Is Polite Society Polite? Part 13

Florence within her ancient circle set, Remained in sober, modest quietness.

Nor chains had she, nor crowns, nor women decked In gay attire, with splendid cincture bound, More to be gazed at than the form itself.

Not yet the daughter to the father brought Fear from her birth, the marriage time and dower Not yet departing from their fitting measure.

Nor houses had she, void of household life.

Sardanapalus had not haply shown The deeds which may be hid by chamber walls.

I saw Bellincion Berti go his way With bone and leather belted. From the gla.s.s His lady moved, no paint upon her face.

I saw the Lords of Norti and del Vecchio content, Their household dames engaged with spool and spindle.

The theory of the good old time, we see, is not a modern invention.

Dante inherits the great heart of chivalry, wise before its time in the uplifting of Woman. The wonderful wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin Mother, in which are united the two poles of womanhood, completed the ideal of the Divine Human, and cast a new glory upon the s.e.x. Can we doubt that knight and minstrel found a true inspiration in the lady of their heart? A mere pretence or affection is a poor thing to fight for or to sing for. Men will not imperil their lives for what they know to be a lie.

This newly awakened reverence for woman--shall we call it a race characteristic? It was a golden gift to any race. Plato's deep doctrine that all learning is a reminiscence may avail us in questioning this.

The human race does not carry the bulk of its knowledge in its hand.

Busy with its tools and toys, it forgets its ancestral heirlooms, and leaves unexplored the legacy of the past. But in some mystical way, the treasures lost from remembrance turn up and come to sight again. In the far Caucasus, from which we came, there were glimpses of this ideal wife and mother.

This history, whether real or imaginary, or both, suggests to me the question whether the love which brings together and binds together men and women can in any way typify the supreme affections of the soul? That it was supposed to do so in mediaeval times is certain. The sentimental agonies of troubadours and minstrels make it evident. Even the latest seedy sprout of chivalry, Don Quixote, shows us this. Wis.h.i.+ng to start upon a n.o.ble errand, the succor of oppressed humanity, his almost first requisite is a "lady of his heart," who, in his case, is a mere lay figure upon which he drapes the fantastic weaving of his imagination.

Another question, like unto the first, is this,--whether the heroic mode of loving is or is not a lost art in our days.

That Plato and Socrates should busy themselves with it, that mystics and philosophers should find such a depth of interest in the attraction which one nature exerts upon another, and that, _per contra_, in our time, this mystical attraction should flatten, or, as singers say, flat out into a decorous observance of rules, a.s.sisting a mutual endurance--what does it mean? Is Pan dead, and are the other G.o.ds dead with him?

In an age widely, if not deeply, critical, we lose sight of the primitive affections and temperament of our race. Affection's self becomes merged in opinion. We contemplate, we compare, we are not able to covet any but surface distinctions, surface attractions. Even the poets who give us the expression of a lively partic.i.p.ation in human instincts are disowned by us. Wordsworth is chosen, and Byron is discarded. We are not too rich with both of them. Inspired Browning--for the man who wrote "Pippa" and "Saul" was inspired--loses himself and his music in the dismal swamp of metaphysical speculation. Just at present, it seems to me that the world has lost one of its n.o.blest leadings; _viz._, the desire for true companions.h.i.+p. Arid love of pleasure, more arid wors.h.i.+p of wealth, paralyze those higher powers of the soul which take hold on friends.h.i.+p and on love. To know those only who can advance your personal objects, be these amus.e.m.e.nt or ambition; to marry at auction, going, going, for so much,--how can we who have but one human life to live so cheat ourselves out of its real rights and privileges?

Is this a pathological symptom in the body social, produced by a surfeit in the direction of inclination? One might think so, since asceticism has no joylessness comparable to that of the blasted _roue_ or utter worldling. In France, where the bent of romantic literature has been the following of inclination,--from George Sand, who consecrates it, down to the latest scrofulous scribbler, who outrages it,--on the banks of this turbid stream of literature, one constantly meets with the apples of Sodom. "There is no other fruit," say the venders. "You cultivate none other," is the fitting reply.

The world of thought is ever full of problems as contradictory of each other as the antinomies of which I just now made a pa.s.sing mention. The right interpretation of these riddles is of great moment in our spiritual and intellectual life. The ages and aeons of human experience tend, on the whole, to a gradual unification of persuasion and conviction on the part of thinking beings, and much that a prophet breathes into a hopeless blank acquires meaning in the light of succeeding centuries.

