ON
HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP,
AiM
THE HEROIC  IN HISTORY
SIX LECTURES:
REPORTED, WITH EMENDATIONS AND ADDITIONS
THOMAS CARLYLE.
NEW YORK:
WILEY  &  HIALSTED,
No, 851 BROADWAY
1859.








CONTENTS
LECTURE I.
The Hero as Divinity  Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology    1
LECTURE II.
The Hero asProphet. Mahomet: Islam....       38
LECTURE III.
TheHeroas Poet. Dante; Shakspeare...
LECTURE IV.
The Hero as Priest. Luther; Refobrmation: Knox; Puritanism. 103
LECTURE V.
The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns.. 138
LECTURE VI.
The Hero as King. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism. 175








LECTURE I.
[Tuesday, 5th May, 1840.]
THE HERO AS DIVINITY.  ODIN. PAGANISM:  SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY.
WE have undertaken to discourse here for a little on Great
Men, their manner of appearance in our world's business, how
they have shaped themselves in the world's history, what ideas
men formed of them, what work they did; —on Heroes, namely,
and on their reception and performance; what I call Hero-worship
and the Heroic in human affairs. Too evidently this is a large
topic; deserving quite other treatment than we can expect to give
it at present. A larg6 topic; indeed, an illimitable one; wide as
Universal History itself. For, as I take it, Universal History,
the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They
were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general
mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see
standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realisation and embodyment, of Thoughts
that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: the soul' of the
whole world's history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these. Too clearly it is a topic we shall do no justice to
in this place!
One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a
great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living
light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near.  The
light which enlightens, which has enlightened the darkness of the
world; and this not as a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing lighto




2                THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. L
fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and
heroic nobleness; —in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well
with them. On any terms whatsoever, you will not grudge to
wander in such neighbourhood for a while. These Six classes of
Heroes, chosen out of widely distant countries and epochs, and in
mere external figure differing altogether, ought, if we look faithfully at them, to illustrate several things for us.  Could we see
them well, we should get some glimpses into the very marrow of
the world's history. How happy, could I but in any measure, in
such times as these, make manifest to you the meanings of Heroism; the divine relation (for I may well call it such) which in all
times unites a Great Man to other men; and thus, as it were, not
exhaust my subject, but so much as break ground on it! At all
events, I must make the attempt.
It is well said, in every sense, that a man's religion is the chief
fact with regard to him. A man's, or a nation of men's. By
religion I do not mean here the church-creed which he professes,
the articles of faith which he will sign and; in words or otherwise,
assert; not this wholly, in many cases not this at all. We see
men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to almost all degrees
of worth or worthlessness under each or any of them. This is
not what I call religion, this profession and assertion; which is
often only a profession and assertion from the outworks of the
man, from the mere argumentative region of him, if even so deep
as that. But the thing a man does practically believe (and this
is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to
others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know
for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That
is his religion; or, it may be, his mere scepticism and no-religion:
the manner it is in which he feels himself to be spiritually related
to the Unseen World or No-world; and I say, if you tell me
what that is, you tell me to a very great extent what the man is.
what the kind of things he will do is.  Of a man or of a nation
we inquire, therefore, first of all, What religion they had? Was
it Heathenism,-plurality of gods, mere sensuous representation




LECT I.          THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                     3
of this Mystery of Life, and for chief recognised element therein
Physical Force?  Was it Christianism; faith in an Invisible, not
as real only, but as the only reality; Time, through every meanest moment of it, resting on Eternity; Pagan empire of Force
displaced by a nobler supremacy, that of Holiness?  Was it
Scepticism, uncertainty and inquiry whether there was an Unseen
World, any Mystery of Life except a mad one;-doubt as to all
this, or perhaps unbelief and flat denial?  Answering of this
question is giving us the soul of the history of the man or nation.
The thoughts they had were the parents of the actions they did;
their feelings were parents of their thoughts: it was the unseen
and spiritual in them that determined the outward and actual;their religion, as I say, was the great fact about them. In these
Discourses, limited as we are, it will be good to direct our survey
chiefly to that religious phasis of the matter. That once known
well, all is known. We have chosen as the first Hero in our
series, Odin the central figure of Scandinavian Paganism; an
emblem to us of a most extensive province of things. Let us
look, for a little, at the Hero as Divinity, the oldest primary form
of Heroism.
Surely it seems a very strange-looking thing this Paganism;
almost inconceivable to us in these days. A bewildering, inextricable jungle of delusions, confusions, falsehoods, and absurdities,
covering the whole field of Life! A thing that fills us with astonishment, almost, if it were possible, with incredulity,-for truly it
is not easy to understand that sane men could ever calmly, with
their eyes open, believe and live by such a set of doctrines.  That
men should have worshipped their poor fellow-man as a God, and
not him only, but stocks and stones, and all manner of animate
and inanimate objects; and fashioned for themselves such a distracted chaos of hallucinations by way of Theory of the Universe:
all this looks like an incredible fable. Nevertheless it is a clear
fact that they did it. Such hideous inextricable jungle of misworships, misbeliefs, men, made as we are, did actually hold
by, and lice at home in. This is strange. Yes, we may pause in
sorrow and silence over the depths of darkness that are in man
if we rejoice in the heights of purer vision he has attained ta
Such things were and are in man; in all men; in us too.




4               THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. L
Some speculators have a short way of accounting for the Pagan
religion: mere quackery, priestcraft, and dupery, say they; no
sane man ever did believe it,-merely contrived to persuade other
men, not worthy of the name of sane, to believe it! It will be
often our duty to protest against this sort of hypothesis about
men's doings and history; and I here, on the very threshold, protest against it in reference to Paganism, and to all other isms by
which man has ever for a length of time striven to walk in this
world. They have all had a truth in them, or men would not have
taken them up. Quackery and dupery do abound; in religions,
above all in the more advanced decaying stages of religions, they
have fearfully abounded: but quackery was never the originating
influence in such things; it was not the health and life of such
things, but their disease, the sure precursor of their being about
to die! Let us never forget this.  It seems to me a most mournful hypothesis, that of quackery giving birth to any faith even in
sovage men. Quackery gives birth to nothing; gives death to all
things. We shall not see into the true heart of anything, if we
look merely into the quackeries of it; if we do not reject the
quackeries altogether; as mere diseases, corruptions, with which
our and all men's sole duty is to have done with them, to sweep
them out of our thoughts as out of our practice.  Man everywhere
is the born enemy of lies. I find Grand Lamaism itself to have
a kind of truth in it.  Read the candid, clear-sighted, rather
sceptical Mr. Turner's Account of his -Embassy to that country,
and see. They have their belief, these poor Thibet people, that
Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into
every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At
bottom still better, belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is
discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with
an obedience which knows no bounds! This is the truth of Grand
Lamaism; the' discoverability' is the only error here.  The Thibet Priests have methods of their own of discovering what man is
Greatest, fit to be supreme over them. Bad methods: but are
they so much worse than our methods,-of understanding him to
be always the eldest-born of a certain genealogy? Alas, it is a
difficult thing to find good methods for!   We shall begin to
have a chance of understanding Paganism, when we first admit




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.
that to its followers it was, at one time, earnestly true. Let us
consider it very certain that men did believe in Paganism; men
with open eyes, sound senses, men made altogether like ourselves;
that we, had we been there, should have believed in it. Ask now,
What Paganism could have been?
Another theory, somewhat more respectable, attributes such
things to Allegory. It was a play of poetic minds, say these
theorists; a shadowing forth, in allegorical fable, in personification, and visual form, of what such poetic minds had known and
felt of this Universe. Which agrees, add they, with a primary
law of human nature, still everywhere observably at work, though
in less important things, That what a man feels intensely, he
struggles to speak out of him, to see represented before him in
visual shape, and as if with a kind of life and historical reality in
it. Now doubtless there is such a law, and it is one of the deepest
in human nature; neither need we doubt that it did operate fundamentally in this business.  The hypothesis which ascribes
Paganism wholly or mostly to this agency, I call a little more
respectable; but I cannot yet call it the true hypothesis.  Think,
would we believe, and take with us as our life-guidance, an allegory, a poetic sport? Not sport but earnest is what we would
require. It is a most earnest thing to be alive in this world;
to die is not sport for a man. Man's life never was a sport to
him; it was a stern reality, altogether a serious matter to be alive!
I find, therefore, that though these Allegory theorists are on the
way towards truth in this matter, they have not reached it either.
Pagan Religion is indeed an Allegory, a Symbol of what men felt
and knew about the Universe; and all Religions are symbols of
that, altering always as that alters: but it seems to me a radical
perversion, and even inversion, of the business, to put that forward as the origin and moving cause, when it was rather-the result
and termination.  To get beautiful allegories, a perfect poetic
symbol, was not the want of men; but to know what they were to
believe about this Universe, what course they were to steer in it;
what, in this mysterious Life of theirs, they had to hope and to
fear, to do and to forbear doing.  The Pilgrim's Progress is an
Allegory, and a beautiful, just and serious one: but consider
whether Bunyan's Allegory could have preceded the Faith it sym



6                THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. 1.
bolizes! The Faith had to be already there, standing believed
by everybody; —of which the Allegory could then become a shadow; and, with all its seriousness, we may say a sportful shadow,
a mere play of the Fancy, in comparison with that awful Fact and
scientific certainty, which it poetically strives to emblem. The
Allegory is the product of the certainty, not the producer of it;
not in Bunyan's nor in any other case.  For Paganism, therefore,
we have still to inquire, Whence came that scientific certainty,
the parent of such a bewildered heap of allegories, errors and confusions? How was it, what is it?
Surely it were a foolish attempt to pretend'explaining,' in this
place, or in any place, such a phenomenon as that far-distant distracted cloudy imbroglio of Paganism,-more like a cloudfield,
than a distant continent of firm land and facts! It is no longer
a reality, yet it was one. We ought to understand that this seeming cloudfield was once a reality; that not poetic allegory, least
of all that dupery and deception was the origin of it. Men, I
say, never did believe idle songs, never risked their soul's life on
allegories: men, in all times, especially in early earnest times,
have had an instinct for detecting quacks, for detesting quacks.
let us try if, leaving out both the quack theory and the allegory
one, and listening with affectionate attention to that far-off confused rumour of the Pagan ages, we cannot ascertain so much as
this at least, That there was a kind of fact at the heart of them;
that they too were not mendacious and distracted, but in their
own poor way true and sane!
You remember that fancy of Aristotle's, of a man who had
grown to maturity in some dark distance, and were brought on a
sudden into the upper air to see the sun rise.  What would his
wonder be, says the Philosopher, his rapt astonishment at the
sight we daily witness with indifference! With the free open
sense of a child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole heart
would be kindled by that sight, he would discern it well to be
Godlike, his soul would fall down in worship before it.  Now, just
such a childlike greatness was in the primitive nations. The first
Pagan Thinker among rude men, the first man that began to
think, was precisely the 3hild-man of Aristotle. Simple, open ae




LrCT. I.         THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                     7
a child, yet with the depth and strength of a man. Nature had
as yet no name to him; he had not yet united under a name the
infinite variety of sights, sounds, shapes and motions, which we
now collectively name Universe, Nature, or the like,-and so with
a name dismiss it from us. To the wild deep-hearted man all
was yet new, not veiled under names or formulas; it stood naked,
flashing in on him there, beautiful, awful, unspeakable.  Nature
was to this man, what to the Thinker and Prophet it forever is,
preternaturaL  This green flowery rock-built earth, the trees, the
mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas — that great deep sea of
azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the
black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now
hail and rain: what is it? Ay, what? At bottom we do not yet
know; we can never know at all. It is not by our superior insight
that we escape the difficulty; it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our wanl of insight. It is by not thinking that we cease
to wonder at it.  Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion
we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words. We
call that fire of the black thunder-cloud' electricity,' and lecture
learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk:
but what is it?  What made it?  Whence comes it?  Whither
goes it?  Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science
that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate, on which all science
swims as a mere superficial film. This world, after all our science
and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical
and more, to whosoever will think of it.
That great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on,
swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all
the Universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are,
and then are not: this's forever very literally a miracle; a thing
to strike us dumb, —for we have no word to speak about it.  This
Universe, ah me!-what could the wild man know of it; what can
we yet know? That it is a Force, and thousandfold Complexity
of Forces; a Force which is not we.  That is Lll; it is not we, it
is altogether different from us. Force, Force, everywhere Force;
we ourselves a mysterious Force in the centre of that.' There ig




8               I'HE HERO AS DIVINITY.               LECT. L'not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it: how else'could it rot?' Nay surely, to the Atheistic Thinker, if such a
one were possible, it must be a miracle too, this huge illimi. able
whirlwind of Force, which envelopes us here; never-resting whirlwind, high as Immensity, old as Eternity. What is it?  God',
Creation, the religious people answer; it is the Almighty God's I
Atheistic science babbles poorly at it, with scientific nomenclatures, experiments and what not, as if it were a poor dead thing,
to be bottled up in Leyden jars, and sold over counters: but the
natural sense of man, in all times, if he will honestly apply his
sense, proclaims it to be a living thing, —ah, an unspeakable, godlike thing; towards which the best attitude for us, after never so
much science, is awe, devout prostration and humility of soul;
worship if not in words, then in silence.
But now I remark farther: What in such a time as ours it requires a Prophet or Poet to teach us, namely, the stripping off of
those poor undevout wrappages, nomenclatures and scientific hearsays,-this, the ancient earnest soul, as yet unencumbered with
these things, did for itself. The world, which is now divine only
to the gifted, was then divine to whosoever would turn his eyes
upon it. He stood bare before it face to face.' All was Godlike
or God:'-Jean Paul still finds it so; the giant Jean Paul, who
has power to escape out of hearsays: but then there were no hearsays. Canopus shining down over the desert, with its blue diamond brightness (that wild blue spirit-like brightness, far brighter
than we ever witness here), would pierce into the heart of the wild
Ishmaelitish man, whom it was guiding through the solitary waste
there. To his wild heart, with all feelings in it, with no speech for
any feeling, it might seem a little eye, that Canopus, glancing out
on him from the great deep Eternity; revealing the inner Splendour to him. Cannot we understand how these men worshipped
Canopus; became what we call Sabeans, worshipping the stars?
Such is to me the secret of all forms of Paganism. Worship is
transcendent wonder; wonder for which there is now no limit or
measure; that is worship. To these primeval men, all things and
everything they saw exist beside them were an emblem of the
Godlike, of some God.
And look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To us




LECT. X.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                     9
also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not a God
made visible, if we will open our minds and eyes?  We do not
worship in that way now: but is it not reckoned still a merit,
proof of what we call a' poetic nature,' that we recognise how every
object has a divine beauty in it; how every object still verily is'a window through which we may look into Infinitude itself?'
He that can discern the loveliness of things, we call him Poet,
Painter, Man of Genius, gifted, loveable. These poor Sabeans
did even what he does,-in their own fashion. That they did it,
in what fashion soever, was a merit: better than what the entirely
stupid man did, what the horse and camel did, namely nothing!
But now if all things whatsoever that we look upon are emblems to us of the Highest God, I add that more so than any of
them is man such an emblem. You have heard of St. Chrysot
tom's celebrated saying, in reference to the Shekinah, or Ark of
Testimony, visible Revelation of God, among the Hebrews: " The
true Shekinah is man!" Yes, it is even so: this is no vain
phrase; it is veritably so. The essence of our being, the mystery
in us that calls itself "I,"-;ah, what words have we for such
things?-is a breath of Heaven; the Highest being reveals himself in man. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not
all as a vesture for that Unnamed?'There is but one temple in'the Universe,' says the devout Novalis,' and that is the Body of'Man. Nothing is holier than that high form. Bending before'men is a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We'touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body!' This
sounds much like a mere flourish of rhetoric; but it is not so. If
well meditated, it will turn out to be a scientific fact; the ex
pression, in such words as can be had, of the actual truth of the
thing.  We are the miracle of miracles,-the great inscrutable
mystery of God. We cannot understand it, we know not how to
speak of it; but we may feel and know, if we like, that it is
verily so.
Well; these truths were once more readily felt than now. The
young generations of the world, who had in them the freshness
of young children, and yet the depth of earnest men, who did
not think that they had finished off all things in Heaven and
Earth by merely giving them scientific names, but had to gaze di.
2*




,0              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. I.
rect at them there, with awe and wonder: they felt better what
of divinity is in man and Nature; —they, without being mad,
could worship Nature, and man more than anything else in Nature. Worship, that is, as I said above, admire without limit:
this, iithe full use of their faculties, with all sincerity of heart,
they could do. I consider Hero-worship to be the grand modifying element in that ancient system of thought.  What I called
the perplexed jungle of Paganism sprang, we may say, out of
mnany roots: every admiration, adoration of a star or natural object, was a root or fibre of a root; but Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the
rest were nourished and grown.
And new if worsbip even of a star had some meaning in it,
how much more might that of a Hero! Worship of a Hero is
transcendent admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are
still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable!
No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than
himself dwells in the breast of man.  It is to this hour, and at
all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life. Religion I find
stand upon it; not Paganism only, but far higher and truer religions,-all religion hitherto known. Hero-worship, heartfelt prostrate admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for a noblest
godlike Form of Man,-is not that the germ of Christianity itself? The greatest of all Heroes is One-whom we do not name
here! Let sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will
find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout
man's whole history on earth.
Or coming into lower, less unspeakable provinces, is not all
Loyalty akin to religious Faith also? Faith is loyalty to some
inspired Teacher, some spiritual Hero. And what therefore is
loyalty proper, the life-breath of all society, but an effluence of
Hl-ero-worship, submissive admiration for the truly great? Society is founded on Hero-worship. All dignities of rank, on which
human association rests, are what we may call a Heroarchy
(Government of Heroes),-or a Hierarchy, for it is'sacred'
enough withal! The Duke means Dux, Leader; King is Konning, Kan-ning, Man that knows or cans. Society everywhere is
rome representation, not insupportably inaccurate, of a graduated




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY                     11
Worship of Heros; —reverence and obedience done to men really
great and wise. Not insupportably inaccurate, I say! They are
all as bank-notes, these social dignitaries, all representing gold;and several of them, alas, always are forged notes.  We can do
with some forged false notes; with a good many even; but not
with all, or the most of them forged! No: there have to come
revolutions then; cries of Democracy, Liberty and Equality, and
I know not what:-the notes being all false, and no gold to be
had for them, people take to crying in their despair that there is
no gold, that there never was any!-' Gold,' Hero-worship, is nevertheless, as it was always and everywhere, and cannot cease till
man himself ceases.
I am well aware that in these days Hero-worship, the thing I
call Hero-worship, professes to have gone out, and finally ceased.
This, for reasons which it will be worth while sometime to inquire
into, is an age that as it were denies the existence of great men;
denies the desirableness of great men. Shew our critics a great
man, a Luther for example, they begin to what they call' account'
for him; not to worship him, but take the dimensions of him,and bring him  out to be a little kind of man!  He was the'creature of the Time,' they say; the Time- 2alled him forth, the
Time did everything, he nothing-but what we the little critic
could have done too! This seems to me but melancholy work.
The Time call forth? Alas, we have known Times call loudly
enough for their great man; but not find him when they called!
He was not there; Providence had not sent him; the Time, calling its loudest, had to go down to confusion and wreck because
he would not come when called. For if we will think of it, no
Time need have gone to ruin, could it have found a man great
enough, a man wise and good enough: wisdom to discern truly
what the Time wanted, valour to lead it on the right road thither;
these are the salvation of any Time. But I liken common languid Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their
languid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently crumbling down into ever worse distress towards final
ruin;-all this I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning
out of Heaven that shall kindle it. The great man, with his free
force direct out of God's own hand, is the lightning. His word




12              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LEC'r.'
is the wise healing word which all can believe in. All blazes
round him now, when he has once struck on it, into fire like bhs
own. The dry mouldering sticks are thought to have called him
forth. They did want him greatly; but as to calling him forth —!
-Those are critics of small vision, I think, who cry: " See, is it
not the sticks that made the fire?"  No sadder proof can be
given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
There is no sadder symptom of a generation than such general
blindness to the spiritual lightning, with faith only in the heap
of barren dead fuel. It is the last codummation of unbelief.
In all epochs of the world's history, we shall find the Great Man
to have been the indispensable saviour of his epoch; —the lightning, without,which the fuel never would have burnt.  The History of the World, I said already, was the Biography of Great
Men.
Such small critics do what they can to promote unbelief and
universal spiritual paralysis: but happily they cannot always
completely succeed. In all times it is possible for a man to arise
great enough to feel that they and their doctrines are chimeras
and cobwebs. And what is notable, in no time whatever can they
entirely eradicate out of living men's hearts a certain altogether
peculiar reverence for Great Men; genuine admiration, loyalty,
adoration, however dim and perverted it may be. Hero-worship
endures forever while man endures. Boswell venerates his Johnson, right truly even in the Eighteenth century. The unbelieving French believe in their Voltaire; and burst out round him
into very curious Hero-worship, in that last act of his life, when
they'stifle him under roses.' It has always seemed to me extremely curious this of Voltaire. Truly, if Christianity be the
highest instance of Hero-worship, then we may find here in Voltairlsm one of the lowest! He whose life was that of a kind of
Antichrist, does again on this side exhibit a curious contrast. No
people ever were so little prone to admire at all as those French
of Voltaire. Persiflage was the character of their whole mind;
adoration had nowhere a place in it. Yet see! The old man of
Ferney comes up to Paris; an old, tottering, infirm man of eightyfour years.  They feel that ne too is a kind of Hero; that he has
spent his life in opposing error and injustice, delivering Calases,




LECT. L         THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                     1
unmasking hypocrites in high places; —in short that he too,
though in a strange way, has fought like a valiant man. They
feel withal that, if persifage be the great thing, there never was
such a persiJfeur. He is the realized ideal of every one of them;
the thing they are all wanting to be; of all Frenchmen the most
French. He is properly their god, —such god as they are fit for.
Accordingly all persons, from the Queen Antoinette to the
Douanier at the Porte St. Denis, do they not worship him? People of quality disguise themselves as tavern-waiters. The Maitre
de Poste, with a broad oath, orders his Postillion: "Vta bon train;
thou art driving M. de Voltaire."  At Paris his carriage is'the'nucleus of a comet, whose train fills whole streets.' The ladies
pluck a hair or two from his fur, to keep it as a sacred relic.
There was nothing highest, beautifullest, noblest in all France,
that did not feel this man to be higher, beautifuller, nobler.
Yes, from Norse Odin to English Samuel Johnson, from
the divine Founder of Christianity to the withered Pontiff of
Encyclopedism, in all times and places, the Hero has been worshipped.  It will ever be so. We all love great men; love, venerate and bow down submissive before great men: nay, can we
honestly bow down to anything else? Ah, does not every true
man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to
what is really above him? No nobler or more blessed feeling
dwells in man's heart. And to me it is very cheering to consider
that no sceptical logic, or general triviality, insincerity and aridity
of any Time and its influences can destroy this noble inborn loyalty and worship that is in man. In times of unbelief, which soon
have to become times of revolution, much down-rushing, sorrowful decay and ruin is visible to everybody. For myself in these
days, I seem to see in this indestructibility of Hero-worship the
everlasting adamant lower than which the confused wreck of revolutionary things cannot fall.  The confused wreck of things
crumbling and even crashing and tumbling all round us in these
revolutionary ages, will get down so far; no farther. It is an
eternal corner-stone, from which they can begin to build themselves up again. That man, in some sense or other, worships
Heroes; that we all of us reverence and must ever reverence Great
Men: this is, to me, the living rock amid all rushings down what




14              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. I
soever — the one fixed point in modern revolutionary history,
otherwise as if 1bottomless and shoreless.
So much of truth, only under an ancient obsolete vesture, but
the spirit of it still true, do I find in the Paganism of old nations.
Nature is still divine, the revelation of the workings of God; the
Hero is still worshipable: this, under poor cramped incipient
forms, is what all Pagan religions have struggled, as they could,
to set forth. I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is mcre
interesting than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it
continued in these regions of Europe till the eleventh century:
eight hundred years ago the Norwegians were still worshippers
of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the
men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still
resemble in so many ways. Strange: they did believe that, while
we believe so differently. Let us look a little at this poor Norse
creed, for many reasons.  We have tolerable means to do it; for
there is another point of interest in these Scandinavian mythologies: that they have been preserved so well..
In that strange island Iceland,-burst up, the geologists say,
by fire from the bottom of the sea; a wild land of barrenness and
lava; swallowed many months of every year in black tempests,
yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summer-time; towering up
there, stern and grim, in the North Ocean; with its snow-jokuls,
roaring geysers, sulphur-pools and horrid volcanic chasms, like
the waste chaotic battle-field of Frost and Fire; —where of all
places we least looked for Literature or written memorials, the
record of these things was written down. On the seabord of this
wild land is a rim of grassy country, where cattle can subsist, and
men by means of them and what the sea yields; and it seems
they were poetic men these, men who had deep thoughts in them,
and uttered musically their thoughts. Much would be lost had
Iceland not been burst up from the sea, not been discovered by
the Northmen! The old Norse Poets were many of them natives
of Iceland.
Saemund, one of the early Christian Priests there, who perhaps
had a lingering fondness for Paganism, collected certain of their
old Pagan songs, just about becoming obsolete then, —Poems




I;CT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY                     15
or Chaunts of a mythic, prophetic, mostly all of a religious
character: this is what Norse critics call the Elder or Poetic
Edda.  Edda, a word of uncertain etymology, is thought to signify Ancestress. Snorro Sturleson, an Iceland gentleman, an
extremely notable personage, educated by this Seamund's grandson, took in hand next, near a century afterwards, to put together,
among several other books he wrote, a kind of Prose Synopsis of
the whole Mythology;, elucidated by new fragments of traditionary verse. A work constructed really with great ingenuity, native
talent, what one might call unconscious art; altogether a perspicuous clear work, pleasant reading still; this is the Younger or
Prose Edda.  By these and the numerous other Sagas, mostly
Icelandic, with the commentaries, Icelandic or not, which go on
zealously in the North to this day, it is possible to gain some
direct insight even yet; and see that old Norse system of Belief,
as it were, face to face. Let us forget that it is erroneous Religion; let us look at it as old Thought, and try if we cannot sympathise with it somewhat.
The primary characteristic. of this old Northland Mythology I
find to be the Impersonation of the visible workings of Nature.
Earnest simple recognition of the workings of Physical Nature,
as a thing wholly miraculous, stupendous and divine. What we
now lecture of as Science, they wondered at, and fell down in awe
before as Religion. The dark hostile Powers of Nature they
figure to themselves as' J6tuns,' Giants, huge shaggy beings of a
demoniac character. Forest, Fire, Sea-tempest; these are Jotuns.
The friendly Powers again, as Summer-heat, the Sun, are Gods.
The empire of this Universe is divided between these two; they
dwell apart, in perennial internecine feud. The Gods dwell above
in Asgard, the Garden of the Asen or Divinities; Jotunheim, a
distant dark chaotic land, is the Home of the J6tuns.
Curious all this; and not idle or inane, if we will look at the
foundation of it! The power of Fire, or Flame, for instance,
which we designate by some trivial chemical name, thereby hiding
from ourselves the essential character of wonder that dwells in it
as in all things, is with these old Northmen, Loke, a most swift
subtle Demon, of the brood of the Jotuns.  The savages of the
Ladrones Islands too (say some Spanish voyagers) thought Fire




16              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. L
which they never had seen before, was a devil or God, that bit you
sharply when you touched it, and that lived upon dry wood. From
us too, no Chemistry, if it had not Stupidity to help it, would hide
that Flame is a wonder.  What is Flame?-Frost the old North
Seer discerns to be a monstrous Hoary Jotun, the Giant Thryn,
Hrym; or Rime, the old word now nearly obsolete here, but still
used in Scotland to signify hoar-frost.  Ri'me was not then as now
a dead chemical thing, but a living J6tun or Devil; the monstrous
Jotun Rimne drove home his Horses at night, sat' combing their'manes,' —which Horses were Hail-Clouds, or Frost-winds.  His
Cows-No, not his, but a kinsman's, the Giant Hymir's Cows are
Icebergs: this Hymir' looks at the rocks' with his devil-eye, and
they split in the glance of it.
Thunder was not then mere Electricity, vitreous or resinous;
it was the God Donner (Thunder) or Thor, —God also of beneficent Summer-heat. The thunder was his wrath; the gathering
of the black clouds is the drawing down of Thor's angry brows;
the fire-bolt bursting out of Heaven is the all-rending Hammer
flung from the hand of Thor: he urges his loud chariot over the
niountain-tops,-that is the peal: wrathful he'blows in his red' beard;' that is the rustling stormblast before the thunder begin.
Balder again, the White God, the beautiful, the just and benignant (whom the early Christian Missionaries found to resemble
Christ), is the Sun, —beautifullest of visible things; wondrous too,
and divine still, after all our Astronomies and Almanacs!  But
perhaps the notablest god we hear tell of is one of whom Grimm
the German Etymologist finds trace: the God W1V4nsch, or Wish.
The God Wish; who could give us all that we wished! Is not
this the sincerest and yet rudest voice of the spirit of man? The
rudest ideal that man ever formed; which still shews itself in the
latest forms of our spiritual culture. Higher considerations have
to teach us that the God Wish is not the true God.
Of the other Gods or Jotuns I will mention only for etymology's sake, that Sea-tempest is the Jotun Aegir, a very dangerous
Jotun; —and now to this day, on our river Trent, as I learn, the
Nottingham bargemen, when the River is in a certain flooded
state (a kind of backwater, or eddying swirl it has, very dangerous to them), call it Eager; they cry out, "Have a care, there is




LECT. 1.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                    I
Eager coming!"  Curious; that word surviving, like the peak of
a submerged world! The oldest Nottingham bargemen had believed in the God Aegir. Indeed our English blood too in good
part is Danish, Norse; or rather, at bottom, Danish and Norse
and Saxon have no distinction, except a superficial one,-as of Ileathen and Christian, or the like. But all over our Island we are
mingled largely with Danes proper,-from the incessant invasions
there were: and this, of course, in a greater proportion along the
east coast; and greatest of all, as I find, in the North Country.
From the Humber upwards, all over Scotland, the speech of the
common people is still in a singular degree Icelandic; its Germanism has still a peculiar Norse tinge. They too are' Normans,'
Northmen,-if that be any great beauty!Of the chief god, Odin, we shall speak by and by. Mark at
present so much; what the essence of Scandinavianism and indeed
of all Paganism is: a recognition of the forces of Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal Agencies,-as Gods and Demons. Not
inconceivable to us. It is the infant Thought of man opening
itself, with awe and wonder, on this ever-stupendous Universe.
To me there is in the Norse System something very genuine, very
great and manlike. A broad simplicity, rusticity, so very different from the light gracefulness of the old Greek Paganism, distinguishes this Scandinavian System. It is Thought; the genuine
Thought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened to the things
about them; a face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of the
things, —the first characteristic of all good Thought in all times.
Not graceful lightness, half-sport, as in the Greek Paganism; a
certain homely truthfulness and rustic strength, a great rude sincerity, discloses itself here. It is strange, after our beautiful
Apollo statues and clear smiling mythuses, to come down upon
the Norse Gods' brewing ale' to hold their feast 1ja  Aegir, the
Sea-Jotun; sending out Thor to get the cauldron or them in the
Jatun country; Thor, after many adventures, clapping the Pot on
his head, like a huge hat, and walking off with it, —quite lost in
it, the ears of the Pot reaching down to his heels! A kind of
vacant hugeness, large awkward gianthood, characterises that
Norse System; enormous force, as yet altogether untutored,
stalking helpless with large uncertain strides.  Consider only




1n              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. L
their primary mythus of the Creation.  The Gods, haTing got the
Giant Ymer slain, a Giant made by'warm winds,' and much confused work, out of the conflict of Frost and Fire,-determined on
constructing a world with him. His blood made the Sea; his
flesh was the Land, the Rocks his bones; of his eyebrows they
formed Asgard their Gods'-dwelling; his scull was the great blue
vault of Immensity, and the brains of it became the Clouds.
What a Hyper-Brobdignagian business!  Untamed Thought,
great, giantlike, enormous; to be tamed in due time into the compact greatness, not giantlike, but godlike and stronger than gianthood, of the Shakspeares, the Goethes! —Spiritually as well as
bodily these men are our progenitors.
I like, too, that representation they have of the Tree Igdrasil.
All Life is figured by them as a Tree. Igdrasil, the Ashtree of
Existence, has its roots deep down in the kingdoms of Hela or
Death; its trunk reaches up heaven-high, spreads its boughs over
the whole Universe: it is the Tree of Existence. At the foot of
it, in the Death-kingdom, sit Three Nornas, Fates,-the Past,
Present, Future; watering its roots from the Sacred Well. Its'boughs,' with their buddings and disleafings, -events, things suffered, things done, catastrophes,-stretch through all lands and
times. Is not every leaf of it a biography, every fibre there an
act or word? Its boughs are Histories of Nations. The rustle
of it is the noise of Human Existence, onwards from of old. It
grows there, the breath of Human Passion rustling through it;or stormtost, the stormwind howling through it like the voice of
all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree of Existence. It is the
past, the present, and the future; what was done, what is doing,
what will be done;'the infinite conjugation of the verb To do.'
Considering how human things circulate, each inextricably in communion witlll —how the word I speak to you today is borrowed,
not from Ula the Mcesogoth only, but from all men since the
first man began to speak,-I find no similitude so true as this of
a Tree.  Beautiful; altogether beautiful and great.  The'MI 7chine of the Universe,' —alas, do but think of that in contrast!
Well, it is strange enough this old Norse view of Nature; iifferent enough from what we B'elieve of Nature. Whence it spe.




LEMC. 1.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY                     19
cially came, one would not like to be compelled to say very minutely I
One thing we may say: It came from the thoughts of Norse men 
-from the thought, above all, of thefirst Norse man who had an
original power of thinking. The first Norse' man of genius,' as
we should call him! Innumerable men had passed by, across this
Universe, with a dumb vague wonder, such as the very animals
may feel; or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder, such as
men only feel; —till the great Thinker came, the original man,
the Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes tho slumbering
capability of all into Thought. It is ever the way with the
Thinker, the spiritual Hero. What he says, all men were not
far from saying, were longing to say. The Thoughts of all start
up, as from painful enchanted sleep, round his Thought; answering to it, Yes, even so! Joyful to men as the dawning of day
from night; —is it not, indeed, the awakening for them front nobeing into being, from death into life? We still honour such a
man; call him Poet, Genius, and so forth: but to these wild men
he was a very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected blessing for them; a Prophet, a God!-Thought once awakened does
not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System  of Thought;
grows, in man after man, generation after generation,-till its full
stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.
For the Norse people, the man now named Odin, and Chief
Norse God, we fancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain
of soul and of body; a Hero, of worth immeasurable; admiration
for whom, transcending the known bounds, became adoration.
Has he nbt the power of articulate Thinking  and many other
powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude, would
the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinxenigma of this Universe; given assurance to thenilf their own
destiny there. By him they know now what they hiie to do here,
what to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him; he first has made Life alive! —We may call this
Odin the origin of the Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name
the first Norse Thinker bore while he was among men. His view
of the Universe once promulgated, a like view starts into being in
all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it continues credible




20               THE HERO AS DIVINITY.               LECi     X
there.  In all minds it lay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility in all. Nay, in
every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is
it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world!One other thing we must not forget; it will explain, a little,
the confusion of these Norse Eddas. They are not one coherent
System of Thought; but properly the summation of several successive systems. All this of the old Norse Belief which is flung
out for us, in one level of distance in the Edda, like a picture
painted on the same canvass, does not at all stand so in the reality.  It stands rather at all manner of distances and depths, of
successive generations since the Belief first began. All Scandinavian thinkers, since the first of them, contributed to' that
Scandinavian System of Thought; in ever new elaboration and
addition, it is the combined work of them all. What history it
had, how it changed from shape to shape, by one thinker's contribution after another, till it got to the full final shape we see it
under in the Edda, no man will now ever know: its Councils of
Trebisond, Councils of Trent, Athanasiuses, Dantes, Luthers, are
sunk without echo in the dark night! Only that it had such a
history we can all know. Wheresoever a thinker appeared, there
in the thing he thought of was a contribution, accession, a change
or revolution made. Alas, the grandest' revolution' of all, the
one made by the man Odin himself, is not this too sunk for us
like the rest! Of Odin what history?  Strange rather to reflect
that he had a history! That this Odin, in his wild Norse vesture,
with his wild beard and eyes, his rude Norse speech and ways,
was a man like us; with our sorrows, joys, with our limbs, features; —intrinsically all one as we; and did such a work! But
the work, much of it, has perished; the worker, all to the name.
"Wednesd  " men will say tomorrow; Odin's day!  Of Odin
there exists no history; no document of it; no guess about it
worth repeating.
Snorro indeed, in the quietest manner, almost in a brief business style, writes down, in his Heimskingla, how Odin was a
heroic Prince, in the Black-Sea region, with Twelve Peers, and
a great people straitened for room. How  he led these Asen
(Asiatics) of his out of Asia; settled them in the North parts




LECT. I.        THE E-ERO AS DIVINITY.                   21
of Europe, by warlike conquest; invented Letters, Poetry and
so forth, and came by and by to be worshipped as Chief God by
these Scandinavians, his Twelve Peers made into Twelve Sons of
his own, Gods like himself: Snorro has no doubt of this. Saxo
Grammaticus, a very curious Northman of that same century,
is still more unhesitating; scruples not to find out a historical
fact in every individual mythus, and writes it down as a terrestrial event in Denmark or elsewhere. Torfameus, learned and
cautious, some centuries later, assigns by calculation a date for
it: Odin, he says, came into Europe about the Year 70 before
Christ. Of all which, as grounded on mere uncertainties, found
to be untenable now, I need say nothing. Far, very far beyond
the Year 70! Odin's date, adventures, whole terrestrial history,
figure and environment, are sunk from us forever into unknown
thousands of years.
Nay Grimm, the German Antiquary, goes so far as to deny
that any man Odin ever existed. He proves it by etymology.
The word Wuotan, which is the original form of Odin, a word
spread, as name of their chief Divinity, over all the Teutonic
Nations everywhere; this word, which connects itself, according
to Grimm, with the Latin vadere, with the English wade and
such like,-means primarily Movement, Source of Movement,
Power; and is the fit name of the highest god, not of any man.
The word signifies Divinity, he says, among the old Saxon, German and all Teutonic Nations; the adjectives formed from it
all signify divine, supreme, or something pertaining to the chief
god. Like enough! We must bow to Grimm in matters etymological. Let us consider it fixed that Wuotan means Wading,
force of ]IIovement. And now still, what hinders it from being
the name of a Heroic Man and Mover, as well as of a god? As
for the adjectives and words formed from it, did not the Spaniards in their universal admiration for Lope, get into the habit
of saying'a Lope flower,''a Lope dama,' if the flower or woman was of surpassing beauty? Had this lasted, Lope would
have grown, in Spain, to be an adjective signifying godlike also.
Indeed Adam Smith, in his Essay on Language, surmises that
all adjectives whatsoever were formed precisely in that way
some very green thing, chiefly notable for its greenness, got the




22             THE HERO AS D [,VINITY.               LECT..
appellative name Green, and then the next thing remarkable for
that quality, a tree for instance, was named the green tree, as
we still say'the steam coach,''four-horse coach,' or the like.
All primary adjectives, according to Smith, were formed in this
way; were at first substantives and things. We cannot annihilate aL man for etymologies like that! Surely there was a First
Teacher and Captain; surely there must have been an Odin,
palpable to the sense at one time; no adjective, but a real Hero
of flesh and blood! The voice of all tradition, history or echo of
history, agrees with all that thought will teach one about it, to
assure us of this.
How the man Odin came to be considered a god, the chief
god? that surely is a question which nobody would wish to dogmatise upon. I have said, his people knew no limits to their admiration of him; they had as yet no scale to measure admiration
by. Fancy your own generous heart's-love of some greatest man
expanding till it transcended all bounds, till it filled and oyerflowed the whole field of your thought! Or what if this man
Odin, since a great deep soul, with the afflatus and mysterious
tide of vision and impulse rushing on him he knows not whence;
is ever an enigma, a kind of terror and wonder to himself, should
have felt that perhaps he was divine; that he was some effluence
of the'Wuotan,'  Movement,' Supreme Power and Divinity, of
whom to his rapt vision all Nature was the awful Flame-image;
that some effluence of Wuotan dwelt here in him! He was not
necessarily false; he was but mistaken, speaking the truest he
knew. A great soul, any sincere soul, knows not what he is,-alternates between the highest height and the lowest depth; oan,
of all things, the least measure-Himself! What others take him
for, and what he guesses that he may be; these two items
strangely act on one another, help to determine one.another.
With all men reverently admiring him; with his own wild soul
full of noble ardours and affections, of whirlwind chaotic darkness and glorious new light; a divine Universe bursting all into
godlike beauty round him, and no man to whom the like ever
had befallen, what could he think himself to be? "Woutan?':
All men answered, " Woutan!"And then consider what mere Time will do in such cases'




tECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                    23
how if a man was great while living, he becomes tenfold greater
when dead.  What an enormous camera-obscura magnifier is Tradition! How a thing grows in the human Memory, in the human Imagination, when love, worship and all that lies in the
human Heart, is there to encourage it. And in the darkness, in
the entire ignorance; without date or document, no book, no
Arundel-marble; only here and there some dumb monumental
cairn. Why, in thirty or forty years, were there no books, any
great man would grow mythic, the contemporaries, who had seen
him, being once all dead. And in three hundred years, and in
three thousand years-!' To attempt theorising on such matters would profit little: they are matters which refuse to be theoremed and diagramed; which Logic ought to know that she cannot speak of. Enough for us to discern, far in the uttermost
distance, some gleam as of a small real light shining in the centre of_ that enormous camera-obscura image; to discern that the
centre of it all was not a madness and nothing, but a sanity and
something.
This light, kindled in the great dark vortex of the Norse
Mind, dark but living, waiting only for light: this is to me the
centre of the whole. How such light will then shine out, and
with wondrous thousandfold expansion spread itself, in forms and
colours, depends not on it, so much as on the National Mind
recipient of it.  The colours and forms of your light will be
those of the cut-glass it has to shine through. Curious to think
how, for every man, any the truest fact is modelled by the nature
of the man! I said, The earnest man, speaking to his brother
men, must always have stated what seemed to him a fact, a real
Appearance of Nature. But the way in which such Appearance or fact shaped itself, —what sort offact it became for him,was and is modified by his own laws of thinking; deep, subtle,
but universal, ever-operating laws. The world of Nature, for
every man, is the Fantasy of Himself; this world is the multiplex' Image of his own Dream.' Who knows to what unnameable subtleties of spiritual law all these Pagan Fables owe their
shape! The number Twelve, divisiblest of all, which could be
halved, quartered, parted into three, into six, the most remarkable number, —this was enough to determine the Signs of the Zoe




24             THE HERO AS DIVINITY.               LECT. 1.
diac, the number of Odin's Sons, and innumerable other Twelves.
Any vague rumour of number had a tendency to settle itself into
Twelve.  So with regard to every other matter.  And quite
unconsciously too,-with no notion of building up'Allegories!'
But the fresh clear glance of those First Ages would be promptin discerning the secret relations of things, and wholly open to
obey these. Schiller finds in the Cestus of Venus an everlasting
aesthetic truth as to the nature of all Beauty; curious:-but he
is careful not to insinuate that the old Greek Mythists had any
notion of lecturing about the'Philosophy of Criticism!'On the whole, we must leave those boundless regions. Cannot
we conceive that Odin was a reality? Error indeed, error
enough: but sheer falsehood, idle fables, allegory aforethought,we will not believe that our Fathers believed in these.
Odin's Runes are a significant feature of him. Runes, and
the miracles of' magic' he worked by them, make a great feature
in tradition. Runes are the Scandinavian Alphabet; suppose
Odin to have been the inventor of Letters, as well as'magic,
among that people! It is the greatest invention man has ever
made, this of marking down the unseen thought that is in him
by written characters. It is a kind of second speech, almost as
miraculous as the first. You remember the astonishment and
incredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the
Spanish Soldier who was guarding him scratch Dies on his
thumb-nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle was possible. If Odin brought
Letters among his people, he might work magic enough!
Writing by Runes has some air of being original among the
Norsemen: not a Phenician Alphabet, but a native Scandinavian one. Snorro tells us farther that Odin invented Poetry;
the music of human speech, as well as that miraculous runic
marking of it. Transport yourselves into the early childhood
of nations; the first beautiful morning-light of our Europo,
when all yet lay in fresh young radiance as of a great sunrise,
and our Europe was first beginning to think, to be! Wonder,
hope; infinite radiance of hope and wonder, as of a young child's
thoughts, in the hearts of these strong men! Strong sons of




LECT.:.          THE HERC AS DIVINITY.                   2b
Nature; and here was not only a wild Captain and Fighter; discerning with his wild flashing eyes what to do, with his wild lionheart daring and doing it; but a Poet too, all that we mean by
a Poet, Prophet, great devout Thinker and Inventor, —as the
truly Great Man ever is. A Hero is a Hero at all points; in
the soul and thought of him first of all. This Odin, in his rude
semi-articulate way, had a word to speak. A great heart laid
open to take in this great Universe, and man's Life here, and
utter a great word about it. A Hero, as I say, in his own rude
manner; a wise, gifted, noble-hearted man. And now, if we still
admire such a man beyond all others, what must these wild Norse
souls, first awakened into thinking, have made of him! To
them, as yet without names for it, he was noble and noblest:
Hero, Prophet, God; WMotan, the greatest of all.  Thought
is Thought, howsoever it speak or spell itself.  Intrinsically, I
conjecture, this Odin must have been of the same sort of stuff
as the greatest kind of men. A great thought in the wild deep
heart of him! The rough words he articulated, are they not the
rudimental roots of those English words we still use?  He
worked so, in that obscure element.  But he was as a liglt
kindled in it; a light of Intellect, rude Nobleness of heart, the
only kind of lights we have yet; a Hero, as I say: and he had
to shine there, and make his obscure element a little lighter,-as
is still the task of us all.
We will fancy him to be the Type-Norseman; the finest Teuton whom that race had yet produced.  The rude Norse heart
burst up into boundless admiration round him; into adoration.
He is as a root of so many great things; the fruit of him is
found growing, from deep thousands of years, over the whole
field of Teutonic Life. Our own Wednesday, as I said, is it
not still Odin's Day? Wednesbury, Wansborough, Wanstead,
Wandsworth: Odin grew into England too, these are still leaves
from that root! He was the Chief God to all the Teutonic Peoples: their Pattern Norseman — in such way did they admire
their Pattern Norseman; that was the fortune he had in the
world.
Thus if the man Odin himself have vanished utterly, there is
this huge Shadow of him which still projects itself over the
0




26               THE HERO AS DIVINITY.               ECT. T.
whole History of his People. For this Odin once admitted to
be God, we can understand well that the whole Scandinavian
Scheme of Nature, or dim No-scheme, whatever it might before
have been, would now begin to develope itself altogether differently, and grow thenceforth in a new manner. What this Odin
saw into, and taught with his runes and his rhymes, the whole
Neutonic Peoqple laid to heart and carried forward. His way of
thought became their way of thought: —such, under new conditions, is the history of every great thinker still. In gigantic
confused lineaments, like some enormous camera-obscura shadow
thrown upwards from the dead deeps of the Past, and covering
the whole Northern Heaven, is not that Scandinavian Mythology
in some sort the Portraiture of this man Odin? The gigantic
image of his natural face, legible or not legible there, expanded
and confused in that manner! Ah, Thought, I say, is always
Thought. No great man lives in vain. The History of the
world is but the Biography of great men.
To me there is something very touching in this primeval
figure of Heroism; in such artless, helpless, but hearty entire
reception of a Hero by his fellow-men. Never so helpless in
shape, it is the noblest of feelings, and a feeling in some shape
or other perennial as man himself. If I could shew in any
measure, what I feel deeply for a long time now, That it is the
vital element of manhood, the soul of man's history here in our
world,-it would be the chief use of this discoursing at present.
We do not now call our great men Gods, nor admire without limit; ah no, with limit enough! But if we have no great men, or
do not admire at all, —that were a still worse case.
This poor Scandinavian Hero-worship, that whole Norse way
of looking at the Universe, and adjusting oneself there, has an
indestructible merit for us. A rude childlike way of recognising the divineness of Nature, the divineness of Man; most rude,
yet heartfelt, robust, giantlike; betokening what a giant of a
man this child would yet grow to! It was a truth, and is none.
Is it not as the half-dumb stifled voice of the long-buried generations of our own Fathers, calling out of the depths of ages to
us, in whose veins their blood still runs: "This then, this is
what we made of the world: this is all the image and notion we




LECT. J.         THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                   27
could form to ourselves of this great mystery of a Life and Universe. Despise it not. You are raised high above it, to large
free scope of vision; but you too are not yet at the top. No,
your notion too, so much enlarged, is but a partial, imperfect
one; that matter is a thing no man will ever, in time or out of
time, comprehend;-after thousands of years of ever-new expansion, man will find himself but struggling to comprehend again
a part of it: the thing is larger than man, not to be comprehended by him; an Infinite thing!'"
The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies, we found to be recognition of the divineness of Nature;
sincere communion of man with the mysterious invisible Powers
visibly seen at work in the world round him. This, I should
say, is more sincerely done in the Scandinavian than in any Mythology I know. Sincerity is the great characteristic of it. Superior sincerity (far superior) consoles us for the total want of
old Grecian grace. Sincerity, I think, is better than grace. I
feel that these old Northmen were looking into Nature with open
eye and soul: most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet manlike;
with a greathearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a
true, loving, admiring, unfearing way. A right valiant, true old
race of men. Such recognition of Nature one finds to be the
chief element of Paganism: recognition of Man, and his Moral Duty, though this too is not wanting, comes to be the chief
element only in purer forms of religion. Here, indeed, is a
great distinction and epoch in Human Beliefs; a great landmark
in the religious development of Mankind. Man first puts himself in relation with Nature and her Powers, wonders and worships over those; not till a later epoch does he discern that all
Power is Moral, that the grand point is the distinction for him of
Good and Evil, of Thou shalt and Thou shalt not.
With regard to all these fabulous delineations in the Edda, I
will remark, moreover, as indeed was already hinted, that most
probably they must have been of much newer date; most probably, even from the first, were comparatively idle for the old
Norsemen, and as it were a kind of Poetic sport. Allegory and
Poetic Delineation, as I said above, cannot be religious Faith; the




28              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT
Faith itself must first be there, then Allegory enough will gather
round it, as the fit body round its soul. The Norse Faith, I can
well suppose, like other Faiths; was most active while it lay mainly in the silent state, and had not yet much to say about itself,
still less to sing.
Among those shadowy Edda matters, amid all that fantastic
congeries of assertions, and traditions, in their musical Mythologies, the main practical belief a man could have was probably not
much more than this: of the Valkyrs and the Hall of Odin; of
an inflexible Destiny; and that the one thing needful for a man
was to be brave. The Valkyrs are Choosers of the Slain; a Destiny inexorable, which it is useless trying to bend or soften, has
appointed who is to be slain: this was a fundamental point for
the Norse believer; as indeed it is for all earnest men everywhere, for a Mahomet, a Luther, for a Napoleon too. It lies at
the basis this for every such man; it is the woof out of which
his whole system of thought is woven. The Valkyrs; and then
that these Choosers lead the brave to a heavenly Hall of Odi~n;
only the base and slavish being thrust elsewhither, into the
realms of Hela the Death-goddess: I take this to have been the
soul of the whole Norse Belief. They understood in their heart
that it was indispensable to be brave; that Odin would have no
favour for them, but despise and thrust them out if they were not
brave. Consider too whether there is not something in this! It
is an everlasting duty, valid in our day as in that, the duty of
being brave.  Valozr is still value. The first duty for a man is
still that of subduing Fear. We must get rid of Fear; we cannot
act at all till then. A man's acts are slavish, not true but specious; his very thoughts are false, he thinks too as a slave and
coward, till he have got Fear under his feet. Odin's creed, if we
disentangle the real kernel of it, is true to this hour. A man
shall and must be valiant; he must march forward, and quit
himself like a man, trusting imperturbably in the appointment
and choice of the upper Powers; and, on the whole, not fear at all.
Now and always, the completeness of his victory over Fear will
determine how much of a man he is.
It is doubtless very savage that kind of valour of the old
Northmen, Snorro tells us they thought it a shame and misery




SECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.
not to die in battle; and if natural death seemed to be coming
on, they would cut wounds in their flesh, that Odin might receive them as warriors slain. Old kings, about to die, had their
body laid into a ship, the ship sent forth, with sails set and slow
fire burning it; that, once out at sea, it might blaze up in
flame, and in such manner bury worthily the old hero, at once
in the sky and in the ocean! Wild bloody valour; yet valour of its
kind; better, I say than none. In the old Sea-kings too, what
an indomitable rugged energy! Silent, with closed lips, as I
fancy them, unconscious that they were specially brave; defying
the wild ocean with its monsters, and all men and things; —
progenitors of our own Blakes and Nelsons. No Homer sar g
these Norse Sea-kings; but Agamemnon's was a small audacity
and of small fruit in the world, to some of them; to Hrolf's of
Normandy, for instance! Hrolf, or Rollo Duke of Normandy,
the wild Sea-king, has a share in governing England at this hour.
Nor was it altogether nothing, even that wild sea-roving and
battling, through so many generations. It needed to be ascertained which was the strongest kind of men; who were to be ruler over whom. Among the Northland Sovereigns, too, I find
some who got the title Wood-cutter; Forest-felling Kings. Much
lies in that. I suppose at bottom many of them were forestfellers as well as fighters, though the Skalds talk mainly of the
latter, misleading certain critics not a little; for no nation of
men could ever live by fighting alone; there could not produce
enough come out of that! I suppose the right good fighter was
oftenest also the right good forest-feller-the right good improver, discerner, doer and worker in every kind; for true valour, different enough from ferocity, is the basis of all. A more
legitimate kind of valour that; shewing itself against the untamed
Forests and dark brute Powers of Nature, to conquer Nature for
us. In the same direction have not we their descendants since
carried it far. May such valour last forever with us!
That the man Odin, speaking with a Hero's voice and heart,
as with an impressiveness out of Heaven, told his People the infinite importance of Valour, how man thereby became a god; and
that his People, feeling a response to it in their own hearts, believed this message of his, and thought it a message out of Heaven




50              THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. I
and him a Divinity for telling it them: this seems to me the pri.
mary seed-grain of the Norse Religion, from which all manner of
mythologies, symbolic practices, speculations, allegories, songs and
sagas would naturally grow. Grow,-how strangely! I called
it a small light shining and shaping in the huge vortex of Norse
darkness. Yet the darkness itself was alive; consider that. It
was the eager inarticulate uninstructed Mind of the whole Norse
People, longing only to become articulate, to go on articulating
ever farther! The living doctrine grows, grows — like a Banyantree; the first seed is the essential thing: any branch strikes itself down into the earth, becomes a new root; and so in endless
complexity, we have a whole wood, a whole jungle, one seed the
parent of it all. Was not the whole Norse Religion, accordingly,
in some sense, what we called "the enormous shadow of this
man's likeness?' Critics trace some affinity in some Norse mythuses, of the Creation and such like, with those of the Hindoos.
The Cow Adumbla,'licking the rime from the rocks,' has a
kind of'Hindoo look. A Hindoo Cow, transported into frosty
countries. Probably enough; indeed we may say undoubtedly,
these things will have a kindred with the remotest lands, with
the earliest times. Thought does not die, but only is changed.
The first man that began to think in this Planet of ours, he was
the beginner of all. And then the second man, and the third
man;-nay every true Thinker to this hour is a kind of Odin,
teaches men his way of thought, spreads a shadow of his own
likeness over sections of the History of the World.
Of the distinctive poetic character or merit of this Norse Mythology I have not room to speak; nor does it concern us much.
Some wild Prophecies we have, as the Iiavamal in the Elder.Edda; of a rapt, earnest, sibylline sort. But they were comparatively an idle adjunct of the matter, men who as it were but
toyed with the matter, these later Skalds; and it is their songs
chiefly that survive. In later centuries, I suppose, they would
go on singing, poetically symbolizing, as our modern Painters
paint, when it was no longer from the innermost heart, or not
from the heart at all. This is everywhere to be well kept in
mind.




