Part 4 (1/2)
A TRAVELER'S NOTE-BOOK
A tourist who roams for a brief while through some great country like England or Russia may jot down a few of the impressions which come home to him, making no pretense at completeness or symmetry of description.
So, one who has journeyed like a hasty traveler over some pa.s.sages in that vast tract of years which we describe as the cla.s.sic and Christian civilizations, notes down in the following pages a few of the salient features that have impressed him. He has already prefaced this with a sort of outline map, drawn largely from familiar authorities, under the t.i.tle ”Our Spiritual Ancestry;” and has further ventured to interpret some phases of our own time, as ”The Ideal of To-Day.” Now he goes on to group a few observations on some special phases of the historical survey, disclaiming any attempt at exact proportion and perspective, but lingering where the prospect has pleased his fancy, or at points which seemed to yield some necessary clew or fruitful suggestion.
When, in the poems bearing the name of Homer, the curtain rises on the drama of man as it was acted in Greece, after the immeasurable prehistoric s.p.a.ce, we are amazed at the sudden brilliance. The men and deeds brought before us are various in character and worth,--savage, heroic, repulsive, beautiful, by turns. But the ever-present charm is man seeing the world about him. It is the vividness with which every object is seen in its distinctive form and spirit, and conveyed by the fit word and phrase. So seen and spoken, the commonest object becomes a thing of delight. The high-roofed house, the brazen threshold, the polished chest, the silver-studded sword, the purple robes,--the tawny oxen, the hollow s.h.i.+ps, the tapering oars,--the wine-dark sea, the rosy-fingered dawn, the gold-throned morning,--Hector of the nodding plume, the white-armed Nausicaa,--so in long procession moves the spectacle. A like distinctness invests all the actions and emotions of the story with charm. To us, as to the poet, the world becomes enchanted simply in being seen.
And presently we discover a strange transfiguration that is being wrought. Experiences which were painful or grievous to the actors and sufferers become in the representation the source of keen pleasure to the hearers or readers. The Iliad is mainly a story of men destroying one another. The Odyssey depicts a long strife with hards.h.i.+p and danger.
The men who heard those songs were themselves familiar with the fight, with the wounds and terrors mixed with its energies and elations; they had tasted the perils of s.h.i.+pwreck and of pirates. But as they listened, the rehearsal of trials the counterpart of their own filled them with exhilaration. We who read in modern days, if less experienced in bloodshed and bodily peril, yet in some fas.h.i.+on have had our share of battle and storm; and we, too, like the first listeners, drink in the tale with delight. The poet, in other words, has the secret not only of seeing but of idealizing the actual world. We catch from him some subtle art by which, standing a little aloof from the pressure and turmoil around us, often felt as painful or degrading, we see it through an atmosphere in which it becomes a splendid and heart-stirring scene. At a later stage we may perhaps in a degree a.n.a.lyze the change of view; we may partly understand how through the struggle with evil man is strengthened and enn.o.bled; how in such strife courage and sympathy and tenderness are engendered. But long before we can thus philosophize, and to a degree which our philosophy can hardly explain, we are affected by this beauty and elevation imparted to the spectacle of human life by the true poets.
We moderns read Homer with delight in the roll of the music, the vividness of the pictures, the humanity so near us in its essence and so unlike in its dress. When we inquire what are the moral ideals, we are often uncertain how far the impressions made on us may differ from those of the original audience, or the intention of the singer. But often his work is like the painting of great Nature herself. We pa.s.s upon it as we pa.s.s upon the facts of life.
The supernal features in the story are not here discussed. The deities, judged by our standards, have little of divinity. Beyond the grave lies a dim and dreamy realm. All this, with its great significance, we here omit, to linger a little on the essential and permanent humanity.
Achilles, the embodiment of power and pa.s.sion, just touched with human ruth; Hector, the selfless, brave and gentle champion; Odysseus, victor in the long pilgrimage by fort.i.tude and by wisdom,--these are the three ideal types of the early world, portrayed by its n.o.blest genius.
The Iliad culminates in the triumph of pity. The heart of Zeus is melted, the harder heart of Achilles is melted, before the sorrows of bereaved old age. An exquisite gentleness breathes through the closing scenes. All the wrath and terror and savagery of the story have led up to this height of pure compa.s.sion. A new light falls on all that has gone before. Achilles, the fierce hero of the earlier story, is outshone by his victim, Hector of the great and gentle heart. The crowning word of praise, after father, mother, wife have uttered their lament, is spoken by the frail woman whose sin had brought ruin on Hector and his people: ”If any other haply upbraided me in the palace halls, then wouldst thou soothe such with words, and refrain them by the gentleness of thy spirit and by thy gentle words. Therefore bewail I thee with pain at heart, and my hapless self with thee, for no more is any left in wide Troy-land to be my friend and kind to me, but all men shudder at me.”
We see the sin of man and woman wrecking nations and leaving the sinner in dreary isolation. We see unrelenting wrath, even when provoked by wrong, spreading woe upon the innocent, and at last smiting the wrathful man through his dearest affections. We see the heroism which meets death in defense of the beloved, yet has only tender pity for her who has wrought the ruin.
