Chapter III: Horace the Dynamic

THE CULTIVATED FEW

We have followed in such manner and at such length as is possible for our purpose the fortunes of Horace through the ages from his death and the death of the Empire in whose service his pen was employed to our own times. We have seen that he never was really forgotten, and that there never was a time of long duration when he ceased to be of real importance to some portion of mankind.

The recital of historical fact is at best a narration of circumstance to which there clings little of the warmth of life. An historical event itself is but the cumulated and often frigid result of intimate original forces that may have meant long travail of body and soul before the act of realization became possible. The record of the event in chronicle or its commemoration in monument is only the sign that at some time there occurred a significant moment rendered inevitable by previous stirrings of life whose intensity, if not whose very identity, are forgotten or no longer realized.

Thus the enumeration of manuscript revisions, translations, imitations, and scholastic editions of Horace may also seem at first sight the narrative of cold detail. There may be readers who, remembering the scant stream of the cultivated few who tided the poet through the centuries of darkness, and the comparative rareness of cultivated men at all times, will be slow to be convinced of any real impress of Horace upon the life of men. They especially who reflect that during all the long sweep of time the majority of those who have known him, and even of those who have been stirred to enthusiasm by him, have known him through the compulsion of the school, and who reflect farther on the artificialities, the insincerities, the pettinesses, the abuses, and the hatreds of the class-room, the joy with which at the end the text-book is dropped or bidden an even more violent farewell, and the apparently total oblivion that follows, will be inclined to view as exaggeration the most moderate estimate of our debt to him.

Yet skepticism would be without warrant. The presence of any subject in an educational scheme represents the sincere, and often the fervent, conviction that it is worthy of the place. In the case of literary subjects, the nearer the approach to pure letters, the less demonstrable the connection between instruction and the winning of livelihood, the more intense the conviction. The immortality of literature and the arts, which surely has been demonstrated by time, the respect in which they are held by a world so intent on mere living that of its own motion it would never heed, is the work of the passionate few whose enthusiasms and protestations never allow the common crowd completely to forget, and keep forever alive in it the uneasy sense of imperfection. That Horace was preserved for hundreds of years by monastery and school, that the fact of acquaintance with him is due to his place in modern systems of education, are not mere statements empty of life. They represent the noble enthusiasms of enlightened men. The history of human progress has been the history of enthusiasms. Without enthusiasms, the fabric of civilization would collapse in a day into the chaos of barbarism.

To give greater completeness and reality to our account of Horace's place among men, ancient and modern, we must in some way add to the narrative of formal fact the demonstration of his influence in actual operation. In the case of periods obscure and remote, this is hardly possible. In the case of modern times it is not so difficult. For the recent centuries, as proof of the peculiar power of Horace, we have the abundant testimony of literature and biography.

Let us call this influence the Dynamic Power of Horace. Dynamic power is the power that explodes men, so to speak, into physical or spiritual action, that operates by inspiration, expansion, fertilization, vitalization, and results in the living of a fuller life. If we can be shown concrete instances of Horace enriching the lives of men by increasing their love and mastery of art or multiplying their means of happiness, we shall not only appreciate better the poet's meaning for the present day, but be better able to imagine his effect upon men in the remoter ages whose life is less open to scrutiny.

Our purpose will best be accomplished by demonstrating the very specific and pronounced effect of Horace, first, upon the formation of the literary ideal; second, upon the actual creation of literature; and, third, upon living itself.

1. HORACE AND THE LITERARY IDEAL

There is no better example of the direct effect of Horace than the part played in the discipline of letters by the _Ars Poetica_. This work is a literary _causerie_ inspired in part by the reading of Alexandrian criticism, but in larger part by experience. In it the author's uppermost themes, as in characteristic manner he allows himself to be led on from one thought to another, are unity, consistency, propriety, truthfulness, sanity, and carefulness. Such has been its power by reason of inner substance and outward circumstance that it has been at times exalted into a court of appeal hardly less authoritative than Aristotle himself, from whom in large part it ultimately derives.

