The Testament of Beauty/Selfhood

by Robert Bridges

THE TESTAMENT OF BEAUTY

 BOOK II Selfhood

THE vision of the seer who saw the Spirit of Man.A chariot he beheld speeding twixt earth and heavendrawn by wing'd horses, and the charioteer thereonupright with eyes upon the goal and mind alertcontrolling his strong steeds, that spurn'd the drifted cloudas now they sank now mounted in their heav'nward flight. Thus Plato recordeth—how Socrates told itto Phedrus on a summer morning, as they satbeneath a lofty plane-tree by the grassy banks10of the Ilissus, talking of the passions of men.  The Vision of the Seer is Truth's Apocalypse,yet needeth for our aid a true interpreter.The names of the two horses are Selfhood and Breed,the charioteer is Reason, and the whip in his handis not to urge-on the steeds nor to incite their blood;their mettle is everlasting and they need no goad:He wieldeth it to make them ware of his presenceand hold them obedient to the rein of his Will.But this picture drafted in Mind's creativ cave,20and thence on the eye projected, thin is as the filmof colour and shade on a canvas, ther is nought beneath:it telleth not who bred those wild horses, or broketheir strong necks to the yoke, nor who builded the car,and harness'd them therto for its high heavenly flight;nor how Reason ever mounted it in full careerand took the reins, nor of what stuff intangiblethey are woven, those reins pictured so taut in his grasp;nay, for not he himself kenneth well of these things:Yet truly is he portray'd fearless and glad of heart,30his lash circling o'erhead, as smiling on his steedshe speaketh to them lovingly in his praise or blame.

 Now these two horses, without which the wheels of Lifewould never hav had motion, and with them can hav no rest, are the animal instincts in the birthright of man;nor are they, as Plato fancied, one evil and one good:both are good, but of their wildness they are restiv bothand wilful, nor wil yield mastery, unless they feelthe hand of expert manage and good horsemanship.Selfhood is the elder and stronger; but Breed, once her foal40is livelier and of limb finer and more mettlesome,her rival now, and both wil pull together as one. 'Tis first to tell of Selfhood, since the first one thing,if ever a first thing wer, was of the Essence of Self.

 Consider a plant—its life—how a seed faln to groundsucketh in moisture for its germinating cells,and as it sucketh swelleth, til it burst its caseand thrusting its roots downward and spreading them widetaketh tenure of the soil, and from ev'ry raindropon its dribbling passage to replenish the springs50plundereth the freighted salt, while it pricketh uprightwith its flagstaff o'erhead for a place in the sun,anon to disengage buds that in tender leavesunfolding may inhale provender of the ambient air:and, tentacles or tendrils, they search not blindlybut each one headeth straightly for its readiest prey; and haply, if the seed be faln in a place of darknessroof'd in by men—if ther should be any ray or gleamhow faint soe'er, 'twil crane and reach its pallid stalkinto the crevice, pushing ev'n to disrupt the stones.60 'Tis of such absolute selfhood that it knoweth notparent nor offspring, and will abuse advantageof primogeniture, with long luxuriant boughscrowding in vain-glory to overshadow and quellits younger brethren; while, as for its own childrenthat, cradled on its branches, fell from its fruitage,'twil choke them when they strive to draw life at its feet. Look now upon a child of man when born to light,how otherwise than a plant sucketh he and clutcheth?how with his first life-breath he clarioneth for food!70craving as the blind fledgelings in a thrush's nestthat perk their naked necks, stiff as a chimney-stack,food-funnels, like as hoppers in a corn-mill gapingfor what supply the feeder may shovel in their throats.How differeth the new-born child from plant or fledgeling? Among low organisms some are call'd animalfor being unrooted, else inseparable from plants;yet each in his small motion is as a lion on prowl,or as a python gliding to seize and devoursome weaker Self, whereby to fortify his own. 80And if Selfhood thus rule thru'out organic life'tis no far thought that all the dumb activitiesin atom or molecule are like phenomenaof individuat Selfhood in its first degrees.

 This Autarchy of Selfhood, which we blame not at allin plants and scarcely in brutes, is by Reason denouncedheartless, and outlaw'd from the noble temper of man,the original sin and cause of half his woes and shames;whence Natur again would seem at variance with herself,misdoubting the foundation whereon she had built all,90and seeing too late the fault threating to split her housewould buttress it with the outwork of an afterthought.But tho 'tis only Reason can govern this horse,correction awaited not the human charioteer;Selfhood had of itself begotten its own restraint—like as small plague-microbes generate their own toxinin antidote of their own mischief (so 'tis said):Even among beasts of prey the bloody wolves, who foundsome selfish betterment from their hunting in packs,had thereby learn'd submission to a controlling will,100their leader being so far charioteer of their rage;while pastoral animals, or ever a drover cameto pen them for his profit, had in self-defence herded together; and on the wild prairies are seenwhen threaten'd by attack, congregating their youngwithin their midst for safety, and then serrying their ranksin a front line compact to face the dreaded foe. And this parental instinct, tho' it own cousinshipwith Breed, was born of Selfhood. A nursing mammal,since she must feel her suckling a piece of herself,110wil self-preserve and shelter it as herself; and oft'tis hard to wean. So birds, by long brooding inured,wil watch their chickens heedfully, and fearfully attendtheir early excursions, guiding aiding and at needdefending against danger. It is pretty to marka partridge, when she hath first led forth her brood to runamong the grass-tussocks or hay-stubbles of June,if man or beast approach them, how to usurp regardshe counterfeiteth the terror of a wounded birddraggling a broken wing, and noisily enticeth120or provoketh the foe to follow her in a vain chase;nor wil she desist from the ruse of her courageto effect her own escape in loud masterful flight,untill she hav far decoy'd hunter or blundering hooffrom where she has bid her little ones to scatter and hide.

