,illustration3 ,cover ,,reginald ,,bateman ,,teacher ,,and ,,soldier ,a ,,memorial ,,volume ,,of ,,selections ,,from ,,his ,,lectures ,,and ,,other ,,writings ,,printed ,,for ,,the ,,university ,,of ,,saskatchewan1 ,,saskatoon1 ,,canada ,,and ,,published ,,for ,,the ,,university ,,by ,,henry ,,sotheran ,,and ,,co4 ,,london #aibb ,,printed ,,in ,,great ,,britain4 ,,chiswick ,,press 3 ,,charles ,,whittingham ,,and ,,griggs 7,,printers71 ,,ltd4 ,,tooks ,,court1 ,,chancery ,,lane1 ,,london4 ,,prefatory ,,note ,the purpose of this volume is to commemorate the life and death of ,reginald ,john ,godfrey ,bateman1 first ,professor of ,english at the ,university of ,saskatchewan4 ,it was felt by the ,governors and ,faculty of the ,university that his friends and old students would value a representative selection from the lectures delivered by him within the ,university and to the outside public4 ,included in the selection are a few poems which were found among his papers4 ,the lectures and essays which are published here1 being written for popular audiences or literary gatherings inside the ,university1 were never intended by their author for publication as the original and considered critical work of a ,professor of ,english2 doubtless1 if such had been his purpose1 much that is printed here1 originally hurriedly prepared during the busy rush of a college session1 would have been altered and recast4 ,while originality was one of ,professor ,bateman's most marked qualities1 the members of the committee entrusted with the preparation of this volume for the press have not1 in every case1 regarded originality of thought as a necessary qualification for inclusion4 ,in making their selection they have rather been guided by the desire to give to his friends and old students what1 whether original in thought or not1 appeared to be in treatment and presentation most characteristic of the man and teacher4 ,war--and herein lies its greatest tragedy--always takes heavy toll of the promise and latent greatness of a nation1 its youth and vigorous young manhood4 ,like many others who risked all and gave all in the ,great ,war1 ,reginald ,bateman was cut off in his prime4 ,he was born in ,ireland some thirty-eight years ago4 ,his schooldays were spent under ,dr4 ,biggs1 often called the ,irish ,arnold1 at ,portora ,royal ,school1 perhaps the greatest of ,irish public schools1 with a tradition of scholarship which is centuries old4 ,on leaving school he entered ,trinity ,college1 ,dublin1 where he graduated with the ,highest ,honours in ,modern ,literature4 ,in college his activities and interests were wide1 and he was an outstanding example of the student who combines with distinction in scholarship1 prominence in athletics and a broad and human outlook on life4 ,in this as in other respects he was a worthy representative of the spirit of his ,university4 ,after a few years' experience of teaching in ,ireland1 he was appointed to the chair of ,english at the ,university of ,saskatchewan1 being one of the original four professors who1 with ,president ,murray1 launched the ,university on its educational career in #aiji4 ,when a peaceful and unsuspecting world was plunged1 in ,august #aiad1 into the horrors of the most stupendous war in its history1 ,professor ,bateman quickly decided that his place was in the fighting line1 and he enlisted in the #bhth ,battalion in ,september #aiad1 in company with another professor and many members of our student body4 ,his ability to handle men1 quickly became apparent2 he soon won his sergeant's stripes1 and went to ,france with that rank4 ,in #aiaf he was recalled to ,canada to take command of the ,saskatchewan ,company of the ,western ,universities' ,battalion4 ,he proceeded to ,england with the rank of major1 and in #aiag reverted to the rank of lieutenant in order to get again to ,france1 where he was wounded in action4 ,he was holding the rank of captain in the #dfth ,battalion when he was killed on the #crd of ,september #aiah4 ,he had taken part in the fighting toward the end of ,august when the ,canadians made the first breach in the ,hindenburg ,line4 ,the major of his battalion has written that on the #bnd of ,september ,captain ,bateman gallantly led his company into action4 ,dury was taken that day1 and near that place on the night of ,september #crd he was killed by a shell at the ,regimental ,headquarters1 which were being held in a chalk quarry4 ,on the #dth of ,september the chaplain of the regiment gathered together a party who1 amid the roar of guns and scream of shells paid their last respects to a very gallant comrade and one of the best loved men in the ,battalion4 ,those who served under him as an officer bear witness that he had won not only the men's implicit confidence by qualities of leadership of the highest order1 but also their very great affection by his personal qualities4 ,the affection and respect which were the ,university's tribute to his character were also the tribute of his comrades in circumstances where a man's soul is stripped of all pretences in the constant presence of death1 and where the dread arbitrament of war must reveal the good or evil that may lie hidden beneath the conventionalities of ordinary life4 ,strong in body and fearless in spirit1 ,reginald ,bateman possessed that courage which is neither the product of discipline and rigorous training1 nor the mere animal quality which 7to quote an early writer on the war7 is our inheritance from a past in which men fought each one for himself that they might survive1 but that finer quality of courage which will face the most appalling horrors because it has a vision of the future and a faith in the destiny of mankind4 ,if ,professor ,bateman had survived1 his career as a soldier would have been but a glorious interlude in his life's work4 ,during the years spent by him at the ,university1 his character and attainments had made him an outstanding figure1 and gave promise of a future even richer in achievement4 ,intellectually1 he was a signal example of the union of great ability and imagination with the modesty of a fine spirit and a sane and penetrating outlook on life4 ,he was possessed of a breadth of outlook that gave him clear insight in literary matters4 ,his judgments were always just1 because based on essentials1 while his humanity enabled him to couple with the minutiae of scholarship a catholicity of interpretation and a sanity of criticism which is not always found in those who are most deeply versed in their subject4 ,the respect of his colleagues and of his students is definite proof of his great ability as a teacher4 ,it was manifest to all that he gave himself wholeheartedly to his work with that enjoyment and appreciation which are essential characteristics of a true teacher4 ,the loss that the ,university in general has sustained by ,professor ,bateman's death finds its counterpart in the personal sorrow of his friends4 ,those who were privileged to know him well are left immeasurably poorer by his death but enriched by a memory that will always remain with them4 ,for his story lives on woven into the stuff of other men's lives4 ,his wide human interests brought him into sympathetic touch with many phases of life and gave him strength and tolerance4 ,his true manliness1 sincerity of character1 and sociable nature endeared him to all4 ,he was a delightful comrade1 and many of his colleagues must remember some flash of true humour which lit up the prosaic tenor of an ordinary conversation or of some inordinately dull ,faculty ,meeting4 ,the students of the ,university too shared in his friendship4 ,his never-flagging interest in their activities1 whether literary1 musical1 or athletic1 will always be remembered4 ,the ,university of ,saskatchewan lost in the ,great ,war many of its finest spirits1 and its losses reached their culmination in the death of ,reginald ,bateman4 ,upon such sacrifices ,the gods themselves throw incense4 ,,contents ,,part ,i ,,reginald ,,bateman--,,student ,,and ,,teacher ,francis ,thompson ,milton ,to the ,memory of ,dr4 ,biggs ,the ,teaching of ,english ,my ,last ,duchess ,christmas ,shopping ,realism in ,wordsworth and ,browning ,synge--a ,fragment ,dickens and ,thackeray ,pessimism ,brains and ,intellect ,the ,eternal ,silence ,,part ,,ii ,,reginald ,,bateman--,,soldier ,the ,war ,in the ,trenches ,on the ,death of a ,comrade ,illustration3 ,reginald ,bateman ,,part ,i ,,reginald ,,bateman ,,student ,,and ,,teacher ,,francis ,,thompson ,a paper given before the ,faculty ,club in #aiac ,the recent publication1 ,april #aiac1 of the first collected edition of ,francis ,thompson's works1 followed in ,august by an authentic biography of the poet1 has focussed general attention upon the man and his work4 ,hitherto1 if known to the general reader at all1 he has been known mainly by one poem1 ,the ,hound of ,heaven1 and the majority of the reading public has not yet discovered that ,thompson is the author of a large body of poetry fully worthy to rank with ,the ,hound of ,heaven in poetical quality4 ,even to the few who are familiar with his poetry1 the story of his life1 one of the most romantic in the annals of our literature1 came as a revelation4 ,to the inner circle of literary people ,thompson as a poet has been known for twenty years4 ,with his first volume of poems1 published #ahic1 ,thompson1 as one admirer expressed it1 reached the peak of ,parnassus at a bound4 ,the critics1 usually so conservative in their estimate of a new poet1 were not only favourable1 but in most cases so far forgot themselves as to become enthusiastic4 ,for parallels to the austere passion and purity of ,thompson's love-poetry1 to the richness and strangeness of his imagery1 the splendour and luxuriance of his vocabulary1 and the loftiness of his inspiration1 they turned without apology to the greatest names of our literature4 ,from this unusually favourable first opinion there was naturally a reaction4 ,thompson's second volume of #ahie1 ,sister ,songs1 and still more his third volume of #ahig1 ,new ,poems1 with its increased symbolism and mysticism1 met with vicious abuse as well as generous praise4 ,by #aijg1 however1 the date of ,thompson's death1 his reputation was well established1 and from that time to the present1 the tide of criticism seems to have set strongly in his favour4 ,to-day few critics would deny him to be the most remarkable of recent poets4 ,a fresh wave of interest was aroused last year when the complete and final edition of his works was published4 ,this reawakened interest is likely to have the effect of passing his merit again under review1 and we shall have some opportunity of judging whether he is to fade from the sight of men like a brilliant but unlasting meteor1 whether he is to be like ,keats and ,shelley1 the chosen poet of a small and select circle of readers1 or whether1 like ,tennyson and ,browning1 he is to win the suffrages of the man on the street4 ,personally1 while ,i believe that ,thompson will ultimately take a place among the greatest of our nineteenth century poets1 ,i think it extremely unlikely that he will ever be popular4 ,the atmosphere he lives in is too rare for the ordinary man to breathe with comfort4 ,his emotions are too subtle1 his passion too austere1 his harmonies too refined to catch the ear of the crowd4 ,a few of his poems1 like ,the ,hound of ,heaven1 which is already widely known1 may become popular1 but ,i can recall no other which seems to me likely to make an universal appeal4 ,before passing to a sketch of ,thompson's romantic career1 let me dwell for a short while on the more striking qualities of his genius4 ,my first impressions of ,thompson have to do more with style than with subject matter4 ,to the literary critic making the acquaintance of a new poet it matters less1 perhaps1 what the poet says than how he says it4 ,harmony1 rhythm1 language1 technique--these things are of vital importance4 ,it is true that we may often desire of our poets more matter and less art1 but on the other hand matter without art has never won the name of great poetry4 ,there is a largeness and finality of utterance1 an appearance of inevitability about the best work of the great masters1 that is unmistakable4 ,it is as if the ,muse of ,poetry herself had spoken and not a mere mortal man4 ,last came and last did go ,the ,pilot of the ,galilean lake4 ,such words as these grow not upon mortal soil4 ,what one looks for1 then1 first of all in a new poet is the grand style1 the authentic note1 the phrases stamped with the tool of the eternal graver4 ,in the search for it1 one's only guide is instinct1 an instinct formed by constant study of what is admittedly the best4 ,and the search for this distinction of style is doomed so often to be disappointed that even a line or a phrase which seems to possess it is gladly welcomed4 ,but in ,thompson's case the inspiration is not confined to occasional flashes4 ,no matter where ,i opened his book1 almost every line seemed to me to bear the hall-mark of great poetry4 ,take even the six lines of the dedication of ,new ,poems to ,coventry ,patmore2 you find1 ,i think1 that they ring true1 that they have the great utterance4 ,lo1 my book thinks to look ,time's leaguer down1 ,under the banner of your spread renown6 ,or if these levies of impuissant rhyme ,fall to the overthrow of assaulting ,time1 ,yet this one page shall find oblivious shame1 ,armed with your crested and prevailing ,name4 ,in reading ,thompson's poems one has neither1 as in the case of most moderns1 to adjust oneself to a completely new and perhaps freakish style1 nor to reconcile oneself to a more or less obvious imitation of our greatest recent poets4 ,thompson is not at all modern2 to one familiar with seventeenth century ,english literature he comes like an old friend2 and yet he is no imitator2 he is absolutely individual4 ,if a student of literature were given the poems without being told the author1 he would probably get the impression that some forgotten poet of the seventeenth century had been re-discovered4 ,for ,thompson's poems do not smack of the nineteenth century2 they have few echoes of ,tennyson or ,browning or ,swinburne or any nineteenth century poet except1 perhaps1 ,shelley2 they have rather a strong flavour of our elder poetry1 and while rich1 perhaps over-rich1 in imagery1 give one an impression of close-knit1 sinewy strength very different from the milk-and-watery mildness or the sensuous lusciousness of much modern verse4 ,this effect is enhanced by their vocabulary1 which contains many words strange to the modern ear1 and which takes one back to ,sir ,thomas ,browne1 ,milton1 ,cowley1 and ,crashaw4 ,the ,ode to the ,setting ,sun and the ,anthem of ,earth illustrate to some extent another very prominent characteristic of ,thompson1 that he is a daring and successful experimenter in metre and language4 ,he does not follow slavishly in the beaten track of other poets2 he frames metrical moulds for himself to suit the quality of his own glowing thought4 ,the poems are full of new and difficult metres1 handled with perfect mastery2 they are full of experiments with language which most modern poets would not dare to make1 but which in ,thompson nearly always seem to justify themselves4 ,perhaps the most striking thing about ,thompson's poetry is the quality of his imagery4 ,a great poet must be rich in imagery1 for it is the imagery of poetry that discloses to us its hidden soul4 ,thompson's imagery at once astonishes by its ingenuity and captivates by its beauty4 ,in the former quality he rivals ,cowley and ,crashaw1 in the latter he is far beyond them4 ,one critic remarked that ,thompson must surely be ,crashaw born again1 but born greater4 ,if ,thompson's imagery has a fault1 it is that there is too much of it2 he himself recognized this fault and endeavoured to correct it4 ,alice ,meynell remarked that many poets could be furnished with imagery1 not from the abundance of ,thompson's1 but from its super-abundance4 ,here are a few samples1 chosen almost at random1 of the quality of ,thompson's imagery3 ,and now my heart is as a broken fount1 ,wherein tear-drippings stagnate1 spilt down ever ,from the dank thoughts that shiver ,upon the sighful branches of my mind4 ,under my ruined passions fallen and sere ,the wild dreams stir1 like little radiant girls1 ,whom in the moulted plumage of the year1 ,their comrades sweet have buried to the curls4 ,in a more commonplace style of imagery1 but still splendidly handled1 is the following from ,sister ,songs3 ,or may this treasure-galleon of my verse1 ,fraught with its golden passion1 oared with cadent rhyme1 ,set with a towering press of fantasies1 ,drop safely down the time1 ,leaving mine isled self behind it far1 ,soon to be sunken in the abysm of seas1 7,as down the years the splendour voyages ,from some long-ruined and night-submerged star74 ,the foregoing extracts impress one also with another noteworthy and very important quality of ,thompson's verse--its remarkable metrical effects4 ,watts-,dunton rightly says that in addition to intellectual and emotional life1 great poetry must have rhythmic life4 ,unless the rhythm of any metrical passage is so vivid1 so natural1 and so free that it seems as though it could live1 if need were1 by its rhythm alone1 that passage1 according to ,watts-,dunton1 has no right to exist as poetry4 ,one sign by which one may know that poetry possesses rhythmic life is that passages of it will sing themselves in one's head for days after reading them4 ,arnold ,bennett tells us that after reading ,sister ,songs he went about for days repeating such passages as3 ,the innocent moon1 that nothing does but shine1 ,moves all the labouring surges of the world4 ,after reading ,thompson first1 ,i went about for days repeating over and over again passages from his poems1 not for their meaning1 for the meaning in many cases was not clear1 but just for the sound and beat of them1 such passages as3 ,on ,ararat there grew a vine444 or ,i am ,daniel's mystic mountain444 ,everyone knows ,kipling's picture of sunrise in ,mandalay3 ,an' the dawn comes up like thunder outer ,china 'crost the ,bay4 ,this is commonplace beside ,thompson's version of the same thought in ,the ,mistress of ,vision3 ,east1 ah1 east of ,himalay ,dwell the nations underground2 ,hiding from the shock of ,day1 ,for the sun's uprising sound3 ,dare not issue from the ground ,at the tumults of the ,day1 ,so fearfully the sun doth sound1 ,clanging up beyond ,cathay1 ,for the great earth-quaking sunrise rolling up beyond ,cathay4 ,lastly1 ,thompson's poetry impresses one with a sense of sublimity1 in the strict1 literal meaning of the word1 which is upliftedness4 ,thompson seems always uplifted to a high level of inspiration2 his wing seems never to flag nor his voice to tire4 ,the reason for this consistent loftiness of ,thompson's poetry is probably that to ,thompson the writing of poetry was an act of worship1 and that the main spring of his inspiration is religious enthusiasm4 ,he never wrote except when he felt that he must write4 ,he was only1 he says1 the conduit-pipe through which flowed the divine utterance4 ,speaking of poets he says3 ,we speak a lesson taught we know not how1 ,and what it is that from us flows ,the hearer better than the utterer knows4 ,in every line of ,thompson's verse one finds evidence of the vision and the faculty divine1 and when after his brief period of song that vision faded and that faculty failed1 he wrote no more4 ,thompson wrote because he must write4 ,like ,keats he was haunted perpetually by an image of the ideal ,beauty1 to which he was ever striving to attain4 ,poetry sometimes seems to him his curse1 and not his blessing4 ,deaf is he to the world's tongue2 ,he scorneth for his song ,the loud ,shouts of the crowd4 ,he measureth world's pleasure ,world's ease1 as ,saints might measure2 ,for hire ,just love entire4 ,he asks1 not grudging pain2 ,and knows his asking vain1 ,and cries ,love1 love1 and dies1 ,in guerdon of long duty ,unowned by ,love or ,beauty2 ,and goes-- ,tell1 tell who knows4 ,francis ,thompson was accustomed to crest all his manuscripts with the sign of the cross2 and just as all his verse may be said to have been written under the inspiration of the cross1 so his life may be said to have been lived under its shadow4 ,the ,hand that wrought out his destiny must have placed over its finished work the sign of mingled shame and glory1 of suffering and triumph4 ,life was