We have seen how the Pleiad, with Du Bellay and Ronsard leading, seized upon the classics as a means of elevating the literature of France, and how the treatise of Du Bellay which was put forth as their manifesto was full of matter from the _Ars Poetica_, which two years previously has served Sibilet also, whose work Du Bellay attacked. A century later, Boileau's _L'Art Poétique_ testifies again to the inspiration of Horace, who is made the means of riveting still more firmly upon French drama, for good or ill, the strict rules that have always governed it; and by the time of Boileau's death the program of the Pleiad is revived a second time by Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Opitz and Gottsched in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are for Germany what Du Bellay and Boileau were for France in the sixteenth and seventeenth. Literary Spain of the latter fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was under the same influence. The Spanish peninsula, according to Menéndez y Pelayo, has produced no fewer than forty-seven translations of the _Ars Poetica_. Even in England, always less tractable in the matter of rules than the Latin countries, Ben Jonson and his friends are in some sort another Pleiad, and the treatise possesses immense authority throughout the centuries. We turn the pages of Cowl's _The Theory of Poetry in England_, a book of critical extracts illustrating the development of poetry "in doctrines and ideas from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century," and note Ben Jonson and Wordsworth referring to or quoting Horace in the section on Poetic Creation; Dryden and Temple appealing to him and Aristotle on the Rules; Hurd quoting him on Nature and the Stage; Roger Ascham, Ben Jonson, and Dryden citing him as an example on Imitation; Dryden and Chapman calling him master and law-giver on Translation; Samuel Johnson referring to him on the same subject; and Ben Jonson and Dryden using him on Functions and Principles of Criticism. "Horace," writes Jonson, "an author of much civility, ... an excellent and true judge upon cause and reason, not because he thought so, but because he knew so out of use and experience." Pope, in the _Essay on Criticism_, describes with peculiar felicity both Horace's critical manner and the character of the authority, persuasive rather than tyrannical, which he exercises over Englishmen:

"H_orace still charms with graceful negligence_,
A_nd without method talks us into sense_;
W_ill, like a friend, familiarly convey_
T_he truest notions in the easiest way_."

But the dynamic power of the _Ars Poetica_ will be still better appreciated if we assemble some of its familiar principles. Who has not heard of and wondered at the hold the "Rules" have had upon modern drama, especially in France,--the rule of five acts, no more and no less; the rule of three actors only, liberalized into the rule of economy; the rule of the unities in time, place, and action; the rule against the mingling of the tragic and comic "kinds"; the rule against the artificial dénouement? Who has not heard of French playwrights composing "with one eye on the clock" for fear of violating the unity of time, or of their delight in the writing of drama as in "a difficult game well played?" If Alexandrian criticism, and, back of it, Aristotle, were ultimately responsible for the rules, Horace was their disseminator in later times, and was looked up to as final authority. Who has not heard and read repeatedly the now common-place injunctions to be appropriate and consistent in character-drawing; to avoid, on the one hand, clearness at the cost of diffuseness, and, on the other, brevity at the cost of obscurity; to choose subject-matter suited to one's powers; to respect the authority of the masterpiece and to con by night and by day the great Greek exemplars; to feel the emotion one wishes to rouse; to stamp the universal with the mark of individual genius; to be straightforward and rapid and omit the unessential; to be truthful to life; to keep the improbable and the horrible behind the scenes; to be appropriate in meter and diction; to keep clear of the fallacy of poetic madness; to look for the real sources of successful writing in sanity, depth of knowledge, and experience with men; to remember the mutual indispensability of genius and cultivation; to combine the pleasant and the useful; to deny one's self the indulgence of mediocrity; never to compose unless under inspiration; to give heed to solid critical counsel; to lock up one's manuscript for nine years before giving it to the world; to destroy what does not measure up to the ideal; to take ever-lasting pains; to beware of the compliments of good-natured friends? Not less familiar are the apt figurative illustrations of the woman beautiful above and an ugly fish below, the purple patch, the painter who would forever put in his cypress tree, the amphora that came out a pitcher, the dolphin in the wood and the boar in the waters, the sesquipedalian word, the mountains in travail and the birth of the ridiculous mouse, the plunge _in medias res_, the praiser of the good old times, the exclusion of sane poets from Helicon, the counsellor who himself can write nothing, but will serve as whetstone for genius, the nodding of Homer.

Nor did the effects of this diffusion of Horatian precept consist merely in restraint upon the youthful and the impulsive, or confine themselves to the drama, with which the _Ars Poetica_ was mainly concerned. The persuasive and authoritative counsels of the Roman poet have entered, so to speak, into the circulatory system of literary effort and become part of the life-blood of modern enlightenment. Their great effect has been formative: the cultivation of character in literature.

2. HORACE AND LITERARY CREATION

_i_. THE TRANSLATOR'S IDEAL

Besides the invisible, and the greatest, effect of Horace in the moulding of character in literature, is the visible effect in literary creation. His inspiration wrought by performance as well as by precept. The numerous essays in verse and prose on the art of letters which have been prompted by the _Ars Poetica_ are themselves examples of this effect. They are not alone, however, though perhaps the most apparent. The purer literature of the lyric also inspired to creation, with results that are far more charming, if less substantial.