 In man this blind motherly attachment is the spring of his purest affection, and of all compassion,—the emotion most inimical to war: I deemits form of unimpeachable sincerityto be the mould wherein Friendship's full faith is cast.130But richest fruits are tardy in ripening, and man's mindon the last topmost branch, fed from the deepest root,struggleth slowly to birth thru' long-enforced delay.See nature's habit now devolving upon man,and in his Reason her patience as virtue reborn.First wil be many months of bodily helplessness,then many years ere the fine budding spirit unclose.Wherewhile a new spiritual personalityin its miraculous significance, the childis less the mother's own than a treasur entrusted,140which she can never love too fondly of serve too well;Nay, rather is she possess'd by her own possession,and in her Vita nuova such things are reveal'dthat all she hath thought or done seemeth to her of small worth.The unfathomable mystery of her awaken'd joysendeth her daily to heaven on her knees in prayer:and watching o'er the charm of a soul's wondering dawnenamoureth so her spirit, that all her happinessis in her care for him, all hope in his promise;and his nobility is the dream-goal of her life. 150 In the sunshine of her devotion, her peace and joyare mirror'd in the child's mind, and would leave thereonno place for sin, coud all be purified to attain;but in the most the mind is gross and the spirit bleak;and for a generation needing an outward signof this transcendent mystery, 'twas well when Artfashioning a domestic symbol in worship of Christpictured him as an infant in his Mother's arms,sharing with her his suffering and glory—it was well:Nor count I any scripture to be better inspired160with eternal wisdom or by insight of manthan the four words wherewith the sad penitent hymncalleth aloud on Mary standing neath the cross:Eia mater, it saith, mater fons amoris.

 Leave Selfhood now in her fond sanctuary awhilewith the unseen universe communing and entrancedstrangely:—As when a high moon thru' the rifted wrackgleameth upon the random of the windswept night;or as a sunbeam softly, on early worshippersat some rich shrine kneeling, stealeth thru' the eastern apse170and on the clouded incense and the fresco'd wallsmantleth the hush of prayer with a vaster silence,laden as 'twer with the unheard music of the spheres; —nay, incommunicable and beyond all compareare the rich influences of those moments of bliss,mocking imagination or pictured remembrance,as a divine dream in the vaulted slumber of life. Leave we Selfhood now secretly under thatt nimbus,fashioning by nurtur in a new selfhood of spiritwhatever in the redemption of beauty and dignity180ennobleth the society or the person of man—leave thatt nursery awhile, and ask how Nature wroughtwhere she with-held from life the gift of Motherhood.

 The teeming progeny of such egg-breeding insectsas multiply their children a thousandfold a daymust lie close on the zero of parental bondage;nor can they be debar'd by ignominy of rankor unlikeness of kind from vouching in this case:For among Bees and Ants are social systems foundso complex and well-order'd as to invite offhand190a pleasant fable enough: that once upon a time,or ever a man was born to rob their honeypots,bees wer fully endow'd with Reason and only lost itby ordering so their life as to dispense with it;whereby it pined away and perish'd of disuse, which, whether it wer or no, if men can judge of Bees,well might be in their strange manner of life—so like it iswith what our economical bee-minded menteach as the first intelligential principleof human government welfare and happiness;—200Nay, some I hav seen wil choose a beehive for their signand gloss their soul-delusion with a muddled thought,picturing a skep of straw, the beekeeper's device,a millowner's workshop, for totem of their tribe;Not knowing the high goal of our great endeavouris spiritual attainment, individual worth,at all cost to be sought and at all cost pursued,to be won at all cost and at all cost assured;not such material ease as might be attain'd for allby cheap production and distribution of common needs,210wer all life level'd down to where the lowest can reach:Thus generating for ever in his crowded treadmills,man's life wer cheap as bees'; and we may see in themhow he likewise might liv, if each would undertakethe maximum of toil that is found tolerableupon a day-doled minimum of sustenance;and stay from procrëation at that just number of men,;hard-workers and small-eaters, who coud crowd on earthunder the shadow of this skeleton of happiness. And since life must lose value in diminution of goods,220life-time must also itself be in due proportion abredged;and both diminishings must at some point be stay'd,lest by slow loss they come dwindling in the end to nought:then, when to each single life the allotted span is fix'd,the system wil be at balance, stable and perfected.

 The ground-root folly of this pitous philanthropyis thinking to distribute indivisibles,and make equality in things incommensurable:forged under such delusions, all Utopiasare castles in the air or counsels of despair.230So Plato, on whose infant lips—as it is told—bees settled where he lay slumbering in his cradle,and honour'd with their augury man's loan of praise—ev'n Plato, when he in fear and mistrust of Selfhooddenyeth family life to his republicans,fell, bruized; tho' cautiously depicting Socratesreluctant to disclose the offensiv absurdumof his pretentious premiss—when, being forced to admitthat in his free community of women and childrenno child would ken its parent, no parent his child,240he sought to twist the bull's horns with a sophistry—arguing that mother's love and home-life being the source of such inestimable good, 'twer wise that lawshould forbid privat property in their benefits:Nay, so 'twould set his state above all other states,wer suchlike indispensable privilegesrescued from ownership, and for the general usedistributed equally among the citizens.For surely (said he) a bastard nursed in a bureaumust love and reverence all women for its mothers;250and likewise every woman, being in like default,would love all babies as her only son. May-bePlato was pleased to launch his whole Utopiasafely in absolute dreamland; but poor Socrates,on whom he father'd it, was left in nubibuswhere Aristophanes in good jest had set himsome twenty years afore: and our sophists, who lackclaim to any shred of great Plato's glorious mantleof wisdom, have secured a good lien on his bluff.

