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THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT

THE

MORAL OBLIGATION
TO BE INTELLIGENT
and Other Essays
BY

JOHN JiRSKINE, Ph.D

ABSOCIATi: PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

AT COHJMBIA UNIVERSITT

NEW YORK DUFPIELD AND COMPANY

MGMXV

/is

Copyright, 1915, by

DUFFIELD AND COMPANY

CONTENTS
PAGE

The Mobal Obligation To Be

gent

Intelli3 35

The Call to Seevice The Mind of Shakspeke

Magic and Wonder
in Litebatube
. .

73
119

NOTE
The
title essay, originally

read before

the Phi Beta

College,
is

Kappa

Society of Amherst

reprinted with the editor's

courteous permission from the Hibbert

Journal.

The

last essay also

was read
Society of

before the Phi Beta

Kappa

Amherst College, and before the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni of New York City. In different ways the four essays set forth one theme the moral use to which

inteUigence might be put, in rendering

our admirations

and our

loyalties

at

once more sensible and more noble.

THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT

THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT

man
What

IF the

a wise

should ask.

are

modern

virtues?

and should an-

own question by a summary of the things we admire; if he should discard

swer his
as irrelevant the ideals which

by

tradi-

tion

we

profess,

but which are not found

outside of the tradition or the profession

^ideals like

meekness, humility, the reif

nunciation of this world;

he should

include only those excellences to which

our hearts are daily given, and by which

our conduct
is

motived,

in such an

in-

ventory what virtues would he name?

[3]

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

This question
very new.
ing
is

neither original nor

Our times await the reckonwhich

is

up

of our spiritual goods

here

suggested.

We have at least this wisdom,

of us are curious to

that

many

know

just
oflfer

what our
answer.
to

virtues are.

I wish I could

myself as the wise

man who

brings the

But I
list

raise this question

merely

ask another

When

the wise

man

brings his
will

of our genuine admirations,

intelligence

be one of them?

We

might seem to be well within the old

ideal of

modesty

of intelligence.
virtue, are

we claimed the virtue But before we claim the

if

we convinced

that

it is

a vir-

tue, not a peril?

II

The
gence

disposition

to

consider

intelli-

peril

is

an old Anglo-Saxon
cele[4]

inheritance.

Our ancestors have

TO BE INTELLIGENT
brated
prose.
this

disposition

in

verse

and
is,

Splendid as our literature

all

it

has not voiced

the aspirations of huit

manity, nor could

be expected to voice

an aspiration that has not characteristically

belonged, to the English race;

is

the praise of intelligence

characteristic glories.

not one of

its

"Be good,

sweet maid, and

let

who

will

be clever."

Here

is

the startling alternative which

to the English, alone

among great nations,

has been not startling but a matter of

course.

Here

is

the casual assumption

that a choice must be

made between
and

goodness and intelligence; that stupidity

is

first

cousin to moral conduct,

first

cleverness the

step into mischief;

are not on good

that reason and

God

terms with each other;

that the

mind

and the heart are

rival

buckets in the

well of truth, inexorably balanced

[5]

full

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

mind, starved heart
head.
Kingsley's line
is

stout

heart,

weak

a convenient text,

but to establish the point that English

literature voices a traditional distrust of

the

mind we must go
Shakspere's

to the masters.

In

plays

there

are

some

highly

intelligent

men, but they are

either villains or tragic victims. as

intelligent

To be

as

Richard or lago or

Edmund

seems to involve some break

with goodness; to be as wise as Prospero

seems to imply some Faust-like

with
the

traflSc

forbidden

world;

to

be as

thoughtful as Hamlet seems to be too

thoughtful to
live.

In

Shakspere

the

prizes of life go to such

men

as Bassanio,

or

Duke

Orsino, or Florizel

men of good
in-

conduct and sound character, but of no

particular intelligence.

There might,

deed, appear to be one general exception

to this sweeping statement:
[6]

Shakspere

TO BE INTELLIGENT
does concede intelligence as a fortunate
possession to some of his heroines.

But

upon even a

slight

examination those

ladies, like Portia,

turn out to have been

among

Shakspere's Italian importations

their
and

wit was part and parcel of the

or, like Viola,

story he borrowed;

they

are English types of humility, patience,

loyalty, such as

ballads, with a bit

we find in the old of Euphuism added,

After
all,

a foreign cleverness of speech.

these
are

only

a few of

Shakspere's
are Ophelia,

heroines; over against

Juliet,

them

Desdemona, Hero, Cordelia, Mi-

randa, Perdita
ities

^lovable for other qual-

than

intellect,

and

in

a sinister

group.
ril,

Lady Macbeth,
Paradise
Lost

Cleopatra, Gone-

intelligent

and wicked.
Milton
attributes

In

intelligence of the highest order to the

devil.

That

this is

an Anglo-Saxon readcharacter

ing of the infernal

[7]

may

be

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

shown by a reference
where Satan
is

to the

book

of Job,

simply a troublesome

body, and the great wisdom of the story

is

from the voice of God

his

in the whirlwind.

But Milton makes

ful,

Satan so thoughtliberty-loving, so
illogical,

so persistent

and

magnanimous, and God so

heartless
fectly
like

so

and

repressive, that

many

per-

moral readers fear

lest

Milton,

modern novelists, may have known good and evil, but could not tell them apart. It is disconcerting to inthe
telligence that
it

should be God's angel

who

cautions

Adam

not to wander in the

earth, nor inquire concerning heaven's

causes and ends, and that

it

should be

Satan meanwhile who questions and explores.

By

Milton's reckoning

of

in-

telligence the theologian

tist

and the

scien-

to-day alike take after Satan.

If there

were time, we might trace

of
intelligence
[8]

this

valuation

through

the

TO BE INTELLIGENT English novel. We should see how often

the writers have distinguished between
intelligence
listed

and goodness, and have en-

our affections for a kind of inexpert

virtue.

In Fielding or Scott, Thackeray

or Dickens, the hero of the English novel

is

a well-meaning blunderer
chapter
is

who

in the

last

temporarily rescued by the

the mess he has

grace of
of his

God from

made

life.

Unless he also dies in the last

chapter, he will
again.

probably need rescue

the hero

The dear woman whom

is,

marries

with a few notable exceptions,

rather less intelligent than himself.

When
his

David Copperfield marries Agnes,

intelligence, look

prospects of happiness, to the eyes of

not very exhilarating.

it

Agnes has more sense than Dora, but

is

not even for that slight distinction

that

we must admire

her;

her great

qualities are of the heart

^patience,

hu-

mility, faithfulness.
ls]

These are the quai-

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

ities also of

Thackeray's good heroines,

Beatrice

like

Laura or Lady Castlewood.

a bad

Esmond and Becky

Sharp, both highly

lot.

intelligent, are of course

No
his

less significant is

the kind of emo-

tion the English novelist invites towards

secondary or lower-class heroes

towfeel

ard Mr. Bofiin in Our Mutual Friend, for

example, or Harry Foker in Pendennis.

These characters amuse

us,

and we

pleasantly superior to them, but

we

agree

with the novelist that they are wholly admirable in their station.

man

let

us say Balzac

Yet

if

a French-

^were presenting

such types, he would

make

us

feel,

as in

Pere Goriotor Eugenie Grandet, not only

admiration for the stable, loyal nature, but

also

deep pity that such goodness should

This comparison of racial

be so tragically bound in unintelligence

or vulgarity.

temperaments helps us to understand

ourselves.

We may continue the method

[101

TO BE INTELLIGENT
at our leisure.

What would

Socrates

have thought

of

Mr. Pickwick, or the

For that

Vicar of Wakefield, or David Copperfield,

or Arthur Pendennis?
felt

matter, would he have

pity for Colonel

admiration or

Newcome?

Ill
I hardly

need confess that this

is

not

an adequate account of English

ture.

litera-

Let

me
is

hasten to say that I

resenting this

know

the reader

somewhat
wondering

cavalier handling of the noble writers

he

loves.

He

probably

is

how

I can expect to increase his love

of literature

by such unsympathetic
just

re-

marks.

But

now

am
it

not conI

cerned about our love of literature;

take
it

for granted,

and use

as an in-

strument to prod us with.

[11]

If

we

love

Shakspere and Milton and Scott and

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

Dickens and Thackeray, and yet do not

know what

quahties their books hold out

let
it

for our admiration, then

me say as delicately as possibleour admiration

is

not discriminating; and

if

we

neither

have discrimination nor are disturbed

by our lack
wise

of

it,

then perhaps that

list

man

could
virtues.

not

intelligence
it

among our
be but a

Certainly

would
litera-

silly

account of English
it

ture to say only that

set little store

by

the things of the mind.

for the sake of

am

aware that
I

my

argument

have ex-

aggerated,

by

insisting

upon only one

aspect of English literature.

f

But our
such as to

history betrays a peculiar warfare be-

tween character and

incomprehensible.

intellect,

the Greek, for example, would have been

The

great

English-

man,

like

the most famous Greeks, had

intelligence as well as character,

and was

at ease with

them both.
[12]

But whereas

TO BE INTELLIGENT
the notable Greek seems typical of his
race,

the notable

Englishman usually

seems an exception to his own people, and

is

often best appreciated in other lands.

is

What

more

singular

in spite of the

happy combination in himself of character and intelligence, he often fails to

recognize the value of that combination
in his neighbors.

When

Shakspere por-

trayed such amateurish statesmen as the

Measure for Measure, Burleigh was guiding Elizabeth's empire, and Franin

Duke

Bacon was soon to be King James's It was the young Milton counsellor.
cis

who pictured the life of reason in L' Allegro

and
II Penseroso, the

most

spiritual fruit

of philosophy in

Comus;

and when he

wrote his epic he was probably England's

most notable example

great

of that intellectual

inquiry and independence which in his

poem he

discouraged.

There

re-

main

several well-known figures in our

[13]


THE MORAL OBLIGATION
literary

history

who have both

in

pos-

sessed

and

believed
in

intelligence

Byron and Shelley

day,
time.
all

what seems our own

less

Edmund

Spenser before Shakspere's

neglected

England has more or

to

three,

but they must in fairness be

her
credit.

counted

Some

excuse

might be

oflfered for

the neglect of Byron

likes the

and Shelley by a nation that

proprieties;

but the gentle Spenser, the

seems to be

noblest philosopher and most chivalrous

gentleman in our

literature,

unread only because he demands a mind

as well as a heart used to high things.

This

will

be

sufficient qualification of

any disparagement
no people and no

of English literature;

literature

can be great

that are not intelligent,

and England
but also poets

has produced not only statesmen and

scientists of the first order,

in

whom

the soul was

fitly

lofty intellect.

But

am

mated with a asking you to

114]

TO BE INTELLIGENT
reconsider your reading in history and
fiction, to reflect

whether our race has

I suggest
lit-

usually thought highly of the intelligence

by which
erature as
tion

it

has been great;

these non-intellectual aspects of our

commentary upon
all this

my

ques-

and

with the hope of press-

ing upon you the question as to what

you think of

intelligence.

Those

of us

who

frankly prefer charare therefore not

If

acter to intelligence

without precedent.

we

look beneath

the history of the English people, be-

neath the ideas expressed in our

ture,

litera-

we

find in the

temper

of our remotstill

est ancestors

a certain bias which

prescribes our ethics

and
be

still

prejudices

us against the mind.

The

beginnings of

our

conscience
It
it

can

geographically
for-

located.
ests,

began in the German

gave
its

and

allegiance not to the

will.

intellect

but to the
[15]

Whether or

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

not the severity of
life

in a

hard climate

raised the value of that persistence

by

which alone

life

could be preserved, the

Germans
as
their

as Tacitus

knew them, and the

that
will-power
craft

Saxons as they landed in England, held

chief

virtue

which makes character.

strategy they

For

or

had no

use;

they were

already a bulldog race; they liked fighting,

and they liked best to

settle the

matter hand to hand.

for brute force

The admiration
drew

which naturally accomself-reliance,

panied this ideal of

with
tion.
it

as naturally a certain moral sanc-

A man

was

as

good as

his word,

and he was ready to back up

with a blow.

his

word

No German,

Tacitus says,
of public or

would enter into a treaty

hand.

private business without his sword in his

When

this

emphasis upon the

emphasis,
it

will

became a

social

gave the

direction to ethical feeling.

[16]

Honor lay

TO BE INTELLIGENT
in

a man's integrity, in his willingness

ability to

and
the

keep his word; therefore

important than his

man became more

word or deed.

Words and deeds were

evil,

then easily interpreted, not in terms of

absolute good and

but in terms of

man behind them. The deeds of a bad man were bad; the deeds of a good man were good. Fielding wrote Tom Jones to show that a good man somethe times does a bad action, consciously or
unconsciously,

and a bad man somethe fact that

times does good, intentionally or unintentionally.

From

Tom
that

Jones

is still

popularly supposed to be as
coarse,

wicked as

it is

we may judge
all

Fielding did not convert

his readers.

Some we do not
pendicitis.

progress certainly has been

insist that

made;

the more saintly of

two surgeons
far

shall operate

on us for ap-

But

as a race

we seem

as

as possible

from
[17]

realising that

an

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

action can intelligently be called good

only
that

if

it

contributes to a good end;

it is

the moral obligation of an in-

telligent creature to find

out as far as

possible whether a given action leads to

a good or a bad end; and that any sys-

him from that obligation is vicious. If I give you poison, meaning to give you wholesome
tem
of ethics that excuses

food, I

have

to say the

least

not done

a good act; and unless I intend to throw

overboard

all

pretence to intelligence, I
responsibility for that

must

feel

some

trifling neglect to find

out whether what

poison.
is

I gave

you was food or

as

Obvious
academic been
still

the

matter

in

this

illustration, it

ought to have
in

more obvious Arnold's famous plea for

reason and the will of

culture.
is

purpose of culture, he said,

Matthew The "to make

prevail."

God

This formula he quoted from an English[18]

TO BE INTELLIGENT
man.
Differently stated, the purpose of
culture,

he

said, is

"to make an

intelli-

gent being yet more intelligent,"

This

formula he borrowed from a Frenchman.

The basis
and the
price

culture

must have

in character,

the English resolution to

will of

make

reason

for granted;

God prevail, Arnold took no man ever set a higher

on character

so

far as character
his life

by

itself will go.

But he spent

trying to

sow a

little

suspicion that before

we can make
must
I
find out
if

the will of

God

prevail

we

what

is

the will of God.

doubt

Arnold taught us much.

He

merely embarrassed us temporarily.

Our race has often been so embarrassed when it has turned a sudden corner and come upon intelligence. Charles Kingsley himself,

who would

rather be good
his

than

clever,

and

had

wish,

was

temporarily

embarrassed when in the

consciousness of his

own

upright char-

do]

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

acter he publicly called

Newman

liar.

Newman happened
well as good,
is

to be intelligent as

and Kingsley's discomfiture

well

known.
of

But we discovered long

"Toll
for

ago

how

to evade the sudden embarrassintelligence.

ments

the

brave," sings the poet for those

went down
were brave.

in the

Royal George.

who They

But he might have sung,

In order to clean

"Toll for the stupid."

the hull, brave Kempenfelt and his eight

hundred heroes took the serious

laying the vessel well over on

risk of
side,

its

while

most

of

the

crew were below.

they
all

Having made the

bravely;

error,

died
easily

and our memory passes

of,

over the lack of a virtue

think

we never

did

much
of

and dwells on the English

So

virtues

courage and discipline.

we

forget the shocking blunder of the

charge of the Light Brigade, and proudly

sing the heroism of the victims.
[20]

Lest


TO BE INTELLIGENT
we
flatter

ourselves that this trick of

defence has departed with our fathers

this reading of stupidity in terms of the

tragic courage that endures its results

let

us reflect that recently, after

full

warning,

we drove
field

a ship at top speed

through a

of icebergs.