too strong for ,thompson2 it crushed him beneath its hurrying feet2 it stunned him with its tumults2 it withheld from him the love for which his soul craved2 but out of the defeat of his life rose the triumph of his verse4 ,it seems that ,thompson sank to the lowest depths of life's misery that he might rise to its highest pinnacle of inspiration4 ,it was when pitiless ,london had almost crushed the life out of him1 and when his eyes were blinded with pain to the things around him1 that the heavenly vision was clearest4 ,on the day when he1 poor thief of song1 was nailed to his bitterest cross1 he heard most clearly a voice saying1 ,to-day thou shalt be with me in ,paradise4 ,it was in recollection of some such mood1 experienced as an outcast on the ,london streets1 that he wrote the verses1 ,the ,kingdom of ,god1 found in manuscript among his papers after his death1 which illustrate as well as any other single poem the extraordinary inter-blending of the seen and the unseen in his poetry4 ,his own words about ,shelley apply with equal force to himself3 ,he stood at the very junction lines of the visible and invisible1 and could shift the points as he willed4 ,francis ,thompson was born at ,preston1 ,lancashire1 in #ahei1 the son of ,charles ,thompson1 a doctor1 afterwards in practice at ,ashton-under-,lyne4 ,his literary genius cannot be explained on any theory of heredity4 ,the fact that his father seemed absolutely 7and almost culpably7 blind to his son's artistic nature seems to me to account in large measure for the tragedy of ,thompson's youth4 ,later1 when the son became famous1 no one was more surprised than ,charles ,thompson1 but though the success of his son's poetry must have touched his pride1 it did not penetrate to his intellect1 for he confessed that he was quite unable to understand it4 ,we must1 then1 acquit ,charles ,thompson of having any act or part in his son's literary attainments2 and from all accounts1 his mother was equally innocent of literary talent4 ,but1 though the poet owed none of his genius to his parents1 he owed them something more important1 something which proved to be the very life-spring of that genius1 namely1 his religious enthusiasm4 ,thompson is first and last a religious poet4 ,in him and his contemporary1 ,patmore1 ,roman ,catholicism1 which had for centuries1 almost1 in fact1 since the days of ,dante1 relinquished to poets of other faiths the chief glories of song1 found a voice4 ,the mysteries of religion were ,thompson's chief inspiration1 the interpretation of them his highest task4 ,his father and mother1 and the majority of his uncles and aunts were converts to the ,roman ,catholic ,church2 but whereas their spirit of worship was dumb1 in ,thompson all that is best in ,roman ,catholicism is glorified in shining verse4 ,thompson1 however1 is not a sectarian poet4 ,he is too great for that4 ,it is the spirit of universal religion that breathes in his verse4 ,the poetry of the ,victorian era1 which for many years had been groping after religious faith1 found with ,thompson the note of absolute certainty4 ,the people that walked in darkness saw in him a great light4 ,to be the poet of the return to ,patmore is somewhat1 he said1 but ,i would be the poet of the return to ,god4 ,thompson1 a sensitive1 delicate child1 was brought up with his two sisters1 and seems to have been remarkable in childhood chiefly for his gentleness and capacity for make-believe4 ,at the age of eleven he left the shelter of his home for ,ushaw1 a ,roman ,catholic college near ,durham1 where he endured at first the same miseries as fall to the lot of most high-strung1 sensitive boys1 when exposed to the brutalities of a large ,english boarding school4 ,his was the fate of ,cowper and ,shelley1 and in ,thompson's ,essay on ,shelley1 which 7leaving aside its magnificence as a piece of prose writing7 is valuable less for its comments on ,shelley than for the light which it throws on ,thompson himself1 the remarks on the persecution endured at school by ,shelley are suggested by ,thompson's own experiences4 ,probably none of either ,thompson's teachers or schoolfellows perceived in him the tokens of future greatness4 ,he passed through his school-days1 as in the main he passed through life1 with his true self hidden from all observers under an impenetrable reserve4 ,thompson's father intended him for the priesthood1 and to that end his studies were directed during the whole seven years of his stay at ,ushaw4 ,probably the training he received1 particularly his study of the ,missal and hymns of the ,church1 had no small effect upon his later verse4 ,though he took a high place in his literary classes1 particularly in ,english1 and though his teachers thought highly of his ability1 they became gradually convinced that his nervous timidity and constitutional indolence rendered him unfit for the priesthood4 ,the principal of the college wrote to that effect to his father in #ahgg1 while at the same time expressing his belief that if ,thompson could shake off his natural indolence he had ability to succeed in any career4 ,thompson therefore returned home in #ahgg1 to the great disappointment of his parents4 ,the indolence which proved his undoing was1 says his biographer1 ,everard ,meynell1 only one name of many for the abstractions of ,thompson's mind and the inactivities of his body4 ,against this indolence he struggled nobly all his life4 ,not a lifetime of mornings spent in bed killed his desire to be up and doing4 ,even in the trembling hand of his last months he wrote out in big capitals on pages torn from exercise books such texts as were calculated to frighten him into his clothes4 ,in the morning when he woke his eyes fell upon such words as these1 ,thou wilt not he abed when the last trump blows1 ,thy sleep with the worms will be long enough1 and so on1 but all in vain4 ,thompson's indolence was not a mental but a physical characteristic4 ,his poor1 disordered body refused exertion and was too sluggish for all ,thompson's spiritual energy to rouse4 ,apparently1 however1 this indolence and absence of mind would have caused ,thompson to fail in any regular profession1 and perhaps his father is as much to be pitied as blamed for his next strenuous attempt to make ,francis capable of earning his own livelihood4 ,after ,thompson's failure at ,ushaw1 his father decided to prepare his son for his own profession1 and sent him to take a medical course at ,owen's ,college1 ,manchester4 ,for the following six years ,thompson pretended to study medicine4 ,he made the journey from home to lectures every morning under compulsion1 but once out of sight of the parental eye his day was his own1 and was spent anywhere rather than at the lecture or in the dissecting room4 ,he wandered about ,manchester1 an untidy1 abstracted figure with trailing shoe-laces and careless dress1 indifferent to passers-by1 and muttering a continual soliloquy4 ,he haunted the libraries1 museums1 and galleries of the city1 and while his father thought his son was preparing himself to earn a competence as a respectable practising physician1 the son was really equipping himself all unconsciously for the career which was to win him1 not indeed a competence1 but an undying name in ,english poetry4 ,it was at this time1 in poring over our sixteenth and seventeenth century writers1 that ,thompson acquired his wonderful vocabulary1 which contains so many forgotten words that the critics later accused him of wholesale coinage1 and which gives his verse that rich flavour of antiquity which is no small part of its charm4 ,at this time1 too1 ,thompson made the acquaintance of ,de ,quincey1 his very own ,de ,quincey1 a writer to whose career ,thompson's in many respects bears an extraordinary resemblance4 ,de ,quincey naturally drew his attention to opium1 with disastrous results4 ,opium-eating was in the air of ,manchester1 the cotton-spinners being much addicted to its use1 and ,thompson became a victim4 ,with a short interval he was a user of opium to the end of his days4 ,it is difficult to estimate the effect of the drug habit on ,thompson's writings2 personally1 ,i doubt that it had any effect4 ,it certainly had no direct effect1 for we have his own solemn assurance that none of his published verse 7except one poem1 ,the ,dream ,tryst7 was written under its influence4 ,in fact1 his first outburst of poetry came apparently as a result of his temporary breaking-off of the drug habit1 after he had been rescued from the ,london streets2 and during the few years of his poetic productiveness he seems to have freed himself from the influence of opium4 ,thompson thought too highly of poetry and of his mission as a poet to use opium as a stimulus to verse-making4 ,in the latter years of his life he went back again to the drug as a relief from incessant physical weakness and misery1 and who that has not suffered equally can blame him8 ,but though opium affected ,thompson's genius little1 if at all1 it certainly affected his character1 and made whatever was weak and slack1 weaker and slacker4 ,he proved a complete failure at ,owen's ,college1 and was given a trial at ,glasgow with similar results4 ,his father was in despair4 ,hundreds of pounds from his scanty income had been spent for lectures to which his son had not listened1 for the fees of examiners who got no papers to examine1 and for courses in dissection during which ,francis had not been once to the dissecting table4 ,opium1 however1 cannot be blamed for ,thompson's failure2 he must have failed anyway2 it only made his failure more complete and hopeless4 ,on the other hand1 it had undoubtedly in one way a beneficial physical effect4 ,on this subject his biographer remarks3 ,it staved off the assaults of tuberculosis2 it gave him the wavering strength that made life just possible for him1 whether on the streets1 or through all those other distresses and discomforts that it was his character deeply to resent1 but not to remove by any normal courses4 ,dr4 ,thompson took ,francis away from college and next set him to work with a surgical instrument maker4 ,there he remained two weeks4 ,his next attempt at work was as agent for a new encyclopaedia4 ,this book it took him two months to read through1 and he did not sell a single copy4 ,his father then told him that he must enlist4 ,thompson obeyed without a word4 ,he was rejected as physically unfit1 but not before he had gone through a weary period of marching and drill in the endeavour to expand his chest to the necessary inches4 ,thompson once more returned home1 as he did from each successive failure1 saying simply1 ,i have not succeeded1 and vouchsafing no explanation4 ,there were apparently no confidences between ,thompson and his father2 ,dr4 ,thompson knew nothing of his son's literary ambitions4 ,his comment when later he found his son welcomed as a poet was3 ,if the lad had but told me6 but it is doubtful1 as ,mr4 ,mills says1 that the worthy doctor regarded the greenest of poetic laurels as a fair exchange for a thriving medical practice4 ,this time ,thompson's reception seems to have been unusually chilling1 and in a hopeless mood he left home without saying good-bye1 and started for ,london with no money but his fare1 and with no baggage but a volume of ,blake in one pocket and ,aeschylus in another4 ,friendless1 incompetent1 aimless1 he threw himself into the maw of the great city which has devoured so many poets1 and soon plumbed the very depths of poverty and despair4 ,for three years he drifted about ,london1 sinking continually lower1 and the astonishing thing is that he came through the ordeal alive4 ,his feeble attempts at finding and doing work soon ceased1 and then he knew what it meant to walk in rags and herd with the outcasts of the street1 to sleep in a fourpenny doss-house1 or1 if he had no money1 on the ,embankment1 to suffer hunger and pain and cold4 ,an attempt to establish himself as a boot-black met with the usual ill-success that attended all ,thompson's practical efforts1 and the time came when1 for a week1 his only earning was sixpence for holding a horse's head4 ,later still1 he was on the streets day and night successively for fifteen days1 and sank into a kind of stupor1 moving about in a sort of half-consciousness as in a walking nightmare4 ,from this pitiable state he was rescued temporarily by a ,mr4 ,mc,master1 a pious and kindly boot-maker who made a practice of assisting such unfortunates4 ,he had designs on ,thompson's soul1 but when ,thompson1 even in his destitute condition1 refused to allow his soul to be tampered with1 ,mc,master wisely concluded that the next best thing was to save ,thompson's body2 and he did so4 ,thompson was taken into the shop1 and proving hopeless at boot-making1 was made errand-boy at five shillings a week4 ,here he got a chance to write1 and covered the bootmaker's discarded account books with prose and poetry2 and1 according to ,mc,master1 even submitted manuscripts to several magazines1 but apparently without success4 ,opium1 the effects of which were mistaken by ,mc,master for those of drink1 lost ,thompson this situation1 and he was again thrown on the streets to sink even lower than before4 ,it was at this time that he received the indelible impressions of the ,london streets which he recorded years after in his review of ,general ,booth's ,darkest ,england3 ,a region whose hedgerows have set to brick1 whose soil is chilled to stone2 where flowers are sold and women2 where the men wither and the stars2 whose streets to me on the most glittering day are black4 ,for ,i unveil their secret meanings4 ,i read their human hieroglyphs4 ,i diagnose from a hundred occult signs the disease which perturbs their populous pulses4 ,misery cries out to me from the kerb-stone2 despair passes me by in the ways2 ,i discern limbs laden with fetters impalpable but not imponderable2 ,i hear the shaking of invisible lashes2 ,i see men dabbled with their own oozing life4 ,it was at this time that ,thompson1 like ,de ,quincey1 was befriended by a girl of the streets1 who noticed his forlorn condition and whose motherly instincts were roused by his helplessness4 ,weakness and confidence1 humility and reverence1 were gifts unknown to her except at his hands1 and she repaid them with graces as lovely as a child's1 and as unhesitating as a saint's4 ,when ,thompson was finally rescued by ,wilfrid ,meynell1 she fled from him1 fearing that his friendship with her might prejudice his chances of better things4 ,they will not understand our friendship1 she said1 and then1 ,i always knew you were a genius4 ,she changed her lodgings and ,thompson sought her in vain4 ,in ,sister ,songs1 in a passage addressed to ,sylvia 7that is1 little ,madeline ,meynell7 he pays a beautiful tribute to the childishness of this girl4 ,once--in that nightmare-time which still doth haunt ,my dreams1 a grim1 unbidden visitant-- 99 99 99 99 99 ,i waited the inevitable last4 ,then there came past ,a child2 like thee1 a spring-flower2 but a flower ,fallen from the budded coronal of ,spring1 ,and through the city-streets blown withering4 ,she passed1--,o brave1 sad1 lovingest1 tender thing6 ,and of her own scant pittance did she give1 ,that ,i might eat and live3 ,then fled1 a swift and trackless fugitive4 ,therefore ,i kissed in thee ,the heart of ,childhood1 so divine for me2 ,and her1 through what sore ways1 ,and what unchildish days1 ,borne from me now1 as then1 a trackless fugitive4 ,in ,february #ahhg came the crisis of ,thompson's fate4 ,at that time ,thompson scraped together a few shillings somehow and began to decipher and put together the half-obliterated manuscript of his article on ,paganism1 ,old and ,new1 written1 ,i suppose1 at ,mc,master's4 ,i came simultaneously to my last page and my last halfpenny1 says ,thompson1 and went forth to drop the manuscript in the letter-box of the ,catholic magazine1 ,merrie ,england4 ,next day ,i spent the halfpenny on two boxes of matches and began the struggle for life4 ,among all the important letters that have been posted since man became a letter-writing animal1 that letter of ,thompson's to the editor of ,merrie ,england holds1 it seems to me1 a prominent place4 ,one trembles to think what might have happened if that manuscript had never reached the editor or been overlooked by him4 ,in all probability ,thompson would have died of starvation in the streets of ,london1 and a poet who may prove to be one of the first in our literature would have gone mute and inglorious to an outcast's grave4 ,but though it lay pigeon-holed for six months without receiving the attention of a busy editor1 in due course the letter and accompanying manuscript were read4 ,to no better man could ,thompson have appealed than the editor of ,merrie ,england1 ,wilfrid ,meynell1 a man whose hand was ever stretched out to help the unfortunate4 ,at present1 however1 he knew nothing of ,thompson except that his essay showed a master-hand4 ,after some difficulty ,meynell managed to get into communication with the author through a druggist to whom ,thompson owed money for opium1 and many days after1 ,mr4 ,meynell1 in his workroom1 was told that ,mr4 ,thompson wished to see him4 ,show him up1 he said1 and was left alone4 ,what follows is told in the words of ,everard ,meynell3 ,then the door opened and a strange hand was thrust in4 ,the door closed but ,thompson had not entered4 ,again it opened1 again it shut4 ,at the third attempt1 a very waif of a man came in4 ,no such figure had been looked for2 more ragged and unkempt than the average beggar1 with no shirt beneath his coat1 and bare feet in broken shoes1 he found my father at a loss for words4 ,wilfrid ,meynell then1 with immense patience and kindness1 set about the task of rescuing ,thompson4 ,thompson was not an easy man to rescue4 ,reserved and secretive by habit1 he made no confidences and asked no favours4 ,he did not seem at first to realize that salvation for him was possible1 and that he could earn his living by writing4 ,at any rate1 it was only by the exercise of considerable tact and patience that ,mr4 ,meynell succeeded in obtaining any of his confidence4 ,physically1 ,thompson had suffered severely in his long struggle with starvation4 ,he will not live1 was the doctor's verdict1 and you hasten his death by denying his whims and opium4 ,meynell1 however1 took the risk and sent ,thompson to a private hospital4 ,the experiment succeeded4 ,thompson secured a fresh lease of life1 and1 for the time1 renounced opium4 ,all lovers of literature owe a debt of gratitude to ,meynell for his astonishing kindness and unselfishness towards ,thompson at this time and to the end of the poet's life4 ,few would have taken the trouble1 amid the cares of a busy life1 to look after ,thompson1 who in many ways was as incapable of managing his own affairs as a child4 ,meynell found him work1 and for the remaining years of his life ,thompson secured a scanty living by his pen4 ,his poetry brought him little1 but review work and occasional articles for such magazines as the ,athenum gave him generally enough to live on1 and anything that was lacking was supplied by ,meynell4 ,soon after ,thompson's rescue comes the extraordinary spectacle of the outburst of his poetic talent4 ,here was a man of letters of the first rank whose genius had blossomed fresh and fair from the filth of the ,london streets4 ,his long proximity with vice and degradation of the worst kind had not cast even a shadow on the purity of ,thompson's spirit2 and his poetry rose from the slums of ,london as stainless as ,venus from the ocean4 ,the ,meynells furnished ,thompson with much of his poetic inspiration4 ,meynell had introduced ,thompson to his own family4 ,his wife1 ,alice ,meynell1 the poetess1 became the saint of ,thompson's adoration1 two of the children1 ,monica and ,madeline1 were revelations to him of the beauty of girlhood2 and he repaid the sheltering care and attention shown him by the family by conferring on them all he had to give1 the best fruits of his genius4 ,to ,mrs4 ,meynell he addressed the beautiful poems of his first volume1 entitled ,love in ,dian's ,lap2 to ,monica ,meynell several of the best poems in that volume2 and to ,monica and ,madeline his second volume entitled ,sister ,songs4 ,his affection for ,wilfrid ,meynell is expressed in a few lines entitled ,to ,w4 ,m4 ,o ,tree of many branches6 ,one thou hast ,thou barest not1 but graftedst on thee4 ,now ,should all men's thunders break on thee1 and leave ,thee reft of bough and blossom1 that one branch ,shall cling to thee1 my ,father1 ,brother1 ,friend1 ,shall cling to thee unto the end of end4 ,thompson's verses were all he had to give in return for the ,meynells' kindness1 and to my mind they were a rich recompense for the continual trouble1 anxiety1 and petty annoyances which he dealt out to his friends with lavish hands4 ,in the ordinary intercourse and business of daily life1 ,francis ,thompson was not only deficient1 he was impossible4 ,the practice of the elementary habits of order and method1 which to other men are the necessities and commonplaces of daily life1 was to ,thompson an insurmountable difficulty4 ,his life is one long record of broken promises1 unkept appointments1 and other trials of the patience and tempers of all who had to do with him4 ,he would keep an appointment anywhere from an hour or more to two or three days late1 and be full of contrition1 excuses1 and explanations4 ,the inherent sweetness and loveableness of the man atoned for much1 but still we cannot but praise the ,meynells for their unwavering kindness to this difficult genius4 ,wilfrid ,meynell had to act continually as a buffer between ,thompson and irate landladies1 impatient editors1 exasperated publishers1 and disappointed interviewers4 ,he had to see that the poet's rent was paid1 and that he had the wherewithal to clothe and feed himself4 ,thompson's incurable shabbiness and eccentricities made it difficult to introduce him into polite society1 even if he had been capable of arriving in time for any social function2 and though a brilliant talker when tte--tte with a sympathetic listener1 in ordinary conversation he was more remarkable for the futility of his endless repetitions than for anything else4 ,and yet he was never uncouth or awkward4 ,his manners were gentle2 his speech was that of a polished gentleman2 his worn face could light up with beautiful ardour1 and his frail body never lost its essential dignity4 ,his laugh1 too1 was always ready at the slightest pleasantry4 ,he made a wildly picturesque figure as he wandered through the ,london streets in these latter days1 generally completely unconscious of his surroundings1 and with a continual muttered soliloquy4 ,with his old brown cape1 which he wore in the hottest weather1 his disastrous hat1 his old satchel for review books slung over his shoulder1 and his wild worn face1 he looked like some picturesque pedlar who had just stepped out of a romance of the ,middle ,ages4 ,in all the countless times that ,everard ,meynell met ,thompson in the streets of ,london he never once surprised him in a conscious moment4 ,that ,thompson ever took the right turning or found his way home safely is a fact for which his friends could offer no adequate explanation4 ,mr4 ,lewis ,hind1 editor of ,the ,academy while ,thompson was a contributor1 says3 ,in memory ,i see him one miserable ,november afternoon1 communing with the ,seraphim and frolicking with the young-eyed ,cherubim in ,chancery ,lane4 ,the roads were ankle-deep in slush2 a thin icy rain was falling2 the yellow fog enwrapped the pedestrians squelching down the lane1 and going through them in a narrow path1 ,i saw ,francis ,thompson1 wet and mud-spattered4 ,but he was not unhappy4 ,what is a day of unpleasant weather to one who lives in eternity8 ,his lips were moving1 his head was raised1 for above the roof of the ,chancery ,lane ,safe ,deposit ,company1 in the murk of the fog1 he saw beatific visions4 ,thompson's affection for his few friends was perhaps the brightest spot in this latter part of his life4 ,for the rest1 the record of it is mainly one of loneliness and poverty4 ,he ate at poor tables of boarding-house or restaurant fare1 he lived in comfortless rooms rendered more comfortless still by his untidiness1 he had no possessions1 not even books4 ,all that he left at his death was a tin box of rubbish1 pipes that would not draw1 pens that would not write1 unopened letters1 a lamp without a wick4 ,it would not be right to regard ,thompson as an entirely unhappy man4 ,i should think his hours of joy were at least as many as his hours of sorrow1 and as intense4 ,one observer speaks of him thus3 ,he gave me the impression of concealing within him two inexhaustible reservoirs of sorrow and joy2 ebullitions from each appear in his poetry2 but in his talks with me he rarely drew except from the fountain of joy4 ,he practised in his life the stark doctrine of renunciation which alone can lead man to the higher levels of inspiration1 and which he has stated for us in ,the ,mistress of ,vision4 ,in this poem the ,land of ,luthany represents for ,thompson the poet's supreme vision4 ,thompson's worst trial was not being able to write poetry4 ,for the last six years the consolations of poetry1 as well as the pains of poetry1 were denied him4 ,after the volume of #ahig his ,muse deserted him1 and he would not sing without inspiration4 ,with the exception of a few occasional pieces1 he wrote1 in these later years1 nothing but prose1 prose as fine in its way as his poetry4 ,in ,november #aijg ,thompson's rare spirit was set free from the fetters of his worthless body4 ,he left to those who loved him1 said ,meynell1 the memory of an unique personality and to ,english poetry an imperishable name4 ,i shall conclude with a very brief review of ,thompson's work4 ,francis ,thompson's writings are not remarkable for their bulk4 ,three fair-sized volumes hold them all4 ,what is remarkable about them is the consistently high quality of both prose and poetry2 they both possess the stamp of distinction1 the master-touch1 the great utterance4 ,of the prose perhaps the finest thing is the ,essay on ,shelley1 but ,thompson seemed incapable of writing anything that was not fine4 ,within certain limits he seems to me to be a critic of the very highest calibre4 ,a complete and sound literary theory could be put together from his critical essays4 ,the poetry was published in three volumes during ,thompson's lifetime4 ,we saw that it was the first volume of #ahic that took the literary world by storm1 and justly so4 ,it is nearly all magnificent4 ,besides ,the ,hound of ,heaven1 by general consent the greatest religious poem and one of the greatest odes in the language1 and ,the ,dead ,cardinal of ,westminster1 it contains a series of love-poems of the very highest quality addressed to ,alice ,meynell1 some exquisite verses on children1 and many other gems4 ,thompson's love-poems are among the finest in our language1 but are not1 of course1 love-poems in the ordinary sense of the word4 ,they express1 as one critic said1 a sort of sublimated enthusiasm for the beauty of womanhood1 and their enthusiasm was linked to ,thompson's religion by being for him an earthly type of his adoration of the ,virgin ,mother1 the crown and pinnacle of idealized womanhood4 ,the second volume1 published in #ahie1 consisted of one long poem in two parts1 ,sister ,songs1 addressed to the sisters ,monica and ,madeline ,meynell4 ,the first part seems to me to be spoiled by over-luxuriance1 but the second is grand poetry4 ,one short quotation must suffice3 ,eve no gentlier lays her cooling cheek ,on the burning brow of the sick earth1 ,sick with death1 and sick with birth1 ,aeon to aeon1 in secular fever twirled1 ,than thy shadow soothes this weak ,and distempered being of mine4 ,in all ,i work1 my hand includeth thine2 ,thou rushest down in every stream ,whose passion frets my spirit's deepening gorge2 ,unhood'st mine eyas-heart1 and fliest my dream2 ,thou swing'st the hammers of my forge6 ,as the innocent moon1 that nothing does but shine1 ,moves all the labouring surges of the world4 ,pierce where thou wilt the springing thought in me ,and there thy pictured countenance lies enfurled1 ,as in the cut fern lies the imaged tree4 ,this poor song that sings of thee1 ,this fragile song1 is but a curled ,shell outgathered from thy sea1 ,and murmurous still of its nativity4 ,thompson's third and last volume was published in #ahig1 under the title ,new ,poems4 ,this volume contains some of his longest and most elaborate compositions4 ,like many of the poems in ,volume ,one outside those already noticed1 the most important poems of ,volume ,three are expressions of ,thompson's religious mysticism1 and with this is combined a free use of symbolism derived from the ,hebrew ,prophets and the ,eastern mythologies4 ,although no one can fail to recognize the splendour of the poetry in this third volume1 a full appreciation of it requires a somewhat special equipment4 ,the main region of ,mr4 ,thompson's poetry1 says ,patmore1 is the inexhaustible and hitherto almost unworked mine of ,catholic philosophy4 ,to one not specially versed in that philosophy1 an attempt to give an appreciation of the poems is a dangerous task1 and one full of pitfalls4 ,suffice it to say that ,thompson's mysticism is not an apparently aimless plunging about in the darkness of the void like that of ,maeterlinck and other modern mystics4 ,thompson's mysticism was kept within bounds and given a definite direction by common sense and the authority of the ,church4 ,dante1 he said1 is a perfect rebuke to those who believe that a mystical genius must be dissociated from common sense4 ,every such poet should be able to give a clear and logical prose rsum of his teaching as terse as a page of scholastic philosophy4 ,and so we find that the rule of ,thompson's practice is summed up in the words1 ,to the ,poet life is full of visions1 to the ,mystic it is one vision4 ,having regarded the visions as a poet1 and set them down as a mystic1 he would call them one4 ,the one great vision enfolded and explained them all4 ,such is the explanation of his poems1 ,the ,orient ,ode1 ,the ,anthem of ,earth1 and ,the ,ode to the ,setting ,sun4 ,to treat ,thompson fairly one should give his deeper poems careful study1 but ,thompson does not always write of deep and doubtful things4 ,more often indeed his faith is as the faith of a little child4 ,we are told on high authority that we must become as little children if we are to enter the ,kingdom of ,heaven4 ,it was as a little child that ,thompson sought to enter there1 and it is among the children of ,heaven that ,thompson would take his place4 ,to his godchild he writes3 ,and when1 immortal mortal1 droops your head1 ,and you1 the child of deathless song1 are dead2 ,then1 as you search with unaccustomed glance ,the ranks of ,paradise for my countenance1 ,turn not your tread along the ,uranian sod ,among the bearded counsellors of ,god2 ,for if in ,eden as on earth are we1 ,i sure shall keep a younger company3 ,pass where beneath their rangd gonfalons ,the starry cohorts shake their shielded suns1 ,the dreadful mass of their enridgd spears2 ,pass where majestical the eternal peers1 ,the stately choice of the great ,saintdom1 meet-- ,a silvern segregation1 globed complete ,in sandalled shadow of the ,triune feet2 ,pass by where wait1 young poet-wayfarer1 ,your cousined clusters1 emulous to share ,with you the roseal lightnings burning 'mid their hair2 ,pass the crystalline sea1 the ,lampads seven3-- ,look for me in the nurseries of ,heaven4 ,,milton ,,an ,,undergraduate ,,poem ,from out the darkness of the vanished years1 ,the voice of ,milton peals2 his mighty song ,rings down the centuries1 its note still strong ,as when it burst upon our fathers' ears4 ,amid the unnumber'd harmonies that swell ,from bards of earth to break round heaven's throne1 ,his part1 clear heard amid the mingled tone1 ,rolls full and solemn1 like a deep-voiced bell4 ,a spirit strong with more than mortal strength1 ,when in life's battle he had borne his share1 ,he passed from out the tumult and the care1 ,and climbed upon the mountain tops at length4 ,there1 with blind eyes turned to the ,promised ,land1 ,waiting the dawn of an unending day1 ,his soul went forth in that tremendous lay ,the eternal heights and breadths and depths which spanned4 ,poor1 lonely and forgot1 though he endured ,the bitter thought of labour spent in vain1 ,and saw invaded by a godless train ,the land whose liberty he deemed assured2 ,yet not for that did he abate one jot ,of heart or hope2 scorning to cringe or cower1 ,steadfast he stood like some majestic tower1 ,that feels the tempest's blast1 but wavers not4 ,from rulers of the earth he asked no grace1 ,nor leaned upon the love of human heart1 ,lofty and passionless he drew apart1 ,and communed with the ,highest face to face4 ,far from the din and toil of mortal kind ,his spirit's barque was borne2 serene and high ,he brooded on the unfathomed mystery ,of thoughts that burden the ,eternal ,mind4 ,for ,freedom he had stood1 in her defence ,his best had given2 where'er the fight was keen1 ,ever amid the foremost had he been ,down-bearing tyranny's battalions dense4 ,for that he left his ease and hopes of fame2 ,endured the heat and burden of the day2 ,and while his lyre mute and forgotten lay1 ,laboured to clear from wrong his country's name4 ,and now1 that task fulfilled1 his voice once more ,breaks forth into a fuller1 richer song1 ,not changed to hoarse or mute1 sublime and strong1 ,the noblest heard among the sons of men4 ,a strain full worthy of his subject high-- ,sin1 ,death1 and ,hell1 and our eternal woe2 ,the gloomy majesty of ,heaven's great foe1 ,hurling defiance to the vaulted sky2 ,the work of ,christ1 ,immortal ,son of ,god1 ,the warring hosts of fiends to darkness hurl'd1 ,creation and the birth of this round world1 ,and man brought low beneath th' ,almighty rod4 ,his throne is set where the immortals are1 ,where ,dante1 crowned with laurel1 smiles serene1 ,and ,virgil wears his garland ever green1 ,and ,homer shines undimmed1 a fadeless star4 ,,to ,,the ,,memory ,,of ,,dr4 ,,biggs ,,an ,,undergraduate ,,poem ,an old ,portora boy's tribute to the late ,dr4 ,biggs 7accidentally drowned in ,lough ,erne1 ,july #aijd7 ,calm was the evening2 and the lake as calm ,showed not a ripple on its placid breast2 ,peaceful was ,nature1 when the one we loved ,passed quietly to his rest4 ,not racked by pain1 nor marred by fell disease1 ,he bowed beneath the ,almighty's chastening rod--- ,with heart at ease1 and praise upon his lips1 ,he went to meet his ,god4 ,the tears and anguish of the bed of death ,a loving ,father spared his closing eye-- ,the gentle murmuring waters sang his dirge2 ,the soft winds breathed a sigh4 ,not far were ready hands and loving hearts-- ,his voice they heard not1 nor his peril knew2 ,alone ,god met him2 and that solemn scene ,was veiled from human view4 ,o raise him gently from the wat'ry depths2 ,and gaze with reverence on that noble head ,stamped with the beauty of a lofty soul1 ,a spirit that is fled4 ,all lines of grief1 all trace of human care ,death's kindly hand has smoothed from his brow2 ,and perfect peace alone and holy calm ,are seen there now4 ,weep ye no more1 sad mourners2 let us cease ,to wail the sudden stroke with idle breath2 ,pure was his life2 his soul seven times refined ,and ripe for death4 ,with eyes that strove to pierce the veil of time ,and view the ,unseen1 he ran his mortal race2 ,the veil is passed2 with clearer vision now ,he sees ,him face to face4 ,perhaps some coming grief1 some sorrow dread ,or wasting sickness1 fraught with heavy woe1 ,the ,all-seeing saw1 and stretched ,his saving arm ,to snatch him from the blow4 ,weep not for him1 but for ourselves bereft ,of a strong champion in this earthly strife2 ,a rock to which his weaker brethren clung ,amid the storms of life4 ,weep not for him1 but mourn for those young lives ,orphaned so soon of teacher and of guide2 ,the flock left shepherdless1 their loved one's form ,torn quickly from their side4 ,where1 in the wide world1 shall we find again ,so wise a counsellor1 a friend so true8 ,nay1 cease regrets1 but let us up and strive1 ,as he has done1 to do4 ,still from the grave he speaks2 revealed by death1 ,shines clearer forth the beauty of his life2 ,still the good fight he fought gives us new strength ,to conquer in the strife4 ,,the ,,teaching ,,of ,,english ,two ,lectures given to the ,class in ,education in the ,university ,,lecture ,i ,in this lecture ,i propose to tell you not how ,english ought to be taught1 but simply how ,i teach ,english4 ,i know nothing of pedagogy2 ,i have never attended a ,normal ,school2 ,i have read very few books on teaching in general1 and only one on the teaching of ,english in particular2 ,i know nothing of the methods which you yourselves are being taught to employ4 ,i ask you1 then1 to take my lectures simply as a personal document1 a relation of what ,i have gathered from my own experience4 ,such a document1 if sincere1 must be valuable1 and ,i need1 ,i think1 make no apology if ,i mention as discoveries of my own1 methods and principles which are1 perhaps1 commonplaces with the educationalist4 ,in the matter of teaching every man must work out his own salvation2 ,i believe that he cannot take his methods ready-made from another4 ,the method which suits me and gets me the best result may not suit you4 ,and so1 though ,i believe that every teacher of ,english ought to follow certain general principles which ,i will try to lay down1 ,i believe also that it is a fatal mistake for any man to attempt to model his way of teaching exactly upon that of another4 ,to-day1 then1 ,i propose simply to tell you of some of the things which ,i discovered for myself1 some of the difficulties ,i met with1 some of the faults which ,i have overcome1 or am still trying to overcome4 ,i see before myself still a long and weary road1 which must be travelled before ,i reach anything approaching my ideal4 ,in fact1 ,i hope1 as every teacher ought to hope1 that ,i shall never reach a point where ,i can say ,i am satisfied1 for as sure as ,i do1 ,i shall know that ,i have ceased to make progress4 ,as long as a man struggles1 he is advancing2 when he ceases to struggle1 he has ceased to advance2 and when he ceases to advance1 it is almost certain that he has commenced to go backward4 ,for the purposes of this lecture ,i shall take the teaching of ,english to mean the teaching of ,english literature only4 ,i have had no experience of ,high ,school work1 and therefore my remarks refer to the teaching of average ,university students of the first or second year1 very much the same sort of students as you have to deal with in your ,high ,schools4 ,the methods ,i adopt with my ,honour ,classes differ widely from those ,i use with pass students4 ,before one attempts to describe his method of teaching1 he should make very clear his conception of the object for which the subject is studied4 ,one may read a piece of literature1 for example1 in many different ways4 ,one may treat it as a piece of art1 a record of life1 a truth that some fellow-man has seen in a moment of clear-sightedness1 has snatched from the eternal silence1 and has set down that we may see it too4 ,again1 one may read it with a view to its structure1 as an example of literary technique2 or one may treat it as an historical document1 a reflection of the spirit of the age which produced it2 or1 again1 as an exercise in philology1 as material for the study of words4 ,according as one object or another predominates1 so will the method of teaching change2 if one object is sought to the exclusion of all others1 the method of teaching will1 of course1 vary with the object in view4 ,the philologist will subordinate everything to the study of philology2 the historian will fasten all his attention on the evidences of date1 the local references1 the flavour of contemporary philosophy1 politics1 religion1 or whatever it may be2 the technician will be entirely occupied with form1 metre1 structure4 ,hamlet1 for example1 may be treated as a work of art1 as the history of a man doomed to destruction through an inherent and fatal flaw1 a human soul caught in the web of circumstance and tortured to death2 or it may be treated as a study in the language of the ,elizabethans2 or as an example of the stagecraft of ,shakespeare2 or even as material for constructing ingenious cipher messages revealing the fact that1 as ,shakespeare was utterly unable to write plays for himself1 ,bacon kindly wrote them for him4 ,the first question which the teacher of literature must ask is1 what is the relative importance of all these objects for which literature may be studied4 ,which should be the main end of our teaching1 and which should be subordinate8 ,on the answer he gives to that question will depend the method