 But yet to read the strange riddle of the hiving bees,260their altruism and platonesque intelligence,'tis enough to suppose that their small separat selvesare function'd by the same organic socialismand vital telepathy as the corpuscles arewhereof their little bodies are themselves composed: that this cell-habit, spredd thru'out to a general sense,inspireth them in their corporate community. Consider the tiny egg-cell whence the man groweth,how it proliferateth freely, as a queen-bee doth,and more surely than any animal or plant breedeth;270how each new offspring cell is for some special workdifferentiated and functioneth spontaneously,and ev'n wil change its predetermin'd facultywhen accidental environment maketh a call,leaving its proper sphere to amend what hath gone wrong:Consider then their task, those unimaginableinfinit co-adaptations of function'd tissuecorrelated delicately in a ravel'd webof unknown sensibilities . . how 'tis a taskincomparable in complexity with whatsoe'er280the bees can boast: nor do the unshapely cells behavewith lesser show of will, nor of purpose and skill:Pass by the rarer achievements, yea, forget all fames,all works all art all virtue and knowledge—set them by,and still the solved problems must exhaust our wonder;Reason can bring no more; and it addeth nothingthat the complete insect should in some part possesssome of the faculties of its constituent cells.Or if this thing be deem'd in Natur anomalous, that perfect organisms with sense and motion endow'dshould still behave to each other as link'd constructiv cells,291yet outwardly to our eyes this freedom affordethmachinery wherupon common purpose can work:To the insect, order and disorder are exposed to sight;and so we think to see the little emmets conferand locking their antenne immediately transmitthe instinctiv calls which each and all can feel; whereasthe mutual fellowship of distributed cellshath so confounded thought that explanation is fetch'dfrom chemic agency: because in that science300the reaction of unknown forces is described and summ'din mathematic formulæ pregnant of truth,and of such universal scope that, being call'd laws,their mere description passeth for Efficient Cause.

 Sometimes when slowly from the deep sleep of fatiguea man awakeneth, he lyeth for awhile amazed,aware of self and of his rested body, and yetknowing not where he is, bewilder'd, unableto interpret sight or sound, because the slumbering guardsin Memory's Castle hav lagg'd at his summons310for to let down the drawbridge and to uplift the gate: Anon with their deliverance he cometh againto usual cognisance of the things about him,life, and all his old familiar concepts of home.So 'tis with any Manchild born into the world,so wondereth he awhile at the stuff of his home, So, tho' slowly and unconsciently, he remembereth.—The senses ministrant on his apperceptionare predisposed to the terrestrial influences,adapted to the environment where they took shape:320With ease of long habit his lungs inhale the air,his eyes and skin welcome the sun, and his palatefindeth assurance taking to the mother's milk:His muffling wraps, his frill'd and closely curtain'd cotand silken apparel of wealth are stranger things to himthan the rough contacts wherefrom they are thought to shield him,the everlasting companionships of his lang syne;nor later wil he meet with any older acquaintancethan Bees are; for his ancestors ere they wer menhad pillaged the wild combs, and thru' untold ages330hive-honey in cave and palace hath sweeten'd man's food:not all the flooding syrup from the East-Indian canefoster'd in the Antilles, Ohio and Illinois,in Java, Demerara or Jamaica can drownHybla's renown, nor cheapen the honey of Narbonne: A jar of Hymettan from a scholar in Athensregaled our English laurel above all gifts to me,who hav come to wiser affection in my regard for bees,learning the secret purpose wherefor Nature plann'dtheir industry, and controll'd its fashion to subserve340the beauty and fertility of her vegetant life,to enrich her blooms with colour and fructify her fruits,—which never a bee can guess, nor that the unwholesomenessof mixy pollen (a thing that so concerneth bees)was by the flowers contrived for their own benefit:— Nay, whether it be in the gay apple-orchards of May,when the pink bunches spread their gold hearts to the sun,nor yet rude winds hav snow'd their petals to the ground;or when a dizzy bourdon haunteth the sweet cymesthat droop at Lammas-tide the queenly foliage350of a tall linden tree, where yearly by the wallof some long-ruin'd Abbey she remembereth herof glad thanksgivings and the gay choral Sabbaths,while in her leafy tower the languorous murmurfloateth off heav'nward in a mellow dome of shade;—or when, tho' summer hath o' erbrim'd their clammy cellsthe shorten'd days are shadow'd with dark fears of dearth,bees ply the more, issuing on sultry noons to throngin the ivy-blooms—what time October's flaming hues surcharge the brooding hours, till passionat soul and sense360blend in a rich reverie with the dying year;—when and wherever bees are busy, it is the flowersdispense their daily task and determin its field;the prime motiv, may-hap, of all bee-energy,as of bee-industry they are surely the whole stuff.Unwitting tho' it is, this great labor of lovein such kindly intimacy with nature's workingshath a genial beauty, the charm whereof lackethto the hireling drudgery of our huge city hives.So for their happy demeanour and sweet ministry370they wer ever admired of man, and won immortal placein divine story and in poetic fable and rhyme:Deem'd heavenly visitants wer they, children of the airof no earthly engendering, under celestial lawsliving a life of wisdom pleasur and diligence,a model for the polity and society of men.

