A Hero and Some Other Folks Part 13

And

"He was not all unhappy. His resolve Upbore him, and firm faith and evermore Prayer from a living source within the will, And beating up through all the bitter world, Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, Kept him a living soul."

And Arthur, dying, whispers:

"More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice Rise, like a fountain, for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If knowing G.o.d, they lift not hands of prayer, Both for themselves and those that call them friend?

For so the whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of G.o.d."

No wonder is there if King Arthur was upheld: such faith makes impotence giant-strengthed. He does not tremble. The earth may know perturbations, but not he. To tournament or battle, or to death, he goes with smiling face. His trust upholds him. So good is faith. "In Memoriam" is the biography of doubt and faith at war. The battle waxes sore, but the day is G.o.d's. The battle ebbs to quiet. Calm after tempest. Tennyson could not stay in doubt. 'T is not a goodly land.

If trepidation has white lip and cheek, 't is not forever. Living through an age of doubt, Tennyson, so sensitive to every current of thought as that he felt them all, and in that feeling and interpretation and strife for mastery over the doubt that kills, made his book, as Milton has it, "The precious life-blood of a master spirit;" and ends with:

"Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me.

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face, When I have cross'd the bar."

"In Memoriam" is thought, King Arthur is action; and action is antidote for doubt. Charles Kingsley's advice,

"Do n.o.ble deeds, not dream them all day long,"

is always pertinent and reasonable. This is explanation of that profound saying of Jesus, "If any man will do my will, he shall know of the doctrine." Life is exegesis of Scripture. Who do G.o.d's will catch sight of G.o.d's face, and their hearts are helped. Lowell's "Sir Launfal" urges this same truth. He who, for weary and painful years, had haunted the world, seeking the Holy Grail and finding not the thing he sought, comes home discouraged to find in winter his castle had forgotten him, and he was left a wreck of what he had been in his better days; yet finds, in giving alms to a leprous beggar at his castle gate to whom he had denied alms in the spirit of alms when he set out to hunt the Holy Grail, that in so giving he found the Christ.

Action helps G.o.d into the heart. Doubts are, many of them, brain-born and academical; and such, service helps to dispel. To Arthur, G.o.d was vital fact. To Him he held as tenaciously as to his sword; and he was comforted. All good things are included in religion, and all great things. If men become martyrs, they become at the same time functionaries in the palace of every worthy spirit. I suppose the hunger for discovery and knowledge are nothing other than the soul's hunger after G.o.d. He is the secret of great discontent. The soul wants G.o.d, and on the way to Him are astronomies, and literatures, and new-found hemispheres. Aspiration finds voice in Christianity.

"Columbus," a poem of resonant music, speaks aspiration. Him--

"Who pushed his prows into the setting sun, And made West East, and sailed the dragon's mouth, And came upon the mountain of the world, And saw the rivers roll from paradise,"--

him, G.o.d-inspired as himself holds, saying:

"And more than once, in days Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope Sank all but out of sight, I heard His voice: Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand; Fear not,--and I shall hear his voice again-- I know that He has led me all my life, And I am not yet too old to work His will-- His voice again."

And King Arthur finds G.o.d helps him into all things worth while.

Bravery, determination, kindness, purity, magnanimity, safe faith in G.o.d's supremacy,--all spring about him as he walks as flowers about a path in summer-time. Nothing good was foreign to him.

Christianity is the one philosophy of manhood in whose harness are no vulnerable parts. "The Palace of Art" presents the poet's perception of the failure of culture. Ethics, not aesthetics, compel manhood; and behind ethics, theology. G.o.d must live in life, if life shall put on goodness as a royal robe.

And such a man as Arthur has pa.s.sed into the enduring substance of this world's best thought and purpose. We see him--not saw him. He is never past, but ever present. We see him dying, and with Sir Bedivere, who loved him, cry,

"Thy name and glory cling To all high places, like a golden cloud, Forever!"

