Chapter VII: Part 7

Show me an enthusiast in aught; he hath noted one thing narrowly, And lo, his keenness hath detected the one dear hiding place of beauty: Then he boasteth, simple soul, flattered by discovery, Fancying that no science else can show so fair and precious: He hath found a ray of light, and cherisheth the treasure in his closet, Mocking at those larger minds, that bathe in floods of noon; Lo, what a jewel hath he gotten,--this is the monopolist of beauty,-- And lightly heeding all beside, he poured his yearnings thitherward: Be it for love, or for learning, habit, art, or nature, Exclusive thought is all the cause of this particular zeal. But like intensity of fitness, kind and skilful beauty, So pleasant to his mind in one thing, filleth all beside: From the waking minute of a chrysalis, to the perfect cycle of chronology, From the centipede's jointed armour to the mammoth's fossil ribs, From the kingfisher's shrill note, to the cataract's thundering bass, From the greensward's grateful hues, to the fascinating eye of woman, Beauty, various in all things, setteth up her home in each, Shedding graciously around an omnipresent smile.

There is beauty in the rolling clouds, and placid shingle beach, In feathery snows, and whistling winds, and dun electric skies; There is beauty in the rounded woods, dank with heavy foliage, In laughing fields, and dinted hills, the valley and its lake; There is beauty in the gullies, beauty on the cliffs, beauty in sun and shade, In rocks and rivers, seas and plains,--the earth is drowned in beauty.

Beauty coileth with the watersnake, and is cradled in the shrewmouse's nest, She flitteth out with evening bats, and the soft mole hid her in his tunnel; The limpet is encamped upon the shore, and beauty not a stranger to his tent; The silvery dace and golden carp thread the rushes with her: She saileth into clouds with an eagle, she fluttereth into tulips with a humming bird; The pasturing kine are of her company, and she prowleth with the leopard in his jungle.

Moreover, for the reasonable world, its words, and acts, and speculations, For frail and fallen manhood, in his every work and way, Beauty, wrecked and stricken, lingereth still among us, And morsels of that shattered sun are dropt upon the darkness. Yea, with savages and boors, the mean, the cruel, and besotted, Ever in extenuating grace hide some relics of the beautiful. Gleams of kindness, deeds of courage, patience, justice, generosity, Truth welcomed, knowledge prized, rebukes taken with contrition, All, in various measure, have been blest with some of these, And never yet hath lived the man, utterly beggared of the beautiful.

Beauty is as crystal in the torchlight, sparkling on the poet's page; Virgin honey of Hymettus, distilled from the lips of the orator; A savour of sweet spikenard, anointing the hands of liberality; A feast of angels' food set upon the tables of religion. She is seen in the tear of sorrow, and heard in the exuberance of mirth; She goeth out early with the huntsman, and watcheth at the pillow of disease. Science in his secret laws hath found out latent beauty, Sphere and square, and cone and curve, are fashioned by her rules: Mechanism met her in his forces, fancy caught her in its flittings, Day is lightened by her eyes, and her eyelids close upon the night.

Beauty is dependence in the babe, a toothless tender nurseling; Beauty is boldness in the boy, a curly rosy truant; Beauty is modesty and grace in fair retiring girlhood; Beauty is openness and strength in pure high-minded youth: Man, the noble and intelligent, gladdeneth earth with beauty, And woman's beauty sunneth him, as with a smile from heaven.

There is none enchantment against beauty, Magician for all time, Whose potent spells of sympathy have charmed the passive world: Verily, she reigneth a Semiramis; there is no might against her; The lords of every land are harnessed to her triumph. Beauty is conqueror of all, nor ever yet was found among the nations That iron-moulded mind, full proof against her power. Beauty, like a summer's day, subdueth by sweet influences; Who can wrestle against Sleep?--yet is that giant, very gentleness.

Ajax may rout a phalanx, but beauty shall enslave him single-handed; Pericles ruled Athens, yet he is the servant of Aspasia: Light were the labour, and often-told the tale, to count the victories of beauty,-- Helen, and Judith, and Omphale, and Thais, many a trophied name. At a glance the misanthrope was softened, and repented of his vows, When Beauty asked, he gave, and banned her--with a blessing; The cold ascetic loved the smile that lit his dismal cell, And kindly stayed her step, and wept when she departed; The bigot abbess felt her heart gush with a mother's feeling, When looking on some lovely face beneath the cloister's shade; Usury freed her without ransom; the buccaneer was gentle in her presence; Madness kissed her on the cheek, and Idiotcy brightened at her coming: Yea, the very cattle in the field, and hungry prowlers of the forest With fawning homage greeted her, as Beauty glided by. A welcome guest unbidden, she is dear to every hearth; A glad spontaneous growth of friends is springing round her rest: Learning sitteth at her feet, and Idleness laboureth to please her, Folly hath flung aside his bells, and leaden Dulness gloweth; Prudence is rash in her defence; Frugality filleth her with riches; Despair came to her for counsel; and Bereavement was glad when she consoled; Justice putteth up his sword at the tear of supplicating beauty, And Mercy, with indulgent haste, hath pardoned beauty's sin.

For beauty is the substitute for all things, satisfying every absence, The rich delirious cup to make all else forgotten: She also is the zest unto all things, enhancing every presence, The rare and precious ambergris, to quicken each perfume. O beauty, thou art eloquent; yea, though slow of tongue, Thy breast, fair Phryne, pleaded well before the dazzled judge: O beauty, thou art wise; yea, though teaching falsely, Sages listen, sweet Corinna, to commend thy lips; O beauty, thou art ruler; yea, though lowly as a slave, Myrrha, that imperial brow is monarch of thy lord; O beauty, thou art winner; yea, though halting in the race, Hippodame, Camilla, Atalanta,--in gracefulness ye fascinate your umpires; O beauty, thou art rich; yea, though clad in russet, Attalus cannot boast his gold against the wealth of beauty; O beauty, thou art noble; yea, though Esther be an exile, Set her up on high, ye kings, and bow before the majesty of beauty!

