Chapter V: Act V (1)

_The scene of the first act. Early spring. March. The trees and bushes are still bare, but tipped with the delicate red of young leaf-buds. In the background, upon the slopes, is still snow, in the foreground fresh young grass. The church-yard has grown larger. The crosses and headboards reach back to the sand-hills. Sun-set. A blue haze hangs over the sea._

Scene I.

_Out of a freshly dug grave on the right an invisible hand throws clods of earth, but stops as_ Coelestin _enters on the right, led by two young men. Behind them_, Miklas _and an old_ Fisherman.

_Fisherman_. This is the place, my lord.

_Coelestin_ [_much aged and broken_]. I thank thee, friend! That is the tower?

_Fisherman_ [_nodding_]. And above it cross on cross.

_Coelestin_. Let me rest a little, I am dizzy. The way hither was hard. Yet I rejoice to know that worn-out as I am, I still may serve our young Prince. And more than him, our dear and holy lady, our Queen. Else surely I had--remained at home.

_Fisherman_ [_has meantime shaken the door of the tower_]. The tower seems empty. The door is barred. There was a storm quite late.... Who knows where she wanders now, scouting for new graves.

_Coelestin_. Who speaks of graves? Fie! The hour will ripen all too soon for us to yield our withered sinful bodies to the worms. Build a fire for me, since we must wait. The evening lowers and this March wind blows cold on me. Make haste. [_To the old_ Fisherman.] Run thou to our sovereign Lady, who so honored thee as to share thy hut, and tell her I beg her wait therein until we come to fetch her as she said.

_Fisherman_. Yes, my lord. [_Goes out._]

_Coelestin_ [_to_ Miklas _while the young men build the fire_]. And thou, Miklas, tell us thy story again and on thy faith. It was last night the strangers knocked at thy door?

_Miklas_. Yes, my lord.

_Coelestin_. How many?

_Miklas_. Two.

_Coelestin_. And thou didst open it?

_Miklas_. Yes. I had lain a long time in bed, but I arose. The moonlight fell bright through the window-bars. I saw them and was afraid.

_Coelestin_. Why?

_Miklas_. The first had long white hair hanging all wild and shaggy about a gloomy brow. One leg was hacked off, and a wooden one replaced it.

_Coelestin_. Thou will still--?

_Miklas_. Whoever looked into that eye, must know, my lord: Hans Lorbass stood before me.

_Coelestin_. And the other?

_Miklas_. It is hard to say.

_Coelestin_. Still thou knowest him?

_Miklas_. As I know myself, my lord.

_Coelestin_. Consider. Full fifteen years have flown since that hour when he slew the cruel Duke.

_Miklas_. Yes, my lord. His step indeed was heavier, his face was paler; and a gnawed and ragged beard hung about his mouth, stiffened with blood and sweat. Yet it was he, our King, our star, at very thought of whom our hearts must leap, to whose heroic deed we sing triumphant songs,--it was he, and that I swear by God the Father.

_Coelestin_. Go on.

_Miklas_. Yet, mindful of what happened once, I made as though I had never seen the two; and when they asked whether there was a path that led to the sea and to the Burial-wife, and did not touch at town or capital, I said: "Oh, yes; yet it is difficult to follow it, and not wander lost by night among the bushes. Come in and sleep beside my hearth, and I will play the host and spread the straw for you, and early in the morning, for your sake and for God's sweet service my son will lead you to the witch-wife." It was said and done. The fire of pine chips had scarcely burned to ashes,--heigho!--I ran to the stable and flung the saddle on the horse; and when the early dawn of the March morning lay abroad white and misty on the hedges, I held my rein before your castle,--"To the Queen" my cry. Thou wert with me for the rest.

_Coelestin_. Thinkest thou thy son--?

_Miklas_. Set thyself at rest, My son has always been a clever youth and I answer for it they will be upon the spot before the sun there dips beneath the sea. Yes, if I mistake not ... but wait! [_He runs to the top of the hill, looks to the right and motions furtively._] Come here! But crouch down well, that they may not spy us.

_Coelestin_. My God, my God, how my old limbs do tremble! It is joy! [_He goes up the slope, assisted by his attendant._] I see three coming.

_Miklas_. The small one is my boy. The other two--thou knowest them?

_Coelestin_. My eyes have failed me a little, else I might. [_Coming back down._] My God, if it were they! If the evening of my life might shine so clear that before I closed my eyes in death they might rest upon the Queen, their heart, their light, pleasured in happiness without alloy! At such a sight I think I could not die.... Come, come! Let us announce what we have seen; then may that bond once so shamefully severed in wrong and need, be solemnly renewed, before we turn our joyous bark toward home. Come, come! [_They all go out at the left._]

[_The_ King _and_ Hans Lorbass _come in at the right from above, both unkempt and in rags like two wayfarers_. King _grown gray, lean, and sallow, comes down forward silent and gloomy._]

_Hans Lorbass_ [_with hair grown quite white, and a wooden leg, carrying a sack on his back, calls into the wing_]. There, take it, rascal, it is the last! And leave! [_Coming down._] The clown has led us twelve whole hours without a path through bushes and morass. He knew well enough why he did it!

_King_. Dost thou think--

_Hans Lorbass_. Oh let it be, no matter!

_King_. Here is a fire. Is there corn in the sack?

_Hans Lorbass_ [_opening the sack_]. Wait.... Yes.

_King_. Good! I am hungry.