X

The Story of the Pictures

A man and a woman were dreaming. Both were young; and one was strong and one was fair. They were lovers, and the world was very beautiful, and life as rhythmic as a poet's verse. Things which to some seem remote as heaven, to youth and love seem near enough to touch, if one do but stretch out the hand. This youth and maid were dreaming, and their hands were clasped, and sometimes they looked in each other's eyes--sometimes out across the fields, sloping toward sunset. The world seemed young as they, and the sky was fairly singing, with voices sweet as kisses from dear lips long absent,--those voices saying, saying always, "Life is fair--is fair;" and receding, as blown by on a gentle wind, drifted "Life is fair;" and the lovers looked at each other and were glad.

He was an artist, and his idle hand wrought pictures unconsciously. He did not think things, but saw things. His lips were not given to frequent speech, even with the woman he loved. He saw her, whether he sat thus beside her or whether he sat apart from her with seas between--he saw her always; for his was the gift of sight. He saw visions as rapt prophets do. Life was a pageant, and he saw it all.

His brush is part of his hand, and his palette is as his hand's palm.

Painting is to him monologue. He is telling what he sees; talking to himself, as children and poets do. Now, he talks to the woman he loves and to himself in pictures, she saying nothing, save as her hand speaks in a caress, and that her eyes are dreamy sweet; and the artist's hand dreams over the paper with glancing touch, and this picture grows before their eyes: A man and a woman, young and fair, are on a hilltop alone, looking across a meadowland, lovely with spring and blossoms and love-making of the birds; and ponds where lily-pads s.h.i.+ne in the sun, like metal patines, floating on the pool; and a flock lying in a quiet place; and a lad plowing in a field, the blackbirds following his furrow; and a blue sky, with dainty clouds of white faint against it, like breathing against a window-pane in winter; and a farmhouse, where early roses cl.u.s.ter, and little children are at play,--this, and his brush loiters, and the woman knows her artist has painted a picture of youth; and both look away as in a happy dream.

The artist paints again: and the landscape is in nothing changed. It might have been a reprint rather than a repainting. A morning land, where beauty and bounty courted like man and maid. No tints were lost.

The sunlight was unfailing, and roses cl.u.s.tered with their spendthrift grace and loveliness; and the woman, looking at her lover, wondered why he painted the same landscape twice, but, waiting, saw the artist paint two figures, a man and woman at life's prime. She sees they are the youth and maid of the first picture, only older--and what besides?

Then they were a promise, a possibility, now they are--what are they?

They are the same; they are not the same. She is disappointed in them; not because their beauty has faded, but that their look has changed.

Their faces are not haggard, nor cut with strange arabesques of pain and care, nor are they craven or vicious; but the artist speeds his hand as if at play, while every touch is bringing the faces out until they obliterate the former beauty utterly. The landscape is still dewy fresh and fair--the faces have no hint of morning in them. Faces, not bad, but lacking tenderness; expression, self-sufficient; eyes, frosty cold; and the woman's eyes light on the children, playing beside the white farmhouse, and in them is no inexpressible tenderness of mother-love, mute, like a caress; prosperous faces the world has gone quite well with, that is plain, but faces having no beckoning in them, no tender invitation, like a sweet voice, saying, "Enter and welcome."

And she who looked at the pictures sobbed, scarcely knowing why, only the man and woman sorely disappointed her when they had grown to maturity; poetry and welcome and promise had faded from them as tints fade from a withered flower. So much was promised--so little was fulfilled.

Meantime, while these lovers sit on the hillside, and the artist has been talking in pictures as the clouds do, the sun has sloped far toward setting. The west is aflame, like a burning palace; the crows are flapping tired wings toward their nests; the swallows are sporting in the air, as children do in surf of the blue seas; smoke from the farm chimneys visible begins to lie level across the sky, and stays like a cloud at anchor. But the artist's hand is busy with another picture.

And the landscape is the same. Mayhap he is not versatile; and, think again, mayhap he has purpose in his reduplication. Like wise men, let us wait and see. A springtime-land as of old, and two figures; and the woman he loves watches, while her breathing is strangely like a sob.

