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  edition (1876) of his father's ‘Hymns of Praise and Prayer;’ he published also some tunes and an anthem separately. He wrote for the ‘Theological Review’ and the ‘Spectator,’ and contributed to ‘Bibliographica’ (1895) and to Murray's ‘Oxford Dictionary’ (Inquirer, 24 Dec. 1898; Christian Life, 24 Dec. 1898).

 MASSIE, THOMAS LEEKE (1802–1898), admiral, was born at Coddington Hall, Cheshire, on 20 Oct. 1802. He entered the navy in October 1818 on board the Rochefort, flagship in the Mediterranean of Sir [q. v.] and later on of Sir [q. v.] In different ships he continued serving in the Mediterranean; was wrecked in the Columbine brig on the coast of the Morea, 25 Jan. 1824; was in the Martin at the demonstration against Algiers [see ]; was frequently engaged in boat affairs with Greek pirates, and was in the Asia at Navarino on 20 Oct. 1827. For this he was rewarded with promotion to lieutenant on a death vacancy, 11 Nov. 1827. As a lieutenant he served mostly in the Channel, North Sea, and Lisbon station; was for three years on the South American station with Captain Robert Smart in the Satellite, and for two years in the Mediterranean as first lieutenant of the Carysfort with Henry Byam Martin. On 28 June 1838—the queen's coronation—he was made commander; and in 1839 was, with some others, sent out to Constantinople to assist in organising the Turkish navy. They were, however, recalled after about six months; and in March 1840 Massie was appointed (as second captain) to the Thunderer with, afterwards Lord Fitzhardinge [q. v.] In the Thunderer he took part in the operations on the coast of Syria in the summer and autumn of 1840, culminating in the capture of Acre, for which he was promoted to be captain on 17 March 1841. In April 1849 he was appointed to the Cleopatra, which he commanded in the East Indies and China and during the Burmese war. In September 1854 he commissioned the Powerful, which during the latter part of 1855 and 1856 was on the North American station. He had no further service, but became rear-admiral on 7 Nov. 1860, vice-admiral on 2 April 1866, and admiral on 20 Oct. 1872. He died at Chester on 20 July 1898.

 MAX MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH (1823–1900), orientalist and philologist, was the only son of the distinguished poet Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827), and of Adelheid, eldest daughter of Präsident von Basedow, prime minister of the small duchy of Anhalt-Dessau. Born at Dessau on 6 Dec. 1823, and losing his father when scarcely four years old, he lived with his mother and attended the grammar school of his native town till 1836. He early showed a talent for music and came into contact with several distinguished composers, such as Felix Mendelssohn and Carl Maria von Weber. He was the godson of the latter, and received his name Max from the leading character in the ‘Freischütz,’ which had been finished just before his birth. For a time he seriously contemplated taking up music as a profession, but was dissuaded from doing so by Mendelssohn. The last five years of his school life he spent at Leipzig, living in the family of Dr. Carus, an old friend of his father, and continuing his education at the ‘Nicolai-Schule’ there. He had decided to adhere to the study of the classical languages; but in order to qualify for a small bursary from Anhalt-Dessau he found he would have to pass his examination of maturity (‘Abiturienten-examen’), not at Leipzig, but at Zerbst, a small town in that state. For this purpose he was obliged to acquire a considerable knowledge of mathematics and other non-classical subjects in an incredibly short time; nevertheless he succeeded in passing his examination with distinction. He accordingly entered the university of Leipzig in the spring of 1841. There he attended no fewer than ten courses of lectures, on the average, during each term on the most varied subjects, including the classical lectures of Professors Haupt, Hermann, Becker, besides others on old German, Hebrew, Arabic, psychology, and anthropology. He was, however, soon persuaded by Professor Hermann Brockhaus, the first occupant of the chair of Sanskrit, founded in 1841, to devote himself chiefly to learning the classical language of ancient India. The first result


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Massie, Thomas Leeke

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Christmas Eve and Easter Day/Easter Day

I

How very hard it is to be A Christian! Hard for you and me, —Not the mere task of making real That duty up to its ideal, Effecting thus complete and whole, A purpose or the human soul— For that is always hard to do; But hard, I mean, for me and you To realise it, more or less, With even the moderate success Which commonly repays our strife To carry out the aims of life. "This aim is greater," you may say, "And so more arduous every way." —But the importance of the fruits Still proves to man, in all pursuits, Proportional encouragement. "Then, what if it be God's intent "That labour to this one result "Shall seem unduly difficult?" Ah, that's a question in the dark— And the sole thing that I remark Upon the difficulty, this; We do not see it where it is, At the beginning of the race: As we proceed, it shifts its place, And where we looked for crowns to fall, We find the tug's to come,—that's all.

II

At first you say, "The whole, or chief "Of difficulties, is belief. "Could I believe once thoroughly, "The rest were simple. What? Am I "An idiot, do you think?—a beast? "Prove to me, only that the least "Command of God is God's indeed, "And what injunction shall I need "To pay obedience? Death so nigh, "When time must end, eternity "Begin,—and cannot I compute, "Weigh loss and gain together, suit "My actions to the balance drawn, "And give my body to be sawn "Asunder, hacked in pieces, tied "To horses, stoned, burned, crucified, "Like any martyr of the list? "How gladly,—if I made acquist, "Through the brief minute's fierce annoy, "Of God's eternity of joy."

III

—And certainly you name the point Whereon all turns: for could you joint This flexile finite life once tight Into the fixed and infinite, You, safe inside, would spurn what's out, With carelessness enough, no doubt— Would spurn mere life: but where time brings To their next stage your reasonings, Your eyes, late wide, begin to wink Nor see the path so well, I think.

IV

You say, "Faith may be, one agrees, "A touchstone for God's purposes, "Even as ourselves conceive of them. "Could he acquit us or condemn "For holding what no hand can loose, "Rejecting when we can't but choose? "As well award the victor's wreath "To whosoever should take breath "Duly each minute while he lived— "Grant Heaven, because a man contrived "To see the sunlight every day "He walked forth on the public way. "You must mix some uncertainty "With faith, if you would have faith be. "Why, what but faith, do we abhor "And idolize each other for— "Faith in our evil or our good, "Which is or is not understood "Aright by those we love or those "We hate, thence called our friends or foes? "Your mistress saw your spirit's grace, "When, turning from the ugly face, "I found belief in it too hard; "And both of us have our reward. "—Yet here a doubt peeps: well for us "Weak beings, to go using thus "A touchstone for our little ends, "Trying with faith the foes and friends; "—But God, bethink you! I would fain "Conceive of the Creator's reign "As based upon exacter laws "Than creatures build by with applause. "In all God's acts—(as Plato cries "He doth)—he should geometrise. "Whence, I desiderate . . . "

V

I see! You would grow as a natural tree, Stand as a rock, soar up like fire. The world's so perfect and entire, Quite above faith, so right and fit! Go there, walk up and down in it! No. The creation travails, groans— Contrive your music from its moans, Without or let or hindrance, friend! That's an old story, and its end As old—you come back (be sincere) With every question you put here (Here where there once was, and is still, We think, a living oracle, Whose answers you stood carping at) This time flung back unanswered flat,— Beside, perhaps, as many more As those that drove you out before, Now added, where was little need. Questions impossible, indeed, To us who sat still, all and each Persuaded that our earth had speech Of God's, writ down, no matter if In cursive type or hieroglyph,— Which one fact freed us from the yoke Of guessing why He never spoke. You come back in no better plight Than when you left us,—am I right?

