The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources Part 11

So we will fly into the sun of love, impartially view creation, and love it all. We will then see that G.o.d diffused through society makes it one whole; that every victorious murder is a blind suicide; that no one injures and is not uninjured. This change will be brought about by a return to pure Faith and meek Piety. He differs from Sh.e.l.ley in this, that he does not look for reformation through the overturning of thrones and churches. The existing frame-work of society is all right; it needs only to be freed from some of its barnacles.

The first stanza of Coleridge's _Love_ reminds one of the following pa.s.sage from Sh.e.l.ley's _Prometheus Unbound_ (Act IV, 406):

His will, with all mean pa.s.sions, bad delights And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey, Is as a tempest-winged s.h.i.+p, whose helm Love rules.

Coleridge's stanza runs as follows:

All thoughts, all pa.s.sions, all delights Whatever stirs this mortal frame All are but ministers of Love And feed his sacred flame.[192]

Sh.e.l.ley's sonnet to Ianthe is little more than a transposition of Coleridge's sonnet to his son. Sh.e.l.ley says:

I love thee, Baby! for thine own sweet sake: Those azure eyes, that faintly dimpled cheek, Thy tender frame, so eloquently weak, Love in the sternest heart of hate might wake; But more when o'er thy fitful slumber bending Thy mother folds thee to her wakeful heart, Whilst love and pity, in her glances blending, All that thy pa.s.sive eyes can feel impart: More, when some feeble lineaments of her, Who bore thy weight beneath her spotless bosom, As with deep love I read thy face, recur,-- More dear art thou, O fair and fragile blossom; Dearest when most thy tender traits express The image of thy mother's loveliness.[193]

Coleridge's runs as follows:

Charles! my slow heart was only sad when first I scanned that face of feeble infancy: For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst All I had been, and all my child might be!

But when I saw it on its mother's arm, And hanging at her bosom (she the while Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile), Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm Impressed a father's kiss; and all beguiled Of dark remembrance and presageful fear.

I seemed to see an angel's form appear-- 'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild!

So for the mother's sake the child was dear And dearer was the mother for the child.

Coleridge and Sh.e.l.ley made a universal application of a few metaphysical principles acquired in their early years; and on them ground their political and religious views. Poetry, metaphysics, morals and politics mixed themselves forever in their imagination.[194]

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

The radical, when theorizing, considers man in the abstract. He forgets about actual conditions--man with his inequalities. The only thing necessary, in his view, for the reformation of society is to lay before mankind some logical plan of action. He loses sight of the fact that other influences, besides logic, play a part in the moulding of man's conduct.

Newman says teach men to shoot around corners and then you may hope to convert them by means of syllogisms. "One feels," Emerson writes, "that these philosophers have skipped no fact but one, namely, life. They treat man as a plastic thing, or something that may be put up or down, ripened or r.e.t.a.r.ded, molded, polished, made into solid or fluid or gas at the will of the leader."[195] The radical sees the millenium dawning upon the land every time a new scheme is proposed for the amelioration of society. They do not apply any tests to determine its adaptability to the needs of the people. It satisfies the rules of logic and for them this is sufficient.

Burke considers this point in his speech, "On Conciliation with America."

"It is a mistake to imagine that mankind follow up practically any speculative principle as far as it will go in argument and in logical illation. All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights that we may enjoy others. Man acts from motives relative to his interests; and not on metaphysical speculations."

Sh.e.l.ley could not understand how it is that evils continue so pertinaciously to exist in society. He believed that men had but to will that there would be no evil and there would be none. It seemed to him that he could construct inside twenty-four hours a system of government and morals that would be perfect. "The science," Burke writes, "of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science not to be taught _a priori_. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science.... The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes."[196]

The radical does not distinguish between essentials and non-essentials. He sees some evils in connection with an inst.i.tution and forthwith would wipe that inst.i.tution out of existence. Garrison thought there was something in the const.i.tution of the United States that sanctioned slavery and so he described the const.i.tution as "a league with death and a covenant with h.e.l.l." As late as 1820 Sh.e.l.ley believed that "the system of society as it exists at present must be overthrown from the foundations with all its superstructures of maxims and of forms."[197] He sees the evil and misses the good. The radical and the conservative both sin in this, that they take the cause of their adversaries not by its strong end, but by its weakest.