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY                     31
Gray's fragments of Norse Lore, at any rate, will give one ne
notion of it; —any more than Pope'will of Homer. It is no
square-built gloomy palace of black ashlar marble, shrouded in
awe and horror, as Gray gives it us: no; rough as the North
rocks, as the Iceland deserts, it is; with a heartiness, homeliness,
even a tint of good humour and robust mirth in the middle of
these fearful things. The strong old Norse heart did not go upon
theatrical sublimities; they had not time to tremble.  I like
much their robust simplicity; their veracity, directness of conception.  Thor' draws down his brows' in a veritable Norse rage;'grasps his hammer till the knluckles grow white.' Beautiful traits
of pity too, an honest pity.  Balder' the white God' dies; the
beautiful, benignant; he is the Sungod. They try all Nature
for a remedy; but he is dead. Frigga, his mother, sends HerModer to seek or see him: nine days and nine nights he rides,
through gloomy deep valleys, a labyrinth of gloom; arrives at
the Bridge with its gold roof: the Keeper says, " Yes, Balder did
pass here; but the Kingdom of the Dead is down yonder, far
towards the North."  Hermoder rides on; leaps Hell-gate, Hela's gate; does see Balder, and speak with him: Balder cannot
be delivered. Inexorable! Hela will not, for Odin or any God,
give him up.  The beautiful and gentle has to remain there.
His Wife had volunteered to go with him, to die with him.  They
shall forever remain there. He sends his ring to Odin; Nanna
his wife sends her thimble to Frigga, as a remembrance.-Ah
me!For indeed Valour is the fountain of Pity too;-of Truth, and
all that is great and good in man. The robust homely vigour of
the Norse heart attaches one much, in these delineations. Is it
not a trait of right honest strength, says Uhland, who has written
a fine Essay on Thor, that the old Norse heart finds its friend in
the Thunder-god?  That it is not frightened away by his thunder; but finds that Summer-heat, the beautiful noble summer,
must and will have thunder withal! The Norse heart loves this
Thor and his hammer-bolt; sports with him.  Thor is Summerheat; the god of Peaceable Industry as well as Thunder. He is
the Peasant's friend; his true henchman and attendant is Thialfi
la.n zal Labour.  Thor himself engages in all manner of rough




32              THE HERO AS DIVINITY                 LECT. L
manual work, scorns no business for its plebeianism; is ever and
anon travelling to the country of the Jotuns, harrying those
chaotic Frost-monsters, subduing them, at least straitening and
damaging them. There is a great broad humour in some of
these things.
Thor, as we saw above, goes to Jotun land, to seek Hymlir's
Cauldron, that the Gods may brew beer. Hymir the huge Giant
enters, his grey beard all full of hoar-frost; splits pillars with the
very glance of his eye; Thor, after much rough tumult, snatches
the Pot, claps it on his head; the' handles of it reach down to'his heels.' The Norse Skald has a kind of loving sport with
Thor. This is the Hymir whose cattle, the critics have discovered, are Icebergs.  Huge untutored Brobdignag genius,-needing only to be tamed down; into Shakspeares, Dantes, Goethes!
It is all gone now, that old Norse work,-Thor the Thunder-god
changed into Jack the Giant-killer: but the mind that made it is
here yet. How strangely things grow, and die, and do not die!
There are twigs of that great world-tree of Norse Belief still
curiously traceable. This poor Jack of the Nursery, with his
miraculous shoes of swiftness, coat of darkness, sword of sharpness, he is one. Childe Etin in the Scottish Ballads is a Norseo
mythus; Etin was a Jotun.  Nay, Shakspeare's I:amlet is a twig
too of this same world-tree; there seems no doubt of that. Hamlet, Amleth, I find, is really a mythic personage; and his Tragedy, of the poisoned Father, poisoned asleep by drops in his ear,
and the rest, is a Norse mythus! Old Saxo, as his wont was,
made it a Danish history; Shakspeare, out of Saxo, made it what
we see. That is a twig of the world-tree that has grown, I think;
— by nature or accident that one has grown!
In fact, these old Norse songs have a truth in them, an inward
perennial truth and greatness,-as, indeed, all must have that
can very long preserve itself by tradition alone. It is a greatness not of mere body and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of
soul. There is a sublime uncomplaining melancholy traceable
in these old hearts. A great free glance into the very deeps of
thought. They seem to have seen, these brave old Northmen,
what Meditation has taught all men in all ages, That this world
is after all but a shew, —a phenomenon or appearance, no reai




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                    31
thing. All deep souls see into that,-the Hindoo Mythologist,
the German Philosopher, —the Shakspeare, the earnest Thinker
wherever he may be:'We are such stuff as Dreams are made of l'
One of Thor's expeditions, to Utgard (the Outer Garden, central seat of Jotun-land), is remarkable in this respect. Thialfi
was with him, and Loke. After various adventures, they entered
upon Giant-land; wandered over plains, wild uncultivated places,
among stones and trees. At nightfall they noticed a house; and
as the door, which indeed formed one whole side of the house,
was open, they entered. It was a simple habitation; one large
hall, altogether empty.  They staid there.  Suddenly in the
dead of the night loud noises alarmed them. Thor grasped his
hammer; stood in the door, prepared for fight. His companions
within ran hither and thither in their terror, seeking some outlet in that rude hall; they found a little closet at last, and took
refuge there. Neither had Thor any battle: for, lo, in the morning it turned out that the noise had been only the snoring of a
certain enormous but peaceable Giant, the Giant Skrymir, who
lay peaceably sleeping near by; and this that they took for a
house was merely his Glove, thrown aside there; the door was
the Glove-wrist; the little closet they had fled into was the
Thumb! Such a glove;-I remark too that it had not fingers
as ours have, but only a thumb, and the rest undivided: a most
ancient, rustic glove!
Skrymir now carried their portmanteau all day; Thor, however, had his own suspicions, did not like the ways of Skrymir; determined at night to put an end to him as he slept. Raising his hammer, he struck down into the Giant's face a right
thunderbolt blow, of force to rend rocks.  The Giant merely
awoke; rubbed his cheek, and said, Did a leaf fall? Again Thor
struck, so soon as Skrymir again slept; a better blow than before; but the Giant only murmured, Was that a grain of sand?
Thor's third stroke was with both his hands (the'knuckles white'
I suppose), and seemed to dint deep into Skrymir's visage; but
he merely checked his snore, and remarked, There must be sparrows roosting in this tree, I think; what is that they have dropt?
0*




34             THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                LECT. 1
-At the gate of Utgard, a place so high, that you had to' strain' your neck bending back to see the top of it,' Skrymir went his
ways. Thor and his companions were admitted; invited to take
share in the games going on. To Thor, for his part, they handed
a Drinking-horn; it was a common feat, they told him, to drink
this dry at one draught. Long and fiercely, three times over,
Thor drank; but made hardly any impression.  He was a weak
child, they told him: could he lift that Cat he saw there?  Small
as the feat seemed, Thor with his whole godlike strength could
not; he bent up the creature's back, could not raise its feet off
the ground, could at the utmost raise one foot. Why, you are no
man, said the Utgard people; there is an Old Woman that will
wrestle you! Thor, heartily ashamed, seized this haggard Old
Woman; but could not throw her.
And now on their quitting Utgard, the chief JOtun, escorting
them politely a little way, said to Thor: "You are beaten then:yet be not so much ashamed; there was deception of appearance
in it. That Horn you tried to drink was the Sea; you did make
it ebb; but who could drink that, the bottomless! The Cat you
would have lifted,-why, that is the' lIidgardsnake, the Great
World-serpent, which, tail in mouth, girds and keeps up the
whole created world; had you torn that up, the world must have
rushed to ruin.  As for the Old Woman, she was Time, Old
Age, Duration: with her what can wrestle?  No man nor no
god with her; gods or men, she prevails over all!  And then
those three strokes you struck,-look at these three valleys; your
three strokes made these!" Thor looked at his attendant Jotun:
it was Skrymir — it was, say Norse critics, the old chaotic rocky
Earth in person, and that glove-ha/tse was some Earth-cavern!
But Skrymir had vanished; Utgard with its skyhigh gates
when Thor grasped his hammer to smite them, had gone to air;
only the Giant's voice was heard mocking: "Better come no
more to Jotunheim!"
This is of the allegoric period, as we see, and half play, not of
the prophetic and entirely devout: but as a mythus, is there not
real antique Norse gold in it? More true metal, rough from
the Mimer-stithy, than in many a famed Greek Mythus shaped
far better! A great broad Brobdignag grin of true humour is




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                    35
in this Skrymir; mirth resting on earnestness and sadness, as
the rainbow on black tempest: only a right valiant heart is capa
ble of that. It is the grim humour of our own Ben Jonson,
rare old Ben; runs in the blood of us, I fancy; for one catches
tones of it, under a still other shape, out of the American Backwoods.
That is also a very striking conception that of the Ragnarbik,
Consummation, or Twilight of the Gods. It is in the Havamal
Song; seemingly a very old, prophetic idea. The Gods and
Jotuns, the divine Powers and the chaotic brute ones, after long
contest and partial victory by the former, meet at last in universal world-embracing wrestle and duel; World-serpent against
Thor, strength against strength; mutually extinctive; and ruin,' twilight' sinking into darkness, swallows the created Universe.
The old Universe with its Gods is sunk; but it is not final
death: there is to be a new Heaven and a new Earth; a higher
supreme God, and Justice to reign among men. Curious: this
law of mutation, which also is a law written in man's inmost
thought, had been deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers in
their rude style; and how, though all dies, and even gods die,
yet all death is but a Phcenix fire-death, and new-birth into the
Greater and the Better! It is the fundamental Law of Being
for a creature made of Time, living in this Place of Hope. All
earnest men have seen into it; may still see into it.
And now, connected with this, let us glance at the last mythus
of the appearance of Thor; and end there.  I fancy it to be the
latest in date of all these fables; a sorrowing protest against the
advance of Christianity, -set forth reproachfully by some Conservative Pagan. King Olaf has been harshly blamed for his
over-zeal in introducing Christianity; surely I should have
blamed him far more for an under-zeal in that! He paid dear
enough for it; he died by the revolt of his Pagan people, in battle, in the year 1033, at Stickelstad, near that Drontheim, where
the chief Cathedral of the North has now stood for many centuries, dedicated gratefully to his memory as Saint Olaf. The
mythus about Thor is to this effect. King Olaf, the Christian
Reform King, is sailing with fit escort along the shore of Norway, from haven to haven; dispensing justice, or doing other




36               THE HERO AS DIVINITY.:     LCT. I
royal work: on leaving a certain haven, it is found that a stran.
ger, of grave eyes and aspect, red beard, of stately robust figure,
has stept in.  The courtiers address him; his answers surprise
by their pertinency and depth: at length he is brought to the
King. The stranger's conversation here is not less remarkable,
as they sail along the beautiful shore; but after some time, he
addresses King Olaf thus: "Yes, King Olaf, it is all beautiful,
with the sun shining on it there; green, fruitful, a right fair
home for you; and many a sore day had Thor, many a wild
fight with the rock Jotuns, before he could make it so. And
now you seem minded to put away Thor. King Olaf, have a
care!" said the stranger, drawing down his brows;-and when
they looked again, he was nowhere to be found. — This is the last
appearance of Thor on the stage of this world!
Do we not see well enough how the Fable might arise, without
unveracity on the part of any one? It is the way most Gods
have come to appear among men: thus, if in Pindar's time' Nep-'tune was seen once at the Nemean Games,' what was this Neptune too but a'stranger of noble grave aspect,'-fit to be'seen!'
There is something pathetic, tragic for me, in this last voice of
Paganism. Thor is vanished, the whole Norse world has vanished; and will not return ever again. In like fashion to that
pass away the highest things. All things that have been in this
world, all things that are or will be in it, have to vanish: we
have our sad farewell to give them.
That Norse Religion, a rude but earnest, sternly impressive
Consecration of Valour (so we may define it), sufficed for these
old valiant Northmen.  Consecration of Valour is not a bad
thing! We will take it for good, so far as it goes. Neither iv
there no use in knowing something about this old Paganism ot
our Fathers. Unconsciously, and combined with higher things,
it is in us yet, that old Faith withal! To know it consciously,
brings us into closer and clearer relation with the Past,-with
our own possessions in the Past. For the whole Past, as I keep
repeating, is the possession of the Present; the Past had always
something true, and is a precious possession. In a different time,
in a different place, it is always some other side of our common
Human Nature that has been developing itself. The actual




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS DIVINITY.                    37
True is the sum of all these; not any one of them by itself constitutes what of Human Nature is hitherto developed. Better to
know them all than misknow them. " To which of these Three
Religions do you specially adhere?" inquires Meister of his
Teacher.  "To all the Three!" answers the other: " To all the
Three; for they by their union first constitute the True Religion."




LECTURE II.
LFriday, 8th May, 1840.]
THE:IERO AS PROPHET.  MAHOMET: ISLAM.
F}ROM the first rude times of Paganism among the Scandina
vians in the North, we advance to a very different epoch of religion, among a very different people: Mahometanism among the
Arabs. A great change; what a change and progress is indicated here, in the universal condition and thoughts of men!
The Hero is not now regarded as a God among his fellowmen; but as one iG od-inspired, as a Prophet. It is the second
phasis of Hero-worship: the first or oldest, we may say, has
passed away without return; in the history of the world there
will not again be any man, never so great, whom his fellow-men
will take for a god. Nay we might rationally ask, Did any set
of human beings ever really think the man they saw there standing beside them a god the maker of this world? Perhaps not:
it was usually some man they remembered, or had seen. But
neither can this, any more, be. The Great Man is not recognised
henceforth as a god any more.
It was a rude gross error, that of counting the Great Man a
god. Yet let us say that it is at all times difficult to know what
he is or how to account of him and receive him! The most significant feature in the history of an epoch is the manner it has
of welcoming a Great Man. Ever, to the true instincts of men,
there is something godlike in him. Whether they shall take
him to be a god, to be a prophet, or what they shall take him to
be? that is ever a grand question; by their way of answering
that, we shall see, as through a little window, into the very heart
of these men's spiritual condition. For at bottom the Great
Man, as he comes from the hand of Nature, is ever the same




'ECT. II.      THE HERO AS PROPHET.                      39
kind of thing: Odin, Luther, Johnson, Burns; I hope to make
it appear that these are all originally of one stuff; that only by
the world's reception of them, and the shapes they assume, are
they so immeasurably diverse. The worship of Odin astonishes
us,-to fall prostrate before the Great Man, into deliquium of
love and wonder over him, and feel in their hearts that he was a
a denizen of the skies, a god! This was imperfect enough: but
to welcome, for example, a Burns as we did, was that what we
can call perfect? The most precious gift that Heaven can give
to the Earth; a man of'genius' as we call it; the Soul of a
Man actually sent down from the skies with a God's-message to
us,-this we waste away as an idle artificial firework, sent to
amuse us a little, and sink it into ashes, wreck and ineffectuality:
such reception of a Great Man I do not call very perfect either!
Looking into the heart of the thing, one may perhaps call that
of Burns a still uglier phenomenon, betokening still sadder imperfections in mankind's ways, than the Scandinavian method itself! To fall into mere unreasoning deliquium of love and admiration, was not good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational, supercilious no-love at all is perhaps still worse!-It is a thing forever changing, this of Hero worship; different in each age, difficult to do well in any age. Indeed the heart of the whole
business of the age, one may say, is to do it well.
We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet;
but as the one we are freest to speak of. He is by no means the
truest of Prophets; but I do esteem him a true one. Farther,
as there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I
mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is the way to
get at his secret: let us try to understand what he meant with
the world; what the world meant and means with him, will then
be a more answerable question. Our current hypothesis abou
Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood incar
nate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity,
begins really to be now untenable to any one. The lies, which
well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are disgraceful to
ourselves only.r When Pococke inquired of Grotius, Where the
proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from




t0              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                 LECT. I
Mahomet's ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Gro.
tius answered that there was no proof! It is really time to dis
miss all that. ~The word this man spoke has been the life gui
dance now of one hundred and eighty millions of men these
twelve hundred years. These hundred and eighty millions were
made by God as well as we. A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word, at this hour, than in any other
word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece
of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the
Almighty have lived by and died by? I; for my part, cannot
form any such supposition. I will believe most things sooner
than that. One would be entirely at a loss what to think of this
world at all, if quackery so grew and were sanctioned hered`
Alas, such theories are very lamentable. If we would attain
to knowledge of anything in God's true Creation, let us disbelieve them wholly! iThey are the product of an Age of Scepticism; they indicate the saddest spiritual paralysis and mere
death-life of the souls of men: more godless theory, I think, was
never promulgated in this Earth. A false man found a religion?
Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If he do not
know and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay and
what else he works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap. It will not stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a
hundred and eighty millions; it will fall straightway.  A man
must conform himself to Nature's laws, be verily in communion,
with Nature and the truth of things, or Nature will answer him,
No, not at all!  Speciosities are specious-ah me!-a Cagliostro, many Cagliostros, prominent world-leaders, do prosper by
their quackery, for a day. It is like a forged bank-note; they
get it passed out of their worthless hands: others, not they, have
to smart for it. Nature bursts up in fire-flames, French Revolutions and such like, proclaiming with terrible veracity that
forged notes are forged.
But of a Great Man especially, of him I will venture to assert!that it is incredible he should have been other than true. It
seems to me the primary foundation of him, and of all that can
lie in him, this. No Mirabeau, Napoleon, Burns, Cromwell, no
man adequate to do anything, but is first of all in right earnest




1ECT. II        THE HERO AS PROPHET.                     41
about it; what I call a sincere man. I should say sincerity, a
deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all
men in any way heroic. Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere; ah no, that is a very poor matter indeed; -a shallow braggart conscious sincerity; oftenest self-conceit mainly. The Great
Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity;
for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one
day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far
from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would
say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot
help being sincere! The great Fact of Existence is great to
him. Fly as he will, he cannot get out of the awful presence of
this Reality. His mind is so made; he is, great by that, first of
all. Fearful and wonderful, real as Life, real as Death, is this
Universe to him.  Though all men should forget its truth, and
walk in a vain show, he cannot. At all moments the Flameimage glares in upon him; undeniable, there, there! —I wish
you to take this as my primary definition of a Great Man. A
little man may have this, it is competent to all men that God
has made: but a Great Man cannot be without it.
Such a man is what we call an original man; he comes to us
at first hand. A messenger he, sent from the Infinite Unknown
with tidings to us. We may call him Poet, Prophet, God; —in one
way or other, we all feel that the words he utters are as no other
man's words. Direct from the Inner Fact of things; —he lives,
and has to live, in daily communion with that.  Hearsays cannot
hide it from him; he is blind, homeless, miserable, following
hearsays; it glares in upon him.  Really his utterances, are they
not a kind of' revelation;'-what we must call such for want of
some other name? It is from the heart of the world that he
comes; he is portion of the primal reality of things. God has
made many revelations: but this man too, has not God made him,
the latest and newest of all? The'inspiration of the Almighty'giveth him understanding:' we must listen before all to him.
This Mahomet, then, we will in no wise consider as an Inanity
and Theatricality, a poor conscious ambitious schemer; we can




42               THE HIERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. I.
not conceive him so..The rude message he delivered was a real
one withal; an earnest confused voice from the unknown Deep.
The man's words were not false, nor his workings here below: no
Inanity and Simulacrum; a fiery mass of Life cast up from the
great bosom of Nature herself.  To kindle the world; the world's
Maker had ordered it so. Neither can the faults, imperfections,
insincerities even, of Mahomet, if such were never so well pro73d
against him, shake this primary fact about him.
On the whole, we make too much of faults; the details of the
business hide the real centre of it.  Faults?  The greatest of
faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. Readers of the
Bible above all, one would think, might know better. Who is
called there'the man according to God's own heart?'  David,
the Hebrew King, had fallen into sins enough; blackest crimes;
there was no want of sins. And thereupon the unbelievers sneer
and ask, Is this your man according to God's heart? The sneer,
I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults,
what are the outward details of a life; if the inner secret of it,
the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled, never-ended struggle
of it, be forgotten?'It is not in man that walketh to direct his'steps.'  Of all acts, is not, for a man, repentance the most divine?
The deadliest sin, I say, were that same supercilious consciousness of no sin; —that is death; the heart so conscious is divorced
from sincerity, humility and fact; is dead: it is'pure' as dead dry
sand is pure. David's life and history, as written for us in those
Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of a
man's moral progress and warfare here below.  All earnest souls
will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human
soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often baffled, sore
baffled, down as into entire wreck, yet a struggle never ended;
ever, with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose, begun
anew. Poor human nature! Is not a man's walking, in truth,
always that:'a succession of falls?' Man can do no other.  In
this wild element of a Life, he has to struggle onwards; now fallen, deep-abased; and ever, with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle again still onwards. That
his struggle be a faithful unconquerable one: that is the question
of questions. We will put up with many sad details, if the soul




LECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                      4%
of it were true. Details by themselves will never teach us what
it is. I believe we misestimate Mahomet's faults even as faults:
but the secret of him will never be got by dwelling there. We
will leave all this behind us; and assuring ourselves that he did
mean some true thing, ask candidly, what it was or might be.
These Arabs Mahomet was born among are certainly a notaklc
people.  Their country itself is notable; the fit habitation for
such a race.  Savage inaccessible rock-mountains, great grim
deserts, alternating with beautiful strips of verdure: wherever
water is, there is greenness, beauty; odoriferous balm-shrubs,
date-trees, frankincense-trees. Consider that wide waste horizon
of sand, empty, silent, like a sand-sea, dividing habitable place
from habitable. You are all alone there, left alone with the Universe; by day a fierce sun blazing down on it with intolerable
radiance; by night the great deep Heaven with its stars.  Such
a country is fit for a swift-handed, deep-hearted race of men.
There is something most agile, active, and yet most meditative,
enthusiastic in the Arab character. The Persians are called the
French of the East; we will call the Arabs Oriental Italians.
A gifted noble people; a people of wild strong feelings, and of
iron restraint over these: the characteristic of noblemindedness,
of genius. The wild Bedouin welcomes the stranger to his tent,
as one having right to all that is there; were it his worst enemy,
he will slay his foal to treat him, will serve him with sacred hospitality for three days, will set him fairly on his way;-and then,
by another law as sacred, kill him if he can. In words too, as in
action.  They are not a loquacious people, taciturn rather; but
eloquent, gifted when they do speak.  An earnest, truthful kind
of men. They are, as we know, of Jewish kindred: but with that
deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem to combine
something graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish. They had'Poetic contests' among them before the time of Mahomet. Sale
says, at Ocadh, in the South of Arabia, there were yearly fairs,
and there, when the merchandising was done, Poets sang for
prizes:-the wild people gathered to hear that.
One Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of
many or of all high qualities: whatwe may call religiosity. From




44              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                  LECT. 11
of old they had been zealous worshippers, according to their light.
They worshipped the stars, as Sabeans; worshipped many natural
objects,-recognised themi as symbols, immediate manifestations,
of the Maker of Nature. It was wrong; and yet not wholly
wrong. All God's works are still in a sense symbols of God.
Do we not, as I urged, still account it a merit to recognise a certain inexhaustible significance,' poetic beauty' as we name it, in
all natural objects whatsoever?  A man is a poet, and honoured,
for doing that, and speaking or singing it,-a kind of diluted vrwrship.  They had many Prophets these Arabs;  Teachers each to
his tribe, each according to the light he had. But indeed, have
we not from of old the noblest of proofs, still palpable to every one
of us, of what devotedness and noblemindedness had dwelt in
these rustic thoughtful peoples? Biblical critics seem agreed
that our own Book of Job was written in that region of the world.
I call that, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest
things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not
Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble Book; all men's
Book! It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending Problem,-man's destiny and God's ways with him here in this earth.
And all in such free flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in
its simplicity; in its epic melody, and repose of reconcilement.
There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So
true, every way; true eyesight and vision for all things; material things no less than spiritual: the Horse,' hast thou clothed'his neck with thunder?'-he' laughs at the shaking of the spear!'
Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow,
sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of
mankind; —so soft, and great; as the summer midnight, as the
world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think,
in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.To the idolatrous Arabs one of the most ancient universal objects of worship was that Black Stone, still kept in the building
called Caabah, at Mecca. Diodorus Siculus mentions this Caabah
in a way not to be mistaken, as the oldest, most honoured temple
in his time; that is, some half-century before our Era. Silvestre
de Sacy says there is some likelihood that the Black Stone is an




LECT. II.      THE HERO AS PROPHET.                     43
aerolite. In that case, some man might see it fall out of Heaven!
It stands now beside the Well Zemzem; the Caabah is built over
both. A Well is in all places a beautiful affecting object, gushing
out like life from the hard earth; —still more so in those hot dry
countries, where it is the first condition of being. The Well Zemzem has its name from the bubbling sound of the waters, zem-zem;
they think it is the Well which Hagar found with her little Ishmael in the wilderness: the aerolite and it have been sacred now,
and had a Caabah over them for thousands of years. A curious
object that Caabah! There it stands at this hour, in the black
cloth-covering the Sultan sends it yearly;'twenty-seven cubits'high;' with circuit, with double circuit of pillars, with festoonrows of lamps and quaint ornaments: the lamps will be lighted
again this night,-to glitter again under the stars.  An authentic
fragment of the oldest Past. It is the Keblah of all Moslem:
from Delhi all onwards to Morocco, the eyes of innumerable
praying men are turned towards it, five times, this day and all
days: one of the notablest centres in the Habitation of Men.
It had been from the sacredness attached to this Caabah Stone
and Hagar's Well, from the pilgrimings of all tribes of Arabs
thither, that Mecca took its rise as a Town. A great town once,
though much decayed now. It has no natural advantage for a
town; stands in a sandy hollow amid bare barren hills, at a distance from the sea; its provisions, its very bread, have to be imported. But so many pilgrims needed lodgings: and then all
places of pilgrimage do, from the first, become places of trade.
The first day pilgrims meet, merchants have also met: where
men see themselves assembled for one object, they find that they
can accomplish other objects which depend on meeting together.
Mecca became the Fair of all Arabia. And thereby indeed the
chief staple and warehouse of whatever Commerce there was between the Indian and the Western countries, Syria, Egypt, even
Italy. It had at one time a population of 100,000; buyers, forwarders of those Eastern and Western products; importers for
their own behoof of provisions and corn. The government was a
kind of irregular aristocratic republic, not without a touch of
theocracy. Ten Men of a chief tribe, chosen in some rough way,
were Governors of Mecca, and Keepers of the Caabah. The




46              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. Zi
Koreish were the chief tribe in Mahomet's time; his own family
was of that tribe. The rest of the Nation, fractioned and out
asunder by deserts, lived under similar rude patriarchal governments by one or several: herdsmen, carriers, traders, generally
robbers too; being oftenest at war, one with another, or with all:
held together by no open bond, if it were not this meeting at the
Caabah, where all forms of Arab Idolatry assembled in common
adoration — held mainly by the inward indissoluble bond of a
common blood and language. In this way had the Arabs lived
for long ages, unnoticed by the world; a people of great qualities,
unconsciously waiting for the day when they should become notable to all the world. Their Idolatries appear to have been in a
tottering state; much was getting into confusion and fermentation among them. Obscure tidings of the most important Event
ever transacted in this world, the Life and Death of the Divine
Man in Judea, at once the symptom and cause of immeasurable
change to all people in the world, had in the course of centuries
reached into Arabia too; and could not but, of itself, have produced fermentation there.
It was among this Arab people, so circumstanced, in the year
570 of our Era, that the man Mahomet was born. He was of
the family of Hashem, of the Koreish tribe as we said; though
poor, connected with the chief persons of his country. Almost
at his birth he lost his Father; at the age of six years his Mother
too, a woman noted for her beauty, her worth and sense: he fell
to the charge of his Grandfather, an old man, a hundred years
old. A good old man: Mahomet's Father, Abdallah, had been
his youngest favourite son. He saw in Mahomet, with his old
life-worn eyes, a century old, the lost Abdallah come back again,
all that was left of Abdallah. He loved the little orphan Boy
greatly; used to say, They must take care of that beautiful little
Boy, nothing in their kindred was more precious than he. At
his death, while the boy was still but two years old, he left him in
charge to Abu Thaleb the eldest of the Uncles, as to him that
now was head of the house. By this Uncle, a just and rational
man as everything betokens, Mahomet was brought up in the best
Arab way.




LECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                   47
Mahomet, as he grew up, accompanied his Uncle on trading
journeys and such like; in his eighteenth year one finds him a
fighter following his Uncle in war. But perhaps the most significant of all his journeys is one we find noted as of some years'
earlier date: a journey to the Fairs of Syria. The young man
here first came in contact with a quite foreign world,-with one
foreign element of endless moment to him: the Christian Religion. I know not what to make of that' Sergius, the Nestorian'Monk,' whom Abu Thaleb and he are said to have lodged with;
or how much any monk could have taught one still so young.
Probably enough it is greatly exaggerated, this of the Nestorian
Monk. Mahomet was only fourteen; had no language but his
own: much in Syria must have been a strange unintelligible
whirlpool to him. But the eyes of the lad were open; glimpses
of many things would doubtless be taken in, and lie very enigmatic as yet, which were to ripen in a strange way into views, into
beliefs and insights one day. These journeys to Syria were probably the beginning of much to Mahomet.
One other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no
school-learning; of the thing we call school-learning none at all.
The art of writing was but just introduced into Arabia; it seems
to be the true opinion that Mahomet never could write! Life in
the Desert, with its experiences, was all his education. What of
this infinite Universe he, from his dim place, with his own eyes
and thoughts, could take in, so much and no more of it was he to
know. Curious, if we will reflect on it, this of having no books.
Except by what he could see for himself, or hear of by uncertain
rumour of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert, he could know
nothing. The wisdom that had been before him or at a distance
from him in the world, was in a manner as good as not there for
him. Of the great brother souls, flame-beacons through so many
lands and times, no one directly communicates with this great
soul. He is alone there, deep down in the bosom of the Wilderness; has to grow up so,-alone with Nature and his own
Thoughts.
(But, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thoughtful
man. His companions named him' Al Anin, The Faithful.' A
man of truth and fidelity; true in what he did, in what he spake




48              TIIE HERO AS PROPHET.               LECT. II
and thought.  They noted that he always meanb something.  A
man rather taciturn in speech; silent when there was nothing to
be said; but pertinent, wise, sincere, when he did speak; always
throwing light on the matter. This is the only sort of speech
worth speaking! Through life we find him to have been regarded
as an altogether solid, brotherly, genuine man.  A serious, sincere character; yet amiable, cordial, companionable, jocose even;
-a good laugh in him withal: there are men whose laugh is as
untrue as anything about them; who cannot laugh. One hears
of Mahomet's beauty: his fine sagacious honest face, brown florid
complexion, beaming black eyes — I somehow like too that vein
on the brow, which swelled up black when he was in anger: like
the'Ihorse-shoe vein' in Scott's 1Redgauntlet.  It was a kind of feature in the Hashem family, this black swelling vein in the brow;
Mahomet had it prominent, as would appear. A spontaneous,
passionate, yet just, true-meaning man! Full of wild faculty, fire
and light; of wild worth, all uncultured; working out his lifetask in the depths of the Desert there.
How he was placed with Kadijah, a rich Widow, as her Steward,
and travelled in her business to the Fairs of Syria; how he managed all, as one can well understand, with fidelity, adroitness;
how her gratitude, her regard for him grew; the story of their
marriage is altogether a graceful intelligible one, as told us by
the Arab authors.  He was twenty-five; she forty, though still
beautiful.  He seems to have lived in a most affectionate, peaceable, wholesome way with this wedded benefactress; loving her
truly, and her alone.  It goes greatly against the impostortheory, the fact that he lived in this entirely unexceptionable,
entirely quiet and commonplace way, till the heat of his years
was done. He was forty before he talked of any mission from
Heaven. All his irregularities, real and supposed, date from
after his fiftieth year, when the good Kadijah died. All his'ambition,' seemingly, had been, hitherto, to live an honest life;
his' fame,' the mere good opinion of neighbours that knew him,
had been sufficient hitherto. Not till he was already getting
old, the prurient heat of his life all burnt out, and peace growing
to be the chief thing this world could give him, did he start on
the' career of ambition;' and, belying all his past character and




rECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                    49
existence. set up as a wretched empty charlatan to acquire what
he could now no longer enjoy! For my share, I have no faith
whatever in that.
Ah no: this deep-hearted Son of the Wilderness, with his beaming black eyes, and open social deep soul, had other thoughts in
him than ambition. A silent great soul; he was one of those
who cannot but be in earnest; whom Natllre herself has appointed
to be sincere. While others walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there, this man could not screen himself
in formulas; he was alone with his own soul and the reality of
things. The great Mystery of Existence, as I said, glared in
upon him; with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays
could hide that unspeakable fact, " Here am I!" Such sincerity,
as we named it, has in very truth something of divine. The
word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature's own Heart.
Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else; —all else is
wind in comparison.  From of old, a thousand thoughts, in his
pilgrimings and wanderings, had been in this man: What am I?
What is this unfathomable Thing I live in, which men name Universe? What is Life; what is Death? What am I to believe?
What am I to do? The grim rocks of Mount Hara, of Mount
Sinai, the stern sandy solitudes answered not. The great Heaven rolling silent overhead, with its blue-glancing stars, answered
not. There was no answer. The man's own soul, and what of
God's inspiration dwelt there, had to answer!
It is the thing which all men have to ask themselves; which
we too have to ask, and answer. This wild man felt it to be of
infinite moment; all other things of no moment whatever in comparison. The jargon of argumentative Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine of Ai ab Idolatry: there was no
answer in these. A Hero, as I repeat, has this first distinction,
which indeed we may call first and last, the Alpha and Omega
of his whole Heroism, That he looks through the shews of things
into things. Use and wont, respectable hearsay, respectable formula: all these are good, or are not good. There is something
behind and beyond all these, which all these must correspond
with, be the image of, or they are-Idolatries;'bits of black' wood pretending to be God;' to the earnest soul a mockery and
4




50              THE HERO AS PROPHET.               LECT. TL
abomination, Idolatries never so gilded, waited on by heads of
the Koreish, will do nothing for this man. Though all men walk
by them, what good is it? The great Reality stands glaring
there upon him. He there has to answer it, or perish miserably.
Now, even now, or else through all Eternity never! Answer it;
thou must find an answer.-Ambition? What could all Arabia
do for this mar; with the crown of Greek Heraclius, of Persian
Chosroes, and all crowns in the Earth; —what could they all do
for him? It was not of the Earth he wanted to hear tell; it
was of the Heaven above and of the Hell beneath. All crowns
and sovereignties whatsoever, where would they in a few brief
years be? To be Sheik of Mecca or Arabia, and have a bit of
gilt wood put into your hand,-will that be one's salvation? I
decidedly think, not. We will leave it altogether, this impostorhypothesis, as not credible; not very tolerable even,, worthy
chiefly of dismissal by us.
Mahomet had been wont to retire yearly, during the month
Ramadhan, into solitude and silence; as indeed was the Arab
custom; a praiseworthy custom, which such a man, above all,
would find natural and useful. Communing with his own heart,
in the silence of the mountains; himself silent; open to the'small still voices:' it was a right natural custom! Mahomet
was in his fortieth year, when having withdrawn to a cavern in
Mount Hara, near Mecca, during this Ramadhan, to pass the
month in prayer, and meditation on those great questions, he one
day told his wife Kadijah, who with his household was with him
or near him this year, That by the unspeakable special favour of
Heaven he had now found it all out; was in doubt and darkness
no longer, but saw it all. That all these Idols and Formulas
were nothing, miserable bits of wood; that there was One God in
and over all; and we must leave all Idols, and look to Him.
That God is great; and that there is nothing else great! He is
the Reality. Wooden Idols are not real; He is real. He made
us at first, sustains us yet; we and all things are but the shadow
of Him; a transitory garment veiling the Eternal Splendour'Allah akbar, God is great;' —and then also' Islam,' That we
must submit to God. That our whole strength lies in resigned
submission to Him, whatsoever He do to us For this world, and




LECT. I.        THE HERO AS PROPHET.                      5.
for the other! The thing He sends to us, were it death and
worse than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves to God. —' If this be Islam,' says Goethe,' do we not all
live in Islam?' Yes, all of us that have any moral life; we all
live so. It has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not
merely to submit to Necessity,-Necessity will make him submit,
-but to know and believe well that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was the wisest, the best, the thing wanted there.
To cease his frantic pretension of scanning this great God'sWorld in his small fraction of a brain; to know that it had verily,
though deep beyond his soundings, a Just Law, that the soul of
it was Good;-that his part in it was to conform to the Law of
the Whole, and in devout silence follow that; not questioning
it, obeying it as unquestionable.
I say, this is yet the only true morality known. A man is
right and invincible, virtuous and on the road towards sure conquest, precisely while he joins himself to the great deep Law of
the World, in spite of all superficial laws, temporary appearances.
profit-and-loss calculations; he is victorious while he cooperates
with that great central Law, not victorious otherwise: —and surely
his first chance of cooperating with it, or getting into the course
of it, is to know with his whole soul that it is; that it is good,
and alone good!  This is the soul of Islam; it is properly the
soul of Christianity, —for Islam is definable as a confused form
of Christianity; had Christianity not been, neither had it been.
Christianity also commands us, before all, to be resigned to God.
We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give ear to no vain
cavils, vain sorrows and wishes: to know that we know nothing;
that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems; that
we have to receive whatsoever befals us as sent from God above,
and say, It is good and wise, God is great! "1 Though He slay me,
ret will I trust in Him." Islam means in its way Denial of Self,
Annihilation of Self. This is yet the highest Wisdom that Heaven has revealed to our Earth.
Such light had come, as it could, to illuminate the darkness of
this wild Arab soul. A confused dazzling splendour as of life and
Heaven, in the great darkness which threatened to be death: he
called it revelation and the angel Gabriel; —who of us yet car




52              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. m
know what to call it?  It is the'inspiration of the Almighty'
that giveth us understanding. To know; to get into the truth
of anything, is ever a mystic act,-of which the best Logics can
but babble on the surface.' Is not Belief the true god-announcing'Miracle?' says Novalis.-That Mahomet's whole soul, set in
flame with this grand Truth vouchsafed him, should feel as if it
were important and the only important thing, was very natural.
That Providence had unspeakably honoured him by revealing it,
saving him from death and darkness; that he therefore was
bound to make known the same to all creatures: this is what was
meant by' Mahomet is the Prophet of God;' this too is not without its true meaning.The good Kadijah, we can fancy, listened to him with wonder,
with doubt: at length she answered: Yes, it was true this that
he said. One can fancy too the boundless gratitude of Mahomet;
and how of all the kindnesses she had done him, this of believing
the earnest struggling word he now spoke was the greatest.' It'is certain,' says Novalis,'my Conviction gains infinitely, the mo-'ment another soul will believe in it.' It is a boundless favour.
-He never forgot this good Kadijah.  Long afterwards, Ayesha
his young favourite wife, a woman who indeed distinguished herself among the Moslem, by all manner of qualities, through her
whole long life; this young brilliant Ayesha was, one day, questioning him': " Now am not I better than Kadijah? She was a widow;
old, and had lost her looks: you love me better than you did
her?"-" No, by Allah!" answered Mahomet: "No, by Allah!
She believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole
world I had but one friend and she was that!"-Seid, his Slave,
also believed in him; these with his young Cousin Ali, Abu
Thaleb's son, were his first converts.
lie spoke of his Doctrine to this man and that; but the most
treated it with ridicule, with indifference: in three years, I think,
he had gained but thirteen followers. His progress was slow
enough. His encouragement to go on, was altogether the usual
encouragement that such a man in such a case meets. After
some three years of small success, he invited forty of his chief
kindred to an entertainment; and there stood up and told them
what his pretension was: that he had this thing to promulgate




SECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                    M
abroad to all men; that it was the highest thing, the one thing:
which of them would second him in that? Amid the doubt and
silence of all, young All, as yet a lad of sixteen, impatient of the
silence, started up, and exclaimed in passionate fierce language,
T'hat he would! The assembly, among whom was Abu Thaleb,
Ali's Father, could not be unfriendly to Mahomet; yet the sight
there of one unlettered elderly man, with a lad of sixteen, deciding
on such an enterprise against all mankind, appeared ridiculous
to them; the assembly broke up in laughter. Nevertheless it
proved not a laughable thing; it was a very serious thing! As
for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded
creature, as he shews himself, now and always afterwards; full
of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave
as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood.  He died by assassination in the Mosque at
Bagdad; a death occasioned by his own generous fairness, confidence in the fairness of others: he said, if the wound pro-vd not
unto death, they must pardon the Assassin; but if it did, then they
must slay him straightway, that so they too tA the same hour
might appear before God, and see which side of that quarrel was
the just one!
Mahomet naturally gave offence to the Koreish, Keepers of
the Caabah, superintendents of the Idols. One or two men of
influence had joined him: the thing spread slowly, but it was
spreading. Naturally he gave offence to everybody: Who is
this that pretends to be wiser than we all: that rebukes us all,
as mere fools and worshippers of wood! Abu Thaleb the good
Uncle spoke with him: Could he not be silent about all that;
believe it all for himself, and not trouble others, anger the chief
men, endanger himself and them all, talking of it? Mahomet
answered: If the Sun stood on his right hand and the Moon on
his left, ordering him to hold his peace, he could not obey! No:
there was something in this Truth he had got which was of Nature herself; equal in rank to Sun, or Moon, or whatsoever
thing Nature had made. It would speak itself there, so long as
the Almighty allowed it, in spite of Sun and Moon, and all Koreish and all men and things. It must do that, and could do no
other. MaEl'met answered so; and, they say,' burst into tears.'