VI

So the old process, I conclude, Goes on, the reasoning's pursued Further. You own. "'Tis well averred, "A scientific faith's absurd, "—Frustrates the very end 'twas meant "To serve: so I would rest content "With a mere probability, "But, probable; the chance must lie "Clear on one side,—lie all in rough, "So long as there be just enough "To pin my faith to, though it hap "Only at points: from gap to gap "One hangs up a huge curtain so, "Grandly, nor seeks to have it go "Foldless and flat along the wall: "What care I if some interval "Of life less plainly may depend "On God? I'd hang there to the end; "And thus I should not find it hard "To be a Christian and debarred "From trailing on the earth, till furled "Away by death.—Renounce the world! "Were that a mighty hardship? Plan "A pleasant life, and straight some man "Beside you, with, if he thought fit, "Abundant means to compass it, "Shall turn deliberate aside "To try and live as, if you tried "You clearly might, yet most despise. "One friend of mine wears out his eyes, "Slighting the stupid joys of sense, "In patient hope that, ten years hence, " 'Somewhat completer,' he may say, " 'My list of coleoptera!' "While just the other who most laughs "At him, above all epitaphs "Aspires to have his tomb describe "Himself as sole among the tribe "Of snuffbox-fanciers, who possessed "A Grignon with the Regent's crest. "So that, subduing, as you want, "Whatever stands predominant "Among my earthly appetites "For tastes and smells and sounds and sights, "I shall be doing that alone, "To gain a palm-branch and a throne. "Which fifty people undertake "To do, and gladly, for the sake "Of giving a Semitic guess, "Or playing pawns at blindfold chess."

VII

Good: and the next thing is,—look round For evidence enough! 'Tis found, No doubt: as is your sort of mind, So is your sort of search—you'll find What you desire, and that's to be A Christian. What says History? How comforting a point it were To find some mummy-scrap declare There lived a Moses! Better still, Prove Jonah's whale translatable Into some quicksand of the seas, Isle, cavern, rock, or what you please, That Faith might clap her wings and crow From such an eminence! Or, no— The human heart's best; you prefer Making that prove the minister To truth; you probe its wants and needs And hopes and fears, then try what creeds Meet these most aptly,—resolute That Faith plucks such substantial fruit Wherever these two correspond, She little needs to look beyond, To puzzle out what Orpheus was, Or Dionysius Zagrias. You'll find sufficient, as I say, To satisfy you either way; You wanted to believe; your pains Are crowned—you do: and what remains? "Renounce the world!"—Ah, were it done By merely cutting one by one Your limbs off, with your wise head last, How easy were it!—how soon past, If once in the believing mood! "Such is man's usual gratitude, "Such thanks to God do we return, "For not exacting that we spurn "A single gift of life, forego "One real gain,—only taste them so "With gravity and temperance, "That those mild virtues may enhance  "Such pleasures, rather than abstract— "Last spice of which, will be the fact "Of love discerned in every gift; "While, when the scene of life shall shift, "And the gay heart be taught to ache, "As sorrows and privations take "The place of joy,—the thing that seems "Mere misery, under human schemes, "Becomes, regarded by the light "Of Love, as very near, or quite  "As good a gift as joy before. "So plain is it that, all the more "A dispensation's merciful, "More pettishly we try and cull "Briars, thistles, from our private plot, "To mar God's ground where thorns are not!"

VIII

Do you say this, or I?—Oh, you! Then, what, my friend,—(thus I pursue Our parley)—you indeed opine That the Eternal and Divine Did, eighteen centuries ago, In very truth. . . Enough! you know The all-stupendous tale,—that Birth, That Life, that Death! And all, the earth Shuddered at,—all, the heavens grew black Rather than see; all, nature's rack And throe at dissolution's brink Attested,—all took place, you think, Only to give our joys a zest, And prove our sorrows for the best? We differ, then! Were I, still pale And heartstruck at the dreadful tale, Waiting to hear God's voice declare What horror followed for my share, As implicated in the deed, Apart from other sins,—concede That if He blacked out in a blot My brief life's pleasantness, 'twere not So very disproportionate! Or there might be another fate— I certainly could understand (If fancies were the thing in hand) How God might save, at that day's price, The impure in their impurities, Give licence formal and complete To choose the fair and pick the sweet. But there be certain words, broad, plain, Uttered again and yet again, Hard to mistake or overgloss— Announcing this world's gain for loss, And bidding us reject the same: The whole world lieth (they proclaim) In wickedness,—come out of it! Turn a deaf ear, if you think fit, But I who thrill through every nerve At thought of what deaf ears deserve— How do you counsel in the case?

IX

"I'd take, by all means, in your place, "The safe side, since it so appears: "Deny myself, a few brief years,  "The natural pleasure, leave the fruit "Or cut the plant up by the root. "Remember what a martyr said "On the rude tablet overhead! " 'I was born sickly, poor and mean, " 'A slave: no misery could screen " 'The holders of the pearl of price " 'From Cæsar's envy; therefore twice " 'I fought with beasts, and three times saw " 'My children suffer by his law;  " 'At last my own release was earned: " 'I was some time in being burned, " 'But at the close a Hand came through " 'The fire above my head, and drew " 'My soul to Christ, whom now I see. " 'Sergius, a brother, writes for me " 'This testimony on the wall— " 'For me, I have forgot it all.' "You say right; this were not so hard! "And since one nowise is debarred  "From this, why not escape some sins "By such a method?"

X

Then begins To the old point, revulsion new— (For 'tis just this I bring you to) If after all we should mistake, And so renounce life for the sake Of death and nothing else? You hear Each friend we jeered at, send the jeer Back to ourselves with good effect— "There were my beetles to collect!  "My box—a trifle, I confess, "But here I hold it, ne'ertheless!" Poor idiots, (let us pluck up heart And answer) we, the better part Have chosen, though 'twere only hope,— Nor envy moles like you that grope Amid your veritable muck, More than the grasshoppers would truck, For yours, their passionate life away, That spends itself in leaps all day To reach the sun, you want the eyes To see, as they the wings to rise And match the noble hearts of them! So, the contemner we contemn,— And, when doubt strikes us, thus we ward Its stroke off, caught upon our guard, —Not struck enough to overturn Our faith, but shake it—make us learn What I began with, and, I wis, End, having proved,—how hard it is  To be a Christian!