Friend and scholar, who, in charity, hast walked with me thus far, We have wandered in a wilderness of sweets, tracking beauty's footsteps: And ever as we rambled on among the tangled thicket, Many a startled thought hath tempted further roaming: Passion, sympathetic influence, might of imaginary haloes,-- Many the like would lure aside, to hunt their wayward themes. And, look you!--from his ferny bed in yonder hazel coppice, A dappled hart hath flung aside the boughs and broke away; He is fleet and capricious as the zephyr, and with exulting bounds Hieth down a turfy lane between the sounding woods; His neck is garlanded with flowers, his antlers hung with chaplets, And rainbow-coloured ribbons stream adown his mottled flanks: Should we follow?--foolish hunters, thus to chase afoot,-- Who can track the airy speed and doubling wiles of Taste?

For the estimates of human beauty, dependent upon time and clime, Manifold and changeable, are multiplied the more by strange gregarious fashion: And notable ensamples in the great turn to epidemics in the lower, So that a nation's taste shall vary with its rulers. Stern Egypt, humbled to the Greek, fancied softer idols; Greece, the Roman province, nigh forgat her classic sculpture; Rome, crushed beneath the Goth, loved his barbarian habits; And Alaric, with his ruffian horde, is tamed by silken Rome. Columbia's flattened head, and China's crumpled feet,-- The civilized tapering waist,--and the pendulous ears of the savage,-- The swollen throat among the mountains, and an ebon skin beneath the tropics,-- These shall all be reckoned beauty: and for weighty cause. First, for the latter: Providence in mercy tempereth taste by circumstance, So that Nature's must shall hit her creature's liking; Second, for the middle: though the foolishness of vanity seek to mar proportion, Still, defects in those we love shall soon be counted praise; Third, for the first: a chief, and a princess, maimed or distorted from the cradle Shall coax the flattery of slaves to imitate the great in their deformity: Hence groweth habit: and habits make a taste, And so shall servile zeal deface the types of beauty. Whiles Alexander conquered, crookedness was comely: And followers learn to praise the scars upon their leader's brow. Youth hath sought to flatter age by mimicking grey hairs; Age plastereth her wrinkles, and is painted in the ruddiness of Youth. Fashion, the parasite of Rank, apeth faults and failings, Until the general Taste depraved hath warped its sense of beauty.

Each man hath a measure for himself, yet all shall coincide in much; A perfect form of human grace would captivate the world: Be it manhood's lustre, or the loveliness of woman, all would own its beauty, The Caffre and Circassian, Russians and Hindoos, the Briton, the Turk and Japanese. Not all alike, nor all at once, but each in proportion to intelligence, His purer state in morals, and a lesser grade in guilt: For the high standard of the beautiful is fixed in Reason's forum, And sins, and customs, and caprice, have failed to break it down: And reason's standard for the creature pointeth three perfections, Frame, knowledge, and the feeling heart, well and kindly mingled; A fair dwelling, furnished wisely, with a gentle tenant in it,-- This is the glory of humanity: thou hast seen it seldom.

There is a beauty for the body; the superficial polish of a statue, The symmetry of form and feature delicately carved and painted. How bright in early bloom the Georgian sitteth at her lattice, How softened off in graceful curves her young and gentle shape: Those dark eyes, lit by curiosity, flash beneath the lashes, And still her velvet cheek is dimpled with a smile. Dost thou count her beautiful?--even as a mere fair figure, A plastic image, little more,--the outer garb of woman: Yea,--and thus far it is well; but Reason's hopes are higher,-- Can he sate his soul on a scantling third of beauty?

Yet is this the pleasing trickery, that cheateth half the world, Nature's wise deceit to make up waste in life; And few be they that rest uncaught, for many a twig is limed; Where is the wise among a million, that took not form for beauty? But watch it well; for vanity and sin, malice, hate, suspicion, Louring as clouds upon the countenance, will disenchant its charms. The needful complexity of beauty claimeth mind and soul, Though many coins of foul alloy pass current for the true: And albeit fairness in the creature shall often co-exist with excellence, Yet hath many an angel shape been tenanted by fiends. A man, spiritually keen, shall detect in surface beauty Those marring specks of evil which the sensual cannot see; Therefore is he proof against a face, unlovely to his likings, And common minds shall scorn the taste, that shrunk from sin's distortion.

There is a beauty for the reason; grandly independent of externals, It looketh from the windows of the house, shining in the man triumphant. I have seen the broad blank face of some misshapen dwarf Lit on a sudden as with glory, the brilliant light of mind: Who then imagined him deformed? intelligence is blazing on his forehead, There is empire in his eye, and sweetness on his lip, and his brown cheek glittereth with beauty: And I have known some Nireus of the camp, a varnished paragon of chamberers, Fine, elegant, and shapely, moulded as the master-piece of Phidias,-- Such an one, with intellects abased, have I noted crouching to the dwarf, Whilst his lovers scorn the fool, whose beauty hath departed!

And there is a beauty for the spirit; mind in its perfect flowering, Fragrant, expanded into soul, full of love and blessed. Go to some squalid couch, some famishing death-bed of the poor; He is shrunken, cadaverous, diseased;--there is here no beauty of the body: Never hath he fed on knowledge, nor drank at the streams of science, He is of the common herd, illiterate;--there is here no beauty of the reason: But lo! his filming eye is bright with love from heaven, In every look it beameth praise, as worshipping with seraphs; What honeycomb is hived upon his lips, eloquent of gratitude and prayer,-- What triumph shrined serene upon that clammy brow, What glory flickering transparent under those thin cheeks,-- What beauty in his face!--Is it not the face of an angel?