of his teaching4 ,personally1 ,i have no doubt whatever as to which of these things is the most important1 although ,i may have some doubts as to the relative importance of the others4 ,to me a piece of literature is first and foremost a work of art1 a record of life in forms of truth and beauty1 a spiritual revelation2 it speaks to my intellect1 but only that1 through my intellect1 it may reach my heart4 ,if it reaches my intellect only1 if it penetrates no farther1 if it does not become part of my being1 if the experience it records does not become my experience1 then it is of little value to me1 it is not my piece of literature1 and ,i want no literature that ,i cannot make my own4 ,i wish sincerely that we could root out for ever and utterly abolish the false notion that most students and many teachers have1 that ,literature is not an important subject1 that it is only a side-line1 very nice to know something about1 but not in the same class with useful and practical subjects like history and science4 ,this is a tremendous and a fatal misconception4 ,it is by ,art and ,art alone that ,humanity progresses2 progress in ,science or in mere knowledge does not necessarily mean progress in any of those things in which ,man stands supreme above the rest of creation1 those spiritual qualities which raise him to the level of the ,divine4 ,we know that a man may take a course in ,science1 or any purely intellectual subject1 and come out at the end of it still uncultured and coarse-minded1 with low ideals1 with the higher instincts undeveloped2 he may go through a course of ,literature1 too1 it is true1 and emerge in a similar condition1 but not if the ,literature has been properly presented to him1 and if he has really assimilated the best thoughts of the highest minds4 ,art is the source of our highest pleasure1 the capacity for which raises us above the beast4 ,without that capacity1 men are no better than sheep or goats who nourish a blind life within the brain4 ,a thing of beauty is a joy for ever1 ,its loveliness increases2 it will never ,pass into nothingness2 but still will keep ,a bower quiet for us1 and a sleep1 ,full of sweet dreams1 and health1 and quiet breathing4 ,not only is ,literature the source of our highest pleasure1 but it is the source of our highest development4 ,it is the most potent factor in the slow process of raising ,humanity to a higher spiritual level2 it is the true motive power of the world4 ,well might the poet say of himself and his fellow poets3 ,we are the music-makers1 ,we are the dreamers of dreams1 ,wandering by lone sea-breakers1 ,and sitting by desolate streams2-- ,world-losers and world-forsakers1 ,on whom the pale moon gleams3 ,we are the movers and the shakers ,of the world for ever it seems4 ,one man with a dream1 at pleasure1 ,shall go forth and conquer a crown3 ,and three with a new song's measure ,can trample a kingdom down4 ,assuming1 then1 that the appreciation of literature as art1 as the record of spiritual experience1 is the principal thing to be gained from its study1 the question arises how is such an appreciation to be taught8 ,in what ,i am going to say on this subject1 ,i will speak of poetry1 and you will understand my remarks to apply in a lesser degree to prose4 ,poetry is the finest flower of the human mind2 and therefore the most difficult of all things to appreciate4 ,in writing poetry the whole of a man's being is in a state of intense activity4 ,his intellect1 his emotion1 his imagination1 are all roused to the highest pitch4 ,he is lifted for the time being to a plane of experience much higher than the normal2 he is giving out the very best that is in him4 ,wordsworth has described for us how the poetic mood drove him distracted with intensity of thought over hill and dale1 and how when the mood had passed he would return to his friends pale and utterly exhausted both in mind and body4 ,his own mind did like a tempest strong ,come to him thus and drove the weary wight along4 ,all poetry worth reading is the result of some such exalted mood as that1 and poetry so written cannot be read in cold blood4 ,poetry which leaves you cold1 with your emotions untouched1 which does not in some measure lift you out of yourself1 is either not poetry at all1 or else poetry which you have not the capacity to appreciate4 ,one appreciates a poem only in so far as one reproduces it sympathetically in oneself2 that is1 only so far as one feels over again the emotions which the writer who produced it felt as he gave them expression4 ,in other words1 by the appreciation of literature one gains at second-hand the highest spiritual experience4 ,it follows that one can appreciate poetry only to the extent to which one is capable of such experience4 ,no one can appreciate fully all kinds of poetry2 if any one could do so1 it would mean that he was a universal genius1 since the whole range of emotional experience would have to be within his control4 ,the extent of the average man's powers of appreciation is distinctly limited2 some can sympathize only with the more obvious and elemental emotions1 while some are capable of appreciating more subtle and refined shades of feeling4 ,that is why nearly every one can appreciate to some extent a poet like ,shakespeare1 who always deals with big1 elemental emotions1 although1 since ,shakespeare is at the same time able to express the most subtle feelings1 there are few who can appreciate him in full4 ,this is why it is more difficult to appreciate ,wordsworth than ,shakespeare--,wordsworth's emotions are more out of the range of ordinary experience--and still more difficult to appreciate ,shelley1 whose range of emotion is often entirely alien from experience4 ,the point ,i wish to make is that a teacher can teach properly only poetry which he himself is capable of appreciating1 and therefore literature is the most difficult of all subjects to teach1 since it requires in the individual certain qualifications beyond the merely intellectual4 ,for the lack of these qualifications1 no brilliancy of intellect can compensate4 ,the teacher who knows a piece of poetry with his head only can never teach it as it ought to be taught4 ,he may be able to repeat it word for word1 he may know all about its history1 its philology1 its structure1 but if he has not felt it1 if he has not reproduced it sympathetically within himself1 he cannot teach it4 ,similarly the student1 unless he is capable of sympathizing with such emotions as are recorded in poetry1 will be unable to get more than a head knowledge of it4 ,if this power of sympathizing is present in ever so small a degree1 it can be indefinitely developed under the inspiration of a good teacher4 ,what follows then8 ,first1 that a teacher who lacks the higher appreciation of literature can certainly never teach it to others1 although probably thirty or forty per cent4 of his pupils1 more gifted than himself by ,nature in this respect1 will get an appreciation in spite of him4 ,secondly1 that even supposing a teacher has this appreciation1 it will be of little use to him1 unless he has the power of communicating it to others1 that is1 of awakening in them sympathy with what he himself feels4 ,assuming1 then1 that the teacher has this appreciation1 what is the best way of communicating it8 ,there are1 perhaps1 only two possible ways4 ,one is by talking about the poem1 by trying to describe its effect upon one2 but the better and more effective way is by reading1 by vocal interpretation4 ,all literature1 but especially poetry1 is written not for the eye1 but for the ear4 ,its appeal1 then1 should be made1 not through the eye but through the ear4 ,the sound of the words1 not singly1 but in groups1 the rhythm1 the intonation1 all these give the atmosphere of a poem4 ,sound is to a poem what colour is to a picture4 ,get away from the printed word1 the mere symbol2 it means something for the head1 it is true1 but nothing for the heart until it is translated into sound4 ,the first thing a teacher of literature must do1 then1 is to learn to read4 ,he need not take a course in elocution2 stamping1 gesticulating1 waving his arms1 shouting1 whispering1 hissing1 and other tricks of the professional elocutionist will benefit him little2 all that is necessary is that he should be able1 by the intonation of his voice1 to convey to his students the effect which a poem has made upon himself4 ,diligent practice1 the subjection of the voice to the will--these are what he needs4 ,the average man cannot hope to reach any very high degree of efficiency as a reader1 but all that the teacher needs is to be able to read clearly1 with a voice well controlled and capable of expressing various shades of emotion1 with a good sense of rhythm and the grouping of vowel sounds4 ,the first thing1 then1 for one who would teach literature is to endeavour to reach at least that stage of vocal culture which ,i have described4 ,of course1 a good deal may be done in the way of conveying appreciation of a poem by talking about it1 but to talk about a poem well is almost as difficult as to read it well1 and at the best is not nearly so effective4 ,assuming that a man is equipped with these essentials1 a true appreciation of literature and the power of communicating his appreciation to others1 how is he to approach the teaching of a piece of literature8 ,the first thing he must do is to assimilate it thoroughly himself1 to go over it again and again1 to practise again and again the vocal interpretation of it1 to be sure that he has caught the spirit not only of the whole1 but of the smallest part1 that no shade of meaning1 however subtle1 has escaped him4 ,we must long inhale1 says ,corson1 the choral atmosphere of a work of genius before we attempt1 if we attempt at all1 any intellectual formulation of it2 which formulation must necessarily be comparatively limited1 because genius1 as genius1 is transcendental1 and therefore outside the domain of the intellect4 ,then1 having assimilated it1 let him go further and get a background for it4 ,let him know1 if possible1 its history1 what suggested it1 under what circumstances it was composed1 its relation to other writings of the poet and of the age1 what the best critics have said about it1 and so on4 ,let him endeavour to neglect no scrap of information which will increase his own appreciation and understanding of the poem4 ,when he has done all this1 then1 and not till then1 is he ready to teach it4 ,if he has plenty of time and a small class1 he will probably begin by trying to find out how far his pupils have assimilated the spirit of the poem4 ,his task is then to interpret the piece of literature1 to try to give the student the impression it has made on him1 what it means to him1 what emotions it arouses in him4 ,this is to be done by reading it1 or1 if the piece is long1 by reading such parts of it as will form a connected whole1 filling in with descriptive narrative4 ,in many cases it will be necessary before attempting an interpretation to say a few words which will enable the pupil to listen to the reading in the proper frame of mind1 and will create the proper atmosphere for him4 ,when the first impression has been made1 the work has only just begun4 ,suppose one has hit the right keynote1 that the class has caught the spirit of the poem2 there will still be much of it which is unintelligible or misty to them4 ,not realizing this1 ,i used to make a mistake when ,i first began to teach4 ,i thought it was necessary that the pupils should understand the poem in detail before they could get the general effect4 ,i used1 therefore1 to begin by analysis1 by pulling the poem to pieces1 showing its structure1 the order of ideas1 the meaning of words1 and when ,i thought everything was perfectly clear ,i would give the general effect1 or very often would leave that to the students themselves4 ,this was a fatal mistake4 ,by going through the process of analysis first1 ,i had rendered an appreciation of the piece as a whole ever so much more difficult2 while if ,i had begun by trying to get the general effect1 and had succeeded1 no amount of analysis could have destroyed that first impression4 ,on this point ,professor ,corson says3 ,the spiritual appeals which are made by every form of art1 be it in colour1 in sound1 in stone1 in poetry1 or whatever may be the medium employed1 must be responded to directly1 immediately 7in the literal sense of the word71 or not at all4 ,of course1 the extent of the response may be indefinitely increased4 ,but there must be1 to begin with1 a direct1 immediate response1 however limited it may be4 ,there is no roundabout way to such appeals4 ,the inductive method is not applicable to spiritual matters4 ,the very word induction1 is absurd1 in connection with the spiritual4 ,it belongs exclusively to the intellectual domain4 ,when the first impression has been made1 then will come the analysis1 and ,i am convinced that this analysing process is one which the student1 especially the young student1 cannot dispense with1 and which is an exceedingly valuable mental training4 ,the analysis will include a treatment not only of the literary form of the poem1 but a thorough study of its language1 of the historical and literary allusions contained in it1 of any images or metaphors which may be obscure1 and1 in fact1 anything which will contribute to a better understanding of the poem as a whole4 ,the teacher will now probably ask3 ,how far is this process of analysis to go8 ,must one study the philology of every word1 must one analyse the metre of every poem8 ,i have already given the answer to these questions4 ,i said that the analysis would include a study of anything which will contribute to the better understanding of the poem as a whole4 ,there is the secret4 ,the total effect must never be lost sight of4 ,the metre is to be studied only to an extent which will enable the student to catch the rhythm and read the poem correctly for himself4 ,names and technicalities matter not a whit4 ,he may never have heard of an iambic pentameter1 or an anapaest1 or a trochee1 but as long as he grasps the rhythm and sees the relations of the various parts of the literary structure1 he knows all that is necessary for a thorough appreciation of the poem as a whole4 ,similarly1 the derivation of a word should never be given unless it helps to the better understanding of the sense of the word as that word is used in the particular passage under discussion2 otherwise the obtrusion of the etymology is simply an impertinence4 ,some teachers make interpretation by paraphrase a prominent part of this analytical process2 this should be avoided4 ,it may be necessary sometimes to paraphrase difficult passages1 but not one-tenth as often as most teachers and editors consider it necessary4 ,a paraphrase is at best an inferior rendering1 a substitution of something similar1 but of a lower kind1 often a substitution of the baldest prose for the highest poetry4 ,i pray thee avoid it4 ,some editors are over-fond of analysis2 probably because they wish to show they are earning the money they get for editing4 ,let the poem1 as far as possible1 tell its own story in its own words4 ,when the analytic or discursive process has been completed1 what remains8 ,a return to the general4 ,having considered the poem in its parts1 one now endeavours to reproduce the effect of the poem as a whole1 but this time1 if the analysis has been well done1 the effect ought to be greatly heightened4 ,the student will now see1 not through a glass darkly1 but will meet the poet face to face4 ,there are two things to be observed with regard to this process from the general1 through the discursive1 back to the general again4 ,one is that the processes should1 if possible1 be kept separate2 that one should keep1 if possible1 at the same level throughout any one lesson4 ,this cannot be done if one changes from appreciation to analysis and back again on the same day4 ,the second is that the analytic process is best left as far as possible to the student himself4 ,i myself used to make the mistake of doing too much for the student2 ,i used to try to analyse the poem thoroughly for him in class4 ,i now think it better simply to point out difficulties and leave them to the student to solve1 to suggest questions and leave them to the student to answer4 ,the work may not be so thoroughly done1 but the student receives a valuable stimulus which he would otherwise miss4 ,i always give an opportunity for any difficulties which the student is unable to solve for himself to be brought to me4 ,,lecture ,,ii ,in my last lecture ,i tried to emphasize what ,i considered to be the most important objects of literary study1 i4e41 the appreciation of literature as art4 ,i said that ,i thought it necessary that the teacher of ,english should have both a true appreciation of literature himself and the capacity for arousing appreciation in others4 ,i pointed out that the teacher's first duty was to awaken in his students a response to the inner life or soul of the piece of literature with which he was dealing1 that the best way of doing so was by a good vocal interpretation2 and that it was therefore the duty of every teacher of ,english to learn to read well4 ,i suggested that after the first response had been gained1 there should come a thorough analysis1 a study of form1 structure1 philology1 and exact meaning1 but that this process of analysis should be carried only so far as was necessary to a thorough appreciation of the work as a whole4 ,i now come to the question of how far a study of the history of literature is desirable for the ordinary student1 ,i mean the student who does not desire to specialize in the subject4 ,personally1 ,i am a firm believer in the historical method of dealing with literature1 not only because ,i think that a knowledge of the history of literature greatly heightens one's appreciation of literary works1 but because ,i believe that many students1 who would otherwise never do so1 are by this method led to take an interest in1 and so gradually acquire a taste for1 literature4 ,some books 7using the word book in the sense of any literary work7 are for all time--,homer1 ,virgil1 ,dante1 ,milton1 ,shakespeare2 some books are for their own time only2 some books are for their own time and a limited period afterwards4 ,but whatever be the vitality of a book1 no matter to which of these classes it belongs1 there is no doubt that it belongs in the first instance to its own time1 and cannot help being to some degree a reflection of the spirit of the age in which it was produced4 ,this means that not only may the book be used as an historical document1 as a means of catching the spirit of its age1 but that1 conversely1 a study of the epoch at which it was produced cannot fail to illuminate to a greater or less degree the meaning of the book4 ,critics like ,taine and ,sainte-,beuve looked on books as primarily historical documents4 ,behind the book one looked for the man1 behind the man one found the innumerable circumstances which went to mould his personality4 ,in this way of looking at things the individual becomes of comparatively small importance2 he is interesting mainly because he is a type of his age2 his book is interesting because it reveals the type4 ,much can be said for this deterministic way of looking at literature1 and some excellent results have been produced by ,taine's style of criticism1 but few critics of to-day would look on it with favour4 ,to-day1 the book is of primary importance2 the man and the age are studied that they may throw light on the book4 ,however exaggerated the historical method1 as carried out by ,taine1 may appear1 ,i think we must admit that in a modified form it may be of very great value4 ,we all know that a literary work is flavoured by the personality of the writer4 ,from our experience as teachers we learn that we can read a personal document more sympathetically if we know who wrote it4 ,i have sometimes commenced to read an essay under the impression that it was written by a student ,a1 and have been annoyed at certain ways of thinking and methods of expression that seemed to me forced and unnatural2 ,i have turned to the back of the essay1 seen the name of the writer1 discovered my mistake1 and re-read the essay with the personality of ,b instead of ,a at the back of my mind1 and then the essay seemed to me to go smoothly1 and to be characteristic of the writer4 ,undoubtedly1 the book takes a distinct and peculiar tinge