54              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. n
Burst into tears: he felt that Abu Thaleb was good to him; that
the task he had got was no soft, but a stern and great one.
He went on speaking to who would listen to him; publishing
his Doctrine among the pilgrims as they came to Mecca; gaining
adherents in this place and that. Continual contradiction, hatred,
open or secret danger attended him. His powerful relations protected Mahomet himself; but by and by, on his own advice, all
his adherents had to quit Mecca, and seek refuge in Abyssinia
over the sea. The Koreish grew ever angrier; laid plots, and
swore oaths among them, to put Mahomet to death with their
own hands. Abu Thaleb was dead, the good Kadijah was dead.
Mahomet is not solicitous of sympathy from us; but his outlook
at this time was one of the dismallest.  He had to hide in caverns, escape in disguise; fly hither and thither; homeless, in
continual peril of his life. More than once it seemed all over
with him; more than once it turned on a straw, some rider's
horse taking fright or the like, whether Mahomet and his Doctrine had not ended there, and not been heard of at all. But it
was not to end so.
In the thirteenth year of his mission, finding his enemies all
banded against him, forty sworn men, one out of every tribe waiting to take his life, and no continuance possible at Mecca for him
any longer, Mahomet fled to the place then called Yathreb, where
he had gained some adherents; the place they now call Medina,
or' _Medinat al Nabi, the City of the Prophet,' from that circumstance. It lay some 200 miles off, through rocks and deserts;
not without great difficulty, in such mood as we may fancy, he
escaped thither, and found welcome. The whole East dates its
era from this Flight, Hegira as they name it: the Year 1 of this
Hegira is 622 of our Era, the fifty third of Mahomet's life. He
was now becoming an old man; his friends sinking round him
one by one; his path desolate, encompassed with danger: unless
he could find hope in his own heart, the outward face of things
was but hopeless for him. It is so with all men in the like case.
Hitherto Mahomet had professed to publish his Religion by the
way of preaching and persuasion alone. But now, driven foully
out of his native country, since unjust men had not only given no
ear to his earnest Heaven's-message, the deep cry of his heart,




MMCT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                    M5
but would not even let him live if he kept speaking it, —the wild
Son of the Desert resolved to defend himself, like a man and
Arab. If the Koreish will have it so, they shall have it. Tidings, felt to be of infinite moment to them and all men, they
would not listen to these; would trample them down by sheer
violence, steel and murder: well, let steel try it then! Ten
years more this Mahomet had; all of fighting, of breathless impetuous toil and struggle; with what result we know.
Much has been said of Mahomet's propagating his Religion by
the sword. It is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of
the Christian Religion, that it propagated itself peaceably in the
way of preaching and conviction. Yet withal, if we take this for
an argument of the truth or falsehood of a religion, there is a
radical mistake in it. The sword indeed: but where will you
get your sword! Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a miowrity of one. In one man's head alone, there it dwells
as yet.  One man alone of the whole world believes it; there is
one man against all men. That he take a sword, and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must first get your
sword!  On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can.
We do not find, of the Christian Religion either, that it always
disdained the sword, when once it had got one. Charlemagne's
conversion of the Saxons was not by preaching. I care little
about the sword: I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in
this world, with any sword or tongue or implement it has, or can
lay hold of. We will let it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight,
and to the uttermost bestir itself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that it will, in the long-run, conquer
nothing which does not deserve to be conquered.  What is better than itself, it cannot put away, but only what is worse. In
this great Duel, Nature herself is umpire, and can do no wrong:
the thing which is deepest-rooted in Nature, what we call truest,
that thing and not the other will be found growing at last.
Here however, in reference to much that there is in Mahomet
and his success, we are to rememler what an umpire Nature is;
what a greatness, composure of depth and tolerance there is in
her. You take wheat to east into the Earth's bosom: your
wheat may be mixed with chaffj chopped straw, barn-sweepings,




56              THE HERO AS PROPHET.               LECT Z
dust, and all imaginable rubbish; no matter: you cast it into the
kind just Earth; she grows the wheat-the whole rubbish she
silently absorbs, shrouds it in, says nothing of the rubbish. The
yellow wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent about all
the rest,-has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and
makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature. She
is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so.
There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbour to. Alas, is not this the history of all highest Truth
that comes or ever came into the world?  The bode of them
all is imperfection, an element of light in darkness: to us
they have to come embodied in mere Logic, in some merely
scientific Theorem of the Universe; which cannot be complete;
which cannot but be found, one day, incomplete, erroneous, and
so die and disappear. The body of all Truth dies; and yet
in all, I say, there is a soul which never dies; which in new and
ever-nobler embodiment lives immortal as man himself! It is
the way with Nature. The genuine essence of Truth never dies.
That it be genuine, a voice from the great Deep of Nature, there
is the point at Nature's judgment-seat. What we call pure or
impure, is not with her the final question. Not how much chaff
is in you; but whether you have any wheat. Pure?  I might
say to many a man: Yes, you are pure; pure enough; but you
are chaff,-insincere hypothesis, hearsay, formality; you never
were in contact with the great heart of the Universe at all; you
are properly neither pure nor impure; you are nothing, Nature
has no business with you.
Mahomet's Creed we called a kind of Christianity; and really,
if we look at the wild rapt earnestness with which it was believed
and laid to heart, I should say a better kind than that of those
miserable Syrian Sects, with their vain janglings about Hrnowiousion and Homnoousion, the head full of worthless noise, the heart
empty and dead! The truth of it is embedded in portentous error and falsehood; but the truth of it makes it be believed, not
the falsehood: it succeeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity, but a living kind; with a heart-lif3 in it; not dead, chop



.ECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                     51
ping barren logic merely! Out of all that rubbish of Arab idolatries, argumentative theologies, traditions, subtleties, rumours
and hypotheses of Greeks and Jews, with their idle wiredrawings,
this wild man of the Desert, with his wild sincere heart, earnest
as death and life, with his great flashing natural eyesight, had
seen into the kernel of the matter. Idolatry is nothing: these
Wooden Idols of yours,'ye rub them with oil and wax, and the
flies stick on them,'-these are wood, I tell you! They can do
nothing for you; they are an impotent blasphemous pretence; a
horror and abomination, if ye knew them.  God alone is; God
alone has power; He made us, He can kill us and keep us alive:
"Allah abkar, God is great."  Understand that His will is the
best for you; that howsoever sore to flesh and blood, you will
find it the wisest, best: you are bound to take it so; in this
world and in the next, you have no other thing that you can do!
And now if the wild idolatrous men did believe this, and with
their fiery hearts lay hold of it to do it, in what form soever it
came to them, I say it was well worthy of being believed. In
one form or the other, I say it is still the one thing worthy of
being believed by all men.  Man does hereby become the highpriest of this Temple of a World. He is in harmony with the
Decrees of the Author of this World; co-operating with them,
not vainly withstanding them: I know, to this day, no better
definition of Duty than that same. All that is right includes itself in this of co-operating with the real Tendency of the World:
you succeed by this (the World's Tendency will succeed), you
are good, and in the right course there.  Homoiousion, Homoousion, vain logical jangle, then or before or at any time, may jangle itself out, and go whither and how it likes: this is the thing
it all struggles to mean, if it would mean anything. If it do not
succeed in meaning this, it means nothing. Not that Abstractions, logical Propositions, be correctly worded or incorrectly;
but that living concrete Sons of Adam do lay this to heart: that
is the important point. Islam devoured all these vain jangling
Sects; and I think had right to do so. It was a Reality, direct
from the great Heart of Nature once more. Arab idolatries, Syrian formulas, whatsoever was not equally real, had to go up in
flame,-mere dead fuel, in various senses, for this which was fire.
4*




.5$             THE HERO AS PROPHET.                  LECT. I&
It was during these wild warfarings and strugglings, especially after the Flight to Mecca, that Mahomet dictated at intervals
his Sacred Book, which they name Koran, or Reading,' Thing to
be read.' This is the Work, he and his disciples made so much
of, asking all the world, Is not that a miracle? The Mahometans regard their Koran with a reverence which few Christians
pay even to their Bible. It is admitted everywhere as the standard of all law and all practice; the thing to be gone upon in
speculation and life: the message sent direct out of Heaven,
which this Earth has to conform  to, and walk by; the thing to
be read.  Their Judges decide by it; all Moslem are bound to
study it, seek in it for the light of their life. They have mosques
where it is all read daily; thirty relays of priests take it up
in succession, get through the whole each day. There, for twelve
hundred years, has the voice of this Book, at all moments, kept
sounding through the ears and the hearts of so many men. We
hear of Mahometan Doctors that had read it seventy thousand
times!
Very curious: if one sought for'discrepancies of national
taste,' here surely were the most eminent instance of that! We
also can read the Koran; our Translation of it, by Sale, is known
to be a very fair one.  I must say, it is as toilsome reading as I
ever undertook. A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite;
endless iterations. longwindedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite; —insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense
of duty could carry any European through the Koran.  We read
in it, as we might in the State-Paper Office, unreadable masses of
lumber, that perhaps we may get some glimpses of a remarkable
man. It is true we have it under disadvantages: the Arabs see
more method in it than we. Mahomet's followers found the Koran lying all in fractions, as it had been written down at first promulgation; much of it, they say, on shoulder-blades of mutton,
flung pellmell into a chest: and they published it, without any
discoverable order as to time or otherwise — merely trying, as
would seem, and this not very strictly, to put the longest chapters first. The real beginning of it, in that way, lies almost at
the end: for the earliest portions were the shortest. Read in its
historical sequence it perhaps would not be so bad.  Much of it,




LECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                      59
too, they say, is rhythmic; a kind of wild chaunting song, in the
original.  This may be a great point; much perhaps has been
lost in the Translation here. Yet with every allowance, one feels
it difficult to see how any mortal ever could consider this Koran
as a Book written in Heaven, too good for the Earth; as a wellwritten book, or indeed as a book at all; and not a bewildered
rhapsody; written, so far as writing goes, as badly as almost any
book ever was! So much for national discrepancies, and the
standard of taste.
Yet I should say, it was not unintelligible how the Arabs might
so love it. When once you get this confused coil of a Koran
fairly off your hands, and have it behind you at a distance, the
essential type of it begins to disclose itself; and in this there is
a merit quite other than the literary one.  If a book come from
the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and
authorcraft are of small amount to that.  One would say the primary character of the Koran is this of its genuineness, of its being
a bona-fide book. Prideaux. I know, and others have represented
it as a mere bundle of juggleries; chapter after chapter got up
to excuse and varnish the author's successive sins, forward his
ambitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss all that.
I do not assert Mahomet's continual sincerity: who is continually
sincere? But I confess I can make nothing of the critic, in these
times, who would accuse him of deceit prepense; of conscious deceit generally, or perhaps at all — still more, of living in a mere
element of conscious deceit, and writing this Koran as a forger
and juggler would have done! Every candid eye, I think, will
read the Koran far otherwise than so. It is the confused ferment
of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even
read; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself
in words. With a kind of breathless intensity he strives to utter
himself; the thoughts crowd on him pellmell; for very multitude
of things to say he can get nothing said. The meaning that is
in him shapes itself into no form of composition, is stated in no
sequence, method, or coherence;-they are not shaped at all, these
thoughts of his; flung out unshaped, as they struggle and tumr
ble there, in their chaotic inarticulate state.  We said' stupid:
~7  tmf'    zt —ijXlNty ls'oy no means tie character 9o Ylahomet's




60              THE HERO  AS PROPHET.               LECT. II.
Book; it is natural uncultivation rather.  The man has not
studied speaking; in the haste and pressure of continual fighting,
has not time to mature himself into fit speech. The panting
breathless haste and vehemence of a man struggling in the thick
of battle for life and salvation; this is the mood he is in! A
headlong haste; for very magnitude of meaning he cannot get
himself articulated into words. The successive utterances of a
soul in that mood, coloured by the various vicissitudes of threeand-twenty years; now well uttered, now worse: this is the
Koran.
For we are to consider Mahomet, through these three-andtwenty years, as the centre of a world wholly in conflict. Battles with the Koreish and Heathen, quarrels among his own
people, backslidings of his own wild heart; all this kept him in a
perpetual whirl, his soul knowing rest no more. In wakeful
nights, as one may fancy, the wild soul of the man, tossing amid
these vortices, would hail any light of a decision for them as a
veritable light from Heaven; any making up of his mind, so
blessed, indispensable for him there, would seem the inspiration
of a Gabriel.  Forger and juggler? No, no! This great fiery
heart, seething, simmering like a great furnace of thoughts, was
not a juggler's.  His Life was a Fact to him; this God's Universe an awful Fact and Reality. He has faults enough. The
man was an uncultured semi-barbarous Son of Nature, much of
the Bedouin still clinging to him: we must take him for that.
But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Impostor without eyes
or heart, practising for a mess of pottage such blasphemous swindlery, forgery of celestial documents, continual high-treason
against his Maker and Self, we will not and cannot take him.
Sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran;
what had rendered it precious to the wild Arab men. It is, after
all, the first and last merit in a book; gives rise to.merits of all
kinds, —nay, at bottom, it alone can give rise to merit of any
kind. Curiously, through these incondite masses of tradition,
vituperation, complaint, ejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true
direct insight, of what we might almost call poetry, is found
straggling. (The body of the Book is made up of mere tradition.
and as it were vehement enthusiastic extempore preaching.' He




LECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                     61
returns forever to the old stories of the Prophets as they went
current in the Arab memory: how Prophet after Prophet, the
Prophet Abraham, the Prophet Hud, the Prophet Moses, Christian and other real and fabulous Prophets, had come to this
Tribe and to that. warning men of their sin; and been received
by them even as he Mahomet was,-which is a great solace to
him. These things he repeats ten, perhaps twenty times; again
and ever again, with wearisome iteration; has never done repeating them. A brave Samuel Johnson, in his forlorn garret,
might con over the Biographies of Authors in that way! This
is the great staple of the Koran. But curiously, through all this,
comes ever and anon some glance as of the real thinker and seer.
He has actually an eye for the world, this Mahomet: with a certain directness and rugged vigour, he brings home still, to our
heart, the thing his own heart has been opened to. I make but
little of his praises of Allah, which many praise; they are borrowed I suppose mainly from the Hebrew, at least they are far
surpassed there. But the eye that flashes direct into the heart
of things, and sees the truth of them; this is to me a highly interesting object. Great Nature's own gift; which she bestows
on all; but which only one in the thousand does not cast sorrowfully away: it is what I call sincerity of vision; the test of a sincere heart. Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers
impatiently: I can work no miracles. I?'I am  a Public
Preacher;' appointed to preach this doctrine to all creatures.
Yet the world, as we can see had really from of old been all one
great miracle to him. Look over the world, says he; is it not
wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly'a sign to you,' if your
eyes were open! This Earth, God made it for you;'appointed
paths in it;' you can live in it, go to and fro on it.-The clouds
in the dry country of Arabia, to Mahomet they are very wonderful: Great clouds, he says, born in the deep bosom of the Upper
Immensity, where do they come from! They hang there, the
great black monsters; pour down their rain-deluges'to revive
a dead earth,' and grass springs, and'tall leafy palm trees with
their date clusters hanging round. Is not that a sign?' Your
cattle too, -Allah made them: serviceable dumb creatures; they
change the grass into milk; you have your cl thing "rom them,




62              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. II
very strange creatures; they come ranking home at evening
time,'and,' adds he,'and are a credit to you!' Ships also,-he
talks often about ships: Huge moving mountains, they spread
out their cloth wings, go bounding through the water there,
Heaven's wind driving them; anon they lie motionless, God has
withdrawn the wind, they lie dead, and cannot stir! Miracles?
cries he. What miracle would you have? Are not you your
selves there? God made you,'shaped you out of a little clay.
You were small once; a few years ago ye were not at all. Y6
have beauty, strength, thoughts,'ye have compassion on one
another.' Old age comes on you, and gray hairs; your strength
fades into feebleness; ye sink down, and again are not.' Ye have
compassion on one another:' this struck me much: Allah might
have made you having no compassion on one another,-how had
it been then! This is a great direct thought, a glance at firsthand into the very fact of things. Rude vestiges of poetic genius,
of whatsoever is best and truest, are visible in this man. A strong
untutored intellect; eyesight, heart: a strong wild man,-might
have shaped himself into Poet, King, Priest, any kind of Hez-o.
To his eyes it is forever clear that this world wholly is miraculous. He sees what, as we said once before, all great thinkers,
the rude Scandinavians themselves, in one way or other, have
contrived to see: That this so solid-looking material world is, at
bottom, in very deed, Nothing; is a visual and tactual Manifestation of God's power and presence,-a shadow hung out by Him
on the bosom of the void Infinite; nothing more. The mountains, he says, these great rock-mountains, they shall dissipate
themselves'like clouds;' melt into the Blue as clouds do, and
not be! He figures the Earth, in the Arab fashion, Sale tells
us, as an immense Plain or flat Plate of ground, the mountains
are set on that to steady it. At the Last Day, they shall disappear' like clouds;' the whole Earth shall go spinning, whirl itself off into wreck, and as dust and vapour vanish in the Inane.
Allah withdraws his hand from it, and it ceases to be. The universal empire of Allah, presence everywhere of an unspeakable
Power, a Splendour and a Terror not to be named, as the true
force, essence and reality, in all things whatsoever, was con.
tinually clear to this man. What a modern talks of by the




LECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                    63
name, Forces of Nature, Laws of Nature; and does not figure as
a divine thing; not even as one thing at all, but as a set of
things, undivine enough,-saleable, curious, good for propelling
steam-ships! With our Sciences and Cyclopaedias, we are apt to
forget the divineness, in those laboratories of ours. We ought not
to forget it! That once well forgotten, I know not what else were
worth remembering. Most sciences, I think, were then a very
dead thing; withered, contentious, empty; —a thistle in late aut2fD. T1J oe best sieieW, wi~tJDY tbg s, id bkta3 tbe Xerod Iisabm
it is not the growing tree and forest,-which gives ever-new timber among other things! Man cannot know either, unless he can
worship in some way. His knowledge is a pedantry, and dead
thistle, otherwise.
OMuch has been said and written about the sensuality of Mahomet's Religion; more than was just.  The indulgences, criminal to us, which he permitted, were not of his appointment; he
found them practised, unquestioned from immemorial time in
Arabia; what he did was to curtail them, restrict them, not on
one but on many sides. His Religion is not an easy one; with
rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas, prayers five
times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not' succeed by being an easy religion.' As if indeed any religion, or cause holding of religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men
to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense,-sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the
next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. The
poor swearing soldier, hired to be shot, has his' honour of a soldier,' different from drill-regulations and the shilling a day. It
is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things and
vindicate himself under God's Heaven as a god-made Man, that
the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Shew him the way of doing
that, the dullest daydrudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man
greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnega
tion, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of
man. Kind)e the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that
burns up all lower considerations. Not happiness, but something
higher: one sees this even in the frivolous classes, with their' point of honour' and the like. Not by flattering our appetites;




64              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. 11
no, by awakening the Heroic that slumbers in every heart, can
any Religion gain followers.
Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not
a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a
common voluptuary, intent mainly on base enjoyments,-nay on
enjoyments of any kind. His household was of the frugalest;
his common diet barley-bread and water: sometimes for months
there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth. They record
with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own
cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what
vulgar men toil for. Not a bad man, I should say; something
better in him than hunger of any sort,-or these wild Arab men,
fighting and jostling three-and-twenty years at his hand, in close
contact with him always, would not have reverenced him so!
They were wild men, bursting ever and anon into quarrel, into
all kinds of fierce sincerity; without right worth and manhood, no
man could have commanded them. They called him Prophet,
you say? Why, he stood there face to face with them; bare, not
enshrined in any mystery; visibly clouting his own cloak, cobbling his own shoes; fighting, counselling, ordering in the midst
of them: they must have seen what kind of man he was, let him
be called what you like! No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed
as this man in a cloak of his own clouting. During three-andtwenty years of rough actual trial. I find something of a veritable Hero necessary for that, of itself.
His last words are a prayer; broken ejaculations of a heart
struggling up, in trembling hope, towards its Maker. We cannot
say that his religion made him worse; it made him better; good,
not bad. Generous things are recorded of him; when he lost his
Daughter, the thing he answers is, in his own dialect, every way
sincere, and yet equivalent to that of Christians,' The Lord giv-'eth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the'Lord.' He answered in like manner of Seid, his emancipated
well-beloved Slave, the second of the believers. Seid had fallen
in the War of Tabic, the first of Mahomet's fightings with the
Greeks.  Mahomet said, It was well; Seid had done his Master's
work, Seid had now gone to his Master: it was all well with
Seid. Yet Seid's daughter found him weeping over the body;




AECT. II.         THE HERO AS PROPHET.                  65
the old gray-haired man melting in tears! " What do I see?"
said she.-" You see a friend weeping over his friend." —He went
out for the last time into the mosque, two days before his death;
asked, If he had injured any man?  Let his own back bear the
stripes. If he owed any man? A voice answered, " Yes, me
three drachms," borrowed on such an occasion. Mahomet ordered
them to be paid: " Better be in shame now," said he, " than at
the Day of Judgment."-You remember Kadijah, and the " No,
by Allah!" Traits of that kind shew us the genuine man, the
brother of us all, brought visible through twelve centuries,-the
veritable Son of our common Mother.
Withal I like Mahomet for his total freedom from cant. He is
a rough, self-helping son of the wilderness; does not pretend to
be what he is not.  There is no ostentatious pride in him; but
neither does he go much upon humility: he is there as he can be,
in cloak and shoes of his own clouting; speaks plainly to all
manner of Persian Kings, Greek Emperors, what it is they are
bound to do; knows well enough, about himself,' the respect due
unto thee.' In a life-and-death war with Bedouins, cruel things
could not fail; but neither are acts of mercy, of noble natural
pity and generosity wanting. Mahomet makes no apology for
the one, no boast of the other. They were each the free dictate
of his heart; each called for, there and then. Not a mealymouthed man! A candid ferocity, if the case call for it, is in
him; he does not mince matters! The War of Tabuic is a thing
he often speaks of: his men refused, many of them, to march on
that occasion; pleaded the heat of the weather, the harvest, and
so forth; he can never forget that. Your harvest 2 It lasts for
a day. What will become of your harvest through all eternity?
Hot weather?  Yes, it was hot;'but Hell will be hotter!
Sometimes a rough sarcasm turns up: He says to the unbelievers, Ye shall have the just measure of your deeds at that Great`O'.  T   m       t ehe  ak tT  Y\;`M  sQ0 k'.\\e sa rt,
weight!-Everywhere he fixes the matter in his eye; he sees it:
his heart, now and then, is as if struck dumb by the greatness of
it.' Assuredly,' he says: that word, in the Koran, is written
down sometimes as a sentence by itself:'Assuredly.'
No Dilettantism in this Mahomet;- it is a business of Reproba



66              TIIE HERO AS PROPHET.                 LECT. II
tion and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in
deadly earnest about it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation,
a kind of amateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with
Truth: this is the sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable
sins. It consists in the heart and soul of the man never having
been open to Truth:-' living in a vain show.' Such a man not
only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a falsehood.
The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep
in him, in quiet paralysis of life-death. The very falsehoods of Mahomnet are truer than the truths of such a man. He is the insincere man: smooth-polished, respectable in some times and
places; inoffensive, says nothing harsh to anybody; most cleanly
-;-just as carbonic acid is, which is death and poison..,We will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always of the
superfinest sort; yet it can be said that there is always a tendency to good in them; that they are the true dictates of a heart
aiming towards what is just and true. The sublime forgiveness
of Christianity, turning of the other cheek when the one has been
smitten, is not here: you are to revenge yourself, but it is to be
in measure, not over much, or beyond justice. On the other
hand, Islam, like any great Faith, and insight into the essence
of man, is a perfect equalizer of men: the soul of one believer
outweighs all earthly kingships: all men according to Islam too,
are equal. Mahomet insists not on the propriety of giving alms,
but on the necessity of it: he marks down by law how much you
are to give, and it is at your peril if you neglect. The tenth part
of a man's annual income, whatever that may be, is the property
of the poor, of those that are afflicted and need help. Good all
this: the natural voice of humanity, of pity and equity dwelling
in the heart of this wild Son of Nature speaks so.
x Mahomet's Paradise is sensual, his Hell sensual: true; in the
one and the other there is enough that shocks all spiritual feeling in us. But we are to recollect that the Arabs already had it
so; that Mahomet in whatever he changed of it, softened and di
minished all this. The worst sensualities, too, are the work of
doctors, followers of his, not his work. In the Koran there is
really very little said about the joys of Paradise; they are intimated rather than insisted on, Nor is it forgotten that the high



LECT. II.       THE HERO AS PROPHET.                      67
est joys even there shall be spiritual; the pure Presence of the
Highest, this shall infinitely transcend all other joys. He says,'Your salutation shall be, Peace.'  Salam, Have Peace!-the
thing that all rational souls long for, and seek, vainly here below,
as the one blessing.' Ye shall sit on seats facing one another:
all grudges shall be taken away out of your hearts.' All grudges!
Ye shall love one another freely; for each of you, in the eyes of
his brothers, there will be Heaven enough!
pn reference to this of the sensual Paradise and Mahomet's
sensuality, the sorest chapter of all for us, there were many things
to be said; which it is not convenient to enter upon here. Two
remarks only I shall make, and therewith leave it to your candour.  The first is furnished me by Goethe; it is a casual hint
of his which seems well worth taking note of. In one of his Delineations, in Meister's Travels it is, the hero comes upon a Society
of men with very strange ways, one of which was this: "W e require," says the Master, " that each of our people shall restrict himself in one direction," shall go right against his desire in one matter, and make himself do the thing he does not wish, " should we
allow him the greater latitude on all other sides." There seems
to me a great justness in this. Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to
slavery by them that is. Let a man assert withal that he is king
over his habitudes; that he could and would shake them off, on
cause shewn: this is an excellent law.  The Month Ramadhan
for the Moslem, much in Mahomet's Religion, much in his own
Life, bears in that direction; if not by forethought, or clear purpose of moral improvement on his part, then by a sudden healthy
manful instinct, which is as good.
But there is another thing to be said about the Mahometan
Heaven and Hell. This namely, that, however gross and material they may be, they are an emblem of an everlasting truth, not
always so well remembered elsewhere. That gross sensual Paradise of his; that horrible flaming Hell; the great enormous Day
of Judgment he perpetually insists on: what is all this but a
rude shadow, in the rude Bedouin imagination, of that grand spiritual Fact, and Beginning of Facts, which it is ill for us too if
we do not all know and feel: the Infinite Nature of Duty 




68              THE HERO AS PROPHET.                LECT. M
That man's actions here are of infinite moment to him, and never
die or end at all; that man with his little life, reaches upwards high
as Heaven, downwards low as Hell, and in his threescore years
of Time holds an Eternity fearfully and wonderfully hidden: all
this had burnt itself, as in flame-characters, into the wild Arab
soul. As in flame and lightning, it stands written there; awful,
unspeakable, ever present to him.  With bursting earnestness,
with a fierce savage sincerity, half-articulating, not able to articulate, he strives to speak it, bodies it forth in that Heaven
and that Hell. Bodied forth in what way you will, it is the
first of all truths. It is venerable under all embodiments.
Whlat is the chief end of man here below? Mahomet has answered this question, in a way that might put some of us to
shame! He does not, like a Bentham, a Paley, take Right and
Wrong, and calculate the profit and loss, ultimate pleasure of the
one and of the other; and summing all up by addition and subtraction into a net result, ask you, Whether on the whole the
Right does not preponderate considerably? No; it is not better
to do the one than the other; the one is to the other as life is to
death,-as Heaven is to Hell.  The one must in nowise be done,
the other in nowise left undone. You shall not measure them;
they are incommensurable: the one is death eternal to a man, the
other is life eternal. Benthamee Utility, virtue by Profit and
Loss; reducing this God's-world to a dead brute Steam-engine,
the infinite celestial Soul of Man to a kind of Hay-balance for
weighing hay and thistles on, pleasures and pains on:-If you
ask me which gives, Mahomet or they, the beggalier and falser
view of Man and his Destinies in this Universe, I will answer, It
is not Mahomet!-' On the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Mahomet's
is a kind of Christianity; has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest looking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections.  The Scandinavian God Wish, the god of all rude
men,-this has been enlarged into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a
Heaven symbolical of sacred Duty, and to be earned by faith and
welldoing, by valiant action, and a. divine patience which is still
more valiant. It is Scandinavian Paganism, and a truly celestial
element superadded to that. Call it not false; look not at the




LECT. H.        THE HERO AS PROPHET.                    69
falsehood of it, look at the truth of it. For these twelve certuries,
it has been the religion and life-guidance of the fifth part of the
wnole kindred of Mankind. Above all things, it has been a religion heartily believed.  These Arabs believe their religion, and
try to live by itl No Christians, since the early ages, or only
perhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood
by their Faith as the Moslem do by theirs,-believing it wholly,
fronting Time with it, and Eternity with it. This night the
watchman on the streets of Cairo when he cries "Who goes?"
will hear from the passenger, along with his answer, " There is
no God but God."  Allah abkar, Islam, sounds through the souls,
and whole daily existence, of these dusky millions. Zealous missionaries preach it abroad among Malays, black Papuans, brutal
Idolaters — displacing what is worse, nothing that is better or
good.
"'To the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness into light;
Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people,
roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world:
a Hero-Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could
believe: see the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small has
grown world-great; within one century afterwards, Arabia is at
Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on that; —glancing in val3ur
and splendour and the light of genius, Arabia shines through
long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great, lifegiving. The history of a Nation becomes fruitful, soul-elevating,
great, so soon as it believes. These Arabs, the man Mahomet,
and that one century,-is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark,
on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable sand; but lo, the
sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi tc
Grenaaa  Il saia the Great Man was aways a~s Yigntinmg Aoft bi
Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they
too would flame.
6




LECTURE III.
[Tuesday, 12th May, iS0.]
THE HERO AS POET.  DANTE; SHAKSPEARE.
TIHE Hero as Divinity, the Hero as Prophet, are productions
of old ages; not to be repeated in the new.  They presuppose a
certain rudeness of conception, which the progress of mere scientific knowledge puts an end to. There needs to be, as it were, a
world vacant, or almost vacant of scientific forms, if men in their
loving wonder are to fancy their fellow man either a god or one
speaking with the voice of a god. Divinity and Prophet are past.
We are now to see our Hero in the less ambitious, but also less
questionable character of Poet; a character which does not pass.
The Poet is a heroic figure belonging to all ages; whom all ages
possess, when once he is produced, whom the newest age as the
oldest may produce;-and will produce, always when Nature
pleases.  Let Nature send a Hero-soul; in no age is it other than
possible that he may be shaped into a Poet.
HIero, Prophet, Poet, —many different names, in different times
and places, do we give to Great Men; according to varieties we
note in them, according to the sphere in which they have displayed themselves! We might give many more names on this same
principle. I will remark again, however, as a fact not unimportant to be understood, that the different sphere constitutes the
grand origin of such distinction; that the Hero can be Poet,
Prophet, King, Priest or what you will, according to the kind of
world he finds himself born into. I confess, I have no notion of
a truly great man that could not be all sorts of men.  The Poet
who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas, would
never make a stanza worth much.  Hie could not sing the Heroic
warrior, unless he himself were at least a Heroic warrior too. I
fancy there is in him the Politician, the Thinker, Legislator, Phi



LEC1 III.         THE HERO AS POET.                      71
losopher;-in one or the other degree, he could have been, he is
all these. So too I cannot understand how a Mirabeau, with
that great glowing heart, with the fire that was in it, with the
bursting tears that were in it, could not have written verses,
tragedies, poems, and touched all hearts in that way, had his
course of life and education led him thitherward. The grand
fundamental character is that of Great Man; that the man be
great. Napoleon has words in him which are like Austerlitz
Battles. Louis Fourteenth's Marshals are a kind of poetical
men withal; the things Turenne says are full of sagacity and
geniality, like sayings of Samuel Johnson. The great heart, the
clear deep-seeing eye: there it lies; no man whatever, in what
province soever, can prosper at all without these. Petrarch and
Boccaccio did diplomatic messages, it seems, quite well; one can
easily believe it; they had done things a little harder than these!
Burns, a gifted song-writer, might have made a still better Mirabeau. Shakspeare,-one knows not what he could not have made,
in the supreme degree.
True, there are aptitudes of Nature too. Nature does not
make all great men, more than all other men, in the self-same
mould. Varieties of aptitude doubtless; but infinitely more of
circumstance; and far oftenest it is the latter only that are looked to. But it is as with common men in the learning of trades.
You take any man, as yet a vague capability of a man, who could
be any kind of craftsman; and make him into a smith, a earpenter, a mason: he is then and thenceforth that and nothing else.
And if, as Addison complains, you sometimes see a street-porter
staggering under his load on spindle-shanks, and near at hand a
tailor with the frame of a Samson handling a bit of cloth and
small Whitechapel needle,-it cannot be considered that aptitude
of Nature alone has been consulted here either!-The Great Man
also, to what shall he be bound apprentice?  Given your Hero,
is he to become Conqueror, King, Philosopher, Poet? It is an
inexplicably complex controversial-calculation between the world
and him! He will read the world and its laws; the world with
its laws will be there to be read. What the world, on this matter
shall permit and bid is, as we said, the most important fact about
the world..



72                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. IIL
Poet and Prophet differ greatly in our loose modern notions of
them. In some old languages, again, the titles are synonymous;
Fates means both Prophet and Poet: and indeed at all times,
Prophet and Poet, well understood, have much kindred of meaning. Fundamentally indeed they are still the same; in this most
important respect especially, That they have penetrated both of
them into the sacred mystery of the Universe; what Goethe calls'the open secret.; "Which is the great secret?" asks one. —
"The open secret,"-open to all, seen by almost none! That divine mystery, which lies everywhere in all Beings,' the Divine
Idea of the World, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance,'
as Fichte styles it; of which all Appearance, from the starry sky
to the grass of the field, but especially the Appearance of Man
and his work, is but the vesture, the embodiment that renders it
visible. This divine mystery is in all times and in all places;
veritably is. In most times and places it is greatly overlooked;
and the Universe, definable always in one or the other dialect, as
the realised Thought of God, is considered a trivial, inert, commonplace matter,-as if, says the Satirist, it were a dead thing,
which some upholsterer had put together! It could do no good,
at present, to speak much about this; but it is a pity for every
one of us if we do not know it, live ever in the knowledge of it.
Really a most mournful pity: —a failure to live at all, if we live
otherwise!
But now, I say, whoever may forget this divine mystery, the
Vates, whether Prophet or Poet, has penetrated into it; is a man
sent hither to make it more impressively known to us. That
always is his message; he is to reveal that to us, —that sacred
mystery which he more than others lives ever present with.
While others forget it, he knows it; —I might say, he has been
driven to know it; without consent asked of him, he finds himself living in it, bound to live in it.  Once more, here is no Hearsay, but a direct Insight and Belief; this man too could not help
being a sincere man! Whosoever may live in the shews of things,
it is for him a necessity of nature to live in the very fact of things.
A man, once more, in earnest with the Universe, though all others
were but toying with it.  He is a Vates, first of all, in virtue of




LEMC.             THE HERO AS POET.                      73
being sincere. So far Poet and Prophet, participators in the'open secret,' are one.
With respect to their distinction again: The Vates Prophet,
we might say, has seized that sacred mystery rather on the moral
side, as Good and Evil, Duty and Prohibition; the Vates Poet
on what the Germans call the mEsthetic side, as Beautiful, and the
like. The one we may call a revealer of what we are to do, the
other of what we are to love. But indeed these two provinces
run into one another, and cannot be disjoined. The Prophet too
has his eye on what we are to love: how else shall he know what
it is we are to do? The highest Voice ever heard on this Earth
said withal, " Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither
do they spin: yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these." A glance, that, into the deepest deep of Beauty.'The lilies of the field,'-dressed finer than earthly princes,
springing up there in the humble furrow-field; a beautiful eye
looking out on you, from the great inner Sea of Beauty! How
could the rude Earth make these, if her Essence, rugged as she
looks and is, were not inwardly Beauty?-In this point of view,
too, a saying of Goethe's, which has staggered several, may have
meaning:'The Beautiful,' he intimates,'is higher than the
Good; the Beautiful includes in it the Good.' The true Beautiful; which however, I have said somewhere,'differs from the
false, as Heaven does from Vauxhall!' So much for the distinction and identity of Poet and Prophet.In ancient and also in modern periods, we find a few Poets who
are accounted perfect; whom it were a kind of treason to find fault
with.  This is noteworthy; this is right: yet in strictness it is
only an illusion. At bottom, clearly enough, there is no perfect
Poet! A vein of Poetry exists in the hearts of all men; no iman
is made altogether of Poetry. We are all poets when we read a
poem well. The'imagination that shudders at the Hell of Dante,'
is not that the same faculty, weaker in degree, as Dante's own?
No one but Shakspeare can embody, out of Saxo Grammaticus,
the story of Hamlet as Shakspeare did: but every one models
some kind of story out of it; every one embodies it better or
worse. We need not spend time in defining. Where there is no
specific difference, as between round and square, all definition




71                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. III
must be more or less arbitrary.  A man that has so much more
of the poetic element developed in him as to have become noticeable, will be called Poet by his neighbours. World-Poets too,
those whom we are to take for perfect Poets, are settled by critics in the same way. One who rises so far above the general
level of Poets will, to such and such critics, seem a Universal
Poet; as he ought to do. And yet it is, and must be, an arbitrary distinction. All Poets, all men, have some touches of the
Universal; no man is wholly made of that. Most Poets are very
soon forgotten; but not the noblest Shakspeare or Homer of them
can be remembered forever;-a day comes when he too is not!
Nevertheless, you will say, there must be a difference between
true Poetry and true Speech not poetical: what is the difference?
On this point many things have been written, especially by late
German Critics, some of which are not very intelligible at first.
They say, for example, that the Poet has an infinitude in him;
communicates an Unendlichkeit, a certain character of' infinitude'
to whatsoever he delineates. This, though not very precise, yet
on so vague a matter is worth remembering: if well meditated,
some meaning will gradually be found in it. For my own part,
I find considerable meaning in the old vulgar distinction of
Poetry being metrical, having music in it, being a Song.  Truly,
if pressed to give a definition, one might say this as soon as anything else: If your delineation be authentically musical, musical
not in word only, but in heart and substance, in all the thoughts
and utterances of it, in the whole conception of it, then it will be
poetical; if not, not. —Musical: how much lies in that! A mut
sical thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into
the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it,
namely the melody that lies hidden in it; the inward harmony of
coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and has a right to
be, here in this world. All inmost things, we may say are melodious; naturally utter themselves in Song. The meaning of
Song goes deep.  Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the Infinite, and
lets us for moments gaze into that.
Nay all speech, even the commonest speech, has something of




LECT. III.         THE HERO AS POET.                       75
song in it: not a parish in the world but has its parish-accent;the rhythm or tune to which the people there sing what they have
to say! Accent is a kind of chaunting; all men have accent of
their own,-though they only notice that of others.  Observe too
how all passionate language does of itself become musical, —with
a finer music than the mere accent; the speech of a man even in
zealous anger becomes a chaunt, a song. All deep things are
Song.  It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song;
as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! The primal element of us; of us, and of all things.  The Greeks fabled of
Sphere-Harmonies: it was the feeling they had of the inner structure of Nature; that the soul of all her voices and utterances was
perfect music.  Poetry, therefore, we will call musical Thought.
The Poet is he who thinks in that manner. At bottom, it turns
still on power of intellect; it is a man's sincerity and depth of
vision that makes him a Poet. See deep enough, and you see
musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you
can only reach it.
The Vates Poet, with his melodious Apocalypse of Nature,
seems to hold a poor rank among us, in comparison with the
Vates Prophet; his function, and our esteem of him for his function, alike slight.  The Hero taken as Divinity; the Hero taken
as Prophet; then next the Hero taken only as Poet: does it not
look as if our estimate of the Great Man, epoch after epoch,
were continually diminishing? We take him first for a god, then
for one god-inspired; and now in the next stage of it, his most
miraculous word gains from us only the recognition that he is e
Poet, beautiful verse-maker, man of genius, or such like!-It looke'
so; but I persuade myself that intrinsically it is not so. If we
consider well, it will perhaps appear that in man still there is the
same altogether peculiar admiration for the Heroic Gift, by what
name soever called, that there at any time was. I should say, if
we do not now reckon a Great Man literally divine, it is that our
notions of God, of the supreme unattainable Fountain of Splendour, Wisdom and Heroism, are ever rising higher; not altogether
that our reverence for these qualities, as manifested in our like,
is getting lower. This is worth taking thought of. Sceptical
Dilettantism, the curse of these ages, a curse which will not last




76                THE HERO AS POET.                  LECT. II.'
forever, does indeed in this the highest province of human things,
as in all provinces, make sad work; and our reverence for great
men, all crippled, blinded, paralytic as it is, comes out in poor
plight, hardly recognisable.  Men worship the shews of great
men; the most disbelieve that there is any reality of great men
to worship.  The dreariest, fatalest faith; believing which, one
would literally despair of human things. Nevertheless look, for
example, at Napoleon! A Corsican lieutenant of artillery; that
is the shew of him; yet is he not obeyed, worshipped after his
sort, as all the Tiaraed and Diademed of the world put together
could not be? High duchesses, and ostlers of inns, gather round
the Scottish rustic, Burns;-a strange feeling dwelling in each
that they never heard a man like this; that on the whole this is
the man! In the secret heart of these people it still dimly reveals itself, though there is no accredited way of uttering it at
present, that this rustic, with his black brows and flashing suneyes, and strange words moving laughter and tears, is of a dignity
far beyond all others, incommensurable with all others. Do not
we feel it so? But now: were Dilettantism, Scepticism, Triviality,
and all that sorrowful brood, cast out of us, —as, by God's blessing, they shall one day be; were faith in the shews of things
entirely swept out, replaced by clear faith in the things, so that a
man acted on the impulse of that only, and counted the other nonextant, what a new livelier feeling towards this Burns were it!
Nay here in these ages, such as they are, have we not two mere
Poets, if not deified, yet we may say beatified? Shakspeare and
Dante are Saints of Poetry; really, if we will think of it, canonZzed, so that it is impiety to meddle with them. The unguided
instinct of the world, working across all these perverse impediments, has arrived at such result. Dante and Shakspeare are a
peculiar Two. They dwell apart, in a kind of royal solitude;
none equal, none second to them; in the general feeling of the
world, a certain transcendentalism, a glory as of complete perfection, invests these two. They are canonized, though no Pope or
Cardinals took hand in doing it! Such, in spite of every perverting influence, in the most unheroic times, is still our indestructi.
ble reverence for heroism.-We will look a little at these Two,
the Poet Dante and the Poet Shakspeare: what little it is permit



LECT. III.         THE HERO AS POET                       77
ted us to say here of the Hero as Poet will most fitly arrange
itself in that fashion.
Many volumnes have been written by way of commentary on
Dante and his Book; yet, on the whole, with no great result.
His Biography is, as it were, irrecoverably lost for us. An unimportant, wandering, sorrowstricken man, not much note was
taken of him while he lived; and the most of that has vanished,
in the long space that now intervenes. It is five centuries since
he ceased writing and living here. After all commentaries, the
Book itself is mainly what we know of him. The Book;-and
one might add that Portrait commonly attributed to Giotto,
which, looking on it, you cannot help inclining to think genuine, whoever did it. To me it is a most touching face; perhaps of all faces that I know, the most so. Lonely there, paintted as on vacancy, with the simple laurel wound round it; the
deathless sorrow and pain, the known victory which is also
deathless; —significant of the whole history of Dante! I think it
is the mournfulest face that ever was painted from reality; an
altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There is in it, as foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, gentle affection as of a child,
but all this is as if congealed into sharp contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, proud hopeless pain. A soft ethereal soul looking out so stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick-ribbed ice! Withal it is a silent pain too, a silent
scornful one: the lip is curled in a kind of godlike disdain of the
thing that is eating out his heart,-as if it were withal a mean
insignificant thing, as if he whom it had power to torture and
strangle were greater than it. The face of one wholly in protest,
and life-long unsurrendering battle, against the world. Affection
all converted into indignation; an implacable indignation; slow,
equable, silent, like that of a god! The eye too, it looks out as in
a kind of surprise, a kind of inquiry, Why the world was of such
a sort? This is Dante: so he looks, this'voice of ten silent centuries,' and sings us'his mystic unfathomable song.'
The little that we know of Dante's Life corresponds well
enough with this Portrait and this Book. He was born at Florence, in the upper class of society, in the year 1265. His edu




78                THE HERO AS POET                   LECT. III,
cation was the I est then going; much school-divinity, Aristotelean logic, some Latin classics,-no inconsiderable.insight into
certain provinces of things: and Dante, with his earnest intelligent nature, we need not doubt, learned better than most all
that was learnable. He has a clear cultivated understanding,
and of great subtlety; this best fruit of education he had cons
trived to realize from  these scholastics. He knows accurately
and well what lies close to him; but in such a time, without
printed books or free intercourse, he could not know well what
was distant: the small clear light, most luminous for what is
near, breaks itself into singular chiaroscuro striking on what is far
off. This was Dante's learning from the schools. In life, he had
gone through the usual destinies; been twice out campaigning as
a soldier for the Florentine State, been on embassy; had in his
thirty-fifth year, by natural gradation of talent and service, become one of the Chief Magistrates of Florence. He had met in
boyhood a certain Beatrice Portinari, a beautiful little girl of his
own age and rank, and grown up thenceforth in partial sight of
her, in some distant intercourse with her. All readers know his
graceful affecting account of this; and then of their being parted;
of her being wedded to another, and of her death soon after. She
makes -a great figure in Dante's Poem; seems to have made a
great figure in his life. Of all beings it might seem as if she,
held apart from him, far apart at last in the dim Eternity, were
the only one he had ever with his whole strength of affection
loved. She died: Dante himself was wedded; but it seems not
happily, far from happily. I fancy, the rigorous earnest man,
with his keen excitabilities, was not altogether easy to make
happy.
We will not complain of Dante's miseries: had all gone right
with him as he wished it, he might have been Prior, Podest'a, or
whatsoever they call it, of Florence, well accepted among neighbours,-and the world had wanted one of the most notable words
ever spoken or sung. Florence would have had another prosperous Lord Mayor; and the ten dumb centuries continued voiceless, and the ten other listening centuries (for there will be ten
of them and more) had no Divina Commedia to hear! We will
complain of nothing. A nobler destiny was appointed for this




LECT. IIn.        THE HERO AS POET.                      72
Dante; and he, struggling like a man led towards death and
crucifixion, could not help fulfilling it. Give him the choice of
his happiness! He knew not, more than we do, what was really
happy, what was really miserable.
In Dante's Priorship, the Guelf-Ghibelline, Bianchi-Neri, or
some other confused disturbances rose to such a height, that
Dante, whose party had seemed the stronger, was with his friends
cast unexpectedly forth into banishment; doomed thenceforth to
a life of woe and wandering. His property was all confiscated
and more; he had the fiercest feeling that it was entirely unjust,
nefarious in the sight of Ged and man. He tried what was in
him to get reinstated; tried even by warlike surprisal, with arms
in his hand: but it would not do; bad only had become worse.
There is a record, I believe, still extant in the Florence Archives, dooming this Dante, wheresoever caught, to be burnt alive.
Burnt alive; so it stands, they say: a very curious civic document.
Another curious document, some considerable number of years
later, is a Letter of Dante's to the Florentine Magistrates, written
in answer to a milder proposal of theirs, that he should return
on condition of apologizing and paying a fine. He answers, with
fixed stern pride: "If I cannot return without calling myself
guilty, I will never return, nunquam revertar."
For Dante there was now no home in this world. He wandered from patron to patron, from place to place; proving, in
his own bitter words,' How hard is the path, Come e duro calle.'
The wretched are not cheerful company. Dante, poor and
banished, with his proud earnest nature, with his moody humours, was not a man to conciliate men. Petrarch reports of him
that being at Can della Scala's court, and blamed one day for his
gloom and taciturnity, he answered in no courtier-like way.
Della Scala stood among his courtiers, with mimes and buffoons
(nebulones ac histriones) making him heartily merry; when turning to Dante, he said: " Is it not strange, now, that this poor
fool should make himself so entertaining; while you, a wise man,
sit there day after day, and have nothing to amuse us with at
all?" Dante answered bitterly: " No, not strange; your Highness
is to recollect the Proverb, Like to Like;' —given the amuser, the
amusee must also be given! Such a man, with his proud silent




So                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. III
ways, with his sarcasms and sorrows, was not made to succeed at
court. By degrees, it came to be evident to him that he had no
longer any resting place, or hope of benefit, in this earth. The
earthly world had cast him forth, to wander; no living heart to
love him now; for his sore miseries there was no solace here.
The deeper naturally would the Eternal World impress itself
on him; that awful reality over which, after all, this Time-world,
with its Florences and banishments, only flutters as an unreal
shadow. Florence thou shalt never see: but Hell and Purgatory and Heaven thou shalt surely see!   What is Florence, Can
della Scala, and the World and Life altogether? ETERNITY:
thither, of a truth, not elsewhither, art thou and all things bound!
The great soul of Dante, homeless on earth, made its home more
and more in that awful other world. Naturally his thoughts
brooded on that, as on the one fact important for him. Bodied
or bodiless, it is the one fact important for all men:-but to
Dante, in that age, it was bodied in fixed certainty of scientific
shape; he no more doubted of that Malebolge Pool, that it all
lay there with its gloomy circles, with its alti guai, and that he
himself should see it, than we doubt that we should see Constantinople if we went thither.  Dante's heart, long filled with this,
brooding over it in speechless thought and awe, bursts forth at
length into'mystic unfathomable song;' and this his -Divine
Comedy) the most remarkable of all modern Books, is the result.
It must have been a great solacement to Dante, and was, as we
can see, a proud thought for him at times, That he, here in exile,
could do this work; that no Florence, nor no man or men, could
hinder him from doing it, or even much help him in doing it.
He knew too, partly, that it was great; the greatest a man could
do.' If thou follow thy star, Se tz segui tua stella'-so could the
Hero, in his forsakenness, in his extreme need, still say to himself: "Follow thou thy star, thou shalt not fail of a glorious
haven!" The labour of writing, we find, and indeed could know
otherwise, was great and painful for him; he says, This Book'which has made me lean for many years.' Ah yes, it was won,
all of it, with pain and sore toil, —not in sport, but in grim earnest. His Book, as indeed most good Books are, has been written, in many senses, with his heart's blood. It is his whole his



LEdC' I1.          THE HERO AS POET.                      81
tory this Book.  He died after finishing it; not yet very old, at
the age of fifty-six;-broken-hearted rather, as is said.  He lies
buried in his death-city Ravenna: flic claudor Dantes patriis cxtori-is ab orris.  The Florentines begged back his body, in a century after; the Ravenna people would not give it.  " Here am I
Dante laid, shut out from my native shores."
I said, Dante's Poem was a Song: it is Tieck who calls it'a
mystic unfathomable Song;' and such is literally the character of
it. Coleridge remarkis very pertinently somewhere, that wherever
you find a sentence musically worded, of true rhythm and melody
in the words, there is something deep and good in the meaning
too. For body and soul, word and idea, go strangely together
here as everywhere. Song: we said before, it was the Heroic of
Speech! All old Poems, Homer's and the rest, are authentically
Songs. I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems are; that
whatsoever is not sung is properly no Poem, but a piece of Prose
cramped into jingling lines,-to the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we
want to get at is the thought the man had, if he had any: why
should he twist it into jingle, if he could speak it out plainly? It
is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody,
and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts.
that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him
a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers,-whose
speech is Song. Pretenders to this are many; and to an earnest
reader, I doubt, it is for most part a very melancholy, not to say
an insupportable business, that of reading rhyme! Rhyme that
had no inward necessity to be rhymed — it ought to have told us
plainly, without any jingle, what it was aiming at. I would advise all men who can speak their thought, not to sing it; to understand that, in a serious time, among serious men, there is no
vocation in them for singing it. Precisely as we love the true
song, and are charmed by it as by something divine, so shall we
hate the false song, and account it a mere wooden noise, a thing
hollow, superfluous, altogether an insincere and offensive thing.
I give Dante my highest praise when I say of his Divine Con
5*




'L2                THE HERO AS POET.                  LECT. II.
edy that it is, in all senses, genuinely a Song. In the very sound
of it there is a canto fermo; it proceeds as by a chaunt.  The language, his simple terzac rima, doubtless helped him in this.  One
reads along naturally with a sort of lilt. But I add, that it could
not be otherwise; for the essence and material of the work are
themselves rhythmic.  Its depth, and rapt passion and sincerity,
smakes it musical; —go deep enough, there is music everywhere.
A true inward symmetry, what one calls an architectural harmuony, reigns in it, proportionates it all: architectural; which
also partakes of the character of music. The three kingdoms,
Inferno, Pargatorio, Paradiso, look out on one another like compartments of a great edifice; a great supernatural world-cathedral, piled up there, stern, solemn, awful; Dante's World of
Souls! It is, at bottom, the sincerest of all Poems; sincerity,
here too, we find to be the measure of worth. It came deep out
of the author's heart of hearts; and it goes deep, and through
long generations, into ours. The people of Verona, when they
saw him on the streets, used to say, " Eccovi l' uom ch' e stato all'
Inferno, See, there is the man that was in Hell!"  Ah, yes, he
had been in Hell — in Hell enough, in long severe sorrow and
struggle; as the like of him is pretty sure to have been. Commedias that come out divine, are not accomplished otherwise.
Thought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the
daughter of Pain? Born as out of the black whirlwind; —true
effort, in fact, as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is
Thought. In all ways we are' to become perfect through sufferi<ng.'-But, as I say, no work known to me is so elaborated as
this of Dante's. It has all been as if molten, in the hottest furnace of his soul. It had made him' lean' for many years. Not the
mn akc   9 —, i   9, -juvr~pe    a  l Is woke&K  out, VwAh
intense earnestness, into truth, into clear visuality. Each answers
to the other; each fits in its place, like a marble stone accurately
hewn and polished. It is the soul of Dante, and in'his the soul
of the middle ages, rendered forever rhythmically visible there.
No light task; a right intense one: but a task which is done.
Perhaps one would say, intensity, with the much that depends
on it, is the prevailing character of Dante's genius. Dante doesnot come before us as a large catholic mind; rather as a narrow