Imaginative people see a few things clearly, and on that account do not see the whole. Their attention is entirely taken up with a few details.

Sh.e.l.ley had no connected view of the world. He has brilliant, perhaps exaggerated, pictures of parts of it. He picks out some misery here and some injustice there, and condemns the whole. Again, he does not offer a complete philosophy of life for us to follow. He takes a truth here and another there and deifies them, exaggerates them as he does pictures of the world. His thoughts were so vivid that they outshone the counsels of the more conservative. They impressed him so much that he could not see their limitations. Single views, a simple philosophy suited him. For this reason he made his guides and leaders those philosophers of the eighteenth century who discarded the tortuous philosophy of the past and put forward a simple recipe which was to bring light and happiness to the world.

Radicals do a great deal of good by shaking off our social torpor and disturbing our self-sufficient complacency. But they very often cause a great deal of harm, and then society has a perfect right to defend itself against them. If they ignore the past, if they disregard the wisdom of centuries, if they tend to subvert all that has been already done, they are not effecting the betterment of society, but its destruction. True reformers link themselves with the good already existing in society and war only against its evils. They will start with things as they are. Burke says that "the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires.... By preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete." True, progress in all the arts and sciences requires a certain readiness to experiment with the unknown and try something new. Yet if that readiness be reckless, disaster will surely be the result. Desire to move forward must be moderate, must be harmonized with distrust of the unknown if real progress is to ensue.

To improve society we must understand it, and to do this we must recognize its positive value. The work of social reformers would be more effective if they had a better knowledge of existing laws and inst.i.tutions. As a rule soap-box orators declaim against things about which they know little or nothing. A clear consciousness then of the good in the world, a clear understanding of the principles which bind this social world together is indispensable to the social reformer. To understand an object is to see through its defects to the positive qualities that const.i.tute it; for nothing is made up of its own shortcomings. Hence we must place our faith in evolution rather than revolution. Any reform that is to be made must be founded in the good at present working in the world.

It cannot be said that Sh.e.l.ley had a clear consciousness of the social forces at work in society or of the good being done by the inst.i.tutions of his time. He admitted himself that he detested history, and one cannot form a just estimate of inst.i.tutions without knowing something about their history. Had he known something about the real history of Christianity or of the development of const.i.tutional government in England he would not probably have been the radical that he was. He did not see that the inst.i.tutions of his time were the product of the efforts of generations of men; he did not realize that the social structure is the most complicated and delicate of all the products of human nature, and consequently did not appreciate the folly of some of the radical changes he proposed.

Sh.e.l.ley had a horror of tradition and prejudice; yet a certain amount of prejudice is necessary. A man who would solve all the problems of life without falling back on tradition would be obliged, in each of the decisions that he would make, to follow a line of thought or argumentation which would impose an intolerable burden on him. According to Sh.e.l.ley, the morality of an act is to be measured by the utilitarian standard, "the greatest good of the greatest number." How though can we measure the pleasure and the pain that flows from an action? In many cases we must take the judgment of the race; we must be guided by prejudice or tradition. "Prejudice," writes Burke, "is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature."[198]

The radical lays too much stress on the influence of inst.i.tutions. Sh.e.l.ley ascribed to them all the evils of society. He was confident that a remodelling of them would bring about a complete reformation of society.

Social wrongs are caused by men and men alone can cure them.

The radical is so taken up with his own ideas that he soon becomes eccentric. He loses, too, all sense of humor. He sees nothing but tragedy confronting him at every turn. At Leghorn, Sh.e.l.ley, accompanied by a friend, visited a s.h.i.+p which was manned by Greek sailors. "Does this realize your idea of h.e.l.lenism, Sh.e.l.ley?" his friend asked. "No! but it does of h.e.l.l," he replied. Almost every radical is lacking in tact, in moderation and in the sense of practical life.

The radical is apt to think that everybody is against him. He does not credit his opponents with honest convictions, and so he imagines that he is being unjustly persecuted. Sh.e.l.ley thought that even his father sought to injure him. "The idea," Peac.o.c.k writes, "that his father was continually on the watch for a pretext to lock him up haunted him through life."

This brings us to several of Sh.e.l.ley's traits which are characteristic of genius or insanity rather than of radicalism. In his _Man of Genius_ Professor Lombroso says that the characteristics of insane men of genius are met with, though far less conspicuously, among the great men freest from any suspicion of insanity. "Between the physiology of the man of genius," he writes, "and the pathology of the insane, there are many points of coincidence; there is even actual continuity."