Now, of these three, infinitely mingled and combined, Consisteth human beauty, in all the marvels of its mightiness: And forth from human beauty springeth the intensity of Love; Feeling, thought, desire, the three deep fountains of affection. Son of Adam, or daughter of Eve, art thou trapped by nature, And is thy young eye dazzled with the pleasant form of beauty? This is but a lower love; still it hath its honour; What God hath made and meant to charm, let not man despise. Nevertheless, as reason's child, look thou wisely farther, For age, disease, and care, and sin, shall tarnish all the surface: Reach a loftier love: be lured by the comeliness of mind,-- Gentle, kind, and calm, or lustrous in the livery of knowledge. And more, there is a higher grade; force the mind to its perfection-- Win those golden trophies of consummate love: Add unto riches of the reason, and a beauty moulded to thy liking, The precious things of nobler grace that well adorn a soul; Thus, be thou owner of a treasure, great in earth and heaven, Beauty, wisdom, goodness, in a creature like its God.

So then, draw we to an end; with feeble step and faltering, I follow beauty through the universe, and find her home Ubiquity: In all that God hath made, in all that man hath marred, Lingereth beauty, or its wreck, a broken mould and castings. And now, having wandered long time, freely and with desultory feet, To gather in the garden of the world a few fair sample flowers, With patient scrutinizing care let us cull the conclusion of their essence, And answer to the riddle of Zorobabel, Whence the might of beauty?

Ugliness is native unto nothing, but an attribute of concrete evil; In everything created, at its worst, lurk the dregs of loveliness: We be fallen into utter depths, yet once we stood sublime, For man was made in perfect praise, his Maker's comely image: And so his new-born ill is spiced with older good, He carrieth with him, yea to crime, the withered limbs of beauty. Passions may be crooked generosities; the robber stealeth for his children; Murder was avenger of the innocent, or wiped out shame with blood. Many virtues, weighted by excess, sink among the vices; Many vices, amicably buoyed, float among the virtues. For, albeit sin is hate, a foul and bitter turpitude, As hurling back against the Giver all His gifts with insult, Still when concrete in the sinner, it will seem to partake of his attractions, And in seductive masquerade shall cloak its leprous skin; His broken lights of beauty shall illumine its utter black, And those refracted rays glitter on the hunch of its deformity.

Verily the fancy may be false, yet hath it met me in my musings, (As expounding the pleasantness of pleasure, but no ways extenuating licence,) That even those yearnings after beauty, in wayward wanton youth, When, guileless of ulterior end, it craveth but to look upon the lovely, Seem like struggles of the soul, dimly remembering pre-existence, And feeling in its blindness for a long-lost god, to satisfy its longing; As if the sucking babe, tenderly mindful of his mother, Should pull a dragon's dugs, and drain the teats of poison. Our primal source was beauty, and we pant for it ever and again; But sin hath stopped the way with thorns; we turn aside, wander, and are lost.

God, the undiluted good, is root and stock of beauty, And every child of reason drew his essence from that stem. Therefore, it is of intuition, an innate hankering for home, A sweet returning to the well, from which our spirit flowed, That we, unconscious of a cause, should bask these darkened souls In some poor relics of the light that blazed in primal beauty, And, even like as exiles of idolatry, should quaff from the cisterns of creation Stagnant draughts, for those fresh springs that rise in the Creator.

Only, being burdened with the body, spiritual appetite is warped, And sensual man, with taste corrupted, drinketh of pollutions: Impulse is left, but indiscriminate; his hunger feasteth upon carrion; His natural love of beauty doateth over beauty in decay. He still thirsteth for the beautiful; but his delicate ideal hath grown gross, And the very sense of thirst hath been fevered from affection into passion. He remembereth the blessedness of light, but it is with an old man's memory, A blind old man from infancy, that once hath seen the sun, Whom long experience of night hath darkened in his cradle recollections, Until his brightest thought of noon is but a shade of black.

This then is thy charm, O beauty all pervading; And this thy wondrous strength, O beauty, conqueror of all: The outline of our shadowy best, the pure and comely creature, That winneth on the conscience with a saddening admiration: And some untutored thirst for God, the root of every pleasure, Native to creatures, yea in ruin, and dating from the birthday of the soul. For God sealeth up the sum, confirmed exemplar of proportions, Rich in love, full of wisdom, and perfect in the plenitude of Beauty.

OF FAME.

Blow the trumpet, spread the wing, fling thy scroll upon the sky, Rouse the slumbering world, O Fame, and fill the sphere with echo! --Beneath thy blast they wake, and murmurs come hoarsely on the wind, And flashing eyes and bristling hands proclaim they hear thy message: Rolling and surging as a sea, that upturned flood of faces Hasteneth with its million tongues to spread the wondrous tale; The hum of added voices groweth to the roaring of a cataract, And rapidly from wave to wave is tossed that exaggerated story, Until those stunning clamours, gradually diluted in the distance, Sink ashamed, and shrink afraid of noise, and die away. Then brooding Silence, forth from his hollow caverns, Cloaked and cowled, and gliding along, a cold and stealthy shadow, Once more is mingled with the multitude, whispering as he walketh, And hushing all their eager ears, to hear some newer Fame. So all is still again; but nothing of the past hath been forgotten; A stirring recollection of the trumpet ringeth in the hearts of men: And each one, either envious or admiring, hath wished the chance were his To fill as thus the startled world with fame, or fear, or wonder. This lit thy torch of sacrilege, Ephesian Eratostratus; This dug thy living grave, Pythagoras, the traveller from Hadës; For this, dived Empedocles into Etna's fiery whirlpool; For this, conquerors, regicides, and rebels, have dared their perilous crimes. In all men, from the monarch to the menial, lurketh lust of fame: The savage and the sage alike regard their labours proudly: Yea, in death, the glazing eye is illumined by the hope of reputation, And the stricken warrior is glad, that his wounds are salved with glory.