_Hans Lorbass_. I am not, too?

_King_. The corn was dear. Sometimes it costs us money, sometimes blood.

_Hans Lorbass_. We do not pay the blood.

_King_. We pay more. We give out bit by bit from our own souls for our lives' nakedest necessities, and pay for each mouthful with a shred of joy--if indeed there be joy in clinging like a pitiable miser to one's last vacant remnants of hopeless hope.

_Hans Lorbass_. If it be not happiness it is life.

_King_. What a life!

_Hans Lorbass_. Our wants are over now. I wager if I climbed up to the top of the hill, I should find not one but three ships to take us to Gotland.

_King_. Cook us our supper first.

_Hans Lorbass_. Good, good! [_During the foregoing he has been fetching cooking utensils, partly from the sack and partly from the outer wall of the tower, where they lie among tree-stumps, etc._]

_King_. I shall come soon enough to Gotland, and soon enough shall see that refuge whence I once bore to save them those most daring wishes of my powerless youth.

_Hans Lorbass_. Until a heron came.

_King_. Hans, be still!

_Hans Lorbass_. How can I, here in this place, where the sea and churchyard, yes, even the sea-wind itself, that strips the boughs with knife-like tongue, all vie with each other to tell us of that day when an old doting witch-wife with her cursed chatter, betrayed thee from thy confident path, to pause and play the hero?

_King_. Where is she hiding, that I may rip that shriveled skin of hers about her ears?

_Hans Lorbass_. She who played our fate in the world is not at home when we come back so worsted by it.

_King_. Burial-wife!

_Hans Lorbass_ [_laughs mockingly_]. Yes, call away, my friend!... Come here instead and sit down on this tub. The fire is singing,--the water will soon boil; come warm thyself.

_King_. Thou art right. This cold sea wind pants like a bloodhound through the gorge. [_He sits down by the fire._] The country-people say that spring is coming. Is it true, I wonder?

_Hans Lorbass_. What?

_King_. Why, that spring is coming.

_Hans Lorbass_. Then I believe it, for my leg that I lost begins to pain me.

_King_. Listen! Back in the hedge a shepherd pipes upon his willow whistle. The streams are beginning to thaw and run down hill.... Brown buds come out on all the branches. The very sunsets are different. Look, high up in the blue the wild geese fly in their triangle. Northward they go. Not I.... I must. We both must, Hans, for we have grown old.

_Hans Lorbass_. Because our heads are white? Thou art wrong, master. I dare venture many a conflict lies in our path before thou goest to thy fathers' lofty house, and anointest thyself with thy fathers' honors.

_King_. Honors are the mail-coat of the weary. I have need of them.

_Hans Lorbass_. Thou?

_King_. More than thou thinkest for. [_Goes up, laughing bitterly._]

_Hans Lorbass_. Whither now?

_King_. Do not ask.

_Hans Lorbass_. Thou lookest toward the south,--what seekest thou there? Hast thou not known it all long since? That sunny land, those blue, flower-sown havens, whither thy hasting step once fled? Thou knowest they are full of stench and lamentation. Those beauteous women, fairest of the fair,--or passing as the fairest,--to bow in whose impious slavery once compassed all thy thoughts? Thou knowest they are all as empty as drained-out casks. And so, because the desire was lacking in thee to fill them with thy own soul, thou hast sourly turned away and sought perfection farther on. Thou hast come hither over lands and seas, and climbest up into the star-teeming void. Yet thou wilt never, never reach thy star. And that vailed enchanting distance itself, if it would once unmask and let thee reach it, how miserable it would look! Every conflict there would seem only a wrangle, every woman but a doll! Come now, lay aside thy shoulder-belt stretch thyself out and eat thy supper.

_King_. Let be, old grumbler! I seek naught in the distance.... But near by, floating in the haze of the spring evening, I think I see a dim shape of white battlements.

_Hans Lorbass_. It may well be. The town is only three miles farther on, and the air is clear. Still I advise thee, do not think upon the past.

_King_. Why?

_Hans Lorbass_. It was an evil-omened year. The worst of all, I think. It taught thy wild untrammeled spirit to circle-hopping in a cage, to limp instead of fly.

_King_. Thou art wrong, my friend. Something wakes in me at sight of those roofs.... There the wings of happiness once grazed my cheek, there, though in the midst of torture joy ripened to summer in my heart. Let me gaze on the place where imploring trustfulness once confessed itself to me by joyous sacrifice, and the purest of womankind yielded herself up in sweet urgency, and an oppressed country confided in me as a master; where even victory surrendered me her standard; let me gaze upon the spot, and then, instead of stretching forth my kingly hand in love and gratitude, I must slip past it outlawed, like a beggar or a thief. I stand here now and gaze through tears at that white glow of light, and gnaw my lips to bleeding.

_Hans Lorbass_. Master!

_King_. It is nothing,--nothing! All I have ever desired, all my soul's treasure, all I could not attain, can be spoken in one word. And that I may not speak. In silence I decide, and put it from me. I tear it from my breast, where it has clung so long; and with it all my longing pain blows like a faded leaf a world away.--Now I will lie down and sleep; for I am weary.

_Hans Lorbass_. And do thy pains and desires all come to an end thus? Look! Above there, where the sandy turf broadens among frozen clods past the sun-pierced snow. The wisest of womankind has prepared a bed for pilgrims such as we. Look!