LECI. IIl.         THE HERO AS POET.                      83
and even sectarian mind: it is partly the fruit of his age and position, but partly too of his own nature. His greatness, has, in
all senses, concentered itself into fiery emphasis and depth. He
is world-great not because he is world-wide, but because he is
world-deep. Through all objects he pierces as it were down into
the heart of Being. I know nothing so intense as Dante. Consider, for example, to begin with the outermost development of
his intensity, consider how he paints. He has a great power of
vision; seizes the very type of a thing; presents that and
nothing more. You remember that first view he gets of the
Hall of Dite: red pinnacle, redhot cone of iron glowing through
the dim immensity of gloom; so vivid, so distinct, visible at once
and forever! It is as an emblem of the whole genius of Dante.
There is a brevity, an abrupt precision in him: Tacitus is not
briefer, more condensed; and then in Dante it seems a natural
condensation, spontaneous to the man. One smiting word; and
then there is silence, nothing more said. His silence is more
eloquent than words. It is strange with what a sharp decisive
grace he snatches the true likeness of a matter; cuts into the
matter as with a pen of fire. Plutus, the blustering giant, collapses at Virgil's rebuke; it is'as the sails sink, the mast being
suddenly broken.' Or that poor Sordello, with the cotto aspetto,'face baked,' parched brown and lean; and the  fiery snow' that
falls on them there, a' fiery snow without wind,' slow, deliberate,
never-ending!  Or the lids of those Tombs; square sarcophaguses, in that silent dim-burning Hall, each with its Soul in torment; the lids laid open there; they are to be shut at the Day
of Judgment, through Eternity. And how Farinata rises; and
how Cavalcante falls-at hearing of his Son, and the past tense'fue!' The very movements in Dante have something brief;
swift, decisive, almost military. It is of the inmost essence of
his genius this sort of painting. The fiery, swift Italian nature
of the man, so silent, passionate, with its quick abrupt movements, its silent' pale rages,' speaks itself in these things.
For though this of painting is one of the outermost developments of a man, it comes like all else from the essential faculty
of him; it is physiognomical of the whole man.  Find a man
whose words paint you a likeness, you have found a man worth




84                 THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. III
something; mark his manner of doing it, as very characteristic
of him. In the first place, he could not have discerned the object at all, or seen the vital type of it, unless he had, what we
may call, sympathized with it, —had sympathy in him to bestow
on objects.  He must have been sincere about it too; sincere and
sympathetic: a man without worth cannot give you the likeness
of any object; he dwells in vague outwardness, fallacy and trivial
hearsay, about all objects.  And indeed may we not say that intellect altogether expresses itself in this power of discerning what
an object is?  Whatsoever of faculty a man's mind may have
will come out here. Is it even of business, a matter to be done?
The gifted man is he who sees the essential point, and leaves all
the rest aside as surplusage; it is his faculty too, the man of
business's faculty, that he discern the true likeness, not the false
superficial one, of the thing he has got to work in. And how
much of morality is in the kind of insight we get of anything;'the eye seeing in all things what it brought with it the faculty
of seeing!' To the mean eye all things are trivial, as certainly
as to the jaundiced they are yellow. Raphael, the Painters tell
us, is the best of all Portrait-painters withal.  No most gifted
eye can exhaust the significance of any object. In the commonest
human face there lies more than Raphael will take away with
him.
Dante's painting is not graphic only, brief, true, and of a vividness as of fire in dark night; taken on the wider scale, it is
everyway noble, and the outcome of a great soul. Francesca and
her Lover, what qualities in that! A thing woven as out of
rainbows, on a ground of eternal black. A small flute-voice of
infinite wail speaks there, into our very heart of hearts. A touch
of womanhood in it too: della bella persona, che mi fit tolta; and
how, even in the Pit of woe, it is a solace that he will never part
from her! Saddest tragedy in these alti guai.  And the racking
winds, in that aer bruno, whirl them away again, to wail forever!
-Strange to think: Dante was the friend of this poor Francesca's father; Francesca herself may have sat upon the Poet's
knee, as a bright innocent little child.  Infinite pity, yet also infinite rigour of law: it is so Nature is made; it is so Dante disocrned that she was made. What a paltry notion is that of his




LECT. III.        THE HERO AS POET.                       8S
Divine Comedy's being a poor splenetic impotent terrestrial libel;
putting those into Hell whom he could not be avenged upon on
earth! I suppose if ever pity, tender as a mother's, was in the
heart of any man, it was in Dante's.  But a man who does not
know rigour cannot pity either. His very pity will be cowardly,
egoistic,-sentimentality, or little better. I know not in the
world an affection equal to that of Dante.  It is a tenderness, a
trembling, longing, pitying love: like the wail of 2Eolean harps,
soft, soft; like a child's young heart;-and then that stern, soresaddened heart!'These longings of his towards his Beatrice;
their meeting together in the Paradiso; his gazing in her pure
transfigured eyes, her that had been purified by death so long,
separated from him so far:-one likens it to the song of angels;
it is among the purest utterances of affection, perhaps the very
purest, that ever came out of a human soul.
For the intense Dante is intense in all things; he has got into
the essence of all. His intellectual insight, as painter, on occasion too as reasoner, is but the result of all other sorts of intensity.  Morally great, above all, we must call him; it is the beginning of all. His scorn, his grief are as transcendent as his
love; —as indeed, what are they but the inverse or converse of his
love?'A Dio spiacenti, ed a' nemici sui, Hateful to God and to
the enemies of God:' lofty scorn, unappeasable silent reprobation
and aversion:'Non ragionant di lor, We will not speak of them,
look only and pass.' Or think of this:'They have not the hope
to die, Non han speranza di morte.' One day, it had risen sternly
benign on the scathed heart of Dante, that he, wretched, neverresting, worn as he was, would full surely die;' that Destiny its if could not doom him not to die.' Such words are in this
man.  For rigour, earnestness and depth, he is not to be paralleled in the modern world; to seek his parallel we must go into
the Hebrew Bible, and live with the antique Prophets there.
I do not agree with much modern criticism, in greatly prefer
ring the Inferno to the two other parts of the Divine Commedia.
Such preference belongs, I imagine, to our general Byronism of
taste, and is like to be a transient feeling.  The Purgatorio and
Paradiso, especially the former, one would almost say, is even
more excellent than it. It is a noble thing that Purgatorio,




86                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. 11:.
4 Mountain of Purification;' an emblem of the noblest conception
of that age. If Sin is so fatal, and Hell is and must be so rig
orous, awful, yet in Repentance too is man purified; Repentance
is the grand Christian act. It is beautiful how Dante works it
out. The trenmolar dell' oxide, that' trembling' of the ocean-waves,
under the first pure gleam of morning, dawning afar on the wandering Two, is as the type of an altered mood. Hope has now
dawned; never-dying Hope, if in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure sojourn of daemons and reprobate is under
foot; a soft breathing of penitence mounts higher and higher, to
the Throne of Mercy itself.  "Pray for me," the denizens of that
Mount of Pain all say to him. " Tell my Giovanna to pray for
me," my daughter Giovanna; "I think her mother loves me no
more!"  They toil painfully up by that winding steep,'bent
down like corbels of a building,' some of them,-crushed together
so' for the sin of'pride;' yet nevertheless in years, in ages and
aeons, they shall. have reached the top, which is Heaven's gate,
and by Mercy shall, have been admitted in. The joy too of all,
when one has prevailed; the whole Mountain shakes with joy,
and a psalm of praise rises, when one soul has perfected repentance, and got its sin and misery left behind! I call all this a
noble embodiment of a true noble thought.
But indeed the Three compartments mutually support one
another, are indispensable to one another. The Paradiso, a kind
of inarticulate music to me, is the redeeming side of the Inferno;
the Inferno without it were untrue.  All three make up the true
Unseen World, as figured in the Christianity of the Middle
Ages; a thing forever memorable, forever true in the essence of
it, to all men. It was perhaps delineated in no human soul with
such depth of veracity as in this of Dante's; a man sent to sing
it, to keep it long memorable. Very notable with what brief
simplicity he passes out of the every-day reality, into the Invisible one; and in the second or third stanza. we find ourselves in
the World of Spirits; and dwell there, as among things palpable, indubitable! To Dante they were so; the real world, as it
is called, and its facts, was but the threshold to an infinitely
higher Fact of a World.  At bottom, the one was as preternatural as the other.  Has not each man a soul?  He will not only




LEru. J1.          THE HERO AS POET.                      87
be a spirit, but is one. To the earnest Dante it is all one visible
Fact; he believes it, sees it; is the Poet of it in virtue of that.
Sincerity, I say again, is the saving merit, now as always.
Dante's Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, are a symbol withal, an
emblematic representation of his Belief about this Universe:some Critic in a future age, like those Scandinavian ones the
other day, who has ceased altogether to think as Dante did, may
find this too all an' Allegory,' perhaps an idle Allegory! It is
a sublime embodiment, our sublimest, of the soul of Christianity.
It expresses, as in huge world-wide architectural emblems, how
the Christian Dante felt Good and Evil to be the two polar elements of this Creation, on which it all turns; that these two differ rnot by preferability of one to the other, but by incompatibility
absolute and infinite; that the one is excellent and high as light
and Heaven, the other hideous, black as Gehenna and the Pit of
1-Tell! Everlasting Justice, yet with Penitence, with everlasting
Pity,-all Christianism, as Dante and the Middle Ages had it,
is emblemed here. Emblemed: and yet, as I urged the othel
day, with what entire truth of purpose; how unconscious of any
embleming! Hell, Purgatory, Paradise: these things were not
fashioned as emblems; was there, in our Modern European
Mind, any thought at all of their being emblems I Were they
not indubitable awful facts; the whole heart of man taking them
for practically true, all Nature everywhere confirming them?
So is it always in these things. Men do not believe in Allegory.
The future Critic, whatever his new thought may be, who considers
this of Dante to have been all got up as an Allegory, will commit
one sore mistake!-Paganism we recognised as a veracious expression of the earnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the
Universe; veracious, true once, and still not without worth for
us. But mark here the difference of Paganism and Christianism;
one great difference.  Paganism emblemed chiefly the Operations
of Nature; the destinies, efforts, combinations, vicissitudes of
things and men in this world: Christianism emblemed the Law
of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man.  One was for the selnsuous nature: a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of
men,-the chief recognised virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear,




$8I               THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. IIU
The other was not for the sensuous nature, but for the moral.
What a progress is here, if in that one respect only!Amd so in this Dante, as we said, had ten silent centuries, in
a very strange way, found a voice. The Divina Commedia is of
Dante's writing; yet in truth it belongs to ten Christian centuries, only the finishing of it is Dante's. So always. The craftsman there, the smith with that metal of his, with these tools, with
these cunning methods,-how little of all he does is properly his
work! All past inventive men work there with him;-as indeed
with all of us, in all things.  Dante is the spokesman of the Middle Ages; the Thought they lived by stands here, in everlasting
music.  These sublime ideas of his, terrible and beautiful, are the
fruit of the Christian Meditation of all the good men who had
gone before him.  Precious they; but-also is not he precious?
Much, had not he spoken, would have been dumb; not dead, yet
living voiceless.
On the whole, is it not an utterance, this mystic Song, at once
of one of the greatest human souls, and of the highest thing that
Europe had hitherto realised for itself? Christianism, as Dante
sings it, is another than Paganism in the rude Norse mind; another than' Bastard Christianism' half-articulately spoken in the
Arab Desert, seven2 hundred years before!-The noblest idea
made real hitherto among men, is sung, and emblemed forth
abidingly, by one of the noblest men. In the one sense and in
the other, are we not right glad to possess it? As I calculate, it
may last yet for long thousands of years. For the thing that is
uttered from the inmost parts of a man's soul, differs altogether
from what is uttered by the outer part. The outer is of the day,
under the empire of mode; the outer passes away, in swift endless changes; the inmost is the same yesterday, today and forever. True souls, in all generations of the world, who look on
this Dante, will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of
his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity; they will feel that this Dante too was a brother. Napoleon in Saint Helena is charmed with the genial veracity of old
Homer. The oldest Hebrew Prophet, under a vesture the most
diverse from ours, does yet, because he speaks from the heart of




LECT. II.          THE HERO AS POET.                     89
man, speak to all men's hearts.  It is the one sole secret of continuing long memorable. Dante, for depth of sincerity, is like
an antique Prophet too; his words, like theirs, come from his
very heart. One need not wonder if it were predicted that his
Poem might be the most enduring thing our Europe has yet
made; for nothing so endures as a truly spoken word. All
cathedrals, pontificalities, brass and stone, and outer arrangement
never so lasting, are brief in comparison to an unfathomable heartsong like this: one feels as if it might survive, still of importance
to men, when these had all sunk into new irrecognisable combinations, and had ceased individually to be. Europe has made
much; great cities, great empires, encyclopedias, creeds, bodies
of opinion and practice; but it has made little of the class of
Dante's Thought. Homer yet is, veritably present face to face
with every open soul of us; and Greece, where is it? Desolate
for thousands of years; away, vanished; a bewildered heap of
stones and rubbish, the life and existence of it all gone. Like a
dream; like the dust of King Agamemnon!  Greece was;
Greece, except in the words it spoke, is not.
The uses of this Dante? We will not say much about his'uses.' A human soul who has once got into that primal element
of Song, and sung forth fitly somewhat therefrom, has worked in
the depths of our existence; feeding through long times the liferoots of all excellent human things whatsoever,-in a way that' utilities' will not succeed well in calculating! We will not estimate the Sun by the quantity of gas-light it saves us; Dante
shall be invaluable, or of no value.  One remark I may make'
the contrast in this respect between the Hero-Poet and the HeroProphet. In a hundred years, Mahomet, as we saw, had his
Arabians at Grenada and at Delhi; Dante's Italians seem to be
yet very much where they were. Shall we say, then, Dante's
effect on the world was small in comparison? Not so: his arena
is far more restricted; but also it is far nobler, clearer; —perhaps
not less but more important. Mahomet speaks to great masses
of men, in the coarse dialect adapted to such; a dialect filled with
inconsistencies, crudities, follies: on the great masses alone can
he act, and there with good and with evil strangely blended
Dante speaks to the noble,. the pure and great, in all times and




90                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. III.
places. Neither does he grow obsolete, as the other does. Dante
burns as a pure star, fixed there in the firmament, at which the
great and the high of all ages kindle themselves: he is the possession of all the chosen of the world for uncounted time. Dante,
one calculates, may long survive Mahomet.  In this way the
balance may be made straight again.
But, at any rate, it is not by what is called their effect on the
world, by what we can judge of their effect there, that a man and
his work are measured.  Effect?  Influence?  Utility?  Let a
man do his work; the fruit of it is the care of Another than he.
It will grow its own fruit; and whether embodied in Caliph
Thrones and Arabian Conquests, so that it' fills all Morning and
Evening Newspapers,' and all Histories, which are a kind of
distilled Newspapers; or not embodied so at all; —what matters
that? That is not the real fruit of it! The Arabian Caliph, in so'far only as he did something, was something. If the great Cause
of Man, and Man's work in God's Earth, got no furtherance from
the Arabian Caliph, then no matter how many scimetars he drew,
how many gold piasters pocketed, and what uproar and blaring
he made in this world,-he was but a loud-sounding inanity and
futility; at bottom, he was not at all.  Let us honour the great
empire of Silence, once more! The boundless treasury which we
do not jingle in our pockets, or count up and present before men!
It is perhaps, of all things, the usefulest for each of us to do, in
these loud times.As Dante, the Italian man, was sent into our world to embody
musically the Religion of the Middle Ages, the Religion of our
lodern Europe, its Inner Life; so Shakspeare, we may say, embodies for us the Outer Life of our Europe as developed then, its
chivalries, courtesies, humours, ambitions, what practical way of
thing, acting, looking at the world, men then had. As in Homer
we may still construe Old Greece; so in Shakspeare and Dante,
after thousands of years, what our Modern Europe was, in Faith
and in Practice, will still be legible. Dante has given us the
Faith or soul; Shakspeare, in a not less noble way, has given us
the Practice or body.  This latter also we were to have; a man
was sent for it, the man Shakspeare. Just when that chivalry




LECT. II[.        THE HERO AS POAT.                     91
way of life had reached its last finish, and was on the point of
breaking down into slow or swift dissolution, as we now see it
everywhere, this other sovereign Poet, with his seeing eye, with
his perennial singing voice, was sent to take note of it, to give
long-enduring record of it. Two fit men: Dante, deep, fierce as
the central fire of the world; Shakspeare, wide, placid, far-seeing,
as the Sun, the upper light of the world. Italy produced the one
world-voice; we English had the honour of producing the other.
Curious enough how, as it were by mere accident, this man
caine to us. I think always, so great, quiet, complete and selfsufficing is this Shakspeare, had the Warwickshire Squire not
prosecuted him for deer-stealing, we had perhaps never heard of
him as a Poet! The woods and skies, the rustic Life of Man in
Stratford there, had been enough for this man! But indeed that
strange outbudding of our whole English Existence, which we
call the (Elizabethan Era, did not it too come as of its own accord?
The' Tree Igdrasil' buds and withers by its own laws,-too deep
for our scanning. Yet it does bud and wither, and every bough
and leaf of it is there, by fixed eternal laws; not a Sir Thomas
Lucy but comes at the hour fit for him.  Curious, I say, and not
sufficiently considered: how everything does cooperate with all;
not a leaf rotting on the highway but is indissoluble portion of
solar and stellar systems; no thought, word or act of man but
has sprung withal out of all men, and works sooner or later, recognisably or irrecognisably, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation of sap and influences, mutual communication of every
minutest leaf with the lowest talon of a root, with every other
greatest and minutest portion of the whole. The Tree Igdrasil,
that has its roots down in the Kingdoms of Hela and Death, and
whose boughs overspread the highest Heaven!In some sense it may be said that this glorious Elizabethan
Era with its Shakspeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all
which had preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholicism of
the Middle Ages.  The Christian Faith, which was the theme of
Dante's Song, had produced this Practical Life which Shakspeare
was to sing. For Religion then, as it now and always is, was the
soul of Practice; the primary vital fact in men's life. And remark here, as rather curious, that Middle-Age Catholicism was




9?                 THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. III.
abolished, so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish it, before
Shakspeare, the noblest product of it, made his appearance. He
did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature at her own time,
with Catholicism or what else might be necessary, sent him forth;
taking small thought of Acts of Parliament.  King-Henrys,
Queen Elizabeths go their way; and Nature too goes hers. Acts
of Parliament, on the whole, are small, notwithstanding the noise
they make. What Act of Parliament, debate at St. Stephen's,
on the hustings or elsewhere, was it that brought this Shakspeare
into being?  No dining at Freemason's Tavern, opening subscription-lists, selling of shares, and infinite other jangling and
true or false endeavouring! This Elizabethan Era, and all its
nobleness and blessedness, came without proclamation, preparation of ours. Priceless Shakspeare was the free gift of Nature;
given altogether silently — received altogether silently, as if it
had been a thing of little account. And yet, very literally, it is
a priceless thing. One should look at that side of matters too.
Of this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes
hears a little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I
think the best judgment not of this country only, but of Europe
at large, is slowly pointing to the conclusion, That Shakspeare -is
the chief of all Poets hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our
recorded world, has left record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such a
faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other
man.  Such a calmness of depth; placid joyous strength; all
things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in
a tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in the constructing of Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart from all other'faculties' as they are called, an understanding manifested, equal
to that in Bacon's Novum Organum.  That is true; and it is not
a truth that strikes every one. It would become more apparent
if we tried, any of us for himself, how, out of Shakspeare's dramatic materials;, me could fashion such a result! The built house
seems all so fit,-every-way as it should be, as if it came there
y \ts owvn law an  tnhe nature of things,-we forget the rude aisorderly qutarry it was shaiped fro-m.  The very perfection of the
house, as if Nature herself had made it, hides the builder's merit




LECT. III.         THE HERO AS POET.                         93
Perfect, more perfect than any other man, we may call Shakspeare
in this: he discerns, knows as by instinct, what condition he
works under, what his materials are, what his own force and its
relation to them is.  It is not a transitory glance of insight that
will suffice; it is deliberate illumination of the whole matter; it
is a calmly seeing eye; a great intellect, in short.  How a man,
of some wide thing that he has witnessed, will construct a narrative, what kind of picture and delineation he will give of it,-is
the best measure you could get of what intellect is in the man.
Which circumstance is vital and shall stand prominent; which
unessential, fit to be suppressed; where is the true beginning, the
true sequence and ending? To find out this, you task the whole
force of insight that is in the man.  He must understand the
thing; according to the depth of his understanding, will the fitness of his answer be. You will try him so. Does like join itself to'like; does the spirit of method stir in that confusion, so
that its embroilment becomes order?  Can the man say, Fia,
lZx, Let there be light; and out of chaos make a world?  Precisely as there is light in himself, will he accomplish this.
Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portraitpainting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that
Shakspeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out
decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative
perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks at reveals not
this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic secret: it
dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is
this too but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will
describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight
of the thing.  And is not Shakspeare's morality, his valour, candour, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and
greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible
there too? Great as the world! No twisted, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its own convexities and
concavities; % perfectly level mirror; —that is to say withal, if
awe will understand it, a man justly related to all things and men, a
good man. It is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes
in all kinds of men and objects. a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a




94                 THE HERO AS POET.                  LECT. III
C:oriolanus; sets them  all forth to us in their round completeness; loving, just, the equal brother of all.  Novum  Orgaanm1,
and all the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite secon.
dary order; earthy, material, poor in comparison with  this.
Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost nothing of
the same rank.  Goethe alone, since the days of Shakspeare, reminds me of it.  Of him too you say that he saw the object; you
may say what he himself says of Shakspeare:' His characters'are like watches with dial-plates of transparent chrystal; they'shew you the hour like others, and the inward mechanism also
is all visible.'
The seeing eye! It is this that discloses the inner harmony
of things; what Nature meant, what musical idea Nature has
wrapped up in these often rough embodiments. Something she
did mean. To the seeing eye that something were discernible. Are
they base, miserable things? You can laugh over them, you can
weep over them; you can in some way or other genially relate yourself to them;-you can, at lowest, hold your peace about them, turn
away your own and others' face from them, till the hour come for
practically exterminating and extinguishing them! At bottom,
it is the Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that he have intellect
enough.  H- will be a Poet if he have: a Poet in word; or
failing that, perhaps still better, a Poet in act. Whether he
write at all; and if so, whether in prose or in verse, will depend
on accidents: who knows on what extremely trivial accidents,perhaps on his having bad a singing-master, on his being taught
to sing in his boyhood! But the faculty which enables him to
discern the inner heart of things, and the harmony that dwells
there (for whatsoever exists has a harmony in the heart of it, or
it would not hold together and exist), is not the result of habits
or accidents, but the gift of Nature herself; the primary outfit
for a Hieroic Man in what sort soever.  To the Poet, as to every
other, we say first of all, See.  If you cannot do that, it is of no
use to keep stringing rhymes'together, jingling sensibilities
against each other, and name yourself a Poet; there is no hope
for you. If you can, there is, in prose or verse, in action or spec
ulation, all manner of hope. The crabbed old Schoolmaster used
to ask, when they brought him a new pupil, " But are ye sure he's




LECT.-IL           THE HERO AS POET.                       95
not a dunce?"  Why, really one might ask the same thing, in regard to every man proposed for whatsoever function; and consider it as the one inquiry needful: Are ye sure he's not a
dunce? There is, in this world, no other entirely fatal person.
For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man, is
a correct measure of the man.  If called to define Shakspeare's
faculty, I should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that.  What indeed are faculties'? We talk of
faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as if a man
had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet, and
arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's'intellectual nature,' and of his' moral nature,' as if these again
were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do
perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am
aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But words ought
not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby.
We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these
divisions are at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature,
the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so
forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all
indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them.
Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what
is this but another side of the one vital Force whereby he is
and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him.
you may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings;
his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters,
in the opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes.
He is one; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.
Without hands a man might have feet, and could still walk:
but, consider it,-without morality, intellect were impossible for
him; a thoroughly immoral man could not know anything at all!
To know a thing, what we can call knowing, a man must first love
the thing, sympathize with it: that is, be virtuously related to it.
If he have not the justice to put down his own selfishness at every
turn, the courage to stand by the dangerous-true at every turn




96                THE HERO AS POET.                  LECT. III
how shall he know? His virtues, all of them, will lie recorded in
his knowledge. Nature with her truth remains to the bad, to the
selfish and the pusillanimous, forever a sealed book: what such
can know of Nature is mean, superficial, small; for the uses of
the day merely. But does not the very Fox know something of
Nature? Exactly so: it knows where the geese lodge  The
human Reynard, very frequent everywhere in the world, what
more does he know but this and the like of this? Nay, it should
be considered too, that if the Fox had not a certain vulpine morality, he could not even know where the geese were, or get at the
geese! If he spent his time in splenetic atrabiliar reflections on
his own misery, his ill usage by Nature, Fortune and other Foxes,
and so forth; and had not courage, promptitude, practicality, and
other suitable vulpine gifts and graces, he would catch no geese.
We may say of the Fox too, that his morality and insight are of
ethe same dimensions, different faces of the same internal unity of
vulpine life! —These things are worth stating, for the contrary of
them acts with manifold very baleful perversion, in this time:
what limitations, modifications they require, your own candour
will supply.
If I say, therefore, that Shakspeare is the greatest of Intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in
Shakspeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call
an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of Novalis beautifully remarks of him, that those
Dramas of his are Products of Nature too, deep as Nature herself. I find a great truth in this saying. Shakspeare's Art is
not Artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there by plan or precontrivance. It grows up from the deeps of Nature, through
this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of Nature. The latest generations of men will find new meanings in Shakspeare, new elucidations of their own human being;'new harmonies with the
infinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas,'affinities with the higher powers and senses of man.' This well
deserves meditating. It is Nature's highest reward to a true
simple great soul, that he get thus to be a part of herself: Such
a man's works, whatsoever he with utmost conscious exertion and
forethought shall accomplish, grow up withal unconsciously, from




LECT II:.         THE HERO AS POET.                      97
the unknown de-ps in him:-as the oak-tree grows from the
Earth's bosom, as the mountains and waters shape themselves;
with a symmetry grounded on Nature's own laws, conformable to
all Truth whatsoever.  How much in Shakspeare lies hid; his
sorrows, his silent struggles known to himself; much that was not
known at all, not speakable at all: like roots, like sap and
forces working under ground! Speech is great; but Silence is
greater.
Withal the joyful tranquillity of this man is notable. I will not
blame Dante for his misery: it is as battle without victory; but
true battle, —the first, indispensable thing. Yet I call Shakspeare greater than Dante, in that he fought truly and did conquer. Doubt it not, he had his own sorrows: those Sonnets of
his will even testify expressly in what deep waters he had waded,
and swum struggling for his life; —as what man like him ever
failed to have to do? It seems to me a heedless notion, our
common one, that he sat like a bird on the bough; and sang
forth, free and off hand, never knowing the troubles of other
men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a man travel
forward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and
not fall in with sorrows by the way?  Or, still better, how
could a man delineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a Macbeth, so
many suffering heroic hearts, if his own heroic heart had never
suffered?-And now, in contrast with all this, observe his mirthfulness, his genuine overflowing love of laughter! You would
say, in no point does he exaggerate but only in laughter. Fiery
objurgations, words that pierce and burn, are to be found in
Shakspeare; yet he is always in measure here; never what
Johnson would remark as a specially'good hater.'  But his
laughter seems to pour from him in floods; he heaps all manner
of ridiculous nicknames on the butt he is bantering, tumbles and
tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you would say, roars and
laughs. And then, if not always the finest, it is always a genial
laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty; never.
No man who can laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at these
things. It is some poor character only desiring to laugh, and
have the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy;
good laughter is not'the crackling of thorns under the pot.'
6




98                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. MIl.
Even at stupidity and pretension this Shakspeare does not laugh
otherwise than genially. Dogberry and Verges tickle our very
hearts; and we dismiss them covered with explosions of laughter: but we like the poor fellows only the better for our laughing; and hope they will get on well there, and continue Presidents of the City-watch. —Such laughter, like sunshine on the
deep sea, is very beautiful to me.
We have no room to speak of Shakspeare's individual works;
though perhaps there is much still waiting to be said on that head.
Had we, for instance, all his Plays reviewed as Hamlet, in Wilhelm MIleister, is! A thing which might, one day, be done. August Wilhelm Schlegel has a remark on his Historical Plays,
Henry Fifih and the others, which is worth remembering.  He
calls them a kind of National Epic. Marlborough, you recollect,
said, he knew no English History but what he had learned from
Shakspeare. There are really, if we look to it, few as memorable
Histories.  The great salient points are admirably seized; all
rounds itself off, into a kind of rhythmic coherence: it is, as
Schlegel says, epic;-as indeed all delineation by a great thinker
will be. There are right beautiful things in those Pieces, which
indeed together form one beautiful thing. That battle of Agincourt strikes me as one of the most perfect things, in its sort, we
anywhere have of Shakspeare's.  The description of the two
hosts: the worn-out, jaded English; the dread hour, big with
destiny, when the battle shall begin; and then that deathless
valour: " Ye good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England!"'
There is a noble Patriotism in it,-far other than the'indifference' you sometimes hear ascribed to Shakspeare. A true English heart breathes, calm and strong, through the whole business; not boisterous, protrusive; all the better for that.  There
is a sound in it like the ring of steel. This man too had a right
stroke in him, had it come to that!
But I will say, of Shakspeare's works generally, that we have
no full impress of him there; even as full as we have of many
men. His works are so many windows, through which we see a
glimpse of the world that was in him. All his works seem, comparatively speaking, cursory, imperfect, written under cramping
circumstances; giving only here and there a note of the full ut



ACT. IIi.          THE HER.O AS POET.                     93
terance of the man. Passages there are that come upon you like
splendour out of Heaven; bursts of radiance: illuminating the
very heart of the thing: you say, " That is true, spoken once and
forever; wheresoever and whensoever there is an open human
soul, that will be recognised as true!" Such bursts, however,
make us feel that the surrounding matter is not radiant; that it
is, in part, temporary, conventional. Alas, Shakspeare had to
write for the Globe Playhouse: his great soul had to crush itself,
as it could, into that and no other mould. It was with him, then,
as it is with us all. No man works save under conditions. The
sculptor cannot set his own free Thought before us; but his
Thought as he could translate it into the stone that was given,
with the tools that were given.  Disjecta membra are all that we
find of any Poet, or of any man.
Whoever looks intelligently at this Shakspeare may recognise
that he too was a Prophet, in his way; of an insight analogous to
the Prophetic, though he took it up in another strain. Nature
seemed to this man also divine; unspeakable, deep as Tophet,
high as Heaven:''We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!'
That scroll in Westminster Abbey, which few read with understanding, is of the depth of any Seer.  But the man sang; did
not preach, except musically. We called Dante the melodiou?
Priest of Middle-Age Catholicism.  May we not call Shakspeam
the still more melodious Priest of a true Catholicism, the'Uni
versal Church' of the Future and of all times?  No narrow su
perstition, harsh asceticism, intolerance, fanatical fierceness oi
perversion: a Revelation, so far as it goes, that such a thousand
fold hidden beauty and divineness dwells in all Nature; whicE
let all men worship as they can! We may say without offence
that there rises a kind of universal Psalm out of this Shakspeare
too; not unfit to make itself heard among the still more sacred
Psalms. Not in disharmony with these, if we understood them
but in unison!-I cannot call this Shakspeare a'Sceptic,' as
some do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels
of his time misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though
he says little about his Patriotism; nor sceptic, though he says
little about his Faith.  Such'indifference' was the fruit of his




1.00               THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT III
greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand sphere of
worship (we may call it such); these other controversies, vitally
important to other men, were not vital to him.
But call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right glorious thing, and set of things, this that Shakspeare has brought
us?  For myself, I feel that there is actually a kind of sacredness in the fact of such a man being sent into this Earth. Is he
not an eye to us all; a blessed heaven-sent Bringer of Light?And, at bottom, was it not perhaps far better that this Shakspeare, every way an unconscious man, was conscious of no Heavenly message?  He did not feel, like Mahomet, because he
saw into those internal Splendours, that he specially was the'Prophet of God:' and was he not greater than Mahomet in that?
Greater; and also, if we compute strictly, as we did in Dante's
case, more successful. It was intrinsically an error that notion
of Mahomet's, of his supreme Prophethood; and has come down
to us inextricably involved in error to this day; dragging along
with it such a coil of fables, impurities, intolerances, as makes it
a questionable step for me here and now to say, as I have done,
that Mahomet was a true Speaker at all, and not rather an ambitious charlatan, perversity and simulacrum, no Speaker, but a
Babbler! Even in Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will have exhausted himself and become obsolete, while this Shakspeare, this
Dante may be still young; —while this Shakspeare may still pretend to be a Priest of Mankind, of Arabia as of other places, for
unlimited periods to come! Compared with any speaker or
singer one knows, even with AEschylus or Homer, why should he
not, for veracity and universality, last like them? He is sincere
as they; reaches deep down like them, to the universal and perennial. But as for Mahomet, I think. it had been better for him
not to be so conscious! Alas, poor Mahomet; all that he was
conscious of was a mere error; a futility and triviality,-as indeed
such ever is. The truly great in him too was the unconscious:
that he was a wild Arab lion of the desert, and did speak out
with that great thunder-voice of his, not by words which he
thought to be great, but by actions, by feelings, by a history which
were great! His Koran has become a stupid piece of prolix absurdity; we do not believe. like him, that God wrote that!




AECT. IIL          THE HERO AS POET                     101
The Great Man here too, as always, is a Force of Nature; whatsoever is truly great in him springs up from the inlarticelate
deeps.
Well: this is our poor Warwickshire Peasant, who rose to be
Manager of a Playhouse, so that he could live without begging;
whom the Earl of Southampton cast some kind glances oQn_
whom Sir Thomas Lucy, many thanks to him, was for sending to
the Treadmill!  We did not account him  a god, like Odin,
while he dwelt with us; on which point there were much to be
said. But I will say rather, or repeat: In spite of the sad state
Hero-worship now lies in, consider what this Shakspeare has actually become among us. Which Englishman we ever made, in
this land of ours, which million of Englishmen, would we not
give up rather than the Stratford Peasant?  There is no regiment of highest Dignitaries that we would sell him for. He is
the grandest thing we have yet done. For our honiour among
foreign nations, as an ornament to our English Household, what
item is there that we would not surrender rather than him?
Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakspeare, you English; never have had any Indian
Empire, or never have had any Shakspeare? Really it were a
grave question. Official persons would answer doubtless in official
language; but we, for our part too, should not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire; we cannot do without Shakspeare! Indian Empire will go, at any rate, some day;
but this Shakspeare does not go, he lasts forever with us; we cannot give up our Shakspeare!
Nay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him, merely as
a real, marketable, tangibly useful possession. England, before
long, this Island of ours, will hold but a small fraction of the
English: in America, in New Holland, east and west to the
very Antipodes, there will be a Saxondom covering great spaces
of the Globe. And now, what is it that can keep all these together into virtually one Nation, so that they do not fall out and
fight, but live at peace, in brotherlike intercourse, he-ping one
another? This is justly regarded as the greatest practical problem, the thing all manner of sovereignties and governments are




102                THE HERO AS POET.                 LECT. III.
here to accomplish: what is it that will accomplish this? Acts
of Parliament, administrative prime-ministers cannot. America
is parted from us, so far as Parliament could part it.  Call it not
fantastic, for there is much reality in it: Here, I say, is an English King, whom no time or chance, Parliament or combination
of Parliaments, can dethrone! This King Shakspeare, does not
he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest,
gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible; really
more valuable in that point of view, than any other means or appliance whatsoever?  We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all
the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of ParishConstable soever, English men and women are, they will say to
one another: " Yes, this Shakspeare is ours; we produced him,
we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with
him." The most common-sense politician too, if he pleases, may
think of that.
Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an articulate voice; that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means! Italy, for example, poor
Italy lies dismembered, scattered asunder, not appearing in any
protocol or treaty as a unity at all; yet the noble Italy is actually
one: Italy produced its Dante; Italy can speak! The Czar of
wl tat x sss, it is stk x,,%k\it  s% mawny  yaonets, Cossacks
a&d camums; and does a grea A f~et [ keeping snxh a traet oD
Earth politically together; but he cannot yet speak.  Something great in him, but it is a dumb greatness  He has had no
voice of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must
learn to speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted into nonentity, while that
Dante's voice is still audible.  The Nation that has a Dante is
bound together as no dumb Russia can -be.-We must here end
what we had to say of the IHero-Pet.




LECTURE IV.
[Friday, 15th May, 1840.1
TILE HtERO AS PRIEST.  LUTHER; REFORMATION:
KNOX: PURITANISM.
OuR present discourse is to be of the Great Man as Priest.
We have repeatedly endeavoured to explain that all sorts of
Heroes are intrinsically of the same material; that given a
great soul, open to the Divine Significance of Life, then there is
given a man fit to speak of this, to sing of this, to fight and work
for this, in a great, victorious, enduring manner; there is given
a Hero,-the outward shape of whom will depend on the time
and the environment he finds himself in. The Priest too, as I
understand it, is a kind of Prophet; in him too there is required
to be a light of inspiration, as we must name it. He presides
over the worship of the people; is the Uniter of them with the
Unseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of the people; as
the Prophet is their spiritual King with many captains: he
guides them heavenward, by wise guidance through this Earth
and its work. The ideal of him is, that he too be what we can
call a voice from the unseen Heaven; interpreting, even as the
Prophet did, and in a more familiar manner unfolding the same to
men.  The unseen Heaven, —the' open secret of the Universe,7
which so few have an eye for! He is the Prophet shorn of his
more awful splendour; burning with mild equable radiance, as
the enlightener of daily life. This, I say, is the ideal of a Priest.
So in old times; so in these, and in all times. One knows very
well that, in reducing ideals to practice, great latitude of tolerance is needful; very great. But a Priest who is not this at
all, who does not any longer aim or try to be this, is a character
-of whom we had rather not speak in this place.
Luther and Knox were by express vocation Priests. and did




104               THE HERO AS PRIEST.                 LECT. IV
faithfully perform that function in its common sense. Yet it
will suit us better here to consider them chiefly in their historical
character, rather as Reformers than Priests. There have been
other Priests perhaps equally notable, in calmer times, for doing
faithfully the office of a Leader of Worship; bringing down, by
faithful heroism in that kind, a light from Heaven into the daily
life of their people; leading them  forward, as under God's
guidance, in the way wherein they were to go. But when this
same way was a rough one, of battle, confusion and danger, the
spiritual Captain who led through that, becomes, especially to us
who live under the fruit of his leading, more notable than any
other.  He is the warfaring, nd battling Priest; wAo led his
people, not to quiet faithful labour as in smooth times, but to
faithful valorous conflict, in times all violent, dismembered: a
more perilous service, a more memorable one, be it higher or not.
These two men we will account our best Priests, inasmuch as
they were our best Reformers. Nay I may ask, Is not every
true Reformer, by the nature of him, a Priest first of all?  He
appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible force;
knows that it, the invisible, is strong and alone strong. He is a
believer in the divine truth of things; a seer, seeing through the
shews of things; a worshipper, in one way or the other, of the
divine truth of things: a Priest, that is. If he be not first a
Priest, he will never be good for much as a Reformer.
Thus then, as we have seen Great Men, in various situations,
building up Religions, heroic Forms of human Existence in this
world, Theories of Life worthy to be sung by a Dante, Practices
of Life by a Shakspeare,-we are now to see the reverse process;
which also is necessary, which also may be carried on in the Heroic
manner. Curious how this should be necessary: yet necessary
it is. The mild shining of the Poet's light has to give place to
the fierce lightning of the Reformer: unfortunately the Reformer too is a personage that cannot fail in History! The Poet
indeed, with his mildness, what is he but the product and ultimate adjustment of Reform, or Prophecy, with its fierceness q
No wild Saint Dominics and Thebaid Eremites, there had been
no melodious Dante; rough Practical Endeavour, Scandinavian
add other, from  Odin to Walter Raleigh, from Ulfila to Cran



LECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    105
mer, enabled Shakspeare to speak. Nay the finished Poet, I
remark sometimes, is a symptom that his epoch itself has reached
perfection and is finished; that before long there will be a new
epoch, new Reformers needed.
Doubtless it were finer, could we go along always in the way
of music; be tamed and taught by our Poets, as the rude creatures were by their Orpheus of old. Or failing this rhythmic
musical way, how good were it could we get so much as into the
equable way; I mean, if peaceable Priests, reforming from day to
day, would always suffice us! But it is not so; even this latter
has not yet been realised. Alas, the battling Reformer too is;
from time to time, a needful and inevitable phenomenon. Obstructions are never wanting: the very things that were once
indispensable furtherances become obstructions; and need to be
shaken off, and left behind us,-a business often of enormous
difficulty. It is notable enough, surely, how a Theorem or
spiritual Representation, so we may call it, which once took-in
the whole Universe, and was completely satisfactory in all parts
of it to the highly discursive acute intellect of Dante, one of the
greatest in the world, —had in the course of another century
become dubitable to common intellects; become deniable; and
is now, to every one of us, flatly incredible, obsolete as Odin's
Theorem! To Dante, human Existence, and God's ways with
men, were all well represented by those ]/Ialebolges, Purgatorios;
to Luther not well.  How was this?  Why could not Dante's
Catholicism continue; but Luther's Protestantism must needs
follow?  Alas, nothing will continue.
I do not make much of' Progress of the Species,' as handled
in these times of ours; nor do I think you would care to hear
much about it. The talk on that subject is too often of the most
extravagant, confused sort. Yet I may say, the fact itself seems
certain enough; nay we can trace out the inevitable necessity of
it in the nature of things. Every man, as I have stated somewhere, is not only a learner but a doer: he learns with the mind
given him what has been; but with the same mind he discovers
farther, he invents and devises somewhat of his own. Absolutely without originality there is no man. No man whatever believes, or can believe, exactly what his grandfather believed: he
6*




106               THE HERO AS PRIEST.               LECT. TV
enlarges somewhat, by fresh discovery, his view of the Universe,
and consequently his Theorem of the Universe, —which is an
infinite Universe, and can never be embraced wholly or finally by
any view or Theorem, in any conceivable enlargement: he enlarges somewhat, I say; finds somewhat that was credible to his
grandfather incredible to him, false to him, inconsistent with
some new thing he has discovered or observed. It is the history
of every man; and in the history of Mankind we see it summed
up into great historical amounts,-revolutions, new epochs,
Dante's Mountain of Purgatory does not stand'in the ocean of
the other Hemisphere,' when Columbus has once sailed thither!
Men find no such thing extant in the other Hemisphere. It is
not there. It must cease to be believed to be there. So with all
beliefs whatsoever in this world,-all Systems of Belief, and
Systems of Practice that spring from these.
If we add now the melancholy fact that when Belief waxes uncertain, Practice too becomes unsound, and errors, injustices and
miseries everywhere more and more prevail, we shall see material
enough for revolution. At all turns, a man who will do faithfully, needs to believe firmly. If he have to ask at every turn
the world's suffrage, if he cannot dispense with the world's suffrage, and make his own suffrage serve, he is a poor eye-servant;
the work committed to him will be misdone. Every such man
is a daily contributor to the inevitable downfall. Whatsoever
work he does, dishonestly, with an eye to the outward look of it,
is a new offence, parent of new misery to somebody or other.
Offences accumulate till they become insupportable; and are
then violently burst through, cleared off as by explosion. Dante's
sublime Catholicism, incredible now in theory, and defaced still
worse by faithless, doubting and dishonest practice, has to be
torn asunder by a Luther; Shakspeare's noble Feudalism, as
beautiful as it once looked and was, has to end in a French Revolution. The accumulation of offences is, as we say, too literally exploded, blasted asunder volcanically; and there are long
troublous periods, before matters come to a settlement again.
Surely it were mournful enough to look only at this face of
the matter, and find in all human opinions and arrangements
merely the fact that they were uncertain, tempcrary, subject to




AEC':. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                   107
the law of death! At bottom, it is not so: all death, here too
we find, is but of the body, not of the essence or soul; all de.
struction, by violent revolution or howsoever it be, is but new
creation on a wider scale. Odinism was Valour; Christianism
was Humility, a nobler kind of Valour. No thought that ever
dwelt honestly as true in the heart of man but was an honest insight into God's truth on man's part, and has an essential truth
in it which endures through all changes, an everlasting possession for us all. And, on the other hand, what a melancholy notion is that, which has to represent all men, in all countries and
times except our own, as having spent their life in blind condemnable error, mere lost pagans, Scandinavians, Mahometans,
only that we might have the true ultimate knowledge! All gonerations of men were lost and wrong, only that this present
little section of a generation might be saved and right. They all
marched forward there, all generations since the beginning of the
world, like the Russian soldiers into the ditch of Schweidnitz
Fort, only to fill up the ditch with their dead bodies, that
we might march over and take the place! It is an incredible
hypothesis.
Such incredible hypothesis we have seen maintained with
fierce emphasis; and this or the other poor individual man, with
his sect of individual men, marching as over the dead bodies of
all men, towards sure victory: but when he too with his hypo.
thesis and ultimate infallible credo, sank into the ditch, and became a dead body, what was to be said?-Withal, it is an important fact in the nature of man, that he tends to reckon his own
insight as final, and goes upon it as such. He will always do it,
I suppose, in one or the other way; but it must be in some
wider, wiser way than this. Are not all true men that live, or
that ever lived, soldiers of the same army; enlisted, under Heaven's captaincy, to do battle against the same enemy, the empire
of Darkness and Wrong? Why should we misknow one another,
fight not against the enemy but against ourselves, from mere difference of uniform? All uniforms shall be good, so they hold in
them true valiant men. All fashions of arms, the Arab turban
and swift scimetar, Thor's strong hammer smiting down Jotuns.
shall be welcome. Luther's battle-voice, Dante's march-melody




108               THE HERO AS PRIEST.               LECT. IV
all genuine things are with us, not against us. We are all under
one Captain, soldiers of the same host.-Let us now look a little
at this Luther's fighting; what kind of battle it was, and how he
comported himself in it. Luther too was of our spiritual Heroes;
a Prophet to his country and time.
As introductory to the whole, a remark about Idolatry will perhaps be in place here. One of Mahomet's characteristics, which
indeed belongs to all Prophets, is unlimited implacable zeal
against Idolatry. It is the grand theme of Prophets; Idolatry,
the worshipping of dead Idols as the Divinity, is a thing they
cannot away with, but have to denounce continually, and brand
with inexpiable reprobation; it is the chief of all the sins they
see done under the sun. This is worth noting. We will not enter here into the theological question about Idolatry. Idle is
Eidolon, a thing seen, a symbol. It is not God, but a Symbol of
God; and perhaps one may question whether any the most benighted mortal ever took it for more than a Symbol. I fancy, he
did not think that the poor image his own hands had made was
God; but that God was emblemed by it, that God was in it some
way or other. And now in this sense, one may ask, Is not all
worship whatsoever a worship by Symbols, by eidola, or things
seen? Whether seen, rendered visible as an image or picture to
the bodily eye; or visible only to the inward eye, to the imagination, to the intellect: this makes a superficial, but no substantial
difference. It is still a Thing Seen, significant of God; an Idol.
The most rigorous Puritan has his Confession of Faith, and intellectual Representation of Divine things, and worships thereby;
thereby is worship first made possible for him. All creeds, liturgies, religious forms, conceptions that fitly invest religious feelings,
are in this sense eidola, things seen. All worship whatsoever
must proceed by Symbols, by Idols:-we may say all Idolatry
is comparative, and the worst Idolatry is only more idolatrous.
Where then lies the evil of it? Some fatal evil must lie in it,
or earnest prophetic men would not on all hands so reprobate it.
Why is Idolatry so hateful to Prophets? It seems to me as if,
in the worship of those poor wooden symbols, the thing that had
chiefly provoked the Prophet, and filled his inmost soul with in




LE.- IV.         THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    109
dignation and aversion, was not exactly what suggested itself to
his own thought, and came out of him in words to others, as the
thing.  The rudest heathen that worshipped Canopus, or the
Cabaah Black Stone, he, as we saw, was superior to the horse
that worshipped nothing at all! Nay there was a kind of lasting merit in that poor act of his; analogous to what is still meritorious in Poets; recognition of a certain endless divine beauty
and significance in stars and all natural objects whatsoever.
Why should the Prophet so mercilessly condemn him?  The
poorest mortal worshipping his Fetish, while his heart is full of
it, maZ be an object of pity, of contempt and avoidance, if you
will; but cannot surely be an object of hatred. Let his heart
be honestly full of it, the whole space of his dark narrow mind
illuminated thereby; in one word let him entirely believe in his
Fetish,-it will then be, I should say, if not well with him, yet as
well as it can readily be made to be, and you will leave him
alone, unmolested there.
But here enters the fatal circumstance of Idolatry, that, in the
era of the Prophets, no man's mind is any longer honestly filled
with his Idol, or Symbol.  Before the Prophet can arise who,
seeing through it, knows it to be mere wood, many men must
have begun dimly to doubt that it was little more. Condemnable
Idolatry is insincere Idolatry. Doubt has eaten out the heart of
it: a human soul is seen clinging spasmodically to an Ark of the
Covenant, which it half-feels now to have become a Phantasm.
This is one of the balefulest sights. Souls are no longer filled
with their Fetish; but only pretend to be filled, and would fain
make themselves feel that they are filled. " You do not believe,"
said Coleridge; "you only believe that you believe."  It is the
final scene in all kinds of Worship and Symbolism; the sure
symptom that death is now nigh. It is equivalent to what we
call Formulism, anid Worship of Formulas, in these days of ours.
No more immoral act can be done by a human creature; for it is
the beginning of all immorality, or rather it is the impossibility
henceforth of any morality whatsoever: the innermost moral
soul is paralyzed thereby, cast into fatal magnetic sleep! Men
are no longer sincere men. I do not wonder that the earnest
man denounces this, brands it, prosecutes it with inextinguish




110             THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. TV.
tble aversion. He and it, all good and it, are at death-feud.
Blameable Idolatry is Cant, and even what one may call SincereCant.  Sincere-Cant: that is worth thinking of! Every sort of
Worship ends with this phasis. —I find Luther to have been a
Breaker of Idols, no less than any other Prophet. The wooden
gods of the Koreish, made of timber and bees'-wax, were not
more hateful to Mahomet than Tetzel's Pardons of Sin, made of
sheepskin and ink, were to Luther. It is the property of every
Hero, in every time, in every place and situation, that he come
back to reality; that he stands upon things, and not shews of
things. According as he loves, and venerates, articulately or
with deep speechless thought, the awful realities of things, so
will the hollow shews of things, however regular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or Conclaves, be intolerable and detestable to him. Protestantism too is the work of a Prophet: the
prophet-work of that sixteenth century.  The first stroke of
honest demolition to an ancient thing grown false and idolatrous;
preparatory afar off to a new thing, which shall be true, and
authentically divine!At first view it might seem as if Protestantism were entirely
destructive to this that we cali Hero-worship, and represent as
the basis of all possible good, religious or social, for mankind.
One often hears it said that Protestantism introduced a new
era, radically different from any the world had ever seen before:
the era of' private judgment,' as they call it. By this revolt
against the Pope, every man became his own Pope; and learnt,
among other things, that he must never trust any Pope, or spiritual Hero-captain, any more! Whereby, is not spiritual union.
all hierarchy and subordination among men, henceforth an impossibility? So we hear it said.-Now I need not deny that
Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, Popes
and much else. Nay I will grant that English Puritanism, re
volt against earthly sovereignties, was the second act of it: that
the enormous French Revolution itelfwas tke tkhid ct.,;eby all sovereignties earthly and spiritual were, as might seem,
abolished or made sure of abolition. Protestantism is the grand
root from which our whole subsequent European History
branches out. For the spiritual will always body itself fortb ir