In the case of the lyric inspired by the _Odes_, as well as in the case of the critical essay inspired by the _Ars Poetica_, it is not always easy to distinguish adaptation or imitation from actual creation. Bernardo Tasso's _Ode_, for example, and Giovanni Prati's _Song of Hygieia_, while really independent poems, are so charged with Horatian matter and spirit that one hesitates to call them original. The same is true of the many inspirations traceable to the famous _Beatus Ille Epode_, which, with such _Odes_ as _The Bandusian Spring_, _Pyrrha_, _Phidyle_, and _Chloe_, have captured the fancy of modern poets. Pope's _Solitude_, on the other hand, while surely an inspiration of the second _Epode_, shows hardly a mark affording proof of the fact.

To some of the most manifest imitations and adaptations, it is impossible to deny originality. The _Fifth Book of Horace_, by Kipling and Graves, is an example. Thackeray's delightful _Ad Ministram_ is another example which must be classed as adaptation, yet such is its spontaneity that not to see in it an inspiration would be stupid and unjust:

AD MINISTRAM

D_ear Lucy, you know what my wish is_--
I_ hate all your Frenchified fuss_:
Y_our silly entrées and made dishes_
W_ere never intended for us_.
N_o footman in lace and in ruffles_
N_eed dangle behind my arm-chair_;
A_nd never mind seeking for truffles_
A_lthough they be ever so rare_.

B_ut a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy_,
I_ prithee get ready at three_:
H_ave it smoking, and tender, and juicy_,
A_nd what better meat can there be?_
A_nd when it has feasted the master_,
'T_will amply suffice for the maid_;
M_eanwhile I will smoke my canaster_,
A_nd tipple my ale in the shade_.

In similar strain of exquisite humor are the adaptations of the Whichers, American examples of spirit and skill not second to that of Thackeray:

MY SABINE FARM

LAUDABUNT ALII

S_ome people talk about "Noo Yo'k"_;
O_f Cleveland many ne'er have done_;
T_hey sing galore of Baltimore_,
C_hicago, Pittsburgh, Washington_.

O_thers unasked their wit have tasked_
T_o sound unending praise of Boston_--
O_f bean-vines found for miles around_
A_nd crooked streets that I get lost on_.

G_ive me no jar of truck or car_,
N_o city smoke and noise of mills_;
R_ather the slow Connecticut's flow_
A_nd sunny orchards on the hills_.

T_here like the haze of summer days_
B_efore the wind flee care and sorrow_.
I_n sure content each day is spent_,
U_nheeding what may come to-morrow_.

VITAS HINNULEO

DONE BY MR. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I _met a little Roman maid_;
S_he was just sixteen (she said)_,
A_nd O! but she was sore afraid_,
A_nd hung her modest head_.

A _little fawn, you would have vowed_,
T_hat sought her mother's side_,
A_nd wandered lonely as a cloud_
U_pon the mountain wide_.

W_hene'er the little lizards stirred_
S_he started in her fear_;
I_n every rustling bush she heard_
S_ome awful monster near_.

"I_'m not a lion; fear not so_;
S_eek not your timid dam_."--
B_ut Chloe was afraid, and O!_
S_he knows not what I am_:

A creature quite too bright and good
To be so much misunderstood.

Again, in Austin Dobson's exquisite _Triolet_, whether the inspiration of the poem itself is in Horace, or the inspiration, so far as Horace is concerned, lies in the choice of title after the verses were written, we must in either case confess a debt of great delight to the author of the _Ars Poetica_:

URCEUS EXIT

I_ intended an Ode_,
A_nd it turned to a Sonnet_.
I_t began_ à la mode,
I_ intended an Ode_;
B_ut Rose crossed the road_
I_n her latest new bonnet_;
I_ intended an Ode_,
A_nd it turned to a Sonnet_.

The same observation applies equally to the same author's _Iocosa Lyra_:

IOCOSA LYRA

I_n our hearts is the great one of Avon_
E_ngraven_,
A_nd we climb the cold summits once built on_
B_y Milton_;

B_ut at times not the air that is rarest_
I_s fairest_,
A_nd we long in the valley to follow_
A_pollo_.

T_hen we drop from the heights atmospheric_
T_o Herrick_,
O_r we pour the Greek honey, grown blander_,
O_f Landor_,

O_r our cosiest nook in the shade is_
W_here Praed is_,
O_r we toss the light bells of the mocker_
W_ith Locker_.

O_ the song where not one of the Graces_
T_ightlaces_,--
W_here we woo the sweet Muses not starchly_,
B_ut archly_,--

W_here the verse, like a piper a-Maying_
C_omes playing_,--
A_nd the rhyme is as gay as a dancer_
I_n answer_,--

I_t will last till men weary of pleasure_
I_n measure!_
I_t will last till men weary of laughter_ ...
A_nd after!_

Whatever we may say of the indebtedness of things like these to the letter of the ancient poet, we must acknowledge them all alike as examples of the dynamic power of Horace.

