuminative, convinc- 
 ing, unanswerable ; yet because he thinks he speaks 
 in God's behalf and in God's stead, he rises into 
 eloquence withal, though his words are pitiless ; 
 for himself knows not suffering, nor can he compass 
 Job's calamity, Elihu mistakes the sight of his 
 eyes for the truths of God, a blunder of not in- 
 frequent recurrence. He is not all wrong, nor is 
 he all wrong in his desire to help to the truth, but 
 is as a lad trying to lift a mountain, which, planted 
 by God, requires God to uproot it. 
 
 So the drama sweeps on. Jobs sits silent, but 
 not silenced. He makes no reply to Elihu's in- 
 vective. Here is a dignified silence more impress- 
 ive than any speech. He has been shot at by 
 all the volleys of the earth and sky ; and, wounded 
 in every part, he retains his faith in God; nay, 
 his faith is burning brightly, like a newly-trimmed 
 lamp: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. 
 I am misconceived by man, but not by God;" and 
 his face has a strange light, as if he had been 
 with Moses on the mount ; and when, in a whirl- 
 wind's sweep, and above it, God's voice is heard; 
 and it is Job God answers, as if tO' say, "Yours 
 is the argument." God has no controversy with 
 
364 A He;ro and Somk Othrr F01.K 
 
 Elihu, nor yet with the aged counselors. Them 
 he ignores; them, by and by, he rebukes. Job, 
 and not they, had been right. God is come as 
 vindicator. If his voice thunders Hke tempestuous 
 skies, there is to appear an unspeakable tenderness 
 in it at the last. He is not come to ride Job 
 down, like a charge of Bedouin cavalry. He is 
 come to clear his sky. He is come to give 
 him vision and to show him wisdom, of which, 
 though Job has spoken, he has had none too 
 much. In the drama, God speaks in discussion 
 to two persons. In conversational tones, in the 
 prologue to the drama, he talks with Satan when 
 he leads Job to trial. Job's calamities, instead 
 of being a proof of his turpitude, are proof of the 
 confidence God reposes in him. 
 
 What a revelation in character that is! If for 
 a time God had, as object-lesson to the Jew and 
 through him to the world, granted visible rewards 
 and visible punishments, that was not the per- 
 manent scheme. God's administration is hid from 
 vulgar eyes truly, but also from the eyes "of the 
 wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt 
 itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in 
 which all furnishings are visible ; rather a twilight 
 gloom, where men and women grope. We know 
 enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice 
 very despicable, and God 'very apparent — and 
 these be the sufficient data for the monograph 
 
Thb Drama op Job 365 
 
 of life. "All things work together for good to 
 them that love God," is the far-away response to 
 Job's troubled cry. God converses with Satan 
 long enough to deny the allegation that Job serves 
 God as a matter of dollars and cents, that it is 
 convenient — so runs the devil's sneer — convenient 
 for Job to be good ; for he finds it profitable. But 
 if God will lower his rate of profit in goodness, 
 and if God will shipwreck all Job's prosperity, and 
 sting him with the serpent-touch 'of dire disease, 
 then will Job become as others. Profit in good- 
 ness gone, his goodness will "fade as doth a leaf." 
 This is evil's pessimistic philosophy, and Job, on 
 whom calamitous circumstances pile as Dagon's 
 temple on Samson's head; Job, trusting where he 
 can not see, and making his appeal to God, whose 
 ways are hid, — is the lie given to Satan's prophe- 
 cies, and the vindication of God's confidence in 
 Job. Job has been as one sold into servitude for 
 a month. Satan hath been a hard master, has thrust 
 him exceeding sore, has given no intermission of 
 peril or anguish, has crowded sorrow on sorrow, 
 has snatched away every flower from the field of 
 this good man's life, and watches, leering, to hear 
 him say, "I will curse God and die;" but when, 
 after arguments compounded of pain and tears and 
 hope. Job returns to his silence, saying, "The words 
 of Job are ended," Satan has witnessed the tri- 
 :umph of a good man, and disproof of his own 
 
366 A He;ro and Some Other Foi.k 
 
 sorry accusations, and the vindication of God's 
 estimate; and, as is fitting, he stays not to ac- 
 knowledge defeat, but slips away as the whirlwind 
 chariot of Jehovah dashes into sight. Satan, not 
 Job, has been defeated. 
 