The Iliad is mostly war,--men acting h.e.l.l on earth, as Goethe said. But in the Odyssey the goal of the hero is his home. The magnet is not Helen's beauty, but Penelope's faithfulness. Odysseus, mighty warrior, crafty leader,--who with his sword has smitten the Trojans, by his wiles destroyed their city,--Odysseus is driven for ten years through hostile seas and men and G.o.ds by the compelling pa.s.sion of home-sickness!
In the Odyssey, it is the battle with the sea which does most to toughen and supple and make indomitable. The soldier and sailor are the pioneers of the race. These and the tiller of the earth are the strong roots out of which are to grow the flower and fruit.
In the Iliad, woman appears in Helen as the tempting prize and the gage of battle, and in Andromeda as the tender wife foredoomed to bereavement and captivity. In the Odyssey, woman plays a higher part--as Penelope, faithful and prudent and patient wife, fit spouse for Odysseus; as Eurydice, the devoted old nurse; and as Nausicaa, loveliest of pristine maidens.
”The story of her worth shall never die; but for all humankind immortal ones shall make a gladsome song in praise of steadfast Penelope.” It is a n.o.ble story: the fidelity of a wife, the undaunted courage of a man; a long battle with adversity, crowned with the joy of love's reunion; the meeting with servant, nurse, dog, son, wife, father.
Odysseus fights his battle as every hero must,--against hostile nature and man,--by courage and patience and craft, and a confidence that the heavenly power will somehow bring him through.
So at the heart of the Iliad and the Odyssey is an austere and sweet message. The singers who embodied it in tales which stir every pulse with delight were among the supreme teachers of mankind. The inner meaning of humanity's story which their songs display is still the lesson set us,--out of adversity man may win fort.i.tude; through battle, s.h.i.+pwreck, and overthrow he scales the heights of manhood; and the faithful pilgrimage ends in a home which is dearer for all troubles past.
The Homeric poems show man in his first full awaking to beauty and to music. They show more. The fas.h.i.+oning of the supernal world in man's mind varies with people and with time. Here it is Zeus and Hades, again it will be Jehovah and Satan, and then Heaven and h.e.l.l. But in the Iliad and Odyssey the human heart recognizes its rightful lords as long as it shall endure,--Courage and Pity, Fort.i.tude and Fidelity.
Socrates is the man who has actually achieved goodness, and tries to make a science and art of goodness, to find a way in which it can be clearly known and rationally and effectively taught. ”Can virtue be taught?” is his characteristic question. The chief result of his keen scrutiny is to bring to light how little men really know of the higher life,--how little he knows of it himself. The effect of this revelation of ignorance is not a despair of truth, but a humility which is the beginning of wisdom.
The deepest thing in Socrates is his knowledge of the good life as a reality, and of the joy and peace which it brings. Secure in this, he can go on in the most fearless temper, and even with light-hearted jesting, to sift the questions. Intellectually, his main achievement is to bring out clearly the problems to be faced, and to give an immense stimulus to the higher cla.s.s of minds.
In the picture of Socrates by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, which bears all the marks of true portraiture, goodness goes with happiness and knowledge. It is a most winning combination--beautiful as a Greek statue. Xenophon lays stress on his happiness, but the basis is self-command. Among a people where even religion and philosophy were tolerant of sensuality, he was pure. He was hardy, trained to bear heat and cold, temperate, simple, faithful to civic duty, a reverent wors.h.i.+per of the G.o.ds, watchful for the divine leading.
Xenophon shows him absorbed in teaching, imparting the best he has found, never so happy as when he can win a young man to virtue. His ideal society is the union of those who together are seeking goodness and knowledge.
His patience is shown under the worst of domestic annoyances, a scolding wife,--he says he thus learns to bear all other crosses. His admonition to his son to bear with her shows genuine tenderness.
He has the heroic quality. He resists the raging people, and refuses the part a.s.signed him in voting the death sentence on the generals whose defeat had been a misfortune and not a fault. He calmly disobeys the Thirty Tyrants, at the risk of his life. He dies at last, a tranquil martyr to fearless truth-speaking.
He teaches n.o.bly of Providence, the Supreme, the guidance from above. He conforms to the religion of his people, while planting a higher truth.
When Athens, faithfully warned by him in vain, was sinking toward ruin and decay, he was sowing the seeds of spiritual harvests for future generations, like Jesus when Judea was tottering to its fall. In the intellectual development of man's higher life he holds a place not unlike that of Jesus in the emotional development.
Socrates, as Xenophon describes him, goes no farther as a teacher than to impress the principles of conduct as they were generally accepted by good men of the time, with peculiar persuasiveness. But Plato shows him as an original investigator of the human mind and the universe. In this there is an undoubted trait of true portraiture, but its limit is very difficult to trace, because in Plato's dialogues the master is made the mouthpiece of all the pupil's philosophy. The most distinctive feature which can be identified as that of Socrates himself is the cross-examination. Under this process, high-sounding generalities,--put in the mouths of speakers in the dialogues, the whole word-play set forth with exquisite grace and charm,--are shown by a rigid sifting to resolve themselves into nebulous and baseless figments,--the mere simulacra of true knowledge.