_ii_. CREATION

But there are other examples whose character as literary creation is still farther beyond question. Such a one, to mention one brilliant specimen in prose, is the letter of Andrew Lang to Horace. In verse, Austin Dobson again affords one of the happiest examples:

TO Q.H.F.

"H_oratius Flaccus_, B.C. 8,"
T_here's not a doubt about the date_,--
Y_ou're dead and buried_:
A_s you observed, the seasons roll_;
A_nd 'cross the Styx full many a soul_
H_as Charon ferried_,
S_ince, mourned of men and Muses nine_,
T_hey laid you on the Esquiline_.

A_nd that was centuries ago!_
Y_ou'd think we'd learned enough, I know_,
T_o help refine us_,
S_ince last you trod the Sacred Street_,
A_nd tacked from mortal fear to meet_
T_he bore Crispinus_;
O_r, by your cold Digentia, set_
T_he web of winter birding-net_.

O_urs is so far-advanced an age!_
S_ensation tales, a classic stage_,
C_ommodious villas!_
W_e boast high art, an Albert Hall_,
A_ustralian meats, and men who call_
T_heir sires gorillas!_
W_e have a thousand things, you see_,
N_ot dreamt in your philosophy_.

A_nd yet, how strange! Our "world," today_,
T_ried in the scale, would scarce outweigh_
Y_our Roman cronies_;
W_alk in the Park,--you'll seldom fail_
T_o find a Sybaris on the rail_
B_y Lydia's ponies_,
O_r hap on Barrus, wigged and stayed_,
O_gling some unsuspecting maid_.

T_he great Gargilius, then, behold!_
H_is "long-bow" hunting tales of old_
A_re now but duller_;
F_air Neobule too! Is not_
O_ne Hebrus here,--from Aldershot?_
A_ha, you colour!_
B_e wise. There old Canidia sits_;
N_o doubt she's tearing you to bits_.

A_nd look, dyspeptic, brave, and kind_,
C_omes dear Maecenas, half behind_
T_erentia's skirting_;
H_ere's Pyrrha, "golden-haired" at will_;
P_rig Damasippus, preaching still_;
A_sterie flirting_,--
R_adiant, of course. We'll make her black_,--
A_sk her when Gyges' ship comes back_.

S_o with the rest. Who will may trace_
B_ehind the new each elder face_
D_efined as clearly_;
S_cience proceeds, and man stands still_;
O_ur "world" today's as good or ill_,--
A_s cultured_ (_nearly_),
A_s yours was, Horace! You alone_,
U_nmatched, unmet, we have not known_.

But it is not only to comparatively independent creation that we must look. The dynamic power of Horace is to be found at work even in the translation of the poet. The fact that he has had more translators than any other poet, ancient or modern, is itself an evidence of inspirational quality, but a greater proof lies in the variety and character of his translators and the quality of their achievement. A list of those who have felt in this way the stirrings of the Horatian spirit would include the names not only of many great men of letters, but of many great men of affairs, whose successes are to be counted among examples of genuine inspiration. Translation at its best is not mere craftsmanship, but creation,--in Roscommon's lines,

'T_is true, composing is the Nobler Part_,
B_ut good Translation is no easy Art_.

Theodore Martin's rendering of I. 21, _To a Jar of Wine_, already quoted in part, is an example. Another brilliant success is Sir Stephen E. De Vere's I. 31, _Prayer to Apollo_, quoted in connection with the poet's religious attitude. No less felicitous are Conington's spirited twelve lines, reproducing III. 26, _Vixi puellis_:

VIXI PUELLIS NUPER IDONEUS

F_or ladies' love I late was fit_,
A_nd good success my warfare blest_;
B_ut now my arms, my lyre I quit_,
A_nd hang them up to rust or rest_.
H_ere, where arising from the sea_
S_tands Venus, lay the load at last_,
L_inks, crowbars, and artillery_,
T_hreatening all doors that dared be fast_.
O_ Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway_,
A_nd Memphis, far from Thracian snow_:
R_aise high thy lash, and deal me, pray_,
T_hat haughty Chloe just one blow!_

To translate in this manner is beyond all doubt to deserve the name of poet.

