Part 2 (2/2)

Description for its own sake is hardly to be found in Horace. In the same way, the vivid glimpses he affords of his own life, person, and character almost never prompt the thought of egotism. The most personal of poets, his expression of self nowhere becomes selfish expression.

But there are spectators who are mere spectators. Horace is more; he is a critic and an interpreter. He looks forth upon life with a keen vision for comparative values, and gives sane and distinct expression to what he sees.

Horace must not be thought of, however, as a censorious or carping critic. His att.i.tude is judicial, and the verdict is seldom other than lenient and kindly. He is not a wasp of Twickenham, not a Juvenal furiously laying about him with a heavy lash, not a Lucilius with the axes of Scipionic patrons to grind, having at the leaders of the people and the people themselves. He is in as little degree an Ennius, composing merely to gratify the taste for entertainment. There are some, as a matter of fact, to whom in satire he seems to go beyond the limit of good-nature. At vice in p.r.o.nounced form, at all forms of unmanliness, he does indeed strike out, like Lucilius the knight of Campania, his predecessor and pattern, gracious only to virtue and to the friends of virtue; but those whose hands are clean and whose hearts are pure need fear nothing. Even those who are guilty of the ordinary frailties of human kind need fear nothing worse than being good-humoredly laughed at.

The objects of Horace's smiling condemnation are not the trifling faults of the individual or the cla.s.s, but the universal grosser stupidities which poison the sources of life.

The Horace of the _Satires_ and _Epistles_ is better called an essayist.

That he is a satirist at all is less by virtue of intention than because of the mere fact that he is a spectator. To look upon life with the eye of understanding is to see men the prey to pa.s.sions and delusions,--the very comment on which can be nothing else than satire.

And now, what is it that Horace sees as he sits in philosophic detachment on the serene heights of contemplation; and what are his reflections?

The great factor in the character of Horace is his philosophy of life.

To define it is to give the meaning of the word Horatian as far as content is concerned, and to trace the thread which more than any other makes his works a unity.

_i_. THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES

Horace looks forth upon a world of discontented and restless humanity.

The soldier, the lawyer, the farmer, the trader, swept over the earth in the pa.s.sion for gain, like dust in the whirlwind,--all are dissatisfied.

Choose anyone you will from the midst of the throng; either with greed for money or with miserable ambition for power, his soul is in travail.

Some are dazzled by fine silver, some lose their senses over bronze.

Some are ever straining after the prizes of public life. There are many who love not wisely, but too well. Most are engaged in a mad race for money, whether to a.s.sure themselves of retirement and ease in old age, or out of the sportsman's desire to outstrip their rivals in the course.

As many as are mortal men, so many are the objects of their pursuit.

And, over and about all men, by reason of their bondage to avarice, ambition, appet.i.te, and pa.s.sion, hovers Black Care. It flits above their sleepless eyes in the panelled ceiling of the darkened palace, it sits behind them on the courser as they rush into battle, it dogs them as they are at the pleasures of the bronze-trimmed yacht. It pursues them everywhere, swifter than the deer, swifter than the wind that drives before it the storm-cloud. Not even those who are most happy are entirely so. No lot is wholly blest. Perfect happiness is unattainable.

t.i.thonus, with the gift of ever-lasting life, wasted away in undying old age. Achilles, with every charm of youthful strength and gallantry, was doomed to early death. Not even the richest are content. Something is always lacking in the midst of abundance, and desire more than keeps pace with satisfaction.

Nor are the mult.i.tude less enslaved to their desires than the few. Glory drags bound to her glittering chariot-wheels the nameless as well as the n.o.bly-born. The poor are as inconstant as the rich. What of the man who is not rich? You may well smile. He changes from garret to garret, from bed to bed, from bath to bath and barber to barber, and is just as seasick in a hired boat as the wealthy man on board his private yacht.

And not only are all men the victims of insatiable desire, but all are alike subject to the uncertainties of fate. Insolent Fortune without notice flutters her swift wings and leaves them. Friends prove faithless, once the cask is drained to the lees. Death, unforeseen and unexpected, lurks in ambush for them in a thousand places. Some are swallowed up by the greedy sea. Some the Furies give to destruction in the grim spectacle of war. Without respect of age or person, the ways of death are thronged with young and old. Cruel Proserpina pa.s.ses no man by.

Even they who for the time escape the object of their dread must at last face the inevitable. Invoked or not invoked, Death comes to release the lowly from toil, and to strip the proud of power. The same night awaits all; everyone must tread once for all the path of death. The summons is delivered impartially at the hovels of the poor and the turreted palaces of the rich. The dark stream must be crossed by prince and peasant alike. Eternal exile is the lot of all, whether nameless and poor, or sprung of the line of Inachus:

A_las! my Postumus, alas! how speed_ T_he pa.s.sing years: nor can devotion's deed_ S_tay wrinkled age one moment on its way_, N_or stay one moment death's appointed day_;

N_ot though with thrice a hundred oxen slain_ E_ach day thou prayest Pluto to refrain_, T_he unmoved by tears, who threefold Geryon drave_, A_nd t.i.tyus, beneath the darkening wave_.

T_he wave we all must one day surely sail_ W_ho live and breathe within this mortal vale_, W_hether our lot with princely rich to fare_, W_hether the peasant's lowly life to share_.

I_n vain for us from murderous Mars to flee_, I_n vain to shun the storms of Hadria's sea_, I_n vain to fear the poison-laden breath_ O_f Autumn's sultry south-wind, fraught with death_;

A_down the wandering stream we all must go_, A_down Cocytus' waters, black and slow_; T_he ill-famed race of Danaus all must see_, A_nd Sisyphus, from labors never free_.

A_ll must be left,--lands, home, beloved wife_,-- A_ll left behind when we have done with life_; O_ne tree alone, of all thou holdest dear_, S_hall follow thee,--the cypress, o'er thy bier!_

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