XI

"Proved, or not, "Howe'er you wis, small thanks, I wot, "You get of mine, for taking pains "To make it hard to me. Who gains "By that, I wonder? Here I live "In trusting ease; and here you drive "At causing me to lose what most "Yourself would mourn for had you lost?"

XII

But, do you see, my friend, that thus You leave Saint Paul for Æschylus? —Who made his Titan's arch-device The giving men blind hopes to spice The meal of life with, else devoured In bitter haste, while lo, Death loured Before them at the platter's edge! If faith should be, as I allege, Quite other than a condiment To heighten flavours with, or meant (Like that brave curry of his Grace) To take at need the victuals' place? If, having dined, you would digest Besides, and turning to your rest Should find instead. ..

XIII

Now, you shall see And judge if a mere foppery Pricks on my speaking! I resolve To utter—yes, it shall devolve On you to hear as solemn, strange And dread a thing as in the range Of facts,—or fancies, if God will— E'er happened to our kind! I still Stand in the cloud, and while it wraps My face, ought not to speak, perhaps; Seeing that if I carry through My purpose, if my words in you Find a live actual listener, My story, reason must aver False after all—the happy chance! While, if each human countenance I meet in London day by day, Be what I fear,—my warnings fray No one, and no one they convert, And no one helps me to assert How hard it is to really be A Christian, and in vacancy I pour this story!

XIV

I commence By trying to inform you, whence It comes that every Easter-night As now, I sit up, watch, till light, Upon those chimney-stacks and roofs, Give, through my window-pane, grey proofs That Easter-day is breaking slow. On such a night three years ago, It chanced that I had cause to cross The common, where the chapel was, Our friend spoke of, the other day— You've not forgotten, I dare say. I fell to musing of the time So close, the blessed matin-prime All hearts leap up at, in some guise— One could not well do otherwise. Insensibly my thoughts were bent Toward the main point; I overwent Much the same ground of reasoning As you and I just now. One thing Remained, however—one that tasked My soul to answer; and I asked, Fairly and frankly, what might be That History, that Faith, to me —Me there—not me in some domain Built up and peopled by my brain, Weighing its merits as one weighs Mere theories for blame or praise, —The Kingcraft of the Lucumons, Or Fourier's scheme, its pros and cons,— But my faith there, or none at all. "How were my case, now, did I fall "Dead here, this minute—should I lie "Faithful or faithless?"—Note that I Inclined thus ever!—little prone For instance, when I lay alone In childhood, to go calm to sleep And leave a closet where might keep His watch perdue some murderer Waiting till twelve o'clock to stir, As good, authentic legends tell: "He might: but how improbable! "How little likely to deserve "The pains and trial to the nerve "Of thrusting head into the dark!"— Urged my old nurse, and bade me mark  Besides, that, should the dreadful scout Really lie hid there, and leap out At first turn of the rusty key, Mine were small gain that she could see Killed not in bed but on the floor, And losing one night's sleep the more. I tell you, I would always burst The door ope, know my fate at first. This time, indeed, the closet penned No such assassin: but a friend   Rather, peeped out to guard me, fit For counsel, Common Sense, to wit, Who said a good deal that might pass,— Heartening, impartial too, it was, Judge else: "For, soberly now,—who "Should be a Christian if not you?" (Hear how he smoothed me down.) "One takes "A whole life, sees what course it makes "Mainly, and not by fits and starts— "In spite of stoppage which imparts "Fresh value to the general speed. "A life, with none, would fly indeed: "Your progressing is slower—right! "We deal with progress and not flight. "Through baffling senses passionate, "Fancies as restless,—with a freight "Of knowledge cumbersome enough "To sink your ship when waves grow rough, "Though meant for ballast in the hold,— "I find, 'mid dangers manifold, "The good bark answers to the helm "Where faith sits, easier to o'erwhelm "Than some stout peasant's heavenly guide, "Whose hard head could not, if it tried, "Conceive a doubt, nor understand "How senses hornier than his hand "Should 'tice the Christian off his guard. "More happy! But shall we award "Less honour to the hull which, dogged "By storms, a mere wreck, waterlogged, "Masts by the board, her bulwarks gone "And stanchions going, yet bears on,— "Than to mere life-boats, built to save, "And triumph o'er the breaking wave? "Make perfect your good ship as these, "And what were her performances!" I added—"Would the ship reach home! "I wish indeed 'God's kingdom come—' "The day when I shall see appear "His bidding, as my duty, clear  "From doubt! And it shall dawn, that day, "Some future season; Easter may "Prove, not impossibly, the time— "Yes, that were striking—fates would chime "So aptly! Easter-morn, to bring "The Judgment!—deeper in the spring "Than now, however, when there's snow "Capping the hills; for earth must show "All signs of meaning to pursue "Her tasks as she was wont to do  "—The lark, as taken by surprise "As we ourselves, shall recognise "Sudden the end. For suddenly "It comes: the dreadfulness must be "In that; all warrants the belief— " 'At night it cometh like a thief.' "I fancy why the trumpet blows; "—Plainly, to wake one. From repose "We shall start up, at last awake "From life, that insane dream we take  "For waking now, because it seems. "And as, when now we wake from dreams, "We laugh, while we recall them, 'Fool, " 'To let the chance slip, linger cool " 'When such adventure offered! Just " 'A bridge to cross, a dwarf to thrust " 'Aside, a wicked mage to stab— " 'And, lo ye, I had kissed Queen Mab!' "So shall we marvel why we grudged "Our labour here, and idly judged  "Of Heaven, we might have gained, but lose! "Lose? Talk of loss, and I refuse "To plead at all! You speak no worse "Nor better than my ancient nurse "When she would tell me in my youth "I well deserved that shapes uncouth "Frighted and teased me in my sleep: "Why could I not in memory keep "Her precept for the evil's cure? " 'Pinch your own arm, boy, and be sure  " 'You'll wake forthwith!' "

XV

And as I said This nonsense, throwing back my head With light complacent laugh, I found Suddenly all the midnight round One fire. The dome of Heaven had stood As made up of a multitude Of handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rack Of ripples infinite and black, From sky to sky. Sudden there went, Like horror and astonishment, A fierce vindictive scribble of red Quick flame across, as if one said (The angry scribe of Judgment) "There— "Burn it!" And straight I was aware That the whole ribwork round, minute Cloud touching cloud beyond compute, Was tinted, each with its own spot Of burning at the core, till clot Jammed against clot, and spilt its fire Over all heaven, which 'gan suspire  As fanned to measure equable,— As when great conflagrations kill Night overhead, and rise and sink, Reflected. Now the fire would shrink And wither oft the blasted face Of heaven, and I distinct might trace The sharp black ridgy outlines left Unburned like network—then, each cleft The fire had been sucked back into, Regorged, and out it surging flew   Furiously, and night writhed inflamed, Till, tolerating to be tamed No longer, certain rays world-wide Shot downwardly. On every side Caught past escape, the earth was lit; As if a dragon's nostril split And all his famished ire o'erflowed; Then, as he winced at his lord's goad, Back he inhaled: whereat I found The clouds into vast pillars bound, Based on the corners of the earth, Propping the skies at top: a dearth Of fire i' the violet intervals, Leaving exposed the utmost walls Of time, about to tumble in And end the world.