 And in the long years of a prosperous life, no 
 confidence has been reposed in Job so worthy as 
 this reposed in him of God, to put to silence the 
 slanders of wickedness that goodness was a species 
 of selfishness ; so that what Job did not under- 
 stand, and what his friends interpreted as the cer- 
 tain disfavor of God, was sign of the trust God 
 reposed in him. Satan had done his worst on a 
 good man, and had failed! What an apocalypse 
 this was ! The second person with whom God 
 holds conversation is Job. Satan he talked with 
 in conversational tones, with no state nor elo- 
 quence. Job he honors, coming in regal splendor, 
 by thundering with his voice, by treating Job as 
 if he were ambassador for some potentate whom 
 God held in high regard. God's argument is the cli- 
 max of sublimity reached in literature ; is mountain 
 summit of sublime thought and utterance. What 
 effect is wanting to make this scene bewildering 
 in sublimity? One? No. The auditor is Job, 
 sitting in the ruin of home and love, and friend- 
 ships and consequence among men, and good re- 
 pute, and if, bending low, you will hear him, you 
 shall know he is sobbing for children that are not. 
 
The; Drama of Job 367 
 
 One lonely, distraught, mystified, sorely-be- 
 leagured, and still surely-trusting man, — this is 
 the audience. The scene is a tawny desert, once 
 sown to oases of flowers, and billowing grain, and 
 stately palm-tree, and olive-groves, now harvest- 
 less, flowerless, palmless. Once a stately palace 
 rose beside a fountain here, and from its open 
 doors ran genial hospitality, to greet the coming 
 guest and the wayfayer overtaken by the night 
 and weariness ; and from the windows singing and 
 laughter rose, like a chorus of youthful voices; 
 and now — where these things were are only ruins, 
 havoc, disaster; and Job sits amidst the desolation 
 that once was home as if he were crowned king 
 of the realm of Calamity; and the desert, tawny 
 as a tiger's skin, stretches away to the horizon, 
 barren as the sea, than which is nothing more soli- 
 tary or pregnant with melancholy and thought. 
 
 The sky is ample and open. Not a cloud flecks 
 it with its foam. From desert line to the blue 
 zenith is only bewildering blue ; when, black as 
 a stormy midnight, driving as if lightnings were 
 its chariot steeds, comes the whirlwind whereon 
 the Almighty rides, and halts ; and God pitches 
 his midnight pavilion in front of silent Job on the 
 silent desert, and from this tent, whose curtains 
 are not drawn, there trumpets a voice. God is 
 come ! And God speaks ! "The Ivord answered 
 Job out of the whirlwind." Eloquence like this 
 
368 A Hb;ro and Som:^ Other Foi,k 
 
 on forum like this, literature knows nothing of. 
 Sublimity is come to its noon. 
 
 "Where wast thou when I laid the foundation 
 of the earth?" is the astounding introductory. 
 No exordium is here. Into the thick of argument, 
 God leaps as a soldier might leap into the midst 
 of furious battle. "Whereupon are the foundations 
 thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner-stones 
 thereof; when the morning stars sang together, 
 and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who 
 shut up the sea with doors, when I made the cloud 
 the garment thereof, and set bars and doors, and 
 said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and 
 here shall thy proud waves be stayed ? Hast thou 
 commanded the morning since thy days ; and 
 caused the dayspring to know his place; that i't 
 might take hold of the ends of the earth that the 
 wicked might be shaken out of it? It is changed 
 as clay under the seal ; and all things stand forth as 
 a garment ; and from the wicked their light is with- 
 holden, and the high arm shall be broken. Hast 
 thou entered into the springs of the sea? Have the 
 gates of death been opened unto thee? Where is 
 the way where light dwelleth? And as for dark- 
 ness, where is the place thereof? Hast thou en- 
 tered into the treasures of the snow? By what 
 way is the light parted, or the east wind scattered 
 upon the earth? Who hath cleft a channel for 
 the waterflood, or a way for the lightning of the 
 
Th:B Drama of Job 369 
 
 thunder? Hath the rain a father? or who hath 
 begotten the drops of dew? Canst thou bind the 
 cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of 
 Orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the 
 zodiac in their seasons? or canst thou guide 
 Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordi- 
 nances of the heavens? Canst thou lift up thy 
 voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may- 
 cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings^ 
 that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we 
 are? Who provideth for the raven his food, when 
 his young ones cry unto God, and wander for lack 
 of meat? But seeing thou canst not understand 
 these things, and they are too high for thee, canst 
 thou understand some little things, and answer 
 some trivial questions I will put to thee ? Knowest 
 thou the secret of the wild goat or the wild ass 
 on the desert? or the wild ox? or the ostrich that 
 scorneth the horse and his rider? or the horse, 
 hast thou given him strength ? for he paweth in the 
 valley, and leaps as a locust, and rejoiceth in his 
 strength, and goeth out to meet the armed men ; 
 he mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed, neither 
 turneth his back from the sword ; he smelleth the 
 battle afar off. Doth the hawk soar by thy wis- 
 dom, and stretch her wings toward the south? 
 Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and 
 make her nest on high? And behemoth, what of 
 him ? His limbs are like bars of iron ; he is con- 
 24 
 
370 A H:ero and Some; Other Foi<k 
 
 fident, though Jordan swell even to his mouth. 
 Or leviathan, what canst thou do with him, and 
 what knowest thou of him? In his neck abideth 
 strength; his breath kindleth coals; his heart is as 
 firm as a stone ; he counteth iron as straw, and 
 brass as rotten wood; and when he raiseth him- 
 self up, the mighty are afraid. Hast thou an arm 
 like God? and canst thou thunder with a voice like 
 him? Deck thyself now with excellency and dig- 
 nity, and array thyself with honor and majesty. 
 Pour forth the overflowings of thy anger ; and look 
 upon every one that is proud, and abase him. Look 
 on every one that is proud, and bring him low; 
 and tread down the wicked where they stand, and 
 hide them in the dust together." 
 