 Alas, we hav seen too near the poor life of the Bee,how of the swarming workers that cluster'd to foundthe springtide colony and project its waxen wallsnot one liveth to sing her nisi Dominus,380nor to rest from her labour, nor to enjoy the fruits.Forty days, six unsabbath'd weeks of fever'd toil wasteth and wearieth out their little frames—in truththeir eggs wer a mass-product, not design'd to endure,nor for themselves, but pennywise to serve a turn:—One by one they succumb on their lonely journeys,o'erladen above their strength, benighted or astray,entrapp'd by swooping beaks, or by hard hail laid lowwith broken wings, untill a frail remnant at lastwearily welcoming the dim prescience of death390seek their own cemetery, where their shriveling skinsmay lie together apart nor soil the hive; yet stillever and ever as they fail, perish and disappear,new shifts of younger workers, born of later eggs,take-up the unresting labour, each in their turn content to keep hive clean, eggs plenty, and storeroom full.Thus passeth summer, and with her draggled pageantrythey too giv o'er, and stay all business in the hive,and huddling upon the foodstore in their dark denby numb stagnation husband the low flicker of life,400sustain'd by an unheard promise that their prison againshall feel the sun, and they with the brave buds of Marchshall drink the valiance of his steepening rays, they toobe hearten'd to revive, and venturing forth renewthe well-worn round of toil; wherein ther is no one pointof true accomplishment, since the sweet honeycomb for which man thanketh them, is but their furnishment,the larder and nursery and provisional shelterwherein their forlorn hope, their last shift may hold outthru' the long sleepless night of winter's starving gloom.410 And for their monarch Queen—an egg-casting machine,helpless without attendance as a farmer's drill,by bedels driven and gear'd and in the furrows steer'd,well-watch'd the while, and treated with respect and careso long as she run well, oil'd stoked and kept in trim;but if deranged she slacken in her depositing,she is dealt with as men scrap a worn-out seed-barrow,not worth the mending; new machines cost nought to bees.

 Now when this story is with man's tender sentimentfoolishly travestied, Nature wil seem malign:420But bees—unless the Selfhood of the hive can feel—lack conscience of emotion, or hav no more than when,call'd by the sun to swarm in a bright morn of May,their agitated clamour and frolic flight would shewthat some levity hath prick'd their cores: even as with uswho feel the exhilaration of the voluptuous airthat surgeth in our flesh to flood the soul, and easeour stiff behaviour; and to such happy influencesswarming bees are responsiv and forget to sting: in which, as in their stranger mockeries of mankind,430they are truly less like us than we are like to them.So all barbaric tyrants, who secure their throneby murder of rivals, hav their model in the Queen-bee;and the class-hate that kindleth in disorder'd times,when prosperity hath set envy and desire at war—'tis like the workers' annual massacre of the Drones:And even if some faint rebel mote of pleasure lurkin these fly-puppetries of human crime, 'tis plainthat bees in their short life can hav so little joyand so much toil,—I say 'tis plain, that (if the things440be comparable) then with the beehive comparedthe New-world slave-plantations wer abodes of bliss. Me-seemeth in my poem these poor hive-bees fareas with an old black bear that hath climb'd on their treein the American Adirondacks or AsianHimalya, and clawing their comb, eateth it in,grubs, bees and honey and all: it is all one to him,for the brute is omnivorous and hath a sweet tooth.

 Conscient Reason, the channel of man's spiritual joy,hath such dominant function also in bodily feeling450that 'tis the measur of suffering in all animals, in lower forms negligible, and in the lowestpain can be felt no more than mid the dancing wavesa pleasure-boat feeleth the hand on her tillerthat keepeth-up her head to th' wind and her sails full.And of spiritual pain the most cometh againthru' Reason, whether of frailty or of imperfection:—Savagery hath the throes; and ah! in tender yearsthe mind of childhood knoweth torments of terror,fears incommunicable, unconsolable,460vague shapes; tho' oft they be the dread boding of truth,against which man's full Reason at grips may wrestle in vain.Yet for the gift of his virgin intelligencea child is ever our nearest pictur of happiness:'tis a delight to look on him in tireless playattentivly occupied with a world of wonders,so rich in toys and playthings that naked Naturewer enough without the marvelous inventary of man;wherewith he toyeth no less, and learning soon the loreof cypher and alphabet anon getteth to con470the fair uncial comment that science hath penn'dglossing the mazy hieroglyph of Nature's bookand as he ever drinketh of the living watershis spirit is drawn into the stream and, as a dropcommingled therewith, taketh of birthright therein as vast an heritage as his young body hathin the immemorial riches of mortality. And now full light of heart he hath willingly pass'd outthru' the sword-gates of Eden into the world beyond:He wil be child no more: in his revel of knowledge480all the world is his own: all the hope of mankindis sharpen'd to a spearpoint in his bright confidence,as he rideth forth to do battle, a Chevalierin the joyous travail of the everlasting dawn:There is nought to compare then, truly nought to compare:and wer not Fortune fickle in her lovingkindness,all wer well with a man—for his life is at flower,nor hath he any fear: πὀθεν θανάτου νῦνμνημονεύσειεν ἀν ἐν ἀκμῇ τοςαύτῃ?But since her favor is inscrutable and uncertain,490and of her multiplicity she troubleth notat the interaction of diverse self-consequences,ther wil be blastings and blightings of hope and love,and rude shocks that affray; yet to the enamour'd soulevil is irrelevant and will be brush'd aside:rather 'tis as with Art, wherein special beautyspringeth of obstacles that hav been overcomeand to graces transform'd; so the lover in lifewill make obstructions serve, and from all resistance gain strength: his reconcilement with suffering is eased500by fellow-suffering, and in pride of his callinggood warriorship welcometh the challenge of death. Beneath the spaceless dome of the soul's firmamenthe liveth in the glow of a celestial fire,fed by whose timeless beams our small obedient sunis as a cast-off satellite, that borrowethfrom the great Mover of all; and in the light of lightman's little works, strewn on the sands of time, sparklelike cut jewels in the beatitude of God's countenance. But heav'nward tho' the chariot be already mounted,510'tis Faith alone can keep the charioteer in heart—Nay, be he but irresolute the steeds wil rebel,and if he looketh earthward they wil follow his gaze;and ever as to earth he neareth, and vision clearethof all that he feareth, and the enemy appearethwaving triumphant banners on the strongholds of ill,his mirroring mind wil tarnish, and mortal despairpossess his soul: then surely Nature hath no nightdark as that black darkness that can be felt: no stormblind as the fury of Man's self-destructiv passions,520no pestilence so poisonous as his hideous sins. Thus men in slavery of sorrow imagin ghastly creeds,monstrous devilry, abstractions of terror, and wil look to death's benumbing opium as their only cure,or, seeking proudly to ennoble melancholyby embracement, wil make a last wisdom of woe:They lie in Hell like sheep, death gnaweth upon them;whose prophet sage and preacher is the old Ecclesiastpseudo-Solomon, who cryeth in the wilderness,calling all to baptism in the Slough of Despond:530Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas.