When we

were
a

thrilled to read

how

superbly those

hundreds died, in the great English way,

man

pointed out that they did indeed

die in the English way,

and that our

that
that
all

pride was therefore ill-timed;

that

bravery

was

wasted;

the
intel-

tragedy was in the shipwreck of

ligence.

That discouraging person was

(sv.**-^

an Irishman,

IV
I

have spoken
it

of our social inheritance

as though

were entirely English.

qualify
[21]

more

let

me

my

terms.

Once Even

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

those ancestors of ours

Great Britain were heirs

tions

who never left of many civihza-

Roman,

French, Itahan, Greek.

With each world-tide some love of pure intelligence was washed up on English shores, and enriched the soil, and here and there the old stock marvelled at its own progeny. But to America, much as we may sentimentally deplore it, England seems destined to be less and less the source of culture, of religion and learning. Our land assimilates all races;
with every ship in the harbor our old
English ways of thought must crowd a
little closer

to

make room for

new

tradi-

some of us do not greatly err, these newcomers are chiefly driving to the
tion.

If

wall our inherited criticism of the intellect.

As

surely as the severe northern

climate taught our forefathers the value

of the will, the social conditions

from

which these new

citizens
[22]

have escaped


TO BE INTELLIGENT
have taught them the power
of the mind.

They
in a

differ

from each other, but against

of knowledge, in a

the Anglo-Saxon they are confederated

Greek love

Greek
to

assurance that sin and misery are the

fruit of ignorance,

and that

to

know

is

achieve virtue.

They
spirit,

join forces at once

with that earlier arrival from Greece,

the scientific

which

like

all

the

immigrants has done our hard work and

put up with our contempt.

Between

this rising host that follow intelligence,

and the old camp that put

stout heart, a firm
will,

their trust in a

and a strong hand,

the fight

is

on.

Our
it.

college

men

will

be

in the thick of
sides,

If

they do not take

they

will at least

be battered in the

moment they are readily divided into those who wish to be men whatever that means and those who
scuffle.

At

this

wish to be intelligent men, and those

who, unconscious of blasphemy or hu[23]

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

mor, prefer not to be
the will of God.
intelligent,

but to do

When we
seems
these

consider the nature of the

it

problems to be solved in our day,

to

many

of us,

at least

that
par-

un-English

arrivals
is

are

correct,

that intelligence
ticularly need.

the virtue

we

Courage and steadfastwithout, so long as two

it is

ness

we cannot do

men
tues.

dwell on the earth; but

time to

discriminate in our praise of these virIf

you want
is

to get out of prison,

what you need

If

the key to the lock.

you cannot get

that,

have courage and

modern world has got into a kind of prison, and what is needed is the key to the lock. If none
steadfastness. Perhaps the
of the old virtues exactly
it
fits,

why

should

seem ignoble to admit

it?

England

for centuries has got

on better by sheer

character than some other nations

sheer intelligence, but there
[24]
is

by

after all a

TO BE INTELLIGENT
relation

between the kind

of

problem and
it.

the means

we should

select to solve

Not

all

problems are solved by

will-

power.
parte,

When England
it

overthrew Bonaintelligence

was not

his

she

overthrew;

the contest involved other

things besides intelligence, and she wore

him out in the matter of physical endurance. The enemy that comes to her as a visible host or armada she can still close with and throttle; but when the foe arrives as an arrow that flieth by night, what avail the old sinews, the old stoutness of heart!

We

Americans face the

same problems, and are too much inclined to oppose to them similar obsolete armor. We make a moral issue of an
economic or
social question,
it
is

because

it

seems ignoble to admit

question for intelligence.

simply a

Like the medi-

we use oratory and invoke our hereditary divinities, when the patient
cine-man,
[25]

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

needs only a
little quiet,

or permission to

get out of bed.

We applaud those leaders

who warm to their work

who, when they

it in.

cannot open a door, threaten to kick

In the philosopher's words, we curse the

obstacles
devils.

of

life

as

though they were

But they

are not devils.

They

are obstacles.

V
Perhaps
enough.

my
I

question as to what you

think of intelligence has been pushed far

But

cannot leave the subject

faith.

without a confession of

None of the
gence,

reasons here suggested will

quite explain the true worship of intelli-

whether we worship

it

as

the

scientific spirit, or as scholarship, or as

any other
swers
it

reliance

upon the mind.

We

really seek intelligence not for the an-

may

suggest to the problems of

[26]


TO BE INTELLIGENT
life,

but because we believe

it

is

life,

not for aid in making the

prevail,
will of

will of
it is

God
the

but because we believe

God.

We

love

it,

as

we

love virit is

tue, for its

own

sake,

and we believe

only

virtue's

other

and more precise

the
ele^has

name.

We

believe that the virtues wait

upon

intelligence

literally wait, in

history of the race.

Whatever

is

mental in

man

love, hunger, fear

obeyed from the beginning the

of intelligence.

discipline
kill

We

are told that to

one's aging parents

was once a demonstraabout the same time,

tion of solicitude;

men hungered
and
fear are

for

raw meat and feared

Filial

the sun's eclipse.

still

love,

hunger,

motives to conduct,
longer hang the
it
is

but intelligence has directed them to

other ends.
thief or flog
If

we no
less

the school-boy,

not

that

we think

harshly of theft or

laziness,

but that intelligence has found

[27]


THE MORAL OBLIGATION
a better persuasion to honesty and enterprise.

We believe that even in religion,

most intimate room
virtue.
Its

in the

of the spirit, intel-

ligence long ago proved itself the master-

inward

office

from the beeffect

ginning was to decrease fear and increase

opportunity;

its

outward
Little

was to
priest

rob the altar of

of
his

its sacrifice

and the

mysteries.

wonder that

from the beginning the disinterestedness

of the accredited custodians of all tepiples

has been tested by the kind of welcome

they gave to intelligence.

How many

hecatombs were offered on more shores

than that of Aulis, by seamen waiting
for a favorable wind, before intelligence

found out a boat that could tack!

altar

The

was deserted, the

religion revised

fear of the uncontrollable changing into

delight in the knowledge that

is

power.

We

contemplate with satisfaction the law

[28]

TO BE INTELLIGENT
by which
ligion

in

our long history one re-

has driven out another, as one

hypothesis supplants another in astron-

omy

or mathematics.
altars,

The

faith

that

needs the fewest

the hypothesis

that leaves least unexplained, survives;

and the

intelligence that changes

most

fears into opportunity is

most

divine.

We
of

believe this beneficent operation

intelligence
its

was swerving not one

ancient course

degree from
der the

when un-

name
If
if

of the scientific spirit it

its

once more laid

ligion.

upon rethe shock here seemed too

influence

violent,

the purpose of intelligence here

seemed to be not revision but contradiction,

it

was only because

to
digest

religion

was

invited

an unusually large

amount
over,
it

of intelligence all at once.

is

More-

not certain that devout peo-

ple were

more shocked by Darwinism

[29]

than the pious mariners were by the

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

first

boat

that

could tack.

Perhaps
all

the sacrifices were not abandoned

once.

at

But the

lover of intelligence

must be

patient with those

share his passion.

will inflict

who cannot readily Some pangs the mind

heart.
It is a mis-

upon the

take to think that

elemental affections.
vide us.

men

are united

by

Our
fall

affections di-

We

strike roots in

immediate

time and space, and

locality,

in love with our

the customs and the language in

Intelligence
in

which we were brought up.

unites us with mankind,

by leading us

sympathy to other
other customs;

times, other places,

first

but

the prejudiced

roots of affection

must be pulled up.

of intelligence,
set a

These are the old pangs which

still

comes to

ance against his father,

man at varisaying, "He that

is

loveth father or mother more than me,

not worthy of me."

[30]

TO BE INTELLIGENT
Yet,
if

intelligence begins in a pang, it

proceeds to a vision.
less

Through measure-

time

its office

has been to

make

of life ar-

an opportunity, to make goodness

ticulate, to

make
if

virtue a fact.

In his-

tory at least,

not yet in the individual,

is

Plato's faith lias cnvne. true, that sin

ifflorance,

but

and knowledge and virtue are

all

Qnsu^

But

that intelligence has ac-

complished dwindles in comparison with

the
vision
it

suggests

and warrants.

Beholding this long liberation of the

human

spirit,

we

foresee, in every

new
its

light of the

mind, one unifying mind,

wherein the

human

race shall
it

know

destiny and proceed to

tion,

with satisfacits

as

an idea moves to

proper

conclusion;

we
the

conceive of intelligence
infinite
it,

at last as

order,

wherein

man, when he enters

self.

shall find

him-

Meanwhile he continues to
I31J

find

his

THE MORAL OBLIGATION

virtues

by

successive insights into his

needs.

Let us cultivate insight.

of the

"O Wisdom
And

Most High,
to the end.

That reachest from the beginning

Teach us now the way

dost order all things in strength

and

grace.

of imderstanding."

[32]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

THE CALL TO SERVICE

A COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

AS I feel for X\. dizziness

lows,

moment
is

the wholesome
of
fel-

that

the penalty

mounting a platform above one's

faces courteously lifted for I

and as I look down at the young

my first words,

am

aware of

what

shall I call it?

of

an enforced collaboration;
other young men,
for the first

suddenly I
filled

have a vision of other rooms

with
do,

who

wait, as

you

words of the commencement

I feel a sudden

speaker,

and at once

sympathy with those other speakers, who

desire, as I do, to translate the occasion
[35]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

into wise

and appropriate words.

single

I see

our various schools and colleges keeping

their

commencements with a
audiences
all

the

mind expecting the same

orig-

address,

and the speakers, however

it.

inal, all delivering

You

expect, every

graduating class expects, to be told what

to do with education,

now you have

it

it;

your school or college owes

to

itself,

you think, to confess

pose for which
it

in public the purI

has trained you.

can almost hear the speakers, from ocean

to ocean, responding in unison to this

expectation in the graduates they face;

the

simultaneous

eloquence
it

is

so

in-

evitable that I can follow

for

almost word
in.

word; in

fact, I

almost join

The speech they are delivering is known as the Call to Service. The substance of it is that educated men should be unselfish;
that learning
is

a vain and dangerous

luxury

if it is

only for ourselves; that the

[36]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

following of truth, the reverent touching
of the

hem

of her garment, is not, as

we

may have thought, a privilege,

nor

is

even
con-

the love of truth a virtue, until

it is

verted into a responsibility toward others.

Few

of us care to challenge this teaching.

We
as

share in the will to serve, not merely

an annual attitude, but as a year-long

it

passion, until

becomes our one au-

thentic motive to good living

or, if

we

disobey

it,

a witness against us, incessant

and uncomfortable.

No wonder

that at
at a

commencement time

particularly,

moment
of the

of success

and hope, the

is

instinct

young graduate
and the
it.

to hear the call

to service,
is

instinct of the speaker

to

sound

Yet some of us hesitate.

So long as the

mind is enclosed within the happy commencement scene, the circle of wellintending graduates, affectionate parents,

and earnest

teachers,
[37]

it

is

easy to say

THE CALL TO SERVICE

"Come
into the world now,

young man,
your
set

and begin your

life-long service;

good fortune, your

privileges,

have

you

apart, but other

men,

alas, are also

set apart

by the very lack

If

of

what you
centered,

have enjoyed; now bring your plenty to

their

want."

our thought

is

I repeat,

on those

whom we
if

call into

the
it

world, this speech comes easy, but

sticks in our throat

we begin

to think

of those who,
service.

we

say, are in

need

of

Immediately a second and pro-

founder vision rises before us

reaction of

no cheerful

commencement audience and commencement speakers, but a violent opposition between the fortunate who are preparing aid and the more numerous unlucky who presumably are preparing
to accept
it.

What

confounds us

is

the
to

plain fact that only those

who hope

render the service have the slightest en-

thusiasm for

it.

We
[38]

might well expect

THE CALL TO SERVICE

also

some due and ardent

rising to the

recognition,

some

moment, from those

Their need, to be
rally-

about to be served.
sure, has

no such focus, no such

ing-point, as the impulse to their rescue;

no commencement address puts them

in

mind
self,

to receive, as

you graduates are

stimulated to give.

But

their

need

it-

we might

think, should at first pre-

pare in them, and experience year by year confirm, a receptive and a thankful
heart.
silent.

Yet those about to be served are

If

there are distinctions in

si-

lence, theirs leans less

toward humility

than toward defence.

again the
silence

Those who have

already been served and

who now hear

summons to their benefit, break by gradations of reproach. They

deprecate the ministrations of the edu-

They invite the physician to heal himself. They intimate hypocrisy in

cated.
their would-be rescuers,
[39]

who, they say,

THE CALL TO SERVICE

instead of equalizing men's misfortunes

once for

all,

so that

no further rescue
prefer

might

be

needed,
life's

actually

to

patch up

injustices

from year to

year, finding a moral satisfaction in being

charitable,

and craving,

therefore, a sup-

ply of the unfortunate to exercise that

virtue on.

These
too

criticisms, it

seems to me, have

much

truth in them.

They throw

us back upon our conscience, and force

us to examine the motives with which

we

call

others to service or answer the

Is service truly

call ourselves.

a rescue
cure our

or a profession?

Do we hope to

neighbor's misfortune or to live

by

it?

Nothing could be more reasonable than

that service should be judged
to the served, yet too often
this unselfishness as it

by its value we practise

an

were for our own

good;

we obey

the

call to service as

invitation to a salutary exercise of the

[40]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

soul.

When

the disturbing vision rises

before us of half the race in need, and of

the other half eager to help,

we must
the eager

withhold approval
helpers,

till

we ask

"Do you look on the unfortunate

dis-

as

on your brothers, in temporary

do you see
in

tress, or

them

objects of
is

charity?
to
serve,

Do you
and
If

think your function

function
is

their

to

be

served?

on

their

by a miracle they should get feet, would you have lost your

career?"

II
If these questions

seem

rhetorical

and

strained, let

me

put them in other terms

desire

to several of

you who presumably

is

to be in the truest sense serviceable.

My
life

object, frankly,

to

show that the

range

of service

is

often exploited in such

fairly within the
[41]

a way as to come


THE CALL TO SERVICE
of criticism,

and that the men who sound

to
it

the call to service nowadays and those

who respond
conception

have often no right

is

of

what

serviceable.

should like to indicate what are the signs

of true service

and what are the

signs of
its

something

else that

masquerades in

name.

Some

of you, doubtless,

have decided

to enter the Church.

There was a time

when the
with a

call

to service

was

identical
life.

call

to enter the religious

Religion, the oldest,

est

was once the broad-

avenue to good works, so broad that

for centuries it included those

two other

main paths, now become quite secular science and education; and with science and education it still provides the main
opportunities for ministering to the soul,

the body, and the mind of our fellows.

Those

of you, then,
life,

who contemplate

the

religious

ought to be furnished out

[42]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

of

antiquity

with a definition of the

service

you would render; you ought to

to religion for, to that benefit.

know
assist

the nature of the benefit the lay-

man comes
him

and how to

Perhaps you do not agree with

that you ought to
haps, having
felt

me
per-

know
call to

all

this;

the ministry,

you think the

call justifies itself.

As

speak, I see once more that ominous gulf

between the server and the served.

your
historical church, or

On

one side I see you priests-to-be, loving

your theology,
that
is,

or your revealed truth

certain gifts of

loving,

God which you

think you

can prepare for by study, and receive by

heavenly grace, and by your faithfulness
transmit unimpaired to others after you;

and your loyalty to theology or church or

revelation

you conceive to be

service.

On

the other side of the gulf I see

men

waiting for real service at the hands of

[43]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

the Church, and not getting
is
it.

