Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 1/Bishop Blougram's Apology
BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY.
No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, tho': cool, i'faith!We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.It's different, preaching in basilicas,And doing duty in some masterpieceLike this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes,Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?These hot long ceremonies of our churchCost us a little—oh, they pay the price,You take me—amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.
So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.No deprecation,—nay, I beg you, sir!Beside 'tis our engagement: don't you know,I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,We'd see truth dawn together? —truth that peepsOver the glass's edge when dinner's done,And body gets its sop and holds its noiseAnd leaves soul free a little. Now's the time—'Tis break of day! You do despise me then.And if I say, "despise me,"—never fear—I know you do not in a certain sense—Not in my arm-chair for example: here,I well imagine you respect my place(Status, entourage, worldly circumstance)Quite to its value—very much indeed—Are up to the protesting eyes of youIn pride at being seated here for once—You'll turn it to such capital account!When somebody, through years and years to come,Hints of the bishop,—names me—that's enough— "Blougram? I knew him"—(into it you slide)"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,All alone, we two—he's a clever man—And after dinner,—why, the wine you know,—Oh, there was wine, and good! what with the wine . . .'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!He's no bad fellow, Blougram—he had seenSomething of mine he relished—some review—He's quite above their humbug in his heart,Half-said as much, indeed—the thing's his trade—I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times—How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!"Che ch'é, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take;You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths—The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.
Thus much conceded, still the first fact stays—You do despise me; your ideal of lifeIs not the bishop's—you would not be I— You would like better to be Goethe, now,Or Buonaparte—or, bless me, lower still,Count D'Orsay,—so you did what you preferred,Spoke as you thought, and, as you cannot help,Believed or disbelieved, no matter what,So long as on that point, whate'er it was,You loosed your mind, were whole and sole yourself.—That, my ideal never can include,Upon that element of truth and worthNever be based! for say they make me Pope(They can't—suppose it for our argument)Why, there I'm at my tether's end—I've reachedMy height, and not a height which pleases you.An unbelieving Pope won't do, you say.It's like those eerie stories nurses tell,Of how some actor played Death on a stageWith pasteboard crown, sham orb, and tinselled dart,And called himself the monarch of the world,Then going in the tire-room afterwardBecause the play was done, to shift himself, Got touched upon the sleeve familiarlyThe moment he had shut the closet doorBy Death himself. Thus God might touch a PopeAt unawares, ask what his baubles mean,And whose part he presumed to play just now?Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!
So, drawing comfortable breath again,You weigh and find whatever more or lessI boast of my ideal realisedIs nothing in the balance when opposedTo your ideal, your grand simple life,Of which you will not realise one jot.I am much, you are nothing; you would be all,I would be merely much—you beat me there.
No, friend, you do not beat me,—hearken why.The common problem, yours, mine, every one's,Is not to fancy what were fair in lifeProvided it could be,—but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fairUp to our means—a very different thing!No abstract intellectual plan of lifeQuite irrespective of life's plainest laws,But one, a man, who is man and nothing more,May lead within a world which (by your leave)Is Rome or London—not Fool's-paradise.Embellish Rome, idealise away,Make Paradise of London if you can,You're welcome, nay, you're wise.
A simile!We mortals cross the ocean of this worldEach in his average cabin of a life—The best's not big, the worst yields elbow-room.Now for our six months' voyage—how prepare?You come on shipboard with a landsman's listOf things he calls convenient—so they are!An India screen is pretty furniture,A piano-forte is a fine resource, All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf,The new edition fifty volumes long;And little Greek books with the funny typeThey get up well at Leipsic fill the next—Go on! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes!And Parma's pride, the Jerome, let us add!'Twere pleasant could Correggio's fleeting glowHang full in face of one where'er one roams,Since he more than the others brings with himItaly's self,—the marvellous Modenese!Yet 'twas not on your list before, perhaps.—Alas! friend, here's the agent . . . is't the name?The captain, or whoever's master here—You see him screw his face up; what's his cryEre you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!"If you won't understand what six feet mean,Compute and purchase stores accordingly—And if in pique because he overhaulsYour Jerome, piano and bath, you come on boardBare—why you cut a figure at the first While sympathetic landsmen see you off;Not afterwards, when, long ere half seas o'er,You peep up from your utterly naked boardsInto some snug and well-appointed berthLike mine, for instance (try the cooler jug—Put back the other, but don't jog the ice)And mortified you mutter "Well and good—He sits enjoying his sea-furniture—'Tis stout and proper, and there's store of it,Though I've the better notion, all agree,Of fitting rooms up! hang the carpenter,Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances—I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all!"And meantime you bring nothing: never mind—You've proved your artist-nature: what you don't,You might bring, so despise me, as I say.