_King_ [_going toward the open grave_]. I see. It is just suited to a guest like me. Here, where--[_He starts back in alarm._] Hans!

_Hans Lorbass_. What is the matter?

_King_. Come here. The grave is ready, but it is not empty. Look down and tell me what thou callest it, crouched there gray in the sand, that leers at me with staring eyes. Is it a corpse? Is it a spirit?

_Hans Lorbass_. Oh look at it! The badger is at work. Thou hast her now.

_King_. The Burial-wife? [Hans Lorbass _nods._]

_King_. Out with her!

_Hans Lorbass_ [_stopping him_]. Listen to me. Thou knowest I have known her longer than thou. Leave her alone. She was wont to lie thus for hours and days, and heed no words nor prayers; but seemed as dead. She is proof then against all summons and all blows; but when her time comes, then her limbs will stir, and she will come up out of the grave.

[Coelestin _and the train with the young_ Prince _enter._]

_Coelestin_. There they stand!

_King_ [_turning fiercely and raising his sword_]. What do you want? A quarrel? We two are snarling dogs. We blindly seize on everybody near. Now come on! Speak!

_The Young Prince_. My father!

_King_. Wha--?

_The Young Prince_. My King!

_King_ You would mock the man that fled from you?

_The Young Prince_. Down on your knees and honor him as I do!

_King_ [_dazed_]. Hans!... But stand up!... Am I King? A hapless wretch,--naught but my man, my sword, and that pot of soup there, to call my own. I have no more. My very crown, the gloomy throne of Gotland must be fought for anew; stand up my son. [_He raises him, and will embrace him, but suddenly pales, staring past the men in great agitation._] Hans! Dost thou see who stands there in the twilight of the wood--how spirit-like, how severed from this world--[_He shrieks._]

[_Enter the_ Queen. _Behind her at a short distance, two of her women._]

_Queen_. Witte!

_King_. Go! I know thee not. And yet--I know thee. Thou art my--peace. Thou art ... Naught art thou more for me.... My body withers and my strength is fallen asunder. Therefore I may not say: "Thou art." ... Only "Thou wast." Still thou wast once of a surety--my wife.

_Queen_. I am to-day--I am a thousandfold! Hast thou forgot what I promised thee the day thou gavest thyself with hesitation to my service? I search thy face. I know thou turnest wearied back to thy northern home. Dost thou forget then where a balsam is prepared to heal thy bruised feet, dost thou forget where a thousand arms reach out to greet their loved one? Knowest thou not where thy home stands and calls to thee? Knowest thou not how well-nigh breathless with its joy my smile says unto thee: "I charm thee not?"

_King_. Nay, charm me not. I am not worthy. Life has seared me, and put a shameful kiss upon my brow.

_Queen_. Then let me cool it with my health-bringing hand, and thou wilt never feel the scar again.

_King_. How can I feel that scar or even the happiness after which I longed, now that those hours are past which knew thy love for me?

_Queen_. In no other have I trusted. I guarded thy son for thee; and still thy throne stands empty, waiting its master.

_King_. Then thou hast waited fifteen years and sorrowed not. So shalt thou learn my mystery. Two kingdoms I have won, to pleasure me; the first has vanished into air, the second is my shame. Justice became a mock,--all gifts a usury; and everywhere I turned a murderous laugh pursued me. Then purity plunged in the mire, then honor mocked its own best gift: all this the magic of the heron wreaked upon me.... Yea, now thou knowest; a charm was all my crime and all my fate, year after year. It blinded me to love and life, to wife and child; it hunted me away from thee, and drove me from place to place; and when a lucent flight of happiness sprang up from heaven after my downfall, it drowned its glory in a flood of tears. Behold! [_He tears open his gorget and draws out the last of the heron's feathers._] The enchantment's last beguiling pledge I hold here in my hand. When this feather shrivels in the flame there sinks an unblessed woman to her death, that woman whose wraith stood in the heavens for me to gaze upon,--that woman whom I sought and never found! Behold! I bury the madness in its grave, and with the act I put the longing from me. [_He tosses the feather into the flames. There is a flash of lightning, and a roll of thunder follows it._]

_Queen_ [_sinks down, whispering with failing strength_]. Now are we two protected from all mischance.... I still ... have been thy happiness ... even in ... death. [_She dies._]

_Prince_. Mother! Speak one word to me!

_King_. It was thou? It was thou? [_He throws himself upon her body._]

_The Young Prince_ [_in tears_]. Ah, Mother!

_Coelestin_. She has gone, and I, the shadow of a shadow, stay behind.

_The Men_ [_murmur among themselves_]. His is the blame! Tear him from off her body! [_They draw their swords to attack the_ King.]

_Hans Lorbass_ [_blocking the way with drawn sword_]. Away there!

[_The Burial-wife mounting solemnly out of the open grave._]

_Burial-wife_. Children, cease your strife! Can you not see his spirit wanders far? He is wrapped about with the whisperings of eternity. The message of death is on the way, the stone of sacrifice doth reek for blood. Long has this man belonged to me; and now--[_she raises her arm and lets it fall_]--I come into my own. [_The_ King _breathes heavily, stirs, and dies._]

_Hans Lorbass_ [_kneels down beside him with a cry_]. Master, master!

_Burial-wife_. Thus from lust and guilt and sorrow have I cleansed his soul. To both of them it shall be as though they had not been. Wrap them about with linen, bear them to my dark abode; then go in silent thought from hence, for my work is done.