If there
jier se,

hostihty in the world to reUgion

is

at least that

not what I

am

talking

about; I speak solely of those optimistic

veterans in the pews
service of religion

who

still

expect the
arrival

from the new

just out of the divinity school.

They have a pretty clear notion as to what religion promises, and they grow
impatient for the promise to be kept.
Religion promises, in the old words, a

more abundant

life,

an immediate as well an enjoyment to

as a distant benefit,

be entered upon in this present world.

It

would provide at once an exercise to

develop the spiritual faculties

we now

have into powers we but faintly imagine.

"More abundant
minded,
is

life," to

the religious-

the phrasing of an old battle-

hope, a more than ancient faith in his

own

sufficiency to

approach God, which

in
this

individual

man,

sense

forever

[44]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

Puritan, has never entirely let go.

Even
and

when the
tion

priest in his primitive func-

stood

between

the

people

their deity, mediating

by

virtue of his

superior gifts
in his fear

and

training, the savage

still

had glimpses

of a time

when each heart should perform

its

to

God

vows and sacrifices, consecrated by the mere sharing in human life. "I will make him a nation of priests," promised Jehovah to Israel. The pro-

gram of religion, therefore, is not to do away with the priest, but to bestow the priestly character more abundantly upon
all

men.

Must
ligion?

I qualify

my words,

and say that

from the
hopes

this is only the

layman's program of re-

It seems to be different

program

of the loyal priest.

He

to perpetuate his office for the good of

more and more laymen;

[45]

the layman

hopes that the distinction between priest

THE CALL TO SERVICE

and layman
looks
will disappear.

The

priest

upon

his office as destined to serve

perpetually,
fore,

and upon the layman, therebe perpetually an

as destined to

object of service; but the

to need service less

layman hopes

and

less.

How
if

very

disconcerting
as
it is

it

would be

for the Church,

all

at present organized,
in

the

laymen should become,

sense,
priests.

the truest
that

Even

if

we grant

the organization conforms at present to a

situation, yet

we

detect no wish on

its

part that the situation should be changed.

In every denomination there seems to be

a tendency to widen the gulf between
priest

and layman, honoring the

first

without ennobling the second.

devotion which
religion, bids
is

The very

the warrant of true

the layman look up, as to a

higher order of being, to the holder of the

priestly office.

But when a man begins

[46]

as

it

were to cherish holiness in another's

THE CALL TO SERVICE

life
is

rather than in his own, the mischief

religion
it

done;

then robs him of the

If

very thing

promises to give.

we

cannot find the illustrations close at hand,

the book of history opens at the very
places.

Whenever the priesthood has

some
integrity,

been exalted as a separate ideal of goodness or of wisdom,

consecration, has been taken

common men.

In so-called

some away from Puritan mo-

ments, when the priesthood has been

least remote, the

conduct of the average

man

has been most nobly severe;

but

where the distinctive holiness of the

priest has

been most devotedly cherished,

the average

man

has needed a system of

pardons and indulgences.

priests

No
it

doubt the

were holy, and were eager to

service that
It appears that

serve mankind, but was

they actually conferred?

no
or

man
if

can be holy for his neighbors;

[47]

he persuades them to submit to the

THE CALL TO SERVICE

experiment, the
is

little

holiness they

have

taken away.

Perhaps you have not thought of the

religious life as involving these problems.

"Going into the ministry" has perhaps meant to you simply a process by which
you dreamt
of getting a parish to
serve.

work

in

and people to

Yet even

in the

smallest parish the division I speak of,

the opposition between priest and lay-

man, between the serving and the served,

will

be awaiting you.

Do you dream

of

a congregation to
gation
help.

help.'*

dream of rising Do you expect to be consecrated

layman.''

Your congrebeyond need of

above the
ask
self.
is

The layman, who

own,
will
it-

nowadays has a

dialectic of his

how your
If

consecration manifests

you explain that your superiority

office,

not in you but in your

he

will

press
if

you

to explain
is

why

the

office,

even
ask

sacred,

necessary;
[48]

he

will

THE CALL TO SERVICE

whether a system of superiorities and
feriorities is
in-

vital
if

to the rehgious hfe

and whether,

all

men were
is

equally
cease.

sanctified, the religious life

would

You

understand that this

but a
not
will

figure of speech.

The layman

will

argue with you in this fashion; he

stay

away from your church on Sunday

and avoid your society during the week. If empty pews mean anything, he is
resolved to escape your benefits, but for
old time's sake he prefers not to quarrel

with the minister.

has no quarrel,

With religion he still but the Church seems to

him

actually irreligious

well-organized,
warm clothes

yes, well-meaning

and well-behaved, even

indefatigable in distributing

and wholesome food to the needy, yet

also in spite of her gifts increasingly re-

mote,

strangely

indisposed

or

incom-

petent to share or impart the religious

spirit.

No wonder
[49]

that,

since

it

is

THE CALL TO SERVICE

spiritual

development he craves, he
allegiance

will

give

his

to

other organiza-

tions than the

Church.

He

sees that

to join a parish for love of

to practically the

God comes
as join-

same thing

ing

it

for love of the priest, to

whose
in

credit in a worldly sense

an increase

the congregation

is

reckoned;

he sees

that against any criticism from the congregation the priest can and often does
assert the authority of his office;

he sees

that though attendance at church will be

counted as approval of the particular

minister in charge, absence from church
will

be diagnosed as hostility to

religion;

and rather than accept the service

ligion
self-respect,

of rehis

on terms so compromising to
he
retires

from the

field

and

cultivates indifference.

From

this

mood

he

is

roused only

rescue excites

when a loud call to his his wrath. The reform,

[.60]

he thinks, should begin elsewhere.

THE CALL TO SERVICE

III
I

have been speaking to those

of service,

of

you

who, in love
has

may

think of

entering the ministry, and

my

purpose
gulf

been

to

describe

that

bereal

tween your good intentions and the

needs of those

whom you may am

aware,

have
not

thought of as destined to be served.

Yet others
I

of you, I

may

be stirred to repentance by the picture

have drawn; you may indeed be far

it.

from displeased by
left religion

Perhaps you have

behind you, as an old-fash-

ioned preoccupation of your grandmothers,

and whatever seems to be a

left it

criticism

of it will confirm

your complacency at

having

behind.

You
it
is

also are in

love with service, but

science that

the call of
as

you hear

real service,

you would

say, without superstition or

humbug.
[51]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

Science does call you to a service of

her own, but her program

original

is

perhaps

less

than you think.

Like

religion,

she would teach you an attitude of mind,

an intimate approach to the universe.

Like
religion, science also urges

you to

good works;

but whereas the rewards

of religion are often indirect or deferred,

science can appeal to your selfishness

by
re-

showing an immediate as well as a

mote

profit.

In

this smaller, practical

office science

might be expected even to

surpass the service of religion, telling you

how

make yourselves immune to disease, how to regulate your diet, how to choose your dress, how to keep the streets clean, how to secure sanitation.
to

Science has far larger and more difficult

things to teach, principles and prospects
of

which these matters are the merest

but
out
of

incidents;

her

exuberant

joy of service she freely bestows these

[52]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

simple
life.

aids

toward a more abundant

Yet you can no more be scientific for your neighbors than you can be holy for them. If you persuade them to submit to the experiment, they will lose what
little intelligence

they had.

Do we
is

not

see that the average

man

more and

more disposed

to honor a few scientists,

superstitiously exalting their skill into a

kind of magic, and relying

less

and

less

upon himself

.f*

For every service science

has rendered, some

barometer, and
wise;
stars.

common

intelligence

has been taken away.

She gave us the

we

ceased to be weather-

the almanac, and

If

we

forgot the
left

this service from without

us free to apply our knowledge in other

fields,

there might be a compensation for

the intelligence that has been taken away.

But with

intelligence departs the willing-

ness even to be intelligently served, and

[53]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

just as religion falls
hell,

back upon threats

of

so at last science calls in the police.

If
it

my
is

house

is

ventilated and sanitary,

not because science has

made me

intelligent,

but because the expert to

delegated

whom I have

my intelligence is now applying it on my behalf, with or without my consent. When my fireescape was cast in the foundry, perhaps

for the rescue of

fixed in the
dollars,
if

my

life

some day, they

to fine
it

mold a threat

me
up.

ten

ever I should block

However we may condemn the

the intention to serve us
is

result,

unmistakable.

But science is strangely inconsistent. Having assumed the place of our intelligence, she develops what seems to be a At startling indifference to our welfare.
times she surpasses the worst that has

been charged against religion in the

position to
fall

dis-

in

love with her

own

image.

Since the middle of the nineis*]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

teenth century,

men

at her invitation

have contemplated

their

unsavory be-

ginning and the myriad processes by

which they are supposed to have escaped

from
true,

it.

They have not been

kinship
uninspiring.

greatly
if

edified;
is

with the monkey,

Into what nobler

relations are

not reply.

we to enter? Science does The excuse is that science is

occupied in remedial work,

collecting facts, or perfecting methods,

or at best

is

in solving problems of disease

and

in re-

ducing the discomforts of

so vast

life.

Service

and so humane cannot be over-

valued.
service,

Yet even
is

in the region of this

itself

not science frittering

away upon methods,

before us the end.?

instead of setting
is it

And

possible to

estimate the value of the method, until

we know
us, as

the

end.''

One

scientist

tells

a matter of fact,

that our best days

of the informa-

are over at forty.

Much
[55]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

tion

which science imparts

is

as cheerful

as that.
life,

Another

tells

us

how

to prolong

by drinking sour milk. But if the first doctor is right and our heyday is over at forty, why should we wish to grow old? Our true benefactor would tell us how long we ought to wish to live. Or even when science is not so blind, it often sins by applying itself to an end it knows to
be wrong.
It invents vehicles of conit

stantly greater speed, though

assures

us that such acceleration

is

the ruin of
of kill-

our nerves.

It invents

methods

ing people, and

means

of protecting them,

though

it

persuades us at the same time

as
is

we needed persuasion! that war an awkward way of serving mankind. Those of you who heard with comif

placence

my

criticism of religion ought

if

not to protest

I bring the
science.

same judgis

ment

to bear

on

Indeed there

a fine irony in substituting the service of

[66]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

science for the service of religion as a tar-

get for the fault-finder; for science, which

began by pointing out the

of religion, ion's place in this

insufficiencies
relig-

and gradually usurped

it

matter of serving man-

kind, has also,

may

be, taken to herself

some of the frailties she once condemned. Between you and those whom you would serve through science the same gulf lies as between the priests and those they
would
ence
is

benefit.

The

protest against sci-

not yet so loud, I grant you,

it
is

as that against religion, but

the

same in kind, and it is growing.

Scientists

are as eager to do our thinking for us as

ever the Church has been, they are just

as ready to use force to

make

effective

the truth as they see

their
scientific

it,

and they keep

as

spirit

to themselves

effectively

as

the

priests

keep

their

priesthood.
g,s

a caste,

They look upon themselves and in the name of science

157
]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

they presume to dogmatise outside of
their field, exactly as the priests
did.

once

We, meanwhile,

as profoundly de-

sirous of

magic as primitive

man

ever

was, wait with awe upon the word of

these latest magicians, or begin to grumble because they
secret.

do not
rich,

let
it

us into the
appears,
in
its

We
If

grow

the results of science, but poor in

spirit.

the

symptoms

of

this

un-

healthy condition were found only in the

man
is

in the street, there

would be

less

need to worry, for that mythical person

by

definition the first to get hold of

applied results and the last to be interested in principles.

is

But the

criticism
is

justified in the places

where science

avowedly engaged in handing on her

torch

in

your college, for example, where

of

almost

all

you studied the

sciences

and

almost none of you was suspected by

anybody

of being scientific.
[58]

The

technic

THE CALL TO SERVICE

of the laboratory instruments appealed

to

you exactly

as does the

management
to

of a motor-car or the handling of a shot-

gun;

most young men

like

use a
results.

machine and to get mechanical

But

as to learning the insatiable love of

truth, the precise observation

and the

inexorable deduction which are essential

in the scientist,

you probably have not

even made a beginning.

IV
I

can imagine that some of you

little

will

be as

troubled

by the

insufficiency of

science as
ligion;

by the shortcomings
it

of re-

you have heard the

call to service,

but you understand

Observing that I
teacher,

as a call to teach.

am by

profession
I

you probably think that

have

saved up education for the end of

discourse as a
[69]

my

happy contrast to those

THE CALL TO SERVICE

other

ways

of

serving.

The

call

to

service does indeed

seem to be a sumof faith or

mons

to inquiry, whether of religion or

science or

any other region

and the
life life

experience,

of inquiry

might

seem to be the

of a college professor.

The

college

is

supposed to be a place of

precious leisure, in which truth

may
is

be
not

sought without distraction.

It

directly practical nor serviceable;

it

is

gymnasium rather than the arena of the spirit. As its name implies, it is a
the
collection of diverse

minds and natures,

strengthening their noblest impulses and

their finest

knowledge by a communal

sharing.

Into this charged atmosphere

of the spirit a student enters, to learn his

capacities

and
soul

to develop them, as his

teachers
traffic

develop theirs,

of

and

soul.

by this high The service

is

which the college can render

[60]

to keep the

atmosphere properly charged

to see that

THE CALL TO SERVICE

there are enough teachers and enough
students,
so

that

this

interchange

of
is

character

a byword "Mark Hopkins

The
log, of course, is
is

may

be complete.

The

ideal

on one end

of a log

and a boy on the other,"

not necessary.

It

only a convenience.
is

But unforfor quick

tunately the college

spirit of service

seized with that

which looks

results.

Neither

Mark Hopkins

nor the

boy can be organized and administered

to serve

any very immediate popular deit is

mand;
colleges

the log, therefore, that the

have organized and elaborated.

sincerest desire to be of service

With the

to the greatest

who

present

themselvesthey
number
till

if

possible, to all

have ex-

tended the log

some

of the boys are

almost out of earshot of

Mark Hopkins,
inserted a

and
few

for

weak backs they have

bolsters.

How

narrow and unsym-

pathetic sounds an extract from the re[61]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

port to the trustees of Columbia College
in 1810

on the state of instruction in that

that

institution

"Your committee cannot for

it is

moment suppose

the intention
fruitless

of the

Board to try that most

and mischievous experiment

the experiwho

ment

of educating either the naturally

stupid or the incurably idle."

In justice to the modern educator

does not admit the existence of any such

class as the naturally stupid or the in-

curably

idle,

be

it

said that he lives

up
and

to his ideal of service, even to the forfeiture of that leisurely investigation

contemplation of truth which

delight of the scholar.

is

the prime

been easy to organize.

fessor has

The The

log has not

college pro-

had

to manipulate embarrass-

ing entrance requirements, and

make

the

curriculum pliable, and serve as preceptor

to the near-idle

and
[62]

as adviser to the

near-stupid;

nay, having evolved this

THE CALL TO SERVICE

system
of

dependence
it,

in

intellectual

things, he has carried

service,

in the spirit of of

into

the

amusements

the

students,

until

he acts as director of
of their gate
their

their sports

and treasurer
of

receipts

and sponsor

business

contracts.
leisurely

All this takes time.

In more

days the scholar would come

from

upon great truths like the prophet from Sinai, with the skin of his face shining. Now from a conference with student managers or
his meditations

from investigating the

football

eligibility of

the

captain he returns
step,

with that
eye,

nervous

that

fretful
spirit,

that

palpable collapse of

which an-

nounce to

his

sympathetic colleagues,

"I have served."