XVI

I felt begin The Judgment-Day: to retrocede Was too late now. "In very deed," (I uttered to myself) "that Day!" The intuition burned away All darkness from my spirit too: There, stood I, found and fixed, I knew, Choosing the world. The choice was made; And naked and disguiseless stayed, An unevadeable, the fact. My brain held all the same compact Its senses, nor my heart declined Its office; rather, both combined To help me in this juncture. I Lost not a second,—agony Gave boldness: since my life had end And my choice with it—best defend, Applaud both! I resolved to say, "So was I framed by thee, such way "I put to use thy senses here! "It was so beautiful, so near, "Thy world,—what could I then but choose "My part there? Nor did I refuse "To look above the transient boon "Of time; but it was hard so soon  "As in a short life, to give up "Such beauty: I could put the cup "Undrained of half its fulness, by; "But, to renounce it utterly, "—That was too hard! Nor did the cry "Which bade renounce it, touch my brain "Authentically deep and plain "Enough to make my lips let go. "But Thou, who knowest all, dost know "Whether I was not, life's brief while,  "Endeavouring to reconcile "Those lips (too tardily, alas!) "To letting the dear remnant pass, "One day,—some drops of earthly good "Untasted! Is it for this mood, "That Thou, whose earth delights so well, "Has made its complement a Hell?"

XVII

A final belch of fire like blood, Overbroke all heaven in one flood Of doom. Then fire was sky, and sky Fire, and both, one brief ecstasy, Then ashes. But I heard no noise (Whatever was) because a Voice Beside me spoke thus, "Life is done, "Time ends, Eternity's begun, "And thou art judged for evermore."

XVIII

I looked up; all seemed as before; Of that cloud-Tophet overhead, No trace was left: I saw instead The common round me, and the sky Above, stretched drear and emptily Of life. 'Twas the last watch of night, Except what brings the morning quite; When the armed angel, conscience-clear, His task nigh done, leans o'er his spear And gazes on the earth he guards, Safe one night more through all its wards, Till God relieve him at his post. "A dream—a waking dream at most!" (I spoke out quick, that I might shake  The horrid nightmare off, and wake.) "The world's gone, yet the world is here? "Are not all things as they appear? "Is Judgment past for me alone? "—And where had place the great white throne? "The rising of the quick and dead? "Where stood they, small and great? Who read "The sentence from the opened book?" So, by degrees, the blood forsook My heart, and let it beat afresh: I knew I should break through the mesh Of horror, and breathe presently: When, lo, again, the voice by me!

XIX

I saw. . . Oh brother, 'mid far sands The palm-tree-cinctured city stands,— Bright-white beneath, as heaven, bright-blue, Above it, while the years pursue Their course, unable to abate Its paradisal laugh at fate! One morn,—the Arab staggers blind O'er a new tract of death, calcined To ashes, silence, nothingness,— And strives, with dizzy wits, to guess Whence fell the blow. What if, 'twixt skies And prostrate earth, he should surprise The imaged Vapour, head to foot, Surveying, motionless and mute, Its work, ere, in a whirlwind rapt It vanish up again?—So hapt My chance. HE stood there. Like the smoke Pillared o'er Sodom, when day broke,— I saw Him. One magnific pall Mantled in massive fold and fall His head, and coiled in snaky swathes About His feet: night's black, that bathes All else, broke, grizzled with despair, Against the soul of blackness there. A gesture told the mood within— That wrapped right hand which based the chin,— That intense meditation fixed On His procedure,—pity mixed With the fulfilment of decree. Motionless, thus, He spoke to me, Who fell before His feet, a mass, No man now.

XX

"All is come to pass. "Such shows are over for each soul "They had respect to. In the roll "Of Judgment which convinced mankind "Of sin, stood many, bold and blind, "Terror must burn the truth into: "Their fate for them!—thou hadst to do "With absolute omnipotence, "Able its judgments to dispense "To the whole race, as every one "Were its sole object. Judgment done, "God is, thou art,—the rest is hurled "To nothingness for thee. This world, "This finite life, thou hast preferred, "In disbelief of God's plain word, "To heaven and to infinity. "Here the probation was for thee, "To show thy soul the earthly mixed "With heavenly, it must choose betwixt. "The earthly joys lay palpable,— "A taint, in each, distinct as well; "The heavenly flitted, faint and rare, "Above them, but as truly were "Taintless, so, in their nature, best. "Thy choice was earth: thou didst attest "'Twas fitter spirit should subserve "The flesh, than flesh refine to nerve "Beneath the spirit's play. Advance "No claim to their inheritance "Who chose the spirit's fugitive "Brief gleams, and yearned, 'This were to live " 'Indeed, if rays, completely pure " 'From flesh that dulls them, could endure,— " 'Not shoot in meteor-light athwart " 'Our earth, to show how cold and swart " 'It lies beneath their fire, but stand " 'As stars do, destined to expand, " 'Prove veritable worlds, our home!' "Thou saidst,—'Let spirit star the dome " 'Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak, " 'No nook of earth,—I shall not seek " 'Its service further!' Thou art shut "Out of the heaven of spirit; glut "Thy sense upon the world: 'tis thine "For ever—take it!"

XXI

"How? Is mine, "The world?" (I cried, while my soul broke  Out in a transport.) "Hast Thou spoke "Plainly in that? Earth's exquisite "Treasures of wonder and delight, "For me?"

XXII

The austere voice returned,— "So soon made happy? Hadst thou learned "What God accounteth happiness, "Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess "What hell may be his punishment "For those who doubt if God invent "Better than they. Let such men rest "Content with what they judged the best. "Let the Unjust usurp at will: "The filthy shall be filthy still: "Miser, there waits the gold for thee! "Hater, indulge thine enmity! "And thou, whose heaven self-ordained, "Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained, "Do it! Take all the ancient show! "The woods shall wave, the rivers flow, "And men apparently pursue "Their works, as they were wont to do, "While living in probation yet. "I promise not thou shalt forget "The past, now gone to its account; "But leave thee with the old amount "Of faculties, nor less nor more, "Unvisited, as heretofore, "By God's free spirit, that makes an end. "So, once more, take thy world! Expend "Eternity upon its shows, "Flung thee as freely as one rose "Out of a summer's opulence, "Over the Eden-barrier whence "Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!"