Now come, let's backward to the starting place.See my way: we're two college friends, suppose—Prepare together for our voyage, then, Each note and check the other in his work,—Here's mine, a bishop's outfit; criticise!What's wrong? why won't you be a bishop too?
Why, first, you don't believe, you don't and can't,(Not statedly, that is, and fixedlyAnd absolutely and exclusively)In any revelation called divine.No dogmas nail your faith—and what remainsBut say so, like the honest man you are?First, therefore, overhaul theology!Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think,Must find believing every whit as hard,And if I do not frankly say as much,The ugly consequence is clear enough.
Now, wait, my friend: well, I do not believe—If you'll accept no faith that is not fixed,Absolute and exclusive, as you say.(You're wrong—I mean to prove it in due time) Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lieI could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall,So give up hope accordingly to solve—(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas thenWith both of us, tho' in unlike degree,Missing full credence—overboard with them!I mean to meet you on your own premise—Good, there go mine in company with yours!
And now what are we? unbelievers both,Calm and complete, determinately fixedTo-day, to-morrow, and for ever, pray?You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think.In no-wise! all we've gained is, that belief,As unbelief before, shakes us by fits,Confounds us like its predecessor. Where'sThe gain? how can we guard our unbelief,Make it bear fruit to us?—the problem here.Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides,—And that's enough for fifty hopes and fearsAs old and new at once as Nature's self,To rap and knock and enter in our soul,Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,Round the ancient idol, on his base again,—The grand Perhaps! we look on helplessly,—There the old misgivings, crooked questions are—This good God,—what he could do, if he would,Would, if he could—then must have done long since:If so, when, where, and how? some way must be,—Once feel about, and soon or late you hitSome sense, in which it might be, after all.Why not, "The Way, the Truth, the Life?"
—That way Over the mountain, which who stands upon Is apt to doubt if it's indeed a road; While if he views it from the waste itself, Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two Seen from the unbroken desert either side?And then (to bring in fresh philosophy)What if the breaks themselves should prove at last The most consummate of contrivancesTo train a man's eye, teach him what is faith,— And so we stumble at truth's very test?What have we gained then by our unbeliefBut a life of doubt diversified by faith,For one of faith diversified by doubt.We called the chess-board white,—we call it black.
"Well," you rejoin, "the end's no worse, at least, We've reason for both colours on the board. Why not confess, then, where I drop the faith And you the doubt, that I'm as right as you?"
Because, friend, in the next place, this being so,And both things even,—faith and unbelief Left to a man's choice,—we'll proceed a step,Returning to our image, which I like.
A man's choice, yes—but a cabin-passenger's— The man made for the special life of the world— Do you forget him? I remember though! Consult our ship's conditions and you find One and but one choice suitable to all,The choice that you unluckily prefer Turning things topsy-turvy—they or it Going to the ground. Belief or unbelief Bears upon life, determines its whole course, Begins at its beginning. See the world Such as it is,—you made it not, nor I;I mean to take it as it is,—and youNot so you'll take it,—though you get nought else.I know the special kind of life I like, What suits the most my idiosyncrasy, Brings out the best of me and bears me fruitIn power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days. I find that positive belief does thisFor me, and unbelief, no whit of this.—For you, it does, however—that we'll try!'Tis clear, I cannot lead my life, at leastInduce the world to let me peaceably,Without declaring at the outset, "Friends,I absolutely and peremptorilyBelieve!"—I say faith is my waking life.One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals,We know, but waking's the main point with us, And my provision's for life's waking part. Accordingly, I use heart, head and handsAll day, I build, scheme, study and make friends; And when night overtakes me, down I lie,Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it,The sooner the better, to begin afresh.What's midnight's doubt before the dayspring's faith?You, the philosopher, that disbelieve,That recognise the night, give dreams their weight— To be consistent you should keep your bed, Abstain from healthy acts that prove you a man,For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares!And certainly at night you'll sleep and dream,Live through the day and bustle as you please.And so you live to sleep as I to wake,To unbelieve as I to still believe? Well, and the common sense of the world calls youBed-ridden,—and its good things come to me.Its estimation, which is half the fight,That's the first cabin-comfort I secure—The next . . . but you perceive with half an eye!Come, come, it's best believing, if we can—You can't but own that.