For fame is a sweet self-homage, an offering grateful to the idol, A spiritual nectar for the spiritual thirst, a mental food for mind, A pregnant evidence to all of an after immaterial existence, A proof that soul is scatheless, when its dwelling is dissolved. And the manifold pleasures of fame are sought by the guilty and the good: Pleasures, various in kind, and spiced to every palate: The thoughtful loveth fame as an earnest of better immortality, The industrious and deserving, as a symbol of just appreciation, The selfish, as a promise of advancement, at least to a man's own kin, And common minds, as a flattering fact that men have been told of their existence.

There is a blameless love of fame, springing from desire of justice, When a man hath featly won and fairly claimed his honours: And then fame cometh as encouragement to the inward consciousness of merit, Gladdening by the kindliness and thanks, wherewithal his labours are rewarded. But there is a sordid imitation, a feverish thirst for notoriety, Waiting upon vanity and sloth, and utterly regardless of deserving: And then fame cometh as a curse; the fire-damp is gathered in the mine: The soul is swelled with poisonous air, and a spark of temptation shall explode it.

Idle causes, noised awhile, shall yield most active consequents, And therefore it were ill upon occasion to scorn the voice of rumour. Ye have seen the chemist in his art mingle invisible gases; And lo, the product is a substance, a heavy dark precipitate: Even so fame, hurtling on the quiet with many meeting tongues, Can out of nothing bring forth fruits, and blossom on a nourishment of air. For many have earned honour, and thereby rank and riches, From false and fleeting tales, some casual mere mistake; And many have been wrecked upon disgrace, and have struggled with poverty and scorn, From envious hints and ill reports, the slanders cast on innocence. Whom may not scandal hit? those shafts are shot at a venture: Who standeth not in danger of suspicion? that net hath caught the noblest. Cæsar's wife was spotless, but a martyr to false fame; And Rumour, in temporary things, is gigantic as a ruin or a remedy: Many poor and many rich have testified its popular omnipotence, And many a panic-stricken army hath perished with the host of the Assyrians.

Nevertheless, if opportunity be nought, let a man bide his time; So the matter be not merchandise nor conquest, fear thou less for character. If a liar accuseth thee of evil, be not swift to answer; Yea, rather give him license for awhile; it shall help thine honour afterward: Never yet was calumny engendered, but good men speedily discerned it, And innocence hath burst from its injustice, as the green world rolling out of Chaos. What, though still the wicked scoff,--this also turneth to his praise; Did ye never hear that censure of the bad is buttress to a good man's glory? What, if the ignorant still hold out, obstinate in unkind judgment,-- Ignorance and calumny are paired; we affirm by two negations: Let them stand round about, pushing at the column in a circle, For all their toil and wasted strength, the foolish do but prop it. And note thou this; in the secret of their hearts, they feel the taunt is false, And cannot help but reverence the courage, that walketh amid calumnies unanswering: He standeth as a gallant chief, unheeding shot or shell; He trusteth in God his Judge: neither arrows nor the pestilence shall harm him.

A high heart is a sacrifice to Heaven: should it stoop among the creepers in the dust, To tell them that what God approved, is worthy of their praise? Never shall it heed the thought; but flaming on in triumph to the skies, And quite forgetting fame, shall find it added as a trophy. A great mind is an altar on a hill: should the priest descend from his altitude, To canvass offerings and worship from dwellers on the plain? Rather, with majestic perseverance will he minister in solitary grandeur, Confident the time will come, when pilgrims shall be flocking to the shrine. For fame is the birthright of genius; and he recketh not how long it be delayed; The heir need not hasten to his heritage, when he knoweth that his tenure is eternal. The careless poet of Avon, was he troubled for his fame, Or the deep-mouthed chronicler of Paradise, heeded he the suffrage of his equals? Mæonides took no thought, committing all his honours to the future, And Flaccus, standing on his watch-tower, spied the praise of ages.

Smoking flax will breed a flame, and the flame may illuminate a world; Where is he who scorned that smoke as foul and murky vapour? The village stream swelled to a river, and the river was a kingdom's wealth, Where is he who boasted he could step across that stream? Such are the beginnings of the famous: little in the judgment of their peers, The juster verdict of posterity shall fix them in the orbits of the Great. Therefore dull Zoilus, clamouring ascendant of the hour, Will soon be fain to hide his hate, and bury up his bitterness for shame: Therefore mocking Momus, offended at the footsteps of Beauty, Shall win the prize of his presumption, and be hooted from his throne among the stars. For, as the shadow of a mountain lengtheneth before the setting sun, Until that screening Alp have darkened all the canton,-- So, Fame groweth to its great ones; their images loom longer in departing; But the shadow of mind is light, and earth is filled with its glory.

And thou, student of the truth, commended to the praise of God, Wouldst thou find applause with men?--seek it not, nor shun it. Ancient fame is roofed in cedar, and her walls are marble; Modern fame lodgeth in a hut, a slight and temporary dwelling: Lay not up the treasures of thy soul within so damp a chamber, For the moth of detraction shall fret thy robe, and drop its eggs upon thy motive; Or the rust of disheartening reserve shall spoil the lustre of thy gold, Until its burnished beauty shall be dim as tarnished brass; Or thieves, breaking through to steal, shall claim thy jewelled thoughts, And turn to charge the theft on thee, a pilferer from them!