_Hans Lorbass_ [_rises, in anguished bitterness_]. Mine must begin anew. How gladly have I ever braved fresh dangers as my darling's slave! That service, too, is past; but now his kingdom calls loudly on my sword for aid. [_Pointing seaward._] Northward there lies a land debauched, crying from out its shame for justice, for a righteous law, for vengeance, for salvation; for a master,--and that shall the man become!

_Translated by Helen Tracy Porter_.

MARAH OF SHADOWTOWN.

The days pass by in Shadowtown
Wearily, wearily;--
And Bitter-Sweet Marah of Shadowtown
Sighs drearily, drearily.

"Mother, tell him to come to me
While my hair is gold and beautiful
And my lips and eyes are young
While the songs that are welling up in my heart
May still be sung.

"The days go by so wearily
Like crooked goblins, eerily,
Like silly shadows, fast and still,
Wind-driven and drearily.

"Like the gray clouds are my eyes gray, mother,
Like them, heavy as things grown old
Only the clouds' tears are but dream-tears--
Lifeless, cold.

"Last night I had the strangest dream,--
It seemed I stood on a barren hill
Where the wings of the ragged clouds went by
Hurrying and still.

"And all of a sudden the moon came out
Making a pathway over the down,--
And turned my hair to a gold mist, mother,
To light the way to Shadowtown.

"But when I did not see him coming,
And because the clouds grew dark and gray
I walked through the shadows down the hillside
To help him better to find the way.

"And in some wise I came to a forest
When all around was so strange and dim,--
That I thought, 'If I should be lost in the darkness,
How could my hair be light for him?'

"But groping, I found I was on a pathway
Where low soft branches swept my face,--
When suddenly, close beside, and before me
I knew dim forms kept even pace.

"They were so cowering, shivering, white
That I felt some ill thing came behind
And I heard a moan on the wind go by
'Ah, but the end of the path to find!'

"Then I looked behind, and saw that near
Like a wan marsh-fog, came a cloud
Hurrying on,--and I knew it wrapped
A dead love--as a shroud.

"And guiltily the figures went,
Like coward things in a guilty race
And not one dared to look behind
For fear he knew that dead love's face.

"Then suddenly at my side I knew
He I loved went;--but, for my hair,
Shadowed and blown about my face,
He knew me not beside him there.

"And he, too, cowered with shaking hands
Over his eyes, for fear to meet
Haunting and still, my pallid face
In that strange mist of winding-sheet.

"So on the shadowy figures went
Hurrying the loathed cloud before,--
Seeking an end of a fated path
That went winding evermore.

"Oh, Mother, that path was hideous,--
Long and ill and hideous--
And the way was so near to Shadowtown,--
Fairer to Shadowtown--
But the gold of my hair shall not light the way
For anyone else to Shadowtown."

Gray-eyed Marah of Shadowtown
Turns away wearily, wearily
Weaving her gold hair back and forth,
Thus she sings, and drearily--
"Little Love, when you shall die, then so shall I,
Ha, merrily!

"Then let them put us in some deep spot
Where one the growing of trees' roots hears
And you at my heart, all wet with tears,
All wet with tears.

"Your wings are draggled and limp and wet,--Little Love,--
From what rainy land have you come, and far,--
Or who that has held you was crying so,--
Who, little Love--?
My eyes are heavy and wet with tears
Whose eyes besides are heavy so--?
--Oh, little Love, how dumb you are!--

"Then, poor Love, that has lived in my heart
Come, take my hand, we will go together,
Hemlock boughs are full of sleep
Out of the way of the weather.

"For a cavern of cold gray mist is my heart
Will not the hemlock boughs be better
Over our feet and under our heads
Keeping us from the weather?"

Her gold hair duskily glints in her hands
Marah of Shadowtown sings--"Together,--
You, little Love, and I, will go
Into the Land of Pleasanter Weather."

_Anne Throop._

DIES IRAE.

Go fight your fight with Tagal and with Boer,
Cheer in the lust of strength and brutal pride;
Beat down the lamb to fatten up the fox,
Shout victory o'er the prostrate shape of truth.

Take cross and pike and gold and sophistry,
To pray and prod and purchase, wheedle, wile;
Stamp out the roses in a waste of weeds,
Shout while the trembling voice of truth is hushed.

Shatter with iron heel the poet's dream,
The prophet's protest, and the ages' hope,
Of brotherhood and light and love on earth--
Of peace and plenty and a perfect race.

Tear down the fabric of ten thousand years,
The world's best wisdom woven in its woe;
Lift ruthless hands to rend the fairy fane
That holds the heart hopes of humanity.

Let loose greed, envy, lust, and avarice,
The myriad throated dragon of desire;
Let might rule, riot, batten on the meek,
The tyranny of man o'er man seem right.

Forget the Lord Christ smiled, forgave, and died;
Frowned down every appeal to brutish strength;
Bade man put up the sword, lest by the sword
He perish; prayed evil might be paid by good.

Forget he turned cheek to the coward blow,
Cried "Pardon!" yes, seven and seventy times! "Judge not;
Do not condemn; give coat as well as cloak;
Resist not evil, wrong's not made right by wrong."

Forget each drop of blood burns in the race,
Cries for atonement while the last man lives;
That murder for the state is murder still,
The gilded not less guilty though more great.

Forget, and flay and flame; in din grow deaf
To piteous cries without, and voice within;
Conquer, triumph, and when the world is won,
Turn terroring towards the demon in your heart.

