On The Art of Reading Part 12

I propose this morning to discuss the value of the cla.s.sics to students of English literature from, as the modern phrase goes, a slightly different angle.

Reclining and looking up into that sky which is not too grandiose an image for our own English Literature, you would certainly not wish, Gentlemen, to see it as what it is not--as a cloth painted on the flat. No more than you would choose the sky overarching your life to be a close, hard, copper vault, would you choose this literature of ours to resemble such a prison. I say nothing, for the moment, of the thrill of comparing ours with other constellations--of such a thrill as Blanco White's famous sonnet imagines in Adam's soul when the first night descended on Eden and

Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! Creation widen'd in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal'd Within thy beams, O sun!...

No: I simply picture you as desiring to realise _our own_ literature, its depths and values, mile above mile deeper and deeper s.h.i.+ning, with perchance a glimpse of a city celestial beyond, or at whiles, on a ladder of values, of the angels--the messengers--climbing and returning.

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Well, now, I put it to you that without mental breeding, without at least some sense of ancestry, an Englishman can hardly have this perception of value, this vision. I put to you what I posited in an earlier course of lectures, quoting Bagehot, that while a knowledge of Greek and Latin is not necessary to a writer of English, he should at least have a firm conviction that those two languages existed. I refer you to a long pa.s.sage which, in one of those lectures, I quoted from Cardinal Newman to the effect that for the last 3000 years the Western World has been evolving a human society, having its bond _in a common civilisation_--a society to which (let me add, by way of footnote) Prussia today is firmly, though with great difficulty, being tamed. There are, and have been, other civilisations in the world --the Chinese, for instance; a huge civilisation, stationary, morose, to us unattractive; 'but _this_ civilisation,' says Newman, 'together with the society which is its creation and its home, is so distinctive and luminous in its character, so imperial in its extent, so imposing in its duration, and so utterly without rival upon the face of the earth, that the a.s.sociation may fitly a.s.sume for itself the t.i.tle of "Human Society," and its civilisation the abstract term "Civilisation".'

He goes on:

Looking, then, at the countries which surround the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, I see them to be, from time immemorial, the seat of an a.s.sociation of intellect and mind such as deserves to be called the Intellect and Mind of the Human Kind.

But I must refer you to his famous book "The Idea of a University" to read at length how Newman, in that sinuous, sinewy, Platonic style of his, works it out--the spread, through Rome, even to our sh.o.r.es, of the civilisation which began in Palestine and Greece.

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I would press the point more rudely upon you, and more particularly, than does Newman. And first, for Latin--

I waive that Rome occupied and dominated this island during 400 years. Let that be as though it had never been. For a further 1000 years and more Latin remained the common speech of educated men throughout Europe: the 'Universal Language.' Greek had been smothered by the Turk. Through all that time--through the most of what we call Modern History, Latin reigned everywhere. Is this a fact to be ignored by any of you who would value 'values'?

Here are a few particulars, by way of ill.u.s.tration. More wrote his "Utopia," Bacon wrote all the bulk of his philosophical work, in Latin; Newton wrote his "Principia" in Latin. Keble's Lectures on Poetry (if their worth and the name of Keble may together save me from bathos) were delivered in Latin. Our Vice-Chancellor, our Public Orator still talk Latin, securing for it what attention they can: nor have

The bigots of this iron time _Yet_ call'd their harmless art a crime.

But there is a better reason why you should endeavour to understand the value of Latin in our literature; a filial reason.

Our fathers built their great English prose, as they built their oratory, upon the Latin model. Donne used it to construct his mighty fugues: Burke to discipline his luxuriance. Says Cowper, it were

Praise enough for any private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.

Well then, here is a specimen of Chatham's language: from his speech, Romanly severe, denouncing the Government of the day for employing Red Indians in the American War of Independence. He is addressing the House of Lords:

I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church--I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their G.o.d. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanct.i.ty of their lawn; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lords.h.i.+ps to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Const.i.tution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this n.o.ble lord [Lord Suffolk] frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleet: against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion--the _Protestant religion_--of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us--to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child!

to send forth the infidel savage---against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, with these horrible h.e.l.l-hounds of savage war!--h.e.l.l-hounds, I say, of savage war! Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage h.e.l.l-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity....