 And Job called, so thait his words sounded 
 through the whirlwind's curtains: "I know that 
 Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of 
 Thine can be restrained. Who is this that hideth 
 counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I ut- 
 tered that which I understood not; things too 
 wonderful for me, which I knew not. Wherefore 
 I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 
 And Job has learned this salutary lesson, that no 
 man can comprehend all the ways life leads, nor 
 need to. God is above the ways of life: 
 
 "He leads us on by paths we do not know; 
 Upward he leads us, though our steps be slow; 
 
Thb Drama of Job 371 
 
 Though oft we faint and falter by the way; 
 Though clouds and darkness oft obscure the day, 
 And still He leads us on." 
 
 Job has learned to rest his case with God. 
 
 "My God knows best! Through all my days 
 
 This is my comfort and my rest; 
 My trust, my peace, my solemn praise, — 
 That God knows all, and God knows best 
 
 My God knows best! That is my chart — 
 That thought to me is always blest: 
 
 It hallows and it soothes my heart; 
 For all is well, and God knows best. 
 
 My God knows best! Then tears may fall: 
 
 In his great heart I find my rest; 
 For he, my God, is over all; 
 
 And he is love, and he knows best." 
 
 God's argument is burned into Job's mind. 
 How can man, who understands not the visible 
 things of daily recurrence, think to penetrate the 
 meaning of the moral universe, whose ways are 
 hidden, like the caverns of the seas? Not Job, 
 nor any one of those who have spoken, has 
 found the clew to this maze. But Job is im- 
 pregnable now in his trust in God, as if he were 
 in a fortress whose approaches were guarded by 
 the angels of heaven. 
 
 And God spake yet once more ; and now a word 
 of rebuke — not argument — to the old men, who 
 
372 A Hi^RO AND SoMK Oth^r F01.E; 
 
 trembled near the tent of God's whirlwind: "My 
 wrath is kindled against you: for ye have not 
 spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant 
 Job hath. My servant Job shall pray for you ; for 
 him I will accept." And Job, what ails Job now? 
 He thought he was rebuked of God in the Divine 
 argument, and now he knows himself, at a word, 
 vindicated, exalted ; honor burnished, and not tar- 
 nished; himself, not accused of God, but beloved 
 of him, and praised by him, — and Job is weeping 
 like a little child ; and lifting up his face, while the 
 tears rain down his cheeks, his eyes and his heart 
 and his face are like springtime in laughter, and 
 his voice is as the singing of a psalm ! For "the 
 Lord turned the captivity of Job." 
 
 How great an advent ! Beauty this drama has ; 
 but beauty belongs to the rivulet and the twi- 
 lights; but sublimity to the Niagaras, and the^ 
 oceans, and the human heart, and the words of 
 God. This drama is sublimity's self. Theme, 
 actors, movement, goal, pertinency to the deep- 
 est needs of soul and experience, and chiefly, God 
 as protagonist, say that sublimity belongs to this 
 drama as naturally as to the prodigious mountains 
 or to the desert at night. "Surely, God is in this 
 place, and we knew it not." 
 
 And Job ends as comedy, though it began as 
 tragedy. Hamlet ends in tragedy. He has lost 
 faith, and his arm is palsied. We hear the musi- 
 
Thk Drama of Job 373 
 
 cians of Fortinbras playing a funeral dirge. 
 Hamlet was tragedy because God was not there. 
 When God is near, no tragedy is possible'. God 
 is out of Hamlet. Job had closed as Job began, 
 with tragedy dire and utter, but that here a man 
 refused to let go of God. Job believed. He did 
 not understand. He was sore pressed. His tears 
 and his anguish blinded him for an hour; but 
 where he could not see, he groped, and caught 
 
 "God's right hand in the darkness, 
 And was lifted up and strengthened." 
 
 And God comes ! and Job ends not in funeral 
 dirge, as it began, but in laughter and the smiting 
 of silver cymbals. A good man's life has tragedy, 
 but ends not so. If he die, God is at his bedside, 
 holding his hand; and when he dies, he has good 
 hope and solemn joy ; for he shall live again. 
 
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