_William Mountain_.

* * * * *

GEORGE MEREDITH ON THE SOURCE OF
DESTINY.

If, as has so often been said, literature is an expression of life, surely we may study literature to discover the laws of life. Not all our writers, but all our masters, have given us records from which we may learn what has been discerned and accepted concerning life by the race.

The scientific study of our day has led men to consider genius from the modern point of view. Is genius a natural product? If so, whence comes it, and what are its laws? These are among the most interesting questions of the present time. Formerly, men contented themselves with calling the literary faculty a "gift," the result of "inspiration." Of late we have been told that it is a natural race impulse which finds expression in some individual. Personally, we believe genius to be the heated, pregnant condition of a great mind under the influence of a great enthusiasm. However our definitions of genius may differ, on one point we all agree. We are all sure that genius is true to life, that genius teaches us the truth.

In its formed philosophical theories it may err, but not in its perceptions of life. Shelley may teach atheistic views in 'Queen Mab,' and he may err, for intellectual belief is a matter of opinion. Nevertheless Shelley's inspired interpretation of life can but be accepted as real. George Meredith may teach in his 'Lord Ormond and his Aminta' doctrines of free love, resulting from an attempt to separate what can not be separated in our human lives,--the physical and the spiritual loves; and in doing this he may err. Nevertheless, in his inspired representations of life and character, coming not from thought alone but from his whole nature, Meredith cannot err.

Those of us who read thoughtlessly, without formed theory, accept literature as real. Have you never, when asked: "Did you ever know of a case of love at first sight?" answered carelessly: "Oh, yes! There's Romeo and Juliet, you know?" Or have you never instanced, as the most persuasive oration you ever heard, Mark Antony's speech in 'Julius Caesar?'

Thinkers who claim a natural mental origin for the literary gift must believe in its reality as a matter of course. Those who speak reverently of its "inspiration" claim a spirit of truth, not of error, for its parent. Even those who enjoy comparisons of the states of genius and insanity, ranging from Shakespeare, with his words: "The fool, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact" to the masterly modern treatment of John Fiske, agree that the sharp division line of truth and error separates the two. They confess that while the insane mind may accept hallucinations, the mind of genius deals only with the truth. The results of both are imaginative; only those of insanity are imaginary.

All thinkers, then, accept the masterpieces of literature as among life's real phenomena. Whether Meredith's novels hold this high place is at present a matter of opinion. For men do not know Meredith very well. A knowledge of his position on this question of Destiny will help us to learn whether or not he ranks among the elect.

In our great literature there has always appeared a close sequence between wisdom and success, righteousness and happiness, and, on the other hand, between the choice of moral evil and suffering. This sequence has been not merely expressed in words, but built into the very structure of the plot through the workings of the imagination kindled by genius. The law of this succession, and its relationship with other laws, philosophers have always been seeking. It is this search that has led men into the mazy discussions of freedom and fatalism. For in this law lies the crucial point of the question of human destiny.

'Beowulf,' our first epic, tells us not only much of the manner of life of our rude Saxon ancestors, but also much of their thought. The note of fatalism in its chord of life is no weak one. "A man must bear his fate," the hero says when about to go into a dangerous combat. Yet even in 'Beowulf' we find the contrasting element, the character choice appearing.

As a child boldly states a problem as though it were a solution, Beowulf naively says: "Fate always aids the undoomed man, if his courage holds out." This expression side by side of the two elements of the question has never been surpassed, and is, in its way, matchless.

Have we learned much more to-day? We cannot fail to recognize the duality of the truth, but have we been able yet to join the two sides into one, to discover the unity that surely lies behind the seeming contrast?

Each side of the question has been largely developed. Some, in a narrow spirit, have echoed merely Beowulf's, "Fate always aids the undoomed man"; while others, often as narrowly, have answered, "A man succeeds, if his courage holds out." Ever in our greatest literature the two elements have appeared side by side. The mystery has always been recognized.

That even Shakespeare is reverent before fate, yet believes in the influence of character on a man's life can easily be seen from words like Helena's in 'All's Well that Ends Well':--

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull."

'Macbeth,' with its successive steps of unhappiness following one critical evil choice is sufficient proof of Shakespear's belief in the determining power of character. 'King Lear,' with its sad result of folly shows his belief in the influence of the critical foolish decision. In the uncrowned king's conversation with his fool, occur these words:

_Lear_. Dost thou call me fool, boy?

_Fool_. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

In Robert Browning literature has brought even up to the present time the old mystery, the ever continuing struggle between fatalism and freedom. But to him, as to most thinkers of his day, fate has become the instrument of a God, a divine Providence rules the world, while man, too, has his little realm of choice.

At the present time this discussion is carried to a greater extent than ever before. The one side finds its expression in our modern idealistic philosophy, the other in our modern sceptical science. Idealistic philosophy, since Kant, has been trying to lay the responsibility for all life upon the free moral choice. It has been seeking to prove that the spiritual is the source of life.

Modern science, on the other hand, with its keen, wide-opened eyes, has tried to lay all the necessary sequence of law, forgetting at times that law is but the explanation of the phenomena. Science sometimes refuses to consider such phenomena as require a new point of view, beyond the physical and mental,--a moral point of view. By this refusal to recognize the spiritual part of man, science attempts to avoid a second mystery. The mystery of the union of the physical and mental realms it has been forced, long since, to accept. It would shun the moral realms because that, too, entails its mystery of connection.