XXIII

I sat up. All was still again. I breathed free: to my heart, back fled The warmth. "But, all the world!"—I said. I stooped and picked a leaf of fern, And recollected I might learn From books, how many myriad sorts Of fern exist, to trust reports, Each as distinct and beautiful As this, the very first I cull. Think, from the first leaf to the last! Conceive, then, earth's resources! Vast Exhaustless beauty, endless change Of wonder! And this foot shall range Alps, Andes,—and this eye devour The bee-bird and the aloe-flower?

XXIV

Then the voice, "Welcome so to rate  "The arras-folds that variegate "The earth, God's antechamber, well! "The wise, who waited there, could tell "By these, what royalties in store "Lay one step past the entrance-door. "For whom, was reckoned, not too much, "This life's munificence? For such "As thou,—a race, whereof scarce one "Was able, in a million, "To feel that any marvel lay  "In objects round his feet all day; "Scarce one, in many millions more, "Willing, if able, to explore "The secreter, minuter charm! "—Brave souls, a fern-leaf could disarm "Of power to cope with God's intent,— "Or scared if the south firmament "With north-fire did its wings refledge! "All partial beauty was a pledge "Of beauty in its plenitude:  "But since the pledge sufficed thy mood, "Retain it! plenitude be theirs "Who looked above!"

XXV

Though sharp despairs Shot through me, I held up, bore on. "What matter though my trust were gone "From natural things? Henceforth my part "Be less with nature than with art! "For Art supplants, gives mainly worth "To nature; 'tis man stamps the earth— "And I will seek his impress, seek "The statuary of the Greek, "Italy's painting—there my choice "Shall fix!"

XXVI

"Obtain it!" said the voice. "—The one form with its single act, "Which sculptors laboured to abstract, "The one face, painters tried to draw, "With its one look, from throngs they saw. "And that perfection in their soul, "These only hinted at? The whole, "They were but parts of? What each laid  "His claim to glory on?—afraid "His fellow-men should give him rank "By mere tentatives which he shrank "Smitten at heart from, all the more, "That gazers pressed in to adore! " 'Shall I be judged by only these?' "If such his soul's capacities, "Even while he trod the earth,—think, now "What pomp in Buonarroti's brow, "With its new palace-brain where dwells  "Superb the soul, unvexed by cells "That crumbled with the transient clay! "What visions will his right hand's sway "Still turn to forms, as still they burst "Upon him? How will he quench thirst, "Titanically infantine, "Laid at the breast of the Divine? "Does it confound thee,—this first page "Emblazoning man's heritage?— "Can this alone absorb thy sight,  "As pages were not infinite,— "Like the omnipotence which tasks "Itself to furnish all that asks "The soul it means to satiate? "What was the world, the starry state "Of the broad skies,—what, all displays "Of power and beauty intermixed, "Which now thy soul is chained betwixt,— "What else than needful furniture "For life's first stage? God's work, be sure,  "No more spreads wasted, than falls scant! "He filled, did not exceed, Man's want "Of beauty in this life. But through "Life pierce,—and what has earth to do, "Its utmost beauty's appanage, "With the requirement of next stage? "Did God pronounce earth 'very good'? "Needs must it be, while understood "For man's preparatory state; "Nothing here to heighten nor abate;  "Transfer the same completeness here, "To serve a new state's use,—and drear "Deficiency gapes every side! "The good, tried once, were bad, retried. "See the enwrapping rocky niche, "Sufficient for the sleep in which "The lizard breathes for ages safe: "Split the mould—and as light would chafe "The creature's new world-widened sense, "Dazzled to death at evidence  "Of all the sounds and sights that broke "Innumerous at the chisel's stroke,— "So, in God's eye, the earth's first stuff "Was, neither more nor less, enough "To house man's soul, man's need fulfil. "Man reckoned it immeasurable? "So thinks the lizard of his vault! "Could God be taken in default, "Short of contrivances, by you,— "Or reached, ere ready to pursue  "His progress through eternity? "That chambered rock, the lizard's world, "Your easy mallet's blow has hurled "To nothingness for ever; so, "Has God abolished at a blow "This world, wherein his saints were pent,— "Who, though, found grateful and content, "With the provision there, as thou, "Yet knew he would not disallow "Their spirit's hunger, felt as well,—  "Unsated,—not unsatable, "As paradise gives proof. Deride "Their choice now, thou who sit'st outside!"

XXVII

I cried in anguish, "Mind, the mind, "So miserably cast behind, "To gain what had been wisely lost! "Oh, let me strive to make the most "Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped "Of budding wings, else now equipped "For voyage from summer isle to isle!  "And though she needs must reconcile "Ambition to the life on ground, "Still, I can profit by late found "But precious knowledge. Mind is best— "I will seize mind, forego the rest "And try how far my tethered strength "May crawl in this poor breadth and length. "Let me, since I can fly no more, "At least spin dervish-like about "(Till giddy rapture almost doubt  "I fly) through circling sciences, "Philosophies and histories! "Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, "Fining to music, shall asperse "Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain "Intoxicate, half-break my chain! "Not joyless, though more favoured feet "Stand calm, where I want wings to beat "The floor. At least earth's bond is broke!"

XXVIII

Then, (sickening even while I spoke) "Let me alone! No answer, pray, "To this! I know what Thou wilt say "All still is earth's,—to know, as much "As feel its truths, which if we touch "With sense, or apprehend in soul, "What matter? I have reached the goal— " 'Whereto does knowledge serve!' will burn "My eyes, too sure, at every turn! "I cannot look back now, nor stake "Bliss on the race, for running's sake. "The goal's a ruin like the rest!"— "And so much worse thy latter quest," (Added the Voice) "that even on earth— "Whenever, in man's soul, had birth "Those intuitions, grasps of guess, "Which pull the more into the less, "Making the finite comprehend "Infinity,—the bard would spend "Such praise alone, upon his craft, "As, when wind-lyres obey the waft, "Goes to the craftsman who arranged "The seven strings, changed them and rechanged— "Knowing it was the South that harped. "He felt his song, in singing, warped, "Distinguished his and God's part: whence "A world of spirit as of sense "Was plain to him, yet not too plain, "Which he could traverse, not remain "A guest in:—else were permanent "Heaven on the earth its gleams were meant "To sting with hunger for full light,— "Made visible in verse, despite "The veiling weakness,—truth by means "Of fable, showing while it screens,— "Since highest truth, man e'er supplied, "Was ever fable on outside. "Such gleams made bright the earth an age; "Now the whole sum's his heritage! "Take up thy world, it is allowed, "Thou who hast entered in the cloud!"