Next, concede again— If once we choose belief, on all accounts We can't be too decisive in our faith, Conclusive and exclusive in its terms, To suit the world which gives us the good things.In every man's career are certain points Whereon he dares not be indifferent;The world detects him clearly, if he is,As baffled at the game, and losing life.He may care little or he may care muchFor riches, honour, pleasure, work, repose,Since various theories of life and life'sSuccess are extant which might easilyComport with either estimate of these,And whoso chooses wealth or poverty,Labour or quiet, is not judged a foolBecause his fellows would choose otherwise.We let him choose upon his own accountSo long as he's consistent with his choice.But certain points, left wholly to himself,When once a man has arbitrated on,We say he must succeed there or go hang.Thus, he should wed the woman he loves mostOr needs most, whatsoe'er the love or need—For he can't wed twice. Then, he must avouchOr follow, at the least, sufficiently, The form of faith his conscience holds the best,Whate'er the process of conviction was.For nothing can compensate his mistakeOn such a point, the man himself being judge—He cannot wed twice, nor twice lose his soul.
Well now—there's one great form of Christian faithI happened to be born in—which to teachWas given me as I grew up, on all hands,As best and readiest means of living by;The same on examination being provedThe most pronounced moreover, fixed, preciseAnd absolute form of faith in the whole world—Accordingly, most potent of all formsFor working on the world. Observe, my friend,Such as you know me, I am free to say,In these hard latter days which hamper one,Myself, by no immoderate exerciseOf intellect and learning, and the tactTo let external forces work for me, Bid the street's stones be bread and they are bread,Bid Peter's creed, or, rather, Hildebrand's,Exalt me o'er my fellows in the worldAnd make my life an ease and joy and pride,It does so,—which for me's a great point gained,Who have a soul and body that exactA comfortable care in many ways.There's power in me and will to dominateWhich I must exercise, they hurt me else:In many ways I need mankind's respect,Obedience, and the love that's born of fear:While at the same time, there's a taste I have,A toy of soul, a titillating thing,Refuses to digest these dainties crude.The naked life is gross till clothed upon:I must take what men offer, with a graceAs though I would not, could I help it, take!A uniform to wear though over-rich—Something imposed on me, no choice of mine;No fancy-dress worn for pure fashion's sake And despicable therefore! now men kneelAnd kiss my hand—of course the Church's hand.Thus I am made, thus life is best for me,And thus that it should be I have procured;And thus it could not be another way,I venture to imagine.
You'll reply—So far my choice, no doubt, is a success;But were I made of better elements,With nobler instincts, purer tastes, like you,I hardly would account the thing successThough it do all for me I say.
But, friend,We speak of what is—not of what might be,And how 'twere better if 'twere otherwise.I am the man you see here plain enough—Grant I'm a beast, why beasts must lead beasts' lives!Suppose I own at once to tail and claws— The tailless man exceeds me; but being tailedI'll lash out lion-fashion, and leave apesTo dock their stump and dress their haunches up.My business is not to remake myself,But make the absolute best of what God made.Or—our first simile—though you proved me doomedTo a viler berth still, to the steerage-hole,The sheep-pen or the pig-stye, I should striveTo make what use of each were possible;And as this cabin gets upholstery,That hutch should rustle with sufficient straw.
But, friend, I don't acknowledge quite so fastI fail of all your manhood's lofty tastesEnumerated so complacently,On the mere ground that you forsooth can findIn this particular life I choose to leadNo fit provision for them. Can you not?Say you, my fault is I address myselfTo grosser estimators than I need, And that's no way of holding up the soul—Which, nobler, needs men's praise perhaps, yet knowsOne wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools',—Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that?I pine among my million imbeciles(You think) aware some dozen men of senseEye me and know me, whether I believeIn the last winking Virgin, as I vow,And am a fool, or disbelieve in herAnd am a knave,—approve in neither case,Withhold their voices though I look their way:Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end(The thing they gave at Florence,—what's its name?)While the mad houseful's plaudits near out-bangHis orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones,He looks through all the roaring and the wreathsWhere sits Rossini patient in his stall.