Now the figures are a man and a woman, stooped and gray. "Age," she says, "you paint age now, and age--is not beautiful;" and he, answering with neither lips nor eyes, paints swiftly on. The man is aged and leaning on a staff. His strength is gone. His staff is not for ornament, but need. The woman is wrinkled, and her hair is snowy white; and the girl at the artist's side tries vainly to suppress a sob. She, too, will soon be gray, and she loves not age and decrepitude; and the face in the picture is faded, no rose-tints in the cheeks. So old and weak--old age is very pitiful. But the picture is not finished yet. Wait! Wait a little, and give the artist time. It is not evening yet. Sunset lingers a little for him. His hand runs now like a hurrying tide. He is painting faces. Why linger over the face of age? If it were youth--but age? But he touches these aged faces lovingly, as a son might caress his aged father and mother with hand and with kiss; and beneath his touch the aged faces grow warm and tender, pa.s.sing sweet. To look at them was rest. Their eyes were tender and brave. You remember they were old and feeble folk--young once, but long ago; but how n.o.ble the old man's face, scarred though it is with saber cut! To see him makes you valiant; and to see him longer, makes you valiant for goodness, which is best of all.

And the woman's face is lit with G.o.d's calm and G.o.d's comfort. A smile is in her eyes, and a smile lies, like sunlight, across her lips. Her hair is the silver frame that hems some precious picture in. She is a benediction, blessed as the restful night to weary toilers on a burning day. And the artist, with a touch quick as a happy thought, outlined a shadow, clad in tatters, and a child clad in tatters at her side; and the girl, leaning over the painting, thought the chief shadow was Death. But the artist hasted; and on a sudden, wings sprung from the shoulders of tattered mother and child, and they two lifted up their hands; the woman, lifting her hands above the dear forms of old age, spread them out in blessing, and the little child lifted her hands, clasped as in prayer; and these angels were Poverty, praying for and blessing the man and woman who had been their help.

And the artist lover, under the first picture, in quaint letters, such as monks in remote ages used, wrote this legend, "To-morrow;" and the woman, taking the pencil, wrote in her sweet girlish hand, "Youth is Very Beautiful." The artist took back his pencil, and under the second picture scrolled, "These Loved Themselves Better Than They Loved Others;" and the woman wrote, "Their To-morrow was Failure." Under the third picture the artist wrote, "These Loved G.o.d Best and Their Neighbors as Themselves;" and the woman took the pencil from his hand and wrote, "Old Age is Very Beautiful--More Beautiful Than Youth," and a tear fell and blotted some of the words, as a drop of rain makes a blurred spot on a dusty pane. And the lover said, "Serving others is better than serving ourselves;" and the girl's sweet voice answering, like an echo, "Serving others is better than serving ourselves."

And the sun had set. The glow from the sky was fading, as embers on a hearth, pale to gray ashes; and an owl called from an elm-tree on the hillside, while these two arose, with faces like the morning, and, taking the pictures, walked slowly as lovers will; and so, fading into the deepening twilight, I heard her saying, "Serving others is life at its best," and him replying, "Jesus said, 'The poor ye have always with you;'" and their footsteps and voices died away together in the gloaming; and a whip-poor-will called often and plaintively from the woodland across the field.

XI

The Gentleman in Literature

Humor is half pathos and more. This sword has two edges. On the one, s.h.i.+ning like burnished silver, you may see smiles reflected as from a mirror; on the other, tears stand thick, like dews on flowers at early morning of the later spring. Humor is a dual faculty, as much misconceived by those who listen as by those who speak. We do not always have wit to know the scope of what we do. Thoughts of childhood, says the poet, are long, long thoughts; but who supposes childhood knows they are? Nor is this altogether a fault. To feel the sublime sequence of all we did would burden us as Atlas was burdened by holding up the sky. Life might easily come to be sober to somberness, which is a thing unwholesome and undesirable. Sunlight must have its way. Darkness must not trespa.s.s too far; and every morning says to every night, "Thus far, but no farther."