This great problem of love continues to be full of contradictory aspects to those who would explore it. We distinguish between divine love and human love, but have yet to decide whether Love absolute is divine or human; for this deity is known to us from all time in two opposite shapes,--as a destructive and as a constructive G.o.d. He unmakes the man, he unmakes the woman, sucks up precious years of human life like a sponge, sets Troy ablaze, maddens harmless Io with a stinging gad-fly.

On the other hand, where Love is not, nothing is. Luxurious Solomon praises a dinner of herbs enriched by his presence. All poetry, all doctrine, is founded upon human affection a.s.sumed as essential to life, nay, as life itself; for when love of life and its objects exists not, the vital flame flickers feebly, and expires early. In ethics, social and religious, what contradictions do we encounter under this head! From all inordinate and sinful affections, good Lord, deliver us! is a good prayer. But how shall we treat the case when there are no affections at all? We might add a clause to our litany,--From lovelessness and all manner of indifference, good Lord, deliver us! What more direful sentence than to say that a person has no heart? What sin more severely punished than any extravagant action of this same heart?

These wonders of lofty sentiment and high imagination are precious subjects of study. The construction of a great poem, of which the interest is at once intense, various, and sustained, seems to us a work more appropriate to other days than to our own. I remember in my youth a fluent critic who was fond of saying that if Milton had lived in this day of the world, he would not have thought of writing an epic poem. To which another of the same stripe would reply: "If he did write such a poem in these days, n.o.body would read it." I wonder how long the frisky impatience of our youth will think it worth while to follow even Homer in his long narratives.

More than this sustained power of the imagination, does the heroic in sentiment seem to decrease and to be wanting among us. Those lofty views of human affection and relation which we find in the great poets seem almost foreign to the civilization of to-day. I find in modern scepticism this same impatience of weighty thoughts. He who believes only in the phenomenal universe does not follow a conviction. A fatal indolence of mind prevents him from following any lead which threatens fatigue and difficult labor. Instead of a temple for the Divine, our man of to-day builds a commodious house for himself,--at best, a club-house for his set or circle. And the worst of it is, that he teaches his son to do the same thing.

The social change which I notice to-day as a decline in attachments simply personal is partly the result of a political change which I, for one, cannot deplore. The idea of the state and of society as bodies in which each individual has a direct interest gives to men and women of to-day an enlarged sphere of action and of instruction. The absolutely universal coincidence of the real advantage of the individual with that of the community, always true in itself, and neither now nor at any time fully comprehended, gives the fundamental tone to thought and education to-day. The result is a tendency to generality, to publicity, and a neglect of those relations into which external power and influence do not enter. The action of mind upon mind, of character upon character, outside of public life, is intense, intimate, insensible. Temperament is most valued nowadays for its effect upon mult.i.tudes. We wish to be recognized as moving in a wide and exalted sphere. The belle in the ball-room is glad to have it reported that the Prince of Wales admires her. The lady who should grace a lady's sphere pines for the stage and the footlights. Actions and appearances are calculated to be seen of men.

I say no harm of this tendency, which has enfranchised me and many others from the cruel fetters of a narrow and personal judgment. It is safe and happy to have the public for a final court of appeal, and to be able, when an issue is misjudged or distorted, to call upon its great heart to say where the right is, and where the wrong. But let us, in our panorama of wide activities, keep with all the more care these pictures of spirits that have been so finely touched within the limits of Nature's deepest reserve and modesty. This mediaeval did not go to dancing-school nor to Harvard College. He could not talk of the fellows and the girls. But from his early childhood, he holds fast the tender remembrance of a beautiful and gracious face. The thought of it, and of the high type of woman which it images, is to him more fruitful of joy and satisfaction than the amus.e.m.e.nts of youth or the gaieties of the great world. Death removes this beloved object from his sight, but not from his thoughts. Years pa.s.s. His genius reaches its sublime maturity.

He becomes acquainted with camps and courts, with the learning and the world of his day. But when, with all his powers, he would build a perfect monument to Truth, he takes her perfect measure from the hand of his child-love. The world keeps that work, and will keep it while literature shall last. It has many a subtle pa.s.sage, many a wonderful picture, but at its height, crowned with all names divine, he has written, as worthy to be remembered with these, the name of Beatrice.