THE Spartan General Brasidas, the strenuous man,who earn'd historic favour from his conquer'd foe,once caught a mouse foraging in his messbasketamong the figs, but when it bit him let it go,praising its show of fight in words that Plutarch judgedworth treasuring; and since I redd the story at schoolunto this hour I hav never thought of Brasidasand cannot hear his name, but that I straightway seea table and an arm'd man smiling with hand outstretch'd540above a little mouse that is scampering away. Why should this thing so hold me? and why do I welcome nowthe tiny beast, that hath come running up to meas if here in my cantos he had spied a crevice,and counting on my friendship would make it his home?  'Tis such a pictur as must by mere beauty of fitnessconvince natural feeling with added comfort.The soldier seeth the instinct of Selfhood in the mouseto be the same impulse that maketh virtue in him.For Brasidas held that courage ennobleth man,550and from unworth redeemeth, and that folk who shrinkfrom ventur of battle in self-defence are thereby doom'dto slavery and extinction: and so this mouse, albeitits little teeth had done him a petty hurt, deservedliberty for its courage, and found grace in man. I had disliked Brasidas if he had kill'd the mouse:needless taking of life putteth Reason to shame,and men so startle at bloodshed that all homicidemay to a purist seem mortal pollution of soul;a mystical horror of it may rule in him so strong,560that rather than be slayer he would himself be slain:But fatherhood dispenseth with this vain taboo:the duty of mightiness is to protect the weak:and since slackness in duty is unto noble mindsa greater shame and blame than any chance offenceensuing on right conduct, this hath my assent,—that where ther is any savagery ther wil be war:the warrior therefore needeth no apology.

 Children, for all their innocency and gentleness,in their unreason'd Selfhood think no scorn of war,570but practise mimicry of it in their merry games,like puppies that would learn their fighting tricks betimes;and a Duke's well-bred cubs win romantic escapefrom their palatial mansion, hiding in the woodswhere they may scream and weave their raw wigwams, and donthe feathery tinsel and warpaint of the Cherokees. My little chorister, who never miss'd a note,—I mark'd him how when prayers wer ended he would takehis Bible, and in his comer ensconced would sit and readwith unassumed devotion. What was it fetch'd him?580Matthew Mark Luke and John was it? The parables,the poetry and passion of Christ? Nay 'twas the bloody booksof Jewish war, the story of their Judges and Kings;lured by those braggart annals, while he conn'd the pagethe parson's mild discourse pass'd o'er his head unheard.For Coverdale in his grand English truly builta temple fair as thatt Ionic fane, whereinneath his nine-column'd portico of all historyHerodotus sitteth statued; and like the Jewthe naive Greek chronicler discovereth God's purpose590guiding his chosen race to terrestrial glory.Nor hath any other nation any better argument, whether it be forged or filch'd, invented or stolen;and their historians all are as children in this,and eagerly from battlefield to battlefieldjaunt on their prancing pens after their man of war,who carveth the Earth into new kingdoms, as a cakeis sliced for grabbing school-boys at a teaparty:and in their exaltation of dread and derringdo,prowess is magnified and cruelty condoned;600whence smaller nations, as the Portuguese, requireto multiply tenfold the tale of combatants,ere they deem any event worthy of their pictured pride.Parisian vanity reposeth thus todayon Buonaparte's fame; for Alexander and heare kings of kings and lords of lords, the conquerorsof conquerors all; dwarfing rude rivals whensoe'er,Alaric, Tamurlane, Attila and Zingis Khan,once names of terror and furious bombast, foremost menhumbled, as wer the seventy kings who with their thumbs610and their great toes cut off, finger'd the crumbs beneathAdonibezek's table, untill Jew Simeon cameand did the same by him to my chorister's joy.