There is a magnanimity in recklessness of fame, so fame be well deserving, That rusheth on in fearless might, the conscious sense of merit: And there is a littleness in jealousy of fame, looking as aware of weakness, That creepeth cautiously along, afraid that its title will be challenged. The wild boar, full of beechmast, flingeth him down among the brambles; Secure in bristly strength, without a watch, he sleepeth: But the hare, afraid to feed, croucheth in its own soft form; Wakefully with timid eyes, and quivering ears, he listeneth. Even so, a giant's might is bound up in the soul of Genius, His neck is strong with confidence, and he goeth tusked with power: Sturdily he roameth in the forest, or sunneth him in fen and field, And scareth from his marshy lair a host of fearful foes. But there is a mimic Talent, whose safety lieth in its quickness, A timorous thing of doubling guile, that scarce can face a friend: This one is captious of reproof, provident to snatch occasion, Greedy of applause, and vexed to lose one tittle of the glory. He is a poor warder of his fame, who is ever on the watch to keep it spotless; Such care argueth debility, a garrison relying on its sentinel. Passive strength shall scorn excuses, patiently waiting a re-action, He wotteth well that truth is great, and must prevail at last; But fretful weakness hasteth to explain, anxiously dreading prejudice, And ignorant that perishable falsehood dieth as a branch cut off.

Purity of motive and nobility of mind shall rarely condescend To prove its rights, and prate of wrongs, or evidence its worth to others. And it shall be small care to the high and happy conscience What jealous friends, or envious foes, or common fools may judge. Should the lion turn and rend every snarling jackal, Or an eagle be stopt in his career to punish the petulance of sparrows? Should the palm-tree bend his crown to chide the briar at his feet, Nor kindly help its climbing, if it hope, and be ambitious? Should the nightingale account it worth her pains to vindicate her music, Before some sorry finches, that affect to judge of song? No: many an injustice, many a sneer, and slur, Is passed aside with noble scorn by lovers of true fame: For well they wot that glory shall be tinctured good or evil, By the character of those who give it, as wine is flavoured by the wineskin: So that worthy fame floweth only from a worthy fountain, But from an ill-conditioned troop the best report is worthless. And if the sensibility of genius count his injuries in secret, Wisely will he hide the pains a hardened herd would mock: For the great mind well may be sad to note such littleness in brethren, The while he is comforted and happy in the firmest assurance of desert.

Cease awhile, gentle scholar;--seek other thoughts and themes; Or dazzling Fame with wildfire light shall lure us on for ever. For look, all subjects of the mind may range beneath its banner, And time would fail and patience droop, to count that numerous host. The mine is deep, and branching wide,--and who can work it out? Years of thought would leave untold the boundless topic, Fame. Every matter in the universe is linked in suchwise unto others, That a deep full treatise upon one thing might reach to the history of all things: And before some single thesis had been followed out in all its branches, The wandering thinker would be lost in the pathless forest of existence. What were the matter or the spirit, that hath no part in Fame? Where were the fact irrelevant, or the fancy out of place? For the handling of that mighty theme should stretch from past to future, Catching up the present on its way, as a traveller burdened with time. All manner of men, their deeds, hopes, fortunes, and ambitions, All manner of events and things, climate, circumstance, and custom, Wealth and war, fear and hope, contentment, jealousy, devotion, Skill and learning, truth, falsehood, knowledge of things gone and things to come, Pride and praise, honour and dishonour, warnings, ensamples, emulations, The excellent in virtues, and the reprobate in vice, with the cloud of indifferent spectators,-- Wave on wave with flooding force throng the shoals of thought, Filling that immeasurable theme, the height and depth of Fame. With soul unsatisfied and mind dismayed, my feet have touched the threshold, Fain to pour these flowers and fruits an offering on that altar: Lo, how vast the temple,--there are clouds within the dome! Yet might the huge expanse be filled, with volumes writ on Fame.

OF FLATTERY.

Music is commended of the deaf:--but is that praise despised? I trow not: with flattered soul the musician heard him gladly. Beauty is commended of the blind:--but is that compliment misliking? I trow not: though false and insincere, woman listened greedily. Vacant Folly talketh high of Learning's deepest reason: Is she hated for her hollowness?--learning held her wiser for the nonce. The worldly and the sensual, to gain some end, did homage to religion: And the good man gave thanks as for a convert, where others saw the hypocrite.

Yet none of these were cheated at the heart, nor steadily believed those flatteries; They feared the core was rotten, while they hoped the skin was sound: But the fruits have so sweet fragrance, and are verily so pleasant to the eyes, It were an ungracious disenchantment to find them apples of Sodom. So they laboured to think all honest, winking hard with both their eyes; And hushed up every whisper that could prove that praise absurd: They willingly regard not the infirmities that make such worship vain, And palliate to their own fond hearts the faults they will not see. For the idol rejoiceth in his incense, and loveth not to shame his suppliants, Should he seek to find them false, his honours die with theirs: An offering is welcome for its own sake, set aside the giver, And praise is precious to a man, though uttered by the parrot or the mocking-bird.

The world is full of fools; and sycophancy liveth on the foolish: So he groweth great and rich, that fawning supple parasite. Sometimes he boweth like a reed, cringing to the pompousness of pride, Sometimes he strutteth as a gallant, pampering the fickleness of vanity; I have known him listen with the humble, enacting silent marveller, To hear some purse-proud dunce expose his poverty of mind; I have heard him wrangle with the obstinate, vowing that he will not be convinced, When some weak youth hath wisely feared the chance of ill success: Now, he will barely be a winner,--to magnify thy triumphs afterward; Now, he will hardly be a loser,--but cannot cease to wonder at thy skill: He laudeth his own worth, that the leader may have glory in his follower; He meekly confesseth his unworthiness, that the leader may have glory in himself. Many wiles hath he, and many modes of catching, But every trap is selfishness, and every bait is praise.