from the personality of the author1 and therefore to get the proper atmosphere1 to read a book with thorough sympathy1 we should find out all that we possibly can about the man who wrote it4 ,of course1 the thing works both ways4 ,we study the man that we may better appreciate his book2 we study the book to find the man4 ,how little can be done in some cases towards determining the personality of the man from his book is shown by the outstanding instance of ,shakespeare4 ,more than three hundred years' study of that marvellous book has entirely failed to reveal the personality of the author2 upon that question critics are still in hopeless conflict4 ,again1 since the personality of a man is undoubtedly moulded1 to a large extent1 by his age and environment1 we should go farther back still1 and having studied our man1 we should relate him to his age4 ,no writer is so individualistic that he can wholly escape the tinge of his epoch4 ,i will venture to say that no one who has been accustomed to study literature by the historical method1 and to recognize in books the contemporary flavour1 would be likely to take1 say1 a piece of prose written in the first half of the seventeenth century for the product of the eighteenth or nineteenth century1 or could possibly mistake a typical sixteenth-century lyric for a typical nineteenth-century one4 ,if we study our literature1 then1 historically as well as artistically1 our books will be to us not only works of art1 but something more2 they will become linked to long trains of association1 which will carry us out into the life and happiness and suffering of our fellow-men1 and further still1 out into the shock and sway of great world-movements1 into the sphere where the ,time-spirit weaves unceasingly the web of life4 ,let me give you an example of how this way of treating literature can be carried out with even a junior class4 ,i have been studying with the ,freshmen some of ,goldsmith's poetry1 ,the ,traveller and ,the ,deserted ,village4 ,we first took the poems in themselves1 studied them as works of art1 read them1 tried to get the spirit1 then analysed and studied them in detail4 ,we next went on to a study of the life of ,goldsmith4 ,we followed his strange and romantic career1 followed him in his sufferings and struggles and triumphs1 saw him in his weakness and in his strength4 ,further than that1 we saw him in relation to his contemporaries4 ,we became acquainted through him with the famous circle of which he was a member1 the circle of wits and scholars that gathered round ,johnson--,burke1 ,reynolds1 ,garrick1 and the rest4 ,we then learned something of the literary ideals of that school1 and how they determined the form of ,goldsmith's work4 ,we saw1 too1 how ,johnson and ,goldsmith helped to set literature free from the bonds of patronage4 ,we saw something of the politics and the social conditions of the age4 ,my claim is that1 in consequence of that study1 those students1 when they return to ,the ,traveller and ,the ,deserted ,village to read them again for their own pleasure or to review them for their examination1 will find their pleasure in them greatly enhanced by having at the back of their minds the personality of the author and the spirit of his time4 ,things that seemed stiff and pedantic to them before will be forgiven or passed over now1 because they will know that they do not belong to ,goldsmith himself1 but are only a condition of his writing imposed on him by his age2 they will appreciate better all those passages in which the kindliness and sympathy and generosity of the author are strongly marked1 and finally they will feel hovering around these living documents not only the spirit of the dead author1 but the spirit of the great old ,doctor ,johnson1 with the spook of ,boswell probably still in attendance1 and all that noble and witty company who walked and talked on earth so many years ago4 ,i have heard people object to the study of the history of literature by young students on this ground--that it must mean to a large extent a memorizing of names and dates1 a mere empty repetition of facts about works that have never been read4 ,to that objection ,i do not now attach very much weight1 although at one time ,i did4 ,in the first place1 the study need not be a mere empty repetition4 ,a skilful description of the contents of a work will give a student a very fair idea of its spirit and meaning1 and often arouse in him a desire to read it for himself4 ,in the second place1 it is good for him that he should have the benefit of the experience of the most competent students and critics of ,english literature1 so that he may know what is best worth reading1 and so that when he comes to continue his studies for himself1 if he ever does1 he may spend his time to the best advantage4 ,one does not object to studying the map of a country1 even if there is no intention of visiting all the places marked thereon4 ,i would say1 then1 that the best plan with the young student who has had some elementary training in the appreciation of literature is to take some representative works of a particular period1 and through a careful study of them in the way ,i have described1 reach out and grasp the whole period in its essential features4 ,so much for the history of literature4 ,now to retrace our steps1 and return to what ,i said in my first lecture about the method of attacking a particular literary work4 ,i daresay it sounded simple and easy enough2 first get your general effect1 let the poem make its own impression as a unit1 as a work of art2 then will come your analysis1 and then a return to the general4 ,but it is in the application of this simple principle to different kinds of literature that the teacher will find his greatest problems4 ,every new work will provide a new puzzle4 ,how much need ,i say about this by way of introduction8 ,what is the best way to present this8 ,what illustrative extracts should ,i make from this8 ,how much help should ,i give the student with this8 ,a teacher has to teach the ,first ,book of ,paradise ,lost4 ,he has three quarters of an hour or an hour to make his first impression2 on that first impression may depend the whole success of his teaching4 ,it is obvious that with young students it will not do to plunge straight into a reading of the poem2 they must be prepared for the reading2 an atmosphere must be created2 they must come to the reading in a proper1 receptive attitude4 ,how much introduction is necessary8 ,personally1 ,i spend one whole hour talking about the poem4 ,i point out as well as ,i can the plan of the whole poem1 and how that plan is carried out1 so as to get the relation of the ,first ,book to the whole2 ,i talk a little about epic poetry in general and what one is to expect from an epic poem2 ,i point out the magnitude of ,milton's task1 the spirit in which he approached his work1 the purpose and meaning of that work1 and in every way ,i try to arouse an attitude of interest and expectancy4 ,the next day1 ,i do not begin to take up ,book ,i in fragments1 but ,i give a reading designed to give the story of the whole book in a series of the most striking passages1 strung together by connecting narrative4 ,we are now ready to study the poem analytically1 and as we take up each part and dissect it1 the students always have in view the relation of each part to the whole book1 and1 from the first lecture1 to the whole poem4 ,how to teach a play of ,shakespeare is a subject that might well demand a whole lecture to itself4 ,shakespeare is undoubtedly the best material for teaching literature that we have1 and is suitable for all grades1 from the lowest to the highest4 ,of course1 ,i need scarcely say that the method of treatment and presentation for honour students will naturally differ entirely from that appropriate to beginners4 ,but there is one thing certain1 that a play of ,shakespeare1 whether one teaches it to beginners or to advanced students1 demands on the part of the teacher a most intense study4 ,he must be soaked in it2 he must be thoroughly familiar with it down to the smallest detail2 he must have thought out the setting of every scene2 he must have formed a clear conception of every character2 he must have decided definitely the exact tone and emphasis with which every speech should be delivered2 and lastly1 he must decide how he may most effectively present it to his students4 ,but this1 you will say1 is putting too big a demand upon the teacher4 ,it is a demand which few of us are able to fulfil1 but ,i am convinced myself that every teacher should keep such an ideal in view1 and work toward it patiently4 ,i have been studying ,hamlet off and on myself for ten years1 ,i have been teaching it for four1 and ,i am only just beginning to get some confidence about it now4 ,i hope perhaps if ,i study it for ten years more to be able to teach it with some success4 ,the great actor ,salvini studied the part of ,lear for eight years before he made any attempt to commit it to memory4 ,shakespeare is thus1 in a sense1 the most difficult of all authors to teach1 for one can never exhaust him2 in another sense he is the easiest1 for even the poorest teacher cannot help making some effect with him4 ,the latter fact1 however1 should not make us content with slovenly work4 ,in this connection ,i may say that ,i am convinced that the greatest aid to success on the part of the teacher of ,english literature is painstaking and exact study for himself--not to be content with something that will do1 but to absorb and reabsorb the spirit of the best works1 and never to be satisfied that he knows them well enough4 ,the number of works that he can know thus thoroughly will be limited at first1 but their range will be constantly increasing2 and therefore the work that he will be compelled to do in a more or less imperfect fashion will be constantly decreasing4 ,as an example of how a single poem can be made sometimes to serve as an introduction to the whole of an author's work or to a large portion of it1 let us take a very short and simple poem of ,browning and see what can be made of it4 ,let me read to you ,a ,woman's ,last ,word4 ,probably this poem1 like many of ,browning's1 produces at the first reading only a vague and indefinite impression1 a sort of groping sensation1 in short1 a wonder as to what it is all about4 ,let us analyse it4 ,whence did the difficulty arise8 ,evidently not from the language4 ,it was from the fact that we did not know what went before2 that from what is given us here1 a mere scrap of experience1 we had to construct the whole2 and from the fact that we had to follow a sequence of thoughts suggested by circumstances unknown to us1 instead of1 as is usual in poetry1 a series of actions or events which serve as a backbone or substructure for the thought4 ,herein lie the two main difficulties of appreciating that large class of ,browning poetry known under the heading1 dramatic monologues4 ,they are dramatic because they are spoken not in the person of the author1 but in that of some imaginary character1 whose personality the author assumes1 but they differ from drama1 as it is generally understood1 first1 because they are monologues1 not dialogues2 secondly1 the circumstances1 occasions1 and settings of the monologues1 instead of being suggested at the outset1 are only indicated from time to time1 and have to be picked up as we go along2 thirdly1 we have to follow a sequence of thoughts without any help from accompanying events or actions2 and lastly1 we are given no information1 except incidentally1 as to what goes before and comes after4 ,in other dramatic monologues of ,browning the problem becomes more complicated1 first1 from the fact that in most of them he attempts to reveal a character1 not merely a psychological situation1 as in ,a ,woman's ,last ,word2 secondly1 from the extraordinary variety of the characters he attempts to present4 ,the characters into whose mouths ,browning puts his poems are a very varied assortment4 ,in one poem1 perhaps1 it is a ,greek philosopher who speaks1 in the next a modern ,english divine2 now it is an ,italian duke of the sixteenth century1 and now an ,italian patriot of the nineteenth century4 ,each of these personages has a definite atmosphere and a typical environment1 and that atmosphere and environment we must construct for ourselves before we can appreciate the poem properly4 ,take1 for example1 the two poems1 ,fra ,lippo ,lippi and ,andrea del ,sarto4 ,each of these deals not only with the character and some of the history of an individual ,italian painter1 but sets forth in addition a particular phase in the development of ,italian art1 and at the same time gives us an insight into ,browning's theory of art4 ,to appreciate these poems1 then1 we must know something of the history of the historic personages who are represented as speaking1 something of the ,italy of their time2 we must know in outline at least something of the history of ,italian art1 and have some knowledge of the technicalities of painting4 ,very many of ,browning's poems are concerned with periods and personages about whom the ordinary reader knows nothing1 hence the absolute need of some sort of a commentary1 or of constant recourse to an encyclopaedia in reading him4 ,there is another difficulty connected with ,browning's favourite form1 the dramatic monologue4 ,most of these poems are only scraps of experience2 we get no information1 except by hints1 of what has gone before2 we are equally left to guess what comes after4 ,the problem before us is something like that of reconstructing a whole conversation of which we have overheard only a small part4 ,again1 many of the poems do not describe a series of events1 but only a series of thoughts or reflections4 ,hence there is nothing or very little to guide us in grasping the connection between the various parts of the poem1 and many of the poems have to be read and re-read many times before the meaning begins to dawn on us4 ,in ,a ,woman's ,last ,word there is not a single difficult phrase4 ,the whole difficulty arises from the fact that it is a scrap1 and from the fact that it is a series of thoughts without any action to thread them together and to make them definite4 ,browning's poems are sometimes difficult to read because the ideas which he is expressing are profound and difficult to grasp2 but far more often they are difficult because of his extraordinary way of expressing perfectly simple and easy ideas4 ,for example1 here is a perfectly easy and obvious thought--that every day we see men winning money and reputation by mere imitation of some style that has caught the public taste1 while the original inventor or discoverer of that style lives in obscurity and neglect4 ,how does ,browning express it8 ,hobbs hints blue--straight he turtle eats1 ,nobbs prints blue--claret crowns his cup1 ,nokes outdares ,stokes in azure feats-- ,both gorge4 ,who finished the murex up8 ,what porridge had ,john ,keats8 ,the point about the murex in this extract illustrates another difficulty with ,browning1 his assumption of knowledge on the part of his reader of all sorts of curious and out-of-the-way information4 ,he is full of allusions to technical points in such things as painting1 music1 medicine1 and classical scholarship which are as a rule known to only specialists in these particular subjects4 ,i might mention lastly in this connection a peculiarity of ,browning's thought1 namely1 its tremendous rapidity4 ,let me illustrate4 ,a beginner works out a problem in mathematics2 he feels his way step by step2 he puts down everything in order1 and in going over the question we can follow easily every detail of the reasoning4 ,a master mathematician confronted with the same problem would see his way from the beginning right through to the end2 he would leave out half of the intermediate steps because to him they were quite obvious and not worth putting down1 and when we came to look over his work we might completely fail to see how he had reached his conclusion4 ,so with ,browning4 ,browning skips from thought to thought with great rapidity1 leaving intermediate steps to be filled in by the intelligence of the reader4 ,as ,chesterton says1 if ,browning had to describe a quarrel between two men which culminated in one calling the other a liar and knocking him downstairs1 he would probably do it something like this3 ,what then8 ,you lie--and doormat below stairs ,takes bump from back4 ,that is to say1 he would be in such a hurry to get his man to the bottom of the stairs that he would leave out half of the intermediate steps4 ,i have given you this fairly full discussion as an example of how a rather difficult thing may be done1 namely1 how a single poem may sometimes be used to give an introduction to a poet and prepare a class for reading the remainder of his work4 ,before ,i close let me give you a couple of things ,i have discovered about teaching which may be useful to you4 ,first1 it is more important to be physically fit than to be well prepared4 ,if you feel well and look it1 your class will be in good humour even if you are not well prepared4 ,be worried and tired1 and your class will soon become worried and tired too4 ,secondly1 it is better to teach too little than too much4 ,do not subject your class to mental indigestion4 ,thirdly1 one should always try to appear interested4 ,lastly1 one should never appear to be in a hurry4 ,nothing annoys a class more than to be rushed madly from point to point without a breathing space4 ,,my ,,last ,,duchess ,a paper given in #aiaa to a ,church ,society that wished guidance for literary study ,in this poem ,browning takes his subject from the midst of the ,renaissance period in ,italy1 a period when the revival of classical learning was accompanied by a breakdown in the authority of the ,church4 ,the conventions of ages were swept away in a few years1 and side by side with the new culture1 scepticism1 cynicism1 robbery1 lust1 and murder prevailed in high places1 even in the palaces of the ,popes themselves4 ,under a thin veneer of culture1 society became rotten to the core4 ,the word ,ferrara at the head of the poem gives us the clue to the period4 ,ferrara is an ancient ,italian town1 and was at one time the seat of a powerful duchy4 ,the ancient ducal palace still frowns down from its eminence upon the country around4 ,the ,duke of ,ferrara at the period of our poem was one of the most powerful noblemen of ,italy4 ,the speaker in this monologue is the ,duke of ,ferrara1 a typical ,renaissance product1 cultured and cold and cruel4 ,he is showing the picture of his late wife to an envoy from some ,count or other who has sent to negotiate a marriage for his daughter with the widowed ,duke4 ,the first thing to do with a poem like this is to make it live4 ,we will read it4 ,the character we have represented here is one probably not uncommon at the period4 ,the ,duke is a man of intellect1 imbued with the new culture1 a critic and collector of art treasures4 ,he combines with this appreciation of art1 an utter selfishness and cynicism4 ,his heart is incapable of tenderness or emotion4 ,he has an immense pride in his rank and in his ancient name1 and an impatience of anything that would derogate from his dignity4 ,can you picture him1 the polished old villain1 as he stands before the picture of the girl he has cruelly done to death and points out its beauties with delicate jewelled finger8 ,on his cultured but sensual features the critical appreciation of a connoisseur for the skill of the artist mingles with some recollection of and pride in the beauty of his former duchess2 but of affection there is not a sign1 of remorse not a trace4 ,he married a young girl who probably was contracted to him by her parents without having any voice in the matter4 ,he bestows on her his name and rank1 and in return demands--everything1 her abject submission to his every whim1 her complete indifference to everything and everybody but himself4 ,it was too much4 ,the poor girl could not crush all the humanity out of her heart1 nor the vitality out of her body4 ,the ,duke saw1 with cold disapproval1 her fresh interest and pleasure in all around her1 her delight in every attention that was offered her1 her ever-ready smile4 ,he wanted all these things for himself1 and for nobody else4 ,that smile must be for him alone4 ,but unfortunately the ,duchess liked whatever she looked on1 and her looks went everywhere1 she had a kind word and glance for