Yet he would
fer

still

have

his reward,

did his labors ennoble the served, or con-

upon them a more abundant life. That the effect is otherwise might be
[63]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

prophesied from a certain complacency
in his sacrifice.
If

he looks down to those

he serves,
sion
is

if

the angle of his condescen-

to himself the warrant of his wellif

doing,

football or the college dramatics

his

be not really
sters that

career,

but only an

excuse for demonstrating to the young-

he can

still

revisit their point

of

view

then

he has robbed them

of

what it is his profession to give; robbed them not simply in their greater dependence, in their lessening enthusiasm

and
fairs,

ability

to

conduct their own

af-

but far more tragically in the de-

feat of their right to live in the presence,

and

profit

by

the

inspiration,

of

scholar

who

follows with his whole heart

the great quest of truth.

Whether

or

not

it is

the students' duty to study,

it is

their right to behold the scholar at his

work, and to imitate him;

for

it is

by

comradeship

and imitation that they

[64]

THE CALL TO SERVICE

share

the

teacher's

life.

But

if

the

teacher keeps his scholarship out of the

comradeship and the

share;
if

life

which they

he manages his days as though

scholarship were a solace of the leisure

to be earned

by

service, or a

hoarded

treasure not to be rashly displayed

will

^he

no more make others scholarly than

a priest

who

conceals his holiness will

make

others holy, or a scientist

will

not live his science

scientific.

who does make others

V
It

would be wrong to

let

you think

that by entering any great profession?

even

my

own, you
life

will

automatically

enter the

of genuine service.

With
I

teaching, with science, with

religion,

have no quarrel;
allegiance to
all

I long ago gave

three,
L65]

my

and

it

is

from

THE CALL TO SERVICE

noble priests and scholars and teachers
that I have drawn the ideals here set
forth.

But while human nature remains

it is,

what

there

is

a great temptation to

mistake immediate results for the true

ends, to impart the by-products rather

than the vital principle, to think of ourselves as conserving the torch, instead

of

handing

it

on.

The mass

of

manlet

kind are good-natured enough to

treat

us

them
of

for a certain length of time as

objects

charity,
is

as

destined to be

served, but there

an end to their good

in science
is

nature.

In religion this conclusion has

itself;

already shown

and

in

education the writing

on the
call

wall.

For that reason I hesitated to

to service, lest

you
way,

you should understand

in the familiar

the

summons only
gulf

and by your enthusiasm should make

the

wider

between

your

ideals

and your fellow-men.

[66]

But

to be truly

THE CALL TO SERVICE

serviceable
service
is

our

loftiest

ambition.

The

we dream

of

is

such education,
will increase
life.

such

religion,

such science, as

in all

men

the abundance of

The

method we dream of is such an

our

illustration

of religion or science or scholarship in

own

lives as will increase in others a

hunger for the same

spiritual sustenance.

To make

this illustration,

we must

first

cultivate religion or science or scholar-

ship in ourselves.

This

is

the statement of the

call

to

service which I

have been approaching

acquaintance a hard

slowly and with care, for to the generous-

hearted
saying.

it is

on

first

Seek truth or seek goodness for

if

yourselves,
If

you wish others

all

to

have

it.

you

rise to

your own stature, you

the
service

will

thereby

perform

you
will

could desire

^you will help others to rise.

Doubtless some of your neighbors

think you
selfish.

Doubtless the
[67]

man

THE CALL TO SERVICE

who
The
buried his talent in a napkin was
call to service elsewhere.

answering the
sacrifice

was

his

own

concern, but

the service so rendered must have been

for the served also a lessening of spiritual

wealth.

True

service

lessens

nothing.

Not

that the teacher should waste him-

self in

the enterprises of boyhood, but

fall in

that even boys should

love with

the enterprise of truth;

scientist

not that the

should become a commodityall

monger, but that

the

men
of

should enjoy
the
scientific

high

commodity

spirit;

not that the priest should be

secularized,

but that by a race-wide conshould become a nation of

secration
priests

man

this is the

end of true

service.

we must be patient and with becoming care make ourselves ready; it is required of us only that we be producFor
this

tive of

good at

last.

For a thousand

years of inspiration to
[68]

unnumbered men,

THE CALL TO SERVICE

how
the
brief

an investment are the forty

discipline!

years, or fifty, of the scholar's seclusion,

saint's

Meanwhile the
is

humble apprentice,

so he be faithful,

even at the moment serviceable;

for
far,

none of us can withdraw himself so

but he
will
all

be

still

a ganglion of inspira-

tion for
ship, is

whose

fate,

by accident

or kin-

bound with

his.

We

cannot too

greatly desire to bring our fellows, to the

we may underestimate their own desire for it. When we ourselves seek it, every man who feels our contact
truth, but
will

go with
is

us.

This

the true call to service

is

^not,

"The world

waiting for you

come and
to
serve.!*

help it"; but, "Are you

fit

Do you know how

life?

to live your

own

Either religion or science

of

may be

for

you the City

God.

If

the ram-

parts need rebuilding, take counsel of

those ancient

men who
[69]

after long cap-

THE CALL TO SERVICE

tivity raised again the walls of Jerusa-

lem.

Every man
house."

built in front of his

own

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

a recent guide-book to Shakspere IN occur certain questions intended to

promote

critical faculty in

the student.

"What amount of
examining
"is

time," asks the writer,

Night's Dream,
action, accord-

Midsummer covered by the entire

ing to the direction given at the beginning

of the play?

Show by

references the

time-scheme which seems to you to be

actually followed."

The student

is

here

expected to perceive a discrepancy. Then,

continues the
questioner,

"Why
"Note

did
re-

Shakspere allow this discrepancy to

main

in the play-f*"

Again,

cases

of stichomythia, or dialogue in
[73]

which each

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

speech consists of a single
effective in
artificial?"
line.
it

Is it

each case, or does

seem
dif-

And

finally,

"For what

ferent purposes, in this play, does Shak-

spere seem to use blank verse, five-accent

lines, four-accent rime, and prose?" As we read these questions and others like them, beyond a doubt helpful toward

rimed

a serious weighing of Shakspere's genius,

they suggest perhaps a larger question

which from time to time has troubled us

all,

and

for

which some of us have not

heard the

suflScient answer.

They
is

sug-

gest the question of Shakspere's mind.

They bid us ask once more,

result of intention, or
is
if

his art the

there another
is

explanation of

it;

and

there

another

explanation, does this sort of catechism

"why phases,
to use,"

make allowance

for it?

In these familiar
allow,"

did

Shakspere

"for what purpose does Shakspere seem

in this

echo of the formulas

[74]

THE MIND OP SHAKSPERE

most teachers unconsciously lean
is

to,

there

an implication which not a few lovers

of poetry

may care to
all

challenge.

Admit-

ting that

the manifestations of genius

are proper subjects for minute study,

we

may

yet be fearful of the missteps of

scholarship in the uncertain field of art;

we may doubt whether any phrase which

even slightly emphasizes the design and
intention of the great poet's craft, does

not follow as an unrecorded premise the

critic's

knowledge

of his

own

rather than

of Shakspere's mind.

For we cannot too often

this

recall that

man's fame, moving up through

itself to

heavens of misty or pedantic adoration,

has obligingly modified
of the beholding eye.

the scope
rest his

Whatever

curse procured for his bones,

we have

made chameleon work

as

of his reputation.

We have thought of him with Ben Jonson

an improviser, or with Milton as
[75]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

fancy's child, or with Arnold as a solitary

peak, lifting above us inscrutable, un-

scanned.

Nothing
in

in this tradition

would

prohibit one

more guess

at Shakspere's

mind.

Yet

the newest explanation

there will be a few things in

with those that went before.

beginning the world has
felt

common From the

the natural-

ness of this well-poised genuis; he never

dwelt apart, starlike.

will

No

explanation

satisfy

us

which does not make

of nature
if

Shakspere's

mind a thing

even
his

a normal thing, in kind

not in degree.

From

the beginning the world has ac-

knowledged the comprehensiveness of

of visible art divides the life his representation of
it,

imagination; at times so slight a barrier

he saw from
life

that

itself

appears the

medium

of his thought.

No
this

explanation of his mind will satisfy us

which does not make reasonable

godlike

grasp

upon
[76]

experience.

From

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

the beginning also there has been an

adverse opinion of Shakspere's craft;

if

we

are to believe the extreme criticism

of him,

he never revised

his work,

he was

sometimes careless of

his

grammar, he

was sometimes
of his
all

all

but indifferent to

dramatic structure.

Though the volume

less

fame has more or

overwhelmed

fault-finding,

no sincere attempt to
neglect to bring
defects to a final

mind will even the rumor of his

explain his

account.

The
will

desirable explanation,

therefore,

answer the question of

his natural-

ness, the question of his comprehensiveness, the question of his imperfections.

The well-known attempts

this elusive intellect have, ally busied themselves

to understand

however, usu-

with only one or

solu-

two of these
tion
is

aspects.

Such a partial

in Hartley Coleridge's beautiful

sonnet:
[77]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

"Like that Ark,

Which

in its sacred hold uplifted high.

hills,

O'er the drowned

the

human

family.

And
So

stock reserved of every living kind.

in the compass of the single mind The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie That make all worlds. Great Poet, 'twas thy art To know thyself, and in thyself to be

Whate'er

love, hate, ambition, destiny,

Or the

firm, fatal

purpose of the heart

Can make

of

man."
is,

Helpful as the simile only

the

it

illuminates
of

comprehensiveness
it

Shak-

spere'smind;
of his

ignores the shortcomings

workmanship and the limitations

it is

of his thought;

inconsistent with

perhaps any theory of his apparently

natural inspiration.

True,

all

men

ob-

serve, not the world outside, selves

but themis

since

what they

see

at best

only their conception of what they see;

with this interpretation Shakspere's art

may

be said to consist solely in his ob-

servation of himself.
[78]

Yet

this

would be

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

to spin too fine Coleridge's already subtle

thought.

His meaning

is

clear enough;

he would
of

stress Shakspere's

independence
this

knowledge gained by experience;

intellect

most precious

was freighted once and

as-

for all with the infinite fortunes

pirations of the race,

slightly

and

neither

to exaggerate
little

study nor thought nor

travel nor age could

of knowledge.

add one

weight
is

A mind
is

so described

not the normal mind, as

in the description

we know
smack
is

it,

and
imfirst

no place

for that
of

flavor

of

contact,

that

mediate experience, which

the

mark of Shaksperian thought. Most of the criticism of our century, even of our own day, would explain
Shakspere's

comprehensiveness

at

the

cost of his naturalness.

ophy

in

the early

German philosyears and German

scholarship later have tried to establish

a sort of standard of omniscience, against

[79]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

which the poet's faults
all
if

perceived at

are measured as lapses from his true

self.
it,

From Germany, though he

denied

the elder Coleridge learned to deal

with Shakspere as with a god, whose

mind was
whose

of a higher order

than ours,

yet might with labor be dimly learned;

clearest utterance hinted at divine

plans not in our fate to conceive, but

only to admire; whose occasional vacu-

meant no more than that the god perchance was sleeping or on a journey.
ities

"A

nature humanized," Coleridge pic-

tures Shakspere,

"a

genial understanding

directing self-consciously a
implicit

power and an

wisdom deeper even than our consciousness." Again, echoing the theme
of his son's verses,

he gives us

this con-

ception

Shakspere "The
of his his

of

meditating,

Coleridgean

body and substance

his observation

works came out of the depths of

oceanic mind;
L80]

own

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

and reading, which was considerable, supphed him with the draperies of his figures."

And

again,

"He was

not only a

great poet, but a great philosopher."

No more
ter

significant
is

but probably betpassage

in

known

that

which
of

Hazlitt

subtilizes

about the

mind

Shakspere, saying nothing new, perhaps,

but setting an example in

the manner of question
student's guide-book.

his phrase for

we noticed in the "The striking pemind," he says,

its

culiarity of Shakspere's

"was
that

its

generic quality,
all

power

of

communication with
it

other minds, so

contained a universe of thought

and

feeling within itself,

and had no one

just

peculiar bias or exclusive excellence

than another.

He was

more like any

all

other man, but that he was like

other

men.

He

not only had in himself the

feeling,

germs of every faculty and

[81]

but
in-

he could follow them by anticipation,

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

tuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications,

through every change of

for-

tune, or conflict of passion, or turn of

thought.
for
his

He turned the globe round

amusement, and surveyed the

generations of men, and the individuals

as they passed, with their different concerns,

passions,

follies,

vices,

virtues,

actions,

and motives

as well those that

shall

they knew, as those that they did not

know, or acknowledge to themselves."

we approach the man Shakspere with human faults of speech and conduct; or how shall we see the roots of his genius in any
Through
this

rhapsody how

faculty that

is

ours?

This school of criticism might be called

the philosophical adoration of Shakspere.

In the soberer end of the nineteenth century

we have had

the scholarly adoration,

less

a milder but no
befits

devoted flame, as
of syllables

much

telling
182]

and

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

matching of
texts.

somewhat

brief

To make the account those who have studied

that the chief furnish-

the matter

know

ings of Shakspere's lodgings

and

of his

theatres

must have been the shelves crowded with his sources. Where an
is

earlier version

not forthcoming, as in

Love's Labor's Lost,

if

we yet

live in

hope;

it

be not found, at least some thesis

prove that
it

will

has been mislaid.

also that

We

are supposed to

know

Shakspere

was a lawyer, a doctor, an experimental

psychologist, a sociologist, an aristocrat,

a democrat, a moralist, a cryptic preacher

of esoteric religion.

To be

specific,

we

observe, for example,

society rich

that in modern

and

idle families

when they

degenerate have a trick of announcing

their

end

in

one of two ways; the latest

descendant

sometimes

reverts

to

the
of

original vulgarity

and common sense

[83]

the peasant

who founded

the line and

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

by dint
of practice

and the family

efficient, if

for-

tune becomes an almost

un-

economic, hunter or sailor or farmer; or

the latest descendant inherits grace of

manner, the cumulative breeding of generations,

but the exhausted stock beis

queathes him nothing more, and he

at best a gentlemanly fool.

This two-

fold degeneracy the student of society

teaches us to observe,

and

lo ! Sir

Toby
Or,

Belch and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek.

to illustrate again, the old French poets

had a

definite

type of
or

lyric called the

chanson

d'aubade,

dawn song

the

complement
song.

of the serenade, or evening

this type,

A
is

famous example of
tells

the French scholar

dent,

the French stulark,"

"Hark! Hark! the

from
song,

Cymbeline.

One other type of dawn

the chanson d'aube, expressed the sorrow

of

two lovers who must leave each

other's

arms at daybreak.

Among
[84]

the marks of

THE MIND OP SHAKSPERE

this

type are the man's anxiety not to be

his enemies,

found by

and the woman's

reckless desire to detain

him

if

only for a

moment.
birds of

He
dawn

tells

her that already the she answers

are singing;

that he hears the birds of a darkening

twilight.
lyric

And
is

of this type of

French

there

one perfect

illustration,

Juliet's cry to

Romeo,
It
is

"Will you begone?

It

not yet near day!

lark."

was the nightingale and not the

is

So Shakspere
ar,

bec6me a research

schol-

poor man!

Or dare we dissent from all that this sort of criticism implies.'' Only two things actually

known

of Shakspere bear

on

this

problem;

for other aids to the under-

standing of his mind

in books,

but in

life.

we should look not We know that he

was a man

of action, a

with practical

man infinitely busy affairs, a man who pro[85]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

duced several plays a year, and who
could have no leisure.
that from the
of speech;
first

We know

also
gift

he had a fluent

he could say what he would,

with the least possible impediment of

language.
his

But

for the radical secret of

mind perhaps we should look

experience,
if

in our

own

we would

justify the

hope that he was such a

man

as

we

are.

II

What,

for instance,

is

the

eflfect

of his

plays on us?

For one thing, we under-

stand them, as

we could hardly do if they

intelli-

were the work of superhuman

gence.