We may go still farther and claim for Horace that he has been a dynamic power in the art of translation, not only as it concerned his own poems, but in its concern of translation as a universal art. No other poet presents such difficulties; no other poet has left behind him so long a train of disappointed aspirants. "Horace remains forever the type of the untranslatable," says Frederic Harrison. Milton attempts the _Pyrrha_ ode in unrhymed meter, and the light and bantering spirit of Horace disappears. Milton is correct, polished, restrained, and pure, but heavy and cold. An exquisite _jeu d'esprit_ has been crushed to death:

W_hat slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours_,
C_ourts thee on roses in some pleasant cave_,
P_yrrha? For whom bind'st thou_
I_n wreaths thy golden hair_,
P_lain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he_
O_n faith and changèd gods complain, and seas_
R_ough with black winds and storms_
U_nwonted shall admire_!
W_ho now enjoys thee credulous, all gold_,
W_ho, always vacant, always amiable_
H_opes thee, of flattering gales_
U_nmindful! Hapless they_
T_o whom thou untried seem'st fair! Me in my vowed_
P_icture, the sacred wall declares to have hung_
M_y dank and dropping weeds_
T_o the stern God of Sea_.

But let the attempt be made to avoid the ponderous movement and excessive sobriety of Milton, and to communicate the Horatian airiness, and there is a loss in conciseness and reserve:

W_hat scented youth now pays you court_,
P_yrrha, in shady rose-strewn spot_
D_allying in love's sweet sport_?
F_or whom that innocent-seeming knot_
I_n which your golden strands you dress_
W_ith all the art of artlessness?_

D_eluded lad! How oft he'll weep_
O_'er changèd gods! How oft, when dark_
T_he billows roughen on the deep_,
S_torm-tossed he'll see his wretched bark_!
U_nused to Cupid's quick mutations_,
I_n store for him what tribulations!_

B_ut now his joy is all in you_;
H_e thinks your heart is purest gold_;
E_xpects you'll always be love-true_,
A_nd never, never, will grow cold_.
P_oor mariner on summer seas_,
U_ntaught to fear the treacherous breeze!_

A_h, wretched whom your Siren call_
D_eludes and brings to watery woes_!
F_or me--yon plaque on Neptune's wall_
S_hows I've endured the seaman's throes_.
M_y drenchèd garments hang there, too_:
H_enceforth I shun the enticing blue._

It is not improbable that the struggle of the centuries with the difficulties of rendering Horace has been a chief influence in the development of our present exacting ideal of translation; so exacting indeed that it has defeated its purpose. By emphasis upon the impossibility of rendering accurately the content of poetry in the form of poetry, scholastic discussion of the theory of translation has led first to despair, and next from despair to the scientific and unaesthetic principle of rendering into exact prose all forms of literature alike. The twentieth century has thus opened again and settled in opposite manner the old dispute of the French D'Alembert and the Italian Salvini in the seventeen-hundreds, which was resolved by actual results in favor of D'Alembert and fidelity to spirit as opposed to Salvini and fidelity to letter.

In what we have said thus far of the dynamic power of Horace in literary creation, we have dealt with visible results. We should not be misled, however, by the satisfaction of seeing plainly in imitation, adaptation, translation, quotation, or real creation, the mark of Horatian influence. The discipline of the literary ideal in the individual, and the moulding of character in literature as an organism, are effects less clearly visible, but, after all, of greater value. If the bread and meat of human sustenance should appear in the body as recognizable bread and meat, it would hardly be a sign of health. Its value is in the strength conferred by assimilation. With all respect and gratitude for creation manifestly due to Horace, we must also realize that this is but a superficial result as compared with the chastening restraint of expression and the health and vigor of content that have been encouraged by allegiance to him, but are known by no special marks. It is no bad sign when we turn the pages of the _Oxford Selections of Verse_ in the various modern languages and find but few examples of the visible sort of Horatian influence. To detect the more invisible sort requires the keen eye and the sensitive spirit of the poet-scholar, but the reader not so specially qualified may have faith that it exists. With Goethe writing of Horace as a "great, glowing, noble poet, full of heart, who with the power of his song sweeps us along, lifts us, and inspires us," with Menéndez y Pelayo in Spain defining the Horatian lyric, whether Christian or pagan, by "sobriety of thought, rhythmic lightness, the absence of artificial adornment, unlimited care in execution, and brevity," and holding this ideal aloft as the influence needed by the modern lyric, and with no countries or periods without leaders in poetry and criticism uttering similar sentiments and exhortations, it would be difficult not to believe in a substantial Horatian effect on literary culture, however slight the external marks.

3. HORACE IN THE LIVING OF MEN

Let us take leave of these illustrations of the dynamic power of Horace in letters, and consider in conclusion his power as shown directly in the living of men.

