Part 14 (2/2)

Two characters in literature since Don Quixote are life-size gentlemen, and these are Colonel Newcome and King Arthur, as drawn by Thackeray and Tennyson, men of one era and pure souls. In these characters is evident deliberation of intent to create gentlemen. This article has given no heed to biography or history, because these concern themselves with truth as observed, and are therefore not imaginative. What we are considering is an ideal person, fas.h.i.+oned after the pattern discovered in good lives, which happily grow more and more plentiful as years multiply. Besides, biography can never get at the real man; for biography is a story of doing, while what we need is a story of soul.

In Boswell's ”Johnson” or in Anthony Trollope's ”Autobiography” there is approach to what we care to know; but in the life of Jowett or Tennyson, though both are admirable specimens of biography, what man among us but closed those books with a sense of, not dissatisfaction, but unsatisfaction? What we were really hungry for was not there.

What Jowett was, which made him a part of the life-blood of English thought and Englishmen--who found that out? Some things never can be told, unless the poets or prose dramatists tell them. Poetry and fiction do what history and biography fail to do--make us interior to a soul's true life.

Colonel Newcome is all gentleman. He hangs a curtain of silence over one room in his life. To his wife, mother of his beloved Clive, he will make no reference. Not bad, but frivolous and weak and querulous, she was; but Colonel Newcome never whispers it. What had made many misanthropes, made him a better man. No bitterness tainted his spirit.

Pure women put him in a mood of wors.h.i.+p, as they ought to put us all.

He could, in conduct, if not in memory, forget hurts and wrongs, which is one mark of a large spirit. His was, his biographer affirms, ”a tender and a faithful heart.” In him paternity and maternity met, which is a conjunction we have not given heed to as we ought in thinking on the heart. Motherhood is in the best fatherhood. Not long since I met a minister who, on my mentioning a black and scrawny village, said, with lovelit face and ringing, jubilant voice, ”O yes, that is where my boy was born!” How true hearts do remember! And Colonel Newcome loved his son with such sweet and wide fidelity as makes the heart covet him for father. All those days of separation from his son, he thought of him ”with such a constant longing affection.” And his joy on seeing his son once more is the joy of one getting home to heaven. ”To ask a blessing on his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day is over. His first and last thought was always the child.” He expects good of people, will say no ill of any, can not understand Sir Brian Newcome's frigid reception, and is hurt by it as by a poisoned arrow shot by the hill tribes in far India; he can not tolerate foul thought or speech, burns hot with righteous wrath against Captain Costigan when he sings a vile song, thundering, ”Silence!” ”'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must forgive other people's trespa.s.ses if we hope forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently.” How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed him up not a trifle! How alert to love, how open to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure! What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particularly to women! How wide those windows of his soul open toward heaven! How magnanimous, how sad his face and heart, how sensitive his nature, to any lack of love on dear Clive's part!

Though to his own heart he will not admit such lack exists, sitting above in his cheerless room, listening to his son's merry-making, that son glad to be left free of his father's presence,--how bravely he bore poverty when financial ruin came, not missing wealth for himself, but for him he loved, and how he grieved for those who had lost through him! He was not faultless. Men are not often that; but his anger rose from his heart. His indignation was for those he loved. We can see him now, as if he lived among us yet. His honest, melancholy face; his loose clothes hanging on his loose limbs; sitting silent, with his sad eyes; a bankrupt, giving over his pension for reimbursing those who had lost by him; and his eagerness for wealth for love's sake, always thinking of somebody else,--such is this gentleman who trusts in G.o.d.

And thus simple, n.o.ble, unhumiliated:

”I chanced to look up from my book toward the swarm of blackcoated pensioners, and among them--among them--sat Thomas Newcome. His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book; there was no mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Grey Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood among the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. . . . His own wan face flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook in mine. 'I have found a home, Arthur,' said he; for save this he was homeless. As death came toward him his mind wandered, driven as a leaf is driven by wandering winds. He headed columns in Hindustan; he called the name of the one woman he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was for others, for Clive, dear, dear Clive. He said, 'Take care of him when I 'm in India;' and then, with a heartrending voice, he called out, 'Leonore, Leonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, 'Adsum!'

and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; and lo! he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Master.”

Small wonder if, in India, they called Thomas Newcome ”Don Quixote.”