Come, I would forewarn thee and forearm thee; for keen are the weapons of his warfare; And, while my soul hath scorned him, I have watched his skill from far. His thoughts are full of guile, deceitfully combining contrarieties, And when he doeth battle in a man, he is leagued with traitorous Self-love. Strange things have I noted, and opposite to common fancy; We leave the open surface, and would plumb the secret depths. For he will magnify a lover, even to disparaging his mistress; So much wisdom, goodness, grace,--and all to be enslaved? Till the Narcissus, self-enamoured, whelmed in floods of flattery, Is cheated from the constancy and fervency of love by friendship's subtle praise. Moreover, he will glorify a parent, even to the censure of his child,-- O degenerate scion, of a stock so excellent and noble! Scant will he be in well-earned praise of a son before his father; And rarely commendeth to a mother her daughter's budding beauty: Yet shall he extol the daughter to her father, and be warm about the son before his mother; Knowing that self-love entereth not, to resist applause with jealousies. Wisely is he sparing of hyperbole where vehemence of praise would humble, For many a father liketh ill to be counted second to his son: And shrewdly the flatterer hath reckoned on a self still lurking in the mother, When his tongue was slow to speak of graces in the daughter. But if he descend a generation, to the grandsire his talk is of the grandson, Because in such high praise he hideth the honours of the son; And the daughter of a daughter may well exceed, in beauty, love, and learning, For unconsciously old age perceived--she cannot be my rival. These are of the deep things of flattery: and many a shallow sycophant Hath marvelled ill that praise of children seldom won their parents. This therefore note, unto detection: flattery can sneer as well as smile; And a master in the craft wotteth well, that his oblique thrust is surest.

Flattery sticketh like a burr, holding to the soil with anchors, A vital, natural, subtle seed, everywhere hardy and indigenous. Go to the storehouse of thy memory, and take what is readiest to thy hand,-- The noble deed, the clever phrase, for which thy pride was flattered: Oh, it hath been dwelt upon in solitude, and comforted thy heart in crowds, It hath made thee walk as in a dream, and lifted up the head above thy fellows; It hath compensated months of gloom, that minute of sweet sunshine, Drying up the pools of apathy, and kindling the fire of ambition: Yea, the flavour of that spice, mingled in the cup of life, Shall linger even to the dregs, and still be tasted with a welcome; The dame shall tell her grandchild of her coy and courted youth, And the grey-beard prateth of a stranger, who praised his task at school.

Oftimes to the sluggard and the dull, flattery hath done good service, Quickening the mind to emulation, and encouraging the heart that failed. Even so, a stimulating poison, wisely tendered by the leech, Shall speed the pulse, and rally life, and cheat astonished death. For, as a timid swimmer ventureth afloat with bladders, Until self-confidence and growth of skill have made him spurn their aid, Thus commendation may be prudent, where a child hath ill deserved it; But praise unmerited is flattery, and the cure will bring its cares: For thy son may find thee out, and thou shalt rue the remedy: Yea, rather, where thou canst not praise, be honest in rebuke.

I have seen the objects of a flatterer mirrored clearly on the surface, Where self-love scattereth praise, to gather praise again. This is a commodity of merchandize, words put out at interest: A scheme for canvassing opinions, and tinging them all with partiality. He is but a harmless fool; humour him with pitiful good-nature: If a poetaster quote thy song, be thou tender to his poem: Did the painter praise thy sketch? be kind, commend his picture; He looketh for a like return; then thank him with thy praise. In these small things with these small minds count thou the sycophant a courtier, And pay back, as blindly as ye may, the too transparent honour.

Also, where the flattery is delicate, coming unobtrusive and in season, Though thou be suspicious of its truth, be generous at least to its gentility. The skilful thief of Lacedæmon had praise before his judges, And many caitiffs win applause for genius in their callings. Moreover, his meaning may be kind,--and thou art a debtor to his tongue; Hasten well to pay the debt, with charity and shrewdness: He must not think thee caught, nor feel himself discovered, Nor find thine answering compliment as hollow as his own. Though he be a smiling enemy, let him heed thee as the fearless and the friendly; A searching look, a poignant word, may prove thou art aware: Still, with compassion to the frail, though keen to see his soul, Let him not fear for thy discretion: see thou keep his secret, and thine own.

However, where the flattery is gross, a falsehood clear and fulsome, Crush the venomous toad, and spare not for a jewel in its head. Tell the presumptuous in flattery, that or ever he bespatter thee with praise, It might be well to stop and ask how little it were worth: Thou hast not solicited his suffrage,--let him not force thee to refuse it; Look to it, man, thy fence is foiled,--and thus we spoil the plot. Self-knowledge goeth armed, girt with many weapons, But carrieth whips for flattery, to lash it like a slave: But the dunce in that great science goeth as a greedy tunny, To gorge both bait and hook, unheeding all but appetite: He smelleth praise and swalloweth,--yea, though it be palpable and plain, Say unto him, Folly, thou art Wisdom,--he will bless thee for thy lie.