everybody4 ,this grew2 ,i gave commands2 ,then all smiles stopped together4 ,in other words1 he did away with her1 had her murdered1 an easy thing for a man of his power at this epoch4 ,first1 however1 he had her portrait painted4 ,if he could not have the ,duchess all to himself1 he could at least have her picture entirely his own1 444 since none puts by ,the curtain ,i have drawn for you1 but ,i4 ,he is thinking now of marrying again4 ,some ,count snaps at the bait1 the chance of this magnificent alliance for his daughter4 ,better to kill her with his own hand than to let her pass into the clutches of the ,duke4 ,the ,duke's object in showing the envoy the picture is probably partly to get the opportunity of letting him know in time what he expects from his wife1 so that when the messenger returns he may warn his young lady to keep her smiles under strict control4 ,notice how ,browning indicates the attitude of the envoy4 ,first he is struck by the marvellous face of the ,duchess-- ,the depth and passion of its earnest glance4 ,at last he essays a word in her defence1 ,who'd stoop to blame ,this sort of trifling8 and when the ,duke has finished1 he sits a little stupefied at the revelation that has been made1 and still gazing at the picture4 ,even when the ,duke rises he does not stir1 and the latter has to rouse him1 a little impatiently1 ,will't please you rise8 ,to me the most striking thing about this poem is its suggestiveness4 ,it suggests infinitely more than it expresses4 ,it expresses merely a fragment of a conversation2 it suggests a whole tragedy4 ,browning has1 in these few lines1 with delicate and curious skill1 given us first the ,renaissance atmosphere1 a mixture of culture and refinement1 delight in art and beauty1 with immorality and crime2 he has suggested to us the characters of the two actors in the drama from which this poem is but a fragment1 the polished and cynical ,duke and the girl who is sacrificed to his position and wealth2 he has even suggested the mixture of deference1 loathing1 and fear with which the envoy listens to the ,duke's description4 ,there are anatomists who from a single bone of any animal will construct the whole skeleton2 and so from this scrap which ,browning has here given us we can construct the complete drama4 ,the poem is1 as ,i have remarked1 typical of a whole class of ,browning's poetry4 ,these poems are usually called dramatic monologues1 but perhaps the title given to them by ,stopford ,brooke is on the whole more suggestive4 ,he calls them imaginative representations4 ,these poems are1 in the first place1 the utterance of one person1 at a single time1 and in one place4 ,some individual is influenced or induced by some unusual opportunity or circumstance to reveal himself4 ,the veil which conceals his inmost heart is lifted for a moment and we get a glimpse into its depths4 ,they have a certain dramatic element4 ,browning himself styled this poem a dramatic romance4 ,they are dramatic in that they are objective as regards the author2 the poet is not uttering his own thoughts4 ,the circumstances under which the monologue is spoken are usually dramatic 7i4e41 such as a playwright might choose to bring out some trait of character71 the background1 scenery1 and even the action is vividly suggested1 and there are usually subsidiary figures whose attitude towards the central actor is carefully indicated4 ,the chief point to notice about these poems is that the poet studies not merely an individual as such1 the working out of passion in a single soul1 but he takes that individual as a type of some special period1 some phase of historical development1 some special era of thought4 ,it was ,browning's way of using history for poetical purposes1 and it was completely his own4 ,this poem is not a very good example1 because the personages and events described are not peculiar to any one epoch1 but may occur wherever there are two people unhappily married4 ,but even here we have in the ,duke not only an intensely interesting1 even if objectionable1 type of human being1 but the concentrated essence of a certain side of the ,italian ,renaissance4 ,browning1 in his series of imaginative representations has covered a big field4 ,artemis ,prologuizer1 ,caliban on ,setebos1 ,the ,bishop ,orders his ,tomb1 ,fra ,lippo ,lippi1 ,a ,death in the ,desert1 ,cleon1 and many others cover an immense range1 from ,greek mythology through early and late ,renaissance down to the modern life of ,europe4 ,the poet can place us with ease and truth at ,corinth1 ,athens or ,rome1 in ,paris1 ,vienna or ,london1 and wherever we go with him we are at home4 ,scenery1 character1 time1 place1 and action are all suitably and harmoniously blended1 the characters are vividly alive4 ,the qualifications which ,browning brought to these poems were1 first1 a wide historical knowledge1 not so much of separate events as of the main trend of thought in a given period2 an intense imaginative power2 a wide knowledge of human nature2 and last1 but not least1 in his ,italian poems1 a familiar acquaintance with a multitude of small intimate details of the customs1 clothing1 architecture1 popular dress1 talk and scenery of the towns and country of ,italy from the thirteenth century to modern times4 ,the poem under consideration gives us only a glimpse of the skill with which ,browning handles this particular type2 but ,i hope it will be sufficient to induce those who are not acquainted with ,browning's other work to study it further4 ,,christmas ,,shopping ,o whither are you going1 ,my friend1 ,i'd fain be knowing1 ,o whither are you going ,with that air of do-and-dare8 ,o what the destination ,of your grim determination1 ,of your bloody resolution ,and your fierce defiant stare8 ,i am going ,christmas shopping1 ,said the hero1 freely mopping ,beads of nervous perspiration ,from his broad and gallant brow1 ,i am going forth to-day ,in this bellicose array ,to do my ,christmas shopping1 ,or to perish in the fray4 99 99 99 99 99 ,o whence are you returning1 ,my friend1 ,i'd fain be learning1 ,o whence are you returning ,with that bloodstained weary air8 ,with that battered shirt and collar ,and without a single dollar1 ,and with piles of useless lumber ,that would make a dustman stare8 ,i have done my ,christmas shopping1 ,said the hero1 almost dropping1 ,you may send to fetch the doctor1 ,though ,i cannot pay his fee2 ,my story is romantic1 ,for the fight was fierce and frantic1 ,and ,i bought a lot of articles ,i didn't even see2 ,but ,i've done my ,christmas shopping 7,for ,i take a lot of stopping71 ,i have done my ,christmas shopping1 ,and that's enough for me4 ,,realism ,,in ,,wordsworth ,,and ,,browning ,a paper read to the ,faculty ,club during the session #aiaa-ab ,what is ,realism8 ,realism means what it says--truth to reality and fact4 ,the realist expresses imaginative conceptions in terms of the actual world around him1 in terms of the objects which he can see and describe accurately2 the idealist gets away from fact1 and creates an imaginative world which differs from the real4 ,the idealist who writes of love1 talks about raptures and bliss and gates of heaven2 the realist describes the wave of the girl's hair1 the colour of her dress1 the way in which the man stands and looks1 and leaves the reader to supply the emotional background4 ,the idealist who writes of death talks about ashes to ashes1 dust to dust1 the common goal of mortality1 the gate of everlasting life2 the realist describes the sick man's ghastly pallor1 his wavering pulse1 his gasping breath1 the clock ticking out the minutes in the silence of the chamber of death4 ,a realist in fiction like ,balzac or ,flaubert or their imitator1 ,arnold ,bennett1 seems almost photographic in the accuracy of his descriptions2 and yet so artistic is the selection of the details described that though we get the impression of absolute reality1 the emotional atmosphere is often intense4 ,realism1 when well done1 is an admirable literary method1 but it may and often does degenerate into a vice4 ,in the hands of ,zola it becomes a medium for the conveyance of sickening1 sordid1 or disgusting detail4 ,the kind of realism with which ,i wish to deal is realism in poetry--the phrase seems almost a contradiction in terms--and ,i am taking for my purpose certain phases of the work of ,wordsworth and ,browning4 ,wordsworth and ,browning1 two poets in many respects direct antitheses of one another1 are not usually classed together in any way4 ,there is1 however1 one class of poetry which ,browning was the first to develop to a large extent1 in which ,wordsworth may be said to have been a pioneer2 in fact1 ,browning actually succeeded in a kind of poetry of which ,wordsworth barely saw the possibility4 ,i do not mean to suggest that ,browning was in any way a disciple or conscious imitator of ,wordsworth2 but that we see in full flower in ,browning's poetry a certain artistic method of which in ,wordsworth's poetry we can just perceive the germ4 ,the kind of poetry to which ,i refer is one which is frequent in ,browning1 and which1 in fact1 has often been regarded as not poetry at all--,i mean such utterly unpretentious1 prosaic1 uncouth1 rough1 or at times even grotesque verse as we find in poems like ,bishop ,blougram's ,apology1 ,mr4 ,sludge the ,medium1 ,old ,pictures in ,florence1 ,master ,hugues of ,saxe-,gotha1 much of ,the ,ring and the ,book1 and ,browning's later work generally4 ,such verse produces the effect of an exact reproduction of the actual4 ,it is so realistic that it seems at times lacking in art4 ,no work which is an exact1 or nearly exact1 reproduction of the actual can be a work of art4 ,a work of art is based on man's experience of what is1 but is always modified and altered by his conception of what ought to be4 ,it was here that ,wordsworth failed4 ,his realistic poetry is too close to the actual4 ,the intensely realistic effect of ,browning's poems is an illusion2 otherwise his claim to be a poetic artist disappears in so far as these poems are concerned4 ,i wish to indicate the nature of these effects1 and to inquire how far ,browning was anticipated by ,wordsworth4 ,wordsworth was perhaps the chief representative of the ,romantic ,school--the title given to the group of poets who dominated ,english ,literature at the commencement of the nineteenth century4 ,the spirit of the age to which their work gave expression was one of question and revolt1 the spirit which found its most remarkable political expression in the ,french ,revolution4 ,question of established beliefs1 revolt against established rules and conventions1 was the keynote of literary as well as of social and political life4 ,the attitude of the ,romantic ,school is indicated by its name4 ,romance is that element in literature which appeals to the sense of the marvellous in man1 which awakens his capacity for wonder4 ,in the eighteenth century1 under the rgime of ,pope and the ,classical ,school1 wonder had been dead4 ,it was an age of acceptance and submission2 acceptance of certain definite conventions1 submission to certain fixed rules4 ,correctness was more desired than imagination1 and polish than originality4 ,it was against the barren conventions and narrow outlook of the ,classical ,school that ,wordsworth and his fellows revolted4 ,the spirit of wonder toward ,nature and toward ,man sprang into new life4 ,my meaning will be illustrated by the following lines3 ,a primrose by a river's brim ,a yellow primrose was to him1 ,and it was nothing more4 ,they might have been written of ,pope4 ,what was the primrose to ,wordsworth8 ,to me the meanest flower that blows can give ,thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears4 ,i do not wish1 however1 to talk to-night of ,wordsworth's attitude towards ,nature4 ,it is with just two aspects of the ,romantic ,revolt that ,i have to deal1 one relating to subject matter1 the other to form4 ,the poet's eye in ,shakespeare's time ,doth glance from heaven to earth1 from earth to heaven2 ,and as imagination bodies forth ,the forms of things unknown1 the poet's pen ,turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing ,a local habitation and a name4 ,with ,pope1 poetry was confined mainly to man as he exists in society1 and was largely concerned with satirizing social defects2 ,wordsworth dealt with men as human beings1 as mysterious manifestations of the infinite1 creatures trailing clouds of glory1 coming we know not whence1 going we know not whither4 ,to him1 as to ,burns1 rank and station were nothing4 ,any human being1 however humble1 was worthy to be the poet's theme4 ,he claimed for the misfortunes of ,lucy ,gray or the miserable mother1 the ,idiot ,boy or ,peter ,bell1 the same consideration as ,sophocles for the sorrows of ,o,edipus and the lofty line of ,thebes4 ,gray1 an eighteenth century poet in whom romantic tendencies are found1 shows the same spirit in the ,elegy when he writes of the humble dead who lie beneath the soil3 ,let not ,ambition mock their useful toil1 ,their homely joys1 and destiny obscure2 ,nor ,grandeur hear with a disdainful smile ,the short and simple annals of the poor4 ,wordsworth1 then1 enlarged the scope of poetry to include any human experience1 however humble4 ,there was another side to ,wordsworth's revolt4 ,he revolted not only against the limitations of subject imposed on the poets by eighteenth-century ideals1 but also against the limitations of form4 ,pope and his followers had been poets of practically a single metre1 the heroic couplet4 ,their tricks1 mannerisms1 and phraseology had been exalted into a poetic diction1 or1 rather1 jargon1 by countless imitators1 and poems written in any other style were not allowed admission to the best company4 ,a field1 for example1 had to be either a verdant mead or a grassy sward1 or it could not decently make its appearance in poetry4 ,as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century a rainbow is to ,campbell ,heaven's ethereal bow1 and a musket becomes1 in poetical dress1 a glittering tube4 ,wordsworth claimed for the poet the right of using the language of everyday life1 plain1 simple1 and unadorned4 ,such is a very brief and insufficient outline of the two main points in ,wordsworth's poetic theory1 which were developed at great length by ,wordsworth himself in his prefaces and by ,coleridge in the ,biographia ,literaria4 ,it is to just one small part of ,wordsworth's poetic practice that ,i wish to draw your attention4 ,i mean certain studiously simple and realistic poems written in deliberate illustration of his theories4 ,the first of them were published in the famous ,lyrical ,ballads of #agih1 a work which burst like a bombshell upon an astonished literary world1 and aroused more scorn1 indignation1 and controversy than perhaps any other volume of poetry ever published4 ,the ,lyrical ,ballads was in the nature of a challenge4 ,it contained an announcement of ,wordsworth's new theories1 together with illustrations of them by himself and ,coleridge4 ,many of the poems were admirable1 but in many others ,wordsworth is at his worst4 ,a generation brought up in the principles of ,pope and nourished on such verse as ,the ,pleasures of ,hope could not away with poems like ,the ,idiot ,boy1 or ,alice ,fell1 or even ,we ,are ,seven4 ,there is no doubt that ,wordsworth went much too far in his zeal for the new theories1 and was unfortunately without a sense of humour which might have saved him from absurdities4 ,as an illustration of ,wordsworth at his worst1 let us take ,the ,idiot ,boy1 one of the poems in the ,lyrical ,ballads4 ,the very outline of the plot would make the ghost of ,pope rise in indignation from the grave4 ,old ,susan ,gale1 a peasant woman1 is very ill4 ,her neighbour1 ,betty ,foy1 comes to attend on her1 accompanied by her only son1 ,johnny1 an idiot4 ,susan gets worse1 and the doctor must be sent for4 ,betty dare not leave her1 and so the only alternative is to send the idiot boy to fetch him4 ,i need not complete the story1 but will quote a few stanzas from the poem3 ,but when the pony moved his legs1 ,oh6 then for the poor idiot boy6 ,for joy he cannot hold the bridle1 ,for joy his head and heels are idle1 ,he's idle all for very joy4 ,and ,susan's growing worse and worse1 ,and ,betty's in a sad quandary2 ,and then there's nobody to say ,if she must go1 or she must stay6 ,she's in a sad quandary4 ,oh ,doctor6 ,doctor6 where's my ,johnny8 ,i'm here1 what is't you want with me8 ,oh sir6 you know ,i'm ,betty ,foy ,and ,i have lost my poor dear boy ,you know him--him you often see2 ,he's not so wise as some folks be4 ,the ,devil take his wisdom6 said ,the ,doctor looking somewhat grim1 ,what1 woman1 should ,i know of him8 ,and grumbling1 he went back to bed4 ,this from a poet who could write ,the ,solitary ,reaper or ,milton1 thou should'st be living at this hour1 or such magnificent philosophical poetry as we find in ,the ,prelude1 ,tintern ,abbey1 and ,the ,excursion1 where ,wordsworth treats of the mind of man1 ,the haunt and the main region of my song2 or such splendid descriptive passages as are scattered everywhere through his works1 visions worthy to rank with ,shakespeare's ,cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces4 ,other examples of ,wordsworth's simple style are all too numerous1 and may be found in such poems as ,peter ,bell1 which relates the story of a tinker and a donkey 7in parts an admirable poem71 ,alice ,fell1 which tells the sorrow of a little girl for her tattered cloak1 ,the ,brothers1 and ,michael4 ,these are not1 by any means1 all bad2 in fact1 when ,wordsworth can forget for a while that he is writing to illustrate a theory1 flashes of his natural style break out1 producing odd effects of incongruity4 ,some of the poems which appeared in the ,lyrical ,ballads are admirable1 such as ,her ,eyes are ,wild and ,the ,affliction of ,margaret4 ,to us who have1 since ,wordsworth's time1 been trained to a wider scope of appreciation in poetry1 it will seem strange that even the worst of them should have aroused such adverse criticism1 but even to us it is evident that ,wordsworth in them is not at his best1 that he is writing a style which is not natural to him4 ,and yet it was these poems which1 for a time1 attracted most attention from ,wordsworth's contemporaries1 and prejudiced ,byron1 ,horace ,smith1 ,peacock1 and many others against his greater poetry4 ,wordsworth1 though he failed in his attempt1 had got hold of a true idea--that the most common things in life are pregnant with poetry1 and that there are many subjects1 not susceptible of ordinary poetical treatment1 which may yet be handled in such a simple1 unpretentious way as to retain their essential outlines1 while the emotional element is subtly indicated rather than actually expressed4 ,as a very ordinary landscape will be transformed into a thing of beauty under the rays of the setting sun1 so commonplace subjects may take on a new appearance under the influence of the poet's imagination4 ,care must be taken1 however1 not to idealize too much4 ,it would be impossible1 for example1 to lift such a subject as ,the ,idiot ,boy into the realm of the ideal4 ,now if we turn to ,browning1 we find that he also deals with subjects of this kind4 ,let us consider his treatment of one or two of them4 ,in ,the ,spanish ,cloister he takes as his subject the mean and petty jealousy of one commonplace monk for another4 ,or1 again1 he takes a sick man1 stretched on his death-bed1 putting aside impatiently the ministrations of the parson1 as his half-dazed thoughts go back to a rather sordid love affair which was yet the brightest spot in his past4 ,other examples are ,sludge the ,medium1 and the cynical and worldly ,bishop ,blougram endeavouring after dinner over the nuts and wine to justify his appearance of orthodoxy to ,gigadibs1 the scribbler and shallow rationalist3 ,so1 you despise me1 ,mr4 ,gigadibs4 ,no deprecation--nay1 ,i beg you1 sir6 ,beside 'tis our engagement3 don't you know1 ,i promised1 if you'd watch a dinner out1 ,we'd see truth dawn together8--truth that peeps ,over the glass's edge when dinner's done1 ,and body gets its sop and holds its noise ,and leaves soul free a little4 ,now's the time-- ',tis break of day6 ,you do despise me then4 ,and if ,i say1 despise me1--never fear-- ,i know you do not in a certain sense-- ,not in my arm-chair for example3 here1 ,i well imagine you respect my place 7,status1 entourage1 worldly circumstance7 ,quite to