And King Arthur is Alfred Tennyson's dream of a gentleman. Arthur is manhood at its prime. He was strong, a warrior, a self-made man, since the foolish questioned, ”Is he Uther's son?” Mystery and miracle mix with his history, as is accurate, seeing no life grows tall without the advent of miracle. He is rescuer of a realm from anarchy, founder of the Round Table--an order of knighthood, purposed to include only pure knights--was not spectacular; for we read that others were greater in tournament than he, but he greater than all in battle, from which we see how great occasions called out his greatness. He measured up to needs. Though often deceived, he was optimist, hoping the best from men. He counted life to be a chance for service. There was a hidden quality in him, as when he, unknown to all, went out from Camelot to tilt with Balin and overthrew him. His life was pure as the heart of ”the lily maid of Astolat,” and demanded in man a purity as great as that of woman. His love was mighty, unsuspicious, tender. He was himself a king, born to rule, fitted to inspire. No littleness sapped his greatness. He rejoiced in others' strength, prowess, victory. His was an eye quick to discover merit in woman or man, as in Lynette. His heart was tender, and a cry for help awoke him from deep sleep. He hated foulness as he hated h.e.l.l. He was like a sky, so high, pure, open. Himself makes an era, for his age cl.u.s.ters about him as if he were a sun to sway a system. Like Cordelia, in ”Lear,” he is a figure in the background; yet, despite his actual slight partic.i.p.ancy in the ”Idyls of the King,” he always seems the one person of the poem. What is Lancelot matched with him, or pure Sir Galahad? If knighthood misconceived King Arthur then, men do not misconceive him now. A great spirit must not murmur if misconceived. The world will cl.u.s.ter to him hereafter, himself being G.o.d's hand to lift them to his Alp of n.o.bleness. Arthur's life upbraids men for their sin. His very purity alienated Guinevere. Goodness has tempests in its sky, and storms make morning murk as night; and one true knight. King Arthur, goes sick at heart to battle with rebels in the West. Lancelot and Guinevere are fled; Modred has raised standard of rebellion; some knights are dead, slain in battle or searching for the Holy Grail; some have left off knighthood,--and King Arthur is defeated! Nay, this can not be. He rides into the battle, having forgiven Guinevere ”as Eternal G.o.d forgives”--the battle where

”Host to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, s.h.i.+eld-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battle-axes on shatter's [shatter'd?] helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist.”

And, the battle ended, Arthur moans, ”My house hath seen my doom;” but he has not forgotten G.o.d, nor hath G.o.d forgotten him. G.o.d is his destination, and he trusts him now as in the golden yesterdays:

”I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure!”

And Arthur found, not sorrow nor defeat, but victory; for

”Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars.”

And one of earth's gentlemen was welcomed home to heaven.

XII

The Drama of Job

The sun monopolizes the sky. Stars do not s.h.i.+ne by day, not because they have lost their l.u.s.ter, but because the sun owns the heavens, and erases them as the tide erases footprints from the sands. In similar fas.h.i.+on a main truth monopolizes attention to the exclusion of subordinate truths. The Bible's main truth is its spiritual significancy, containing those ethical teachings which have revolutionized this world, and which are to be redemptive in all ages yet to come. The Bible, as G.o.d's Book for man's reading and redemption, has proven so amazing as a moral force, illuminating the mind; purifying the heart; freeing and firing the imagination; attuning life itself to melody; peopling history with new ideas; seeding continents with Magna Chartas of personal and political liberties; making for religious toleration; creating a new ideal of manhood and womanhood; presenting, in brief biographical sketches, perfect pictures of such men as the world has seen too few of; and portraying Christ, whose face once seen can never be forgotten, but casts all other faces and figures into shadow, leaving Him solitary, significant, sublime,--this is the Bible. So men have conceived the Scriptures as a magazine of moral might; and the conception has not been amiss. This is the Bible's chief merit and superior function, and this glory has blinded us to lesser glories, which, had they existed in any other literature, would have stung men to surprise, admiration, and delight.

”The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” is a pleasure simply as an expression of sensuous delight set to music. The poem is a bit of careless laughter, ringing glad and free as if it were a child's, and pa.s.sing suddenly to a child's tears and sobbing. This solitary virtue has breathed into the Rubaiyat life. The Bible is a series of books bound in a single volume, because all relate to a single theme: history, biography, letters, proverbial philosophy, pure idyls, lofty eloquence, elegiac poetry, ethics, legal codes, memorabilia, commentaries on campaigns more influential on the world's destiny than Caesar's, epic poetry, lyrics, and a sublime drama. The Bible is not a book, but a library; not a literary effort, but a literature. It sums up the literature of the Hebrew race, aside from which that race produced nothing literary worthy of perpetuation. One lofty theme stung them to genius, their mission and literature converging in Christ and there ending. The Bible as literature marks the book as unique as a literary fact as it is as a religious fact; in either, standing solitary. That lovers of literature have pa.s.sed these surprising literary merits by with comparative inattention is attributable, doubtless, to the over-shadowing moral majesty of the volume. The larger obscured the lesser glory. But, after all, can we feel other than shame in recalling how our college curricula contain the masterpieces of Greek, Latin, English, and German literature, and find no niche for the Bible, superior to all in moral elevation and literary charm and inspiration?