Flatterer, thou shalt rue thy trade, though it have many present gains; Those varnished wares may sell apace, yet shall they spoil thy credit. Thine is the intoxicating cup, which whoso drinketh it shall nauseate: Thine is trickery and cheating; but deception never pleased for long. And though while fresh thy fragrance seemed even as the dews of charity, Yet afterward it fouled thy censer, as with savour of stale smoke. For the great mind detected thee at once, answering thine emptiness with pity, He saw thy self-interested zeal, and was not cozened by vain-glory: And the little mind is bloated with the praise, scorning him who gave it, A fool shall turn to be thy tyrant, an thou hast dubbed him great: And the medium mind of common men, loving first thy music, After, when the harmonies are done, shall feel small comfort in their echoes; For either he shall know thee false, conscious of contrary deservings, And, hating thee for falsehood, soon will scorn himself for truth, Or, if in aught to toilsome merit honest praise be due, Though for a season, belike, his weakness hath been raptured at thy witching, Shall he not speedily perceive, to the vexing of his disappointed spirit, That thine exaggerated tongue hath robbed him of fair fame? Thou hast paid in forger's coins, and he had earned true money: For the substance of just praise, thou hast put him off with shadows of the sycophant: Thou art all things to all men, for ends false and selfish, Therefore shalt be nothing unto any one, when those thine ends are seen.

Turn aside, young scholar, turn from the song of Flattery! She hath the Siren's musical voice, to ravish and betray. Her tongue droppeth honey, but it is the honey of Anticyra; Her face is a mask of fascination, but there hideth deformity behind; Her coming is the presence of a queen, heralded by courtesy and beauty, But, going away, her train is held by the hideous dwarf, Disgust.

Know thyself, thine evil as thy good, and flattery shall not harm thee: Yea, her speech shall be a warning, a humbling and a guide. For wherein thou lackest most, there chiefly will the sycophant commend thee, And then most warmly will congratulate, when a man hath least deserved. Behold, she is doubly a traitor; and will underrate her victim's best, That, to the comforting of conscience, she may plead his worse for better.

Therefore, is she dangerous,--as every lie is dangerous: Believe her tales, and perish: if thou act upon such counsel. Her aims are thine not thee, thy wealth and not thy welfare, Thy suffrage not thy safety, thine aid and not thine honour. Moreover, with those aims insured, ceaseth all her glozing; She hath used thee as a handle,--but her hand was wise to turn it; Thus will she glorify her skill, that it deftly caught thy kindness, Thus will she scorn thy kindness, so pliable and easy to her skill. And then, the flatterer will turn to be thy foe, the bitterest and hottest, Because he oweth thee much hate to pay off many humblings. Thinkest thou now that he is high, he loveth the remembrance of his lowliness, The servile manner, the dependent smile, the conscience self-abased? No, this hour is his own, and the flatterer will be found a busy mocker; He that hath salved thee with his tongue, shall now gnash upon thee with his teeth; Yea, he will be leader in the laugh,--silly one, to listen to thy loss, We scarce had hoped to lime and take another of the fools of flattery.

At the last; have charity, young scholar,--yea, to the sycophant convicted; Be not a Brutus to thyself, nor stern in thine own cause. Pardon exaggerated praise; for there is a natural impulse, Spurring on the nobler mind, to colour facts by feelings: Take an indulgent view of each man's interest in self, Be large and liberal in excuses; is not that infirmity thine own? Search thy soul and be humble; and mercy abideth with humility; So that, yea, the insincere may find thee pitiful, and love thee. Mildly put aside, without rudeness of repulse, the pampering hand of flattery, For courtesy and kindness have gone beneath its guise, and ill shouldst thou rebuke them.

Thou art incapable of theft: but flowers in the garden of a friend Are thine to pluck with confidence, and it were unfriendliness to hesitate: Thou abhorrest flattery: but a generous excess in praise Is thine to yield with honest heart, and false were the charity to doubt it: The difference lieth in thine aim; kindliness and good are of charity, But selfish, harmful, vile, and bad, is Flattery's evil end.

OF NEGLECT.

Generous and righteous is thy grief, slighted child of sensibility; For kindliness enkindleth love, but the waters of indifference quench it: Thy soul is athirst for sympathy, and hungereth to find affection, The tender scions of thy heart yearn for the sunshine of good feeling; And it is an evil thing and bitter, when the cheerful face of Charity, Going forth gaily in the morning to woo the world with smiles, Is met by those wayfaring men with coldness, suspicion, and repulse, And turneth into hard dead stone at the Gorgon visage of Neglect. O brother, warm and young, covetous of other's favour, I see thee checked and chilled, sorrowing for censure or forgetfulness: Let coarse and common minds despise--that wounding of thy vanity, Alas, I note a sorer cause, the blighting of thy love; Let the callous sensual deride thee,--disappointed of thy praise, Alas, thou hast a juster grief, defrauded of their kindness: It is a theme for tears to feel the soft heart hardening, The frozen breath of apathy sealing up the fountain of affection; It is a pang, keen only to the best, to be injured well-deserving, And slumbering Neglect is injury,--Could ye not watch one hour? When God Himself complained, it was that none regarded, And indifference bowed to the rebuke, Thou gavest Me no kiss when I came in.

Moreover, praise is good; honour is a treasure to be hoarded; A good man's praise foreshadoweth God's, and in His smile is heaven: But men walk on in hardihood, steeling their sinfulness to censure, And when rebuke is ridiculed, the love of praise were an infirmity; The judge thou heedest not in fear, cannot have deep homage of thy hope, And who then is the wise of this world, that will own he trembleth at his fellows? Calm, careless, and insensible, he mocketh blame or calumny, Neither should his dignity be humbled to some pittance of their praise: The rather, let false pride affect to trample on the treasure Which evermore in secret strength unconquered Nature prizeth; Rather, shall ye stifle now the rising bliss of triumph, Lest after, in the world's Neglect, he must acknowledge bitterness.

For lo, that world is wide, a huge and crowded continent, Its brazen sun is mammon, and its iron soil is care: A world full of men, where each man clingeth to his idol; A world full of men, where each man cherisheth his sorrow; A world full of men, multitude shoaling upon multitude; A surging sea, where every wave is burdened with an argosy of self; A boundless beach, where every stone is a separate microscopic world: A forest of innumerable trees, where every root is independent.