Nay, friend, I meet you with an answer here—For even your prime men who appraise their kind
Are men still, catch a thing within a thing,See more in a truth than the truth's simple self,Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the streetSixty the minute; what's to note in that?You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack;Him you must watch—he's sure to fall, yet stands!Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.The honest thief, the tender murderer,The superstitious atheist, demirepsThat love and save their souls in new French books—We watch while these in equilibrium keepThe giddy line midway: one step aside,They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the lineBefore your sages,—just the men to shrinkFrom the gross weights, coarse scales, and labels broadYou offer their refinement. Fool or knave?Why needs a bishop be a fool or knaveWhen there's a thousand diamond weights between?So I enlist them. Your picked Twelve, you'll find,Profess themselves indignant, scandalised At thus being held unable to explainHow a superior man who disbelievesMay not believe as well: that's Schelling's way!It's through my coming in the tail of time,Nicking the minute with a happy tact.Had I been born three hundred years agoThey'd say, "What's strange? Blougram of course believes;"And, seventy years since, "disbelieves of course."But now, "He may believe; and yet, and yetHow can he?"—All eyes turn with interest.Whereas, step off the line on either side—You, for example, clever to a fault,The rough and ready man that write apace,Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less—You disbelieve! Who wonders and who cares?Lord So-and-So—his coat bedropt with wax,All Peter's chains about his waist, his backBrave with the needlework of Noodledom,Believes! Again, who wonders and who cares? But I, the man of sense and learning too,The able to think yet act, the this, the that,I, to believe at this late time of day!Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt.
-Except it's yours! admire me as these may,You don't. But what at least do you admire?Present your own perfections, your ideal,Your pattern man for a minute-oh, make haste!Is it Napoleon you would have us grow?Concede the means; allow his head and hand,(A large concession, clever as you are)Good!—In our common primal elementOf unbelief (we can't believe, you know—We're still at that admission, recollect)Where do you find—apart from, towering-o'erThe secondary temporary aimsWhich satisfy the gross tastes you despise—Where do you find his star?—his crazy trustGod knows through what or in what? it's alive And shines and leads him and that's all we want.Have we aught in our sober night shall pointSuch ends as his were, and direct the meansOf working out our purpose straight as his,Nor bring a moment's trouble on successWith after-care to justify the same?—Be a Napoleon and yet disbelieve!Why, the man's mad, friend, take his light away.What's the vague good of the world for which you'd dareWith comfort to yourself blow millions up?We neither of us see it! we do seeThe blown-up millions—spatter of their brainsAnd writhing of their bowels and so forth,In that bewildering entanglementOf horrible eventualitiesPast calculation to the end of time!Can I mistake for some clear word of God(Which were my ample warrant for it all)His puff of hazy instincts, idle talk, "The state, that's I," quack-nonsense about kings,And (when one beats the man to his last hold)The vague idea of setting things to rights,Policing people efficaciously,More to their profit, most of all to his own;The whole to end that dismallest of endsBy an Austrian marriage, cant to us the church,And resurrection of the old régime.Would I, who hope to live a dozen years,Fight Austerlitz for reasons such and such?No: for, concede me but the merest chanceDoubt may be wrong—there's judgment, life to come!With just that chance, I dare not. Doubt proves right?This present life is all? you offer meIts dozen noisy years with not a chanceThat wedding an Arch-Duchess, wearing lace,And getting called by divers new-coined names,Will drive off ugly thoughts and let me dine,Sleep, read and chat in quiet as I like!Therefore, I will not. Take another case;Fit up the cabin yet another way.What say you to the poet's? shall we writeHamlets, Othellos—make the world our own,Without a risk to run of either sort?I can't!—to put the strongest reason first."But try," you urge, "the trying shall suffice:The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life.Try to be Shakspeare, leave the rest to fate!"Spare my self-knowledge—there's no fooling me!If I prefer remaining my poor self,I say so not in self-dispraise but praise.If I'm a Shakspeare, let the well alone—Why should I try to be what now I am?If I'm no Shakspeare, as too probable,—His power and consciousness and self-delightAnd all we want in common, shall I find—Trying for ever? while on points of tasteWherewith, to speak it humbly, he and IAre dowered alike—I'll ask you, I or he, Which in our two lives realises most?Much, he imagined—somewhat, I possess.He had the imagination; stick to that!Let him say “In the face of my soul's worksYour world is worthless and I touch it notLest I should wrong them"—I withdraw my plea.But does he say so? look upon his life!Himself, who only can, gives judgment there.He leaves his towers and gorgeous palacesTo build the trimmest house in Stratford town;Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of things,Giulio Romano's pictures, Dowland's lute;Enjoys a show, respects the puppets, too,And none more, had he seen its entry once,Than "Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal."Why then should I who play that personage,The very Pandulph Shakspeare's fancy made,Be told that had the poet chanced to startFrom where I stand now (some degree like mineBeing just the goal he ran his race to reach) He would have run the whole race back, forsooth,And left being Pandulph, to begin write plays?Ah, the earth's best can be but the earth's best!Did Shakspeare live, he could but sit at homeAnd get himself in dreams the Vatican,Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls,And English books, none equal to his own,Which I read, bound in gold, (he never did).