LECT.. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    111
the temporal history of men; the spiritual is the beginning of
the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is everywhere for
Liberty and Equality, Independence and so forth; instead of
Kings, Ballot-boxes and Electoral sufifrages: it seems made out
that any Hero-sovereign, or loyal obedience of men to a man, in
things temporal or things spiritual, has passed away forever from
the world. I should despair of the world altogether, if so. One
of my deepest convictions is that it is not so. Without sovereigns,
true sovereigns, temporal and spiritual, I see nothing possible
but an anarchy; the hatefulest of things. But I find Protestantism, whatever anarchic democracy it have produced, to be the
beginning of new genuine sovereignty and order. I find it to
be a revolt againstfalse sovereigns; the painful but indispensable
first preparative for true sovereigns getting place among us!
This is worth explaining a little.
Let us remark, therefore, in the first place, that this of'private judgment' is, at bottom, not a new thing in the world, but
only new at that epoch of the worry. These is nothing gexneically new or peculiar in the Reformation; it was a return to
Truth and Reality in opposition to Falsehood and Semblance, as
all kinds of Improvement and genuine Teaching are and have
been. Liberty of private judgment, if he will consider it, must
at all times have existed in the world. Dante had not put out
his eyes, or tied shackles on himself; he was at home in that
Catholicism of his, a free-seeing soul in it,-if many a poor
HIogstraten, Tetzel, and Dr. Eck had now become slaves in it.
Liberty of judgment? No iron chain, or outward force of any
kind, could ever compel the soul of a man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he
will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone! The
sorriest sophistical Bellarmine, preaching sightless faith and passive obedience, must first, by some kind of conviction, have abdi
cated his right to be convinced. His'private judgment' indica
ted that, as the advisablest step he could take. The right of private judgment will subsist, in full force, wherever true men subsist. A true man believes with his whole judgment, with all the
illumination and discernment that is'n hlm, ana has always sc
believed. A false man, only struggling to' believe that he be,




112              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
lieves,' will naturally manage it in some other way. Protestantism said to this latter, Woe! and to the former, Well done! At
bottom it was no new saying; it was a return to all old sayings
that ever had been said.  Be genuine, be sincere: that was,
once more, the meaning of it.  Mahomet believed with his
whole mind; Odin with his whole mind,-he, and all true Followers of Odinism.  They, by their private judgment, had'judged'-so.
And now I venture to assert, that the exercise of private judgment, faithfully gone about, does by no means necessarily end in
selfish independence, isolation; but rather ends necessarily in the
opposite of that. It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy;
but it is error, insincerity, half-belief, and untruth that makes it.
A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting
himself with all men that believe in truth. There is no communion possible among men who believe only in hearsays. The
heart of each is lying dead; has no power of sympathy even with
things,-or he would believe them and not hearsays. No sympathy even with things; how much less with his fellow-men! He
cannot unite with men; he is an anarchic man. Only in a world
of sincere men is unity possible; —and there, in the long-run, it
is as good as certain.
For observe one thing, a thing too often left out of view, or
rather altogether lost sight of in this controversy: That it is not
necessary a man should himself have discovered the truth he is to
believe in, and never so sincerely to believe in. A Great Man, we
said, was always sincere, as the first condition of him. But a man
need not be great in order to be sincere; that is not the necessity of
Nature and all Time, but only of certain corrupt unfortunate epochs
of Time. A man can believe, and make his own, in the most genuine way, what he has received from another;-and with boundless
gratitude to that other! The merit of originality is not novelty;
it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever
he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another. Every son
of Adam can become a sincere man, an original man, in this sense;
no mortal is doomed to be an insincere man. Whole ages, what
we call ages of Faith, are original,-all men in them, or the most
of men in them, sincere. These are the great and fruitful ages:




LECy. [v.        THE HERO AS PRIEST                     111
every worker, in all spheres, is a worker not on semblance but
on substance; every work issues in a result: the general sum of
such work is great; for all of it, as genuine, tends towards one
goal; all of it is additive, none of it subtractive. There is true
union, true kingship, loyalty, all true and blessed things, so far
as the poor Earth can produce blessedness for men. Hero-worship?  Ah me, that a man be self-subsistent, original, true, or
what we call it, is surely the farthest in the world from indisposing him to reverence and believe other men's truth! It only
disposes, necessitates and invincibly compels him to disbelieve
other men's dead formulas, hearsays and untruths. A man
embraces truth with his eyes open, and because his eyes are
open: does he need to shut them before he can love his Teacher
of truth? He alone can love, with a right gratitude and genuine loyalty of soul, the Hero-Teacher who has delivered him out
of darkness into light. Is not such a one a true Hero, and Serpent-queller; worthy of all reverence!  The black monster,
Falsehood, our one enemy in this world, lies prostrate by his valour: it was he that conquered the world for us!-See, accordingly, was not Luther himself reverenced as a true Pope, or
Spiritual Father, being verily  such?  Napoleon, from  amid
boundless revolt of Sansculottism, became a King. Hero-worship
never dies, nor can die. Loyalty and Sovereignty are everlasting
in the world:-and there is this in them, that they are grounded
not on garnitures and semblances, but on realities and sincerities.
Not by shutting your eyes, your'private judgment;' no, but by
opening them, and by having something to see! Luther's message was deposition and abolition to all false Popes and Potentates, but life and strength, though afar off, to new genuine ones.
All this of Liberty and Equality, Electoral suffrages, Independence and so forth, we will take therefore, to be a temporary
phenomenon, by no means a final one. Though likely to last
a long time, with sad enough embroilments for us all, we must
welcome it, as the penalty of sins that are past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are coming. In all ways, it behoved men
to quit simulaora and return to fact; cost what it might, that did
behove to be done. With spurious Popes, and Believers having
no private judgment,-quacks pretending to command over




,14             THE HERO AS PRIEST.               LECT. IV
dupes,-what can you do? Misery and mischief only. You
cannot make an association out of insincere men; you cannot
build an edifice except by plummet and level,-at right-angles to
one another! In all this wild revolutionary work, from Protestantism downwards, I see the blessedest result preparing itself:
not abolition of Hero-worship, but rather what I would call a
whole world of Heroes. If Hero mean sincere man, why may
not every one of us be a Hero? A world all sincere, a believing
world: the like has been; the like will again be,-cannot help
being. That were the right sort of Worshippers for Heroes:
never could the truly Better be so reverenced as where all were
True and Good! —But we must hasten to Luther and his Life.
Luther's birthplace was Eisleben in Saxony, he came into the
world there on the 10th of November, 1483. It was an accident
that gave this honour to Eisleben. His parents, poor mine-labourers in a village of that region, named Mohra, had gone to
the Eisleben Winter-Fair: in the tumult of this scene the Frau
Luther was taken with travail, found refuge in some poor house
there, and the boy she bore was named MARTIN  LUTHER.
Strange enough to reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she
had gone with her husband to make her small merchandisings;
perhaps to sell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy
the small winter-necessaries for her narrow hut or household: in
the whole world, that day, there was not a more entirely unimportant looking pair of people than this Miner and his Wife. And
yet what were all Emperors, Popes and Potentates, in comparison?  There was born here, once more, a Mighty Man; whose
light was to flame as the beacon over long centuries and epochs
of the world; the whole world and its history was waiting for
this man. It is strange, it is great. It leads us back to another
Birth-hour, in a still meaner environment, Eighteen Hundred
years ago,-of which it is fit that we say nothing, that we think
only in silence; for what words are there! The Age of Miracles
past? The Age of Miracles is forever here!I find it altogether suitable to Luther's function in this Earth,
and doubtless wisely ordered to that end by the Providence presiding over him and us and all things, that he was born poor, and




.ECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                     115
trought up poor, one of the poorest of men.  He had to beg, as
the school-children in those times did; singing for alms and
bread, from door to door. Hardship, rigorous Necessity was the
poor boy's companion; no man nor no thing would put-on a false
face to flatter Martin Luther. Among things, not among the
shews of things, had he to grow. A boy of rude figure, yet with
weak health, with his large greedy soul, full of all faculty and
sensibility, he suffered greatly. But it was his task to get acquainted with realities, and keep acquainted with them, at whatever cost: his task was to bring the whole world back to reality,
for it had dwelt too long with semblance! A youth nursed up
in wintry whirlwinds, in desolate darkness and difficulty, that he
may step forth at last from his stormy Scandinavia, strong as a
true man, as a god: a Christian Odin,-a right Thor once more,
with his thunder-hammer, to smite asunder ugly enough Jotuns
and Giant-monsters!
Perhaps the turning incident of his life, we may fancy, was
that death of his friend Alexis, by lightning, at the gate of Erfurt. Luther had struggled up through boyhood, better and
worse; displaying in spite of all hindrances the largest intellect,
eager to learn: his father judging doubtless that he might promote himself in the world, set him upon the study of Law. This
was the path to rise; Luther, with little will in it either way,
had consented: he was now nineteen years of age. Alexis and
he had been to see the old Luther people at Mansfeldt; were got
back again near Erfurt, when a thunderstorm came on; the bolt
struck Alexis, he fell dead at Luther's feet. What is this Life
of ours?-gone in a moment, burnt up like a scroll, into the
blank Eternity! What are all earthly preferments, Chancellorships, Kingships?  They lie shrunk together-there!  The
Earth has opened on them; in a moment they are not, and Eternity is. Luther, struck to the heart, determined to devote himself to God, and God's service alone. In spite of all dissuasions
from his father and others, he became a Monk in the Augustine
Convent at Erfurt.
This was prcably the first light-point in the history of Luther,
his purer will now first decisively uttering itself; but, for the
present, it was still as one light-point in an element all of dark



116              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV.
ness. He says he was a pious monk, ich bin ein frommer Monch
gewesen; faithfully, painfully struggling to work out the truth
of this high act of his; but it was to little purpose. His misery
had not lessened; had rather, as it were, increased into infinitude.  The drudgeries he had to do, as novice in his Convent,
all sorts of slave-work, were not his grievance: the deep earnest
soul of the man had fallen into all manner of black scruples, dubitations; he believed himself likely to die soon, and far worse
than die. One hears with a new interest for poor Luther that,
at this time, he lived in terror of the unspeakable misery; fancied that he was doomed to eternal reprobation. Was it not the
humble sincere nature of the man? What was he, that he should
be raised to Heaven! He that had known only misery, and
mean slavery: the news was too blessed to be credible. It could
not become clear to him how, by fasts, vigils, formalities and
mass-work, a man's soul could be saved. He fell into the blackest wretchedness; had to wander staggering as on the verge of
bottomless Despair.
It must have been a most blessed discovery, that of an old
Latin Bible which he found in the Erfurt Library about this
time. He had never seen the Book before. It taught him another lesson than that of fasts and vigils. A brother monk too,
of pious experience, was helpful. Luther learned now that a man
was saved not by singing masses, but by the infinite grace of
God: a more credible hypothesis. He gradually got himself
founded, as on the rock. No wonder he should venerate the Bible, which had brought this blessed help to him. He prized it
as the Word of the Highest must be prized by such a man. He
determined to hold by that; as through life and to death he
firmly did.
This then is his deliverance from darkness, his final triumph
over darkness, what we call his conversion; for himself the most
important of all epochs. That he should now grow daily in peace
and clearness; that, unfolding now the great talents and virtues
implanted in him, he should rise to importance in his Convent,
in his country, and be found more and more useful in all honest
business of life, is a natural result. He was sent on missions by
his Augustine Order, as a man of talent and fidelity fit to do




LECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    11"
their business well: the of lector of Saxony, Friedrich, named the
Wise, a truly wise and just prince, had cast his eye on him as a
valuable person; made him Professor in his new University of
Wittenberg, Preacher too at Wittenberg; in both which capacities, as in all duties he did, this Luther, in the peaceable sphere
of common life, was gaining more and more esteem with all good
men.
It was in his twenty-seventh year that he first saw Rome; being sent thither, as I said, on mission from his Convent. Pope
Julius the Second, and what was going on at Rome, must have
filled the mind of Luther with amazement. He had come as to
the Sacred City, throne of God's Highpriest on Earth; and he
found it-what we know! Many thoughts it must have given
the man; many which we have no record of, which perhaps he
did not himself know how to utter. This Rome, this scene of
false priests, clothed not in the beauty of holiness, but in far
other vesture, is false: but what is it to Luther? A mean man
he, how shall he reform a world? That was far from his thoughts.
A humble, solitary man, why should he at all meddle with the
world? It was the task of quite higher men than he. His business was to guide his own footsteps wisely through the world.
Let him do his own obscure duty in it well; the rest, horrible
and dismal as it looks, is in God's hand, not in his.
It is curious to reflect what might have been the issue, had
Roman Popery happened to pass this Luther by; to go on in its
great wasteful orbit, and not come athwart his little path, and
force him to assault it! Conceivable enough that, in this case,
he might have held his peace about the abuses of Rome; left
Providence, and God on high, to deal with them! A modest
quiet man; not prompt he to attack irreverently persons in authority, His clear task, as I say, was to do his own duty; to
walk wisely in this world of confused wickedness, and save his
own soul alive. But the Roman Highpriesthood did come athwart
him: afar off at Wittenberg he, Luther, could not get lived in
honesty for it; he remonstrated, resisted, came to extremity; was
struck at, struck again, and so it came to wager of battle between
them! This is worth attending to, in Luther's history. Perhaps
no man of so humble, peaceable a disposition ever filled the world




118              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
with contention. We cannot but see that he would have loved
privacy, quiet diligence in the shade; that it was against his will
he ever became a notoriety. Notoriety: what would that do for
him? The goal of his march through this world was the Infinite
Heaven; an indubitable goal for him: in a few years, he should
either have attained that, or lost it forever! We will say nothing', aUl, 1 tkhink, of tnat sorrowiulest of theories, of its being some
ima shopkeeper grndge, of the Augustine Monk against the Dominican, that first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced the
Protestant RIeformation. We will say to the people who maintain it, if indeed any such exist now: Get first into the sphere of
thought by which it is so much as possible to judge of Luther, or
of any man like Luther, otherwise than distractedly; we may
then begin arguing with you.
The Monk Tetzel, sent out carelessly in the way of trade, by
Leo Tenth — who merely wanted to raise a little money, and for
the rest seems to have been a Pagan rather than a Christian, so
far as he was anything,-arrived at Wittenberg, and drove his
scandalous trade there. Luther's flock bought Indulgences; in
the confessional of his Church, people pleaded to him that they
had already got their sins pardoned. Luther, if he would not be
found wanting at his own post, a false sluggard and coward at
the very centre of the little space of ground that was his own
an-no Do'ner man's, nah to step forth against Indulgences, alnd
declare aloud that they were a futility and sorrowful mockery,
that no man's sins could be pardoned by them. It was the beginning of the whole Reformation. We know how it went; forward from this first public challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of
October 1517, through remonstrance and argument;-spreading
ever wider, rising ever higher; till it became unquenchable, and
enveloped all the world. Luther's heart's-desire was to have
this grief and other griefs amended; his thought was still fai
other than that of introducing separation in the Church, or re.
volting against the Pope, Father of Christendom.-The elegant
Pagan Pope cared little about this Monk and his doctrines;
wished, however, to have done with the noise of him: in a space
of some three years, having tried various softer meth6ds, he
thought good to end it by fire.  He dooms the Monk's writings




LECT. Xr.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                  11l
to be burnt by the hangman, and his body to be sent bound to
Rome —probably for a similar purpose. It was the way they
had ended with Huss, with Jerome, the century bdfore. A short
argument, fire. Poor Huss: he came to that Constance Council,
with all imaginable promises and safe-conducts; an earnest, not
rebellious kind of man: they laid him instantly in a stone dungeon'three feet wide, six feet high, seven feet long;' burnt the
true voice of him out of this world; choked it in smoke and fire.
That was not well done!
I, for one, pardon Luther for now altogether revolting against
the Pope. The elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had
kindled into noble just wrath the bravest heart then living in
this world. The bravest, if also one of the humblest, peaceablest; it was now kindled. These words of mine, words of truth
and soberness, aiming faithfully, as human inability would allow,
to promote God's truth on Earth, and save men's souls, you,
God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the hangman and
fire? You will burn me and them, for answer to the God's-message they strove to bring you?  Yom are not God's vicegerent;
you are another's than his, I think! I take your Bull, as an emparchmented Lie, and burn it. You will do what you see good
next: this is what I do.-It was on the tenth of December 1520,
three years after the beginning of the business, that Luther'with a great concourse of people,' took this indignant step of
burning the Pope's fire-decree'at the Elster-Gate of Wittenberg.' Wittenberg looked on' with shoutings;' the whole world
was looking on. The Pope should not have provoked that' shout!'
It was the shout of the awakening of nations. The quiet German
heart, modest, patient of much, had at length got more than it
could bear. Formulism, Pagan Popism, and other Falsehood
and corrupt Semblance had ruled long enough: and here once
more was a man found who durst tell all men that God's-world
stood not on semblances but on realities; that Life was a truth,
and not a lie!
At bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther as a
Prophet Idol-breaker; a bringer back of men to reality. It is
the function of great men and teachers. Mahomet said, These
idols of yours are wood; you put wax and oil on them, the fliei




120              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
stick on them: they are not God, I tell you, they are black
wood! Luther said to the Pope, This thing of yours that you
call a Pardon of Sins, it is a bit of rag-paper with ink. It is
nothing else; it, and so much like it, is nothing else. God alone
can pardon sins. Popeship, spiritual Fatherhood of God's Church,
is that a vain semblance, of cloth and parchment? It is an awful fact. God's Church is not a semblance, Heaven and Hell are
not semblances. I stand on this, since you drive me to it.
Standing on this, I a poor German Monk am stronger than you
all. I stand solitary, friendless but on God's Truth; you with
your tiaras, triple-hats, with your treasuries and armories, thunders spiritual and temporal, stand on the Devil's Lie, and are not
so strong!The Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th
of April 1521, may be considered as the greatest scene in Modern
European History; the point, indeed, from which the whole subsequent history of civilization takes its rise. After multiplied
negotiations, disputations, it had come to this. The young Emperor Charles Fifth, with all the Princes of Germany, Papal
nuncios, dignitaries spiritual and temporal, are assembled there:
Luther is to appear and answer for himself whether he will recant
or not. The world's pomp and power sits there on this hand: on
that, stands up for God's Truth, one man, the poor miner Hans
Luther's Son. Friends had reminded him of Huss, advised him
not to go; he would not be advised. A large company of friends
rode out to meet him, with still more earnest warnings; he answered, " Were there as many Devils in Worms as there are rooftiles, I would on." The people, on the morrow, as he went to
the Hall of the Diet, crowded the windows and housetops, some
of them calling out to him, in solemn words, not to recant:
"' Whosoever denieth me before men!" they cried to him,-as in
a kind of solemn petition and adjuration. Was it not in reality
our petition too, the petition of the whole world, lying in dark
bondage of soul, paralysed under a black spectral Nightmare and
triple-hatted Chimera, calling itself Father in God, and what
not: "Free us; it rests with thee; desert us not!"  Luther did
not desert us. His speech, of two hours, distinguished itself by
its respectful, wise and honest tone; submissive to whatsoever




LZCT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    121
could lawfully claim submission, not submissive to any more than
that. His writings, he said, were partly his own, partly derived
from the Word of God. As to what was his own, human infirmity entered into it; unguarded anger, blindness, many things
doubtless, which it were a blessing for him could he abolish altogether. But as to what stood on sound truth and the Word of
God, he could not recant it.  How could he?  " Confute me,"
he concluded, " by proofs of Scripture, or else by plain just arguments: I cannot recant otherwise. For it is neither safe nor
prudent to do aught against conscience.  Here stand I; I can
do no other: God assist me!"-It is, as we say, the greatest moment in the Modern History of Men. English Puritanism, England and its Parliaments, Americas, and vast work these two
centuries; French Revolution, Europe and its work everywhere
at present: the germ of it all lay there: had Luther in that moment done other, it had all been otherwise! The European
World was asking him: Am I to sink ever lower into falsehood,
stagnant putrescence, loathsome accursed death; or, with whatever paroxysm, to cast' the falsehoods out of me, and be cured
and live?Great wars, contentions, and disunion followed out of this Reformation; which last down to our day, and are yet far from
ended. Great talk and crimination has been made about these.
They are lamentable, undeniable; but after all, what has Luther
or his cause to do with them? It seems strange reasoning to
charge the Reformation with all this. When Hercules turned
the purifying river into King Augea's stables, I have no doubt
the confusion that resulted was considerable all around: but I
think it was not Hercules's blame; it was some other's blame I
The Reformation might bring what results it liked when it came,
but the Reformation simply could not help coming. To all Popes
~tnd Popes' advocates, expostulating, lamenting and accusing, the
answer of the world is: Once for all, your Popehood has become
untrue. No matter how good it was, how good you say it is, ge
cannot believe it; the light of our whole mind, given us to walk
by from Heaven above, finds it henceforth a thing unbelievable.
We will not believe it, we will not try to believe it,-we dare not!
7




122              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV.
The thing is untrue; we were traitors against the Giver of all
Truth, if we durst pretend to think it true. Away with it; let
whatsoever likes come in the place of it; with it we can have no
farther trade!-Luther and his Protestantism is not responsible
for wars; the false Simulacra that forced him to protest, they are
responsible. Luther did what every man that God has made has
not only a right, but lies under the sacred duty, to do: answered
a Falsehood when it questioned him, Dost thou believe me?-No! —At what cost soever, without counting of costs, this thing
behoved to be done. Union, organisation spiritual and material,
a far nobler than any Popedom or Feudalism in their truest days,
I never doubt, is coming for the world; sure to come.  But on
Fact alone, not on Semblance and Simulacrum, will it be able
either to come, or to stand when come.  With union grounded
on falsehood, and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not
have anything to do. Peace?  A brutal lethargy is peaceable,
the noisome grave is peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not
a dead one!
And yet, in prizing justly the indispensable blessings of the
New, let us not be unjust to the Old.  The Old was true, if it no
longer is. In Dante's days it needed no sophistry, self-blinding
or other dishonesty, to get itself reckoned true.  It was good
then; nay there is in the soul of it a deathless good.  The cry
of' No Popery,' is foolish enough in these days. The speculation that Popery is on the increase, building new chapels and so
forth, may pass for one of the idlest ever started. Very curious:
to count up a few Popish chapels, listen to a few Protestant logicchoppings,-to much dull-droning drowsy inanity that still calls
itself Protestant, and say: See Protestantism is dead; Popism
is more alive than it, will be alive after it!-Drowsy inanities,
not a few, that call themselves Protestant are dead; but Protestantism has not died yet, that I hear of! Protestantism, if we
will look, has in these days produced its Goethe, its Napoleon;
German Literature and the French Revolution; rather considerable signs of life! Nay, at bottom, what else is alive but Protestantism?  The life of most else that one meets is a galvanic one
mcrely,-not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of life!
Popery can build new chapels; welcome to do so, to all lengtha




LECT. IV.         THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    123
Popery cannot come back, any more than Paganism can, —which
also still lingers in some countries. But, indeed, it is with these
things, as with the ebbing of the sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither, thither on the beach; for mibutes you cannot tell
how it is going: look in half an hour where it is,-look in half a
century where your Popehood is! Alas, would there were no
greater danger to our Europe than the poor old Pope's revival!
Thor may as soon try to revive.-And withal this oscillation has
a meaning.  The poor old Popehood will not die away entirely, as
Thor has done, for some time yet; nor ought it. ]We may say,
the Old never dies till this happen, Till all the soul of good that
was in it have got itself transfused into the practical New..
While a good work remains capable of being done by the Romish
form; or, what is inclusive of all, while a pious life remains capable of being led by it, just so long, if we consider, will this or the
other human soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of it. So
long it will obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject it, till we in
our practice too have appropriated whatsoever of truth was in it.
Then, but also not till then, it will have no charm more for any
man. It lasts here for a purpose. Let it last as long as it can.Of Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars and
bloodshed, the noticeable fact that none of them began so long as
he continued living. The controversy did not get to fighting so
long as he was there. To me it is proof of his greatness in all
senses, this fact.  How seldom do we find a man that has stirred
up some vast commotion, who does not himself perish, swept away
in it! Such is the usual course of revolutionists. Luther continued, in a good degree, sovereign of this greatest revolution;
all Protestants, of what rank or function soever, looking much to
him for guidance: and he held it peaceable, continued firm at the
centre of it. A man to do this must have a kingly faculty: he
must have the gift to discern at all turns where the true heart of
the matter lies, and to plant himself courageously on that, as a
strong true man, that other true men may rally round him there.
He will not continue leader of men otherwise.  Luther's clear
deep force of judgment, his force of all sorts, of silence, of tolerance




124               THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
and moderation, among others, are very notable in these circumstances.
Tolerance, I say; a very genuine kind of tolerance; he distinguishes what is essential, and what is not; the unessential may
go very much as it will. A complaint comes to him that such
and such a Reformed Preacher'will not preach without a cassock.' Well, answers Luther, what harm will a cassock do the
man?'Let him have a cassock to preach in; let him have three
cassocks if he find benefit in them!' His conduct in the matter
of Karlstadt's wild image-breaking; of the Anabaptists; of the
Peasants' War, shews a noble strength, very different from spasmodic violence. With sure prompt insight he discriminates what
is what: a strong just man, he speaks forth what is the wise
course, and all men follow him in that.  Luther's Written Works
give similar testimony of him. The dialect of these speculations
is now grown obsolete for us; but one still reads them with a
singular attraction. And indeed the mere grammatical diction
is stXX Xegible enough; Luther;s merit in literary history is of
the greatest: his dialect became the language of all writing.
They are not well written, these Four-and-twenty Quartos of his;
written hastily, with quite other than literary objects.  But in no
Books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble faculty
of a man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged sterling sense and strength. He flashes out illumination from him; his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave
into the very secret of the matter. Good humour too, nay tender
affection, nobleness, and depth: this man could have been a Poet
too! He had to work an Epic Poem, not write one.  I call him
a great Thinker; as indeed his greatness of heart already betokens that.
Richter says of Luther's words,'his words are half-battles.'
They may be called so. The essential quality of him was, that
he could fight and conquer; that he was a right piece of Human
Valour. No more valiant man, no mortal heart to be called
braver, that one has record of, ever lived in that Teutonic Kindred, whose character is valour. His defiance of the'Devils' in
WormJ was not a mere boast, as the like might be if now spoken.
It was a faith of Luther's that there were Devils, spiritual deni



"JCT. IV.         THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    12$:ons of the Pit, continually besetting men.  Many times, in his
writings, this turns up; and a most small sneer has been
grounded on it by some. In the room of the Wartburg where
he sat translating the Bible, they still shew you a black spot on
the wall; the strange memorial of one of these conflicts. Luther sat translating one of the Psalms; he was worn down with
long labour, with sickness, abstinence from food: there rose before him some hideous indefinable Image, which he tcok for the
Evil One, to forbid his work: Luther started up, with fiend defiance; flung his inkstand at the spectre, and it disappeared!
The spot still remains there; a curious monument of several
things. Any apothecary's apprentice can now tell us what we
are to think of this apparition, in a scientific sense: but the
man's heart that dare rise defiant, face to face, against Hell itself, can give no higher proof of fearlessness.  The thing he
will quail before, exists not on this earth or under it.-Fearless
enough!' The Devil is aware,' writes he on one occasion,' that'this does not proceed out of fear in me. I have seen and defied'innumerable Devils. Duke George,' of Leipzig, a great enemy
of his,' Duke George is not equal to one Devil,'-far short of a
Devil!'If I had business at Leipzig, I would ride into Leipzig though it rained Duke-Georges for nine days running.'
What a reservoir of Dukes to ride into!At the same time, they err greatly who imagine that this
man's courage was ferocity, mere coarse disobedient obstinacy
and savagery, as many do. Far from that. There may be an
absence of fear which arises from the absence of thought or affection, from the presence of hatred and stupid fury. We do
not value the courage of the tiger highly! With Luther it was
far otherwise; no accusation could be more unjust than this of
mere ferocious violence brought against him. A most gentle
heart withal, full of pity and love, as indeed the truly valiant
heart ever is.  The tiger before a stronger foe-flies the tiger is
not what we call valiant, only fierce and cruel.  I know few
things more touching than those soft breathings of affection,
soft as a child's or a mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther.
So honest, unadulterated with any eant; homely, rude in their utterance; pure as water welling from the rock. What, in fact, was




126              THE HERO AS PRIEST.               LECT. IV
all that downpressed mood of despair and reprobation, which we
saw in his youth, but the outcome of preeminent thoughtful gentleness, affections too keen and fine?  It is the course such men
as the poor Poet Cowper fall into. Luther, to a slight observer,
might have seemed a timid, weak man; modesty, affectionate
shrinking tenderness the chief distinction of him. It is a noble
valour which is roused in a heart like this, once stirred up into
defiance; all kindled into a heavenly blaze.
In Luther's Table-talk, a posthumous Book of anecdotes and
sayings collected by his friends, the most interesting now of all the
Books proceeding from him, we have many beautiful unconscious
displays of the man, and what sort of nature he had. His behaviour at the deathbed of his little Daughter, so still, so great
and loving, is among the most affecting things. He is resigned
that his little Magdalene should die, yet longs inexpressibly that
she might live; —follows, in awestruck thought, the flight of her
little soul through those unknown realms.  Awestruck; most
heartfelt, we can see; and sincere, —for after all dogmatic creeds
and articles, he feels what nothing it is that we know, or can
know: His little Magdalene shall be with God, as God wills;
for Luther too that is all; Islam is all.
Once, he looks out from his solitary Patmos, the Castle of Co.
burg in the middle of the night: The great vault of Immensity,
long flights of clouds sailing through it,-dumb, gaunt, huge:who supports all that?  "None ever saw the pillars of it; yet it
is supported."  God supports it.  We must know that God is
great, that God is good; and trust, where we cannot see. —Returning home from Leipzig once, he is struck by the beauty of
the harvest-fields: How it stands, that golden yellow corn, on
its fair taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving there,
-the meek Earth, at God's kind bidding, has produced it once
again; the bread of man!-In the garden at Wittenberg one
evening at sunset, a little bird has perched for the night: That
little bird, says Luther, above it are the stars and deep Heaven
of worlds; yet it has folded its little wings; gone trustfully to
rest there as in its home: the Maker of it has given it too a
home! ~ Neither are mirthful turns wanting: there is a great
free human heart in this man  The common speech of him has




LECT. TV.         THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    i27
a rugged nobleness, idiomatic, expressive, genuine; gleams here
and there with beautiful poetic tints. One feels him to be a
great brother man.  His love of Music, indeed, is not this, as it
were, the summary of all these affections in him? Many a wild
unutterability he spoke forth from him  in the tones of his flute.
The Devils fled from his flute, he says.  Death-defiance on the
one hand, and such love of music on the other: I could call these
the two opposite poles of a great soul; between these two all
great things had room.
Luther's face is to me expressive of him; in Kranach's best
portraits I find the true Luther.  A rude, plebeian face; with its
huge crag-like brows and bones, the emblem of rugged energy;
at first, almost a repulsive face. Yet in the eyes especially there
is a wild silent sorrow; an unnameable melancholy, the element
of all gentle and fine affections; giving to the rest the true stamp
of nobleness.  Laughter was in this Luther, as we said; but tears
also were there.  Tears also were appointed him: tears and hard
toil. The basis of his life was Sadness, Earnestness. In his latter days, after all triumphs and victories, he expresses himself
heartily weary of living; he considers that God alone can and
will regulate the course things are taking, and that perhaps the
Day of Judgment is not far.  As for him, he longs for one thing:
that God would release him from his labour, and let him depart
and be at rest. They understand little of the man who cite this
in discredit of him!-I will call this Luther a true Great Man;
great in intellect, in courage, affection and integrity; one of our
most loveable and precious men. Great, not as a hewn obelisk;
but as an Alpine mountain,-so simple, honest, spontaneous, not
setting up to be great at all; thl-,, i'. r quite another purpose than
being great! Ah yes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide
into the Heavens;-yet in the clefts of it fountains, green beautiful valleys with flowers! A right Spiritual Hero and Prophet;
once more, a true Son of Nature and Fact, for whom these centuries, and many that are to come yet, will be thankful to Heaven.
The most interesting phasis which the Reformation anywhere
assumes, especially for us Engrish, is that of Puritanism. In
Luther's own country, Pr'testantism soon dwindled into a rather




128              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
barren affair: not a religion or faith, but rather now a theological
jangling of argument, the proper seat of it not the heart; the
essence of it sceptical contention: which indeed has jangled more
and more, down to Voltairism itself,-through Gustavus-Adolphus
contentions onward to French-Revolution ones! But in our Island
there arose a Puritanism, which even got itself established as a
Presbyterianism and National Church among the Scotch; which
came forth as a real business of the heart; and has produced in
the world very notable fruit. In some senses, one may say it is the
only phasis of Protestantism that ever got to the rank of being a
Faith, a true heart-communication with Heaven, and of exhibiting
itself in History as such. We must spare a few words for Knox;
himself a brave and remarkable man; but still more important as
Chief Priest and Founder, which one may consider him to be, of
the Faith that became Scotland's, New England's, Oliver Cromwell's. History will have something to say about this, for some
time to come!
We may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I
suppose, but would find it a very rough defective thing. But
we, and all men, may understand that it was a genuine thing;
for Nature has adopted it, and it has grown, and grows. I say
sometimes, that all goes by wager of battle in this world; that
strength, well understood, is the measure of all worth.  Give a
thing time; if it can succeed, it is a right thing. Look now at
American Saxondom; and at that little Fact of the sailing of
the Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven in
Holland! Were we of open sense as the Greeks were, we had
found a Poem here; one of Nature's own Poems, such as she
writes in broad facts over great continents. For it was properly
the beginning of America: there were straggling settlers in
America before, some material as of a body was there; but the
soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven out of their
own country, not able well to live in Holland, determine on settling in the New World. Black untamed forests are there, and
wild savage creatures; but not so cruel as Star-chamber hangmen. They thought the Earth would yield them food, if they
tilled honestly; the everlasting Heaven would stretch, there too,
overhead; they should be left in peace, to prepare for Eternity




IE'cT. IV.         THE HERO AS PRIEST.                     129
by living well in this world of Time; worshipping in what they
thought the true, not the idolatrous way. They clubbed their
small means together; hired a ship, the little ship Mayflower, and
made ready to set sail.  In Neal's History oJ' the Puritans is an
account of the ceremony of their departure:* solemnity, we
might call it rather, for it was a real act of worship. Their
minister went down with them to the beach, and their brethern
whom  they were to leave behind; all joined in solemn prayer
That God would have pity on His poor children, and go with
them into that waste wilderness, for He also had made that, He
was there also as well as here.-Hah! These men, I think, had
a work! The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong
one day, if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable,
laughable then; but nobody can manage to laugh at it now.
Puritanism has got weapons and sinews; it has fire-arms, warnavies; it has cunning in its ten fingers, strength in its right
arm: it can steer ships, fell forests, remove mountains; —it is one
of the strongest things under this sun at present!
In the history of Scotland too, I can find properly but one
epoch: we may say, it contains nothing of world-interest at all
but this Reformation by Knox. A poor.barren country, full of
continual broils, dissensions, massacrings; a people in the last
state of rudeness and destitution, little better perhaps than Ireland at this day.  Hungry fierce barons, not so much as able,o
form any arrangement with each other how to divide what they
fleeced from these poor drudges; but obliged, as the Columbian
Republics are at this day, to make of every alteration a revolution; no way of changing a ministry but by hanging the old
ministers on gibbets: this is a historical spectacle of no very
singular significance!'Bravery' enough, I doubt not; fierce
fighting in abundance: but not braver or fiercer than that of
their old Scandinavian Sea-king ancestors; whose exploits we
have not found worth dwelling on! It is a country as yet withoat a s-ul: nothing developed in it but what is rude, external,
semi-animal. And now at the Reformation, the internal life is
kindled, as it were, under the ribs of this outward material death.
A cause, the noblest of causes kindles itself, like a beacon set on
* Ntal (London, 1755), i. 490.
7*




130              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
high; high as Heaven, yet attainable from Earth;-whereby the
meanest man becomes not a Citizen only, but a Member of
Christ's visible Church; a veritable Hero, if he prove a true
man!
Well; this is what I mean by a whole'nation of heroes;' a
believing nation. There needs not a great soul to make a hero;
there needs a god-created soul which will be true to its origin;
that will be a great soul! The like has been seen, we find.
The like will be again seen, under wider forms than the Presbyterian: there can be no lasting good done till then.-Impossible!
say some. Possible? Has it not been, in this world, as a practised fact? Did Hero-worship fail in Knox's case?  Or are we
made of other clay now?  Did the Westminster Confession of
Faith add some new property to the soul of man? God made
the soul of man.  He did not doom any soul of man to live as a
Hypothesis and Hearsay, in a world filled with such, and with
the fatal work and fruit of such! —
But to return: This that Knox did for his Nation, I say, we
may really call a resurrection as from  death.  It was not a
smooth business; but it was welcome surely, and cheap at that
price, had it been far rougher. On the whole, cheap at any
price;-as life is. The people began to live: they needed first
of all to do that, at what cost and costs soever. Scotch Literature and Thought, Scotch Industry; James Watt, David Hume,
Walter Scott, Robert Burns: I find Knox and the Reformation
acting in the heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena; I find that without the Reformation they would not
have been. Or what of Scotland? The Puritanism of Scotland
became that of England, of New England. A tumult in the
IIigh Church of Edinburgh spread into a universal battle and
struggle over all these realms;-there came out, after fifty years
struggling, what we all call the' Glorious Revolution,' a HabeasCorpus Act, Free Parliaments, and much else!-Alas, is it not
too true what we said, That many men in the van do always, like
Russian soldiers, march into the ditch of Schwiednitz, and fill it
up with their dead bodies, that the rear may pass over them dry.
shod, and gain the honour? How many earnest rugged Cromwells, Knoxes, poor Peasant Covenanters, wrestling, battling for




LECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    31
very life, in rougl. miry places, have to struggle, and suffer, and
fall, greatly censured, bemired,-before a beautiful Revolution of
Eighty-eight can step over them in official pumps and silk-stock
ings, with universal three-times-three!
It seems to me hard measure that this Scottish man, now
after three hundred years, should have to plead like a culprit before the world; intrinsically for having been, in such way as it
was then possible to be, the bravest of all Scotchmen! Had he
been a poor Half-and-half, he could have crouched into the corner, like so many others; Scotland had not been delivered; and
Knox had been witrhout blame.  He is the one Scotchman to
whom, of all others, his country and the world owe a debt. He
has to plead that Scotland would forgive him for having been
worth to it any million Iunblameable' Scotchmen that need no
forgiveness!  He bared his breast to battle; had to row in
French galleys, wander forlorn in exile, in clouds and storms;
was censured, shot at through his windows, had a right sore
fighting life: if this world were his place of recompense, he had
made but a bad venture of it. I cannot apolgize for Knox. To
him it is very indifferent, these two hundred and fifty years or
more, what men say of him. But we, having got above all those
details of his battle, and living now in clearness on the fruits of
his victory, we for our own sake ougth to look through the
rumours and controversies enveloping the man, into the man
himself.
For one thing, I will remark that this post of Prophet to his
Nation was not of his seeking; Knox had lived forty years
quietly obscure, before he became conspicuous. He was the son
of poor parents, had got a college-education; become a Priest;
adopted the Reformation, and seemed well content to guide his
own steps by the light of it, nowise unduly intruding it on others.
He had lived as Tutor in gentlemen's families; preaching when
any body of persons wished to hear his doctrine; resolute he to
walk by the truth, and speak the truth when called to do it; not
ambitious of more; not fancying himself capable of more. In
this entirely obscure way he had reached the age of forty; was
with the small body of Reformers who were standing siege in
St. Andrew's Castle, —-when one day in their chapel, the Preach




132              THE HERO AS PRIEST.'ECT. IV
er after finishing his exhortation to these fighters in the forlorn
hope, said suddenly, That there ought to be other speakers, that
all men who had a priest's heart and gift in them ought now to
speak; —which gifts and heart one of their own number, John
Knox the name of him, had: Had he not? said the Preacher,
appealing to all the audience: What then is his duty? The peo.
ple answered affirmatively; it was a criminal forsaking of his
post, if such a man held the word that was in him silent. Poor
Knox was obliged to stand up; he attempted to reply; he could
say no word; —burst into a flood of tears and ran out. It is
worth remembering, that scene. He was in grievous trouble for
some days. He felt what a small faculty was his for this great
work. He felt what a baptism he was called to be baptized withal.
Ile'burst into tears.'
Our primary characteristic of a Hero, that he is sincere, applies emphatically to Knox. It is not denied anywhere that this,
whatever might be his other qualities or faults, is among the
truest of men. With a singular instinct he holds to the truth
and fact; the truth alone is there for him, the rest a mere shadow
and deceptive nonentity. However feeble, forlorn the reality
may seem, on that and that only can he take his stand. In the
Galleys of the River Loire, whither Knox and the others,
after their Castle of St. Andrew's was taken, had been sent as
Galley-slaves,-some officer or priest, one day, presented them
an Image of the Virgin Mother, requiring that they, the blasphemous heretics, should do it reverence. Mother? Mother of
God? said Knox, when the turn came to him: This is no Mother
of God; this is' a pented bredd,-a piece of wood, I tell you, with
paint on it! She is fitter for swimming, I think, than for being
worshipped, added Knox; and flung the thing into the river. It
was not very cheap jesting there: but come of it what might, this
thing to Knox was and must continue nothing other than the
real truth' it was a pented bredd: worship it he would not. He
told his fellow-prisoners, in this darkest time, to be of courage;
the Cause they had was the true one, and must and would prosper; the whole world could not put it down. Reality is of God's
making; it is alone strong. How many pented bredds, pretending
to be real, are fitter to swim than to be worshipped!-This Knox




4ECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST..33
cannot live but by fact: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked
sailor to the cliff. He is an instance to us how a man, by since
rity itself, becomes heroic: it is the grand gift he has. We find
in Knox a good honest intellectual talent, no transcendent one;a narrow, inconsiderable man, as compared with Luther: but in
heartfelt instinctive adherence to truth, in sincerity, as we say, he
has no superior; nay, one might ask, What equal he has? The
heart of him is of the true Prophet cast. "He lies there," said
the Earl of Morton at his grave, "who never feared the face of
man." He resembles, more than any of the moderns, an OldHebrew Prophet. The same inflexibility, intolerance, rigid narrow looking adherence to God's truth, stern rebuke in the name
of God to all that forsake truth: an Old-Hebrew Prophet in the
guise of an Edinburgh Minister of the Sixteenth Century. We
are to take him for that; not require him to be other.
Knox's conduct to Queen Mary, the harsh visits he used to
make in her own palace, to reprove her there, have been much
commented upon. Such cruelty, such coarseness fills us with
indignation. On reading the actual narrative of the business,
what Knox said, and what Knox meant, I must say one's tragic
feeling is rather disappointed. They are not so coarse, these
speeches; they seem to me about as fine as the circumstances
would permit! Knox was not there to do the courtier; he came
on another errand. Whoever, reading these colloquies of his
with the Queen, thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian
priest to a delicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence
of them altogether. It was unfortunately not possible to be polite with the Queen of Scotland, unless one proved untrue to the
Nation and Cause of Scotland. A man who did not wish to see
the land of his birth made a hunting-field for intriguing ambitious
Guises, and the Cause of God trampled under foot of Falsehoods,
Formulas and the Devil's Cause, had no method of making himself agreeable! "Better that women weep," said Morton, "than
that bearded men be forced to weep." Knox was the constitu.
tional opposition-party in Scotland: the Nobles of the country,
called by their station to take that post, were not found in it;
Knox had to go, or no one. The hapless Queen; —but the still
more napless Country, if she were made happy! Mary herself




134              THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. IV
was not without sharpness enough, among her other qualities:
"'Who are you," said she once, "that presume to school the
nobles and sovereign of this realm?" —" Madam, a subject born
within the same," answered he. Reasonably answered! If the'subject' have truth to speak, it is not the'subject's' footing
that will fail him here.We blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good
that each of us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after
all the talk there is and has been about it, what is tolerance?
Tolerance has to tolerate the unessential; and to see well what
that is. Tolerance has to be noble, measured, just, in its very
wrath, when it can tolerate no longer. But, on the whole, we are
not altogether here to tolerate! We are here to resist, to control
and vanquish withal. We do not'tolerate' IFalsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on us; we say to them, Thou art
false, thou art not tolerable! We are here to extinguish Falsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise way! I will not
quarrel so much with the way;  the doing of the thing is our
great concern. In this sense, Knox, was full surely, intolerant.
A man sent to row in French Galleys, and such like, for
teacing the Truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humour! I am not prepared to say that Knox had a soft
temper; nor do I know that he had what we call an ill temper.
An ill nature he decidedly had not. Kind honest affections
dwelt in the much-enduring, hard-worn, ever-battling man. That
he could rebuke Queens, and had such weight among those proud
turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they were; and
could maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and
Sovereignty in that wild realm, he who was only'a subject born
within the same:' this of itself will prove to us that he was found,
close at hand, to be no mean acrid man; but at heart, a healthful strong sagacious man.  Such alone can bear rule in that
kind. They blame him for pulling down cathedrals, and so forth,
as if he were a seditious rioting demagogue: precisely the reverse is seen to be the fact, in regard to cathedrals and the rest
of it, if we examine! Knox wanted no pulling down of stone
edifices; he wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of
the lives of men. Tumult was not his element; it was the tra



LECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    -35
gic feature of his life that he was forced to dwell so much in
that. Every such man is the born enemy of Disorder; hates to
be in it: but what then? Smooth Falsehood is not Order; it is
the general sumtotal of Disorder. Order is Tr'uth, —each thing
standing on the basis that belongs to it: Order and Falsehood
cannot exist together.
Withal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of drollery
in him.; which I like much, in combination with his other qualities.  He has a true eye for the ridiculous.  His Hiistory, with
its rough earnestness, is curiously enlivened with this. When
the two Prelates, entering Glasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly up, take to hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and at last flourishing their crosiers
like quarter-staves, it is a great sight for him.every way! Not
mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though there is enough of that
too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh mounts up over the
earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a laugh in the
eyes most of all. An honesthearted, brotherly man; brother to
the high, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy with
both. He had his pipe of Bourdeaux too, we find, in that old
Edinburgh house of his; a cheery social man, with faces that
loved him!  They go far wrong who think this Knox was a
gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. Not at all: he is one of
the solidest of men.  Practical, cautious-hopeful, patient; a most
shrewd, observing, quietly discerning man. In fact, he has very
much the type of character we assign to the Scotch at present; a
certain sardonic taciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a
stouter heart than he himself knows of. He has the power of
holding his peace over many things which do not vitally concern
him,-" They? what are they?" But the thing which does vitally
concern him, that thing he will speak of; and in a tone the whole
world shall be made to hear: all the more emphatic for his long
silence.
This Prophet of the Scotch is to me no hateful man! —He had
a sore fight of an existence; wrestling with Popes and Principal.
ities; in defeat, contention, life-long struggle; rowing as a galleyslave, wandering as an exile. A sore fight: but he won it.
" Have you hope?" they asked him in his last moment, when bo




136               THE HERO AS PRIEST.                LECT. YV
could no longer speak. He lifted his finger,'pointed upwards
with his finger,' and so died. Honour to him. His works have
not died.  The letter of his work dies, as of all men's; but the
spirit of it never.
One word more as to the letter of Knox's work. The unforgiveable offence in him is, that he wished to set up Priests over
the head of Kings. In other words, he strove to make the Government of Scotland a Thteocracy. This indeed is properly the
sum of his offences; the essential sin; for which what pardon can
there be? It is most true, he did, at bottom, consciously or unconsciously, mean a Theocracy, or Government of God. He did
mean that Kings and Prime Ministers, and all manner of persons,
in public or private, diplomatising or whatever else they might be
doing, should walk according to the Gospel of Christ, and understand that this was their Law, supreme over all laws. He hoped
once to see such a thing realised; and the Petition, Thy Kingdor
come, no longer an empty word.  He was sore grieved when he
saw greedy worldly Barons clutch hold of the Church's property;
when he expostulated that it was not secular property, that it was
spiritual property, and should be turned to true churchly uses,
education, schools, worship; —and the Regent Murray had to answer, with a shrug of the shoulders, " It is a devout imagination!"
This was Knox's scheme of right and truth; this he zealously endeavoured after, to realise it. If we think his scheme of truth
was too narrow, was not true; we may rejoice that he could not
realise it; that it remained, after two centuries of effort, unrealisable, and is a'devout imagination' still.  But how shall we
blame him for struggling to realise it?  Theocracy, Government
of God, is precisely the thing to be struggled for! All Prophets,
zealous Priests, are there for that purpose. Hildebrand wished
a Theocracy; Cromwell wished it, fought for it; Mahomet attained it. Nay, is it not what all zealous men, whether called
Priests, Prophets, or whatsoever else called, do essentially wish,
and must wish? That right and truth, or God's Law, reign supreme among men, this is the Heavenly Ideal (well-named in
Knox's time, and nameable in all times, a revealed'Will of
God'), towards which the Reformer will insist that all be more




&ECT. IV.        THE HERO AS PRIEST.                    137
and more approximated. All true Reformers, as I said, ar3 by
the nature of them Priests, and strive for a Theocracy.
How far such Ideals can ever be introduced into Practice, and
at what point our impatience with their non-introduction ought to
begin, is always a question. I think we may say safely, Let them
introduce themselves as far as they can contrive to do it! If
they are the true faith of men, all men ought to be more or less
impatient always where they are not found introduced. There
will never be wanting Regent-Murrays enough to shrug their
shoulders, and say, "A devout imagination!"  We will praise
the Hero-priest rather, who does what is in him to bring them in;
and wears out, in toil, calumny, contradiction, a noble life, to
make a God's Kingdom of this Earth.  The Earth will not b,come too godlike!