”Ruth” is easily the superior of ”Paul and Virginia” or ”Vicar of Wakefield.” ”Lamentations” is as n.o.ble an elegy as sorrow has set to words; the Gospels are not surpa.s.sed by Boswell's ”Johnson” in power of recreating the subject of the biography; the Psalms sing themselves without aid of harp or organ; ”The Acts” is a history taking rank with Thucydides; and Job is the sublimest drama ever penned. If these encomiums are high, they must not be deemed extravagant, rather the necessary eulogy of truth.

What are the sublimest poems of universal literature? Let this stand as a tentative reply: Aeschylus's ”Prometheus Bound,” Dante's ”Divine Comedy,” Shakespeare's ”Hamlet,” Milton's ”Paradise Lost,” and Job, author unknown. To rank as a sublime production, theme and treatment must both be sublime, and the poem must be of dignified length.

Prometheus has a t.i.tan for subject; has magnanimity for occasion; has suffering, on account of his philanthropy, as tragic element; and the barren crags of Caucasus as theater; and the style is the loftiest of Aeschylus, sublimest of Greek dramatists. Perhaps ”Oedipus Coloneus”

is nearest approach among Greek tragedies to the elevation of ”Prometheus Bound,” and Sh.e.l.ley's ”Prometheus Unbound” has much of the Greek sublimity and more than the Greek frigidity. Dante is nearest neighbor to Aeschylus, though fifteen hundred years removed, and the ”Divine Comedy” has all elements of sublimity. The time is eternal.

The havoc of sin, the might of Christ, the freedom of the human spirit, the righteousness of G.o.d, the fate of souls, are materials out of which sublimer cathedral should be built than ever Gothic Christians wrought in poetry of stone. ”Hamlet” is the sublimity of a soul fighting, single-handed, with innumerable foes, and dying--slain, but undefeated.

”Paradise Lost” might easily be mistaken for the deep organ music of a stormy ocean, so matchless and sublime the melody. In theme, epic; in treatment, epic; in termination, tragic,--which melts into holy hope and radiant promise as a night of storm and fearful darkness melts into the light and glory of the dawn and sunrise when the sky is fair. I can hear and see this blind old Puritan, chanting the drama of a lost cause as a David lamenting for his Absalom dead. Milton is sublime in history, misfortune, range of ideas, warrior strength, and prowess to fight and die undaunted. Not even his darkness makes him sob more than a moment. A rebellion in heaven, a war in consequence; the flaming legions of the skies led by Christ, G.o.d's Son; a conflict, whose clangor fills the vaulted skies in heaven with reverberating thunders, ending in defeat for evil which makes all Waterloos insignificant; the fall of Satanic legions from the thrones which once were theirs, when, with dolorous cry, they stumbled into h.e.l.l; the counterplot of Lucifer; the voyage across the wastes ”of chaos and old night;” the horrid birth of Sin; the apocalypse of Sin and Death in Eden; and the Promise, whose pierced hand, held out, saved from utter ruin those who,

”Hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.”

Musician, instrument, and oratorio,--all sublime. ”Last named, though first written, is the drama of Job, in which all things conspire to lift the argument into sublimity. Are seas in tempests sublime? What are they, matched with Job's stormy soul? Are thunders reverberating among mountains sublime? What are they when G.o.d's voice makes interrogatory? But above all, G.o.d walks into the drama as his right is to walk into human life; and G.o.d's appearance, whether at Sinai or Calvary, or in the weary watches of some heart's night of pain, makes mountain and hour and heart sublime.

Thomas Carlyle once, reading at prayers in a friend's house from the Book of Job, became oblivious to surroundings, and read on and on, till one by one the listeners arose and slipped out in silence, leaving the rapt reader alone, he holding on his solitary way until the last strophe fell from the reader's lips; nor can we wonder at him, for such must be the disposition of every thoughtful peruser of Job. As we will not care to lay Hamlet down till Fortinbras is taking Hamlet, with regal honors, from the scene, so we cling to Job till we see light break through the clouds, and the storm vanish, and the thunder cease.

<script>