—Terni and Naples' bay and Gothard's top—Eh, friend? I could not fancy one of these—But, as I pour this claret, there they are—I've gained them—crossed St. Gothard last JulyWith ten mules to the carriage and a bedSlung inside; is my hap the worse for that?We want the same things, Shakspeare and myself,And what I want, I have: he, gifted more,Could fancy he too had it when he liked,But not so thoroughly that if fate allowedHe would not have it also in my sense.We play one game. I send the ball aloft No less adroitly that of fifty strokesScarce five go o'er the wall so wide and highWhich sends them back to me: I wish and get.He struck balls higher and with better skill,But at a poor fence level with his head,And hit—his Stratford house, a coat of arms,Successful dealings in his grain and wool,—While I receive heaven's incense in my noseAnd style myself the cousin of Queen Bess.Ask him, if this life's all, who wins the game?
Believe—and our whole argument breaks up.Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat;Only, we can't command it; fire and lifeAre all, dead matter's nothing, we agree:And be it a mad dream or God's very breath,The fact's the same,—belief's fire once in us,Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself.We penetrate our life with such a glowAs fire lends wood and iron—this turns steel, That burns to ash—all's one, fire proves its powerFor good or ill, since men call flare success.But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn.Light one in me, I'll find it food enough!Why, to be Luther—that's a life to lead,Incomparably better than my own.He comes, reclaims God's earth for God, he says,Sets up God's rule again by simple means,Re-opens a shut book, and all is done.He flared out in the flaring of mankind;Such Luther's luck was—how shall such be mine?If he succeeded, nothing's left to do:And if he did not altogether—well,Strauss is the next advance. All Strauss should beI might be also. But to what result ?He looks upon no future: Luther did.What can I gain on the denying side?Ice makes no conflagration. State the facts,Read the text right, emancipate the world—The emancipated world enjoys itself With scarce a thank-you—Blougram told it firstIt could not owe a farthing,—not to himMore than St. Paul! 'twould press its pay, you think?Then add there's still that plaguey hundredth chanceStrauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run—For what gain? not for Luther's, who securedA real heaven in his heart throughout his life,Supposing death a little altered things!
"Ay, but since really I lack faith," you cry,"I run the same risk really on all sides,In cool indifference as bold unbelief.As well be Strauss as swing 'twixt Paul and him.It's not worth having, such imperfect faith,Nor more available to do faith's workThan unbelief like yours. Whole faith, or none!"
Softly, my friend! I must dispute that point.Once own the use of faith, I'll find you faith.We're back on Christian ground. You call for faith: I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does?By life and man's free will, God gave for that!To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice:That's our one act, the previous work's His own.You criticise the soil? it reared this tree—This broad life and whatever fruit it bears!What matter though I doubt at every pore,Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers' ends,Doubts in the trivial work of every day,Doubts at the very bases of my soulIn the grand moments when she probes herself—If finally I have a life to show,The thing I did, brought out in evidenceAgainst the thing done to me undergroundBy Hell and all its brood, for aught I know?I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt?All's doubt in me; where's break of faith in this?It is the idea, the feeling and the love God means mankind should strive for and show forth,Whatever be the process to that end,—And not historic knowledge, logic sound,And metaphysical acumen, sure!"What think ye of Christ," friend? when all's done and said,Like you this Christianity or not?It may be false, but will you wish it true?Has it your vote to be so if it can?Trust you an instinct silenced long agoThat will break silence and enjoin you loveWhat mortified philosophy is hoarse,And all in vain, with bidding you despise?If you desire faith—then you've faith enough.What else seeks God—nay, what else seek ourselves?You form a notion of me, we'll suppose,On hearsay; it's a favourable one:"But still" (you add), "there was no such good man,Because of contradictions in the facts.One proves, for instance, he was born in Rome, This Blougram—yet throughout the tales of himI see he figures as an Englishman.”Well, the two things are reconcileable.But would I rather you discovered that,Subjoining—“Still, what matter though they be?Blougram concerns me nought, born here or there.”