What

audience was ever puzzled

It
is

by a Shakspere play?
ther, the plays

only the

theories of his critics that perplex.

Fur-

seem

to the audience to

be miracles not of intellect but of observation.

No

doubt the poet was thought[86]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

fill;

no doubt

his

mind brooded on

life;

but in his plays he gives the results of clear

vision,

not the results of clear thinking.

Might we not find a clue to the secret in the behavior and expression of children before they are instructed as to what they ought to think and say? Who of
us cannot recall at least one of their disconcertingly

apposite

remarks?

Their

naive pronouncements share with great

poetry the double effect of echo and surprise;

we who hear have

felt

our
it

way
con-

towards some such idea, yet when

fronts us

we

are startled.

For highly

conventionalized people, like Tennyson's

spinster, children in their talkative

moods

are almost demoniacal,

"a-haxin

ma hawkward

questions,

an saayin on-

decent things."

But

their

youthful penetration

is

not

solely a cause of embarrassment.

[87]

Some-

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

times
it

shocks us to repentance for the

unnatural state of mind into which

we

have grown.
asked
little

When Mr.

Brocklehurst

Jane Eyre what she must do

in order to avoid hell fire after death, she

replied,

"I must keep

die."

in

good health,

and not
answer.

Why

not, after all?

less

We

have been educated to a

natural

Sometimes
gift of

this penetration is

the very

prophecy.

When young

William Blake was to be apprenticed to

a certain painter, the boy objected, saying
that the

hanged.

man looked as if he were to be And the man later did come to

we

be hanged.
This faculty in childhood, which

can

all illustrate for

ourselves, appears

to be nothing

more than

accurate, natural

observation

an almost animal power of

dog or horse would
older, learning to

sight such as a fine

have

and

spontaneous, unretarded ex-

pression.

As we grow
[88]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

consider our thoughts

we become
see.

con-

ventional
see only

that

is,

we

train ourselves to

what we expect to

And
limit

learning to consider our speech,

we

our vocabulary; for the effect of taking

thought

is

to curtail, not extend, our sup-

ply of words.
of

Because we are unsure

word, or because we are
pronunciation,

many a

fine

unsteady in

its

we
it;

or-

dinary grown folk will not use

and

we
of

hesitate to write

it,

forsooth, because

the

spelling.

Yet

what

energetic

child, before

he has been to school, ever

Will he not

stops for a word?

make one
it

up
it

as he needs

it,

and pronounce

as

he can, and by the same guidance

spell

very much
of it

in the

way

of that reckless

word-user,

William Shakspere?

that unspoiled power to see

vestiges

As to true, some
or seeing
reaction,

we grown

folk perceive

when upon meeting a stranger a landscape we feel an instant

[89]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

an impulsive judgment which craves expression, but

which we
it.

stifle

because

we

did not expect

later

And

a few seconds

perhaps some unconsidering person

says the very thing, and wins a prompt

acclaim.
Is there not a hint of
this.?

Shakspere in
child,

To be

sure,

he was no

but

a mature man, educated to some extent

in the

knowledge

of his time,

if

not in the His

profundities of

modern

scholarship.

associates were probably better educated

than he, and his daily conference with

them must have subjected

his

thought to

a thousand influences of wisdom which

we shall never be able to trace specifically among his "sources." Yet with all this maturity, can we not imagine a grown
person with

whom

for the

most part

ex-

pression has remained an instantaneous

reflex of experience,

who

sees true habit-

ually, as

we

less child-like folk

[90]

do occa-

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

sionally,

and who speaks

so spontaneously

that he takes no account of his utter-

ance?
lieve

He

never blotted a

line, if
if

we

be-

Ben Jonson; and even

it
is

we do not
in

believe him,

harder to prove that

is

Shakspere's second thought

any

of

the texts, than

it

is

to conceive of his

mind

at

its

best as unspoiled

tention or reconsideration, like

of a child

by inthe mind

whose penetrating, unconscious

or praise.

criticism of life has not yet been ruined

by blame
life

With such a confacts of Shakspere's

ception, the

known

cease to

be puzzling.

wondered that poetic

Hawthorne genius could grow

where
Probably Haw-

up

in the small Stratford house,

there was no privacy.

thorne's meditative genius could not have

grown up
all

there,

but for Shakspere's mind

there could be no happier school.

At
for

times and places his mental process

was normal; he needed no privacy

[91]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

penurious inspiration, but in the very
heart
of

noisy,

roistering

Southwark

could reflect the

life

that crowded in upon

him; and doubtless the lack of seclusion

in his father's house fostered the gift.

Indeed, privacy and leisure would probably have meant starvation for his
art.

The fortunate conditions for the development of his energy and his naturalness,
were a crowded and stirring environment

and the necessity

is

of ceaseless labor.
in a

It

no miracle that

few years

filled

with distractions he produced in such

rapid succession so

many

plays;

had he

enjoyed an unstimulating quiet, perhaps

only by a miracle would he have pro-

duced any plays at

as the

all,

Shakspere's energy, which

we assume
In

prime fact in

his character, is too

generally conceded to call for proof.

the details of his career from the im-

prudent marriage and the deer-stealing

[92]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

to the purchase of

New

Place and the

return to Stratford, he was a

man

of

action fully occupied with affairs.

Pro-

fessor Wallace's recent contributions to

our knowledge of his

life

in

London,

set

him

still

more

clearly in this light.

But
Great

his writing

might teach us as much with-

out the help of the biographers.

energy, strong interest, whether a

man

be very happy or very angry,

speech.

results in

vividness of imagination and felicity of

Shakspere's writing further reit is

minds us that
even him to

too

much

to expect

live invariably in

a tense,
life
is

reacting frame of mind, wherein

observed and created with

ergy.

infallible en-

Many

a dull and self-conscious

forgiven for ob-

passage

^if

we may be

serving them!

is

witness to his relaxed

moments.

Yet

it

would not be

difficult

to argue that his best

his busiest years.

work was done in That he mingled with

[93]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

other

out

men much

in a

companionable way, withgenial, frank

hint that he or they thought

him more than a

is

comrade,

no paradox, but the inevitable consehis interest in life

quence of
ergy
ily
;

and

his en-

we wonder that his famremembered him in the death record

nor should

as a gentleman, not as the world's greatest

poet.
write.

His business was to

live,

not to

That we have
life.

his
is

plays now,

means only that poetry

during reaction to
the
usually

the most en-

He
truth

illustrates

forgotten

that

the

greatest poets, normal

and not too con-

scious of themselves, are

men

of action.

Like

Dante or Milton or
life

Scott,

he

responded to

in

other ways than

through poetry

only

he set so great
little

value on the other ways and so

on the poetry that we are forced to think

him the

least conscious

and most naive

of artists.
[94]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

If his

unconscious energy illuminates

his vast accomplishment, it throws light

as well

upon

his

narrowest limitation.
its

Since his genius at

typical

moments

reflected life in spontaneous, uncalculat-

ing speech, no wonder that his horizon

was narrowly bounded by human birth

and death.

His thought attempted no

life,

other world, no other

than

this.

His mind could not react happily on

what

could

not

be

physically
or

seen.

Dante's

imaginings

Milton's

were

therefore impossible to his temperament;

indeed,

the

casual

questions

of

any
it

serious-minded contemporary of his as

to

a future existence were to

him

seems strange and forbidding.

let

In

Ham-

and Measure for Measure^ those dark

life is

adventures in the borderland of death,

the practical wisdom of

profound,
is

but the brooding upon the hereafter

child-like,
[95]

with a child's respect for angels


THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE
and
of

and a more certain dread ghosts and of being alone in the dark.
devils,

The other fact of ment which needs no

language.

Shakspere's equip-

proof

is

his gift of

Distinction

course between his natural

must be made of endowment

It

and the

felicitous

word-play which he

shared with his contemporaries.

a languaged age.
to

was

What Shakspere owed

Euphuism is known to all students of his style. The fashion of fine cadences helped him to many a much-commentaried line, sounding

and shallow,

like

"And

peace proclaims olives of endless age,"

or taught

him such a

flawless

stretch

of song as satisfies us

though we forget

the allusion

"And

the imperial votaress passed on

In maiden meditation fancy-free,"

or shorter phrases,

now
[96]

proverbial, like

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

"Sweets to the Sweet,"

"More

sinned against than sinning."

In these

felicities,

however, Shakspere

surpassed but httle the other poets of

who improved their vocabulary and style, as we nowadays would do, by taking thought. Any one with
his

time,

an ordinary ear for word-music could

effect

some such happy combinations

If

of

sound.

he should occasionally miss

im-

the mark, so also did Shakspere;

mediately before and after these quoted

lines

occur others far less happy.

all

That
of

he excelled at

in

the practice

Euphuism, that he had a higher average

of in

happy

lines to his credit

is

than others
of
his

that fashion,

proof only

delight in language for its delight that

to
all
is

own sake

common

in

some degree

poets.
in the highly
[97]

Even

Euphuistic pas-

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

sages,

however,

with

alliteration

and

balance and the other artifices of style,

some magic word often

Shaksperian
vitality.

lives

with the
the "w's"

and the "I's"

Among and the "k"

sounds of
lines,

the following most familiar

the

verb which gives the picture has an

eerie detonation, a

wore

in

charm that any other employment

it

never

"On such a night Stood Dido with a willow in her hand Upon the wild sea bank, and waft her love To come again to Carthage."

The
vitality.

distinction
its

of
is

Shakspere's
its

lan-

guage at

best
to

extraordinary
list-

Words

most men are

less things, to

be combined into station-

ary forms of thought or color.

the Shaksperian word there
certain astonishment, a
is

But

in

always a

new approach,

whether or not the word has been familiar

before
[98]


THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE
"In the dead
"Nothing
vast

and middle

of the night."

of

him that doth fade

a sea-change."
stale

But doth

suffer

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom Her infinite variety."

Does not the

speech
vision
lie

secret of this imaginative

in

the

poet's

clearness

of

and

in his

immediateness and ac-

curacy of expression?

Such words canat

not be found by careful search in one's

vocabulary;
in

they are found,

if

all,

the

thing contemplated,

when the

energy of the poet's nature provides

to take a liberty with his

own phrase

that the firstlings of his sight shall be

the firstlings of his speech.

To

a degree

children have this spontaneous felicity, at least as long as they keep a naive

approach to language.
spoiled

Until they are

by
the

self-consciousness they

do not
as

think

words

they
[99]

see

them,

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

something new and wonderful.
Certain
child-like ages, notably the Elizabethan,

have rediscovered language, have toyed

with
it

and manipulated
it;

it,

even

dis-

torted

and Shakspere, the supreme

child of a child-like age,

terest

when

his in-

was diverted from word-play to

life,

the spectacle of

energized that

life

with unreflecting abandon into language

curiously
at
its

haphazard and uneven, but

best a matchless symbol or inlife itself.

carnation of

Ill

The theory
is

of Shakspere's

here put forth seems to

mind which find two obliterary

jections.

The

sonnets, which follow a

contemporary fashion in a set

form, can hardly be accounted for as the

unconscious product of the naive con-

templation of

life.

And

in

the plays

[100]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

there seems to be constant though un-

even evidence of design, and in the

later

plays especially the poet seems to speak

as a philosopher, passing conscious verdicts

upon

life.

It

was

this philosophical

matter that led Coleridge and his school

to see in Shakspere a profound nature.

This paper does not intend, of course,

to announce the great dramatist as a sort
of automaton,

who had no

sense of the

quality or purport of his work.

In the
is

sonnets and the early plays Shakspere

artificially self-conscious.

But he

is

the

most uneven
artificial

of great writers; even in his

is

moments he
of

capable of naive
truth

utterance,

that

penetrating

which

is

his characteristic;

on the other

hand, in his noblest passages of this sort

he sometimes indulges
of

in palpable tricks
idea.

style

or

artifice

of

Without

raising the
nets,

mooted questions
agree
[101]

of the son-

we can

with

those

many

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

critics

who have found

in

them some

of

Shakspere's happiest phrases;

else

whatever

they are, they are born of a nature

If
all,

in love with fine speech.

we study
however,

the style of the sonnets at

it is

only fair to reckon with the style

of

of

all

them

not

simply to dwell
the habit of

upon the most

felicitous, in

At least, it is only fair to reckon with them all if we are to use them as indications of the poet's mind. The series has had its fame
the Shaksperian fanatics.

from a bare dozen

sonnets,

of

really

splendid

much

helped by the dramatic

story

which seems to be their back-

ground, and which autobiography.

may

or

may

not be

It is

hard not to think

does not follow

that the noblest of these poems are direct

reflections of life;

yet

it
is.

that the whole story

trary, there are rather

On

the conof

more sonnets

an

artificiality so

great as to raise the

[102]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

doubt whether the poet knew anything of love at all. Did the imagination that
fashioned the
terrible

Dark Lady,
of
lust,

or uttered the

curse

or

the

superb

praise of friendship

and

of the "marriage

of true minds," equally indulge in choplogic?

The examples

are familiar.

To

choose one
"If I love thee,

And
Both

losing her,

my my

loss is

my

love's gain,

friend hath found that loss;

find each other,

for

and I

lose

both twain.
this cross.

And both
But
Sweet

my

sake lay on

me

here's the joy;

flattery!

my

friend

and

I are one;

Then she

loves but

me

alone."

Or the whole of the following sonnet, with its amazing artifice

"When most
For
all

I wink, then do mine eyes best see.

the day they view things imrespected;

I sleep, in

But when

dreams they look on thee.

And
Then

darkly bright are bright in dark directed.

thou, whose

shadow shadows doth make

bright.

How woxdd thy shadow's form form happy show

[103]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

To the clear day with thy much clearer light. When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!

How
By When

would, I say, mine eyes be blessed

in

made

looking on thee in the living day,

Through heavy
stay!

dead night thy fair imperfect shade sleep on sightless eyes doth
till

All days are nights to see

I see thee.

And

nights bright days

when dreams do show

thee me."

If this sort of writing indicates

anything

of the writer's mind,

it tells

us that he

was practising the devices

great ingenuity.

of style with

The human
poem,

experience
is

contained

in

the

however,

hardly what his admirers would like to

call

Shaksperian.

Nor does

it

aid

greatly to say that here Shakspere

them was

learning

his

craft.

What
Perhaps,

craft?

The
he

use of language?

though

used language
fashion.

less

and
is

less often in this

But how
is

this sort of hair-

splitting a training for his

life?

knowledge

of

What

the connection between

[104]


THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE
these
lines

and Hamlet's words with

Horatio

"Has

no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making? "Horatio. Custom hath made it in him a
this fellow

property of easiness. "Hamlet. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense."

Or

if

the sonnets and early plays of

art,

Shakspere were a training for his

how comes

it

that even in the mature

plays he slips into unfinished and undistinguished passages?

It is usual to

say that in the later work his thought

overbalanced his speech, at times to the

confusion of both; but
it

would be

easier
his

to suppose that throughout his

life

moments
ness,

of energetic vision alternated

with very ordinary states of conscious-

and that he had

little

sense of the

value of one condition over the other.

The sonnets

clearly echo older plots

[106]

and

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

older

sonnet

series.

It

is

impossible

to

prove them autobiographical as a

whole.

Yet

it is

just as difficult to

deny

the similitude of personal experience in

the great sonnets.

Shakspere followed

the sonnet fashion, as he followed other

fashions,

doing only what others had

it

done, but doing

better,

with more

energy;

and

in the process

he

lights

up

unexpected and amazing areas of truth.