its value---very much indeed --,are up to the protesting eyes of you ,in pride at being seated here for once-- ,you'll turn it to such capital account6 ,when somebody1 through years and years to come1 ,hints of the bishop--names me--that's enough-- ,blougram8 ,i knew him--7into it you slide7 ,dined with him once1 a ,corpus ,christi ,day1 ,all alone1 we two--he's a clever man-- ,and after dinner--why1 the wine you know-- ,oh1 there was wine1 and good6--what with the wine444 ',faith1 we began upon all sorts of talk6 ,he's no bad fellow1 ,blougram--he had seen ,something of mine he relished--some review-- ,he's quite above their humbug in his heart1 ,half-said as much1 indeed--the thing's his trade-- ,i warrant1 ,blougram 's sceptical at times-- ,how otherwise8 ,i liked him1 ,i confess6 ,che ch'1 my dear sir1 as we say at ,rome1 ,don't you protest now6 ,it's fair give and take2 ,you have had your turn and spoken your home truths-- ,the hand's mine now1 and here you follow suit4 ,could anything be more easy1 conversational1 realistic8 ,and yet every now and then we find throughout the poem touches of the noblest poetry introduced so skilfully that there is no sense of incongruity4 ,for example1 the ,bishop in the course of his argument says that absolute unbelief is just as impossible as absolute faith4 ,and now what are we8 unbelievers both1 ,calm and complete1 determinately fixed ,to-day1 to-morrow1 and for ever1 pray8 ,you'll guarantee me that8 ,not so1 ,i think4 ,in no-wise6 all we've gained is1 that belief1 ,as unbelief before1 shakes us by fits1 ,confounds us like its predecessor4 ,where's ,the gain8 how can we guard our unbelief8 ,make it bear fruit to us8--the problem here4 ,just when we are safest1 there's a sunset-touch1 ,a fancy from a flower-bell1 some one's death1 ,a chorus-ending from ,euripides-- ,and that's enough for fifty hopes and fears ,as old and new at once as ,nature's self1 ,to rap and knock and enter in our soul1 ,take hands and dance there1 a fantastic ring1 ,round the ancient idol1 on his base again-- ,the grand ,perhaps6 we look on helplessly-- ,there the old misgivings1 crooked questions are-- ,this good ,god--what he could do1 if he would1 ,would1 if he could--then must have done long since3 ,if so1 when1 where1 and how8 some way must be-- ,once feel about1 and soon or late you hit ,some sense1 in which it might be1 after all4 ,why not1 ,the ,way1 the ,truth1 the ,life8 ,browning's love poetry does not properly enter into this discussion1 since love is a common theme of poets1 and this discussion deals with ,browning's treatment of apparently unpoetical themes2 but ,browning's choice and treatment of situation in his love poems are so unusual as to bring them into the same class as his other realistic poems4 ,take as an example3 ,see1 how she looks now1 drest ,in a sledging-cap and vest4 ',tis a huge fur cloak-- ,like a reindeer's yoke ,falls the lappet along the breast3 ,sleeves for her arms to rest1 ,or to hang1 as my love likes best4 ,these few examples will serve to show that the essential principles of ,browning's realism and ,wordsworth's are the same4 ,browning1 like ,wordsworth1 claimed for poetry a greater licence both in subject matter and in form1 but he went farther than ,wordsworth in both4 ,wordsworth took for his new subjects the humble joys and sorrows of the poor--but all was fish that came to ,browning's net4 ,any psychological situation1 any out-of-the-way corner of human experience1 became in his hands matter for poetry4 ,then as to form1 ,wordsworth merely refrained from the conventional language of poetry1 but ,browning boldly used language that was frankly unpoetical--uncouth1 unmusical1 rough1 rhyming grotesquely1 accented outrageously4 ,perhaps his most important advance on ,wordsworth was in the use of the dramatic form--nearly all ,browning's poems of the sort described are dramatic monologues--for when the speaker is professedly not the poet1 we are less inclined to find an incongruity in unpoetical language4 ,browning1 by adopting the dramatic form1 gets at things from the subjective point of view1 from the inside4 ,wordsworth tried to describe them objectively from the point of view of a spectator4 ,browning1 then1 practically discovered a new poetical form which enabled him to bring within the scope of poetical treatment subjects never so treated before4 ,he found a new field for poetry and found new forms to suit it4 ,he entered land which ,wordsworth had only beheld from afar1 and which1 indeed1 ,wordsworth never could have entered4 ,browning saw that familiar objects1 everyday doings and sayings1 commonplace happenings which seem to the ordinary observer prosaic and barren1 are1 to the poet1 pregnant with underlying emotion4 ,ordinary poetry deals with the obviously poetical things1 or converts the everyday things of life into poetry by depriving them of some of their actuality4 ,browning contrives to give us things as they are1 with all the harshness and crudeness of real life1 and yet to make us feel the underlying element of poetry4 ,about his most brutally realistic poem1 there is a subtle atmosphere of emotion4 ,browning1 like ,shakespeare1 dares to place side by side the grotesque1 the beautiful1 the tragic1 the ludicrous4 ,he can do it by virtue of his unassuming form4 ,take1 for example1 ,old ,pictures in ,florence4 ,there we get the dirt of the old streets1 the very must and smell of the second-hand dealer's stores1 the filthy canvas and peeling fresco1 but we get also the tragedy of the wronged ,old ,masters1 and a noble conception of the development of art4 ,in ,bishop ,blougram we get the wine1 the nuts1 the plausible conversation1 but we get also the spectacle1 pregnant with emotional possibilities1 of two human midgets in the presence of the ,almighty1 the one daring lightly to compound with his ,maker1 the other lightly to deny ,him4 ,the value of this inquiry1 if it have any value1 is to show that those poetical forms which are often assumed to be due to a radical defect in ,browning's work as poetry1 were really a deliberate artistic method1 deliberate in the sense that ,carlyle's style is deliberate4 ,the style1 with both ,carlyle and ,browning1 is indeed the man1 but each had to find the style which would express him best4 ,carlyle1 in his early work1 wrote like ,macaulay2 ,browning1 in his early work1 wrote like ,shelley4 ,and whenever ,browning1 in his later poems1 met with a subject capable of conventional poetical treatment1 he did not hesitate so to treat it4 ,i need only instance such poems as ,saul1 ,abt ,vogler1 ,the ,guardian ,angel1 and ,prospice4 ,i shall quote the last of these poems3 ,fear death8--to feel the fog in my throat1 ,the mist in my face1 ,when the snows begin1 and the blasts denote ,i am nearing the place1 ,the power of the night1 the press of the storm1 ,the post of the foe2 ,where he stands1 the ,arch ,fear in a visible form1 ,yet the strong man must go2 ,for the journey is done and the summit attained1 ,and the barriers fall1 ,though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained1 ,the reward of it all4 ,i was ever a fighter1 so--one fight more1 ,the best and the last6 ,i would hate that death bandaged my eyes1 and forbore1 ,and bade me creep past4 ,no6 let me taste the whole of it1 fare like my peers1 ,the heroes of old1 ,bear the brunt1 in a minute pay glad life's arrears ,of pain1 darkness1 and cold4 ,for sudden the worst turns the best to the brave1 ,the black minute's at end1 ,and the elements' rage1 the fiend-voices that rave1 ,shall dwindle1 shall blend1 ,shall change1 shall become a peace out of pain1 ,then a light1 then thy breast1 ,o thou soul of my soul6 ,i shall clasp thee again1 ,and with ,god be at rest6 ,can anyone after hearing that poem maintain that ,browning was incapable1 when he wished1 of dispensing with eccentricities8 ,in conclusion1 ,i should like to say that the subject ,i have been treating has nothing to do with the obscurity of ,browning's poetry4 ,his obscurity has nothing to do with his realism4 ,,synge ,incomplete notes of an ,address to a ,study ,club ,three years ago1 in ,july #aiaj1 died ,john ,millington ,synge1 ,irish dramatist1 whose name will probably be better known twenty years hence1 perhaps one hundred and twenty years hence1 than it is to-day4 ,those who know ,ireland only by hearsay1 or from books1 or even from the stage1 will be slow at first to appreciate his work2 but we who know and love the real ,ireland1 we1 who have wandered through her glens and by her streams1 and looked upon her wonderful skies1 who have felt within ourselves her sadness1 her mirth1 and her poetry1 must at once acknowledge that in the work of ,synge the soul of ,ireland has1 for the first time1 received adequate expression4 ,in that small island1 a green speck in the tumbling billows of the ,atlantic1 right in the heart of the barren conventionalism of modern civilization1 there still remains1 if one knows where to look for it1 the ,celtic spirit in all its original purity2 there is still to be found a glamour and a mystery as fine as any that lingers on the shores of old ,romance4 ,many have found and felt these things1 but they have been silent1 for they have been restrained from speech by a sense that such things could not be interpreted in words4 ,synge was the first to find the medium by which they might be expressed4 ,he was a solitary1 undemonstrative man1 says his friend ,yeats1 never asking pity1 nor complaining1 nor seeking sympathy2 all folded up in brooding intellect1 knowing nothing of new books and newspapers1 reading the great masters alone2 and he was but the more hated because he gave his country what it needed1 an unmoved mind1 where there is a perpetual last day1 a trumpeting and coming up to judgment4 ,thus1 it seems to me1 ,synge will be slow in winning recognition from the masses of his countrymen4 ,he saw them too clearly1 and painted too accurate a portrait of them to be flattering2 they recognize their weaknesses and are indignant1 while they fail to see that he has painted also their fine poetical qualities1 their romance1 and their tenderness4 ,again the same writer3 ,in ,ireland1 he loved only what was wild in its people and in the grey wintry sides of many glens4 ,all the rest1 all that one reasoned over1 fought for1 read of in leading articles1 all that came from ,education1 all that came down from young ,ireland--aroused in him little interest4 ,perhaps its only effect on him was to awaken in him first that irony which1 once awakened1 he turned upon the whole of life4 ,the scene of ,synge's later literary work--the work which counts--was the ,abbey ,theatre1 a small and unpretentious building1 hidden away in a side street near the ,dublin quays4 ,here is a central point for the ,irish ,dramatic ,movement1 a movement recognized by all competent critics as being one of the most significant things in modern literature4 ,lovers of literature of the present generation who have been walking in a vain shadow1 groping their way uneasily amid realistic novels1 paradoxical problem plays1 pale poems1 and epigrammatic essays1 turn with relief to a literature which is realistic1 and at the same time rich and poetical1 and which shows unmistakable signs of real vitality4 ,at the ,abbey ,theatre one may see the peasant life of modern ,ireland and hear the beautiful legends of her past portrayed by native actors1 with a fidelity and a force which have never been surpassed on any stage4 ,their acting is a true holding of the mirror up to ,nature--there are no stage tricks1 no declamations1 no poses1 no sound and fury--the scene is perhaps the rude interior of a peasant cottage in some ,irish village1 or of a hut in some lonely glen1 or the side of a windy hill or open field1 where the sun shines and the air is mild and the breeze fresh and kindly4 ,the figures that fill the scene bear no resemblance to the traditional buffoon1 who1 on most stages1 is made to do duty for an ,irishman2 their speech is quite unlike the traditional brogue which is commonly supposed to be the medium of communication between ,irish peasants2 the characters represented are primitive but poetical1 wild but noble2 their dialogue is rich with humour and imagination1 and is spoken with a charming and musical intonation4 ,in the movements and words of the people we see on the stage1 there is no appearance of acting2 they talk easily and naturally1 their gestures are few and altogether free from exaggeration or striving after effect4 ,their whole performance is simple and apparently without effort2 and yet ,i have again and again been far more profoundly stirred by this unpretentious acting1 ,i have had a far deeper sense of the tragedy and comedy and mystery of life in this little ,abbey ,theatre than ,i have ever received from the elaborate productions of the ,london stage4 ,the ,irish ,national ,theatre was founded in #ahii by ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats and ,lady ,gregory1 who1 ever since its inception1 have devoted their time and thought and work almost exclusively to perfecting this new drama4 ,the result has amply justified their faithful labour4 ,the ,irish ,national ,theatre has already given to the world an entirely original style of acting1 a company of actors unrivalled in the quality which they profess1 and now known not only in ,ireland1 but all over ,britain and ,america1 and also several dramatists of extraordinary merit4 ,of these dramatists ,synge is undoubtedly the most remarkable4 ,his production is small and extends over only a few years1 but it is of a quality unknown in ,english literature since ,elizabethan times4 ,it has been claimed for him1 says ,mr4 ,bickley1 that he is the greatest imaginative dramatist who has written ,english since ,shakespeare1 or at least since the ,puritans closed the theatres in #afdb4 ,this claim may at first sight seem extravagant1 especially to those who know the very limited range and quantity of ,synge's work1 but on reflection it is clear that if one admits that ,synge is a great dramatist1 one is forced also to admit that he is the first since ,shakespeare4 ,what have we had in drama since ,shakespeare8 ,a number of classical or pseudo-,shakespearean verse plays1 most of them extremely dreary1 from ,addison to ,swinburne1 the brilliant but tawdry comedy of intrigue of the ,restoration1 the later eighteenth-century society comedy of ,goldsmith and ,sheridan1 and the modern drawing-room dramas of ,shaw and ,wilde--to none of which the term great can properly be applied4 ,a study of the causes of the decay of the drama would be a most interesting one1 but the topic is too large and too difficult to be attempted in a short paper4 ,suffice it to say1 that ,synge appeared to believe that the modern drama suffered from two main defects4 ,either it lacked reality1 or it lacked poetry4 ,the drama which was imaginative and poetical was alien from real life1 the drama which attempted a realistic picture of life was flat and joyless and anaemic4 ,according to this idea two main things were necessary to a re-creation of the drama4 ,first1 the type of life in which there still remained some vigour1 colour1 and poetry2 where convention had not crushed out all elemental emotions and produced a barren artificial uniformity2 secondly1 an artistic language by which that life might be expressed4 ,synge found both these requisites among the ,irish peasantry of ,connemara and the ,aran ,islands4 ,in ,mr4 ,bickley's books we learn how ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats found ,synge4 ,synge was then twenty-six4 ,he had wandered among people whose life is as picturesque as that of the ,middle ,ages1 playing his fiddle to ,italian sailors and listening to stories in ,bavarian woods1 but life had cast no light into his writings4 ,following ,yeats' advice1 ,synge left ,france and went to live at ,aran1 a group of stony islands at the entrance of ,galway ,bay4 ,there he lived the peasants' life1 learned their language and discovered his own possibilities4 ,in the ,aran peasants he found a people with an imagination1 fiery and magnificent and tender1 and at the same time with the elemental emotions strongly in evidence1 a just mixture of ,god and brute4 ,synge found splendid material for a drama at once human and beautiful2 in their language1 ,english spoken by men who thought in ,gaelic1 that is1 ,english coloured by ,celtic imagination1 he found his medium of expression4 ,the result was the half-dozen plays which will probably survive most of the other writing of this generation4 ,to find the ,ireland of romance1 ,synge returned again and again to ,aran1 to ,kerry and to the ,blaskets4 ,he was a drifting1 silent man1 full of hidden passion1 and loved wild islands1 because there1 set out in the light of day1 he saw what lay hidden in himself4 ,he liked to enter the houses of the people and sit quietly listening to their talk4 ,in the dialect of ,aran the cadence is long and meditative as befits the thought of men who are much alone1 and who1 when they meet in each other's houses--as is their way at the day's end--listen patiently1 each man speaking in turn for some little time1 and taking pleasure in the vaguer meaning of the words and in their sounds4 ,their thought1 when not merely practical1 is as full of traditional wisdom and extravagant pictures as some ,aeschylean chorus4 ,synge wrote down words and phrases wherever he went1 and found the ,irish dialect so rich a thing that he had begun translating into it fragments of the great literatures of the world and had planned a complete version of the ,imitation of ,christ4 ,he attached great importance to the discovery of this dramatic dialect4 ,in ,synge's plays is not to be found any definite philosophy2 he was that rarest of things--a pure artist4 ,he loves all that has edge1 all that is salt in the mouth1 all that is rough to the hand1 all that heightens the emotions by contrast1 all that stings into life the sense of tragedy4 ,all his plays1 except the beautiful ,deirdre1 in which he goes back to ,irish legend for his plot1 deal with modern peasant life in ,ireland1 and range from the rollicking comedy of the ,tinker's ,wedding1 through the irony of the ,playboy of the ,western ,world1 and the ,shadow of the ,glen1 to the pure and magnificent tragedy of ,riders to the ,sea4 ,i shall never forget the impression made upon me by the latter play when ,i saw it acted for the first time in the ,abbey ,theatre in ,dublin1 acted as only the ,irish players can act it4 ,i have seen it often since1 and never without being deeply stirred1 but that first performance was a revelation and opened up a new world of thought and feeling4 ,riders to the ,sea is a short1 simple1 one-act play1 taking1 perhaps1 twenty minutes to act2 but in that twenty minutes the spectator plunges deep into the mystery and tragedy of life1 before him black and bottomless depths of suffering2 he becomes aware of ,destiny hovering1 a grim unseen presence1 over the little lives of men4 ,the background of the little play is the vast remorseless sea1 and over it broods ,eternity4 ,,dickens ,,and ,,thackeray ,an ,essay found among ,professor ,bateman's early papers ,to attempt anything like an adequate discussion of two literary giants like ,dickens and ,thackeray in a short paper of this kind is like undertaking to empty ,niagara with a quart pot4 ,it is obvious that ,i can hope to do no more than indicate in a rather sketchy way some of the main points of difference and resemblance in our two authors4 ,in doing so ,i shall naturally pay somewhat more attention to ,dickens than to ,thackeray4 ,with the exception of ,esmond1 ,thackeray's work is all very much of the same kind1 and displays a considerably smaller degree of variety and versatility than that of ,dickens4 ,one requires less guidance for an intelligent appreciation of ,thackeray than for an intelligent appreciation of ,dickens4 ,the merits of ,thackeray's work are easily seen and easily defined2 a recognition of them is largely a matter of reason1 and can confidently be expected from any intelligent reader4 ,but ,dickens is an author much more difficult to understand4 ,his faults as well as his merits are gigantic2 but then he frequently gets credit for faults which are not there1 and sometimes even some of his greatest merits are construed as faults4 ,the true appreciation of ,dickens requires a larger exercise of the imagination than in the case of ,thackeray4 ,in other words1 