Pure faith indeed—you know not what you ask!Naked belief in God the Omnipotent,Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too muchThe sense of conscious creatures to be borne.It were the seeing him, no flesh shall dare.Some think, Creation’s meant to show him forth:I say, it’s meant to hide him all it can,And that’s what all the blessed Evil’s for.Its use in Time is to environ us,Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enoughAgainst that sight till we can bear its stress.Under a vertical sun, the exposed brainAnd lidless eye and disemprisoned heart Less certainly would wither up at onceThan mind, confronted with the truth of Him.But time and earth case-harden us to live;The feeblest sense is trusted most; the childFeels God a moment, ichors o'er the place,Plays on and grows to be a man like us.With me, faith means perpetual unbeliefKept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's footWho stands calm just because he feels it writhe.Or, if that's too ambitious,—here's my box—I need the excitation of a pinchThreatening the torpor of the inside-noseNigh on the imminent sneeze that never comes."Leave it in peace" advise the simple folk—Make it aware of peace by itching-fits,Say I—let doubt occasion still more faith!
You'll say, once all believed, man, woman, child,In that dear middle-age these noodles praise.How you'd exult if I could put you back Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony,Geology, ethnology, what not(Greek endings with the little passing-bellThat signifies some faith's about to die)And set you square with Genesis again,—When such a traveller told you his last news,He saw the ark a-top of AraratBut did not climb there since 'twas getting duskAnd robber-bands infest the mountain's foot!How should you feel, I ask, in such an age,How act? As other people felt and did;With soul more blank than this decanter's knob,Believe—and yet lie, kill, rob, fornicateFull in belief's face, like the beast you'd be!
No, when the fight begins within himself,A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head,Satan looks up between his feet—both tug—He's left, himself, in the middle: the soul wakesAnd grows. Prolong that battle through his life! Never leave growing till the life to come!Here, we've got callous to the Virgin's winksThat used to puzzle people wholesomely—Men have outgrown the shame of being fools.What are the laws of nature, not to bendIf the Church bid them, brother Newman asks.Up with the Immaculate Conception, then—On to the rack with faith—is my advice!Will not that hurry us upon our kneesKnocking our breasts, "It can't be—yet it shall!Who am I, the worm, to argue with my Pope?Low things confound the high things!" and so forth.That's better than acquitting God with graceAs some folk do. He's tried—no case is proved,Philosophy is lenient—he may go!
You'll say—the old system's not so obsoleteBut men believe still: ay, but who and where?King Bomba's lazzaroni foster yetThe sacred flame, so Antonelli writes; But even of these, what ragamuffin-saintBelieves God watches him continually,As he believes in fire that it will burn,Or rain that it will drench him? Break fire's law,Sin against rain, although the penaltyBe just a singe or soaking? No, he smiles;Those laws are laws that can enforce themselves.
The sum of all is—yes, my doubt is great,My faith's still greater—then my faith's enough.I have read much, thought much, experienced much,Yet would die rather than avow my fearThe Naples' liquefaction may be false,When set to happen by the palace-clockAccording to the clouds or dinner-time.I hear you recommend, I might at leastEliminate, decrassify my faithSince I adopt it; keeping what I mustAnd leaving what I can—such points as this!I won't—that is, I can't throw one away. Supposing there's no truth in what I saidAbout the need of trials to man's faith,Still, when you bid me purify the same,To such a process I discern no end,Clearing off one excrescence to see two;There's ever a next in size, now grown as big,That meets the knife—I cut and cut again!First cut the Liquefaction, what comes lastBut Fichte's clever cut at God himself?Experimentalize on sacred things?I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brainTo stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.The first step, I am master not to take.
You'd find the cutting-process to your tasteAs much as leaving growths of lies unpruned,Nor see more danger in it, you retort.Your taste's worth mine; but my taste proves more wiseWhen we consider that the steadfast hold On the extreme end of the chain of faithGives all the advantage, makes the difference,With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule.We are their lords, or they are free of usJust as we tighten or relax our hold.So, others matters equal, we'll revertTo the first problem—which if solved my wayAnd thrown into the balance turns the scale—How we may lead a comfortable life,How suit our luggage to the cabin's size.