XXIX

Then I—"Behold, my spirit bleeds, "Catches no more at broken reeds,— "But lilies flower those reeds above: "I let the world go, and take love! "Love survives in me, albeit those "I love be henceforth masks and shows, "Not living men and women: still "I mind how love repaired all ill, "Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends "With parents, brothers, children, friends! "Some semblance of a woman yet "With eyes to help me to forget, "Shall live with me; and I will match "Departed love with love, attach "Old memories to new dreams, nor scorn "Tho poorest of the grains of corn "I save from shipwreck on this isle, "Trusting its barrenness may smile "With happy foodful green one day, "More precious for the pains. I pray,— "Leave to love, only!"

XXX

At the word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late! "And all thou dost enumerate "Of power and beauty in the world, "The mightiness of love was curled "Inextricably round about. "Love lay within it and without, "To clasp thee,—but in vain! Thy soul "Still shrunk from Him who made the whole, "Still set deliberate aside "His love!—Now take love! Well betide "Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take "The show of love for the name's sake, "Remembering every moment Who "Beside creating thee unto "These ends, and these for thee, was said "To undergo death in thy stead "In flesh like thine: so ran the tale. "What doubt in thee could countervail "Belief in it? Upon the ground " 'That in the story had been found " 'Too much love! How could God love so?' "He who in all his works below "Adapted to the needs of man, "Made love the basis of the plan,— "Did love, as was demonstrated: "While man, who was so fit instead, "To hate, as every day gave proof,— "Man thought man, for his kind's behoof, "Both could and did invent that scheme "Of perfect love: 'twould well beseem "Cain's nature thou wast wont to praise, "Not tally with God's usual ways!"

XXXI

And I cowered deprecatingly— "Thou Love of God! Or let me die, "Or grant what shall seem Heaven almost! "Let me not know that all is lost, "Though lost it be—leave me not tied "To this despair, this corpse-like bride! "Let that old life seem mine—no more— "With limitation as before, "With darkness, hunger, toil, distress: "Be all the earth a wilderness!  "Only let me go on, go on, "Still hoping ever and anon "To reach one eve the Better Land!"

XXXII

Then did the form expand, expand— I knew Him through the dread disguise As the whole God within His eyes Embraced me.

XXXIII

When I lived again, The day was breaking,—the grey plain I rose from, silvered thick with dew. Was this a vision? False or true? Since then, three varied years are spent, And commonly my mind is bent To think it was a dream—be sure A mere dream and distemperature— The last day's watching: then the night,— The shock of that strange Northern Light Set my head swimming, bred in me A dream. And so I live, you see, Go through the world, try, prove, reject, Prefer, still struggling to effect My warfare; happy that I can Be crossed and thwarted as a man, Not left in God's contempt apart, With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. Thank God, she still each method tries To catch me, who may yet escape, She knows,—the fiend in angel's shape! Thank God, no paradise stands barred To entry, and I find it hard To be a Christian, as I said! Still every now and then my head Raised glad, sinks mournful—all grows drear Spite of the sunshine, while I fear And think, "How dreadful to be grudged "No ease henceforth, as one that's judged. "Condemned to earth for ever, shut "From heaven!"                       But Easter-Day breaks! But Christ rises! Mercy every way Is infinite,—and who can say?

title: Christmas Eve and Easter Day/Easter Day


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 TO THE MEMORY OF MY SISTER JANE ANN

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 MARGARET OGILVY

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Rh of the waiters, learned the names of the lady and gentleman. He was Captain Dobble, the son of the rich army clothier, Dobble (Dobble, Hobble & Co., of Pall Mall);—the lady was a Mrs. Manasseh, widow of an American Jew, living quietly at Leamington with her children, but possessed of an immense property. There's no use to give one’s self out to be an absolute pauper; so the fact is, that I myself, went every where with the character of a man of very large means. My father had died, leaving me immense sums of money, and landed estates—ah! I was the gentleman then, the real gentleman, and every body was too happy to have me at table.

Well, I came the next day, and left a card for Dobble, with a note:—he neither returned my visit, nor answered my note. The day after, however, I met him with the widow, as before; and, going up to him, very kindly seized him by the hand, and swore I was—as really was the case—charmed to see him. Dobble hung back, to my surprise, and I do believe the creature would have cut me, if he dared; but I gave him a frown, and said—


text: Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots/Chapter 9


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170 the wholly insignificant remains of Celtic material to be found among the ordinary stores of expression of our English tongue. Christianity and civilization found the invaders in their new home, and an Anglo-Saxon literature grew up, which, had circumstances continued favourable, might have aided national unity of government, institutions, and culture to assimilate the varying dialects of the country, producing a national language not inferior in wealth and polish to our present speech. But they who take the sword shall perish by the sword: upon the Anglo-Saxons were wreaked the woes they had themselves earlier brought upon the Celts. Danish and Norse invasions, during a long period, bitterly vexed and weakened the Saxon state, and it finally sank irrecoverably under the Norman conquest. This time, the collision of two diverse languages, upborne by a nearly equal civilization—the partial superiority of that of the Normans being more than counterbalanced by their inferiority in numbers—under the government of political circumstances already explained, produced a result different from any which we have thus far had occasion to notice—namely, a truly composite language, drawing its material and its strength in so nearly equal part from the two sources that scholars are able to dispute whether the modern English is more Saxon or more French. Into the details of the combination we cannot now stay to enter, but must pass on to note the later dialectic history of the language, merely directing attention to the important and familiarly known fact that its formative apparatus—whether consisting in inflections, affixes of derivation, or connectives and relational words—along with the most common and indispensable part of its vocabulary, remained almost purely Saxon, so that it is to be accounted still a Germanic dialect in structure, although furnished with stores of expression in no small part of Romanic origin.

The fusion of Saxon and Norman elements in English speech did not reach in equal measure all parts of the land or all classes of the people, nor did it by any means wipe out previously existing dialectic differences, thus furnishing a new and strictly homogeneous speech as a starting-point


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Rh, and not like other young men? Had I ever been known to squander or give away a single penny? No! I can lay my hand on my heart, and, thank Heaven, say, No! Why, why was I punished so?

Let me conclude this miserable history. Seven months—my wife saw me once or twice, and then dropped me altogether—I remained in that fatal place. I wrote to my dear mamma, begging her to sell her furniture, but got no answer. All my old friend turned their backs upon me. My action went against me—I had not a penny to defend it. Solomonson proved my wife’s debt, and seized my two thousand pounds.—As for the detainer against me, I was obliged to go through the court for the relief of insolvent debtors. I passed through it, and came out a beggar. But, fancy the malice of that wicked Stiffelkind; he appeared in court as my creditor for £3, with sixteen years’ interest, at five per cent., for a PAIR OF TOP BOOTS. The old thief produced them in court, and told the whole story—Lord Cornwallis, the detection, pumping, and all.