One of the most important of these characteristics is hallucination.

Examples of geniuses who were subject to hallucinations are Caesar, Brutus, Cellini, Napoleon, Dr. Johnson, and Pope. Shortly before his death Sh.e.l.ley saw a child rise from the sea and clap its hands. At Tanyralt, on the night of February 26, 1813, Sh.e.l.ley imagined that he heard a noise proceeding from one of the parlors and immediately went downstairs armed with two pistols. There, he said, he found a man who fired at him but missed. The report of Sh.e.l.ley's pistol brought the rest of the family on the scene, but none of them could find any trace of the intruder. It is generally conceded that this attack took place only in Sh.e.l.ley's fertile imagination. At another time Sh.e.l.ley imagined that he was afflicted with elephantiasis. One day towards the close of 1813 he was traveling in a coach with a fat old lady, who, he felt sure, must be a victim of this disease. Later on at Mr. Newton's house as "he was sitting in an arm chair," writes Madame Gatayes, "talking to my father and mother, he suddenly slipped down on the ground, twisting about like an eel. 'What is the matter?' cried my mother. In his impressive tone Sh.e.l.ley announced 'I have the elephantiasis.'... After a few weeks this hallucination left him as suddenly as it came.

"He took strange caprices," writes Hogg, "unfounded frights and dislikes, vain apprehensions and panic terrors and therefore he absented himself from formal and sacred engagements." It is well to keep this in mind when reading some of the criticism of Sh.e.l.ley. J. C. Jeafferson cites a long list of facts to prove that Sh.e.l.ley was a wilful prevaricator. Almost all of these can be explained away through the a.s.sumption that Sh.e.l.ley himself was deceived when he told something that did not square with the known facts of the case. "Had he," writes Hogg, "written to ten different individuals the history of some proceeding in which he was himself a party and an eye-witness each of his ten reports would have varied from the rest in essential and important circ.u.mstances."

"Genius," says Lombroso, "is conscious of itself, appreciates itself, and certainly has no monkish humility." Sh.e.l.ley often expressed regret that the rest of mankind was not as good as himself and his soulmate, Miss. .h.i.tchener. He thought that he had no faults.

Another characteristic of the genius is that he must be continually traveling from one place to another. This is certainly true of Sh.e.l.ley. He seldom remained longer than a year in one place.

Sh.e.l.ley in common with most sane men of genius was much preoccupied with his own ego. He loved to talk and write about himself and his opinions.

The most important of his poems contain pictures of himself.

"These energetic intellects," writes Lombroso, "are the true pioneers of science; they rush forward regardless of danger, facing with eagerness the greatest difficulties--perhaps because it is these which best satisfy their morbid energy." Sh.e.l.ley was always embarking on some foolish enterprise. He ran away with a school girl without having in sight any means of support. He went to Ireland to emanc.i.p.ate the whole race; and after this failed he set about reclaiming a large tract of land from the sea at the little town of Tremadoc, Wales. He finally lost his life through venturing out to sea in stormy weather with an undermanned boat.[199]

Matthew Arnold's dictum, then, that Sh.e.l.ley was not sane is a gross exaggeration. The characteristics of his life which would seem to uphold Arnold's a.s.sertion are found in sane men of genius. That he was abnormal in some ways cannot be denied. In a letter which Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley wrote to Sir John Bowring when she sent him the holograph ma.n.u.script of the _Mask of Anarchy_, there is the following reference to her husband: "Do not be afraid of losing the impression you have concerning my lost Sh.e.l.ley by conversing with anyone who knows about him. The mysterious feeling you experience was partic.i.p.ated by all his friends, even by me, who was ever with him--or why say even I felt it more than any other, because by sharing his fortune, I was more aware that any other of his wondrous excellencies and the strange fate which attended him on all occasions....

I do not in any degree believe that his being was regulated by the same laws that govern the existence of us common mortals, nor did anyone think so who ever knew him. I have endeavored, but how inadequately, to give some idea of him in my last published book--the sketch has pleased some of those who best loved him--I might have made more of it, but there are feelings which one recoils from unveiling to the public eye."[200]

Sh.e.l.ley always remained a child. This was the opinion of one of his greatest admirers, Francis Thompson. "The child appeared no less often in Sh.e.l.ley the philosopher than in Sh.e.l.ley the idler. It is seen in his repellant no less than in his amiable weaknesses." To this fact, perhaps, may be ascribed the luxuriance of his imagination; it is freer in childhood than in old age.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy.