Of course you are remarking all this timeHow narrowly and grossly I view life,Respect the creature-comforts, care to ruleThe masses, and regard complacently"The cabin," in our old phrase! Well, I do.I act for, talk for, live for this world now,As this world prizes action, life and talk—No prejudice to what next world may prove,Whose new laws and requirements my best pledge To observe then, is that I observe these now,Doing hereafter what I do meanwhile.Let us concede (gratuitously though)Next life relieves the soul of body, yieldsPure spiritual enjoyment: well, my friend,Why lose this life in the meantime, since its useMay be to make the next life more intense?
Do you know, I have often had a dream(Work it up in your next month's article)Of man's poor spirit in its progress stillLosing true life for ever and a dayThrough ever trying to be and ever beingIn the evolution of successive spheresBefore its actual sphere and place of life,Half way into the next, which having reached,It shoots with corresponding fooleryHalfway into the next still, on and off!As when a traveller, bound from north to south,Scouts fur in Russia—what's its use in France? In France spurns flannel—where's its need in Spain?In Spain drops cloth—too cumbrous for Algiers!Linen goes next, and last the skin itself,A superfluity at Timbuctoo.When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?I'm at ease now, friend—worldly in this worldI take and like its way of life; I thinkMy brothers, who administer the meansLive better for my comfort—that's good too;And God, if he pronounce upon it all,Approves my service, which is better still.If He keep silence,—why for you or meOr that brute beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times,"What odds is't, save to ourselves, what life we lead?
You meet me at this issue—you declare,All special-pleading done with, truth is truth,And justifies itself by undreamed ways.You don't fear but it's better, if we doubt,To say so, act up to our truth perceived However feebly. Do then,—act away!'Tis there I'm on the watch for you! How one actsIs, both of us agree, our chief concern:And how you'll act is what I fain would seeIf, like the candid person you appear,You dare to make the most of your life's schemeAs I of mine, live up to its full lawSince there's no higher law that counterchecks.Put natural religion to the testYou've just demolished the revealed with—quick,Down to the root of all that checks your will,All prohibition to lie, kill and thieveOr even to be an atheistic priest!Suppose a pricking to incontinence—Philosophers deduce you chastityOr shame, from just the fact that at the firstWhoso embraced a woman in the plain,Threw club down, and forewent his brains beside,So stood a ready victim in the reachOf any brother-savage club in hand— Hence saw the use of going out of sightIn wood or cave to prosecute his loves—I read this in a French book t'other day.Does law so analyzed coerce you much?Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end,But you who reach where the first thread begins,You'll soon cut that!—which means you can, but won'tThrough certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out,You dare not set aside, you can't tell why,But there they are, and so you let them rule.Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I,A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite,Without the good the slave expects to get,Suppose he has a master after all!You own your instincts—why what else do I,Who want, am made for, and must have a GodEre I can be aught, do aught?—no mere nameWant, but the true thing with what proves its truth,To wit, a relation from that thing to me, Touching from head to foot—which touch I feel,And with it take the rest, this life of ours!I live my life here; yours you dare not live.
Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin)Disfigure such a life and call it names,While, in your mind, remains another wayFor simple men: knowledge and power have rights,But ignorance and weakness have rights too.There needs no crucial effort to find truthIf here or there or anywhere about—We ought to turn each side, try hard and see,And if we can't, be glad we've earned at leastThe right, by one laborious proof the more,To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage.Men are not gods, but, properly, are brutes.Something we may see, all we cannot see—What need of lying? I say, I see all,And swear to each detail the most minuteIn what I think a man's face—you, mere cloud: I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,For fear, if once I drop the emphasis,Mankind may doubt if there's a cloud at all.You take the simpler life—ready to see,Willing to see—for no cloud's worth a face—And leaving quiet what no strength can move,And which, who bids you move? who has the right?I bid you; but you are God's sheep, not mine—"Pastor est tui Dominus." You findIn these the pleasant pastures of this lifeMuch you may eat without the least offence,Much you don't eat because your maw objects,Much you would eat but that your fellow-flockOpen great eyes at you and even butt,And thereupon you like your friends so muchYou cannot please yourself, offending them—Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep,You weigh your pleasure with their butts and kicksAnd strike the balance. Sometimes certain fearsRestrain you—real checks since you find them so— Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks;And thus you graze through life with not one lie,And like it best.