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

That was Chatham. For Wolfe--he, as you know, was ever reading the cla.s.sics even on campaign: as Burke again carried always a Virgil in his pocket. _Abeunt studia in mores._ Moreover can we separate Chatham's Roman morality from Chatham's language in the pa.s.sage I have just read? No: we cannot. No one, being evil, can speak good things with that weight; _'for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.'_ We English (says Wordsworth)

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake....

You may criticise Chatham's style as too consciously Ciceronian.

But has ever a Parliamentary style been invented which conveys a n.o.bler gravity of emotion? 'Buskined'?--yes: but the style of a man. 'Mannered'?--yes, but in the grand manner. 'Conscious'?-- yes, but of what? Conscious of the dignity a great man owes to himself, and to the a.s.sembly he addresses. He conceives that a.s.sembly as 'the British Senate'; and, a.s.suming, he communicates that high conception. The Lords feel that they are listening as Senators, since it is only thus a Senate should be addressed, as nothing less than a Senate should be addressed thus.

Let me read you a second pa.s.sage; of _written_ prose:

Laodameia died; Helen died; Leda, the beloved of Jupiter, went before. It is better to repose in the earth betimes than to sit up late; better, than to cling pertinaciously to what we feel crumbling under us, and to protract an inevitable fall. We may enjoy the present while we are insensible of infirmity and decay: but the present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come. There are no fields of amaranth on this aide of the grave; there are no voices, O Rhodope! that are not soon mute, however tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of pa.s.sionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last[3].

Latin--all Latin--down to its exquisite falling close! And I say to you, Gentlemen, that pa.s.sages such as these deserve what Joubert claimed of national monuments, _Ce sont les crampons qui unissent une generation a une autre. Conservez ce qu'ont vu vos peres,_ 'These are the clamps that knit one generation to another. Cherish those things on which your fathers' eyes have looked.'

_Abeunt studia in mores._

If, years ago, there had lacked anything to sharpen my suspicion of those fork-bearded professors who derived our prose from the stucco of Anglo-Saxon prose, it would have been their foolish deliberate practice of composing whole pages of English prose without using one word derivative from Latin or Greek. Esau, when he sold his birthright, had the excuse of being famished. These pedants, with a full board, sought frenetically to give it away-- board and birthright. _'So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality'_ --almost, I say, these men had deserved to have a kind of speech more to their taste read over their coffins.

VII

What, in the next place, can I say of Greek, save that, as Latin gave our fathers the model of prose, Greek was the source of it all, the G.o.ddess and genius of the well-head? And, casting about to ill.u.s.trate, as well as may be, what I mean by this, I hit on a minor dialogue of Plato, the "Phaedrus," and choose you a short pa.s.sage in Edward FitzGerald's rendering:

When Socrates and Phaedrus have discoursed away the noon-day under the plane trees by the Ilissus, they rise to depart toward the city. But Socrates (pointing perhaps to some images of Pan and other sylvan deities) says it is not decent to leave their haunts without praying to them, and he prays:

'O auspicious Pan, and ye other deities of this place, grant to me to become beautiful _inwardly,_ and that all my outward goods may prosper my inner soul. Grant that I may esteem wisdom the only riches, and that I may have so much gold as temperance can handsomely carry.

'Have we yet aught else to pray for, Phaedrus? For myself I seem to have prayed enough.'

_Phaedrus_: 'Pray as much for me also: for friends have all in common.'