 And since all earthly Empire hath taken originfrom bloody invasion, man for himself would fashion his sanction and examplar in the kingdom of heav'n;Thus legendary Titans, swarming from chaosto exalt the glory of Zeus, barricaded his throne,uprooting mountains in gigantic rebellion.So hath the Church utter'd like false moneys for Christ620with Godhead's image stamp'd, and pass'd it on the folkwho, shadow'd in the murk of vulgar vainglories,wil prick their ears to hear how "Ther was war in Heav'n,and Michael and his Angels (like knights of romance)fought with the Dragon": tho' Almight hath nought to gain,and by sovran oppression exalteth only his foein tragic sympathy, as with Milton's great devil,against infinit odds confronting undismay'dinevitable ruin; or old Methusalahwho when the flood rose higher swam from peak to peak630til, with the last wild beasts tamed in their fear, he satwatching the whelm of water on topmost Everest,as thatt too was submerged; while in his crowded arkNoah rode safely by: and sailors caught by stormon the wide Indian Ocean at shift of the monsoon,hav seen in the dark night a giant swimmer's headthat on the sequent billows trailing silvery hairat every lightning flash reappeareth in place,out-riding the tempest, as a weather-bound barque anchor'd in open roadstead lifteth at the seas.

640 And Poetry in her task of adorning spirit,trustful also and faithful to the instincts of man,honoureth ever the steeds above the charioteer.She once would favour Selfhood, but 'tis now the foal;and learning sapphic languor in the labour of love,the Muse hath doff'd her armour for a silken robe:yet in her swooning luxury she hath never match'dnor disthroned bearded Homer's great epic of war;altho' thatt siege of Troy was in the beginningwrath and concupiscence, and in the end thereof650tragedy so tearful that no mind can approve,nor any gentle heart take comfort in the event. But these and all old tales of far-off things, bygonesof long-ago whereof memory still holdeth shape,Time and the Muse hav purged of their unhappiness;with their bright broken beauty they pervade the abyss,peopling the Solitude with gorgeous presences:as those bare lofty columns, time-whiten'd relicsof Atlantein adoration, upstanding lonein Baalbec or Palmyra, proudly affront the waste660and with rich thought atone the melancholy of doom. Vet since of all, whatever hath once been, evil or good, tho' we can think not of it and remember it not,nothing can wholly perish; so ther is no birthrightso noble or stock so clean, but it transmitteth dregs,contamination at core of old brutality;inchoate lobes, dumb shapes of ancient terror abide:tho' fading still in the oceanic deeps of mindtheir eyeless sorrows haunt the unfathom'd density,dulling the crystal lens of prophetic vision,crippling the nerve that ministereth to trembling strength,671distorting the features of our nobility:And we, living at prime, what is it now to ushow our forefathers dream'd, suffer'd, struggled, or wrought?how thru' the obliterated sons of man's ordealunnumber'd personalities separatly endured?Think not to explore, estimate and accumulatethose infinit dark happenings into a single viewthat might affect feeling with true judgment of thought:Imagination, that would set science that task,680is as the astronomer who, with peduncled eyescrew'd here or there at some minutest angle-spaceof the wide heav'ns, thinketh by piecemeal reckoningto pictur and comprehend the illimitable worldsthronging eternity; his highest fantasyis like an athlete's dream that he hath lept off the globe, when all his waking power is to jump-up and fallthe height of his own head—all that the best can do. Wer it not then well to enquire of Reason, ere we admither condemnation of War, seeing it so firmly entrench'd690in the immemorial practice and good favour of man,whence hath she fetch'd her high authority, her rightof spiritual judgment? Whence then cometh wisdom?

 But I was anger'd with myself to hav said this thing,seeing that my thought had wander'd; for Reason reply'd"This question is wrongly ask'd. Who is it that putteth"this question into my mouth, and biddeth me answer him?—"I who hav never doubted of my authority,"who am the consciousness of things judging themselves—"Hav I not learn'd that Selfhood is fundamental700"and universal in all individual Being;"and that thru' Motherhood it came in animals"to altruistic feeling, and thence-after in men"rose to spiritual affection? What then am I"in my conscience of self but very consciousness"of spiritual affection upgrown to life in me?"Truly inscrutable and dark is the Wisdom of God,"but no man cometh unto wisdom but by me."  Then was I shamed: but still my thought went harking backon its old trail, whence Reason learn'd its troublous task710to comprehend aright and wisely harmonisethe speechless intuitions of the inconscient mind;which, though a naked babe (as men best pictured Christ)is yet in some sort nearer to the Omniscientthan man's unperfect Reason, baulk'd as thatt must beby the self-puzzledom of introspection and doubt.Thatt dark mind with its potency is the stuff of life,nature's immutable provision: in some maybe,stagnant and poor, in some activ and rich, in eacha given unique quantum of personality,720a loan of so-much (as 'tis writ to one he gavefive talents, to another two and to another one);a treasure that can be to good fortune assuredby Reason, its determinant and inexplicablecoefficient, that varieth also in power and worth. For I think not of Reason as men thought of Adam,created fullgrown, perfect in the image of God;but as a helpless nursling of animal mind,as a boy with his mother, unto whom he owethmore than he ever kenneth or stayeth to think, language,730knowledge, grace, love and those ideal aims wherebyhis manly intelligence cometh to walk alone.  But how, in this independence and pride, I ask,how can this younger born stand off so far apart,clear of all else, that by the mere conscience of thingshe can be judge of all and of himself to boot?For that I find him oftentimes servant and drudge:as 'tis seen in the true hermeneutic of art,whereof all excellence upspringeth of itself,like a rare fruit upon some gifted stock, ripening740on its arch-personality of inborn faculty,without which gift creativ Reason is barren; altho'it will collaborate activly and eagerlywith various governance, which appeareth in someas happy selection and delighted approvalof spiritual nativities, that teem i' the mind,surging to escape, like to wild bubbles in a potwhen the red fire beneath bristleth, and tortureththe water to airy ebullience;—or in anotheras toilsom evolution of larval germs, which yet750transform while confidently it laboreth thereatslowly as a modeller in clay. How in its naked selfReason wer powerless showeth when philosopherswil treat of Art, the which they are full ready to do,having good intuition that their master-keymay lie therein: but since they must lack vision of Art (for elsewise they had been artists, not philosophers)they miss the way; and ev'n the Greeks themselves, supremein making as in thinking, never of their own artfound the true hermeneutic; and the first insight760of the twin-gifted Plato was to Aristotlea crude offence; for Plato said that earthly things,whether material objects or abstract notions,wer shadows of Ideas laid up in God's house,—a dainty dish for the sophistic banqueters.And yet this delicat doctrin, that held no shieldto Zeno's lancing logic, took not hurt at heartfrom any mortal assault, but liveth in the schoolswith flourish'd head serene, high and invulnerable;—because the absurdity of indefinable forms770is less than the denial of existence to thought:and truly if all existence is expression of Mind,ideas must themselves be truer existencesthan whatever else, and in such thought their nearest name.