First of all, we may include in the dynamic working of the poet his stirring of the heart by pure delight. If this is not the highest and the ultimate effect of poetry, it is after all the first and the essential effect. Without the giving of pleasure, no art becomes really the possession of men and the instrument of good. As a matter of fact, many of the most frequently and best translated _Odes_ are devoid both of moral intent, and, in the ordinary sense, of moral effect. _To Pyrrha_, _Soracte Covered with Snow_, _Carpe Diem_, _To Glycera_, _Integer Vitae_, _To Chloe_, _Horace and Lydia_, _The Bandusian Spring_, _Faunus_, _To an Old Wine-Jar_, _The End of Love_, and _Beatus Ille_ are merely _jeux-d'esprit_ of the sort that for the moment lighten and clear the spirit. The same may be said of _The Bore_ and the _Journey to Brundisium_ among the _Satires_, and of many of the _Epistles_.

But these trifles light as air are nevertheless of the sort for which mankind is eternally grateful, because men are convinced, without process of reason, that by them the fibre of life is rested and refined and strengthened. We may call this familiar effect by the less familiar name of re-creative. What lover of Horace has not felt his inmost being cleansed and refreshed by the simple and exquisite art of _The Bandusian Spring_, whose cameo of sixty-eight Latin words in four stanzas is an unapproachable model of vividness, elegance, purity, and restraint:

O_ crystal-bright Bandusian Spring_,
W_orthy thou of the mellow wine_
A_nd flowers I give to thy pure depths_:
A_ kid the morrow shall be thine_.

T_he day of lustful strife draws on_,
T_he starting horn begins to gleam_;
I_n vain! His red blood soon shall tinge_
T_he waters of thy clear, cold stream_.

T_he dog-star's fiercely blazing hour_
N_e'er with its heat doth change thy pool_;
T_o wandering flock and ploughworn steer_
T_hou givest waters fresh and cool_.

T_hee, too, 'mong storied founts I'll place_,
S_inging the oak that slants the steep_,
A_bove the hollowed home of rock_
F_rom which thy prattling streamlets leap_.

Or who does not live more abundant life at reading the _Chloe Ode_, with its breath of the mountain air and its sense of the brooding forest solitude, and its exquisite suggestion of timid and charming girlhood?

"Y_ou shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_
A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_
T_hrough trackless woods. If spring-winds sigh_,
I_t vainly strives its fears to smother_;--

"I_ts trembling knees assail each other_
W_hen lizards stir the bramble dry_;--
Y_ou shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_
A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_.

"A_nd yet no Libyan lion I_,--
N_o ravening thing to rend another_;
L_ay by your tears, your tremors by_,--
A_ husband's better than a brother_;
N_or shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_
A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_."

But there are those who demand of poetry a usefulness more easily measurable than that of recreation. In their opinion, it is improvement rather than pleasure which is the end of art, or at least improvement as well as pleasure. In this, indeed, the poet himself is inclined to agree: "He who mingles the useful with the pleasant by delighting and likewise improving the reader, will get every vote."

Let us look for these more concrete results, and see how Horace the person still lives in the character of men, as well as Horace the poet in the character of literature.

To appreciate this better, we must return to the theme of Horace's personal quality. We have already seen that in no other poet so fully as in Horace is the reality of personal contact to be felt. The lyrics, as well as the _Epistles_ and _Satires_, are almost without exception addressed to actual persons. So successful is this attempt of the poet to speak from the page that it needs but the slightest touch of imagination to create the illusion that we ourselves are addressed. We feel, as if at first hand, all the qualities that went to make up Horace's character,--his good will, good faith, and good-nature, the depth and constancy of his friendship, his glow of admiration for the brave deed, the pure heart, and the steadfast purpose, his patient endurance of ill, his delight in men and things, his affection for what is simple and sincere, his charity for human weakness, his mildly ironical mood, as of one who is aware that he himself is not undeserving of the good-humored censure he passes on others, his clear vision of the sources of happiness, his reposeful acquiescence, and his elusive humor, which never bursts into laughter and yet is never far away from it. We are taken into his confidence, like old friends. He describes himself and his ways; he lets us share in his own vision of himself and in his amusement at the bustling and self-deluded world, and subtly conciliates us by making us feel ourselves partakers with him in the criticism of life. There is no better example in literature of personal magnetism.

And he is more than merely personal. He is sincere and unreserved. Were he otherwise, the delight of intimate acquaintance with him would be impossible. It is the real Horace whom we meet,--not a person on the literary stage, with buskins, pallium, and mask. Horace holds the mirror up to himself; rather, not to himself, but to nature in himself. Every side of his personality appears: the artist, and the man; the formalist, and the skeptic; the spectator, and the critic; the gentleman in society, and the son of the collector; the landlord of five hearths, and the poet at court; the stern moralist, and the occasional voluptuary; the vagabond, and the conventionalist. He is independent and unhampered in his expression. He has no exalted social position to maintain, and blushes neither for parentage nor companions. His philosophy is not School-made, and the fear of inconsistency never haunts him. His religion requires no subscription to dogma; he does not even take the trouble to define it. Politically, his duties have come to be also his desires. He will accept the favors of the Emperor and his ministers if they do not compromise his liberty or happiness. If they withdraw their gifts, he knows how to do without them, because he has already done without them. He conceals nothing, pretends to nothing, makes no excuses, suffers from no self-consciousness, exercises no reserve. There are few expressions of self in all literature so spontaneous and so complete. Horace has left us a portrait of his soul much more perfect than that of his person. It is a truthful portrait, with both shadow and light.