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92 Commissioner Dubobwig was very funny about it. "So Doctor Swishtail would not pay you for the boots, eh, Mr. Stiffelkind?"

"No; he said, ven I asked him for payment, dey was ordered by a yong boy, and I ought to have gone to his schoolmaster."

"What, then, you came on the bootless errand, ay, sir?" (A laugh.)

"Bootless! no sare, I brought de boots back vid me; how de devil else could I show dem to you." (Another laugh.)

"You’ve never soled ’em since, Mr. Tickleshins?"

"I never would sell dem; I svore I never vood, on porpus to be revenged on dat Stubbs."

"What, your wound has never been healed, eh?"

"Vat de you mean vid your bootless errants, and your soling and healing? I tell you I have done vat I svore to do; I have exposed him at school, I have broak off a marriage for him, ven he vould have had tventy tousand pound, and now I have showed him up in a court of justice; dat is vat I ave done, and dat’s


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IV.] whence a new process of dialectic divergence should commence. On the contrary, Britain is still, like Germany, only in a less degree, a country full of dialects, some of whose peculiarities go back to the diversities of speech among the tribes by whom the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the island was achieved, thirteen hundred years ago, while the rest are of every date of origin, from that remote period to the present. One or two of these dialects—especially the Scottish and the Yorkshire—poetry and fiction have made somewhat familiarly known to us; others are matters of keen and curious interest to the student of language, their testimony being hardly less essential than that of the literary dialect to his comprehension of the history of English speech.

But it was impossible that, in the transfer of English to the continent of America, these local dialects should maintain themselves intact; that could only have been the result of a separate migration of parts of the local communities to which they belonged, and of the continued maintenance of their distinct identity in their new place of settlement. Such was not the character of the movement which filled this country with an English-speaking population. Old lines of local division were effaced; new ties of community were formed, embracing men of various province and rank. It was not more inevitable that the languages of the various nationalities which have contributed to our later population should disappear, swallowed up in the predominant English, than that the varying forms of English should disappear, being assimilated to that one among them which was better supported than the rest. Nor could it be doubtful which was the predominant element, to which the others would have to conform themselves. In any cultivated and lettered community, the cultivated speech, the language of letters, is the central point toward which all the rest gravitate, as they are broken up and lose their local hold. And our first settlers were in no small part from the instructed class, men of high character, capacity, and culture. They brought with them a written language and a rich literature; they read and wrote; they established schools of every grade, and


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 relating to his colony; of which agents one shall be changed every two years; and all colonies must, at least once in every 12 months, send an exact report of their colony and of the lands thereabout to the commander and council there.

XXIX. The colonists shall not be permitted to make any woolen, linen or cotton cloth, nor to weave any other stuffs there, on pain of being banished and peremptorily punished as oath breakers.

XXX. The Company will endeavor to supply the colonists with as many blacks as it possibly can, on the conditions hereafter to be made, without however being bound to do so to a greater extent or for a longer time than it shall see fit.

XXXI. The Company promises to finish the fort on the island of the Manhattes, and to put it in a posture of defense without delay. And to have these Freedoms and Exemptions approved and confirmed by their High Mightinesses the Lords States General.

FINIS.

AT AMSTELREDAM.


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172 took care that each rising generation should not fall behind its predecessor in learning. The basis, too, of equality of rights and privileges on which they founded their society added a powerful influence in favour of equality of speech. As a natural and unavoidable consequence, then, of these determining conditions, and not by reason of any virtue for which we are to take credit to ourselves, the general language of America, through all sections of the country and all orders of the population, became far more nearly homogeneous, and accordant with the correct standard of English speech, than is the average language of England. And the same influences which made it so have tended to keep it so: the democratic character of our institutions, and the almost universality of instruction among us, have done much to maintain throughout our community an approximate uniformity of idiom. There was doubtless never a country before, where, down to the very humblest classes of the people, so many learned to read and spell out of the same school-books, heard the same speakers, from platform, desk, and pulpit, and read the same books and papers; where there was such a surging to and fro of the population, such a mixture and intimate intercourse of all ranks and of all regions. In short, every form of communication is more active and more far-reaching with us than ever elsewhere; every assimilating influence has had unequalled freedom and range of action. Hence, there was also never a case in which so nearly the same language was spoken throughout the whole mass of so vast a population as is the English now in America. Modern civilization, with the great states it creates, and the wide and active intercourse among men to which it prompts and for which it affords the needed facilities, is able to establish upon unoccupied soil, and then to maintain there, community upon a scale of grandeur to which ancient times could afford no parallel.

Nor have we failed to keep nearly even pace with our British relations in the slow progressive development of the common tongue: our close connection with the mother-country, the community of culture which we have kept up with her, our acknowledgment of her superior authority in


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IV.] matters of learning and literature, have been able thus far to restrain our respective lines of linguistic growth from notable divergence. Though we are sundered by an ocean, there have been invisible ties enough between us to bind us together into one community. Yet our concordance of speech is not perfect: British purism finds fault with even our higher styles of discourse, oral and written, as disfigured by Americanisms, and in both the tone and the material of colloquial talk the differences are, of. course, much more marked. We have preserved some older words, phrases, and meanings which their modern use discards; we have failed as yet to adopt certain others which have sprung up among them since the separation; we have originated yet others which they have not accepted and ratified. Upon all these points we are, in the abstract, precisely as much in the right as they; but the practical question is, which of the two is the higher authority, whose approved usage shall be the norm of correct English speaking. We have been content hitherto to accept the inferior position, but it is not likely that we shall always continue so. Our increasing numbers and our growing independence of character and culture will give us in our own estimation an equal right, at the least, and we shall feel more and more unwilling to yield implicitly to British precedent; so that the time may perhaps come when the English language in America and the English language in Britain will exhibit a noteworthy difference of material, form, and usage. What we have to rely upon to counteract this separating tendency and annul its effect is the predominating influence of the class of highest cultivation, as exerted especially through the medium of literature. Literature is the most dignified, the most legitimate, and the most powerful of the forces which effect the conservation of language, and the one which acts most purely according to its true merit, free from the adventitious aids and drawbacks of place and time. It is through her literature that America has begun, and must go on, to win her right to share in the elaboration of the English speech. Love and admiration of the same master-works in poetry, oratory, philosophy, and science has hitherto made one community


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174 of the two great divisions of speakers of English, and ought to continue to unite them—and it will, we hope, do so: but more or less completely, according as that portion of the community which is most directly reached and effectively guided by literature is allowed authority over the rest.