LECTURE V.
[Tuesday, 19th May, 1840.]
THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.  JOHNSON, ROUSSEAU
BURNS.
HERO-GODS, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of Heroism that
belong to the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest
times; some of them have ceased to be possible long since, and
cannot any more shew themselves in this world. The Hero as
Man of Letters, again, of which class we are to speak to-day, is altogether a product of these new ages; and so long as the wondrous art of Writing, or of Ready-writing which we call Printing,
subsists, he may be expected to continue, as one of the main forms
of Heroism for all future ages. He is, in various respects, a very
singular phenomenon.
He is new, I say; he has hardly lasted above a century in the
world yet. Never, till about a hundred years ago, was there seen
any figure of a Great Soul living apart in that anomalous manner;
endeavouring to speak forth the inspiration that was in him by
Printed Books, and find place and subsistence by what the world
would please to give him for doing that. Much had been sold
and bought, and left to make its own bargain in the marketplace;
but the inspired wisdom of a Heroic Soul never till then, in that
naked manner. He, with his copy-rights and copy-wrongs, in his
squalid garret, in his rusty coat; ruling (for this is what he does),
from his grave, after death, whole nations and generations who
would, or would not, give him bread while living,-is a rather
curious spectacle! Few shapes of Heroism can be more unexpected.
Alas, the Hero from of old has had to cramp himself into
strange shapes: the world knows not well at any time what to
do with him, so foreign is his aspect in the world! It seemed




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                  139
absurd to us, that men in their rude admiration, should take
some wise great Odin for a god, and worship him as such; some
wise great Mahomet for one god-inspired, and religiously follow
his Law for twelve centuries: but that a wise great Johnson, a
Burns, a Rousseau, should be taken for some idle nondescript,
extant in the world to amuse idleness, and have a few coins and
applauses thrown him, that he might live thereby; this perhaps,
as before hinted, will one day seem a still absurder phasis of
things!-Meanwhile, since it is the spiritual always that determines the material, this same Man-of-Letters Hero must be regarded as our most important modern' person. He, such as he
may be, is the soul of all.  What he teaches, the whole world
will do and make. The world's manner of dealing with him is
the most significant feature of the world's general position.
Looking well at his life, we may get a glance, as deep as is readily possible for us, into the life of those singular centuries which
have produced him, in which we ourselves live and work.
There are genuine Men of Letters, and not genuine; as in
every kind there is a genuine and a spurious.  If Hero be taken
to mean genuine, then I say the Hero as Man of Letters will be
found discharging a function for us which is ever honourable,
ever the highest; and was once well known to be the highest.
He is uttering forth, in such way as he has, the inspired soul of
him; all that a man, in any case, can do. I say inspired; for
what we call' originality,'  sincerity,'' genius,' the heroic quality
we have no good name for, signifies that. The Hero is he who
lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine, and
Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the Temporary, Trivial: his being is in that; he declares that abroad, by
act or speech as it may be, in declaring himself abroad. His life,
as we said before, is a piece of the everlasting heart of Nature
herself: all men's life is, —but the weak many know not the fact,
and are untrue to it, in most times; the strong few are strong,
heroic, perennial, because it cannot be hidden from them. The
Man of Letters, like every Hero, is there to proclaim this in such
sort as he can. Intrinsically it is the same function which the
old generations named a man Prophet, Priest, Divinity for do



140        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.               LECT. V
ing; which all manner of Heroes, by speech or -by act, are sent
into the world to do.
Fichte the German Philosopher delivered, some forty years
ago at Jena, a highly remarkable Course of Lectures on this subject:' Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten, On the Nature of the Literary Man.' Fichte, in conformity with the Transcendental
Philosophy, of which he was a distinguished teacher, declares
first: That all things which we see or work with in this Earth,
especially we ourselves and all persons, are as a kind of vesture
or sensuous Appearance: that under all there lies, as the essence
of them, what he calls the' Divine Idea of the World;' this is
the Reality which'lies at the bottom of all Appearance.' To
the mass of men no such Divine Idea is recognisable in the world;
they live merely, says Fichte, among the superficialities, practicalities and shews of the world, not dreaming that there is anything divine under them. But the Man of Letters is sent hither
specially that he may discern for himself, and make manifest to
us, this same Divine Idea: in every new generation it will manifest itself in a new dialect; and he is there for the purpose of
doing that.  Such is Fichte's phraseology; with which we need
not quarrel. It is his way of naming what I here, by other
words, am striving imperfectly to name; what there is at present
no name for: The unspeakable Divine Significance, full of splendour, of wonder and terror, that lies in the being of every man,
of every thing,-the Presence of the God who made every man
and thing. Mahomet taught this in his dialect; Odin in his: it
is the thing which all thinking hearts, in one dialect or another,
are here to teach. Fichte calls the Mian of Letters, therefore, a
Prophet, or as he prefers to phrase it, a Priest, continually unfolding the Godlike to men: Men of Letters are a perpetual
Priesthood, from age to age, teaching all men that a God is still
present in their life; that all' A.ppearance,' whatsoever we see
in the world, is but as a vesture for the' Divine Idea of the
World,' for' that which. lies at the bottom of Appearance.' In
the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not
by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the
world's Priest; —guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its
dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time. Fichte discrimi




LECT. V;    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 141
nates with sharp zeal the true Literary Man, what we here call
the IHero as Man of Letters,: from multitudes of false unheroic.
Whoever lives not wholly in this Divine Idea, or living partially
in it, struggles not, as for the one good, to live wholly in it,-he
is, let him live where else he like, in what pomps and prosperi
ties he like, no Literary Man; he is,-says Fichte, a'Bungler,
Stilmper.' Or at best, if he belong to the prosaic provinces, he
may be a' Hodman;' Fichte even calls him elsewhere a' Nonentity,' and has in short no mercy for him, no wish that he should
continue happy among us! This is Fichte's notion of the Man
of Letters. It means, in its own form, precisely what we here
mean.
In this point of view, I consider that, for the last hundred
years, by far the notablest of all Literary Men is Fichte's countryman, Goethe. To that man too, in a strange way, there was
given what we may call a life in the Divine Idea of the World;
vision of the inward divine mystery: and stranzelv. out of his
Books, the world rises imaged once more as godlike, the workmanship and temple of a God. Illuminated all, not in fierce impure fire-splendour as of Mahomet, but in mild celestial radiance;
-really a Prophecy in these most unprophetic times; to my
mimd, by far the greatest, though one of the quietest, among all
the great things that have come to pass in them.  Our chosen
specimen of the Hero as Literary Man would be this Goethe.
And it were a very pleasant plan for me here to discourse of his
heroism: for I consider him to be a true Hero; heroic in what
he said and did, and perhaps still more in what he did not say
and did not do; to me a noble spectacle: a great heroic ancient
man, speaking and keeping silence as an ancient Hero, in the
guise of a most modern, high-bred, high-cultivated Man of Letters! We have had no such spectacle; no man capable of affording such, for the last hundred and fifty years. But at present, such is the general state of knowledge about Goethe, it were
worse than useless to attempt speaking of him in this case.
Speak as I might, Goethe, to the great majority of you, would
remain problematic, vague; no impression but a false one could
be realised. Him we must leave to future times. Johnson,
Burns, Rousseau, three great figures from a prior time, from a




142        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.    LECT. v
far inferior state of circumstances, will suit us better here.
Three men of the Eighteenth Century; the conditions of their
life far more resemble what those of ours still are in England,
than what Goethe's in Germany were.'Alas, these men did not.
conquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell. They were not
heroic bringers of the light, but heroic seekers of it. They live4
under galling conditions; struggling as under mountains of impediment, and could not unfold themselves into clearness. or victorious interpretation of that'Divine Idea.' It is rather the
Tombs of three Literary Heroes that I have to shew you. There
are the monumental heaps, under which three spiritual giants lie
buried. Very mournful, but also great and full of interest for
us. We will linger by them for a while.
Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the
disorganised condition of society; how ill many arranged forces
of society fulfil their work; how many powerful forces are seen
working in a wasteful, chaotic, altogether unarranged manner.
It is too just a complaint; as we all know. But perhaps if we
look at this of Books and the Writers of Books, we shall find
here, as it were, the summary of all other disorganisation; —a.
sort of heazrt from which and to which all other confusion circulates in the world! Considering what Book-writers do in the
world, and what the world does with Book-writers, I should say,
It is the most anomalous thing the world at present has to shew.
-We should get into a sea far beyond sounding, did we attempt
to give an account of this: but we must glance at it for the sake
of our subject. The worst element in the life of these three Literary Heroes was, that they found their business and position
such a chaos. On the beaten road there is tolerable travelling;
but it is sore work, and many have to perish, fashioning a path
through the impassable!
Our pious Fathers, feeling well what importance lay in the
speaking of man to men, founded churches, made endowments,
regulations; everywhere in the civilized world there is a Pulpit,
environed with all manner of complex dignified appurtenances
and futherances, that therefrom a man with the tongue may, to
best advantage, address his fellow-men. They felt that this was




L;CT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 14
the most important thing; that without this there was no good
thing.  It is a right pious work, that of theirs; beautiful to behold! But now with the art of Writing, with the art of Printing, a total change has come over that business. The Writer of
a Book, is not he a Preacher preaching, not to this parish or that,
on this day or that, but to all men in all times and places?
Surely it is of the last importance that he do his work right,
whoever do it wrong; —that the eye report not falsely, for then
all the other members are astray! Well; how he may do his
work, whether he do it right or wrong, or do it at all, is a point
which no man in the world has taken the pains to think of. To
a certain shopkeeper, trying to get some money for his books, if
lucky, he is of some importance; to no other man of any.
Whence he came, whither he is bound, by what ways he arrived,
by what he might be furthered on his course, no one asks. He is
an accident in society. He wanders like a wild Ishmaelite, in a
world of which he is as the spiritual light, either the guidance othe misguidance!
Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all
things man has devised. Odin's Runes were the first form of
the work of a Hero; Books, written words, are still miraculous
Runes, the latest form! In Books lies the soul of the whole
Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the
body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a
dream. Mighty fleets and armies, harbours and arsenals, vast
cities, high-domed, many-engined, —they are precious, great: but
what do they become?  Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons,
Pericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some ruined
fragments, dumb mournful wrecks and blocks: but the Books of
Greece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally
lives; can be called up again into life. No magic Rune is
stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought,
gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages
of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.
Do not Books still accomplish miracles, as Runes were fabled to
do? They persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating-library novel, which foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages,
but will help to regulate the actual practical weddings and house



144        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.    LECT. V.
holds of those foolish girls. So' Celia' felt, so' Clifford' acted
the foolish Theorem of Life, stamped into those young brains,
comes out as a solid Practice one day. Consider whether any
Rune in the wildest imagination of Mythologist ever did such
wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some Books have done!
What built St. Paul's Cathedral? Look at the heart of the
matter, it was that divine HEBREW Book,-the word partly of
the man Moses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish herds, four
thousand years ago, in the wildernesses of Sinai! It is the
strangest of things, yet nothing is truer. With the art of Writing, of which Printing is a simple, an inevitable and comparatively insignificant corollary, the true reign of miracles for mankind commenced. It related, with a wondrous new contiguity
and perpetual closeness, the Past and Distant with the Present
in time and place; all times and all places with this our actual
Here and Now. All things were altered for men; all modes of
important work of men: teaching, preaching, governing, and all
else.
To look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable,
respectable product of the modern ages. Their existence, too, is
modified, to the very basis of it, by the existence of Books, Universities arose while there were yet no Books procurable; while
a man, for a single Book, had to give an estate of land. That, in
those circumstances, when a man had some knowledge to communicate, he should do it by gathering the learners round him, face
to face, was a necessity for him. If you wanted to know what
Abelard knew, you must go and listen to Abelard. Thousands,
as many as thirty thousand, went to hear Abelard and that metaphysical theology of his. And now for any other teacher who had
also something of his own to teach, there was a great convenience
opened: so many thousands eager to learn were already assembled yonder; of all places the best place for him was that. For
any third teacher it was better still; and grew ever the better,
the more teachers there came. It only needed now that the
King took notice of this new phenomenon; combined or agglomcrated the various schools into one school; gave it edifices, privileges, encouragements, and named it Universitas, or School of all
Sciences: the University of Paris, in its essential characters, was




LECT. V.   TIIE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 145
there. The model of all subsequent Universities; which down
even to these days, for six centuries now, have gone on to found
themselves.  Such, I conceive, was the origin of Universities.
It is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility
c f getting Books, the whole conditions of the business from top to
bottom were changed. Once invent Printing, you metamorphosed all Universities, or superseded them! The Teacher
needed not now to gather men personally round him, that he
might speak to them what he knew: print it in a Book, and all
learners far and wide, for a trifle, had it each at his own fireside,
much more effectually to learn it! —Doubtless there is still peouliar virtue in Speech; even writers of Books may still, in some
circumstances, find it convenient to speak also,-witness our present meeting here! There is, one would say, and must ever remain while man has a tongue, a distinct province for Speech as
well as for Writing and Printing. In regard to all things this
must remain; to Universities among others  But the limits of
the two have nowhere yet been pointed out, ascertained; much
less put in practice: the University which would completely take
iM~jat.        il   ia    i  fa7 A t a-nn tence of Yr iAteYoo'ks, anZ[
stand on a clear footing for the Nineteenth Century as the Paris
one did for the Thirteenth, has not yet come into existence. If
we think of it, all that a University, or final highest School can
do for us, is still but what the first School began doing, —teach us
to read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various
sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of
Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what
we read, after all-manner of Professors have done their best for us.
The true University of these days is a Collection of Books. a'
But to the Church itself, as I hinted already, all is changed, in
its preaching, in its working, by the introduction of Books. The
Church is the working recognised Union of our Priests or Prophets, of those who by wise teaching guide the souls of men.
While there was no Writing, even while there was no Easy-writing, or Printing', the preaching of the voice was the natural sole
method of performing this.  But now with Books!-He that can
write a true Book, to persuade England, is not he the Bishop and
8




146        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.    LECT. v
Archbishop, the Primate of England and of all England? I many
a time say, the writers of Newspapers, Pamphlets, Poems, Books,
these are the real working effective Church of a modern country.
Nay, not only our preaching, but even our worship, is not it too
accomplished by means of Printed Books? The noble sentiment
which a gifted soul has clothed for us in melodious words, which
brings melody into our hearts,-is not this essentially, if we will
understand it, of the nature of worship? There are many, in all
countries, who, in this confused time, have no other method of
worship.  He who, in any way, shews us better than we knew
before that a lily of the fields is beautiful, does he not shew it us
as an effluence of the Fountain of all Beauty; as the handlwritig, made visible there, of the great Maker of the Universe? He
has sung for us, made us sing with him, a little verse of a sacred
Psalm. Essentially so. How much more he who sings, who
says, or in any way brings home to our heart the noble doings,
feelings, darings and endurances of a brother man! He has
verily touched our hearts as with a live coal from the altar. Perhaps there is no worship more authentic. Literature, so far as it is
Literature, is an'apocalypse of Nature,' a revealing of the' open
secret.' It may well enough be named, in Fichte's style, a'continuous revelation' of the Godlike in the Terrestrial and Common.
The Godlike does ever, in very truth, endure there; is brought
out, now in this dialect,.now in that, with various degrees of clearness: all true gifted Singers and Speakers are, consciously or
unconsciously, doing so. The dark stormful indignation of a
Byron, so wayward and perverse, may have touches of it; nay,
the withered mockery of a French sceptic —his mockery of thl
False, a love and worship of the True. How much more the
sphere-harmony of a Shakspeare, of a Goethe; the cathedralmusic of a Milton! They are something, too, those humble
genuine lark-notes of a Burns,-skylark, starting from the humble furrow, far overhead into the blue depths, and singing to us
so genuinely there! For all true singing is of the nature of worship; as indeed all true tworking may be said to be, —-whereof
such singing is but the record, and fit melodious representation,
to us.  Fragments of a real'Church Liturgy' and'Body of
homilies,' strangely disguised from the common eye, are to be




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 141
found weltering in that huge froth-ocean of Prirted Speech we
loosely call Literature! Books are our Church too.
Or turning now to the Government of men.  Witenagemote,
old Parliament, was a great thing. The affairs of the nation were
there deliberated and decided; what we were to do as a nation.
But does not, though the name Parliament subsists, the parliamentary debate go on now, everywhere and at all times, in a far
more comprehensive way, out of Parliament altogether? Burke
said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Po?'/h, Eslate more important
far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying;
it is a literal fact,-very momentous to us in these times.  Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily
out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent
Writing, Democracy is inevitable.  Writing brings Printing;
brings universal every-day extempore Printing, as we see at present.  Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, bccomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight
in law-making, in all acts of authority.  It matters not what rank
he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is, that
he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing
more is requisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue
in the nation: Democracy is virtually there. Add only, that
whatsoever power exists will have itself, by and by, organised;
working secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions, it
will never rest till it get to work free, unincumbered, visible to
all. Democracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant. —
On all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of the
things which man can do or make here below, by far the most
momentous, wonderful and worthy are the things we call Books!
Those poor bits of rag-paper with black ink on them; —from the
Daily Newspaper to the sacred Hebrew BOOK, what have they
not done, what are they not doing! —For indeed, whatever be the
outward form of the thing (bits of paper, as we say, and black
ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the highest act of man's faculty
that produces a Book? It is the Thought of man; the true thau
maturgic virtue; by -% hich man works all things whatsoever. All




148        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.    LE(IT. V
that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a Thought.
This London City, with all its houses, palaces, steam-engines,
cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult, what is it
but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One;-a huge
immeasurable Spirit of a THOUGHT, embodied in brick, in iron,
smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katharine
Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man
had to think of the making of that brick.  The thing we called' bits of paper with traces of black ink,' is the purest embodiment
a Thought of man can have. No wonder it is, in all ways; the
activest and noblest.
All this, of the importance and supreme importance of the Man
of Letters in modern Society, and how the Press is to such a degree superseding the Pulpit, the Senate, the Senata's Acalemicus
and much else, has been admitted for a good while; and recognised often enough, in late times, with a sort of sentimental triumph and wonderment. It seems to me, the Sentimental by aind
by will have to give place to the Practical. If Men of Letters
are so incalculably influential, actually performing such work for
us from age to age, and even from day to day, then I think we
may conclude that Men of Letters will not always wander like
unrecognised, unregulated Ishmaelites among us! Whatsoever
thing, as I said above, has virtual unnoticed power will cast off its
wrappages, bandages, and step forth one day with palpably articulated, universally visible power. That one man wear the clothes,
and take the wages, of a function which is done by quite another;
there can be no profit in this; this is not right, it is wrong. And
yet, alas, the making of it right,-what a business, for long times
to comet Su-re enough, this that -we call Organisation of the
Literary Guild is still a great way off, incumbered with all manner of complexities. If you asked me what were the best possible
organisation for the Men of Letters in modern society; the arrangement, of furtherance and regulation, grounded the most
eaauratoly on the actual fants of their position and of the world's
position,-I should beg to say that the problem far exceeded my
faculty! It is not one man's faculty; it is that of many successive men turned earnest)y upon it, that will bring out eren an
approximate solution. What the best arrangement were, none




LEC] V.    THE HER 0 AS MAN OF LETTERS.                  14%
of us could say. But if you ask, Which is the worst? I answer:
This which we now have, that Chaos should sit umpire in it; this
is the worst. To the best, or any good one, there is yet a long
way.
One remark I must not itJri Tbi; rYyJ fJ  r  Pr~i~ sn2ry
grants of money are by no means the chief thing wanted! To
give our Men of Letters stipends, endowments, and all furtherance of cash, will do little towards the business. On the whole,
one is weary of hearing about the omnipotence of money. I
will say rather that, for a genuine man, it is no evil to be poor;
that there ought to be Literary Men poor, —to shew whether
they are genuine or not! Mendicant Orders, bodies of good
men doomed to beg, were instituted in the Christian Church; a
most natural and even necessary development of the spirit of
Christianity. It was itself founded on Poverty, on Sorrow, Contradiction, Crucifixion, every species of worldly Distress and
Degradation. We may say that he who has not known those
things, and learned from them the priceless lessons they have to
teach, has missed a good opportunity of schooling. To beg. and
sg- %'bDt, hin tbbaorwbONlln coak wtYl a rope round your oins,
and be despised of all the world, was no beautiful business; —
nor an honourable one in any eye, till the nobleness of those who
did so had made it honoured of some! Begging is not in our
course at the present time: but for the rest of it, who will say
that  J ToLnson;. God D^%QpX +tD Beaver Eve snag f a P  1 
needful for him, at all rates, to know that outward profit, that
sGcets  X'uy kkix  is uot the CodX ke Has to aim at. Ythe,
vanity, ill-conditioned egoism of all sorts, are bred in his heart,
as in every heart; iieed, above all, to be cast out of his heart,to be, with whatever pangs, torn out of it, cast forth from it, as a
thing worthless. Byron, born rich and noble, made out even less
than Burns, poor and plebeian.  Who knows but, in that same'best possible organisation' as yet far off, Poverty may still enter
as an important element? What if our Men of Letters, men setting up to be Spiritual Heroes, were still then, as they now are a
kind of'involuntary monastic order;' bound still to this same
ugly Poverty,-till they had tried what was in it too, till they
had learned to make it too do for them!  Money, in truth, can




150         THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 LECT. V,
do much, but it cannot do all. We must know the province of
it, and confine it there; and even spurn it back, when it wishes
to get farther.
Besides, were the money-furtherances, the proper season for
them, the fit assigner of them, all settled, —how is the Burns to
be recognized that merits these?  He must pass through the ordeal, and prove himself.  This ordeal; this wild welter of a chaos
which is called Literary Life: this too is a kind of ordeal! There
is clear truth in the idea that a struggle from the lower classes
of society, towards the upper regions and rewards of society, must
ever continue. Strong men are born there, who ought to stand
elsewhere than there. The manifold, inextricably complex, universal struggle of these constitutes, and must constitute, what is
called the progress of society.  For Men of Letters, as for all
other sorts of men.  How to regulate that struggle?  There is
the whole question. To leave it as it is, at the mercy of blind
Chance; a whirl of distracted atoms, one cancelling the other;
one of the thousand arriving saved, nine hundred and ninety-Pine
lost by the way; your royal Johnson languishing inactive in garrets, or harnessed to the yoke of Printer Cave, your Burns dying
brokenhearted as a Gauger, your Rousseau driven into mad exasperation, kindling French Revolutions by his paradoxes- this, as
we said, is clearly enough the worst regulation.  The best, alas, is
far from us!
And yet there can be no doubt but it is coming; advancing on
us, as yet hidden in the bosom of centuries: this is a prophecy
one can risk. For so soon a& men get to discern the importance
of a thing, they do infallibly set about arranging it. facilitating,
forwarding it; and rest not till, in some approximate degree, they
have accomplished that. I say, of all Priesthoods, Aristocracies,
Governing Classes at present extant in the world, there is no
class comparable for importance to that Priesthood of the Writers
of Books. This is a fact which he who runs may read,-and
draw inferences from.  " Literature will take care of itself," answered Mr. Pitt, when applied to for some help for Burns.
"Yes," adds Mr. Southey. " it will take care of itself; and of you
too, if you do not look to it!"'Ph  repsmlt to 3in Bav3 d laI  M   oIf uetLeer-3 is rnt tke momeptoza




LECT. V.   THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                    15
one; they are but individuals, an infinitesimal fraction of the
great body; they can struggle on, and live or else die, as they
have been wont.  But it deeply concerns the whole society,
whether it will set its light on high places, to walk thereby; or
trample it under foot, and scatter it in all ways of wild waste (not
without conflagration), as heretofore!  Light is the one thing
wanted for the world. Put wisdom in the head of the world, the
world will fight its battle victoriously, and be the best world man
caln make it. I called this anomaly of a disorganic Literary
Class the heart of all other anomalies, at once product and parcnt;  some good arrangement for that would be as the p~acmax
saliens of a new vitality and just arrangement for all. Already,
in some European countrie, in France, in Prusia, one traces
some beginnings of an arrangement for the Literary Class; indicating the gradual possibility of such. I believe that it is possible; that it will have to be possible.
By far the most interesting fact I hear about the Chinese is
one on which we cannot arrive at clearness, but which excites
endless curiosity even in the dim state: this namely, that they
do attempt to make their Men of Letters their Governors! It
would be rash to say, one understood how this was done, or with
what degree of success it was done. All such things must be
very unsuccessful; yet a small degree of success is precious;
the very attempt how precious! There does seem to be, all over
China, a more or less active search everywhere to discover the
men of talent that grow up in the young generation. Schools
there are for every one: a foolish sort of training, yet still a
sort. The youths who distinguish themselves in the lower school
are promoted into favourable stations in the higher, that they may
still more distinguish themselves,-forward and forward: it appears to be out of these that the Official Persons, and incipient
Governors, are taken. These are they whom they try first,
-whether they can govern or not. And surely with the best hope;
for they are t'he men that'ave a'ready shown imnte\\ee.  Try
them: they have not governed or administered as yet; perhaps
they cannot; but there is no doubt they have some uncderstanding —without which no man can! Neither is Understanding a
tool, as we are apt to figure;'it is a hand which can handle any




152       THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.               LECT. v
tool.' Try these men: they are of all others the best worth
trying.-Surely there is no kind of government, constitution, revolution, social apparatus or arrangement, that I know of in this
world, so promising to one's scientific curiosity as this. The
man of intellect at the top of affairs: this is the aim of all constitutions and revolutions, if they have any aim. For the man
of true intellect, as I assert and believe always, is the noble.
hearted man withal, the true, just, humane and valiant man.
Get him for governor, all is got; fail lo get him, though you had
Constitutions plentiful as blackberries, and a Parliament in
every village, there is nothing yet got!These things look strange, truly; and are not such as we commonly speculate upon. But we are fallen into strange times;
these things will require to be speculated upon; to be rendered
practicable, to be in some way put in practice. These and many
others. On all hands of us, there is the announcement, audible
enough, that the old Empire of Routine has ended; that to say
a thing has long been, is no reason for its continuing to be. The
things which have been are fallen into decay, are fallen into incompetence; large masses of mankind, in every society of our
Europe, are no longer capable of living at all by the things
which have been. When millions of men can no longer by their
utmost exertion gain food for themselves, and'the third man for
thirty-six weeks each year is short of third-rate potatoes,' the
things which have been must decidedly prepare to alter themselves — I will now quit this of the organisation of Men of Letters.
Alas, the evil that pressed heaviest on those Literary Heroes
of ours was not the want of organisation for Men of Letters, but
a far deeper one; out of which, indeed, this and so many other
evils for the Literary Man, and for all men, had) as from. their
fountain, taken rlse. That our Hero as Man of Letters had to
travel without highway, companionless, through an inorganic
chaos,-and to leave his own life and faculty lying there, as a
partial contribution towards pushing some highway through it:
this, had not his faculty itself been so perverted and paralysed, he
might have put up with, might have considered to be but the common lot of Heroes. His fatal misery was the spiritual paralysis,




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 15
so we may name it, of the Age in which his life lay; whereby his
life too, do what he might, was half-paralysed! The Eighteenth
was a Sceylical Century; in which little word there is a whole
Pandora's Box of miseries. Scepticism means not intellectual
Doubt alone, but moral doubt; all sorts of infidelity, insincerity,
spiritual paralysis. Perhaps, in few centuries that one could
specify since the world began, was a life of Heroism more difficult for a man. That was not an age of Faith, —an age of Heroes! The very possibility of Heroism had been, as it were, formally abnegated in the minds of all.  Heroism was gone forever; Triviality, Formalism and Commonplace were come forever. The'age of miracles' had been, or perhaps had not been;
but it was not any longer.  An effete world; wherein Wonder,
Greatness, Godhood could not now dwell; —in one word, a godless world!
How mean, dwarfish are their ways of thinking, in this time,compared not with the Christian Shakspeares and Miltons, but
with the old Pagan Skalds, with any species of believing men!
The living TREE Igdrasil, with the melodious prophetic waving
of its world-wide boughs, deep-rooted as Hela, has died out into
the clanking of a World-MAcHINE.'Tree' and' Machine:' contrast these two things. I, for my share, declare the world to be
no machine: I say that it does not go by wheel-and-pinion'motives,' self-interests, checks, balances; that there is something
far other in it than the clank of spinning-jennies, and parliamentary majorities; and, on the whole, that it is not a machine at
all!-The old Norse Heathen had a truer notion of God's-world
than these poor Machine-Sceptics: the old Heathen Norse were
sincere men. But for these poor Sceptics there was no sincerity,
no truth. Half-truth and hearsay was called truth. Truth, for
most men, meant plausibility; to be measured by the number of
votes you could get.  They had lost any notion that sincerity
was possible, or of what sincerity was.  How many Plausibilities
asking, with unaffected surprise and the air of offended virtue,
What! am not I sincere?  Spiritual Paralysis, I say, nothing
left but a Mechanical life, was the characteristic of that century.
For the common man, unless happily he stood below his century
and belonged to another prior one, it was impossible to be a Be
8*




154        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.              LECT. V
liever, a Hero; he lay buried, unconscious, under these baleful
influences. To the strongest man, only with infinite struggle and
confusion was it possible to work himself half-loose; and lead
as it were, in an enchanted, most tragical way, a spiritual deathScepticismnis the name we give to all this; as the chief symptom, as the chief origin of all this. Concerning which so much
were to be said! It would take many Discourses, not a small
fraction of one Discourse, to state what one feels about that
Eighteenth Century and its ways. As indeed this, and the like
of this, which we now call Scepticism, is precisely the black
malady and life-foe, against which all teaching and discoursing
since man's life began has directed itself: the battle of Belief
against Unbelief is the never-ending battle! Neither is it in the
way of crimination that one would wish to speak. Scepticism,
for that century, we must consider as the decay of old ways of
believing, the preparation afar off for new better and wider ways,
-an inevitable thing.  We will not blame men for it; we will
lament their hard fate. We will understand that destruction of
old forms is not destruction of everlasting smbstances; that Scepticism, as sorrowful and hateful as we see it, is not an end but a
beg'U a nag.
The other day speaking, without prior purpose that way, of
Bentham's theory of man and man's life, I chanced to call it a
mare w b-g.~rly a>e tbi sn IMaonet's.    am bozrnd  to say, Bow
when it is once uttered, that such is my deliberate opinion. Not
that one word would mean offence against the man Jeremy Bentham, or those who respect and be ieve him. Benthaam himsell,
and even the creed of Bentham, seems to me comparatively
in a cowardly half-and-half manner, was tending to be. Let us
have the crisis; we shall either have death or the cure. I call
this gross, steam-engine Utilitarianism an approach towards new
Faith.  It was a laying down of cant; a saying to oneself:
"Well then, this world is a dead iron machine, the god of it
Gravitation and selfish Hunger; let us see what, by checking and
balancing, and good adjustment of tooth and pinion, can be
made of it I" Benthamism has something complete, manful, in




LECT. V.   THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                   151
such fearless committal of itself to what it finds true; you may
call it Heroic, though a IIeroism with its eyes put out! It is the
culminating point, and fearless ultimatum, of what lay in the
half-and half state, pervading man's whole existence in that
Eighteenth Century.  It seems to me, all deniers of Godhood,
and all lip-believers of it, are bound to be Benthamites, if they
have courage and honesty.  Benthhmism is an eyeless Heroism:
the Human Species, like a hapless blinded Samson grinding in
the Philistine Mill, clasps convulsively the pillars of its Mill;
brings huge ruin down, but ultimately deliverance withal. Of
Bentham I meant to say no harm.
But this I do say, and would wish all men to know and lay to
heart, that he who discerns nothing but Mechanism in the Universe, has in the fatalest way missed the secret of the Universe
altogether. That all Godhood should vanish out of men's conception of this Universe seems to me precisely the most brutal
error,-I will not disparage Heathenism by calling it a Heathen
error, —that men could fall into.  It is not true; it is false at
the very heart of it. A man who thinks so will think wrong
about all things in the world; this original sin will vitiate all
other conclusions he can form. One might call it the most lamentable of Delusions, —not forgetting Witchcraft itself! Witchcraft worshipped at least a living Devil; but this worships a
deaad iron levil; no roa, not even a l)ev1l! —-VWhatsoever is noble, divine, inspired, drops thereby out of life. There remains
everywhere in life a despicable capuit-mortnum; the mechanical
hull, all soul fled out of it.  How can a man act heroically?
The' Doctrine of Motiyes' will teach him that it is, under more
or less disguise, nothing but a wretched love of Pleasure, fear of
Pain; that Hunger, of applause, of cash, of whatsoever victual
it may be, is the ultimate fact of man's life.  Atheism, in brief;
-which does indeed frightfully punish itself.  The man, 1 say,
is become spiritually a paralytic man; this godlike Universe a
dead mechanical steam-engine, all working by motives, checls,
balances, and I know not what; wherein, as in the detestable
belly of some Phalaris'-Bull of his own contriving, he the pooi
Phalaris sits miserably dying!Belief I define to be a healthy act of a man's mind. It is a




156        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.              LECT. V
mysterious indescribable process, that of getting to believe;-indescribable, as all vital acts are. We have our mind given us,
not that it may cavil and argue, but that it may see into something, give us clear belief and understanding about something, whereon we are then to proceed to act. Doubt, truly, is
not itself a crime. Certainly we do not rush out, clutch up the
first thing we find, and straightway believe that! All manner
of doubt, inquiry, aKtp~l, as it is named, about all manner of objects, dwells in every reasonable mind. It is the mystic working of the mind, on the object it is getting to know and believe.
Belief comes out of all this, above ground, like the tree from its
hidden roots. But now if, even on common things, we require
that a man keep his doubts silent, and not babble of them till
they in some measure become affirmations or denials; how much
more in regard to the highest things, impossible to speak of in
words at all! That a man parade his doubt, and get to imagine
that debating and logic (which means at best only the manner of
telling us your thought, your belief or disbelief, about a thing) is
the triumph and true work of what intellect he has: alas, this is
as if you should overturn the tree, and instead of green boughs,
leaves and fruits, shew us ugly taloned roots turned up into the
air,-and no growth, only death and misery going on!
For the Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is
moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A
man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing
about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can
manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and
with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that
he will not get. We call those ages in which he gets so low the
mournfulest, sickest and meanest of all ages. The world's heart
is palsied, sick: how can any limb of it be whole?  Genuine
Acting ceases in all departments of the world's work; dexterous
Similitude of Acting begins. The world's wages are pocketed,
the world's work is not done. Heroes have gone out; Quacks
have come in. Accordingly, what Century, since the end of the
Roman world, which also was a time of scepticism, simulacra
and universal decadence, so abounds with Quacks as that Eighteenth? Consider them, with their tumid sentimental vapouring




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 15
about virtue, benevolence,-the wretched Quack-squadron, Cagliostro at the head of them! Few men were without quackery;
they had got to consider it a necessary ingredient and amalgam
for truth. Chatham, our brave Chatham himself, comes down
to the House, all wrapt and bandaged; he'has crawled out in
great bodily suffering,' and so on; —forgets, says Walpole, that
he is acting the sick man; in the fire of debate, snatches his arm
from the sling, and oratorically swings and brandishes it! Chatham himself lives the strangest mimetic life, half-hero, halfquack, all along.  For indeed the world is full of dupes; and
you have to gain the world's suffrage! How the duties of the
world will be done in that case, what quantities of error, which
means failure, which means sorrow and misery, to some and to
many, will gradually accumulate in all provinces of the world's
business, we need not compute.
It seems to me, you lay your finger here on the heart of the
world's maladies, when you call it a Sceptical World. An insin
cere world; a godless untruth of a world! It is out of this, as
I consider, that the whole tribe of social pestilences, French Revolutions, Chartisms, and what not, have derived their being, —
their chief necessity to be. This must alter.  Till this alter,
nothing can beneficially alter. My one hope of the world, my
inexpugnable consolation in looking at the miseries of the world,
is that this is altering.  Here and there one does now find a
man who knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth, and no
Plausibility and Falsity; that he himself is alive, not dead or
paralytic; and the world is alive, instinct with Godhood, beautiful and awful, even as in the beginning of days! One man
once knowing this, many men, all men, must by and by come to
know it. It lies there clear, for whosoever will take the spectacl/s off his eyes and honestly look, to know! For such a man the
Unbelieving Century, with its unblessed Products, is already past;
a new century is already come. The old unblessed Products and'erformances, as solid as they look, are Phantasms, preparing
speedily to vanish. To this and the other noisy, very greatlooking 8imulacrua with the whole world huahing at its heels,
he can say, composedly stepping aside: Thou art not true; thou
art not extant, only semblant, go thy way!-Yes, hollow Formu



158        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.               LECT. V
lism, gross Benthamism, and other unheroic atheistic Insincerity
is visibly and even rapidly decllning. An unbelieving Eighteenth
Century is but an exception,-such as now and then occurs. I
prophesy that the world will once more become sincere; a believing world; with many Heroes in it, a Heroic World.  It will
then be a victorious world; never till then.
Or indeed what of the world and its victories?  Men speak
too much about the world. Each one of us here, let the world
go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a
Life of his own to lead?  One Life; a little gleam of Time be.tween two Eternities; no second chance to us forevermore! It
were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra, but as wise
and realities.  The world's being saved will not save us; nor the
world's being lost destroy us.  We should look to ourselves:
there is great merit here in the' duty of staying at home!' And,
on the whole, to say truth, I never heard of'worlds' being'saved' in any other way.. That mania of saving worlds is itself
a piece of the Eighteenth Century with its windy sentimentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the saving of the world.I will trust confidently to the Maker of the world; and look a
little to my own saving, which I am more competent to!-In
brief, for the world's sake, and for our own, we will rejoice greatly
that Scepticism, Insincerity, Mechanical Atheism, with-all their
poison-dews, are going, and as good as gone.
Now it was under such conditions, in those times of Johnson,
that our Men of Letters had to live.  Times in which there was
properly no truth in life. Old Truths had fallen nigh dumb;
the new lay yet hidden, not trying to speak. That Man's Life
here below was a Sincerity and Fact, and would forever continue
such, no new intimation in that dusk of the world, had yet
dawned. No intimation; not even any French Revolution,which we define to be a Truth once more, though a Truth clad
in hellfire! How different was the Luther's pilgrimage, with its
assured goal, from the Johnson's, girt with mere traditions, suppositions, grown now incredible, unintelligible! Mahomet's Formulas were of wood waxed and oiled,' and could be burnt out of
one's way: poor Johnson's were far more difficult to burn.-The
strong man will ever find work, which means difficulty, pain, to




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 159
the full measure of his strength.  But to make out a victory, in
those circumstances of our poor Hero as Man of Letters, was
perhaps more difficult than in any.  Not obstruction, disorganisation, Bookseller Osborne and Fourpence-halfpenny a day;
not this alone; but the light of his own soul was taken from
him.  No landmark on the Earth; and, alas, what is that to
having no loadstar in the Heaven! We need not wonder that
none of those Three men rose to victory.  That they fought truly,
is the highest praise. With a mournful sympathy we will contemplate, if not three living victorious Heroes, as I said, the
Tombs of three fallen Heroes! They fell for us too; making a
way for us. There are the mountains which they hurled abroad
in their confused War of the Giants; under which, their strength
and life spent, they now lie buried.
I have already written of these three Literary Heroes, expressly or incidentally; what I suppose is known to most of you;
what need not be spoken or written a second time. They concern
us here as the singular Prophets of that singular age; for such they
virtually were; and the aspect they and their world exhibit, under
this point of view, might lead us into refiexions enough! I call
them, all three, Genuine Men more or less; faithfully, for most
part unconsciously, struggling, to be genuine, and plant themselves on the everlasting truth of things.  This to a degree that
eminently distinguishes them from the poor artificial mass of
their contemporaries; and renders them worthy to be considered
as Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting truth, as Prophets in that age of theirs. By Nature herself a noble necessity
was laid on them to be so.  They were men of such magnitude
that they could not live on unrealities,-clouds, froth and all inanity gave way under them: there was no footing for them but on
firm earth; no rest or regular motion for them, if they got no
footing there.  To a certain extent, they were Sons of Nature
once more in an age of Artifice; once more Original Men.
As for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by nature, one of our great English souls.  A strong and noble man;
so much left undeveloped in him to the last: in a kindlier element what might he not have been,-Poet, Priest, sovereign




160         THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.               LECT. V.
Ruler!  On the whole, a man must not complain of his' element,'
of his'time,' or the like; it is thriftless work doing so. His
time is bad: well then, he is there to make it better — Johnson's
youth was poor, isolated, hopeless, very miserable.  Indeed, it
does not seem possible that, in any the favourablest outward circumstances, Johnson's life could have been other than a painful
one.  The world might have had more of profitable work out of
him: or less; but his effort against the world's work could never
have been a light one.  Nature, in return for his nobleness, had
said to him, Live in an element of diseased sorrow. Nay, perhaps the sorrow and the nobleness were intimately and even inseparably connected with each other. At all events, poor Johnson had to go about girt with continual hypochondria, physical
and spiritual pain.  Like a Hercules with the burning Nessus'shirt on him, which shoots in on him dull incurable misery; the
Nessus'-shirt not to be stript off, which is his own natural skin!
In this manner, he had to live.  Figure him there, with his scrofulous diseases, with his great greedy heart, and unspeakable
chaos of thoughts; stalking mournful as a stranger in this Earth;
eagerly devouring what spiritual thing he could come at: schoollanguages and other merely grammatical stuff, if there were nothing better! The largest soul that was in all England; and
provision made for it of'fourpence-halfpenny a day.' Yet a
giant invincible soul; a true man's.  One remembers always
that story of the shoes at Oxford: the rough, seamed-faced, rawboned College Servitor stalking about, in winter-season, with his
shoes worn out; how the charitable Gentleman Commoner
secretly places a new pair at his door; and the rawboned Servitor, lifting them, looking at them near, with his dim eyes, with
what thoughts,-pitches them  out of the window!  Wet feet,
mud, frost, hunger or what you will; but not beggarsy -we Qc, -
not stand beggary!  Rude stubborn self-help here; a whole
world of squalor, rudeness, confused misery and want, yet of
nobleness and manfulness withal. It is a type of the man's life,
this pitching away of the shoes. An original man;-not a secondhand, borrowing or begging man. Let us stand on our own
basis, at any rate! On such shoes as we ourselves can get.  On
frost and mud, if you will, but honestly on that; —on the reality




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                  161
and substance which Nature gives us, not (n the semblance, or
the thing she has given another than us!And yet with all this rugged pride of manhood and self-help,
was there ever soul more tenderly affectionate, loyally submissive
to what was really higher than he? Great souls are always loyally submissive, reverent to what is over them; only small mean
souls are otherwise. I could not find a better proof of what I
said the other day, That the sincere man was by nature the
obedient man; that only in a World of Heroes was there loyal
Obedience to the Heroic. The essence of originality is not that
it be new: Johnson believed altogether in the old; he found the
old opinions credible for him, fit for him; and in a right heroic
manner lived under them. He is well worth study in regard to
that. For we are to say that Johnson was far other than a mere
man of words and formulas; he was a man of truths and facts.
He stood by the old formulas; the happier was it for him that
he could so stand: but in all formulas that he could stand by,
there needed to be a most genuine substance. Very curious how,
in that poor Paper-age, so barren, artificial, thick-quilted with
Pedantries, Hearsays, the great Fact of this Universe glared-in
forever, wonderful, indubitable, unspeakable, divine-infernal, upon
this man too! How he harmonised his Formulas with it, how he
managed at all under such circumstances: that is a thing worth
seeing. A thing'to be looked at with reverence, with pity, with
awe.' That Church of St. Clement Danes, where Johnson still
worshipped in the era of Voltaire, is to me a venerable place.
It was in virtue of his sincerity, of his speaking still in some
sort from the heart of Nature, though in the current artificial dialect, that Johnson was a Prophet. Are not all dialects'artificial?' Artificial things are not all false;-nay every true Product of Nature will infallibly shape itself; we may say all artificial
things are, at the starting of them, true. What we call' Formulas' are not in their origin bad; they are indispensably good.
Formula is method, habitude; found wherever man is found.  Formulas fashion themselves as Paths do, as beaten Highways, leading towards some sacred or high object, whither many men are
bent. Consider it. One man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse,
finde out a way of doing somewhat-were it of uttering his soul'M




tC2        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                LECT. V
reverence for the Highest, were it but of fitly saluting his fellow.
man.  An inventor was needed to do teat, a poet; he has articulated the dim-struggling thought that dwelt in his own and many
hearts.  This is his way of doing that; these are his footsteps,
the beginning of a' Path.' And now see: the second man travels
naturally in the footsteps of his foregoer, it is the easiest niethod.
In the footsteps of his foregoer; yet with improvements, with
changes where such seem good; at all events with enlargements,
the Path ever widening- itself as more travel it; —till at last there
is a broad Highway whereon the whole world may travel and drive.
While there remains a City or Shrine, or any Reality to drive to,
at the farther end, the Highway shall be right welcome! When
the City is gone, we will forsake the Highway. In this manner
all Institutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have
come into existence, and gone out of existence.  Formulas all begin by being full of substance; you may call them the skin, the
articulation into shape, into limbs and skin, of a substance that
is already there: they had not been there otherwise.  Idols, as
we said, are not idolatrous till they become doubtful, empty for
the worshipper's heart.  Much as we talk against Formulas, I
hope no one of us is ignorant withal of the high significance of
true Formulas; that they were, and will ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our habitation in this world.Mark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his'sincerity.' He
has no suspicion of his being particularly sincere, of his being particularly anything! A hard struggling, weary-hearted man, or'scholar' as he calls himself, trying hard to get some honest livelihood in the world, not to starve, but to live-without stealing.A. noble unconsciousness is in him.  He does not' engrave Truth
on his watch-seal;' no, but he stands by truth, speaks by it, works
and lives by it. Thus it ever is. Think of it once more. The
man whom Nature has appointed to do great things is, first of all,
furnished with that openness to Nature which renders him incapable of being insincere! To his large, open, deep-feeling heart
Nature is a Fact: all hearsay is hearsay; the unspeakable great.
ness of this ii: stery of Life, let him acknowledge it or not, nay
even though he seem to forget it or deny it, is ever present to
Aim-fearful and wonderful, on this hand and on that. He has a




LECT V.     THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 163
basis of sincerity; unrecognised, because never questioned or caFable of question.  Mirabeau, Mahomet, Cromwell, Napoleon: all
the Great Men I ever heard of have this as the primary material
of them. Innumerable commonplace men are debating, are talking everywhere their commonplace doctrines, which they have
learned by logic, by rote, at secondhand: to that kind of man all
this is still nothing.  He must have truth; truth which he feels
to be true.  How shall he stand otherwise?  His whole soul, at
all moments, in all ways, tells him that there is no standing.  He
is under the noble necessity of being true.  Johnson's way of
thinking about this world is not mine, any more than Mahomet's
was: but I recognise the everlasting element of heart-sincerity in
both; and see with pleasure, how neither of them remains ineffectual.  Neither of them  is as chafg sown; in both of them is
something which the seed-field will grow.
Johnson was a Prophet to his people; preached a Gospel to
them-as all like him always do.  The highest Gospel he preached we may describe as a kind of Moral Prudence:'in a world
where much is to be done and little is to be known,' see how you
will do it! A  thing well worth preaching.'A world where
much is to be done and little is to be known:' do not sink yourselves in boundless bottomless abysses of Doubt, of wretched godforgetting Unbelief — you were miserable then, powerless, mad:
how could you do or work at all?  Such Gospel Johnson preached and taught;-coupled theoretically and practically, with this
other great Gospel,' Clear your mind of Cant!' Have no trade
with Cant: stand on the cold mud in the frosty weather, but let it
be in your own real torn shoes:' that will be better for you,' as Mahomet says! I call this, I call these two things joined together, a
great Gospel, the greatest perhaps that was possible at that time.
Johnson's Writings, which once had such currency and celebrity, are now as it were disowned by the young generation. It
is not wonderful; Johnson's opinions are fast becoming obsolete:
but his style of thinking and of living, we may hope, will never
become obsolete. I find in Johnson's Books the indisputablest
traces of a great intellect and great heart; —ever welcome, under
what obstructions and perversions soever.  They are sincere words,
those of his; he means thll;gs by them. A wondrous buckram




164        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.               LECT V
style-the best he could get to then [ a measured grandiloquence,
stepping or rather stalking along in a very solemn way, grown
obsolete now; sometimes a tumid size of phraseology not in proportion to the contents of it: all this you will put up with.  For
the phraseology, tumid or not, has always something within it.  So
many beautiful styles, and books, with nothing in them;-a man
is a malefactor to the world who writes such! They are the
avoidable kind!-Had Johnson left nothing but his Dictionary,
one might have traced there a great intellect, a genuine. man.
Looking to its clearness of definition, its general solidity, Honesty,
insight and successful method, it may be called the best of all
Dictionaries.  There is in it a kind of architectural nobleness; it
stands there like a great solid square-built edifice, finished symmetrically complete: you judge that a true Builder did it.
One word, in spite of our haste, must be granted to poor Bozzy.  He passes for a mean, inflated, gluttonous creature; and was
so in many senses. Yet the fact of his reverence for Johnson
will ever remain noteworthy. The foolish conceited Scotch
Laird, the most conceited man of his time, approaching in such
awestruck attitude the great dusty irascible Pedagogue in his
mean garret there: it is a genuine reverence for Excellence; a
worship for Heroes, at a time when neither Heroes nor worship
were surmised to exist.' Heroes, it would seem, exist always, and
a certain worship of them! We will also take the liberty to deny
altogether that of the witty Frenchman, That no man is a Hero
to his valet-de-chambre.  Or if so, it is not the Hero's blame, but
the Valet's: that his soul, namely, is a mean valet-soul! He expects his Hero to advance in royal stage-trappings, with measured
step, trains borne behind him, trumpets sounding before him. It
should stand rather, No man can be a Grand-M~onarque to his
valet-de-chambre. Strip your Louis Quatorze of his king-gear,
and there is left nothing but a poor forked radish with a head
fantastically carved — admirable to no valet. The Valet does
not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas, no: it requires a
kind of Ifero to do that; —and one of the world's wants, in this as
in other senses, is for most part want of such.
On the whole shall we not say, that Boswell's admiration was
well bestowed; that he could have found no soul in all England