And there is a corollary to Horace's frankness that constitutes another element in the charm of his personality. His very unreserve is the proof of an open and kindly heart. To call him a satirist at all is to necessitate his own definition of satire, "smilingly to tell the truth." At least in his riper work, there is no trace of bitterness. He laughs with some purpose and to some purpose, but his laughter is not sardonic. Sane judgment and generous experience tell him that the foibles of mankind are his own as well as theirs, and are not to be changed by so slight a means as a railing tongue. He reflects that what in himself has produced no very disastrous results may without great danger be forgiven also in them.

It is this intimate and warming quality in Horace that prompts Hagedorn to call him "my friend, my teacher, my companion," and to take the poet with him on country walks as if he were a living person:

Horaz, mein Freund, mein Lehrer, mein Begleiter,
Wir gehen aufs Land. Die Tage sind so heiter;

and Nietzsche to compare the atmosphere of the _Satires_ and _Epistles_ to the "geniality of a warm winter day"; and Wordsworth to be attracted by his appreciation of "the value of companionable friendship"; and Andrew Lang to address to him the most personal of literary letters; and Austin Dobson to give his Horatian poems the form of personal address; and countless students and scholars and men out of school and immersed in the cares of life to carry Horace with them in leisure hours. _Circum praecordia ludit_, "he plays about the heartstrings," said Persius, long before any of these, when the actual Horace was still fresh in the memory of men.

If we were to take detailed account of certain qualities missed in Horace by the modern reader, we should be even more deeply convinced of his power of personal attraction. He is not a Christian poet, but a pagan. Faith in immortality and Providence, penitence and penance, and humanitarian sentiment, are hardly to be found in his pages. He is sometimes too unrestrained in expression. The unsympathetic or unintelligent critic might charge him with being commonplace.

Yet these defects are more apparent than real, and have never been an obstacle to souls attracted by Horace. His pages are charged with sympathy for men. His lapses in taste are not numerous, and are, after all, less offensive than those of European letters today, after the coming of sin with the law. And he is not commonplace, but universal. His content is familiar matter of today as well as of his own time. His delightful natural settings are never novel, romantic, or forced; we have seen them all, in experience or in literature, again and again, and they make familiar and intimate appeal. Phidyle is neither ancient nor modern, Latin nor Teuton; she is all of them at once. The exquisite expressions of friendship in the odes to a Virgil, or a Septimius, are applicable to any age or nationality, or any person. The story of the town mouse and country mouse is always old and always new, and always true. _Mutato nomine de te_ may be said of it, and of all Horace's other stories; alter the names, and the story is about you. Their application and appeal are universal.

"Without sustained inspiration, without profundity of thought, without impassioned song," writes Duff, "he yet pierces to the universal heart.... His secret lies in sanity rather than impetus. Kindly and shrewd observer of the manifold activities of life, he draws vignettes therefrom and passes judgments thereon which awaken undying interest. _Non omnis moriar_--he remains fresh because he is human."

Horace's philosophy of life may be imperfect for the militant humanitarian and the Christian, but, as a matter of fact, it is a complete and perfect thing in itself. Horace does not fret or fume. He is not morbid or unpleasantly melancholy. It is true that "his tempered and polished expression of common experience, free from transports and free from despairs, speaks more forcibly to ripe middle age than to youth," but it is not without its appeal also to youth. Horace sums up an attitude toward existence which all men, of whatever nation or time, can easily understand, and which all, at some moment or other, sympathize with. Whether they believe in his philosophy of life or not, whether they put it into practice or not, it is always and everywhere attractive,--attractive because founded on clear and sympathetic vision of the joys and sorrows that are the common lot of men, attractive because of its frankness and manly courage, and, above all, attractive because of its object. So long as the one great object of human longing is peace of mind and heart, no philosophy which recognizes it will be without followers. The Christian is naturally unwilling to adopt the Horatian philosophy as a whole, but with its _summum bonum_, and with many of its recommendations, he is in perfect accord. Add Christian faith to it, or add it, so far as is consonant, to Christian faith, and either is enriched.

We are better able now to appreciate the dynamic power of Horace the person. We may see it at work in the fostering of friendly affection, in the deepening of love for favorite spots of earth, in the encouragement of righteous purpose, in the true judging of life's values.