Once accept physical life, and science is, in so far, free from impassable gulfs. Once accept mental life and that realm also becomes capable of study. Let the free moral nature once be accepted, and again we shall have reached firm footing. But to cross between these realms by law, by reason, is impossible; for life, any kind of life, is its own only explanation.

While the problem of freedom becomes simple for one who, like Meredith, will take this view, there are many who will not or cannot do so, and the very impossibility of the question from reason's point of view makes the path a very labyrinth for them. We all try to solve the question, and different personalities arrive at different answers; but all are partial. They vary from the logical, but dead outcome of Swinburne: "There is no bad nor good," to the struggling faith of Omar Khayyam:

"The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But here or there as strikes the Player goes;
And he that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all--He knows--He knows."

At such a time as this of ours it is especially helpful to study a writer like George Meredith, who far from ignoring the many sides of the problem, yet clings firmly to his faith in character. With no doubtful accent, he tells us that Character is the Source of Destiny.

As any great writer of the day must do, Meredith accepts much in the arguments of the fatalists. He does not refuse to see that nature and circumstances are strong to mould life. He recognizes the great power of environment and the absolute power, within its realm, of heredity. Like Beowulf, like Shakespeare, like Browning, he is reverent before human destiny. Yet in spite of all this, he accepts the moral with its necessary result of freedom. He declares that, although the laws of necessity rule up to the crisis of the moral choice, that very choice sets all the laws of intellect and body working according to itself.

All the stronger for his acceptance of life's necessity becomes his belief in life's freedom. All the stronger for his concessions becomes his final dictum. The more intricate the machine, the greater its master's mind. The narrower the realm of choice, the greater power must that choice have, to move life as it does.

To show that the same peculiar mixture of belief in fatalism and in the determining power of character on life exists in Meredith's writings as in Beowulf and in Shakespeare, let me quote a few words from 'Evan Harrington':

"Most youths, like Pope's women, have no character at all, and indeed a character that does not wait for circumstances to shape it, is of small worth in the race that must be run."

Again he says:

"When we have cast off the scales of hope and fancy, and surrender our claims on made chance: when the wild particles of this universe consent to march as they are directed, it is given them to see if they see at all that some plan is working out: that the heavens, icy as they are to the pangs of our blood, have been throughout speaking to our souls; and, according to the strength there existing, we learn to comprehend them."

That Meredith, although very reverent before human destiny, is not, on the other hand, one of those who lay the responsibility for their own lives on "the stars," or "fate," or "Providence," may be shown by a study of the characters into whose mouths he puts such sentiments.

In 'Rhoda Fleming' who is it but Algernon, "the fool," who says:

"I'm under some doom. I see it now. Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was born under a bad star. My fate's written."

It is of Algernon, likewise, that the author says:

"Behind the figures he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would visit her sister this night. 'I can't stop that,' he said: and hearing a clock strike, 'nor that.' The reflection inspired him with fatalistic views."

In 'The Tragic Comedians,' who is it but Clotilde, "the craven," who lays the successive steps which lead to the tragedy in her life, now to fate, now to other people's power or lack of insight, now to Providence? She reaps, as Meredith plainly shows us, simply what she sows.

In 'Sandra Belloni,' it is Mr. Barrett, that sentimentalist of the better order, of which class the author says: "We will discriminate more closely here than to call them fools," who lets his whole life be crushed with the melancholy thought that he is under the influence of some baneful star. His death, which he lets chance bring or keep away, is a fitting conclusion to his story. He shuts two pistols up together in the same case overnight, knowing that one of them is loaded, the other not. In the morning he takes out one, prepared to fire it upon himself, in case his beloved does not keep tryst. She does not come, he fires, the pistol happens to be loaded, and so comes death. It shows that the "star" of which he thought was not a real star burning clear in the high heavens. It was rather but a will-o'-the-wisp, born of the marshy exhalations of his own morbid brain. Meredith reverences the real star. He kindly ridicules the will-o'-the-wisp.

But there is still another class of fatalists in Meredith's novels. He recognizes also the fatalism of youth. Such is that of the young Wilfrid in 'Sandra Belloni,' concerning whom the author informs us that we "shall see him grow." Meredith is too great a thinker not to see that this tendency toward fatalism does not belong merely to the "fool," the "craven," and the "sentimentalist," but that it is a tendency of our youth. We are all weak when we are growing, he assures us. Is not ours preeminently a growing age?

But we must not linger too long on the negative side of Meredith's belief. We have seen that he is willing to recognize that there is a wonderful, mysterious power governing human destiny. We have seen, also, that he does not side in the least with those who lay the responsibility for their own lives on fate. Let us seek for his positive message.

In the 'Adventures of Harry Richmond' he says:

"If a man's fate were as a forbidden fruit, detached from him, and in front of him, he might hesitate fortunately before plucking it; but, as most of us are aware, the vital half of it lies in the seed paths he has traversed."

This is certainly a very definite statement of a strong belief in a man's choice of his own destiny. Again, in 'Modern Love' we find the following:

"In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot;
We are betrayed by what is false within."
"I take the hap
Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails
Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked,
I know the devil has sufficient weight
To bear; I lay it not on him, or fate.
Besides, he's damned. That man I do suspect
A coward, who would burden the poor deuce
With what ensues from his own slipperiness."