_Socrates_: 'Even so be it. Let us depart'

To this paternoster of Socrates, reported more than four centuries before Christ taught the Lord's Prayer, let me add an attempted translation of the lines that close Homer's hymn to the Delian Apollo. Imagine the old blind poet on the beach chanting to the islanders the glorious boast of the little island--how it of all lands had harboured Leto in her difficult travail; how she gave birth to the Sun G.o.d; how the immortal child, as the attendant G.o.ddesses touched his lips with ambrosia, burst his swaddling bands and stood up, sudden, a G.o.d erect:

But he, the Sun-G.o.d, did no sooner taste That food divine than every swaddling band Burst strand by strand, And burst the belt above his panting waist-- All hanging loose About him as he stood and gave command: 'Fetch me my lyre, fetch me my curving bow!

And, taught by these, shall know All men, through me, the unfaltering will of Zeus!'

So spake the unshorn G.o.d, the Archer bold, And turn'd to tread the ways of Earth so wide; While they, all they, had marvel to behold How Delos broke in gold Beneath his feet, as on a mountain-side Sudden, in Spring, a tree is glorified And canopied with blossoms manifold.

But he went swinging with a careless stride, Proud, in his new artillery bedight, Up rocky Cynthus, and the isles descried-- All his, and their inhabitants--for wide, Wide as he roam'd, ran these in rivalry To build him temples in many groves: And these be his, and all the isles he loves, And every foreland height, And every river hurrying to the sea.

But chief in thee, Delos, as first it was, is his delight.

Where the long-robed Ionians, each with mate And children, pious to his altar throng, And, decent, celebrate His birth with boxing-match and dance and song: So that a stranger, happening them among, Would deem that these Ionians have no date, Being ageless, all so met; And he should gaze And marvel at their ways, Health, wealth, the comely face On man and woman--envying their estate-- And yet _You_ shall he least be able to forget, You maids of Delos, dear ones, as ye raise The hymn to Phoebus, Leto, Artemis, In triune praise, Then slide your song back upon ancient days And men whose very name forgotten is., And women who have lived and gone their ways: And make them live agen, Charming the tribes of men, Whose speech ye mock with pretty mimicries So true They almost woo The hearer to believe he's singing too!

Speed me, Apollo: speed me, Artemis!

And you, my dears, farewell! Remember me Hereafter if, from any land that is, Some traveller question ye-- 'Maidens, who was the sweetest man of speech Fared hither, ever chanted on this beach?'

I you beseech Make answer to him, civilly-- 'Sir, he was just a blind man, and his home In rocky Chios. But his songs were best, And shall be ever in the days to come.'

Say that: and as I quest In fair wall'd cities far, I'll tell them there (They'll list, for 'twill be true) Of Delos and of you.

But chief and evermore my song shall be Of Prince Apollo, lord of Archery.

G.o.d of the Silver Bow, whom Leto bare-- Leto, the lovely-tress'd.

Did time permit, I might quote you a chorus of Aeschylus, a pa.s.sage from Thucydides or from Aristotle, to ill.u.s.trate Gibbon's saying that the Greek language 'gave a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of metaphysics.' But there it is, and it has haunted our literature; at first filtering through Latin, at length breaking from Constantinople in flood and led to us, to Oxford and Cambridge, by Erasmus, by Grocyn:

Thee, that lord of splendid lore Orient from old h.e.l.las' sh.o.r.e.

To have a sense of Greek, too, is to own a corrective of taste. I quote another old schoolmaster here--a dead friend, Sidney Irwin:

What the Greeks disliked was extravagance, caprice, boastfulness, and display of all kinds.... The Greeks _hated_ all monsters. The quaint phrase in the "Odyssey" about the Queen of the Laestrygones--'She was tall as a mountain, and they hated her'--would have seemed to them most reasonable....

To read Greek is to have a perpetual witness to the virtue of pruning--of condensing--a perpetual protest against all that crowds, and swells, and weakens the writer's purpose.

To forget this is but to 'confound our skill in covetousness.'

We cannot all be writers ... but we all wish to have good taste, and good taste is born of a generous caution about letting oneself go. I say _generous,_ for caution is seldom generous--but it is a generous mood which is in no haste to a.s.sert itself. To consider the thing, the time, the place, the person, and to take yourself and your own feelings _only fifth_ is to be armour-proof against bad taste.

VIII