To

say that in his later plays the

is

thought overbalances the language,

raise the

to

main question as to whether Shakspere was a thinker at all. According to the theory of his mind here advanced, he was not.
characteristic

Except for
in

his

moments

which
is

he

flashes life into words,

he

curiously

Though he followed the daring Marlowe and was the

conventional and timid.

contemporary of Bacon, he never ventured out of the most conservative, even

[106]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

non-committal, attitudes toward religion

and learning and the established

sions.

profes-

The endings
initial

of

many

of his plays

and the and

circumstances of others,

completely ignore the logic of the plot

of the

characters;

he

is

content

that the scene should open and close

upon
story

artificial situations,
is

but while the

with
the greatest of
also the play-

in

motion he
If
is

vitalizes it
is

his naive energy.

he

world-dramatists,

he not

wright

who has taught

least to posterity?

He

did with supreme excellence what

had been done before him, but added

practically nothing to the craft of the

theatre;

the modern dramatist goes to

for technical instruction.

other
|_If

men

Shakspere was a thinker, he must

his

have accepted the conclusions of

wisdom;
if

own

he did not know when he

uttered wisdom, he was hardly a thinker^

It is easier to take the latter conclusion,
[107]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

though the admiring school have implied
that Shakspere

knew

his

own

profundity,

but carried the secret to his grave.

difficulty
it

The
that

with that explanation

practically

is

makes Shakspere
to to

omnisother

cient.

The Baconian heresy and

explain
explain

attempts
attempts

him, have
the

been
that
in the

author

Coleridge and the

plays.

Germans found
is

Foolish as

the doctrine that

Bacon could write and produce these dramas and have the secret kept for two centuries, it is really wiser than the belief that Shakspere could have been
consciously omniscient, and yet keep the
secret to himself

nay, even write a great

hide the fact.

many shallow things to To be sure, almost

earthly
life
is

every phase of

glanced at in the plays.

Yet

this does

not prove that Shakspere

thought about any of them; he merely

observed them.

For example, the

[108]

fa-


THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE
vorite

memory

of our first acquaintance

is

with political economy

that question

about what sort

establish
if

of

society

we would

The Tempest,

and

his

upon a desert island. In when the King of Naples courtiers find themselves on what
cast
is

they think

a deserted island, they

argue this very question.

Says Gonzalo,
isle,

"Had
I'

I plantation of this

very

my

lord

the commonwealth I would by contraries

all

for no kind of traffic no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty.

Execute

things;

Would

I admit;

And

use of service, none; contract, succession.

tilth,

Bourn, bound of land,

vineyard, none;
oil;

No No

use of metal, corn, or wine or

occupation;
all

men

idle, all;

All things in

common

nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavor; treason, felony. Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine.

Would
Of
its

I not have;

but nature should bring

abundance.

forth.

own

kind,

all foison, all

To

feed

my

innocent people."
[109]


THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE
Now are we to believe that Shakspere here
anticipates
tions of
this

and pokes fun at the speculapolitical economy, or that having

group of

men upon

a desert island

he perceives the
ulation,

possibilities of the spec-

and puts into Gonzalo's mouth a

translation of words used with another

reference

by Montaigne?
those
curious
coincidences

So

with

which are strewn through the dramas.

The poet has a

trick

say some

critics

of putting into the first

words

of the

leading persons a clue to their characters.

When Romeo
ment

says, "Is the

day then so
enough to
of

young," we are to see in him the embodiof youth. It is easy

jSnd marvels of this sort in Shakspere

perhaps in every poet.

this

The themes
Juliet

same play

of

Romeo and
conflict of

may

be said to be the

Age

Youth with Age having forgotten what young

like;

love

is

and

also

the conflict of

[110]


THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE
Love with Hate
in the feud,

Hate

being expressed
is

which
is

in turn

incarnate in

Tybalt.

It

easy enough for us to

think of the story in these terms, but

did Shakspere so think of
it?
it

while writing

and did he summarize the themes

Capulet speaks
doubtless

intentionally in a passage at the end of

Act I?

first,

representing

Age

"Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet, For you and I are past our dancing days: How long is't now since last yourself and I Were in a mask?
Second Capulet. By'r lady, thirty years. Cap. What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so

much:
'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,

Come
Sec.

pentecost as quickly as
:

it will.

Some five and twenty years and then we masked.

Cap. 'Tis more,
sir;
is
'tis

more: his son

is

elder,

His son
Cap.

thirty.

Will you

tell

me

that?

His son was but a ward two years ago."

[Ill]


THE MIND OF SHAKSPEEE
Immediately

Romeo

speaks, representing

Youth and Love

"What
lady
is

that,

which doth enrich the hand

not,
sir.

Of yonder knight?
Serving-man. I
bright!

know

Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn

hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows.
It seems she

As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The measure done, I'll watch her place of
And, touching
hers,

stand.

make
till

blessed

my

rude hand.
it,

Did
For

my

heart love

now.''

forswear

sight!

I ne'er

saw true beauty

till

this night."

Now
last

enters Tybalt,

who

personifies the

theme, Hate

"This, by his voice, should be a Montague.

Fetch
It

me my

rapier,

boy."

makes

all

the difference whether

we

believe that Shakspere consciously in-

serted these designs or patterns in his

work, or that they are there because they

[112]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

are in
life,

and the poet,

reflecting

life,

mirrored more than he knew.

The

chan-

son d'aube and the aubade are in old

French

literature,

but Shakspere never

found them there; he found them, where

the old French poets found them, in a

dramatic situation of real

life.

Hamlet

was the victim

of

of heredity;

the conflict

the vacillating mother and of the

downright father was in him; yet Shak-

what we have perceived there also and have learned to call heredity. When Macbeth says
spere only perceived in
life

that he has

murdered
which

sleep,

and we

trace through the play the remorseful

sleeplessness
finally

drives
call

Lady
Shak-

Macbeth

to suicide,

we may
if

we choose, but he only observed what we have classified. He saw that we are such stuff as dreams are made of, but he
spere a criminal psychologist

probably would not have agreed with

[113]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

Bishop Berkeley.

These designs

in

Shak-

spere are true and recognizable, but they

are coincidences, like the Dipper in the

heavens;

we cannot think that a supreme

and
stars

intelligence marshalled planets

to illustrate a kitchen utensil.

IV
This view of Shakspere
belittle

may seem

to

him, as reducing his work to the

improvisations of a child.
of

The kingdom
for

heaven was once thought to be

aristocracy of intellect,

think as

much
is

of the

and some of us kingdom of poetry;

but there

good authority for believing

that they are both open to the imaginative, to

those

who can be unconscious

Great
in,

of self as little children.

intellect

alone cannot force

its

way

and

it is

the part of intelligence to recognize that

fact.

There

is,

of

course,

no reason

[114]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

why
great
intellect

and great poetic and the

faculty

the

ability to reason

ability to see

and

feel

and speak and

should
did

not meet in the same person.

so

They

meet
it

in Sophocles

in Euripides.

But

seems that they did not so meet

in Shakspere, wilful

and perhaps
call

it

is

only a

praise of the poet

of

our

own

tongue that would

him, on the whole,

the equal of the Greek dramatists.

If

we make an

intelligent distinction,

however, between logical or analytical

power and the poetic

gift,

then this
is

theory of Shakspere's naive mind

not

without hope for a richer conception of

the nature of poetry.
ics

Shakspere's critin their

have measured themselves

Milton,

measure of him.
that his
fire

who prayed

own
oflf

lips

might be touched with

from

the sacred altar, beheld in

the dramatist a secular, somewhat sec-

ondary, prophet of the same ineffable

[lis]

THE MIND OF SHAKSPERE

inspiration.

Coleridge, philosopher

and
in

dreamer, never a

man
life

of action,

saw

Shakspere a Prospero, a magician, controlling the

ends of

by study and

fore-

thought.

Arnold, the self-reliant, some-

what estranged servant of culture, expecting or desiring from men neither

comprehension nor contact, imaged the
poet in the unattainable, unguessed-at
height.

LAnd

if

with another attitude we

perceive in the

mind
all

of Shakspere only

the most fortunate occurrence of qualities

common

to

men

only

the eye

to see, the heart to

feel,

the tongue to

speak, and the absence of that over-

caution which ceases to live

stops to think

when

it

may
life,

it

not be that our

age, with all its sophistication, consciously aspires to the immediateness

and the

simplicity

of

and to that poetry

which

is

not the accomplishment but

[116]

the essence of lifePj

MAGIC AND WONDER LITERATURE

IN

MAGIC AND WONDER IN LITERATURE

WIDELY
account of
cated
life

as

we

all differ in

know-

ledge and in opinions, one general

we

are supposed as edu-

men

to accept.

We

are supposed

to agree that

we

live
eflPect,

in a universe of

order; that every

though to us unfaith-

explained, has proceeded from a cause,

and that the same causes operate

fully at
all

times.

If

it

is

the outare sup-

ward world that engages

us,

we

posed to perceive that the stars which

seem to wander, nevertheless are true

their

to

courses;
it listeth,

that
for

no wind bloweth

where

we do know whence

[119]

MAGIC AND WONDER

it

comes and whither

it

goes;

that the

flood

and the earthquake, once monsters

of caprice, are

now phenomena
its

of obediIf

ence; that even chance has

law.

we

look inward upon our reason, our emotions,

our instincts, we are supposed to see

that the mind, like other instruments, can

be controlled, and that

outer world
is

its

relation to the
all

so

much

the same in

men

that

we can speak

of colors or of

sounds, can frame a syllogism, express a

desire, distinguish

between the abstract

with morals,

and the concrete, and be understood.

Finally,
if

our concern

is

we

are supposed to conclude that since

ideas

and emotions are an established curreliable.

rency among men, personality must be

something constant and

ing

Know-

a man's mind and his character,

predict that in a given situa-

we can
and
so;

tion he will think thus

and behave so

and conversely, from the opinions

[120]

IN

LITERATURE
a

uttered or the conduct adopted in

given situation,
of a stranger.

we can infer the character

It seems that
is

law of one
superb

kind or another

the condition on which

illustrate as

we

live,

and that we

a logic as do the planets above us.

Whether or not there are dissenters from this account of the universe, at
least
is

we may

fairly

say that thiaraccount

the basis of most thinking to-day.

It is accepted, of course, with humility.

Even within the limits of our powers, we have as yet gained far less control of experience

than our intellectual

self-respect

demands.
as

We

still

blunder

through

life

though we did not know

that the great

cording to

game must be played acthe rules. But at least we

rules,

admit that there are

and that

when man has learned them, he will find the game much easier and happier to Having made this admission, howplay.
[121]

MAGIC AND WONDER

ever, it
is

to be feared that

we

forget

our humility and become

self-satisfied.

This orderly definition of the universe,

reflect, is

we

something of an achievement,
it is

and we assume that

own.
others,

peculiarly our

The

Greeks, to be sure, and a few

idea,

seem to have had the

but

this only shows, as

we

say,

how modern

the

Greeks

were.

Primitive

man

in

general,

we

are quite certain, preferred

mystery to order, refused to recognize

the most obvious causes, and rarely did

by indirection he could get it done more awkwardly. Here again we are somewhat checked when the archaeologist comes upon some
a
thing
directly
if

primitive implement strangely eflfective

that
ments,

is,

strangely

like

our

imple-

or

discovers on forgotten cave-

walls drawings

which indicate a remarkas

able eye for things

they

still

are.

Yet the mass impression remains, that

[122]

IN
this life

LITERATURE
of

was once a matter

chance or

luck,

and experience was unforeseeable;

first

that the race-mind cleared very slowly;

and that we are the

universe
law.
of

to imagine a

complete

and unalterable

Our complacent attitude toward primitive man has of late been fostered by
certain
gifted
classical

scholars,

chief

among them

Professor Gilbert

Murray

and Miss Jane Harrison, who with the

help of anthropology have recreated that

dim
these

world

which

lay

behind
logic

Greek
inis

letters.

The
our

beautiful

by which
results

scholars

reach

their

creases

conceit

that

reason

modern instrument, while the world they picture, a hopeless tangle of religion and superstition, of necromancy and the arts, reassures us as to what we have risen from. Against that sombre background Homer, once thought primitive, seems
[123]

MAGIC AND WONDER

recent and enlightened. Professor
J.

A.

K. Thompson,
sey,

in his Studies in the Odys-

published in 1914, provides us with

numerous examples. The Homeric epics are full of what are called "expurgations"
of earlier legend.

Those

stories of bodily

transformation which Ovid gathered up

as fairy tales in his Metamorphoses, the

primitive Greek took quite literally; but

since

the Homeric

way

of
this

seeing

life

would not countenance

lieve,

make-be"ex-

the

transformations

were

purgated" by being turned into

similes.

When we
and
like

read in the Odyssey, "So spake

she and departed, the grey-eyed Athena

an eagle

of the sea she flew in

away," we surmise that

an older story

the goddess turned herself into the seaeagle.

The Homeric

conscience

is

re-

luctant to transmit this account of the

outer world; the most that can be con-

ceded

is

a resemblance between Athena

[124]

IN
and the
be
startling
tion.

LITERATURE
Sometimes,
concession
it is

sea-eagle.

must

confessed,

the

more
to

than the original transforma-

When Hera and Athena came

the plains of Troy to aid the Greeks,

we

are told that "the goddesses went their

way"

into battle

"with step

like
is

unto
that

turtle-doves."

The

explanation

as attendants on Zeus, the goddesses

originally
his

had

been imagined in the form of

doves.

sacred

The most

helpful

example, however, of the Homeric expurgation

is

the story of Dolon, in the

tenth book of the Iliad.

set out to

When Dolon
bow, and

spy on the Greeks, he "cast

on

his shoulders his crooked

put on thereover the skin of a grey wolf,

and on

his

head a helm
javelin,

of ferret-skin, his

and took a sharp

and went on

way

to the ships."
is

In the Iliad that

grey wolf-skin
in the

only a garment.

But

Rhesus of Euripides, which appears

[126]

MAGIC AND WONDER

to follow the earlier legends,

Dolon ex-

plains his device to the chorus:

"Over

my

back a wolf-skin

will I

draw.

And

the brute's gaping jaws shall frame

my

head:
Its forefeet will I fasten to Its legs to
I'll

my

hands.

mine; the woK's four-footed gait mimic, baffling so our enemies.

While near the trench and pale of ships I am; But whenso to a lone spot come my feet. Two-footed will I walk."

Here the wolf-skin

though not in

is

a disguise, which,
magical, carries us

itself

nearer to that primitive age

when stealthy

men,

for their

own

purposes, changed

into were-wolves,

and when every wild

beast, therefore, implied a fearful possibility

that

it

was a man transformed.

From such
the
early clusion

illuminating glimpses into

world

we make

the

conin

that

primitive

man

dwelt

mystery, that he was fond of makebelieve, that

he had a highly developed

[126]

IN

LITERATURE

sense of magic

in other words, that he

life,

looked for delightful shortcuts and escapes from the facts of

whereas we

look for the law which explains and con-

But the truth probably man had no sense of is magic whatever; when he busied himself with his incantations and his hocus-pocus, he probably had a quite modern sense of cause and effect. To us he seems a magician, because his method of getting at the cause or at the effect was not ours; but he had no measure by which to
trols the facts.

that primitive

judge himself.

He

consulted the medi-

cine-man as we consult the doctor, and

his faith
is

was no more shaken than ours

failure to cure.

by a

It

is

the con-

ception of magic, not the conception of

cause and

effect,

which has grown with

time and enlightenment.

now, can we
itive science

realize

Now, and only how much of primbut in the

was

really magic;
[127]

MAGIC AND WONDER

essential desire to
is,

have a science

^that

to control

and ameliorate our destiny

by calculated means, it is not clear that we differ from our ultimate ancestors.
In one respect, however, we ought to
diflfer

from them.
ineffective

If

time has provided

us with a criticism of magic, of illegitimate

and

attempts at power,

it

should have taught us also to admire

what

is

lawful, effective,
literature,

and

true.