The main issue between freedom and fatalism lies in just this question: Is a man's life determined by what he is or by what he does? Does his nature, received through inheritance, moulded by circumstance, determine his acts and so his life? Or does his moral choice determine these?

Extreme fatalists declare that the former is true. Moralists, idealists, believers in freedom, support the latter view.

Now Meredith leaves us no doubt as to his position on the point. Again and again we see his characters choosing their lives. And their choices rest on no inherited nature, but on character. Thus our author declares, by his plots, as in plain words, that "Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are."

As we have said, a writer's thought of life can be best understood from his plots. He builds life, consciously or unconsciously, as he believes that nature builds it. Does he let the righteous perish and the evil man prosper in the end? Then he either does not believe in this law of ours, or in its present successful working. Perhaps, like Victor Hugo, he teaches a higher law, that of self-sacrifice. Perhaps, like some little modern writers, he teaches a lower law of the temporary success, at times, of hypocrisy and deceit. Whatever he believes in and likes to think of, his structure will disclose.

Now one very marked thing about Meredith's structure is the agreement of the two crises, that of character and that of circumstances. When any one of his characters chooses for good or evil, for wisdom or folly, at that very time, and by that very choice, he decides his future happiness and success, or unhappiness and failure. Therein lies the decision of the question whether that particular novel shall be a tragedy or a comedy.

When Dahlia Fleming chooses evil, she chooses unhappiness. No kind Providence intervenes to save her from her harvest. How many of our little writers of to-day would have caused her marriage with Edward to take place in the end! Is not Meredith's conclusion far more true to life?

When Diana of the Cross-Ways resists Percy's temptings and is led by her hatred of his evil to betray his secret, she chooses for her own happiness in the end. The storms through which she goes to reach it are the natural result of her impulsive, unbalanced mind.

Stronger still is the teaching in 'The Tragic Comedians.' When Clotilde chooses the craven's part to play, she chooses also the craven's reward.

It is in his scientific insight into moral life that Meredith's growth beyond Beowulf, Shakespeare, and even Browning appears. We of the nineteenth century would be sorry to think that we had not one master who goes even deeper into our modern life than these. We believe that, as men of the later twentieth century look back upon our day, they will call George Meredith our greatest literary exponent.

Beowulf asserts the general truth that Circumstance and Character determine Destiny.

Shakespeare has not gone very much farther in the philosophy of life. He teaches that character determines character, and that circumstance determines circumstance; and that, in some way, circumstance obeys character.

Browning would advance a step and teach us, as his age taught the world, that the dependence of the external upon the spiritual comes about through the agency of a personal God.

But Meredith takes up the cry of our scientific age, and says: "The god of this world is in the machine, not out of it."

This is no irreverent teaching, for Meredith is not irreverent. It is simply the search for primary causes. It is the result of the same tendency that leads us to be dissatisfied with calling typhoid fever a "dispensation of Providence," and to lay it to bad drains. Like evolution in the physical world, this theory does not tend to remove God, but to explain more fully his agency and methods. It is no new theory. But the manner of its teaching is as new as this latter nineteenth century of ours.

If one were to compare Meredith with Shakespeare on this subject, one would naturally coordinate Macbeth and Rhoda Fleming, Diana of the Cross-Ways and King Lear.

'Rhoda Fleming' is, like 'Macbeth,' a tale with a moral purpose. The dependence of fate on the moral choice is its chief thought. The book gains force, as all these novels do, from its striking characterizations. We see Dahlia, the fair-haired one, whose great failing is weakness,--the fault of a negative character. And we see plainly the long process of pain to which she thereby subjects herself in the course of her purification.

Rhoda, her sister has, on the other hand, the defects of the positive character. She is head-strong, over-proud. It is from these characteristics that she suffers or leads others to suffer. "The Fates that mould us, always work from the main-spring."

In her relations with Anthony Hope, Rhoda takes the part of the tempter. The interview between the two shows such wonderful insight into character that from this passage alone Meredith might be ranked as great. Rhoda discovers that she has sold her sister in marriage to a brute. In her head-strong desire to buy her off from him, she goes to her uncle to beg for a large sum of money. Anthony, although a poor man in reality, has always delighted in deceiving his brother and his nieces on that point. Rhoda finds him struggling with the greatest temptation of his life. He has carried home money belonging to the bank of which he is a trusted employee. His love of money, his former deceit, make him very weak before Rhoda. So he falls. She is allowed to take with her the money she wants. As the reader looks back over the story, he sees that the money will prove useless for her ends, and that his fall will ruin her uncle's life. Meredith here shows himself a master of tragedy.

The life of the strong, impulsive, young Robert is not so dependent upon the crises of temptation. For he knows himself and lives with a constant purpose to conquer himself. His purpose is stronger than his passions. In respect to his obedience to Socrates's favorite maxim, he is a man rare even in our self-conscious age. What shall we say of Edward, "villain and hero in one"? Like Dahlia he loses his life's happiness through his besetting sin. Several times a courageous word said that ought to be said, or a brave deed done that should have been done might have saved him. And each time he proves himself a coward, until it is too late. Like the children of Israel he would not enter the promised land for fear of the inhabitants thereof. Like them too, he atoned by spending his forty years in the wilderness, and there laying down his life.

We must not neglect the "fascinating Peggy Lovell,"--a coquette whose charm even a woman can feel. Avarice and love of pleasure are her besetting sins. And avarice leads her to her fate. She has chosen to sow her wild oats and to accrue her debts. These she pays, as we all must in one way or another, with herself. Her way is to marry the man who can pay them rather than the man she loves.