 Powers unseen and unknown are the fountains of life:no animal but kenneth that sunlight is warm;no dog but shifteth posture with the shifting shadereasonably as we: but man maketh a dial for itto measur his day, and by his abstract intellect hath taken it for the source and very cause of life780then by science unraveling its physical rayshe hath separated some, and found some properties;but of the whole he knoweth that his analysishath not approach'd the secret of their living power.Nor hath man ever a doubt that mere objects of senseaffect his mental states, nor that the mind in turnpromoteth the action and function of his animal lifein its organs and bones. The Greek astronomer,gazing with naked eye into the starry night,forgat his science and, in transport of spirit,790his mortal lot. Then seem'd it to him as if his feettouch'd earth no longer: ἀλλὰ παρ᾽ αὐτῷ Ζανί,said he, in the treasur'd words that keep his joy from death, θεοτρεφέος πίμπλαμα: ἀμβροσίης. Now this imagination of awe and ecstasy,being proper and common in Man, and where lacking or dullso ready to suggestion, it seemeth as tho' the eyehad some spiritual vision—as if the idea of Spaceand also of God existed in the midnight skies;and thus men came to think that their corporeal sense800encounter'd reality in the appearance of things;and, stirr'd by influences that outreaching Reasonkindled unknown desires, their awed souls fell to prayer that the great Maker of All would reveal his Being. If so be then that Reason, our teacher in all the schools,owneth to existences beyond its grasp, whereonits richer faculties depend, and that those powersare ever present influencing the unconscious mindin its native function to inspire the Will, 'twould seemthat as the waken'd mind fashion'd to'ard intellect810so the dark workings of his animal instinctsfaced in a new perspectiv to'ard spiritual sight;and thus man's trouble came of their divergency.For spiritual perception vague and uncontroll'd,being independent of the abstract intelligence,he is disconcerted twixt their rival promises,and doubtful of his road he wavereth followingnow one now the other: and thus I stand where I concludethat man's true wisdom were a reason'd harmonyand correlation of these divergent faculties:820this wer the bridge which all men who can see the abysshav reasonably and instinctivly desired to build;and all their sacraments and mysteries whatsoe'erattempt to build it; from devout Pythagorasto th' last psychologist of Nancy or of Vienna. And between spiritual emotion and sensuous formthe same living compact maketh our Art, wherein material appearances engage the soul's depth;and if in men untrain'd without habit of thoughtthe ear is more æsthetic than the eye is, this cometh830from thatt sense being the earlier endow'd in animalswho, tho' they be all vacant in a picture-gallerynor see themselves in a mirror, attend to musicand yield to fascination or vague wonder thereat.So if we, changing Plato's old difficult term,should rename his Ideas Influences, ther is nonewould miss his meaning nor, by nebulous logic,wish to refute his doctrin that indeed ther areeternal Essences that exist in themselves,supreme efficient causes of the thoughts of men.

840 What is Beauty? saith my sufferings then.—I answerthe lover and poet in my loose alexandrines:Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences,the quality of appearances that thru' the sensewakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man:And Art, as it createth new forms of beauty,awakeneth new ideas that advance the spiritin the life of Reason to the wisdom of God.But highest Art must be rare as nativ faculty is, and her surprise of magic winneth favor of men850more than her inspiration: most are led awayby fairseeming pretences, which being wrought for gainpursue the ephemeral fashion that assureth it;and their thin influences are of the same low gradeas the unaccomplish'd forms; their poverty is exposedwhen they would stake their charm on ethic excellence;for then weak simulations of virtues appear,such as convention approveth, but not Virtue itself,tho' not void of all good: and (as I read) 'twas thisthat Benvenuto intended, saying that not only860Virtue was memorable but things so truly donethat they wer like to Virtue; and thus prefaced his book,thinking to justify both himself and his works. The authority of Reason therefor relieth at lasthereon—that her discernment of spiritual things,the ideas of Beauty, is her conscience of instinctupgrown in her (as she unto conscience of allupgrew from lower to higher) to conscience of Beautyjudging itself by its own beauteous judgment. And of War she would say: it ranketh with those things870that are like unto virtue, but not virtue itself:rather, in the conscience of spiritual beauty, a vicethat needeth expert horsemanship to curb, yet being nativ in the sinew of selfhood, the life of things,the pride of animals, and virtue of savagery,so long as men be savage such it remaineth;and mid the smoke and gas of its new armourystill, with its tatter'd colours and gilt swords of state,retaineth its old glory untarnish'd—heroism,self-sacrifice, disciplin, and those hardy virtues880of courage honour'd in Brasidas, without whichman's personality were meaner than the brutes.