We are, however, by no means free from dialects among our own population, although we may hope that they will long, or always, continue to be restricted within narrow limits of variation from the standard of correct speech, as they are at present. The New Englander, the Westerner, the Southerner, even of the educated class, betrays his birth to a skilled observer by the peculiarities of his language; and the lower we descend in the social scale, the more marked and prominent do these peculiarities become. There is hardly a locality in the land, of greater or less extent, which has not some local usages, of phrase or utterance, characterizing those whose provincialism has not been rubbed off by instruction or by intercourse with a wider public. There is a certain degree of difference, too, of which we are all conscious, between the written and the colloquial style: there are words and phrases in good conversational use, which would be called inelegant, and almost low, if met with in books; there are words and phrases which we employ in composition, but which would seem forced and stilted if applied in the ordinary dealings of life. This is far from being a difference sufficient to mark the literary English as another dialect than that of the people; yet it is the beginning of such a difference; it needs no change in kind, but only a change in degree, to make it accord with the distinction between any literary language which history offers to our knowledge and the less cultivated dialects which have grown up in popular usage by its side, and by which it has been finally overthrown and supplanted.

Nothing, then, as we see, can absolutely repress dialectic growth; even the influences most powerfully conservative of identity of language, working in the most effective manner which human conditions have been found to admit, can only succeed in indefinitely reducing its rate of progress.


text:
"You are sick, that's sure"

"You are sick, that's sure," — they say: "Sick of what?" — they disagree. " 'T is the brain," — thinks Doctor A;     " 'T is the heart," — holds Doctor B; "The liver — my life I'd lay!" "The lungs!" "The lights!" Ah me! So ignorant of man's whole Of bodily organs plain to see — So sage and certain, frank and free, About what's under lock and key — Man's soul!

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IV.] It will be noticed that we have used the terms "dialect" and "language" indifferently and interchangeably, in speaking of any given tongue; and it will also have been made plain, I trust, by the foregoing exposition how vain would be the attempt to establish a definite and essential distinction between them, or give precision to any of the other names which indicate the different degrees of diversity among related tongues. No form of speech, living or dead, of which we have any knowledge, was not or is not a dialect, in the sense of being the idiom of a limited community, among other communities of kindred but somewhat discordant idiom; none is not truly a language, in the sense that it is the means of mutual intercourse of a distinct portion of mankind, adapted to their capacity and supplying their needs. The whole history of spoken language, in all climes and all ages, is a series of varying and successive phases; external circumstances, often accidental, give to some of these phases a prominence and importance, a currency and permanence, to which others do not attain; and according to their degree of importance we style them idiom, or patois, or dialect, or language. To a very limited extent, natural history feels the same difficulty in establishing the distinction between a "variety" and a "species:" and the difficulty would be not less pervading and insurmountable in natural than in linguistic science, if, as is the case in language, not only the species, but even the genera and higher groups of animals and plants were traceably descended from one another or from common ancestors, and passed into each other by insensible gradations. Transmutation of species in the kingdom of speech is no hypothesis, but a patent fact, one of the fundamental and determining principles of linguistic study.


text:
Pan and Luna

 * Si credere dignum est. —Georgic. iii. 300.

O worthy of belief I hold it was, Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! No question, that adventure came to pass One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, The sky's embrace, — below, above, around, All hardened into black without a bound.

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice: See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim, Turns marble to the touch of who would loose The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim, By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less, Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness.

And thus it proved when — diving into space, Stript of all vapour, from each web of mist Utterly film-free — entered on her race The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist Of night and dark, night's dowry: peak to base, Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare.

Still as she fled, each depth — where refuge seemed — Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct Those limbs: mid still-retreating blue, she teemed Herself with whiteness, — virginal, uncinct By any halo save what finely gleamed To outline not disguise her: heaven was linked In one accord with earth to quaff the joy, Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy.

Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo, A succourable cloud with sleep lay dense: Some pinetree-top had caught it sailing slow, And tethered for a prize: in evidence Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence, The structure of that succourable cloud, What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud.

Orbed — so the woman-figure poets call Because of rounds on rounds — that apple-shaped Head which its hair binds close into a ball Jach side the curving ears — that pure undraped Pout of the sister paps — that. . . Once for all, Say — her consummate circle thus escaped With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed, Safe in the cloud — O naked Moon full-orbed!

But what means this? The downy swathes combine, Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff Fitting as close as fits the dented spine Its flexile ivory outside-flesh: enough! The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe, Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe.

As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam Churned on a sea-shore, and, o'er-frothed, conceits Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite's dome, — If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets What most she loathes and leaps from, — elf from gnome No gladlier, — finds that safest of retreats Bubbles about a treacherous hand wide ope To grasp her — (divers who pick pearls so grope) —

So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract: He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought With simulated earth-breath, — wool-tufts packed Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact As learned Virgil gives it, — how the breed Whitens itself forever: yes, indeed!

If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue Black 'neath the beast's moist palate, prompt men baulk The propagating plague: he gets no young: They rather slay him, — sell his hide to caulk Ships with, first steeped in pitch, — nor hands are wrung In sorrow for his fate: protected thus, The purity we love is gained for us.

So did Girl-Moon, by just her attribute Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped, Bruised to the breast of Pan, half god half brute, Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped — Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute Love's language — which moreover proves unapt To tell how she recoiled — as who finds thorns Where she sought flowers — when, feeling, she touched — horns!

Then — does the legend say? — first moon-eclipse Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore The early sages? Is that why she dips Into the dark, a minute and no more, Only so long as serves her while she rips The cloud's womb through and, faultless as before, Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed?

Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! "To the deep Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith Called her, and so she followed" — in her sleep, Surely? — "by no means spurning him." The myth Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep — As of a ruin just a monolith — Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon: Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon.

title: Pan and Luna


text: Language and the Study of Language/Lecture IV


text:
"Touch him ne'er so lightly"

"Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke: Soil so quick-receptive, — not one feather-seed, Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke Vitalizing virtue: song would song succeed Sudden as spontaneous — prove a poet-soul!" Indeed? Rock's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare: Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage Vainly both expend, — few flowers awaken there: Quiet in its cleft broods — what the after-age Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage.

title: "Touch him ne'er so lightly"


text: Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/514


text:
In re Tyson Foods, Inc. Consolidated Shareholder Litigation

Stuart M. Grant, Megan D. McIntyre, and Michael J. Barry, of GRANT & EISENHOFER P.A., Wilmington, Delaware; OF COUNSEL: Jeffrey G. Smith and Robert Abrams, of WOLF HALDENSTEIN ADLER FREEMAN & HERZ LLP, New York, New York, Attorneys for Plaintiffs.

A. Gilchrist Sparks, III, S. Mark Hurd, and Samuel T. Hirzel, of MORRIS, NICHOLS, ARSHT & TUNNELL LLP, Wilmington, Delaware; OF COUNSEL: David F. Graham, Anne E. Rea, and Julie K. Potter, of SIDLEY AUSTIN LLP, Chicago, Illinois, Attorneys for Defendants.

Kurt M. Heyman and Patricia L. Enerio, of PROCTOR HEYMAN LLP, Wilmington, Delaware, Attorneys for Nominal Defendant.