If in-

primitive

recording

an

comprehensible world, yearned after magic,

our records, of a world understood,

full

should be

of

wonder

^that
and

is,

full

of idealizing joy in the truth

in the

beauty before our eyes.

Time should
earlier

have distinguished us so from

man, because the

late.

ability to

wonder comes
senti-

To be

sure, the

Rousseau

mentalists imagined the savage as con-

templating the heavens and the earth

beneath with astonishment and awe, and

[128]

IN

LITERATURE

they drew substance for their fancy from

the supposed exaltation of spirit with

which young children make their acquaintance with this planet.

But noth-

ing in our observation of children or in

the anthropologist's observation of primitive

men, would allow much truth

old
doctrine;

in

this

the

very contrary
only the

seems to be the fact

that

sophisticated can appreciate the miracles

that are actually before our eyes.

Chil-

dren take their world for granted; when

we disclose some amazement at life, some awe of facts, it is a sign that we are no longer children. Moreover, we wonder
only at what
experience;
lies

on the border
is

of our

what
is

totally

beyond us
settle-

we

still

take for granted.

The unclothed

savage of Borneo

brought to the

ments and treated to a ride in a motorcar.

Knowing nothing
is

of such things,

he

neither surprised nor interested,

[129]

MAGIC AND WONDER

but
lets

the car, like gravitation, do

its

work.

But he gapes

for hours at a steel

hammer
Our
tion.

or a serviceable saw.

pity, then, for primitive

man's de-

fective science, hardly covers the situa-

Surely

we can
still

forgive the

first

comers for taking hold by the wrong

handles;

we
if

revise

our methods-

But what

we,

who

think of the universe

it

as a realm of law, feel toward

no great

wonder, not even a hearty approval, but

still

yearn after a magic, after an escape

of of

some kind from the inexorable logic life; what if we, who know the mafidelity

jestic

wherewith nature keeps

still

her elements true to themselves,

desire, in

the most spiritual things, an

I wish to raise the

outworn alchemy!

question whether the literature even of

modern

times, far

from expressing won-

der, does not express a certain unwilling-

ness to face the world

[[130

we know; whether
]

IN
it

LITERATURE
make
re-

does not display a tendency to

use

more subtle use

whether
it

of those prim-

itive transformations

which Homer

jected;

does not show a per-

verse delight in substituting the miraculous for the normal

^preferring,

that

is,

to give such an account of the outer

and
to

inner world as

we know

to be false, in-

stead of the account which

we know

be

true,

I ask your attention, then, to the in-

consistency between our faith that the

universe

is

orderly and wonderful, and

our pleasure in that literature which

represents
life

as miraculous
is,

and magical

between,
our

that

our conviction that

miracles are the measure of wonder, and

disposition
of

to

treat

them

as

the
is

products
great.
If
is

magic.

The

difference

we

love the poetry of

life,

there

a sense in which
[131]

along without miracles;

we cannot get without them as

MAGIC AND WONDER

a language to talk with,
press that profound
facts

we cannot

ex-

wonder at common

which

is

the sign of enlightened

this reason

manhood.

For

we

are un-

willing to give

up

fairy stories or the

legend of Santa Claus, until some other

language
pirations.

is

provided for dreams and as-

We

boldly

make

use of mirlife.

acles to express or interpret

But
that

to account for

life

by miracles
Plutarch

is

stupid

and unnecessary.
having
a
single

says

on the farm of Pericles a ram was found

horn.

Lampon

the

soothsayer declared that Pericles, by this

omen, would become

sole ruler in Athens.

But an annoying person named Anaxagoras split the ram's skull in two, and showed that by a peculiar formation the horn had to grow single. So Anaxagoras confuted the soothsayer. But later Pericles did become ruler, and the soothsayer recovered his authority. Plutarch's
[132]


IN
comment
for
is

LITERATURE
that they were both right,

one explained how the horn grew,

it

and the other explained what

just as,

meant

when the

dinner-bell rings,

we

know how the sound is produced, and we know what it means. It would be
stupid,

however

philosophers

though I believe some have been guiltyto conit.

fuse the interpretation with the cause,

to say
bell
it is
is

the significance of the dinnerringing

that

The quarrel with

when used
as

the m^iraculous^ in^texature. therefore,

is_onhg^jnth_the miraculous

magic:

as

a wilful _substitute for th at

continuity of cause and effect which out side of literature

we

believe in.

II

Of
tain

this

kind of magic

it is

easy to find
Certhe

illustrations in

medieval literature.

well-known

French
[133]

lays

of

MAGIC AND WONDER

twelfth or thirteenth century picture just

such an irresponsible, accidental world

as

we

usually ascribe to primitive man.

fair

In one story a

lady

is

shut up in a

tower, that she

may

not see her lover.

fate,

As she

is

bemoaning her

a mag-

nificent eagle flies

through the narrow

window, and lighting on the chamber

floor,

turns into a

handsome young man,

In another story

her persevering suitor. a fair lady

is

imprisoned, and her true

knight, instead of coming himself in a

magic

disguise, sends to her a wonderful

flies

swan, which

back and forth between

the two, carrying always a letter beneath

his

plumage.

In another story a

man

confides to his wife that during his fre-

quent absences from home he turns himself into

a were-wolf, and she straight-

way

contrives that the next time he shall

not resume his

human
[134]

form.

Here are
at in

such transformations as

we glanced

IN

LITERATURE
is

pre-Homeric legend, but no attempt at

the Homeric expurgation
here, unless

the swan in the second story be such.

Far from desiring any expurgation, the

medieval audience

may have

been glad

enough that

literature should not give

life.

an accurate account of their

may have
primitive

liked
is

mystery for
little

They its own

sake, as there

reason to think

man

ever did.

Their faculty
exercised in
if,

of wonder,

we know, they
they

contemplating the world to come;

as

we

suspect,
life

rejoiced

in

this

present

also

with an almost renais-

sance paganism, at least they rejoiced

surreptitiously. It
is

incredible that they

did not recognize as magic such episodes

as

we have
it

just

summarized; and

if

this

material was as frankly magical to

as

now seems

to us,

it is

a fact of

them some
left

importance that the middle ages

us few pictures of the world as
[135]
it

was

MAGIC AND WONDER actually seen. We are sometimes

that
in

told

those

unlucky

centuries

the

Church imposed miracles and legends on

secular ignorance.

Whether or not those

wonder that more

centuries were unlucky, a reading of these

secular stories suggests

miracles and legends were not imposed

on the Church.

But however the

have understood
little

twelfth century

may

its

literature, there is

doubt that the fourteenth century

a certain class of stories which
as false to
tales

liked

must have been recognized

experience.
I
refer

to

those

of

reckless or scandalous love

merry

tales,
call

as the Elizabethan translators

would

them

such

as Boccaccio included in a

part of his famous collection.

Their real
is

immorality
it

is

not often observed, nor

obvious in any single story; but when

reflects

one

on

all

such stories as a
[136]

class,

whether in the Decameron or in other

IN
collections,

LITERATURE
the amazing thing
is

that

though they picture

lainy,

villainy, cruelty,

and
esis

treachery, they picture no effects of vilcruelty,

or treachery;

their

capades continue to be merry; there

no hint
of

of possible tragedy for

man
sure,

nor
the

pity for

woman.

To be

medieval story-teller does chronicle sor-

womanhood sympathetically, but never when dealing with such themes as we are thinking of. Parow, and he does treat
tient

Griselda

is

medieval heroine;
is

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

not.

The

middle ages, moreover, defined tragedy

as a fall

from good fortune to bad, and

as a rise from

comedy

bad fortune to

good; doubtless

God punished the wicked

righteous, but in His
in the inherent It
is

and rewarded the

own miraculous way, not

consequences of a moral choice.

only by the caprice of her husband that

Griselda
is

rewarded;
[137]

to

dramatic

MAGIC AND WONDER

imagination she seems not so

much

re-

warded as tortured.
In the Renaissance there was a conception of virtue which carried with
it

a behef,

if

not in a miraculous world in

general, at least in a special

magic or

talisman

for

the

individual.

To

the

Greek mind a virtue was a

dition

state, a con-

between two extremes, and Respeak of

naissance philosophers, piously accepting

Aristotle's terms, continued to

virtue as a mean.

But the imaginative

which
life,

literature of the Renaissance, in

we

get the less academic account of

has a tendency to speak of virtue, not as

a quality or condition, but as a thing, to

be acquired and possessed.

sance

The Renais-

man

is

not courageous

^he
is

has

courage;
beautiful

the Renaissance

woman

not
this

she has beauty.

or
[138]

Whether

idea of virtue brought about the belief in

a magic or talisman,

whether the

IN
belief

LITEEATURE

in

a magic, helped by Platonic

ideas,

brought about this conception of

is

virtue, it

at least clear that beauty,

courage, friendship, or any other virtue,

is

often treated in Renaissance literature

as a magical instrument, like the en-

chanted spears and shields of medieval

romance.

In

the

Provenfal

tradition

beauty was such a magic.

of Aucassin

The

story

and Nicolete, which though

is

medieval in date
tells

renaissance in

spirit,

how

Nicolete passed by the door

sick,

where a pilgrim lay

of her

and the
man.
is

sight

Faerie

made him a Queene, when

well

In the
jousting
off

Artegal

with Britomart, he happens to strike

the front of her helmet.

Her divine
fall

beauty causes his sword to

powerless,

and he
Lost,

is

taken captive.

In Paradise

when the

serpent approaches to
loveliness

tempt Eve, her

devil, for

renders the

one moment, stupidly good.

[139]

MAGIC AND WONDER

Nicolete and

Britomart had a per-

manent magic; Eve's beauty was effective only for a moment. Milton was
skeptical of magic, not only because he

came

late in the Renaissance,

but beIn him

cause he had an unusual intellect, and a

mathematician's sense for order.

the tradition of virtue as a talisman or

miraculous instrument temporarily died

out.

For example, chivalry had fostered

of judicial

a belief in the magic of being right, the

magic on which the institution

combat was founded. He who had the right in any encounter must of necessity prevail. This institution was accepted
throughout Spenser's Faerie Queene; unless

they had

first

committed a

sin or

fallen into

an

error, the

good champions
in passing,

could not be overcome by the powers

of evil.

We

remember,

how

Scott

accommodated

this large faith to

modern skepticism,

killing off the

Tem-

[140]

IN
plar

LITERATURE
of apoplexy just in time
It

by a stroke

to save Ivanhoe.

might have been

thought that Shakspere, who was closer

than most
ence,

men

to the realities of experioff

would have taken the edge

but
in

the

miracle, as Scott did;

As You
is

Like It Orlando, having a just cause,

able to throw the professional wrestler.

It

remained for Milton to reject magic.

see

To

how

far

he advanced beyond

Spenser, for example,

we have but

to

imagine

how Spenser would have written Comus. The heroine of the poem, anwould have been
though

other Britomart, possessing the heavenly virtue of chastity,

armed against the

spells of the sorcerer.

All that Milton claims in the end,

he starts out bravely,

soul

is

that the lady's

was unharmed, though Comus did

This concession
is

enchant her body.

larger than at first

might appear, for

it

contradicts the fine boast of the elder

[141]

MAGIC AND WONDER

brother,

who

in

the

poem speaks

for

Milton
"Against the threats

Of malice or

of sorcery, or that

power

Which
Virtue

erring

men

call

chance, this I hold firm:

may be

assailed,

Surprised

by unjust
is

force,

but never hurt. but not enthralled.

Yet virtue

enthralled,

and

it

is

the

grace of heaven, not the lady's innocence,

that releases her.

In Paradise Lost Milthe magic of

ton

still

clings, poet-like, to

beauty, but the magic of being right he

gives
over,

preferring

to

read

man's

fortunes dramatically, as the inevitable

result of his choice

among

fixed laws.

He

holds to the dramatic attitude in

Agonistes, although he does repstill

Sampson

resent the giant's strength as

resid-

ing in his hair.

This survival of primiis

tive magic, however,

only figurative, a
lost

symbol

of

moral power
[142]

and regained.

Having given

his allegiance to

what he

IN
ing

LITERATURE
cause
collapse,

believed was a righteous cause, and hav-

seen

that

Milton

could but agree with Sir

that a

Thomas Browne,

man may

be in as just possession

of truth as of a city,

and yet be forced

to surrender.

Ill

But the

career of magic
it,

was not over.

Milton rejected

as Scott did later,

Homer had done, and many another inas

dividual here and there;

for their rejection of

but

it

is

not

magic that Homer

far

or

Milton or Scott has been widely

praised.

We

have advanced

enough
a thou-

to ask that our talismans be of a less

obvious kind than satisfied

men

sand years ago, but a talisman of some

kind we
novelists,
still

delight in.

Witness three

undeniably great,
life

who

are sup-

posed to account for

[143]

genuinely and

MAGIC AND WONDER

honestly, yet

who show

a certain

'eluc-

tance to accept the universe of order, and

hark back rather to the old magical

transformation.

One

of

these

novelists

is

Fielding.

Criticism has stressed his manliness, his

insistence

on frankness,

his

ability

to
his

deal with a fact.

stories,

Yet
as

in

none of

except Jonathan Wild, does he

heroes

treat

his

though character

were really conditioned by causes and

consequences.

the bad traits

We watch the good and in Tom Jones, for the first

life,

twenty-five years of his

and then
his faults
left

we

are asked to believe that, once hap-

pily married, he reformed,

and

not only disappeared, but obligingly

no

traces.

In Amelia we must believe

the same miracle of Booth, with the

added

difficulty that

he

is

older

when he

reforms.

In the minor details of both

Joseph Andrews, there
[1144]

stories, as also in

IN
is

LITERATURE

a lucky juxtaposition of events to help

out the character, which suggests the

fairy

godmother rather than the observer

of this world.

No

ill

efifects

result
is

from
but

bad

choices,

and good fortune

not the

result of

wisdom

in the characters,

of benevolence in the author.

Fielding

has had his reputation from his hearty

interest in life

and

his

advance in

verisi-

militude over his predecessors.

Looking
that
his

back now, however, we

interest in life

see

was neither wide nor deep,

for the conception

and that he had no use

justice;

of the world as a sequence of inexorable

he preferred to think of

it

as a

career where manliness was a sufficient

talisman

where

the effects of conduct

err-

suspended themselves for a possibly

ing heart, so long as
it

was

stout.

To make a
requires

similar criticism of Dickens

resolution, for

some

he

enlists

our

loyalty

as

Fielding
[145]

never

does.

MAGIC AND WONDER

Our
affection convinces us rightly that
critic

whatever the literary

may

pro-

nounce upon David Copperfield or Old

Curiosity

Shop or Our Mutual Friend, the

emotions which those books stirred in us

were noble.

The

fact

is

that Dickens

uses the miraculous in both

as an interpretation
of
life.

ways

at once,

and

as an account

With him the same incident serves to state an ideal and to chronicle a fact. If only his facts had been corhe would have illustrated the performula of
art.

rect,

fect

love with his ideals;

As it is, we fall in and we learn better

life.

than to believe his picture of

He

accounted for experience, and explained

it,

by the simple magic

There

of

goodness.

Before a good man, the problems of this

world melt away.

is

a wide dif-

ference between this goodness and the

old chivalric magic of being right.
is

If

one

right, at least

one
[146]

is

in unconscious

IN
the universe.

LITERATURE
In Dickens the admirable

accord with the facts and the laws of

characters are often mistaken, even horribly in the wrong,

but they are good,

and

so long as they remain good they

excite
culties.

admiration and surmount

diffi-

The

illustrations of this

magic

occur in the most characteristic parts of

Dickens' work
for example.

in
To

the Christmas Carol,

its

read this story for

learn

emotions

is

to

generosity

and

brotherly love;

but how disconcerting

to learn our virtues from a false picture

of
life!