To many readers, Don Quixote seems fantastic, and Cervantes a laughter-monger. Cervantes had suffered much. His life reads like a novelist's tale. He belonged to the era of Spenser and Shakespeare; of Philip II and William the Silent; of Leicester and Don John of Austria; of The Great Armada and the Spanish Inquisition; of Lope de Vega and Cervantes--for he was, in the Hispanian peninsula, his own greatest contemporary--and to this hour this battle-scarred soldier of fortune stands the tallest figure of Spanish literature. His was a lettered rearing, and a young manhood spent as a common soldier. At Lepanto he lost hand and arm. In five long, weary, and bitter years of slavery among Algerine pirates, he held up his head, being a man; plotted escape in dreams and waking; fought for freedom as a pinioned eagle might; was at last rescued by the Society for the Redemption of Slaves; sailed home from slavery to penury; came perilously near the age of threescore, poverty-stricken and unknown, when, like a sun which leaps from sunrise to noon at a single bound, this maimed soldier sprang mid-sky, impossible to be ignored or forgotten, and disclosed himself, the marked Spaniard of his era; and on the same day of 1616, Cervantes and Shakespeare stopped their life in an unfinished line, and not a man since then has been able to fill out the broken meaning. This man had not wine, but tears to drink. Yet he jests, and the world laughs with him; though we feel sure that while his age and after ages laugh and applaud, Miguel Cervantes sits with laughter all faded from his face, and the white look of pain settled about his lips, while tears "rise in the heart and gather to the eyes." Tears sometimes make laughter and jest the wilder. Men and women laugh to keep their hearts from breaking.

Cervantes has ostensibly drawn a picture of a madman, and in fact has painted a gentleman. What his intent was, who can be so bold as to say? What part of his purpose was, we know. He would excoriate a false and flippant chivalry. Contemporaneous chivalry he knew well; for he had been a common soldier, wounded and distressed. He had seen what a poor triviality that once n.o.ble thing had grown to be.

Inst.i.tutions become effete. Age is apt to sap the strength of movements as of men. Feudalism and the Crusades had commissioned the knight-errant; and now, when law began to hold sword for itself, the self-const.i.tuted legal force--knight-errantry--was no longer needed.

But to know when an inst.i.tution has served its purpose is little less than genius. Some things can be laughed down which can not be argued down. A jest is not infrequently more potent than any syllogism. Some things must be laughed away, other things must be wept away; so that humor and pathos are to be ranked among the mighty agents for reform.

And one purpose Cervantes had was to laugh a tawdry knight-errantry off the stage. In long years of soldiery, I doubt not he had grown to hate this empty boast, and his nursed wrath now breaks out like a volcano.

This was his apparent purpose--but who can say this was all his purpose? "King Lear" has a double action. Mayhap, Don Quixote has a double meaning. We are always attaching meanings to works of genius.

But you can not tie any writer's utterance down to some poor alt.i.tude.

Great utterances have at least a half-infinite application. Tennyson felt this, saying--as we read in his son's biography of him--regarding explanations of his "Idyls of the King:" "I hate to be tied down to 'this means that,' because the thought within the image is much more than any one interpretation;" and, "Poetry is like shot-silk, with many glancing colors. Every reader will find his own interpretation according to his ability, and according to his sympathy, with the poet." What is true of poetry is true of all imaginative literature.

An author may not have a.n.a.lyzed his own motive in its entirety. In any case, we may hold to this, Don Quixote was a gentleman, and is the first gentleman whose portrait is given us in literature. We have laughed at Don Quixote, but we have learned to love him. The "knight of the rueful countenance," as we see him now, is not himself a jest, but one of literature's most n.o.ble figures; and we love him because we must. Was it mere chance that in drawing this don, Cervantes clothed him with all n.o.bilities, and shows him--living and dying--good, courageous, pure; in short, a man? This scarcely seems a happening.

Seas have subtle undercurrents. I venture, Don Quixote has the same, and marks the appearance of a gentleman in literature, since which day that person has been a recurring, enn.o.bling presence on the pages of fiction and poetry.

A gentleman is a comparatively recent creation in life, as in letters.

Christ was the foremost and first gentleman. After him all gentility patterns. With the law of the imagination we are familiar, which is this: Imagination deals only with materials supplied by the senses.