LLCT. v.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                 16a
so worthy of bending down before?  Shall we not say, of this
great mournful Johnson too, that he guided his difficult confused
existence wisely; led it well, like a right valiant man?  That
waste chaos of Authorship by Trade; that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in life-theory and life-practice; in
his poverty, in his dust and dimness, with the sick body and the
rusty coat: he made it do for him, like a brave man. Not wholly
without a loadstar in the Eternal; he had still a loadstar, as the
brave all need to have: with his eye set on that, he would change
his course for nothing in these confused vortices of the lower sea
of Time.'To the Spirit of Lies, bearing death and hunger, he
would in no wise strike his flag.'  Brave old Samuel: ultimnus
Ronmanorum!
Of Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He is
not what I call a strong man. A morbid, excitable, spasmodic
man;  at best, intense rather than strong.  He had not'the
talent of Silence,' an invaluable talent; which few Frenchmen,
or indeed men of any sort in these times, excel in! The suffering man ought really'to consume his own smoke;' there is no
good in emitting smole till you have made it intofire,-which, in
the metaphorical sense too, all smoke is capable of becoming!
Rousseau has not depth or width, not calm force for difficulty;
the first characteristic of true greatness.  A fundamental mistake
to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong
who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then.
He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering,
he is the strong man. We need forever, especially in these loudshrieking days, to remind ourselves of that. A man who cannot
hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no
right man.
Poor Rousseau's face is to me expressive of him. A high, but
narrow contracted intensity in it: bony brows; deep, strait-set
eyes, in which there is something bewildered-looking,-bewildered, peering with lynx-eagerness. A face full of misery, even
ignoble misery, and also of the antagonism  against that; something mean, plebeian there, redeemed only by intensity: the face
of what is called a Fanatic, —a sadly contracted Hero! We name




166        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                LECT. V
him here because, with all his drawbacks, and they are many, he
has the first and chief characteristic of a Hero: he is heartily
},} ts'h~k8. ~i'v   Ybt, i1i ever man was; as none of t~ese Prench
Philosophers were. Nay, one would say, of an earnestness too
great for his otherwise sensitive, rather feeble nature; and which
indeed in the end drove him into the strangest incoherences, almost delirations.  There had come, at last, to be a kind of madness in him: his Ideas possessed him like demons; hurried him
so about, drove him over steep places!The fault and misery of Rousseau was what we easily name by
a single word, Egoism; which is indeed the source and summary
of all faults and miseries whatsoever.  He had not perfected
himself into victory over mere Desire; a mean Hunger, in many
sorts, was still the motive principle of him.  I am afraid he was
a very vain man; hungry for the praises of men.  You reinember Genlis's experience of him.  She took Jean Jacques to the
Theatre; he bargaining for a strict incognito. —" He would not
be seen there for the world!" The curtain did happen nevertheless to be drawn aside: the Pit recognised Jean Jacques, but
otok Do grcy2t Ontfip of } )~}ll   lb  ar;gzp~og    Arih,  Ldr k
nation; gloomed all evening, spake no other than surly words.
The glib Countess remained entirely convinced that his anger'-ms ntS ~& x n    se~hn,xm  ato  no` enimg applaubeb w'hen seen.
How the whole nature of the man is poisoned; nothing but suspicion, self-isolation, fierce moody ways! He could not live with
anybody.  A man of some rank from the country, who visited
him often, and used to sit with him, expressing all reverence and
affection for him, comes one day; finds Jean Jacques full of the
sourest unintelligible humour.  "Monsieur,' said Jean Jacques,
with flaming eyes, " I know why you come here. You come to
see what a poor life I lead; how little is in my poor pot that is
boiling there.  Well, look into the pot!  There is half a pound
of meat, one carrot and three onions: that is all: go and tell the
whole world that, if you like, Monsieur!"-A man of this sort
was far gone. The whole world got itself supplied with anecdotes, for light laughter, for a certain theatrical interest, from
th'ese perversions and contortious of poor Jea'  &eqes.  QA\s,, 2.ika tgy r:-ere ner>  c _-&~rag- or vdeafrlmca; foo reaf to film f




LECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                   161
The contortions of a dying gladiator: the crowded amphitheatre
looks on with entertainment; but the gladiator is in agonies and
dying.
And yet this Rousseau, as we say, with his passionate appeals
to Mothers, with his Contrat-social, with his celebrations of Nature, even of savage life in Nature, did once more touch upon
Reality, struggle towards Reality; was doing the function of a
Prophet to his Time.  As he could, and as the Time could!
Strangely through all that defacement, degradation and almost
madness, there is in the inmost heart of poor Rousseau a spark
of real heavenly fire.  Once more, out of the element of that
withered mocking Philosophism, Scepticism, and Persiflage, there
has arisen in this man the ineradicable feeling and knowledge
that this Life of ours is true; not a Scepticism, Theorem, or
Persiflage, but a Fact, an awful Reality. Nature had made that
revelation to him; had ordered him to speak it out. He got it
spoken out; if not well and clearly, then ill and dimly,-as
clearly as he could. Nay what are all errors and perversities
0o' hils, eventhose stea'ilngs o0 r;ibons, alinless contused mniseries
and vagabondisms, if we will interpret them kindly, but the
blinkard dazzlement and staggerings to and fro of a man sent on
an errand he is too weak for, by a path he cannot yet find? Men
are led by strange ways. One should have tolerance for a man,
hope of him; leave him to try yet what he will do. While life
lasts, hope lasts for every man.
Of Rousseau's literary talents, greatly celebrated still among
his countrymen, I do not say much. His Books, like himself,
are what I call unhealthy; not the good sort of Books.  There is
a sensuality in Rousseau. Combined with such an intellectual
gift as his, it makes pictures of a certain gorgeous attractiveness:
but they are not genuinely poetical.  Not white sunlight: something n)pratic:  a kind of ro.~opink, artificial badizenment.  It is
frequent, or rather it is universal, among the French since his
time.  Madam  de Stael has something of it; St. Pierre; and
down onwards to the present astonishing convulsionary' Literature of Desperation,' it is everywhere abundant.   That same
r'osepink is not the right hue.  Look at a Shakspeare, at a Goethe,
even at a Walter Scott!  He who has once seen into this, has




168         THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.              LECT. V
seen the difference of the True from the Sham-True, and will
discriminate them ever afterwards.
We had to observe in Johnson how much good a Prophet,
under all disadvantages and disorganisations, can accomplish for
the world. In Rousseau we are called to look rather at the fearful amount of evil which, under such disorganisation, may accompany the good. Historically it is a most pregnant spectacle, that
of Rousseau. Banished into Paris garrets, in the gloomy company of his own Thoughts and Necessities there; driven from
post to pillar; fretted, exasperated till the heart of him went
mad, he had grown to feel deeply that the world was not his
friend nor the world's law. It was expedient, if any way possible, that such a man should not have been set in flat hostility
with the world. He could be cooped into garrets, laughed at as
a maniac, left to starve like a wild beast in his cage; —but he
could not be hindered from setting the world on fire.  The
French Revolution found its Evangelist in Rousseau.  His semidelirious speculations on the miseries of civilised life, the preferability of the savage to the civilised, and such like, helped well to
produce a whole delirium in France generally. True, you may
well ask, What could the world, the governors of the world, do
with such a man? Difficult to say what the governors of the
world could do with him! What he could do with them is unhappily clear enough, —guillotine a great many of them! Enough
now of Rousseau.
It was a curious phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving,
secondhand Eighteenth Century, that of a Hero starting up among
the artificial pasteboard figures and productions, in the guise of a
Robert Burns. Like a little well in the rocky desert places,like a sudden splendour of Heaven in the artificial Vauxhall!
People knew not what to make of it. They took it for a piece of
the Vauxhall fire-work; alas, it let itself be so taken, though
struggling half-blindly, as in bitterness of death, against that!
Perhaps no man had such a false reception from his fellow-men.
Once more a very wasteful life-drama was enacted under the sun.
The tragedy of Burns's life is known to all of you. Surely we
nlay say, if discrepancy between place held and place merited con




L=CT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                169
stitute perverseness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse than Burns's. Among those secondhand acting figures,
mimes for most part, bof the Eighteenth Century, once more a
giant Original Man; one of those men who reach down to the
perennial Deeps, who take rank with the Heroic among men: and
he was born in a poor Ayrshire hut. The largest soul of all the
British lands came among us in the shape of a hard-handed Scottish Peasant. —His Father, a poor toiling man, tried various
things; did not succeed in any; was involved in continual difficulties. The Steward, Factor as the Scotch call him, used to
send letters and threatenings, Burns says,'which threw us all
into tears.' The brave hard-toiling, hard-suffering Father, his
brave heroine of a wife; and those children, of whom Robert was
one! In this Earth, so wide otherwise, no shelter for them. The
letters'threw us all into tears:' figure it. The brave Father, I
say always — a silent Hero and Poet; without whom the son had
ne'er been a speaking ones  Burns's Schoolmaster came afterwards to London, learnt what good society was; but declares that
in no meeting of men did he ever enjoy better discourse than at
the hearth of this peasant. And his poor' seven acres of nurseryground,'-not that, nor the miserable patch of clay-farm, nor anything he tried to get a living by, would prosper with him; he had
a sore unequal battle all his days. But he stood to it valiantly;
a wise, faithful, unconquerable man; —swallowing down how many
sore sufferings daily into silence; fighting like an unseen Hero —
nobody publishing newspaper-paragraphs about his nobleness;
voting pieces of plate to him! However, he was not lost; nothing is lost. Robert is there; the outcome of him, —and indeed
of many generations of such as him.
This Burns appeared under every disadvantage: uninstructed,
poor, born only to hard manual toil; and writing, when it came
to that, in a rustic special dialect, known only to a small province
of the country he lived in. Had he written, even what he did
write, in the general language of England, 1 doubt not he had
already become universally recognised as being, or capable to be,
one of our greatest men. That he should have tempted so many
to penetrate through the rough husk of that dialect of his, is proof
that there lay something far from common within it. He has
9




170        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.    LECT. V
gained a certain recognition, and is continuing to do so over all
quarters of our wide Saxon world: wheresoever a Saxon dialect
is spoken, it begins to be understood, by personal inspection of
this and the other, that one of the most considerable Saxon men
of the Eighteenth century was an Ayrshire Peasant named Robert
Burns. Yes, I will say, here too was a piece of the right Saxon
stuff: strong as the Harz-rock, rooted in the depths of the world;
rock, yet with wells of living softness in it! A wild impetuous
whirlwind of passion and faculty slumbered quiet there; such
heavenly melody dwelling in the heart of it. A noble rough genuineness; homely, rustic, honest; true simplicity of strength;
with its lightning-fire, with its soft dewy pity; —like the old Norse
Thor, the Peasant-god!Burns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has
told me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship,
was usually the gayest of speech; a fellow of infinite frolic, laught3r, sense, and heart; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting
peats in the bog, or such like, than he ever afterwards knew him.
I can well believe it.  The basis of mirth ('fond gazllard,' as old
Marquis Mirabeau calls it), a primal-element of sunshine and joyfulness, coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one
of the most attractive characteristics of Burns. A large fund of
Rope &wens in him; spite of his tragical hixouy, he is not a
mourning man.  He shakes his sorrows gallantly aside; bounds
forth victorious over them. It is as the lion shaking' dew-drops
from his mane;' as the swift-bounding horse, that laughs at the
shaking of the spear.-But indeed, Hope, Mirth, of the sort like
Burns's, are they not the outcome properly of warm generous
affection,-such as is the beginning of all to every man?
You would think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted
British soul we had in all that century of his: and yet I believe
the day is coming when there will be little danger in saying so.
His writings, all that he did under such obstructions, are only a
poor fragment of him. Professor Stewart remarked very justly,
what indeed is true of all Poets good for much, that his poetry
was not any particular faculty; but the general result of a naturally vigorous original mind expressing itself in that way. Burns's
gifts, expressed in conversation, are the theme of all that ever




IECT. V.    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                   17.
heard him. All kinds of gifts: from the gracefulest utterances
of courtesy, to the highest fire of passionate speech; loud floods
of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic emphasis, clear piercing insight: all was in him. Witty duchesses celebrate him as a
noan whose speech'led them off their feet.' This is beautiful:
but still more beautiful that which Mr. Lockhart has recorded,
which I have more than once alluded to, How the waiters and
ostlers at inns would get out of bed and come crowding to hear
this man speak! Waiters and ostlers:-they too were men, and
here was a man! I have heard much about his speech; but one
of the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, from a venerable gentleman long familiar with him, That it was speech distinguished by always having something in it.  "He spoke rather
little than much," this old man told me; "sat rather silent in
those early days, as in the company of persons above him; and
always when he did speak, it was to throw new light on the matter." I know not why any one should ever speak otherwise!But if we look at his general force of soul, his healthy robustness
every way, the rugged downrightness, penetration, generous valour
and manfulness that was in him,-where shall we readily find a
better-gifted man?
Among the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes
feel as if Burns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than
any other.  They differ widely in vesture; yet look at them  intrinsically. There is the same burly thicknecked strength of body
as of soul — built, in both cases, on what the old Marquis calls a
fond gaillard  By nature, by course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau too is veracity
and sense, power of true insight, superiority of vision. The
thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of insight
into some object or other: so do both these men speak.  The
same raging passions; capable too in both of -manifesting themselves as the tenderest noble affections. Wit, wild laughter, energy, directness, sincerity: these were in both. The types of
the two men are not dissimilar. Burns too could have governed,
debated in National Assemblies; politicised, as few could. Alas,
the courage which had to exhibit itself in capture of smuggling




172        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.    LECT. V.
schooners in the Soiway Frith; in keeping silence over so much,
where no good speech, but only inarticulate rage was possible:
this might have bellowed forth Ushers de Breze and the like;
and made itself visible to all men, in managing of kingdoms, in
ruling of great ever-memorable epochs! But they said to him
reprovingly, his Official Superiors said, and wrote:' You are to
work, not think.' Of your thinking-faculty, the greatest in this
land, we have no need; you are to gauge beer there; for that
only are you wanted.  Very notable; —and worth mentioning,
though we know what is to be said and answered! As if
Thought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, in all places
and situations of the world, precisely the thing that was wanted.
The fatal man; is he not always the unthinkg man, the man who
cannot think and see; but only grope, and hallucinate, and missee
the nature of the thing he works with? He missees it, mistakes
it, as we say; takes it for one thing, and it is another thing,and leaves him standing like a Futility there! He is the fatal
man; unutterably fatal, put in the high places of men.-" Why
complain of this?" say some: " Strength is mournfully denied its
arena; that was true from of old."  Doubtless; and the wors',
for the arena, answer I!  Complaining profits little; stating or
the truth may profit. That a Europe, with its French Revolution just breaking out, finds no need of a Burns except for gauging beer,-is a thing I, for one, cannot rejoice at!Once more we have to say here that the chief quality of Burns
is the sincerity of him. So in his Poetry, so in his Life. The
Song he sings is not of fantasticalities; it is of a thing felt, really there; the prime merit of this, as of all in him, and of his
Life generally, is truth. The Life of Burns is what we may call a
great tragic sincerity. A sort of savage sincerity,-not cruel, far
from that; but wild, wrestling naked with the truth of things.
In that sense, there is something of the savage in all great men.
Hero-worship,-Odin, Burns?  Well; these Men of Letters
too were not without a kind of Hero-worship: but what a strange
condition has that got into now!  The waiters and ostlers of
Scotch inns, prying about the door, eager to catch any word that
fell from Burns, were doing unconscious reverence to the Heroic.
Johnson had his Boswell for worshipper. Rousseau had wor




AECT. v    THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.                  173
shippers enough; princes calling on him in his mean garret; the
great, the beautiful doing reverence to the poor moonstruck man.
For himself a most portentous contradiction; the two ends of his
life not to be brought into harmony.  He sits at the tables of
grandees; and has to copy music for his own living.  He cannot
even get his music copied: "By dint of dining out," says he, "I
run the risk of dying by starvation at home."  For his worshippers too a most questionable thing! If doing Hero-worship well
or badly be the test of vital wellbeing or illbeing to a generation,
can we say that these generations are very first-rate?-And yet
our heroic Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or
what you like to call them; intrinsically there is no preventing
it by any means whatever. The world has to obey him who
thinks and sees in the world.  The world can alter the manner
of that; can either have it as blessed continuous summer-sunshine, or as unblessed black thunder and tornado, —with unspeakable difference of profit for the world! The manner of it
is very alterable; the matter and fact of it is not alterable, by
any power under the sky. Light; or, failing that, lightning'
the world can take its choice. Not whether we call an Odin
god, prophet, priest or what we call him; but whether we believe the word he tells us: there it all lies. If it be a true word,
we shall have to believe it; believing it, we shall have to do it.
What name or welcome we give him or it, is a point that concerns ourselves mainly. It, the new Truth, new deeper revealing
of the Secret of this Universe, is verily of the nature of a message from on high; and must and will have itself obeyed.My last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns's history
-his visit to Edinburgh. Often it seems to me as if his demeanour there were the highest proof he gave of what a fund of
worth and genuine manhood was in him. If we think of it, few
heavier burdens could be laid on the strength of a man. So
sudden; all common Lionism, which ruins innumerable men,
was as nothing to this. It is as if Napoleon had been made a
King of, not gradually, but at once from the Artillery Lieutenancy in the Regiment La FEre.  Burns, still only in his twentyseventh year, is no longer even a ploughman; he is flying to the
West Indies to escape disgrace and a jail.  This month he is a




174        THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.              LECT. Y.
ruined peasant, his wages seven pounds a year, and these gone
from him: next month he is in the blaze of rank and beauty.
handing down jewelled Duchesses to dinner; the cynosure of all
eyes! Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one
man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will
stand adversity. I admire much the way in which Burns met
all this. Perhaps no man one could point out, was ever so sorely
tried, and so little forgot himself.  Tranquil, unastonished; not
abashed, not inflated, neither awkwardness nor affectation: he
feels that he there is the man Robert Burns; that the' rank is
but the guinea-stamp;' that the celebrity is but the candle-light,
which will shew what man, not in the least make him a better or
other man! Alas, it may readily, unless he look to it, make him
a worse man; a wretched inflated windbag, —inflated till he burst,
and become a dead lion; for whom, as some one has said,'there
is no resurrection of the body:' worse than a living dog!-Burns
is admirable here.
And yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion-hunters were the ruin and death of Burns. It was they that rendered it impossible for him to live! They gathered round him
in his Farm; hindered his industry; no place was remote enough
from them. He could not get his Lionism forgotten, honestly as
he was disposed to do so. He falls into discontents, into miseries, faults; the world getting ever more desolate for him;
health, character, peace of mind, all gone — solitary enough now.
It is tragical to think of! These men came but to see him   it
was out of no sympathy with him, nor no hatred to him. They
came to get a little amusement: they got their amusement:and the Hero's life went for it!
Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of'Light-chafers,' large Fire-flies. which people stick upon spits,
and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can
thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire.
Great honour to the Fire-flies! But- I!




LECTURE VI.
[Friday, 22d May. 1840.]
TIRE HERO AS KING. CROMWELL, NAPOLEON: MODERN
REVOLUTIONISM.
WE come now to the last form of Heroism; that which we call
Kingship. The Commander over Men; he to whose will our
wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves,
and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is practically the summary for us of
all the various figures of Heroism; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever
of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man,
embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we
are to do. He is called Rex, Regulator, Roi: our own name is
still better; King, Kiinning, which means Can-ning, Able-man.
Numerous considerations, pointing towards deep, questionable,
and indeed unfathomable regions, present themselves here: on
the most of which we must resolutely for the present forbear to
speak at all.  As Burke said that perhaps fair Trial by Jury was
the soul of Government, and that all legislation, administration,
parliamentary debating, and the rest of it, went on, in order
to bring twelve impartial men into a iury-box;'-so, by much
stronger reason, may I say here, that the finding of your Ableaan, and getting him invested with the symbols of ability, with
dignity, worship (worth-ship), royalty, kinghood, or whatever we
call it, so that he may actually have room to guide according to
his faculty of doing it,-is the business, well or ill accomplished,
of all social procedure whatsoever in this world   Hustingsspeeches, Parliamentary motions, Reform Bills, French Revolutions, all mean at heart this; or else nothing. Find in any country the Ablest Man that exists there; raise him to the supreme




176               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. V1
place, and loyally reverence him: you have a perfect government
for that country; no ballot-box, parliamentary eloquence, voting,
constitution-building, or.ther machinery whatsoever can improve it a whit. It is in the perfect state; an ideal country.
The Ablest Man; he means also the truest-hearted, justest, the
Noblest Man: what he tells us to do must be precisely the wisest,
fittest, that we could anywhere or anyhow learn; —the thing
which it will in all ways behove us, with right loyal thankfulness,
and nothing doubting, to do! Our doing and life were then, so
far as government could regulate it, well regulated: that were
the ideal of constitutions.
Alas, we know very well that Ideals can never be completely
embodied in practice. Ideals must ever lie a very great way off;
and we will right thankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable approximation thereto! Let no man, as Schiller says,
too querulously'measure by a scale of perfection the meagre
product of reality' in this poor world of ours. We will esteem
him no wise man; we will esteem him a sickly, discontented,
foolish man. And yet, on the other hand, it is never to'le forgotten that Ideals do exist; that if they be not approximated to
at all, the whole matter goes to wreck! Infallibly.  No bricklayer builds a wall perfectly perpendicular, mathematically this is
not possible; a certain degree of perpendicularity suffices him;
and he, like a good bricklayer, who must have done with his job,
leaves it so. And yet if he sway too nzuch from the perpendicular; a.ove all, if he throw plummet and level quite away from
him, and pile brick on brick heedless, just as it comes to hand -!
Such bricklayer, I think, is in a bad way. He has forgotten himself: but the Law of Gravitation does not forget to act on him;
he and his wall rush down into confused welter of ruin!This is the history of all rebellions, French Revolutions, social
explosions in ancient or modern times. You have put the too
Unable Man at the head of affairs! The too ignoble, unvaliant,
fatuous man. You have forgotten that there is any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of putting the Able Man there. Brick
must lie on brick as it may and can. Unable Simulacrum of
Ability, quack, in a word, must adjust himself with quack, in all
manner of administration of human things — which accordingly




LECT. VL          THE HERO AS KING.                    1v'
li unadministered, fermenting into unmeasured masses of failure,
of indigent misery: in the outward, and in the inward or spiritual, miserable millions stret2h out the hand for their due supply,
and it is not there.  The'law of gravitation' acts; Nature's
laws do none of them forget to act. The miserable millions burst
forth into Sansculottism, or some other sort of madness: bricks
and bricklayer lie as a fatal chaos!Much sorry stuff, written some hundred years ago or more,
about the' Divine right of Kings,' moulders unread now in tho
Public Libraries of this country. Far be it from us to disturb
the calm process by which it is disappearing harmlessly from the
earth, in those repositories! At the same time, not to let the
immense rubbish go without leaving us, as it ought, some soul of
it behind,-I will say that it did mean something; something
true, which it is important for us and all men to keep in mind.
To assert that in whatever man you chose to lay hold of (by this
or the other plan of clutching at him); and clapt a round piece
of metal on the head of, and called King,-there straightway
came to reside a divine virtue, so that he became a kind of god,
and a Divinity inspired him with faculty and right to rule over
you to all lengths: this,-what can we do with this but leave it
to rot silently in the Public Libraries? But I will say withal,
and that is what these Divine right men meant, That in Kings,
and in all human Authorities, and relations that men god-created
can form among each other, there is verily either a Divine Right
or else a Diabolic Wrong; one or the other of these two I For
it is false altogether, what the last Sceptical Century taught us,
that this world is a steam-engine. There is a God in this world;
and a God's-sanction, or else the violation of such, does look out
from all ruling and obedience, from all moral acts of men. There
is no act more moral between men than that of rule and obedience. Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due;
woe to him that refuses it when it is! God's law is in that, I say,
however the Parchment-laws may run: there is a Divine Right
or else a Diabolic Wrong at the heart of every claim that one
man makes upon another.
It can do none of us harm to reflect on this: in all the rela
tions of life it will concern us; in Loyalty and Royalty, the high
9*




.78                THE HERO AS KING.                  LECT. VI
est of these. I esteem the modern error, That all goes by selfinterest and the checking and balancing of greedy knaveries, and
that in short there is nothing divine whatever in the association
of men, a still more despicable error, natural as it is to an unbelieving century, than that of a'divine right' in people called
Kings.  I say, Find me the true KI[nning, King, or Able-man,
and he has a divine right over me. That we knew in some tolerable measure how to find him, and that all men were ready to acknowledge his divine right when found: this is precisely the
healing which a sick world is everywhere, in these ages, seeking
after! The true King, as guide of the practical, has ever something of the Pontiff in him,-guide of the spiritual, from which
all practice has its rise. This too is a true saying, That the King
is head of the Church. -But we will leave the Polemic stuff of a
dead century to lie quiet on its bookshelves.
Certainly it is a fearful business, that of having your Able-man
to seek, and not knowing in what manner to proceed about it!
That is the world's sad predicament in these times of ours. They
are times of revolution, and have long been. The bricklayer with
his bricks, no longer heedful of plummet or the law of gravitation,
have toppled, tumbled, and it all welters as we see! But the beginning of it was not the French Revolution; that is rather the
end, we can hope.  It were truer to say, the beginning was three
centuries farther back: in the Reformation of Luther. That the
thing which still called itself Christian Church had become a
Falsehood, and brazenly went about pretending to pardon men's
everlasting truth of Nature it did not now do: here lay the vital
malady. The inward being wrong, all outward went ever more:
and more wrong. Belief died away; all was Doubt, Disbelief.
The builder cast away his plummet; said to himself, " What is
gravitation? Brick lies on brick there!" Alas, does it not still
sound strange to many of us, the assertion that there is a God'struth in the business of god-created men; that all is not a kind
of grimace, an' expediency,' diplomacy, one knows not what!From that first necessary assertion of Luther's,  "You, selfstyled Papa, you are no Father in God at all; you are —a Chi.




LECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                     179
mera, whom I know not how to name in polite language!"-from
that onwards to the shout which rose round Camille Desmloulins
in the Palais-Royal, " Aux armes!" when the people had burst
up against all manner of Chimeras, —I find a natural historical
sequence. That shout too, so frightful, half-infernal, was a great
matter.  Once more the voice of awakened nations — starting
confusedly, as out of nightmare, as out of death-sleep, into some
dim feeling that Life was real; that God's-world was not an expediency and diplomacy! Infernal;-yes, sihce they would not
have it otherwise.  Infernal, since not celestial or terrestrial!
Hollowness, insincerity has to cease; sincerity of some sort has
to begin. Cost what it may, reigns of terror, horrors of French
Revolution or what else, we have to return to truth. Here is a
Truth, as I said: a Truth clad in hellfire, since they would not
but have it so!A common theory among considerable parties of men in England and elsewhere used to be, that the French Nation had, in
those days, as it were gone mad; that the French Revolution
was a general act of insanity, a temporary conversion of France
and large sections of the world into a kind of Bedlam. The
Event had risen and raged; but was a madness and nonentity,gone now happily into the region of Dreams and the Picturesque!
-To such comfortable philosophers, the Three Days of July,
1830, must have been a surprising phenomenon. Here is the
French nption risen again, in musketry and death-struggle, out
shooting and being shot, to make that same mad French Revolution good!  The sons and grandsons of those men, it would
seem, persist in the enterprise: they do not disown it; they will
have it made good; will have themselves shot, if it be not made
good! To philosophers who had made up their life-system on
that'madness' quietus, no phenomenon could be more alarming.
Poor Niebuhr, they say, the Prussian Professor and Historian,
fell broken-hearted in consequence; sickened, if we can believe it,
and died of the Three Days! It was surely not a very heroic
death — little better than Racine's, dying because Louis Fourtecnth looked sternly on him once. The world had stood some
considerable shocks, in its time; might have been expected to
survive the Three Days too, and be found turning on its axis af




180                THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. VI
ter even them! The Three Days told all mortals that the old
French Revolution, mad as it might look, was not a transitory
ebullition of Bedlam, but a genuine product of this Earth where
we all live; that it was verily a Fact, and that the world in general would do well everywhere to regard it as such.
Truly, without the French Revolution, one would not know
what to make of an age like this at all. We will hail the French
Revolution, as shipwrecked mariners might the sternest rock, in
a world otherwise all of baseless sea and waves. A true Apocalypse, though a terrible one, to this false withered artificial time;
testifying once more that Nature is preternatural, if not divine,
then diabolic; that Semblance is not Reality; that it has to become Reality, or the world will take fire under it,-burn it into
what it is, namely Nothing!  Plausibility has ended; empty
Routine has ended; much has ended. This, as with a Trump of
Doom, has been proclaimed to all men. They are the wisest
who will learn it soonest. - Long confused generations before it
be learned; peace impossible till it be! The earnest man, surrounded, as ever, with a world of inconsistencies, can await patiently, patiently strive to do his work, in the midst of that.
Sentence of Death is written down in Heaven against all that;
sentence of Death is now proclaimed on the Earth against it:
this he with his eyes may see. And surely, I should say, considering the other side of the matter, what enormous difficulties
lie there, and how fast, fearfully fast, in all countries, the inexorable demand for solution of them is pressing on,-he may
easily find other work to do than labouring in the Sansculottic
province at this time of day!
To me, in these circumstances, that of' Hero-worship' becomes
a fact inexpressibly precious; the most solacing fact one sees in
the world at present. There is an everlasting hope in it for the
management of the world. Had all traditions, arrangements,
creeds, societies that men ever instituted, sunk away, this would
remain. The certainty of Heroes being sent us; our faculty, our
necessity, to reverence Heroes when sent: it shines like a polestar through smoke-clouds, dust-clouds, and all manner of downrushing and conflagration.
Hero-worship would have sounded very strange to those work




oECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                     181
ers and fighters in the French Revolution. Not reverence for
Great men; not any hope, or belief, or even wish, that Great
Men could again appear in the world! Nature, turned into a'Machine,' was as if effete now; could not any longer produce
Great }Men: —I can tell her, she may give up the trade altogether,
then; we cannot do without Great Men! —But neither have I
any quarrel with that of'Liberty and Equality;' with the faith
that, wise great men being impossible, a level immensity of foolish small men would suffice. It was a natural faith then and
there.  4" Liberty and Equality; no Authority needed any
longer.   Hero-worship, reverence for such Authorities, has
proved false, is itself a falsehood; no more of it. We have had
suchforgeries, we will now trust nothing.  So many base plated
coins passing into the market, the belief has now become common that no gold any longer exists,-and even that we can do
very well without gold!" I find this, among other things, in
that universal cry of Liberty and Equality; and find it very natural, as matters then stood.
And yet surely it is but the transition from false to true.
Considered as the whole truth, it is false altogether; —the product of entire sceptical blindness, as yet only struggling to see.
Hero-worship exists forever, and everywhere: not Loyalty alone;
it extends from divine adoration down to the lowest practical regions of life.' Bending before men,' if it is not to be a mere
empty grimace, better dispensed with than practised, is Heroworship; a recognition that there does dwell in that presence of
our brother something divine; that every created man, as Novalis said, is a'revelation in the Flesh.' They were'Poets too,
that devised all those graceful courtesies which make life noble!
Courtesy is not a falsehood or grimace; it need not be such.
And Loyalty, religious Worship itself, are still possible; nay
still inevitable.
May we not say, moreover, while so many of our late Heroes
have worked rather as revolutionary men, that nevertheless every
Great Man, every genuine man, is by the nature of him a son of
Order, not of Disorder?  It is a tragical position for a true
man to work in revolutions. He seems an anarchist; and indeed a painful element of anarchy does encumber him at every




i82                THE HERO AS KING.                 LECI e
step,-him to whose soul anarchy is hostile, hateful. His mission
is Order; every man's is.  He is here to make what was disorderly, chaotic, into a thing ruled, regular. He is the mfissionary
of Order. Is not all work of man in this world a making of Order?  The carpenter finds rough trees; shapes them, constrains
them  into square fitness, into purpose and use.  We are all
born enemies of Disorder: it is tragical for us all to be concerned in image-breaking and down-pulling; for the Great Man, more
a man than we, it is doubly tragical.
Thus too all human things, maddest French Sansculottisms, do)
and must work towards Order. I say, there is not a man in them,
raging in the thickest of the madness, but is impelled withal, at
all moments, towards Order.  His very life means that; Disor.
der is dissplution, death. No chaos but it seeks a centre to revolve round. While man is man, some Cromwell or Napoleon is
the necessary finish of a Sansculottism.-Curious: in those days
when Hero-worship was the most incredible thing to every one,
how it does come out nevertheless, and assert itself practically, in
a way which all have to credit. Divine right, take it on the great
scale, is found to mean divine might withal!  While old false
Formulas are getting trampled everywhere into destruction, new
genuine Substances unexpectedly unfold themselves indestructible.  In rebellious ages, when Kingship itself seems dead and
abolished, Cromwell, Napoleon step forth again as Kings. The
history of these men is what we have now to look at, as our last
phasis of Heroism.  The old ages are brought back to us; the
manner in which Kings were made, and Kingship itself first took
rise, is again exhibited in the history of these Two.
We have had many civil-wars in England; wars of Red and
White Roses, wars of Simon de Montfort; wars enough, which
are not very memorable. But that war of the Puritans has a significance which belongs to no one of the others. Trusting to
your candour, which will suggest on the other side what I have
not room to say, I will call it a section once more of that great
universal war which alone makes up the true History of the
world,-the war of Belief against Unbelief!  The struggle cf
men intent on the real essence of things, against men intent on




LECT. VI.          THE HERO AS KING.                      183
the semblances and forms of things.  The Puritans, to many
seem mere savage Iconoclasts, fierce destroyers of Forms; but
it were more just to call them haters of untrue Forms.  I hope
we know how to respect Laud and his King as well as them.
Poor Laud seems to me to have been weak and ill-starred, not
dishonest; an unfortunate Pedant rather than anything worse.
His'Dreams' and superstitions, at which they laugh so, have
an affectionate, loveable kind of character. He is like a CollegeTutor, whose whole world is forms, College-rules; whose notion
is that these are the life and safety of the world. He is placed
suddenly, with that unalterable luckless notion of his, at the head
not of a College but of a Nation, to regulate the most complex
deep-reaching interests of men. He thinks they ought to go by
the old decent regulations; nay that their salvation will lie in
extending and improving these.  Like a weak man, he drives
with spasmodic vehemence towards his purpose; cramps himself
to it, heeding no voice of prudence, no cry of pity: He will have
his College rules obeyed by his Collegians; that first; and till
that, nothing. He is an ill-starred Pedant, as I said. He would
have it the world was a College of that kind, and the world was
not that. Alas, was not his doom  stern enough?  Whatever
wrongs he did, were they not all frightfully avenged on him?
It is meritorious to insist on forms; Religion and all else naturally clothes itself in forms. Everywhere the formed world is
the only habitable one. The naked formlessness of Puritanism
is not the thing I praise in the Puritans; it is the thing I pity,praising only the spirit which had rendered that inevitable! All
substances clothe themselves in forms: but there are suitable
true forms, and then there are untrue unsuitable. As the briefest definition, one might say, Forms which grow round a substance, if we rightly understand that, will correspond to the real
nature and purport of it, will be true, good; forms which are consciously put round a substance, bad. I invite you to reflect on
this. It distinguishes true-from false in Ceremonial Form, earnest solemnity from emnpty pageant, in all human things.
There must be a veracity, a natural spontaneity in forms. In
the commonest meeting of men, a person making, what we calls'set speeches,' is not he an offence? In the mere drawing-room;




194               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. VL
whatsoever courtesies you see to be grimaces, prompted by no
spontaneous reality within, are a thing you wish to get away
from. But suppose now it were some matter of vital concernment, some transcendent matter (as Divine Worship is), about
which your whole soul, struck dumb with its excess of feeling,
knew not how to form itself into utterance all, and preferred
formless silence to any utterance there possible,-what should we
say of a man coming forward to represent or utter it for you in
the way of upholsterer-mummery?  Such a man,-let him depart swiftly, if he love himself! You have lost your only son;
are mute, struck down, without even tears: an importunate man
importunately offers to celebrate Funeral Games for him in the
manner of the Greeks! Such mummery is only not to be accepted; it is hateful, unendurable. It.is what the old Prophets
called'Idolatry,' worshipping of hollow shews: what all earnest
men do and will reject. We can partly understand what those
poor Puritans meant. Laud dedicating that St. Catherine
Creed's Church, in the manner we have it described; with his
multiplied  ceremonial bowings, gesticulations, exclamations:
surely it is rather the rigorous formal Pedant intent on his'College rules,' than the earnest Prophet, intent on the essence
of the matter!
Puritanism found such forms insupportable; trampled on such
forms;-we have to excuse it for saying, No form at all rather
than such! It stood preaching in its bare pulpit, with nothing
but the Bible in its hand. Nay, a man preaching from his earnest soul into the earnest souls of men; is not this virtually the
essence of all Churches whatsoever? The nakedest, savagest
reality, I say, is preferable to any semblance, however dignified.
Besides, it will clothe itself with due semblance by and by, if it
be real.  No fear of that; actually no fear at all.  Given the
living man, there will be found clothes for him; he will find himself clothes. But the suit-of-clothes pretending that it is both
clothes and man-! We cannot'fight the French' by three
hundred thousand red uniforms; there must be men in the inside of them! Semblance, I assert, must actually not divorce itself from Reality. If Semblance do,-why then there must oe
men found to rebel against Semblance, for it has become a lie I




UCT. VI.          THE HERO AS KING.                   18b
These two Antagonisms at war here, in the case of Laud and the
Puritans, are as old nearly as the world. They went to fierce
battle over England in that age; and fought out their confused
controversy to a certain length, with many results for all of us.
In the age which directly followed that of the Puritans, their
cause or themselves were little likely to have justice done them.
Charles Second and his Rochesters were not the kind of men
you would set to judge what the worth or meaning of such men
might have been. That there could be any faith or truth in
the life of a man, was what these poor Rochesters, and the ago
they ushered in, had forgotten. Puritanism was hung on gibbets,-like the bones of the leading Puritans. Its work nevertheless went on accomplishing itself. All true work of a man,
hang the author of it on what gibbet you like, must and will accomplish itself. We have our Habeas- Corpus, our free Representation of the People; acknowledgment, wide as the world, that
all men are, or else must, shall, and will become, what we call
free men;-men with their life grounded on reality and justioe,
not on tradition, which has become unjust and a chimera! This
in part, and much besides this, was the work of the Puritans.
And indeed, as these things became gradually manifest, the
character of the Puritans began to clear itself. Their memories
were, one after another, taken down from the gibbet; nay, a certain portion of them are now, in these days, as good as canonized.
Eliot, Hampden, Pym, nay, Ludlow, Hutchinson, Vane himself,
are admitted to be a kind of Heroes; political Conscript Fathers,
to whom in no small degree we owe what makes us a free England: it would not be safe for any body to designate these men
as wicked now. Few Puritans of note but find their apologists
somewhere, and have a certain reverence paid them by earnest
men. One Puritan, I think, and almost he alone, our poor Cromwell, seems to hang yet on the gibbet, and find no hearty apologijst anywhere. Him neither saint nor sinner will acquit of great
wickedness. A man of ability, infinite talent, courage, and so
forth; but he betrayed the Cause! Selfish ambition, dishonesty
duplicity; a fierce, coarse, hypocritical Tartufe; turning all that
noble Struggle for constitutional Liberty into a sorry farce play



i86                THE HERO AS KING.                LECT. YL
ed for his own benefit: this and worse is the character they give
of Cromwell. And then there come contrasts with Washington
and others; above all, with these noble Pyms and Hampdons,
whose noble work he stole for himself, and ruined into a futility
and deformity.
This view of Cromwell seems to me the not unnatural product
of a century like the Eighteenth. As we said of the Valet, so of
the Sceptic: He does not know a Hero when he sees him! The
Valet expected purple mantles, gilt sceptres, bodyguards, and
flourishes of trumpets: the Sceptic of the Eighteenth century
looks for regulated respectable Formulas,' Principles,' or what
else he may call them; a style of speech andl conduct which has
got to seem' respectable,' which can plead for itself in a handsome articulate manner, and gain the suffrages of an enlightened
sceptical Eighteenth century! It is, at bottom, the same thing
that both the Valet and he expect: the garnitures of some acknowledged royalty, which then they will acknowledge!. The King
coming to them in the rugged unformulistic state shall be no
King.
For my own share, far be it from me to say or insinuate a word
of disparagement against such characters as Hampden, Eliot,
Pym; whom I believe to have been right worthy and useful men.
I have read diligently what books and documents about them I
could come at; —with the honestest wish to admire, to love, and
worship them like Heroes; but I am sorry to say, if the real
truth must be told, with very indifferent success! At bottom, I
found that it would not do. They are very noble men these;
step along in their stately way, with their measured euphuisms,
philosophies, parliamentary eloquences, Ship-monies, Monarchies
of l/an; a most constitutional, unblameable, dignified set of men.
But the heart remains cold before them; the fancy alone endeavours to get up some worship of them. What man's heart does, in
reality, break forth into any fire of brotherly love for these men?
They are become dreadfully dull men! One breaks down often
enough in the constitutional eloquence of the admirable Pym, with
his' seventhly and lastly.' You find that it may be the admira.
blest thing in the world, but that it is heavy,-heavy as lead, bar
ren as brick clay; that, in a word, for you there is little or no,




LKCT. Il.          THE HERO AS KING.                     181
thing now surviving there! One leaves all these Nobilities standing in their niches of honour: the rugged outcast Cromwell, he is
the man of them all, in whom one still finds human stuff. The
great savage Baresark: he could write no euphuistic Monarchy of
Alan; did not speak, did not work with glib regularity; had no
straight story to tell for himself anywhere. But he stood bare,
not cased in euphuistic coat-of-mail  he grappled like a giant, face
to face, heart to heart, with the naked truth of things! That,
after all, is the sort of man for one. I plead guilty to valuing
such a man beyond all other sorts of men. Smooth-shaven Respectabilities not a few one finds, that are not good for much.
Small thanks to a man for keeping his hands clean, who would
not touch the work but with gloves on!
Neither, on the whole, does this constitutional tolerance of the
Eighteenth century for the other happier Puritans seem to be a
very great matter. One might say, it is but a piece of Formulism
and Scepticism like the rest. They tell us, It was a sorrowful
thing to consider that the foundation of our English Liberties
should have been laid by'Superstition.'  These Puritans came
forward with Calvinistic incredible Creeds, Anti-Laudisms, Westminster Confessions; demanding chiefly of all, that they should
have liberty to worship in their own way. Liberty to tax themselves: that was the thing they should have demanded! It was
Superstition, Fanaticism, disgraceful ignorance of Constitutional
Philosophy to insist on the other thing!-Liberty to tax oneself?
Not to pay out money from your pocket except on reason shewn?
No century, I think, but a rather barren one would have fixed on
that as the first right of man! I should say, on the contrary, A
just man will generally have better cause than money in what
shape soever, before deciding to revolt against his Government.
Ours is a most confused world; in which a good man will be
thankful to see any kind of Government maintain itself in a not
insupportable manner: and here in England, to this hour, if he is
not ready tpnay a great many taxes which he can see very small
reason in, it will not go well with him I think! He must try
some other climate than this. Taxgatherer? *Money? He will
say: " Take my money, since you can, and it is so desirable to
you; take it,-and take yourself away with it; and leave me




188               THE HERO AS KING.                LECT. VL
alone to my work here. I am still here; can still work, after all
the money you have taken from me!" But if they come to him,
and say, " Acknowledge a Lie; pretend to say you are worshipping God, when you are not doing it: believe not the thing that
you find true, but the thing that I find, or pretend to find true!"
He will answer: "No; by God's help, no! You may take my
purse; but I cannot have my moral Self annihilated.  The purse
is any Highwayman's who might meet me with a loaded pistol:
but the Self is mine and God my Maker's; it is not yours; and
I will resist you to the death, and revolt against you, and on the
whole front all manner of extremities, accusations and confusions,
in defence of that!"Really, it seems to me the one reason which could justify revolting this of the Puritans. It has becen the soul of all just revolts among men. Not Hunger alone produced even the French
Revolution; no, but the feeling of the insupportable all-pervading Zalsehood which had now embodied itself in Hunger, in universal material Scarcity and Nonentity, and thereby become indisputably false in the eyes of all! We will leave the Eighteenth
century with its' liberty to tax itself.' We will not astonish ourselves that the meaning of such men as the Puritans remained
dim to it. To men who believe in no reality at all, how shall
a real human soul, the intensest of all realities, as it were the
Voice of this world's Maker still speaking to us,-be intelligible? What it cannot reduce into constitutional doctrines relative to'taxing,' or other the like material interest, gross, palpable to the sense, such a century will needs reject as an amorphous heap of rubbish. Hampdens, Pyms and Ship-money will
be the theme of much constitutional eloquence, striving to be fervid;-which will glitter, if not as fire does, then as ice does: and
the irreducible Cromwell will remain a chaotic mass of'Madness,'' Hypocrisy,' and much else.
From of old, I will confess, this theory of Cromwell's falsity
has been incredible to me. Nay, I cannot believe the like, of
any Great Man whatever. Multitudes of Great Men figure in
History as false selfish men; but if we will consider it, they are
but figures for us, unintelligible shadows; we do not see into them




iLCT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                     189
as men that could have existed at all. A superficial unbelieving
generation only, with no eye but for the surfaces and semblances
of things, could form such notions of Great Men. Can a great
soul be possible without a conscience in it, the essence of all real
souls, great or small?-No, we cannot figure Cromwell as a Falsity
and Fatuity; the longer I study him and his career, I believe
this the less. Why should we? There is no evidence of it. Is
it not strange that, after all the mountains of calumny this man
has been subject to, after being represented as the very prince of
liars, who never, or hardly ever, spoke truth, but always some
cunning counterfeit of truth, there should not yet have been one
falsehood brought clearly home to him? A prince of liars, and no
lie spoken by him. Not one that I could yet get sight of. It is like
P'ococke asking Grotius, Where is your proof of Mahomet's Pigeon?
No proof!-Let us leave all these calumnious chimeras, as chimeras ought to be left.  They are not portraits of the man; they
are distracted phantasms of him, the joint product of hatred and
darkness.
Looking at the man's life with our own eyes, it seems to me, a
very different hypothesis suggests itself. What little we know
of his earlier obscure years, distorted as it has come down to us,
does it not all betoken an earnest, affectionate, sincere kind of
man? His nervous melancholic temperament indicates rather a
seriousness too deep for him.  Of those stories of' Spectres;' of
the white 8pectre in broad daylight, predicting that he should be
King of England, we are not bound to believe much; —probably
no more than of the other black Spectre, or Devil in person, to
whom the Officer saw him sell himself before Worcester Fight!
But the mournful, over-sensitive, hypochondriac humour of Oliver, in his young years, is otherwise indisputably known. The
Huntingdon Physician told Sir Philip Warwick himself, He had
often been sent for at midnight; Mr. Cromwell was full of hypochondria, thought himself near dying, and " had fancies about the
Trown-cross.J  These tfifngs are sign'ffcanc.  SrucA aa exarica&'
deep-feeling nature, in that rugged stubborn strength of his, is
not the symptom of falsehood; it is the symptom and promise of
quite other than falsehood!
The young Oliver is sent to study Law falls, or is said to have




190                THE HERO AS KING.                  LECT. VL
fallen, for a little period, into some of the dissipations of youth;
but if so, speedily repents, abandons all this: not much above
twenty, he is married, settled as an altogether grave and quiet
man.' He pays back what money he had won at gambling,' says
the story; —he does not think any gain of that kind could be
really his. It is very interesting, very natural, this' conversion,'
as they well name it; this awakening of a great true soul from
t}ie worldly slough, to see into the awful truth of things; —to see
t':at Time and its shews all rested on Eternity, and this poor
Eajrth of ours was the threshold either of Heaven or of Hell!
Oliver's life at St. Ives and Ely, as a sober industrious Farmer,
is it not altogether as that of a true and devout man?  He has
renounced the world and its ways; its prizes are not the thing
that can enrich him.  He tills the earth; he reads his Bible;
daily assembles his servants round him to worship God. He
comforts persecuted ministers, is fond of preachers; nay, can
himself preach, —exhorts his neighbours to be wise, to redeem the
time. In all this, what' hypocrisy,'' ambition,'' cant,' or other
falsity?  The man's hopes, I do believe, were fixed on the other
H-igher World; his aim to get weff thither, by walking well through
his humble course in this world. He courts no notice: what
could notice here do for him?'Ever in his great Taskmaster's
eye.'
It is striking, too, how he comes out once into public view; he,
since no other is willing to come: in resistance to a public grievance. I mean, in that matter of the Bedford Fens. No one else
will go to law with Authority; therefore he will.  That matter
once settled, he returns back into obscurity, to his Bible and his
Plough.' Gain influence?' His influence is the most legitimate;
derived from personal knowledge of him, as a just, religious, reasonable and determined man. In this way he has lived till past
forty; old age is now in view of him, and the earnest portal of
Death and Eternity;-it was at this point that he suddenly became'ambitious!' I do not interpret his Parliamentary mission
in that way!
His successes in Parliament, his successes through the war,
are honest successes of a brave man; who has more resolution in
the heart of him, more light in the head of him than other men




EcT. Tv            THE HERO AS KING.                     191
l1is prayers to God; his spoken thanks to the God of Victory,
who had preserved him safe, and carried him forward so far,
through the furious clash of a world all set in conflict, through
desperate-looking envelopments at Dunbar; through the deathhail of so many battles; mercy. after mercy; to the' crowning
mercy' of Worcester Fight: all this is good and genuine for a
deep-hearted Calvinistic Cromwell.  Only to vain unbelieving
Cavaliers, worshipping not God but their own' love-locks,' frivolities and formalities, living quite apart from contemplations of
God, living without God in the world, need it seem hypocritical.
Nor will his participation in the King's death involve him in
condemnation with us. It is a stern business killing of a King!
But if you once go to war with him, it lies there; this and all else
lies there. Once at war, you have made wager of battle with
him; it is he to die, or else you. Reconciliation is problematic;
i'_ay be possible, or far more likely, is impossible. It is now
pretty generally admitted that the Parliament, having vanquished
Charles First, had no way of making any tenable arrangement
with him. The large Presbyterian party, apprehensive now of
the Independents, were most anxious to do so; anxious indeed
as for their own existence; but it could not be.  The unhappy
Charles, in those final Hampton-Court negotiations, shews himself as a man fatally incapable of being dealt with. A man who,
once for all, could not and would not understand:-whose thought
did not in any measure represent to him the real fact of the matter; nay, worse, whose word did not at all represent his thought.
We may say this of him without cruelty, with deep pity rather'
but it is true and undeniable.  Forsaken there of all but the name
of Kingship, he still, finding himself treated with outward respect
as a King, fancied that he might play off party against party, and
smuggle himself into his old power by deceiving both. Alas,
they both discovered that he was deceiving them. A man whose
word will not inform you at all what he means or will do, is not
a man you can bargain with. You must get out of that man's
way, or put him out of yours! The Presbyterians, in their despair, were still for believing Charles, though found false, unbelievable again and again. Not so Cromwell:;" For all our fight.
ing," says he, "we are to have a little bit of paper?"  No!