One and all, major and minor characters, they come to the crises of their destinies. One after another chooses according to his character his life. This is Meredith's teaching.

But our author is not always sounding the very depths of life. He is no preacher, but a painter of human nature. The power of mind has a large place in his books. "Drink of faith in the brains a full draught," he tells us; and again:--"To read with a soul in the mirror of mind Is man's chief lesson."

'Diana of the Cross-Ways' teaches the partial failure, the temporary unhappiness, that result from lack of mental balance. It is the story of a charming, brilliant, but impulsive woman who makes many mistakes and who suffers from them. Diana is capable of loving one unworthy of her, and for such lack of wisdom she pays dearly. Yet she holds firmly and purely to the right and so wins happiness in the end. She is foolish sometimes, but she is not a fool. Hence her story is not a tragedy.

This novelist-philosopher has taught us, then, that folly tends to bring failure, but that righteousness is stronger than folly. He is not content to stop in his teachings even here. In 'The Tragic Comedians' he goes still further, and deals with the interrelations of the moral and intellectual. For character rules intellect, as intellect reacts upon character.

'The Tragic Comedians' begins with the birth of a love. With Clotilde, daughter of a highly respectable, but very conventional citizen, Alvan, a Jew and demagogue, a man of widespread and somewhat notorious reputation, falls in love. Clotilde is a beautiful, bright woman; interesting, but cowardly. Like all Meredith's heroes and heroines, she has her besetting sin.

To this sudden, overpowering new love Clotilde yields her heart, but will not yield her actions. She is afraid. While Alvan would go at once to her parents to ask for her hand, Clotilde, seeing only too plainly how little hope there is of obtaining their consent, prefers to dally with matters, and insists on his postponing the interview. Alvan's straightforward nature cannot understand such half-way measures. He leaves her unsought for a time, and begins to fade out of Clotilde's mind. Suddenly, when in the mountains with a friend, she hears that Alvan is near. She wants him then, and goes to seek him. Again he misunderstands her. This time he asks her to run away with him, but she refuses, seeming not so much shocked as afraid. She answers, not in a womanly, straightforward way, but with an evasion. Then she consents to let him speak to her father and mother. She addresses them first on the subject, but is met with a torrent of angry words. The poor thing cannot stand that. In her weakness she makes her next great mistake, and runs away to Alvan, beseeching him to marry her secretly. The woman who would not listen to his request for this very thing but a day or two before now begs for it. She finds that it is too late. Her lover, in his pride, has determined to meet her parents on their own ground. He will win her, he now declares, by conventional methods. So he takes her to a friend's home. It is there that the chief crisis of the book takes place, a crisis which is one of the most interesting I know in literature. It is a moral crisis.

Clotilde has come to it through various steps of weakness. Alvan has reached it through pride and its reaction from his former shady life to a desire for conventionalism. A strong man who had before obeyed conventional rules might there have thrown them aside. To Alvan, on account of their long disuse, they seemed more precious than they need.

So Alvan meets the crisis overconfident in his strength. Clotilde meets it afraid, cowering in her weakness. Of her state Meredith says:

"Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering thus abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality abjuring their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius of Power in whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested, in whatsoever person. We no sooner shut our eyes than we consent to be prey, we lose the soul of election."

Alvan handed Clotilde back to her parents. She meekly did what he said. She was hurt. She could not understand his action. Had she but stood up against this mistake, he might have had pity on her even yet. Or, had he not changed his own rigid determination, the action might have prevented that worst result, the weakening of her belief in him. There is nothing like cowardice to destroy one's faith in others. There is nothing like courageous action to clear away those mists of doubt. Clotilde's "craven" will began to demoralize her mind.

But her chance is not over yet. She may still cling to Alvan. Doubtless he will seek her, he has not given her up. Ah, but circumstances were too strong. For the craven they are always too strong. By a short imprisonment, by family storms and prayers, Clotilde is reduced to external subjection. The disorder of her mind increases.

While submitting to her father's command, while writing words of dismissal to Alvan, and even accepting the attentions of a former suitor, she still says in her heart of hearts that she will always be loyal to him. How peculiar seems the twisting, "serpentine" nature! She still waits for Alvan to save her from the chains she daily forges for herself. Meanwhile Alvan does his best. He uses all means,-- conventional and otherwise. He finally forces permission from Clotilde's father to hold a free interview with Clotilde. She is to tell him openly and freely whether she will marry him or not. So he hopes to free her of coercion.

So far as circumstances are concerned, there is now nothing to prevent a happy ending; but from moral causes it is impossible.

The chains she has forged for herself are too strong. Her fancies have become diseased by long straining to a cowardly deceit. She think's Alvan's messengers deceitful too.

So she refuses. She throws away thereby her last chance. And yet--can we believe it?--she still hopes. Alvan has done his best and has failed. His friends have tried to help him. Circumstance has given away before them. And she has thrown away their help--yet she still hopes. Alvan sends a challenge to her father. Prince Marko accepts it, and now her shuddering trust is in Providence. Marko will be killed. Now Alvan shall have her hand. But "Providence" does not save her. Alvan is killed, and Prince Marko returns Clotilde cannot understand it. She is stunned, but recovers sufficiently to marry Prince Marko.

"Not she, it was the situation they had created which was guilty," she had thought.