Part 14 (1/2)
”In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken refuge there from storm and darkness--in Hungary, where the wind of chance drives together the children of many a land.
”Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in their flow; but their hearts--their wounded hearts--are urns filled with the tears of a common grief.
”One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge--Freedom and greatness to the Fatherland!
”'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition--in the mournful tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm.
”'I pa.s.s musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as the cymbal sounds.'
”The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, and takes no root in the dust of slavery.'
”The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks himself in silence, 'Shall _I_ drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'”
To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there, without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house!
A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view.
We do not agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to sympathize in his feeling.
Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well a.s.sociated with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a s.h.i.+p of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a scale so imperial.
OLIVER CROMWELL.[23]
A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book.
We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and harmony for his narrative.
The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it, under peril of being ranked as ”imbeciles,” ”canting sceptics,”
”disgusting rose-water philanthropists,” and the like. And aware of his power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on which he formed his.
But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear to be handed down to posterity as ”a little gentleman in a gray coat”
”shrieking” unutterable ”imbecilities,” or with the like d.a.m.natory affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old ”Philistine,” ”Dilettante,” ”Imbecile,” and what not view of the character of Cromwell.
We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by receiving the men of destiny as always ent.i.tled to reverence. Sometimes a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in ”Past and Present,” where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, the result is no less delightful for us.
But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one day in church, when the minister asked ”all who felt in concern for their souls to rise,” looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, (asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, ”he thought it safest to stay with the squire.”
Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, (usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so far, as he describes them, ”genuine men.” But in doubtful cases, where the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with ”sibylline execration” and extreme disgust.
Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:--
”Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present.
We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a ma.s.s, and without any commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in G.o.d's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and piece of empty bl.u.s.ter this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bl.u.s.ter, not true, thou also art shutting men's minds against G.o.d's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still belief in the judgments of G.o.d; in Oliver's time, there was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolis.h.i.+ng capital punishments,' of Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolis.h.i.+ng punishments, but for making laws just. G.o.d the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the difference between heaven and h.e.l.l. It was a true notion, which all men yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate mas.h.i.+ng up of good and evil into one universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.
”In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of G.o.d, have become to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this pa.s.sage and others, shall make of it what he can.
”But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; s.h.a.ggy as the Numidian lion. A style rugged as crags; coa.r.s.e, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a G.o.d's truth in the heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary bl.u.s.tering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, bl.u.s.tering individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the nearest we poor Puritans could make them of G.o.d's law-book, to which it is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not as a bl.u.s.tering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bl.u.s.ter this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man speaks out of him comes to pa.s.s as a fact; speech with this man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor Ireland!”
Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,--