But he beholds the light and whence it flows He sees it in his joy.[201]

He has been described as "a beautiful spirit building his many-colored haze of words and images." For him idealism was more than a need of the spirit; it was the princ.i.p.al element of his being.[202] Anyone who cleared away obstacles from the path of his imagination had all the attraction of a kindred spirit. This helps to explain G.o.dwin's influence over him. His father-in-law advocated the entire abolition of existing inst.i.tutions, and left the work of reconstruction to man's imagination. Here it was that Sh.e.l.ley found full scope for the exercise of his faculties. He cannot be said to have contributed many original ideas to nineteenth century literature. "He merely familiarizes the highly refined imagination of the more select cla.s.ses of poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence."

Radicalism is a characteristic of youth. Almost every person who is of any importance in his community will be found to have started out in life, boiling over with enthusiasm and eager to help on reform by advocating a change in this or that inst.i.tution. Very often this interferes with their judgment. Bacon had this in mind when he wrote: "Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded wherein he saith that young men are not fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are not settled from the boiling-heat of their affections nor tempered with time and experience."[203] Shakespeare endorses this in _Troilus and Cressida_, Act II, scene 2.

not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy.

That Sh.e.l.ley, had he lived, would have followed in the footsteps of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey and become a conservative may well be doubted. However, his life shows some progress in that direction. He had learned to become more tolerant of various types of men; and Stopford Brooke maintains that there are indications in Sh.e.l.ley's works to show that he would have become a Christian.

It is unfortunate that Sh.e.l.ley never came into close personal contact with a Burke who could take him out of the region of imagination and make him appreciate the beauty of order and inst.i.tutions. Had Sh.e.l.ley met such a one he might have been influenced in the way that the Greek Augustine was benefited by the Roman Ambrose. Southey might have helped Sh.e.l.ley if he had shown more consideration for our poet's extremely sensitive feelings. Southey's pet argument was that Sh.e.l.ley was too young to understand the question they were discussing. "When you are as old as I am," he would say, "then you will see things in a different light." Such a line of reasoning has no influence on men of Sh.e.l.ley's stamp.

Aubrey De Vere, in a letter to Henry Taylor, December 12, 1882, states that Sh.e.l.ley's character had two great natural defects. The first was a want of robustness which took away from him stability and self-possession.

The second was his want of reverence. "There is," he writes, "an insolence of audacity in some pa.s.sages of Sh.e.l.ley on religious subjects which admits only of two interpretations, viz., something in his original cerebral organization doubtless augmented by circ.u.mstances that hindered proper development in some part of it or else pride in quite an extraordinary degree." Lest this should appear to give De Vere's complete view of Sh.e.l.ley I quote further from the same letter. "Something angelic there was certainly about him, something that I recognized from the first day that I read his poetry. His intelligence had also a keen logic about it."

The radical is gifted with a powerful constructive imagination. He feels keenly the failures of inst.i.tutions and is led to construct an ideal state of society. He takes all the good he knows, joins the pieces together, beautifies and adorns the picture until he has formed an earthly paradise.

This has its advantages as only those whose imaginations are fired by fine ideals will ever stir the world with n.o.ble deeds. To succeed you must, as Emerson expresses it, "hitch your wagon to a star."

Imagination has, of course, its dangers. Some are content to day dream; to live in the world of their imagination. They are impatient of the failures, of the slow, steady toil that precedes success. They forget that change works slowly. "He who has a clear grasp of a concrete ideal and a clear insight into the conditions, realization, and the difficulties in the actual world by which it is beset will be the true social reformer of the world."[204] Sh.e.l.ley had a good grasp of the ideal, but he did not know how to cross over from the ideal to the real. This journey is a long and tedious one. "All progress," MacKenzie writes, "which is guided by an ideal must be more or less of the nature of a stumble."[205] "Our very walking," as Goethe puts it, "is a series of falls." Bacon writes, "certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of the earth." Sh.e.l.ley's mind moved in charity, but turned anywhere except upon the poles of the earth.