But do you, in truth's name?If so, you beat—which means—you are not I—Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fillNot simply unbutted at, unbickered with,But motioned to the velvet of the swardBy those obsequious wethers' very selves.Look at me, sir; my age is double yours.At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed,What now I should be—as, permit the word,I pretty well imagine your whole rangeAnd stretch of tether twenty years to come.We both have minds and bodies much alike.In truth's name, don't you want my bishopric,My daily bread, my influence and my state?You're young, I'm old, you must be old one day;Will you find then, as I do hour by hour, Women their lovers kneel to, that cut curlsFrom your fat lap-dog's ears to grace a brooch—Dukes, that petition just to kiss your ring—With much beside you know or may conceive?Suppose we die to-night: well, here am I,Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me,While writing all the same my articlesOn music, poetry, the fictile vaseFound at Albano, or Anacreon's Greek.But you—the highest honour in your life,The thing you'll crown yourself with, all your days,Is—dining here and drinking this last glassI pour you out in sign of amityBefore we part for ever. Of your powerAnd social influence, worldly worth in short,Judge what's my estimation by the fact—I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech,Hint secresy on one of all these words!You're shrewd and know that should you publish itThe world would brand the lie—my enemies first, "Who'd sneer—the bishop's an arch-hypocrite,And knave perhaps, but not so frank a fool."Whereas I should not dare for both my earsBreathe one such syllable, smile one such smile,Before my chaplain who reflects myself—My shade's so much more potent than your flesh.What's your reward, self-abnegating friend?Stood you confessed of those exceptionalAnd privileged great natures that dwarf mine—A zealot with a mad ideal in reach,A poet just about to print his ode,A statesman with a scheme to stop this war,An artist whose religion is his art,I should have nothing to object! such menCarry the fire, all things grow warm to them,Their drugget's worth my purple, they beat me.But you,—you're just as little those as I—You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age,Write statedly for Blackwood's Magazine,Believe you see two points in Hamlet's soul Unseized by the Germans yet—which view you'll print—Meantime the best you have to show being stillThat lively lightsome article we tookAlmost for the true Dickens,—what's the name?"The Slum and Cellar—or Whitechapel lifeLimned after dark!" it made me laugh, I know,And pleased a month and brought you in ten pounds.—Success I recognise and compliment,And therefore give you, if you please, three words(The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough)Which whether here, in Dublin, or New York,Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow's wink,Such terms as never you aspired to getIn all our own reviews and some not ours.Go write your lively sketches—be the first"Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence"—Or better simply say, "The Outward-bound."Why, men as soon would throw it in my teethAs copy and quote the infamy chalked broad About me on the church-door opposite.You will not wait for that experience though,I fancy, howsoever you decide,To discontinue—not detesting, notDefaming, but at least—despising me!
Over his wine so smiled and talked his hourSylvester Blougram, styled in partibusEpiscopus, nec non—(the deuce knows whatIt's changed to by our novel hierarchy)With Gigadibs the literary man,Who played with spoons, explored his plate's design,And ranged the olive stones about its edge,While the great bishop rolled him out his mind.
Over his wine so smiled and talked his hourSylvester Blougram, styled in partibusEpiscopus, nec non—(the deuce knows whatIt's changed to by our novel hierarchy)With Gigadibs the literary man,Who played with spoons, explored his plate's design,And ranged the olive stones about its edge,While the great bishop rolled him out his mind.
For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke.The other portion, as he shaped it thusFor argumentatory purposes,He felt his foe was foolish to dispute. Some arbitrary accidental thoughtsThat crossed his mind, amusing because new,He chose to represent as fixtures there,Invariable convictions (such they seemedBeside his interlocutor's loose cardsFlung daily down, and not the same way twice)While certain hell-deep instincts, man's weak tongueIs never bold to utter in their truthBecause styled hell-deep ('tis an old mistakeTo place hell at the bottom of the earth)He ignored these,—not having in readinessTheir nomenclature and philosophy:He said true things, but called them by wrong names."On the whole," he thought, "I justify myselfOn every point where cavillers like thisOppugn my life: he tries one kind of fence—I close—he's worsted, that's enough for him ;He's on the ground! if the ground should break awayI take my stand on, there's a firmer yetBeneath it, both of us may sink and reach. His ground was over mine and broke the first.So let him sit with me this many a year!"
He did not sit five minutes. Just a weekSufficed his sudden healthy vehemence.(Something had struck him in the "Outward-bound"Another way than Blougram's purpose was)And having bought, not cabin-furnitureBut settler's-implements (enough for three)And started for Australia—there, I hope,By this time he has tested his first plough,And studied his last chapter of St. John.