What then is the marvel or the shame, if units be lost among the million? Canst thou reasonably murmur, if a leaf drop off unnoticed? Wondrous in architecture, intricate and beautiful, delicately tinged and scented, Exquisite of feeling and mysterious in life, none cared for its growth, or its decay: None? yea,--no one of its fellows,--nor cedar, palm, nor bramble,-- None? its twin-born brother scarcely missed it from the spray: None?--if none indeed, then man's neglect were bitterness; And Life a land without a sun, a globe without a God! Yea, flowers in the desert, there be that love your beauty; Yea, jewels in the sea, there be that prize your brightness; Children of unmerited oblivion, there be that watch and woo you, And many tend your sweets, with gentle ministering care: Thronging spirits of the happy, and the ever-present Good One Yearning seek those precious things, man hath not heart to love, Gems of the humblest or the highest, pure and patient in their kind, The souls unhardened by ill usage, and uncorrupt by luxury.

And ye, poor desolates unsunned, toilers in the dark damp mine, Wearied daughters of oppression, crushed beneath the car of avarice, There be that count your tears,--He hath numbered the hairs of thy head,-- There be that can forgive your ill, with kind considerate pity: Count ye this for comfort, Justice hath her balances, And yet another world can compensate for all: The daily martyrdom of patience shall not be wanting of reward; Duty is a prickly shrub, but its flower will be happiness and glory.

Ye too, the friendless, yet dependent, that find nor home nor lover, Sad imprisoned hearts, captive to the net of circumstance,-- And ye, too harshly judged, noble unappreciated intellects, Who, capable of highest, lowlier fix your just ambition in content,-- And chiefest, ye, famished infants of the poor, toiling for your parents' bread, Tired, and sore, and uncomforted the while, for want of love and learning, Who struggle with the pitiless machine in dull continuous conflict, Tasked by iron men, who care for nothing but your labour,-- Be ye long-suffering and courageous: abide the will of Heaven; God is on your side; all things are tenderly remembered: His servants here shall help you; and where those fail you through Neglect, His kingdom still hath time and space for ample discriminative Justice: Yea, though utterly on this bad earth ye lose both right and mercy, The tears that we forgat to note, our God shall wipe away.

Nevertheless, kind spirit, susceptible and guileless, Meek uncherished dove, in a carrion flock of fowls, Sensitive mimosa, shrinking from the winds that help to root the fir, Fragile nautilus, shipwrecked in the gale whereat the conch is glad, Thy sharp peculiar grief is uncomforted by hope of compensation, For it is a delicate and spiritual wound, which the probe of pity bruiseth: Yet hear how many thoughts extenuate its pain; Even while a kindred heart can sorrow for its presence. For the sting of neglect is in this,--that such as we are all, forget us, That men and women, kith and kin, so lightly heed of other: Sympathy is lacking from the guilty such as we, even where angels minister, And souls of fine accord must prize a fellow-sinner's love; For the worst love those who love them, and the best claim heart for heart, And it is a holy thirst to long for love's requital: Hard it will be, hard and sad, to love and be unloved; And many a thorn is thrust into the side of him that is forgotten. The oppressive silence of reserve, the frost of failing friendship, Affection blighted by repulse, or chilled by shallow courtesy, The unaided struggle, the unconsidered grief, the unesteemed self-sacrifice, The gift, dear evidence of kindness, long due, but never offered, The glance estranged, the letter flung aside, the greeting ill received, The services of unobtrusive care unthanked, perchance unheeded, These things, which hard men mock at, rend the feelings of the tender, For the delicate tissue of a spiritual mind is torn by those sharp barbs; The coldness of a trusted friend, a plenitude ending in vacuity, Is as if the stable world had burst a hollow bubble.

But consider, child of sensibility; the lot of men is labour, Labour for the mouth, or labour in the spirit, labour stern and individual. Worldly cares and worldly hopes exact the thoughts of all, And there is a necessary selfishness, rooted in each mortal breast. The plans of prudence, or the whisperings of pride, or all-absorbing reveries of love, Ambition, grief, or fear, or joy, set each man for himself; Therefore, the centre of a circle, whereunto all the universe convergeth, Is seen in fallen solitude, the naked selfish heart: Stripped of conventional deceptions, untrammelled from the harness of society, We all may read one little word engraved on all we do; Other men, what are they unto us? the age, the mass, the million,-- We segregate, distinct from generalities, that isolated particle, a self: It is the very law of our life, a law for soul and body, An earthly law for earthly men, toiling in responsible probation. For each is the all unto himself, disguise it as we may, Each infinite, each most precious; yet even as a nothing to his neighbour. O consider, we be crowding up an avenue, trapped in the decoy of time, Behind us the irrevocable past, before us the illimitable future: What wonder is there, if the traveller, wayworn, hopeful, fearful, Burdened himself, so lightly heed the burden of his brother? How shouldst thou marvel and be sad, that the pilgrims trouble not to learn thee, When each hath to master for himself the lessons of life and immortality?

Moreover, what art thou,--so vainly impatient of Neglect, Where then is thy worthiness, that so thou claimest honour? Let the true judgment of humility reckon up thine ill deserts, How little is there to be loved, how much to stir up scorn! The double heart, the bitter tongue, the rash and erring spirit, Be these, ye purest among men, your passports unto favour? It is mercy in the Merciful, and justice in the Just, to be jealous of His creature's love, But how should evil or duplicity arrogate affection to itself? Where love is happiness and duty, to be jealous of that love is godlike, But who can reverence the guilty? who findeth pleasure in the mean? Check the presumption of thy hopes: thankfully take refuge in obscurity, Or, if thou claimest merit, thy sin shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.