Horace is the poet of friendship. With his address to "Virgil, the half of my soul," his references to Plotius, Varius, and Virgil as the purest and whitest souls of earth, his affectionate messages in _Epistle_ and _Ode_, he sets the heart of the reader aglow with love for his friends. "Nothing, while in my right mind, would I compare to the delight of a friend!" What numbers of men have had their hearts stirred to deeper love by the matchless ode to Septimius:

"S_eptimius, who with me would brave_
F_ar Gades, and Cantabrian land_
U_ntamed by Rome, and Moorish wave_
T_hat whirls the sand_;

"F_air Tibur, town of Argive kings_,
T_here would I end my days serene_,
A_t rest from seas and travelings_,
A_nd service seen_.

"S_hould angry Fate those wishes foil_,
T_hen let me seek Galesus, sweet_
T_o skin-clad sheep, and that rich soil_,
T_he Spartan's seat_.

"O_h, what can match the green recess_,
W_hose honey not to Hybla yields_,
W_hose olives vie with those that bless_
V_enafrum's fields_?

"L_ong springs, mild winters glad that spot_
B_y Jove's good grace, and Aulon, dear_
T_o fruitful Bacchus, envies not_
F_alernian cheer_.

"T_hat spot, those happy heights desire_
O_ur sojourn; there, when life shall end_,
Y_our tear shall dew my yet warm pyre_,
Y_our bard and friend_."

And what numbers of men have taken to their hearts from the same ode the famous

Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes
Angulus ridet,--

Y_onder little nook of earth_
B_eyond all others smiles on me_,--

and expressed through its perfect phrase the love they bear their own beloved nook of earth. "Happy Horace!" writes Sainte-Beuve on the margin of his edition, "what a fortune has been his! Why, because he once expressed in a few charming verses his fondness for the life of the country and described his favorite corner of earth, the lines composed for his own pleasure and for the friend to whom he addressed them have laid hold on the memory of all men and have become so firmly lodged there that one can conceive no others, and finds only those when he feels the need of praising his own beloved retreat!"

To speak of sterner virtues, what a source of inspiration to righteousness and constancy men have found in the apt and undying phrases of Horace! "Cornelius de Witt, when confronting the murderous mob; Condorcet, perishing in the straw of his filthy cell; Herrick, at his far-away old British revels; Leo, during his last days at the Vatican, and a thousand others," strengthened their resolution by repeating _Iustum et tenacem_:

"T_he man of firm and noble soul_
N_o factious clamors can control_
N_o threat'ning tyrant's darkling brow_
C_an swerve him from his just intent_....
A_y, and the red right arm of Jove_,
H_urtling his lightnings from above_,
W_ith all his terrors then unfurl'd_,
H_e would unmoved, unawed behold_:
T_he flames of an expiring world_
A_gain in crashing chaos roll'd_,
I_n vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd_,
M_ust light his glorious funeral pile_:
S_till dauntless midst the wreck of earth he'd smile_."

Of this passage Stemplinger records thirty-one imitations. How many have had their patriotism strengthened by _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, the verse which is aptly found in modern Rome on the monument to those who fell at Dogali. How many have been supported and comforted in calamity and sorrow by the poet's immortal words of consolation on the death of Quintilius:

Durum: sed levius fit patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas,--

A_h, hard it is! but patience lends_
S_trength to endure what Heaven sends_.

The motto of Warren Hastings was _Mens aequa in arduis_,--An even temper in times of trial. Even humorous use of these phrases has served a purpose. The French minister, compelled to resign, no doubt drew substantial consolation from _Virtute me involvo_, when he turned it to fit his case:

I_n the robe of my virtue I wrap me round_
A _solace for loss of all I had_;
B_ut ah! I realize I've found_
W_hat it really means to be lightly clad_!

But the most pronounced effect of Horace's dynamic power is its inspiration to sane and truthful living. Life seems a simple thing, yet there are many who miss the paths of happiness and wander in wretched discontent because they are not bred to distinguish between the false and the real. We have seen the lesson of Horace: that happiness is not from without, but from within; that it is not abundance that makes riches, but attitude; that the acceptation of worldly standards of getting and having means the life of the slave; that the fraction is better increased by division of the denominator than by multiplying the numerator; that unbought riches are better possessions than those the world displays as the prizes most worthy of striving for. No poet is so full of inspiration as Horace for those who have glimpsed these simple and easy yet little known secrets of living. Men of twenty centuries have been less dependent on the hard-won goods of this world because of him, and lived fuller and richer lives. Surely, to give our young people this attractive example of sane solution of the problem of happy living is to leaven the individual life and the life of the social mass.