192                THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. VI
In fact, everywhere we have to note the decsive practical eye
of this man; how he drives towards the practical and practicable;
has a genuine insight into what is fact. Such an intellect, I maintain, does not belong to a false man: the false man sees false
shews, plausibilities, expediencies: the true man is needed to discern even practical truth. Cromwell's advice about the Parliament's Army, early in the contest, How they were to dismiss their
city-tapsters, flimsy riotous persons, and choose substantial yeomen, whose heart was in the work, to be soldiers for them: this is
advice by a man who saw. Fact answers, if you see into Fact!
Cromwell's Ironsides were the embodiment of this insight of his;
men fearing God; and without any other fear. No more conclusively genuine set of fighters ever trod the soil of England, or of
any other land.
Neither will we blame greatly that word of Cromwell's to them;
which was so blamed: " If the King should meet me in battle, I
would kill the King." Why not? These words were spoken to
men who stood as before a Higher than Kings. They had set
more than their own lives on the cast. The Parliament may
call it, in official language, a fighting'for the King:' but we,
for our share, cannot understand that. To us it is no dilettante
work, no sleek officiality; it is sheer rough death and earnest.
They have brought it to the calling forth of War; horrid internecine fight, man grappling with man in fire-eyed rage,-the
infernal element in man called forth, to try it by that! Do that
therefore; since that is the thing to be done. —The successes of
Cromwell seem to me a very natural thing! Since he was not
shot in battle, they were an inevitable thing. That such a man,
with the eye to see, with the heart to dare, should advance, from
post to post, from victory to victory, till the Huntingdon Farmer
became, by whatever name you might call him, the acknowledged
Strongest Man in England, virtually the King of England,
requires no magic to explain it!Truly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall into
Scepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity; not to know a Sincerity when they see it. For this world, and for all worlds, what
curse is so fatal?  The heart lying dead, the eye cannot  eo.




LCT. VI          THE  -ERO AS KING.                     193
What intellect remains is merely the vulpine intellect. That a
true King be sent them is of small use; they do not know him
when sent. They say scornfully, Is this your King? The Hero
wastes his heroic faculty in bootless contradiction from the unworthy; and can accomplish little.  For himself he does accomplish a heroic life, which is much, which is all; but for the world
he accomplishes comparatively nothing. The wild rude Sincerity,
direct from Nature, is not glib in answering from the witnessbox: in your small-debt pie-powder court, he is scouted as a
counterfeit. The vulpine intellect'detects' him. For being a
man worth any thousand men, the response your Knox, your
Cromwell gets, is an argument for two centuries whether he was
a man at all. God's greatest gift to this Earth is sneeringly
flung away. The miraculous talisman is a paltry plated coin, not
fit to pass in the shops as a common guinea.
Lamentable this! I say, this must be remedied.  Till this be
remedied in some measure, there is nothing remedied.'Detect
quacks 2' Yes do, for Heaven's sake; but know withal the men
that are to be trusted! Till we know that, what is all our knowledge; how shall we even so much as'detect?' For the vulpine
sharpness, which considers itself to be knowledge, and' detects'
in that fashion, is far mistaken. Dupes indeed are many: but,
of all dupes, there is none so fatally situated as he who lives in
undue terror of being duped.  The world does exist; the world
has truth in it, or it would not exist! First recognise what is
true, we shall then discern what is false; and properly never
till then.' Know the men that are to be trusted:' alas, this is yet, in
these days, very far from us. The sincere alone can recognise
sincerity. Not a Hero only is needed, but a world fit for him; a
world not of Valets;-the Hero comes almost in vain to it otherwise! Yes, it is far from us: but it must come; thank God, it
is visibly coming. Till it do come, what have we? Ballot-boxes,
suffrages, French Revolutions:-if we are as Valets, and do not
know the Hero when we see him, what good are all these?  A
heroic Cromwell comes; and for a hundred and fifty years hc
cannot have a vote from  us.  Why, the insincere, unbelieving
world is the natural property of the Quack, and of the Father of
In




194               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. YL
quacks and quackeries! Misery, confusion unveracity are alone
possible there. By ballot-boxes we alter the figure of our Quack;
but the substance of him continues. The Valet-World has to be
governed by the ShamI-Hero, by the King merely dressed in Kinggear. It is his; he is its! In brief, one of two things: We
shall either learn to know a Hero, a true Governor and Captain,
somewhat better, when we see him; or else go on to be forever
governed by the Unheroic; —had we ballot-boxes clattering at
every street-corner, there were no remedy in these.
Poor Cromwell,-great Cromwell! The inarticulate Prophet;
Prophet who could not speak.  Rude, confused, struggling to
utter himself, with his savage depth, with his wild sincerity; and
he looked so strange, among the elegant Euphuism, dainty little
Falklands, didactic Chillingworths, diplomatic Clarendons! Consider him. An outer hull of chaotic confusion, visions of the
]Devil, nervous dreams, almost semi-madness; and yet such a
clear determinate man's-energy working in the heart of that.  A
kind of chaotic man.  The ray as of pure starlight and fire,
working in such an element of boundless hypochondria, unformed
black of darkness! And yet withal this hypochondria, what was
it but the very greatness of the man? The depth and tenderness
of his wild affections; the quantity of sympathy he had with
things,-the quantity of insight he would yet get into the heart
of things, the mastery he would yet get over things: this was his
hypochondria.  The man's misery, as man's misery always does,
a-ihe dn's greatness. Samue\A  oahnson too's that kind of man.
Sorrow-stricken, half-distracted; the wide element of mournful
black enveloping himn,-wide as the world.  It is the character
of a prophetic man; a man with his whole soul seeing and struggling to see.
On this ground, too, I explain to myself Cromwell's reputed
confusion of speech. To himself the internal meaning was sunclear; but the material with which he was to clothe it in utterance was not there.  He had lived silent; a great unnamed sea
of Thought round him all his days; and in his way of life
little call to attempt nravming or uttering that. With his sharp
power of vision, resolute power of action, I doubt not he could
hays karned to write Books withal and speak fluently enough:




LECT. VI.          THE HERO AS KING.                      19;
-he did harder things than writing of Books.  This kind of
man is precisely he who is fit for doing manfully all things you
will set him on doing.  Intellect is not speaking and logicizing,
it is seeing and ascertaining.  Virtue, Vir-tus, manhood, hero
hood, is not fairspoken immaculate regularity; it is first of all
what the Germans well name it, TLgend (Taugend, dow-ing ot
Doughtiness), Courage and the Faculty to do. This basis of the
matter Cromwell had in him.
One understands moreover how, though he could not speak in
Parliament, he might preach, rhapsodic preaching; above all,
how he might be great in extempore prayer. These are the free
outpouring utterances of what is in the heart: method is not required in them; warmth, depth, sincerity are all that is required.
Cromwell's habit of prayer is a notable feature of him.  All his
great enterprises were commenced with prayer. In dark inextricable-looking difficulties, his Officers and he used to assemble,
and pray alternately, for hours, for days, till some definite resolution rose among them, some' door of hope,' as they would name
it, disclosed itself.  Consider that.  In tears, in fervent prayers,
and cries to the great God, to have pity on them, to make His
light shine before them. They, armed Soldiers of Christ, as
they felt themselves to be; a little band of Christian Brothers,
who had drawn the sword against a great black devouring world
not Christian, but Mammonish, Devilish,-they cried to God in
their straits, in their extreme need, not to forsake the Cause that
was His. The light which now rose upon them, how could a human soul, by any means at all, get better light? Was not the
purpose so formed like to be precisely the best, wisest, the one
to be followed without hesitation any more? To them it was as
the shining of Heaven's own Splendour in the waste-howling
darkness; the Pillar of Fire by night, that was to guide them
on their desolate perilous way. Was it not such?  Can a man's
soul, to this hour, get guidance by any other method than intrinsically by that same,-devout prostration of the earnest struggling soul before the Highest, the Giver of all Light; be such
prayer a spoken, articulate, or be it a voiceless, i;articulate one?
There is no other method.'Hypocrisy?' One begins to be
weary of all that. They who call it so, have no right to speak




i96               THE HERO AS KING.                LECT. VI
on such matters. They never formed a purpose, what one can
call a purpose. They went about balancing expediencies, plausibilities; gathering votes, advices; they never were alone with
the truth of a thing at all.-Cromwell's prayers were likely to be'eloquent,' and much more than that. His was the heart of a
man who could pray.
But indeed his actual Speeches, I apprehend, were not nearly
so ineloquent, incondite, as they look.  We find he was, what all
speakers aim to be, an impressive speaker, even in Parliament;
one who, from the first, had weight. With that rude passionate
voice of his, he was always understood to mean something, and
men wished to know what. He disregarded eloquence, nay despised and disliked it; spoke always without premeditation of
the words he was to use. The Reporters, too, in those days,
seem to have been singularly candid; and to have given the
Printer precisely what they found on their own note-paper. And
withal, what a strange proof is it of Cromwell's being the premeditative ever-calculating hypocrite, acting a play before the
world, That to the last he took no more charge of his Speeches!
How came he not to study his words a little, before flinging
them  out to the public?  If the words were true words, they
could be left to shift for themselves.
But with regard to Cromwell's'lying,' we will make one remark.  This, I suppose, or something like this, to have been the
nature of it. All parties found themselves deceived in him;
each party understood him to be meaning this, heard him even
say so, and behold he turns out to have been meaning that! He
was, cry they, the chief of liars. But now, intrinsically, is not
all this the inevitable fortune, not of a false man in such times,
but simply of a superior man? Such a man must have reticences
in him. If he walk wearing his heart upon his sleeve for daws
to peck at, his journey will not extend far! There is no use for
any man's taking up his abode in a house built of glass. A man
always is to be himself the judge how much of his mind he will
shew to other men; even to those he would have work along
with'him. There are impertinent inquiries made: your rule is,
to leave the inquirer uninformed on that matter; not, if you can
help it, misinformed, but precisely as dark as he was! This,




SECT. V1          THE HERO AS KING.                     197
could one hit the right phrase of response, is what the wise and
faithful man would aim to answer in such a case.
Cromwell, no doubt of it, spoke often in the dialect of small
subaltern parties; uttered to them a part of his mind.  Each
little party thought him all its own. Hence their rage, one and
all, to find him not of their party, but of his own party! Was it
his blame? At all seasons of his history, he must have felt,
among such people, how, if he explained to them the deeper insight he had, they must either have shuddered aghast at it, or
believing it, their own little compact hypothesis must have gone
wholly to wreck. They could not have worked in his province
any more; nay perhaps they could not now have worked in their
own province. It is the inevitable position of a great man among
small men. Small men, most active, useful, are to be seen everywhere, whose whole activity depends on some conviction which
to you is palpably a limited one; imperfect, what we call an error. But would it be a kindness always, is it a duty always or
often, to disturb them in that? Many a man, doing loud work
in the world, stands only on some thin traditionality, conventionality; to him indubitable, to you incredible; break that beneath him, he sinks to endless depths! "I might have my hand
full of truth," said Fontenelle, "and open only my little finger."
And if this be the fact even in matters of doctrine, how much
more in all departments of practice.  He that cannot withal keeg,
his mind to himself cannot practice any considerable thing whatever. And we call it'dissimulation,' all this?  What would
you think of calling the general of an army a dissembler because
he did not tell every corporal and private soldier, who pleased to
put the question, what his thoughts were about everything?Cromwell, I should rather say, managed all this in a manner we
must admire for its perfection. An endless vortex of such questioning'corporals' rolled confusedly round him  through his
whole course; whom he -did answer. It must have been as a
great true-seeing man that he managed this too.  Not one
proved falsehood, as I said; not one! Of what man that.ever
wound himself thr4ugh such a coil of things will you say so
much?



O98                THE HERO AS KING.                  LECT. VI
But, in fact, there are two errors, widely prevalent, which pervert to the very basis our judgments formed about such men as
Cromwell; about their'ambition,'' falsity,' and such like. The
first is what I might call substituting the goal of their career for
the course and starting-point of it.  The vulgar Historian of a
Cromwell fancies that he had determined on being Protector of
England, at the time when he was ploughing the marsh lands of
Cambridgeshire. His career lay all mapped out; a program of
the whole drama; which he then step by step dramatically unfolded, with all manner of cunning, deceptive dramaturgy, as he
went on,-the hollow, scheming'Y~roKptrs, or Play-actor, that he
was!  This is a radical perversion; all but universal in such
cases.  Ahd think for an instant how different the fact is! How
much does one of us foresee of his own life? Short way ahead
of us it is all dim; an unwound skein of possibilities, of apprehensions, attemptabilities, vague-looming hopes.  This Cromwell
had not his life lying all in that fashion of Program, which he
needed then, with that unfathomable cunning of his, only to enact dramatically, scene after scene! Not so.  We see it so; but
to him it was in no measure so.  What absurdities would fall
away of themselves, were this one undeniable fact kept honestly
in view by History! Historians indeed will tell you that they
do keep it in view; —but look whether such is practically the
fent! Vulgar History, as in this Cromwell's case, omits it altoether; even the best kinds of History only remember it now,nd then. To remember it duly, with rigorous perfection, as in
the fact it stood, requires indeed a rare faculty; rare, nay impossible. A very Shakspeare for faculty; or more than Shakspeare;
who could enact a brother man's biography, see with the brother
man's eyes at all points of his course what things he saw; in short,
know his course and him, as few'Historians' are like to do.
IIalf or more of all the thick-plied perversions which distort our
image of Cromwell, will disappear, if we honestly so much as try
to represent them so; in sequence, as they were; not in the lump,
as they are thrown down before us.
But a second error, which I think the generality commit, refers to this same' ambition' itself. We exaggerate the ambition
of Great Men; we mistake what the nature of it is.  Great Men




LECI. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                   199
are not ambitious in that sense; he is a small poor man that is
ambitious so. Examine the man who lives in misery because he
does not shine above other men; who goes about producing him.
self, pruriently anxious about his gifts and claims; struggling to
force everybody, as it were begging everybody for God's sake, to
acknowledge him a great man, and set him over the heads of
men! Such a creature is among the wretchedest sights seen under this sun. A great man? A poor morbid prurient empty
man; fitter for the ward of a hospital, than for a throne among
men. I advise you to keep out of his way. He cannot walk on
quiet paths; unless you will look at him, wonder at him, write
paragraphs about him, he cannot live. It is the emptiness of the
man, not his greatness. Because there is nothing in himself, he
hungers and thirsts that you would find something in him. In
good truth, I believe no great man, not so much as a genuine man
who had health and real substance in him of whatever magnitude, was ever much tormented in this way.
Your Cromwell, what good could it do him to be' noticed' by
noisy crowds of people?  God his Maker already noticed him.
He, Cromwell, was already there; no notice would make him
other than he already was. Till his hair was grown grey; and
Life from the downhill slope was all seen to be limited, not infinite but finite, and all a measurable matter how it went, —he had
been content to plough the ground, and read his Bible. He in
his old days could not support it any longer, without selling himself to Falsehood, that he might ride in gilt carriages to Whitehall, and have clerks with bundles of papers haunting him, " Decide this, decide that," which in utmost sorrow of heart no man
can perfectly decide! What could gilt carriages do for this man?
From of old, was there not in his life a weight of meaning, a terror and a splendour as of Heaven itself? IIis existence there as
man, set him beyond the need of gilding. Death, Judgment and
Eternity: these already lay as the background of whatsoever he
thought or did. All his life lay begirt as in a sea of nameless
Thoughts, which no speech of a mortal could name. God's Word,
as the Puritan prophets of that time had read it: this was great,
and all else was little to him. To call such a man'ambitious,'
to figure him as the prurient windbag described above, seems to




200               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. VI
me the poorest solecism. Such a man will say: " Keep your gilt
carriages and huzzaing mobs, keep your red-tape clerks, your influentialities, your important business. Leave me alone, leave
me alone; there is too much of life in me already!"  Old Samuel
Johnson, the greatest soul in England in his day, was net ambitious.'Corsica Boswell' flaunted at public shews with printed
ribbons round his hat; but the great old Samuel staid at home.
The world-wide soul wrapt up in its thoughts, in its sorrows;what could paradings, and ribbons in the hat, do for it?
Ah yes, I will say again: The great silent men! Looking
round on the noisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with little worth, one loves to reflect on the great
Empire of Silence, The noble silent men, scattered here and
there, each in his department; silently thinking, silently work-'
ing; whom no Morning Newspaper makes mention of!.They
are the salt of the Earth. A country that has none or few of
these is in a bad way. Like a forest which had no roots; which
had all turned into leaves and boughs; —which must soon wither
and be no forest. Woe for us if we had nothing but what we can
shew, or speak. Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher
than the stars; deeper than the Kingdoms of Death! It alone
is great; all else is small.-I hope we English will long maintain
our grand talent pour le silence. Let others that cannot do without standing on barrel-heads, to spout, and be seen of all the
market-place, cultivate speech exclusively, —become a most green
forest without roots! Solomon says, There is a time to speak;
but also a time to keep silence. Of some great silent Samuel,
not urged to writing, as old Samuel Johnson says he was, by
want of money, and nothing other, one might ask, "' Why do not
you too get up and speak; promulgate your system, found your
sect?"-" Truly," he will answer, " I am continent of my thought
hitherto; happily I have yet had the ability to keep it in me, no
compulsion strong. enough to speak it. MIy'system' is not for
promulgation first of all; it is for serving myself to live by.
That is the great purpose of it to me. And then the' honour?'
Alas, yes;-but as Cato said of the statue: So many statues in
that Forum of yours, may it not be better if they ask, Where is
Cato's statue?"



LECT V.           THE HERO AS KING.                   20.
But now, by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let me say
that there are two kinds of ambition; one wholly blameable, the
other laudable and inevitable. Nature has provided that the
great silent Samuel shall not be silent too long. The selfish wish
to shine over others, let it be accounted altogether poor and miserable.'Seekest thou great things, seek them not:' this is most
true. And yet, I say, there is an irrepressible tendency in every
man to develope himself according to the magnitude which Nature has made him of; to speak out, to act out, what Nature has
laid in him. This is proper, fit, inevitable; nay it is a duty, and
even the summary of duties for a man. The meaning of life here
on earth might be defined as consisting in this: To unfold your
self, to work what thing you have the faculty for. It is a necessity for the human being, the first law of our existence. Coleridge beautifully remarks that the infant learns to speak by this
necessity it feels. —We will say therefore: To decide about ambition, whether it is bad or not, you have two things to take into
view. Not the coveting of the place alone, but the fitness of the
man for the place withal: that is the question. Perhaps the
place was his; perhaps he had a natural right, and even obligation, to seek the place! Mirabeau's ambition to be Prime Minister, how shall we blame it, if he were'the only man in France
that could have done any good there?' Hopefuler perhaps had
he not so clearly felt how much good he could do! But a poor
Necker, who could do no good, and had even felt that he could
do none, yet sitting broken-hearted because they had flung him
out, and he was now quit of it, well might Gibbon mourn over
him.-Nature, I say, has provided amply that the silent great
man shall strive to speak withal; too amply, rather!
Fancy, for example, you had revealed to the brave old Samuel
Johnson, in his shrouded-up existence, that it was possible for
him to do a priceless divine work for his country and the whole
world. That the perfect Heavenly Law might be made Law on
this Earth; that the prayer he prayed daily,'Thy kingdom
come,' was at length to be fulfilled! If you had convinced his
judgment of this; that it was possible, practicable; that he the
mournful silent Samuel was called to take a part in it! Would
not the whole soul of the man have flamed up into a divine clear




z02               THE HERO AS KING.                  LECT. VL
ness, into noble utterance and determination to act; casting all
sorrows and misgivings under his feet, counting all affliction and
contradiction small,-the whole dark element of his existence
blazing into articulate radiance of light and lightning? It were
a true ambition this! And think now how it actually was with
Cromwell. From of old, the sufferings of God's Church, true zealous Preachers of the truth flung into dungeons, whipt, set on pillories, their ears cropt off, God's Gospel-cause trodden under foot
of the unworthy: all this had lain heavy on his soul. Long years
he had looked upon it, in silence, in prayer; seeing no remedy on
Earth; trusting well that a remedy in Heaven's goodness would
come,-that such a course was false, unjust, and could not last
forever.  And now behold the dawn of it; after twelve years
silent waiting, all England stirs itself; there is to be once more a
Parliament, the Right will get a voice for itself; inexpressible
well-grounded hope has come again into the Earth. Was not
such a Parliament worth being a member of?  Cromwell threw
down his ploughs, and hastened thither.  He spoke there, —
rugged bursts of earnestness, of a self-seen truth, where we get a
glimpse of them.  He worked there; he fought and strove, like
a strong true giant of a man, through cannon-tumult and all
else,-on and on, till the Cause triumphed, its once so formidable
enemies all swept from before it, and the dawn of hope had become clear light of victory and certainty.  That he stood there
as the strongest soul of England, the undisputed Hero of all
England, —what of this? It was possible that the Law of
Christ's Gospel could now establish itself in the world! The
Theocracy which John Knox in his pulpit might dream of as a' devout imagination,' this practical man, experienced in the whole
chaos of most rough practice, dared to consider as capable of being realised. Those that were highest in Christ's Church, the
devoutest wisest men, were to rule the land: in some considerable degree, it might be so and should be so. Was it not true,
God's truth?  And if true, was it not then the very thing to do?
The strongest practical intellect in England dared to answer,
Yes! This I call a noble true purpose; is it not, in its own dialect, the noblest that could enter into the heart of Statesman or
man?  For a Knox to take it up was something; but for a




LECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                    203
Cromwell, with his great sound sense and experience of what our
world was, —History, I think, shews it only this once in such a
degree. I account it the culminating point of Protestantism;
the most heroic phasis that'Faith in the Bible' was appointed to
exhibit here below. Fancy it: that it were made manifest to one
of us, how we could make the Right supremely victorious over
Wrong, and all that we had longed and prayed for, as the highest
good to England and all lands, an attainable fact!
Well, I must say, the vulpine intellect, with its knowingness, its
alertness and expertness in' detecting hypocrites,' seems to me a
rather sorry business. We have had but one such Statesman in
England; one man, that I can get sight of, who ever had in the
heart of him any such purpose at all. One man, in the course of
fifteen hundred years; and this was his welcome.  He had adherents by the hundred or the ten; opponents by the million. Had
England rallied all round him, —why, then, England might have
been a Christian land! As it is, vulpine knowingness sits yet at
its hopeless problem,'Given a world of Knaves, to educe an
Honesty from their united action;'-how cumbrous a problem
you may see in Chancery Law-Courts, and some other places!
Till at length, by Heaven's just anger, but also by Heaven's
great grace, the matter begins to stagnate; and this problem
is becoming to all men a palpably hopeless one.But with regard to Cromwell and his purposes: Hume, and a
multitude following him, come upon me here with an admission
that Cromwell was sincere at first; a sincere'Fanatic' at first,
but gradually became a' Hypocrite' as things opened round him.
This of the Fanatic-Hypocrite is Hume's theory of it; extensively applied since,-to Mahomet and many others. Think of
it seriously, you will find something in it; not much, not all,
very far from all. Sincere hero-hearts do not sink in this miserable manner. The Sun flings forth impurities, gets balefully incrusted with spots; but it does not quench itself, and become no
Sun at all, but a mass of Darkness! I will venture to say that
such never befel a great deep Cromwell; I think, never. Nature's own lion-hearted Son; Antaeus-like, his strength is got by
touching the Earth, his Mother; lift him up from the Earth, lift




204               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. VI
him up into Hypocrisy, Inanity, his strength is gone. We will
not assert that Cromwell was an immaculate man; that he fell
into no faults, no insincerities among the rest. He was no dilettante professor of'perfections,' Iimmaculate conducts.' He was
a rugged Orson, rending his rough way through actual true
work,-doubtless with many a fall therein.  Insincerities, faults,
very many faults daily and hourly: it was too well known to
him; known to God and him! The Sun was dimmed many a
time; but the Sun had not himself grown a Dimness.  Cromwell's last words, as he lay waiting for death, are those of a Christian heroic man. Broken prayers to God, that he would judge
him and this Cause, He since man could not, in justice yet in
pity. They are most touching words. He breathed out his wild
great soul, its toils and sins all ended now, into the presence of
his Maker, in this manner.
I, for one, will not call the man a Hypocrite! Hypocrite,
mummer, the life of him a mere theatricality; empty barren
quack, hungry for the shouts of mobs?  The man had made
obscurity do very well for him till his head was grey; and now
he was, there as he stood recognised unblamed, the virtual
King of England. Cannot a man do without King's Coaches
and Cloaks? Is it such a blessedness to have clerks forever pestering you with bundles of papers in red tape? A simple Diocletian prefers planting of cabbages; a George Washington, no
very immeasurable man, does the like. One would say, it is
what any genuine man could do; and would do. The instant
his real work were out in the matter of Kingship,-away with it!
Let us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable everywhere a
Kirng is, in all movements of men. It is strikingly shewn, in this
very War, what becomes of men when they cannot find a Chief
Man, and their enemies can. The Scotch Nation was all but
Inanimous in Puritanism; zealous and of one mind about it. as
in this English.end of the Island was always far from being the
case.  But there was no great Cromwell among them; poor
tremulous; hesitating, diplomatic Argyles and such like: none of
them had a heart true enough for the truth, or durst commit
llimself to the truth.  They had no leader; and the scattered
Cavalier party in that country had one; Montrose, the noblest




LECT. V1.         THE HERO AS KING.                     205
of all the Cavaliers; an accomplished, gallant-hearted, splendid
man; what Dne may call the Hero-Cavalier. Well, look at it:
on the one hand subjects without a King; on the other a
King without subjects! The subjects without King can do nothing; the subjectless King can do something. This Montrose,
with a handful of Irish or Highland savages, Sew of them so much
as guns in their hand, dashes at the drilled Puritan armies like
a wild whirlwind; sweeps them, time after time, some five times
over, from the field before him. He was at one period, for a
short while, master of all Scotland.  One man; but he was a
man: a million zealous men, but without the one; they against
him were powerless! Perhaps of all the persons in that Puritan
struggle, from first to last, the single indispensable one was verily
Cromwell.  To see and dare, and decide; to be a fixed pillar inthe welter of uncertainty;-a King among them, whether they
called him so or not.
Precisely here, however, lies the rub for Cromwell. His other
proceedings have all found advocates, and stand generally justified; but this dismissal of the Rump Parliament and assumption
of the Protectorship, is what no one can pardon him. He had
fairly grown to be King in England; Chief Man of the victorious
party in England; but it seems he could not do without the
King's Cloak, and sold himself to perdition in order to get it.
Let us see a little how this was.
England, Scotland, Ireland, all lying now subdued at the feet
of the Puritan Parliament, the practical question arose, What
was to be done with it? How will you govern these Nations,
which Providence in a wondrous way has given up to your disposal? Clearly those hundred surviving members of the Long
Parliament, who sit there as supreme authority, cannot continue
forever to sit. What is to be done?-It was a question which
theoretical constitution-builders may find easy to answer; but to
Cromwell, looking there into the real practical facts of it, there
could be none more complicated. He asked of the Parliament,
What it was they would decide upon? It was for the Parliament to say. Yet the Soldiers too, however contrary to Formula,
they who had purchased this victory with their blood, it seemed




206               THE HERO AS KING.               LECr. Vl.
to them that they also should have something to say in it! We
will not "for all our fighting have nothing but a little piece of
paper." We understand that the Law of God's Gospel, to which
He through us has given the victory, shall establish itself, or try
to establish itself, in this land!
For three years, Cromwell says, this question had been sounded
in the ears of the Parliament.  They could make no answer; nothing but talk, talk. Perhaps it lies in the nature of parliamentary bodies; perhaps no Parliament could in such case make
any answer but even that of talk, talk! Nevertheless the question must and shall be answered. You sixty men there, becoming fast odious, even despicable, to the whole nation, whom the
nation already call Rump Parliament, you cannot continue to sit
there: who or what then is to follow?'Free Parliament,' right
of Election, Constitutional Formulas of one sort or the other,the thing is a hungry Fact coming on us, which we must answer
or be devoured by it! And who are you that prate of Constitutional Formulas, rights of Parliament? You have had to kill
your King, to make Pride's Purges, to expel and banish by the
law of the stronger whosoever would not let your Cause prosper:
there are but fifty or three-score of you left there, debating in
these days. Tell us what we shall do; not in the way of Formula, but of practicable Fact I
How they did finally answer, remains obscure to this day.
The diligent Godwin himself admits that he cannot make it out.
The likeliest is, that this poor Parliament still would not, and
indeed could not dissolve and disperse; that when it came to
the point of actually dispersing, they again, for the tenth or
twentieth time, adjourned it,-and Cromwell's patience failed
him. But we will take the favourablest hypothesis ever started
for the Parliament; the favourablest, though I believe it is not
the true one, but too favourable. According to this version: At
the uttermost crisis; when Cromwell and his Officers were met on
the one hand, and the fifty or sixty Rump Members on the other,
it was suddenly told Cromwell that the Rump in its despair was
answering in a very singular way; that in their splenetic envious
despair, to keep out the Army at least, these men were hurrying
through the House a kind of Reform Bill.-Parliament to be




LCT. VL           THE HERO AS KING.                     207
chosen by the whole of England; equable electoral division into
districts; free suffrage, and the rest of it! A very questionable,
or indeed for them an unquestionable thing. Reform Bill, free
suffrage of Englishmen? Why, the Royalists themselves, silenced indeed but not exterminated, perhaps outnumber us; the great
numerical majority of England was always indifferent to our
Cause, merely looked at it and submitted to it. It is in weight
and force, not by counting of heads, that we are the majority!
And now with your Formulas and Reform Bills, the whole matter, sorely won by our swords, shall again launch itself to sea;
become a mere hope, and likelihood, small even as a likelihood?
And it is not a likelihood; it is a certainty, which we have won,
by God's strength and our own right hands, and do now hold
here.  Cromwell walked down to these refractory Members; interrupted them in that rapid speed of their Reform Bill;ordered them to begone, and talk there no more.-Can we not
forgive him? Can we not understand him? John Milton, who
looked on it all near at hand, could applaud him. The Reality
had swept the Formulas away before it. I fancy, most men who
were Realities in England might see into the necessity of that.
The strong daring man, therefore, has set all manner of Formulas and logical superficialities against him; has dared appeal
to the genuine Fact of this England, Whether it will support him
or not? It is curious to see how he struggles to govern in some
constitutional way; find some Parliament to support him; but
cannot.  His first Parliament, the one they call Barebones's
Parliament, is, so to speak, a Convocation of the Notables. From
all quarters of England the leading Ministers and chief Puritan
Officials nominate the men most distinguished by religious reputation, influence and attachment to the true Cause: these are
assembled to shape out a plan. They sanctioned what was past;
shaped as they could what was to come. They were scornfully
called Barebones's Parliament: the man's name, it seems, was not
Barebones, but Barbone,-a good enough man.  Nor was it a jest,
their work; it was a most serious reality, —a trial on the part of
these Puritan Notables how far the Law of Christ could become
the Law of this England. There were men of sense among them,
men of some quality; men of deep piety I suppose the most of




208               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. VI.
them were. They failed, it seems, and broke down, endeavouring
to reform the Court of Chancery!  They dissolved themselves,
as incompetent; delivered up their power again into the hands
of the Lord General Cromwell, to do with it what he liked and
could.
What will he do with it!  The Lord General Cromwell,' Commander-in-Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised;'
he hereby sees himself, at this unexampled juncture, as it were
the one available Authority left in England, nothing between
England and utter Anarchy but him alone. Such is the undeniable Fact of his position and England's, there and then. What
will he do with it! After deliberation, he decides that he will
accept it; will formally, with public solemnity, say and vow before
God and men, " Yes, the Fact is so, and I will do the best I can
with it!"  Protectorship, Instrument of Government,-these are
the external forms of the thing; worked out and sanctioned as
they could in these circumstances be, by the judges, by the leading Official people,' Council of Officers and Persons of interest
in the Nation:' and as for the thing itself, undeniably enough, at
the pass matters had now come to, there was no alternative but
Anarchy or that. Puritan England might accept it or not; but
Puritan England was, in real truth, saved from suicide thereby!I believe the Puritan People did, in an inarticulate, grumbling, yet
on the whole grateful and real way, accept this anomalous act of
Oliver's; at least, he and they together made it good, and always
better to the last. But in their Parliamentary articulate way, they
had their difficulties, and never knew fully what to say to it!Oliver's second Parliament, properly his first regular Parliament, chosen by the rule laid down in the Instrument of Government, did assemble, and worked; —but got, before long, into
bottomless questions as to the Protector's right, as to' usurpation,'
and so forth; and had at the earliest legal day to be dismissed.
Cromwell's concluding Speech to these men is a remarkable one.
So likewise to his third Parliament, in similar rebuke for their
pedantries and obstinacies. Most rude, chaotic, all these Speeches
are; but most earnest-looking. You would say, it was a sincere
helpless man; not used to speak the great inorganic thought of
him, but to act it rather   A helplessness of utterance, in such




LECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                   209
bursting fulness of meaning. He talks much about'births of
Providence:' All these changes, so many victories and events,
were not forethoughts, and theatrical contrivances of men, of me
or of men; it is blind blasphemers that will persist in calling
them so! He insists with a heavy sulphurous wrathful emphasis
on this. As he well might. As if a Cromwell in that dark huge
game he had been playing, the world wholly thrown into chaos
round him, had foreseen it.all, and played it all off like a precon
trived puppetshew by wood and wire! These things were foreseen by no man, he says; no man could tell what a day would
bring forth: they were' births of Providence,' God's finger guided
us on, and we came at last to clear height of victory, God's Cause
triumphant in these Nations; and you as a Parliament could
assemble together, and say in what manner all this could be
organised, reduced into rational feasibility among the affairs of
men. You were to help with your wise counsel in doing that.
" You have had such an opportunity as no Parliament in England
ever had." Christ's Law, the Right and True, was to be in some
measure made the Law of this land. In place of that, you have got
into your idle pedantries, constitutionalities, bottomless cavillings
and questionings about written laws for my coming here;-and
would send the whole matter into Chaos again, because I have no
Notary's parchment, but only God's voice from the battle-whirlwind, for being President among you!  That opportunity is
gone; and we know not when it will return. You have had your
constitutional Logic; and Mlammon's Law, not Christ's Law
rules yet in this land. " God be judge between you and me!"
These are his final words to them: Take you your constitution-formulas in your hand; and I my informal struggles, purposes,
realities and acts; and " God be judge between you and me!"We said above what shapeless, involved chaotic things the
printed Speeches of Cromwell's are. Wilfully ambiguous, unintelligible, say the most: a hypocrite shrouding himself in confused Jesuistic jargon! To me they do not seem so. I will say
rather, they afforded the first glimpses I could ever get into the
reality of this Cromwell, nay into the possibility of him. Try to
believe that he means something, search lovingly what that may
be: you will find a real speech lying imprisoned in these broken




210               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. TI.
rude tortuous utterances; a meaning in the great heart of this
inarticulate man! You will, for the first time, begin to see that
he was a man; not an enigmatic chimera, unintelligible to you,
incredible to you. The Histories and Biographies written of this
Cromwell, written in shallow sceptical generations that could not
know or conceive of a deep believing man, are far more obscure
than Cromwell's Speeches.  You look through them  only into
the infinite vague of Black and the Inane.' Heats and jealousies,'
says Lord Clarendon himself:'heats and jealousies,' mere
crabbed whims, theories, and crotchets; these induced slow sober
quiet Englishmen to lay down their ploughs and work; and fly
into red fury of confused war against the best-conditioned of
Kings! Try if you can find that true. Scepticism writing about
Belief may have great gifts; but it is really ultra vires there. It
is Blindness laying down the Laws of Optics.Cromwell's third Parliament split on the same rock as his
second.  Ever the constitutional Formula: How  came you
there?  Shew us some Notary parchment! Blind pedants:" Why, surely the same power which makes you a Parliament,
that, and something more, made me a Protector!" If my Protectorship is nothing, what in the name of wonder is your Parliamenteership, a reflex and creation of that? —
Parliaments having failed, there remained nothing but the way
of Despotism.  Military Dictators, each with his district, to
coerce the Royalist and other gainsayers, to govern them, if not
by act of Parliament, then by the sword. Formula shall not carry
it, while the Reality is here! I will go on, protecting oppressed
Protestants abroad, appointing just judges, wise managers, at
home, cherishing true Gospel ministers; doing the best I can to
make England a Christian England, greater than old Rome, the
Queen of Protestant Christianity; I, since you will not help me;
I while God leaves me life! —Why did he not give it up; retire
into obscurity again, since the Law would not acknowledge him?
cry several.  That is where they mistake.  For him there was no
giving of it up! Prime Ministers have governed countries, Pitt,
Pombal, Choiseul, and their word was a law while it held: but
this Prime Minister was one that could not get resigned.  Let him
once resign, Charles Stuart and the Cavaliers waited to kill him;




LECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                     211
to kill the Cause and him.  Once embarked, there is no retreat,
no return.  This Prime Minister could retire nowhither except
into his tomb.
One is sorry for Cromwell in his old days. IHis complaint is
incessant of the heavy burden Providence has laid on him. Heavy;
which he must bear till death.  Old Colonel Hutchinson, as his
wife relates it, Hutchinson his old battle-mate, coming to seQ
him on some indispensable business, much against his will, —
Cromwell' follows him to the door,' in a most fraternal, domestic,
conciliatory style; begs that he would be reconciled to him, his
old brother in arms; says how much it grieves him to be misunderstood, deserted by true fellow soldiers, dear to him from of
old: the rigorous Hutchinson, cased in his Republican formula,
sullenly goes his way.-And the man's head now white; his
strong arm growing weary with its long work! I think always
too of his poor Mother, now very old, living in that Palace of his;
a right brave woman; as indeed they lived all an honest Godfearing Household there: if she heard a shot go off, she thought
it was her son killed. He had to come to her at least once a day,
that she might see with her own eyes that he was yet living.
The poor old Mother! —What had this man gained; what had
he gained? He had a life of sore strife and toil, to his last day.
Fame, ambition, place in History? His dead body was hung in
chains; his I place in History'-place in History forsooth-has
been a place of ignominy, accusation, blackness and disgrace;
and here, this day, who knows if it is not rash in me to be among
the first that ever ventured to pronounce him not a knave and
liar, but a genuinely honest man?  Peace to him. Did he not,
in spite of all, accomplish much for us?  We walk smoothly over
his great rough heroic life; step over his body sunk in the ditch
there.  We need not spurn it, as we step on it!-Let the Hero
rest. It was not to men's judgment that he appealed; nor have
men judged him very well.
Precisely a century and a year after this of Puritanism had
got itself hushed up into decent composure, and its results made
smooth, in 1688, there broke out a far deeper explosion, much
more difficult to hush up, known to all mortals, and like to be




212               THE HERO AS KING.                LECT. VT.
long known, by the name of French Revolution. It is properly
the third and final act of Protestantism; the explosive confused
return of mankind to Reality and Fact, now that they were perishing of Semblance and Sham.' We call our English Puritanism
the second act: " Well then, the Bible is true; let us go by the
Bible!" "In Church," said Luther; "In Church and State,"
said Cromwell, "let us go by what actually is God's Truth."
Men have to return to reality; they cannot live on semblance.
The French Revolution, or third act, we may well call the final
one; for lower than that savage Sansculottism men cannot go.
They stand there on the nakedest haggard Fact, undeniable in
all seasons and circumstances; and may and must begin again
confidently to build up from that. The French explosion, like
the English one, got its King, —who had no Notary parchment
to shew for himself. We have still to glance for a moment at
Napoleon, our second modern King.
Napoleon does by no means seem to me so great a man as
Cromwell. His enormous victories which reached over all Europe, while Cromwell abode mainly in our little England, are but
as the high stilts on which the man is seen standing; the stature
of the man is not altered thereby. I find in him no such sincerity
as in Cromwell; only a far inferior sort. No silent walking,
through long years, with the Awful, Unnameable of this Universe;' walking with God,' as he called it; and faith and strength
in that alone: latent thought and valour, content to lie latent,
then burst out as in' blaze of Heaven's lightning! Napoleon
lived in an age when God was no longer believed; the meaning
of all Silence, Latency, was thought to be Nonentity: he had to
begin not out of the Puritan Bible, but out of poor Sceptical Encyclop~dies.  This was the length the man carried it.  Meritorious to get so far. His compact, prompt, every-way articulate
character is in itself perhaps small, compared with our great chaotic inarticulate Cromwell's. Instead of'dumb Prophet struggling to speak,' we have a portentous mixture of the Quack withal! Hume's notion of the Fanatic Hypocrite, with such truth
as it has, will apply much better to Napoleon, than it did to
Cromwell, to Mahomet or the like,-where indeed taken strictly
it has hardly any truth at all. An element of blameable ambi,




LECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING.                     213
tion shews itself, from the first, in this man; gets the victory
over him at last, and involves him and his work in ruin.'False as a bulletin' became a proverb in Napoleon's time.
He makes what excuse he could for it: that it was necessary to
mislead the enemy, to keep up his own men's courage, and so
forth. On the whole, there are no excuses. A man in no case
has liberty to tell lies. It had been, in the long-run, better for
Napoleon too if he had not told any. In fact, if a man have any
purpose reaching beyond the hour and day, meant to be found
extant next day, what good can it ever be to promulgate lies 
The lies are found out; ruinous penalty is exacted for them.
No man will believe the liar next time even when he speaks
truth, when it is of the last importance that he be believed.
The old cry of wolf! —A Lie is no-thing; you cannot of nothing
make something; you make nothing at last, and lose your labour
into the bargain.
Yet Napoleon had a sincerity: we are to distinguish between
what is superficial and what is fundamental in insincerity.
Across these outer manoeuvrings and quackeries of his, which
were many and most blameable, let us discern withal that the
man had a certain instinctive ineradicable feeling for reality; and
did base himself upon fact, so long as he had any basis. He has
an instinct of nature better than his culture was. His savans,
Bourrienne tells us, in that voyage to Egypt were one evening
busily occupied arguing that there could be no God. They had
proved it, to their satisfaction, by all manner of logic. Napoleon
looking up into the stars, answers, " Very ingenious, Messieurs:
but who made all that?" The Atheistic logic runs off from him
like water; the great Fact stares him in the face: " Who made
all that?" So too in practice: he, as every man that can be
great, or have victory in this world, sees, through all entanglements, the practical heart of the matter; drives straight towards
that.  When the steward of his Tuileries Palace was exhibiting
the new upholstery, with praises, and demonstration how glorious
it.' was, and how cheap withal, Napoleon making little answer,'asked for a pair of scissors, clipt one of the gold tassels from a
window-curtain, put it in his pocket, and walked on. Some days
afterwards, he produced it at the right moment, to the horror of




214               THE HERO AS KING.                 LECT. vn
his upholstery functionary; it was not gold but tinsel! In Saint
Helena, it is notable how he still, to his last days, insists on the
practical, the real. "Why talk and complain; above all, why
quarrel with one another?  There is no result in it; it comes to
nothing that one can do.  Say nothing, if one can do nothing!"
He speaks often so, to his poor discontented followers; he is like
a picture of silent strength in the middle of their morbid querulousness there.
And accordingly was there not what we can call a faith in him,
genuine so far as it went? That this new enormous Democracy
asserting itself here in the French Revolution is an insuppressible Fact, which the whole world, with its old forces and institutions, cannot put down: this was a true insight of his, and took
his conscience and enthusiasm along with it,-a faith.  And did
he not interpret the dim purport of it well?' La carrivere oztverte
aux talens, The implements to him who can handle them:' this
actually is the truth, and even the whole truth; it includes whatever the French Revolution, or any Revolution, could mean.
Napoleon, in his first period, was a true Democrat. And yet by
the nature of him, fostered too by his military trade, he knew
that Democracy, if it were a true thing at all, could not be an
anarchy: the man had a heart-hatred for anarchy. On that
Twentieth of June (1792), Bourrienne and he sat in a coffeehouse, as the mob rolled by: Napoleon expresses the deepest
contempt for persons in authority that they do not restrain this
rabble. On the Tenth of August he wonders why there is no
man to command these poor Swiss; they would conquer if there
were. Such a faith in Democracy, yet hatred of anarchy, it is
that carries Napoleon through all his great work. Through his
brilliant Italian Campaigns, onwards to the Peace of Leoben,
one would say, his inspiration is:' Triumph to the French Revo-'lution; assertion of it against these Austrian Simulacra that
pretend to call it a Simulacrum!' Withal, however, he feels and
has a right to feel, how necessary a strong Authority is; how tha
Revolution cannot prosper or last without such. To bridle-in
that great devouring, self-devouring French Revolution; to tame
it, so that its intrinsic purpose can be made good, that it may become organic, and be able to live among other organisms and




LECT. VL         THE HERO AS KING.                    21S
formed things, not as a wasting destruction alone: is not this still
what he partly aimed at, as the true purport of his life; nay
what he actually managed to do?  Through Wagrams, Austerlitzes; triumph after triumph,-he triumphed so far. There
was an eye to see in this man, a soul to dare and do. He rose
naturally to be the King. All men saw that he was such. The
common soldiers used to say on the march: " These babbling
Avocats, up at Paris; all talk and no work! What wonder it
runs all wrong? We shall have to go and put our Petit Caporal
there!"  They went, and put him there; they and France at
large. Chief-consulship, Emperorship, victory over Europe;till the poor Lieutenant of La Fare, not unnaturally, might seem
to himself the greatest of all men that had been in the world for
some ages.
But at this point, I think, the fatal charlatan-element got the
upper hand. He apostatized from his old faith in Facts, took to
believing in Semblances; strove to connect himself with Austrian Dynasties, Popedoms, with the old false Feudalities which
he once saw clearly to be false; —considered that he would found
" his Dynasty" and so forth; that the enormous French Revolution meant only that I The man was' given up to strong delusion, that he should believe a lie;' a fearful but most sure thing.
He did not know true from false now when he looked at them,the fearfulest penalty a man pays for yielding to untruth of heart.
Self and false ambition had now become his god: self-deception
once yielded to, all other deceptions follow naturally more and
more. What a paltry patchwork of theatrical paper-mantles,
tinsel and mummery, had this man wrapt his own great reality
in, thinking to make it more real thereby! His hollow Pope'sConcordat, pretending to be a re-establishment of Catholicism,
felt by himself to be the method of extirpating it, " la vaccine de
la religion:" his ceremonial Coronations, consecrations by the old
Italian Chimera in Notre-Dame,-" wanting nothing to complete
the pomp of it," as Augereau said, " nothing but the half-million
of men who had died to put an end to all that!" Cromwell's
Inauguration was by the Sword and Bible; what we must call a
genuinely true one. Sword and Bible were borne before him,
without any chimera: were not these the real emblems of Puri




216               THE HERO AS KiANG.                LEC1. VL
tanism; its true decoration and insignia? It had used them
both in a very real manner, and pretended to stand by them now!
But this poor Napoleon mistook: he believed too much in the
Dupeability of men; saw no fact deeper in man than Hunger and
this! He was mistaken.  Like a man that should build upon
cloud: his house and he fall down in confused wreck, and depart
out of the world.
Alas, in all of us this charlatan-element exists; and might be
developed, were the temptation strong enough.'Lead us not
into temptation!' But it is fatal, I say, that it be developed.
The thing into which it enters as a cognisable ingredient is
doomed to be altogether transitory; and, however huge it may
look, is in itself small.  Napoleon's working, accordingly, what
was it with all the noise it made? A flash as of gunpowder widcspread; a blazing-up as of dry heath.  For an hour the whole
Universe seems wrapt in smoke and flame; but only for an hour.
It goes out: the Universe with its old mountains and streams,
its stars above and kind soil beneath, is still there.
The Duke of Weimar told his friends always, To be of courage; this Napoleonism was unjust, a falsehood, and could not last.
It is true doctrine.  The heavier this Napoleon trampled on the
world, holding it tyrannously down, the fiercer would the world's
recoil against him be, one day. Injustice pays itself with frightful compound-interest. I am not sure but he had better have
lost his best park of artillery, or had his best regiment drowned
in the sea, than shot that poor German Bookseller, Palm! It
was a palpable tyrannous murderous injustice, which no man, let
him paint an inch thick, could make out to be other.  It burnt
deep into the hearts of men, it and the like of it; suppressed fire
flashed in the eyes of men, as they thought of it,-waiting their
day! Which day came: Germany rose round him.-What Napoleon did will in the long-run amount to what lie did justly;
what Nature with her laws will sanction. To what of reality
was in him; to that and nothing more.  The rest was all smoke
nmd waste. LLa carrire ouverte aux talens: that great true Message, which has yet to articulate and fulfil itself everywhere, he
left in a most inarticulate state. He was a great 6bauche, a rude



LECT. VI.         THE HERO AS KING                      217
draught never completed; as indeed what great man is other?
Left in too rude a state, alas!
His notions of the world, as he expresses them there at St.
Helena, are almost tragical to consider. He seems to feel the
most unaffected surprise that it has all gone so; that he is flung
out on the rock here, and the World is still moving on its axis.
France is great, and all-great; and at bottom, he is France.
England itself, he says, is by Nature only an appendage of
France;'another Isle of Oleron to France."  So it was by Natare, by Napoleon-Nature; and yet look how in fact-HERE AM
I! He cannot understand it: inconceivable that the reality has
not corresponded to his program of it; that France was not allgreat, that he was not France.' Strong delusion,' that he should
believe the thing to be which is not! The compact, clear-seeing,
decisive Italian nature of him, strong, genuine, which he once
had, has enveloped itself, half dissolved itself, in a turpid atmosphere of French Fanfaronade. The world was not disposed to
be trodden down underfoot; to be bound into masses, and built
together, as he liked, for a pedestal to France and him: the world
had quite other purposes in view! Napoleon's astonishment is
extreme. But alas, what help now? He had gone that way of
his; and Nature also had gone her way. Having once parted
with Reality, he tumbles helpless in Vacuity; no rescue for him.
He had to sink there, mournfully as man seldom did; and break
his great heart, and die,-this poor Napoleon: a great implement
too soon wasted, till it was useless: our last Great Man I!
Our last, in a double sense. For here finally these wide roamings of ours through so many times and places, in search and
study of Heroes, are to terminate. I am sorry for it: there was
pleasure for me in this business, if also much pain. It is a great
subject, and a most grave and wide one, this which, not to be too
grave about it, I have named Hero-worship. It enters deeply, as
I think, into the secret of Mankind's ways and vitalest interests
in this world, and is well worth explaining at present. With six
months, instead of six days, we might have done better. I
promised to break ground on it; I know not whether I have even
managed to do ftat.  I have had to tear it up in the rudest man11




218              THE HERO AS KING.               LECT. VL
ner in order to get into it at all. Often enough, with these abrupt utterances thrown out isolated, unexplained, has your tolerance been put to the trial. Tolerance, patient candour, all-hoping
favour and kindness, which I will not speak of at present. The
accomplished and distinguished, the beautiful, the wise, something
of what is best in England, have listened patiently to my rude
words. With many feelings, I heartily thank you all; and say,
Good be with you all I
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