Part 16 (1/2)
”The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a publication now extinct, the _Englishman's Magazine_, is also printed at the suggestion of a friend. The pieces that follow are reprints, and have been already mentioned in this Memoir.”
We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake both of its subject and its manner-for what in it is the father's as well as for what is the son's. There is something very touching in the paternal composure, the judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so difficult to reach through tears, the calm estimate and the subdued tenderness, the ever-rising but ever restrained emotion; the father's heart throbs throughout.
We wish we could have given in full the letters from Arthur's friends, which his father has incorporated in the Memoir. They all bring out in different but harmonious ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual worth, his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection.
The following extract from one seems to us very interesting:-”Outwardly I do not think there was anything remarkable in his habits, except _an irregularity with regard to times and places of study_, which may seem surprising in one whose progress in so many directions was so eminently great and rapid. _He was commonly to be found in some friend's room, reading, or canva.s.sing._ I dare say he lost something by this irregularity, _but less than perhaps one would at first imagine_. I never saw him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing himself, but his mind was always active, and active for good. In fact, his energy and quickness of apprehension did not stand in need of outward aid.” There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. Such minds as his probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves to glide on at their own sweet wills; the stream was too deep and clear, and perhaps too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or regulated by any art or device. The same friend sums up his character thus:-”I have met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no man his equal as a philosophical critic on works of taste; no man whose views on all subjects connected with the duties and dignities of humanity were more large, and generous, and enlightened.” And all this said of a youth of twenty-_heu nimium brevis aevi decus et desiderium!_
We have given little of this verse; and what we do give is taken at random. We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift and art, but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to truth and the G.o.d of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of beauty; he was on his way to G.o.d, and could rest in nothing short of Him, otherwise he might have been a poet of genuine excellence.
”Dark, dark, yea, 'irrecoverably dark, Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix That master light, the secret truth of things, Which is the body of the infinite G.o.d!”
”Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower, Fed by a sap that never will be scant, All-permeating, all-producing mind; And in our several parcellings of doom We but fulfil the beauty of the whole.
Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near.”
”Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart, Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure, I know not in what region now thou art, Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy a.s.sure.
Not the old hills on which we gazed together, Not the old faces which we both did love, Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather, Not these, but others now thy fancies move.
I would I knew thy present hopes and fears, All thy companions with their pleasant talk, And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears: So, though in body absent, I might walk With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood Did sanctify mine own to peerless good.”
”Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall On a quaint bench, which to that structure old Winds an accordant curve. Above my head _Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves,_ Seeming received into the blue expanse That vaults this summer noon.”
”Still here-thou bast not faded from my sight, _Nor all the music round thee from mine ear;_ _Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year,_ _And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light._ Still am I free to close my happy eyes, And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form, That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm, And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies: With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while That I can lift at will each curved lid, And my fair dream most highly realize.
The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs, When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid True light restore that form, those looks, that smile.”
”The garden trees _are busy with the shower_ That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk, Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, One to another down the gra.s.sy walk.
Hark the laburnum from his opening flower, This cherry creeper greets in whisper light, While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, Hoa.r.s.e mutters to the murmuring sycamore,[39]
What shall I deem their converse? would they hail The wild gray light that fronts yon ma.s.sive cloud, Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire?
Or are they fighting faintly for desire That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, And dews about their feet may never fail?”
[39] This will remind the reader of a fine pa.s.sage in _Edwin the Fair_, on the specific differences in the sounds made by the ash, the elm, the fir, &c., when moved by the wind; and of some lines by Landor on flowers speaking to each other; and of something more exquisite than either, in _Consuelo_-the description of the flowers in the old monastic garden, at ”the sweet hour of prime.”
In the Essay, ent.i.tled _Theodicaea Novissima_, from which the following pa.s.sages are taken to the great injury of its general effect, he sets himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the existence of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being like G.o.d. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit of his friend's words,-
”An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.”
”Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near.”
It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavor to get nearer G.o.d-to a.s.sert his eternal Providence, and vindicate his ways to men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains where he found it-his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and there across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied night-the jaws of darkness do devour it up-this secret belongs to G.o.d.
Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick cloud, ”all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark,” no steady ray has ever, or will ever, come,-over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night s.h.i.+neth as the day, says, ”Let there be light!” There is, we all know, a certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits, in this mystery, ”the greatest in the universe,” as Mr. Hallam truly says; and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to criticize the speculations of others-it is a wise and pious saying of Augustin, _Verius cogitatur Deus, quam dicitur; et verius est quam cogitatur_.
”I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as const.i.tuting the higher philosophy, than in its far more important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us all. I shall propose the question in this form, 'Is there ground for believing that the existence of moral evil is absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of G.o.d's essential love for Christ?'
(_i. e._, of the Father for Christ, or of ? pat?? for ? ?????).
”'Can man by searching find out G.o.d?' I believe not. I believe that the una.s.sisted efforts of man's reason have not established the existence and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the Deist imagines. However sublime may be the notion of a supreme original mind, and however naturally human feelings adhered to it, the reasons by which it was justified were not, in my opinion, sufficient to clear it from considerable doubt and confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I derive from Revelation a conviction of Theism, which without that a.s.sistance would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that the Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man, and I believe it to be G.o.d's book because it is man's book._ It is true that the Bible affords me no additional means of demonstrating the falsity of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do with the formation of the Universe, doubtless whatever had was competent also to make the Bible_; but I have gained this advantage, that my feelings and thoughts can no longer refuse their a.s.sent to _what is evidently framed to engage that a.s.sent; and what is it to me that I cannot disprove the bare logical possibility of my whole nature being fallacious? To seek for a certainty above certainty, an evidence beyond necessary belief, is the very lunacy of skepticism_: we must trust our own faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that moment we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its name. _I am determined therefore to receive the Bible as Divinely authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things which it contains, as essentially true._”
”I may further observe, that however much we should rejoice to discover that the eternal scheme of G.o.d-the necessary completion, let us remember, of his Almighty Nature-did not require the absolute perdition of any spirit called by Him into existence, we are certainly not ent.i.tled to consider the perpetual misery of many individuals as incompatible with sovereign love.”
”In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect Love and Perfect Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happiness, says an old divine, are two several notions of one thing. Equally inseparable are the notions of Opposition to Love and Opposition to Bliss. _Unless therefore the heart of a created being is at one with the heart of G.o.d, it cannot but be miserable._ Moreover, there is no possibility of continuing forever partly with G.o.d and partly against him; we must either be capable by our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we must be incapable of anything but misery, further than He may for awhile 'not impute our trespa.s.ses to us,' that is, He may interpose some temporary barrier between sin and its attendant pain. _For in the Eternal Idea of G.o.d a created spirit is perhaps not seen, as a series of successive states_, of which some that are evil might be compensated by others that are good, _but as one indivisible object of these almost infinitely divisible modes_, and that either in accordance with His own nature, or in opposition to it....
”Before the gospel was preached to man, how could a human soul have this love, and this consequent life? I see no way; but now that Christ has excited our love for him by showing unutterable love for us; now that we know him as an Elder Brother, a being of like thoughts, feelings, sensations, sufferings, with ourselves, it has become possible to love as G.o.d loves, that is, to love Christ, and thus to become united in heart to G.o.d.