Do

misers like Scrooge repent?

Can anyone
undo
all his

turn over a
past?

new

leaf

and

And

does such good-

ness as Tiny Tim's or

Bob

Cratchit's

really solve the difficulties of their situa-

tion as completely as Dickens represents?

The

pity that

we

feel for
is

Tiny Tim

is

tribute to

what

true in the story;

the comfortable optimism with

[:47]

which

MAGIC AND WONDER

we put down the book,
some
truth
trick of magic,
is

evidence of

for
us,

some eluding of looking at men and women

around
Besides,

we
is

are convinced that such

satisfaction

not reached that way.

learned to think that
still

we have

people in poverty or misery are

in

trouble even though they are brave about

we could agree that goodness is a talisman, we might as well give up all

it;
if

social

work,

on the ground that the

possible,

worthy poor are as happy as

and the unhappy poor must be unworthy.

What Dickens

has done, then,

is

to

state his ideals in terms of

to be real experience.

what pretends Our admiration

ideals,

cannot be withheld from the

nor

can our intelligence endorse the account

of
life.

If it is

a fairy story that

we

are

reading,

we ought not
it

to be deceived

into mistaking

for history.

There

is

reason to think, however, that Dickens

[148]

IN

LITERATURE
it

did not consider

a disadvantage to

be the victim of
portrayed

illusion.

At

least

he

many

"illusionists," as a Ger-

man
and

scholar called them,

classified

who

tabulated

them

all,

Mr. Pickwick,

Mrs. Nickleby, Swiveller,

Tom

Pinch,

David Copperfield, and

of course

Mr.

Micawber, are among the

illusionists.

The French critic Taine made the same point by saying that many characters
in

Dickens have a touch of insanity.

In the world as Dickens represents
it,

these Ulusioned characters get on very

well,
grief.

but in the real world they come to

Of such

disillusion

Thackeray

is

the kindliest example.

At least he represents a partial reaction from the magic of goodness; he can no longer believe in it,
but he wishes with
all his

heart he could.

What
Bob

really

happens to absolute goodis

ness in this world

portrayed, not in

Cratchit, nor in

David Copperfield,

[149]

MAGIC AND WONDER

but in Colonel Newcome.

Thackeray

is

With magic convinced, we might say,

that the novel should have nothing to do,

yet he devotes his art to no religion of

wonder.

Because he has so gently and

persuasively corrected Dickens' picture

same time endorsing, as it were, his ideals, Thackeray has had much reputation for wisdom and modernness. Yet in the cardinal emotions of
of
life,

at the

wonder and delight he

all;

is

not modern at

the logic of character, the unalter-

able order, whereby

Colonel

Newcome
excel-

suffered for his mistakes,

lent his

however
in

motives

this
is

saddens Thack-

eray, even though he

honor bound

to present

it.

For an ordered universe

Perhaps
only

he has no love, nor any passion for the

career of the mind.
it is

his sentimentality that hides

from us the
life

materialism in his picture of

the

implication that the good are victims of

[160]

IN
victims
of

LITERATURE
their

inevitable laws; whereas they are really

own

ignorance.
if

laws of

human

nature,

Colonel

come were only wise enough to them the instruments of happiness, would
seem
Of
of
reliable, to

The Newmake

wonder

at,

rather than

inexorable, to fear.
stories
it

own time

and plays written in our is enough to say that few

them show any persuasion that there If you is consequence in the world. open any of the numerous manuals which tell you how to write fiction, you may read that actions should be motivated,

that there should be reasons

why things happen

effect
art.

as though cause and

contemporary writers
this

were subdivisions of the literary

Few

of our

seem to practise
still

instruction,

and

fewer of their readers

it

know whether

they practise
us
still,

or not.

We

have with
schools
of

of

course,

special

[151]

MAGIC AND WONDER

fiction,

which

insist

on a precise or a

continuous or an unselected rendering of

experience
schools;

reahstic
readers.

and

naturalistic
of real-

and individual masters

ism or naturalism from time to time

captivate

many

But even

these

individual successes, added together, seem

to

make no

total impression

on the readfiction char-

ing world.

In contemporary

acters slough off the past, serpent-like,

and emerge brighter than ever; or they

change their nature in a twinkling; and
it

seems that few readers seriously pro-

test against the miracle.

Our supposed
our

faith

in

the logic of personality,

faith that a given character will act in a

certain way, our faith especially that a

man's conduct or occupation influences

his character, that

he does

all this

marked by what we seem to have surhe

is

rendered,

substituting

in

its

place

misty benevolence, a magic of the Dick[162]

IN
acter,

LITERATURE
will

ens type, a persuasion that any char-

viewed sympathetically,

seem,

or will actually become, as admirable as

any other character.

One
stories

illustration

may

be found in the

of

the underworld,
criminal
or

where the
is

professional

wrongdoer

shown
tially

in the final

paradox to be essenre-

righteous

and permanently

formed.

We

are convinced, of course,

that to be a professional crook will in

the end lead to some moral deterioration.

We

read with pleasure, however, these

fables

which keep the soul of the crook

unspotted from his

pleasure
is

own

conduct.

Our

based on a

fine

humaneness,

on the undoubted fact that criminals are

largely

manufactured or at

least

en-

couraged by circumstances, and that few

them were originally bad at heart. But this doctrine, excellent as a vantagepoint from which to enter upon social
of
[153]

MAGIC AND WONDER

responsibility

and

rescue,

has
it

been

stretched in our fiction until

misrepre-

sents the consequences of wrongdoing,

and even diminishes, strangely enough,

that sense of social responsibility from

which
nal,

it

sprang.

We

felt to

blame

for

letting our fellow-man

become a

crimi-

but

after the story or the play has

demonstrated how excellent morally the

criminal
tales,
is,

we

feel less guilty.

is
is

In such
in-

however, there
the hero

always an

consistency;

singled out for

admiration, but his comrades in guilt

are saved

by no miracle

so

much

is

conceded to our general knowledge of

the facts.

Another

illustration
diflferent

may be drawn
plays,
like

from a very

region of interest,

from those
Passing
of

stories

or

The

the
the

Third

Floor

Back, or

The Servant in

House, which show the

[154]

miraculous influence of a perfect char-

IN
acter.

LITERATURE
fiction

In

such

stranger

is

represented as entering a community, a

group of people formed and

settled,

and

by the magic of his presence transmuting them into quite different persons. This kind of story must express some precious
ideal,

or

it

would not be so tenderly

life it it
is

popular;

but as a picture of

both incorrect and immoral, for

contradicts our experience

both

and

relieves

^provided we can entertain the stranresponsibility for our conduct. ger

us
of

To be
of

sure, the public thinks this

type
a

story

far

from immoral
the
stranger

rather
is

religious parable, for does not the

author
Christ?

suggest

that

And

does not that suggestion explain

the miracles?

But here we

see

how an

inclination to magic befuddles our ordi-

nary he

intelligence.

Because the stranger

converts everybody he meets,

is

we think
that

Christ-like,

forgetting
[155]

the

MAGIC AND WONDER

New
Testament gives no such account
of Christ.

IV
Perhaps
of law
in,

the

contrast

has

been

in-

dicated sufficiently between the universe

which we are supposed to believe

of

and the world

magic which we
does this init
is

like to read about.

What

consistency

mean?

Perhaps

rash

to venture on so large a question in so

short a space, but in this balancing of

magic against wonder a conviction

steals
it

on one that the love of magic, though

may be
higher

stupid, indicates something far

than

stupidity.

The connota-

tions of the
us.

words themselves convince

Magic suggests power, however obtained, whereas wonder suggests no power at

all.

Is there such merit in enif

lightenment

one

is

to be, after

all,

[156]

IN LITERATURE
only

an

enlightened
at
least

bystander?

The

magician
experience

and
in

wanted control of so do we! Magic

sought to engage the help of alien forces,

foreign

gods,

the problems of this

world;

we, believing that no gods are

alien to our universe, ought logically to

make

the remotest force effective in our

daily aspirations;

passive wonder.
pathies,

we cannot stop with a Or if we do, our symof our fel-

and the sympathy

lows, will return to magic, which with

all its

defects

dreamt of power.

When we
intellects

consider

how many

noble

have
its

tried in vain to take

from

the race
it

love of magic, and to teach

instead the habit of wonder, the long

failure

can be explained, I think, by the

fact that the ideal of

wonder has rarely

included the ideal of control, without

which we refuse to be fascinated. This is true of the philosophers, who though

1157]

MAGIC AND WONDER

they have sought to correct
all

hap-

hazard and irresponsible impressions of

the universe, yet have so far failed, in
that they have not greatly
disturbed

man's love of magical

opened up visions of

stories.

Some

of

them, Francis Bacon, for example, have

scientific
itself;

control

more magical than magic

we

shall

owe it to them eventually that our magic and our wonder have become identical. But most philosophers have been content
to attack the ignorance of magic without
satisfying its aspiration;

and the wonder

though

which they
that power

would

substitute,

nobly imaginative, has stopped short of

men

yearn

for.

Lucretius

serves for example,

whose poem on the

Nature

of

Things sought to take away

our fear of death by removing our faith

in immortality
superstition.

or, as

he would say, our

This intended service has

[168]

not roused the gratitude of mankind.

IN

LITERATURE
poem
is

What
of

stirs

us in the

the vision

an ordered world, and an impassioned

rebuke that the vision has not stirred

us before.

To

feed our sense of wonder recourse to fairy tales;

we have had

but, says the poet,

"Look up

at the

bright and unsullied hue of heaven, and

the stars which

it

holds within

it,

wanthe
all

dering about, and the

moon and
if

sun's light of dazzling brilliancy;

these things were

now

for the first time

what could have been named that would be more marvelous?" Here is an escape from ignorance, if you please, a sense of wonder in the presence of the actual universe; but when we have felt this wonder, what next? Having got rid of
suddenly
presented
to

mortals,

our superstitions, shall we then be ready

to die?

The same

criticism can

be made of

Milton, the one English poet comparable

[159]

MAGIC AND WONDER

with Lucretius in loftiness and fervor. His sense of
reality, as

we

saw, kept

him

from believing in magic;

it

his special gift,

seems, was for wonder on an infinite

scale.

But he

stops with wonder;

he

would not have mankind seek knowledge

for the

magic purpose

of control.

When

Adam

voices his suspicion that the sun,

the moon, and the stars, are not circling

the earth, as they appear to be doing,
for the sole

uneconomic purpose of fur-

nishing light for one

man and

his wife,

Raphael
of

replies

with a superb

summary

both the Ptolemaic and the Coper-

nican theories, but he advises

Adam

not

to bother his head with either hypothesis,

nor to prosecute any

scientific inquiry.

The
"Did

great Architect, he says,

wisely to conceal, and not divulge His secrets to be scann'd by them who ought Rather admire. Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid. Leave them to God above. Him serve and fear."
.
. .

[160]

IN LITERATURE
That Milton, himself pre-eminently a thinker and a student, should have represented the powers of good as opposed
to enquiry, has greatly puzzled his admirers.

We

should like to find an arguside in

ment on the other

to the angel,

Adam's reply

"To know
That which
Is the

before us

lies

in daily

life

prime wisdom."

We
into

should like to translate this speech

a praise of practical science,
of

enquiry which has for object the control

of one's destiny.

But there

is

nothing

in the context to aid this interpretation.

If the philosophers

have not lured us

life,
it.

to a reasonable view of

the satirists

have not driven us to

satire has dealt with

Wherever
it

man's ignorance,

has attacked magic in some form.

magic-lovers themselves, as to
[161]

Even some ex-

MAGIC AND WONDER

tent Fielding and Thackeray were, have

appealed to the inexorable order when

they wrote

satirically,

as

in Jonathan

Wild and Barry Lyndon.

trade of
is

The stock in George Bernard Shaw today

of his art
is

our persisting trust in magic formulas.

The substance
that bubble.
for example,

but to prick
the Lion,

In Androcles and

he gives a reading of Chrisin

tian

martyrdom

what

professes to be
his

the unchanging law of character;

audience wonder

why he

should have
re-

demonstrated the obvious, and they

mark as they go home that he is losing his old sparkle. But they have applauded
with spontaneous

and

imembarrassed

delight that

moment

in the play

where

the lion refuses to eat Androcles

which
all

proves, I suppose, that they have fallen

into
clever

Shaw's

trap.

Yet with

this

exposing of our inconsistencies,

the satirist gives us no vision of what

[162]

IN
life

LITERATURE
like,

would be

were we to make

in-

telligent use of the laws

we

profess to

believe in.

Here and
a poet
praise
is

there, however, poets

have

given us glimpses of the vision.

Shelley.

Such

We

do not usually

him

for a sense of fact.

Yet few

men have

tried so honestly to give their

enthusiasms to the proper objects, or

have contemplated with such genuine

rapture the control over experience which

a knowledge of nature's order should

give.

His education in science was am-

ateurish
ist

and fragmentary, but no

special-

conceives

more
For

clearly or

more rapwas to

turously the magic possibilities of exact

knowledge.

Shelley, science
secrets,

be the key to nature's

secrets,

and those

once known, were to subject

nature to man.
of this faith
is

The

fullest expression

in Prometheus Unbound,

the last act of which, in praise of what

[163]

MAGIC AND WONDER

may
be called
scientific living,

might be

read as a commentary on The Newcomes.

"Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul. Whose nature is its own divine control. Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the

sea;

Famihar acts are beautiful through love; Labor, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle
they could be!
All things confess man's strength

^Through the

cold mass

Of marble and

of color his

dreams pass;

Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes

their children wear;

Language

a perpetual Orphic song. with Dsedal harmony a throng Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and
is

Which

rules

shapeless were.

The Kghtning
Gives up her

is

his slave; heaven's

stars,

and

like

utmost deep a flock of sheep

They pass
roll

before his eye, are numbered, and

his steed,

on!
is

The tempest

he strides the

air;

And

the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare.

Heaven, hast thou secrets? I have none.

[

Man

unveils

me;

164

IN
Emerson.
does

LITERATURE

Such a poet, to name a second, is He, also, is not famous for

His fame, however,

any grasp on reality.

him

injustice.

He was
life,

indeed a

mystic, and

much

of his teaching

seems

to belittle the facts of

the terms on

which we move

in this present world.

But he did not

value whatever
real

belittle facts,
is

nor underis

actual.

There

no
not

power,

he taught, which

is

based on nature, and the beginning of

power

is

the belief that things go not

by

luck,

but by law.

Even when the

mystic in him was uppermost, he often

meant

in a nobly practical as

way what

we have taken
idealism.

an extravagance of

" Hitch your wagon to a star."

We

translate

not his

"aim high" ^but that was meaning. He meant that we

scientific, if

should be

you choose

that

having learned to wonder at the laws

and

forces

of the universe,
[165]

we should

MAGIC AND WONDER

then turn the laws to our advantage

and should ourselves control the

These are
his words:

forces.
skill

"I admire the

which, on the seashore, makes the tides

drive the wheels and grind corn, and

which thus engages the assistance of the

moon,
stone,

like a hired

hand, to grind, and

wind, and pump, and saw, and split

and
of

roll iron.

Now
in

that

is

the

wisdom
star."

man,

every instance

of his labor, to hitch his

wagon

to a

Here
taste of

is

an invitation to a greater power

is

than magic, and here, I think,

a fore-

what poetry may be. Lucretius stood in awe before the universe, but he stood aloof; Shelley and Emerson, modern of the moderns, beheld

man

entering

into control of a vaster universe than

Roman poet merely contemplated. When literature expresses the miracle of that control, our common life will be
the
[166]

IN
lie,

LITERATURE

transfigured in wonder, our dreams will

not in the impossible, but in the

path of our happy destiny, and the gods

will

walk with

us.

THE END