 Who hath not known this pictur?—on a hot afternoonof our high summer in August at the country-seatof some vext politician, if in their flashing carsthe county-folk gather to his holiday garden,where for their entertainment he hath outspredd the lawnswith tents and furnish'd tables, flags and tennis-nets,—if haply he hav set up to dignify his groundsa classic statue of marble, fetch'd by ship from Greece,890that standeth there in true ideal nakednessmid parasols and silks, how with blank shadow'd eyesit looketh off from all those aimless idlers therethat flaunt around, now and again blurting perchancea shamefast shallow tribute to its beauteous presence!—'tis very like among common concourse of men, who twixt care of comfort and zeal in worldly affairshav proved serving two masters the vanity of both,when a true soldier appeareth, one compact at heartof sterner virtues and modesty of maintenance,900mute witness and martyr of spiritual faith, a manready at call to render his life to keep his soul. All virtue is in her shape so lovely, that at sighther lover is enamour'd even of her nativ face.And here I part from Aristotle, agreeing elsethat a good disposition is Goddes happiest gift,without which, as he addeth, Virtue is unteachable,but in minds well-disposed may be by Reason upbuilt:"no man cometh (said she) unto wisdom but by me";But when he would exalt this guiding principle910to be thatt part whereby we are in likeness with God,whose Being (saith he) lieth in the unbroken exerciseof absolute intellect—which for their happinessmankind should strive to attain—I halt thereat: and thismarreth my full accord where, in a famous texthe hath made Desire to be the Prime Mover of all:because the arch-thinker's heav'n cannot move my desire,nor doth his pensiv Deity make call on my love.I see the emotion of saints, lovers and poets allto be the kindling of some Personality 920by an eternizing passion; and that God's worshipperlooking on any beauty falleth straightway in love;and thatt love is a fire in whose devouring flamesall earthly ills are consumed, and at least flash of it,be it only a faint radiancy, the freed soul glimpseth,nay ev'n may think to hav felt, some initiat foretasteof that mystic rapture, the consummation of whichis the absorption of Selfhood in the Being of God.

 Ideas and influences spiritually discern'dare of their essence pure: but in the lot of man930nothing is wholly pure; yet all hindrance to good—be good and evil two in love or one in strife—maketh occasion for it, by contrast heightening,by challenge and revelly arousing Virtue to act.Hence 'twill not be with men only of contention and hate,nor only with the ambitious and disorderlythat combat findeth favor; honest men good and truewho seek peace and ensue it, seeing war as the fieldfor exercise of spirit that else might fust unused,embrace the good, and cavil not the inherent terms,940rather welcoming hardship; which by affraying cowardspurgeth heroic ranks: and battle rallieth all keen-hearted sportsmen and the brave gamesters of life,adventurers whose joy danceth on peril's edge,for whom life hath no relish save in danger of death;who love sport for its hazard, and of all their sportswhere hazard is at highest look to find the bestthere on the field where hourly they may stake their all.And 'tis because they feel their spirit's ecstasyis owing in nought to Reason, but exultantlyblendeth with the old Selfhood wherefrom it sprang—'tis thus951they can be friendly at heart with nature's heartlessness,nor heed the wrongs and cruelties that come and pass,overlook'd as by men who hav suffer'd not nor seen.

 But we who hav seen, condemn'd in savage self-defenceto train our peaceful folk in the instruments of death,and of massacre and mourning hav suffer'd four years—we hav no need to recount in vindication of peace,sorrows which no glory of heroism can atone,horrors which to forget wer cowardice and wrong,960dishonesty of heart and repudiation of soul,—yet gladly might forget in the passing of pain;and memory is so complacent that we well may fearlest our children forget;—and see Nature already,regardless how her fractious babe had scratch'd her cheek, hath with her showy Invincibles retaken amainthe trenches, and reclothed the devastated lands. See with how placid mien Athena unhelmetedrëentering hath possess'd her desolated halls;how her musical temples and grave schools are throng'dwith fresh youth eager as ever with the old books and games,971their live abounding mirth rëechoing from the walls,where among antique monuments their brothers' namesin long death-roll await the mellowing touch of time. And why not we forget? How is't that we dare notwish to forget and cut this canker of memoryfrom us, as men diseased in one part of their fleshfind health in mutilation: as if our agonywer a boon to keep, when in its own happy riddance'twould die off in the natural oblivion of things,980and with our follies fade: so, each one for himselfdisbanding his self-share, Reason would dissipateits own delusion, and lay that spectre of our dismay,the accumulation of griefs; to which War hath no rightprior or prerogative: miseries lay as thickand horrors worse when Plague invaded the cities,Athens or London, raging with polluted floodin every house, and with revolting torture rack'dthe folk to loathsom deaths; nor men kenn'd as they fell, desperatly unrepentant to the "scourge of God",990how 'twas the crowded foulness of their own bodiespunish'd them so:—alas then in what plight are we,knowing 'twas mankind's crowded uncleanness of soulthat brought our plague! which yet we coud not cure nor stay;for Reason had lost control of his hot-temper'd steedand taken himself infection of the wild brute's madness;so when its fire slacken'd and the fierce fight wore out,our fever'd pulse show'd no sober return of health. Amid the flimsy joy of the uproarious citymy spirit on those first jubilant days of armistice1000was heavier within me, and felt a profounder fearthan ever it knew in all the War's darkest dismay.