it is more a matter of feeling than of reason4 ,ask many a lover of ,dickens to give a reason for the faith that is in him1 and he may find it difficult to satisfy you4 ,take1 for example1 ,dickens's humorous characters4 ,there are some who cannot be got to admit that ,mr4 ,toots1 ,sim ,tappertit1 ,sairey ,gamp1 and others of that ilk are divinely humorous and inspired creations2 some will only admit that at best they are but excellent fooling2 others will even characterize them as mere buffoonery4 ,it is an inferior class of mind1 however1 which rejects the abnormal merely on account of its abnormality1 and votes the improbable impossible1 because it fails to fit in with previously conceived ideas of right and wrong4 ,criticism is useless in the case of people who hold such a view4 ,i may assert1 with all the force of which ,i am capable1 that ,mr4 ,toots is the best thing in ,dombey2 that age cannot wither ,sairey ,gamp any more than ,cleopatra1 and that she will blossom in perennial freshness while the language endures2 but if you ask me for a reason1 ,i can give none4 ,it is no more possible to give a reason for liking ,sairey ,gamp than for disliking ,dr4 ,fell4 ,we can enjoy with ,thackeray the skilful dissection of a character like that of ,becky ,sharp1 and penetrate with him the innermost recesses of her mighty little soul2 but ,dickens himself could not have penetrated the secret of the composition of ,sairey ,gamp4 ,in her presence criticism is dumb4 ,we must be content to stand in humble and reverent admiration and satisfy ourselves with exclaiming1 ,behold1 it is very good4 ,i shall return again to this point of characterization1 but ,i must now say something of the position held by ,dickens and ,thackeray in the historical development of the novel4 ,though undoubtedly the two greatest novelists of the ,early ,victorian school1 ,dickens and ,thackeray are alike in exercising very little apparent influence on the development of the contemporary novel of manners4 ,they both look back rather than forward4 ,they set the crown and consummation on the work of the early eighteenth-century group of writers4 ,dickens derives from ,smollett1 and ,thackeray from ,fielding4 ,when ,dickens as a boy discovered in an old garret that precious pile of dusty eighteenth-century books1 ,peregrine ,pickle1 ,humphrey ,clinker and the rest1 which he absorbed with such loving eagerness1 he little thought that he was destined to be a second and a greater ,smollett4 ,the characteristic type of ,english novel was defined by ,richardson1 ,fielding1 and their school at the beginning of the eighteenth century4 ,it aimed at a dramatic representation of contemporary life and manners2 it took1 in fact1 the place of the drama as the popular form of literature4 ,with the decay of the ,fielding novel came a reaction1 and opposed to the lusty and vivid realism of ,tom ,jones and ,humphrey ,clinker we get the sham mediaevalism1 the dungeon-keeps1 the echoing chambers1 the hollow-voiced spectres1 and the absurd sentiment of ,horace ,walpole's ,castle of ,otranto1 and its imitators4 ,this was a sort of side stream in the history of the novel1 which nevertheless created the taste for historical romance1 fed later by the novels of ,scott4 ,scott stands apart from the main stream of ,english fiction1 though his style exercised an immense influence on later novelists4 ,after the mediaeval relapse1 the contemporary novel of manners was continued at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century by ,fanny ,burney and ,jane ,austen4 ,the latter died in #ahag2 between #ahad and #ahcb ,scott's novels fill the field of fiction2 and then1 between about #ahce and #ahfj1 come ,dickens and ,thackeray with their contemporaries1 of whom perhaps the most remarkable were ,lytton and ,disraeli4 ,in none of these writers1 however1 must we look for the foundation of the characteristic ,victorian novel--the novel of ,george ,eliot and ,george ,meredith4 ,the founder of that novel was ,charlotte ,bront4 ,her ,jane ,eyre and ,thackeray's ,vanity ,fair were published in the same year1 #ahdh1 and were reviewed together in a famous number of the ,quarterly4 ,the two works represent two distinct schools of fiction4 ,between the ,dickens-,thackeray novel and the ,bront-,eliot novel there is a great gulf fixed4 ,dickens and ,thackeray stand out from their time like two solitary giants4 ,perhaps now it might be well to remind you briefly of the main facts in the literary history of the two men4 ,dickens's first great work1 ,pickwick1 appeared in #ahcg1 five years after the death of ,scott4 ,it was at once received with acclamation4 ,his next book1 ,oliver ,twist1 though it must have come as a sort of shock after ,pickwick1 did not stem the tide of appreciation4 ,like ,oliver himself1 every one was soon asking for more4 ,they did not ask in vain4 ,during the next two decades1 the forties and fifties1 ,dickens poured forth novel after novel with surprising rapidity4 ,pickwick1 ,sam ,weller1 ,fagin1 ,squeers1 ,micawber soon became household words4 ,dickens won a popularity of which we can form no true conception4 ,there has been nothing like it in our time4 ,england and ,america were taken by storm2 even ,france was infected with the prevailing enthusiasm4 ,during the days of ,dickens' early popularity a clever young man had been making a name for himself as a humorist and satirist in the pages of ,fraser's ,magazine1 ,punch1 and similar journals4 ,this was ,william ,makepeace ,thackeray4 ,in #ahch1 the year after ,pickwick1 ,thackeray began a series known as the ,yellow ,plush ,papers2 during the next ten years he produced a great variety of journalistic work1 short stories1 sketches and essays1 and wrote1 in addition1 two satirical novels1 ,catherine and ,barry ,lyndon4 ,in #ahdh he burst on the world as a great novelist with ,vanity ,fair1 and within ten years more he had published ,pendennis1 ,esmond1 ,the ,newcomes1 and ,the ,virginians4 ,this brings us up to #ahei4 ,by that year ,dickens had produced his best work2 ,thackeray had only four more years to live2 and he was followed to the grave by ,dickens in #ahgj4 ,from this account it is apparent that ,dickens made a much bigger stir than ,thackeray in the contemporary literary world4 ,he was the leviathan who frolicked at will in the sea of popular appreciation4 ,thackeray was a much smaller fish4 ,considering ,dickens and ,thackeray first strictly as novelists1 we find a point of resemblance in the fact that1 from the point of view of form1 they are both uncommonly bad novelists4 ,a good novel1 like any other work of art1 must have some unity about it4 ,the incidents must not be bundled in pell-mell1 but must all contribute to the working out of some central idea or situation4 ,then we must have an element of romance1 and this ought to regulate the subordination of the characters4 ,the characters in every romance are essentially three1 as ,chesterton puts it1 ,st4 ,george1 the ,princess1 and the ,dragon2 that is1 ,st4 ,george1 something that loves and fights2 the ,princess1 something that is loved and fought for2 while the ,dragon represents the opposition4 ,other characters besides these three there may and must be1 but they serve as mere machinery or scenery as far as the romance is concerned4 ,now let us consider the novels of ,dickens and ,thackeray from these points of view4 ,as regards incident they are almost wholly lacking in unity4 ,we cannot exactly deny them plots4 ,they develop stories and interesting stories1 but it is not an orderly development4 ,dickens strings his incidents together almost haphazard1 and so1 to a large extent1 does ,thackeray4 7,by the way1 in these remarks on ,thackeray ,i do not include ,esmond1 which is magnificent1 but is not really ,thackeray47 ,in the greater part of his writing ,dickens had no central aim or motive in view2 he wrote1 so to speak1 from hand to mouth4 ,most of his books in fact were written for periodicals in monthly parts1 and it is safe to say that nobody1 and least of all ,dickens himself1 knew exactly what a month would bring forth4 ,i am here again speaking generally2 there are some exceptions1 notably the ,tale of ,two ,cities--which stands almost as much apart from the rest of ,dickens's work as ,esmond does from the rest of ,thackeray's--and the unfinished ,edwin ,drood4 ,of ,thackeray we may say that he may have had some central aim or motive in his novels1 but if so1 he paid little attention to it1 and did not allow it to impede his rambling progress in the smallest degree4 ,we may take it1 then1 as generally true that the novels of ,dickens and ,thackeray are rough-hewn and sometimes shapeless4 ,in the case of ,dickens this characteristic seldom annoys1 but it is otherwise with ,thackeray4 ,i doubt1 for example1 if there is anyone here who has read and enjoyed every word of that fearfully digressive and dropsical novel1 ,the ,newcomes4 ,again1 as regards characters1 in neither novelist do we get an orderly subordination4 ,dickens1 perhaps1 is the worst offender in this respect4 ,in ,thackeray1 the hero and heroine are usually in a sense the most important personages1 though crowds of personages who have really nothing to do with the story bulk very largely1 and though in ,vanity ,fair there is no hero at all4 ,but in ,dickens1 the personages who ought to be most important have frequently very little to do with the novel4 ,as a rule1 the leading characters1 hero1 heroine1 and villain1 are lifeless and uninteresting1 and only serve to connect loosely a great amount of strictly secondary matter4 ,the really important characters in ,dickens are the unimportant ones1 those who are introduced en passant1 and who might as well be anywhere else as far as the story is concerned4 ,in ,nicholas ,nickleby ,nicholas himself does not interest me1 neither does his sister1 neither do ,madeline ,bray and ,mr4 ,bray1 neither does ,ralph ,nickleby4 ,the people who do interest me are people like ,mrs4 ,nickleby1 ,mantalini1 the ,squeers family1 the ,kenwigs1 and ,vincent ,crummies4 ,in ,martin ,chuzzlewit the least important character is ,martin himself1 but his life serves as a string upon which are hung ,pecksniff1 ,todger's ,boarding ,house and all that therein was1 ,chevy ,slime1 ,esq41 ,sairey ,gamp1 ,betsy ,prigg1 ,mr4 ,mould1 ,elijah ,pogram1 and many others in whose company there is endless delight4 ,all these1 however1 might just as well have been hung on the string of ,nicholas ,nickleby or ,david ,copperfield or ,bleak ,house or almost any of the other books4 ,similarly all through4 ,in ,dombey ,florence is a nonentity1 ,walter ,gay is a nonentity1 ,dombey himself is a made character1 well-made1 but not created4 ,in ,david ,copperfield ,david begins by being a reality1 but tails off into an abstraction4 ,in ,a ,tale of ,two ,cities ,darnay does not exist1 and ,lucie ,manette only barely exists4 ,in both ,dickens and ,thackeray1 in fact1 the romantic element is really subordinate1 in ,dickens very much so2 and in neither writer do ,st4 ,george1 the ,princess1 and the ,dragon ever become all-important4 ,both writers1 in fact1 are to be judged piece-meal1 as creators of situations and characters1 rather than in the bulk as creators of novels4 ,the keynote of the work of both our authors was struck in two of their first works of any note4 ,in #ahdh ,thackeray published in ,punch the series of papers entitled the ,book of ,snobs1 which marks his dedication to the especial task of unmasking the pretence and sham which underlay the whole of ,english public and private life4 ,his definition of the word snob was comprehensive4 ,the snob1 says ,thackeray1 is a child of aristocratical societies4 ,perched on his step of the long social ladder1 he respects the man on the step above and despises the man on the step below1 without enquiring what they are worth1 solely on account of their position2 in his innermost heart he finds it natural to kiss the boots of the first1 and to kick the second4 ,starting with this definition1 ,thackeray lashed unsparingly all classes of society from the highest to the lowest4 ,he discovered and unmasked snobs of all descriptions1 church snobs1 military snobs1 literary snobs1 country snobs1 political snobs1 ,continental snobs4 ,in this book ,thackeray appears as the caustic satirist of every sort of social hypocrisy1 and this character he maintains in his novels4 ,pendennis1 ,vanity ,fair1 and ,the ,newcomes are largely ,books of ,snobs worked into the form of novels4 ,dickens's first important work was his ,sketches by ,boz1 a series of papers in which he describes various aspects and phases of the life of the ,english lower middle class4 ,though somewhat crude in style and occasionally even vulgar in tone1 these papers are seldom completely commonplace1 and many of the characteristics of the mature ,dickens can be discerned there in embryo4 ,they have a distinction of manner and a suggestion of creative power which is unmistakable1 and they mark the dedication of ,dickens to his especial task1 the sympathetic though exaggerated painting of the poorer middle classes4 ,while ,thackeray took his stand on the universal sham and corruption of our social system1 lashing hypocrisy and showing up the rottenness which lay hidden beneath the whited sepulchres of society1 ,dickens revealed the treasures which were buried beneath the rubbish-heap designated as the poorer middle classes4 ,just as ,thackeray's novels are glorified ,books of ,snobs1 so ,dickens's novels are1 for the most part1 glorified ,sketches by ,boz4 ,his early works1 though called novels1 are undisguisedly a series of sketches loosely strung together4 ,pickwick1 of course1 is absolutely episodic4 ,it was begun to supply the letterpress to a series of drawings by a popular artist1 and when ,dickens commenced he had no aim except to get his characters into such amusing situations as would afford scope to the illustrator4 ,as the book goes on1 however1 it begins to get hold of ,dickens1 and the change is seen especially in the character of ,pickwick1 who begins as an elderly crank about whom ,dickens does not care a jot1 but develops into one of the most lovable old gentlemen of fiction4 ,however1 the fact remains that ,pickwick has not the remotest vestige of a plot1 and can by no stretch of the imagination be called a novel4 ,again1 ,oliver ,twist1 as ,chesterton remarks1 is really not a novel1 and might1 without losing much1 have been published as a series of papers entitled ,the ,workhouse1 ,a ,thieves' ,den1 and so on4 ,nicholas ,nickleby might similarly have been published as a series of papers entitled ,a ,yorkshire ,school1 ,a ,provincial ,theatre1 and so on4 ,the fact that all these sketches are strung together on the lives of those shadowy personages ,oliver ,twist and ,nicholas ,nickleby does not at all affect their real character4 ,after ,nicholas ,nickleby the books begin to lose1 to some extent1 this sketchiness1 that is1 the episodes are more closely and skilfully interwoven into a connected whole1 but still ,dickens1 the novelist1 never quite emerges from ,boz1 the essayist4 ,these remarks about ,dickens naturally lead me to say something about the development of our two authors4 ,about ,thackeray ,i cannot say very much4 ,by the time he emerges from the undercurrent of journalistic work1 all the essentials of the mature ,thackeray seem almost fully developed4 ,barry ,lyndon is almost as mature in style as ,vanity ,fair4 ,vanity ,fair itself1 ,thackeray's first work of importance1 is also his greatest work4 ,that is1 instead of working up to a climax as a novelist1 ,thackeray began at the top and worked downwards4 ,of course1 we must remember that when he wrote it he had reached the age of thirty-seven4 ,the subsequent novels1 with the exception of ,esmond1 mark a deterioration1 and not an advance4 ,i must here make a slight digression to speak of ,esmond4 ,into this brilliant historical patch ,thackeray threw all his great knowledge of1 and love for1 the eighteenth century4 ,he was soaked in eighteenth-century literature and history--witness his ,four ,georges and ,english ,humourists2 and in ,esmond he assumed with consummate skill the eighteenth-century manner4 ,in this novel ,thackeray casts off completely his mask of cynicism1 and appears as a man of noble feeling and deep sympathy1 who could write a polished1 pure1 and straightforward ,english style4 ,we feel1 however1 that the book is after all only a brilliant freak1 and that the real ,thackeray is the cynical1 the satirical1 and the caustic ,thackeray of ,vanity ,fair4 ,esmond stands to the rest of ,thackeray's work somewhat in the relation of ,romola to ,george ,eliot's other novels4 ,in both the atmosphere is artificial1 the result of long and careful study1 and in both the deception is so perfect that the artificiality is almost impossible to detect4 ,in two of his novels ,dickens took historical subjects1 namely in ,barnaby ,rudge and the ,tale of ,two ,cities4 ,the latter is the acme of ,dickens's attainments in the descriptive style1 and is perhaps more restrained and artistic than any of his other works4 ,in brilliant imagination and vivid representation of an historical phase he more than equals ,thackeray1 though his novel falls short of ,esmond in characterization4 ,esmond1 ,beatrix1 and ,lady ,castlewood are much better than ,darnay1 ,lucie1 and the ,doctor1 though ,sidney ,carton1 perhaps1 is as fine as anything in ,thackeray4 ,to return to the question of development1 we may say that ,thackeray's style was fully developed during his career as a journalist1 essayist1 and writer of short stories1 and that we find its culminating point in ,vanity ,fair4 ,in the case of ,dickens1 however1 we can trace a well-marked1 if rapid1 advance4 ,sketches by ,boz are distinctly crude4 ,pickwick ,papers are a startling advance on one side of ,dickens's art4 ,we find in them the vigour1 versatility1 and exuberance of a youthful and tremendous imagination4 ,they display inexhaustible resource and gigantic humour4 ,dickens lavished enough genius on them to do ten ordinary men for a lifetime1 and yet he did it with perfect ease4 ,we feel that he enjoyed himself in writing them1 that he revelled in the task4 ,every character1 down to the smallest1 lives4 ,mr4 ,john ,swanker and ,mr4 ,cyrus ,bantam1 for example1 are as real to us as ,mr4 ,sam ,weller and ,mr4 ,pickwick4 ,pickwick is one of the greatest of humorous portraits in literature4 ,it is as great as the ,canterbury ,tales4 ,it is wonderful that a young writer who in ,sketches by ,boz had only been feeling his way should1 at one bound1 reach the height of excellence which we find in ,pickwick4 ,the incidents are commonplace enough4 ,the jokes are the sort of jokes which are still the stock-in-trade of the ha'penny comic--jokes about mothers-in-law1 red-nosed curates1 and falling on the ice1 about getting drunk1 and fighting1 and fatness1 and sitting upon one's hat4 ,but what a difference between the treatment of ,dickens and that of the uninspired humorists4 ,pickwick1 however1 as ,i have said1 represents only one side of ,dickens's art1 but perhaps the greatest side1 the humorous delineation of character4 ,there is as yet no trace of ,dickens the novelist 7for by no stretch of the imagination can ,pickwick be called a novel71 of ,dickens the master of pathos1 of ,dickens the descriptive artist4 ,there is1 however1 to be found in ,pickwick traces of a youthful phase in ,dickens's character1 a somewhat morbid leaning towards the horrible and criminal1 afterwards toned down and corrected by his strong common sense1 but never wholly absent4 ,this trait is to be found in some of the short stories inserted in ,pickwick1 notably ,the ,madman's ,tale4 ,the latter story might have served as a warning to some very discerning critic of the startling change to be found in ,dickens's next book1 ,oliver ,twist4 ,in this work the lavish humour of ,pickwick dwindles down to very small proportions1 and is decidedly overweighed by the horrible and morbid4 ,the murder of ,nancy and the death of ,bill ,sykes are only equalled for vivid awfulness a couple of times in ,dickens's later books1 notably in ,bleak ,house and in ,martin ,chuzzlewit4 ,in ,oliver ,twist appears a new element which was to take a prominent place in ,dickens's future work1 the element of social reform4 ,social reform had already produced the workhouse4 ,dickens started his reform by attacking the workhouse4 ,but ,dickens is not yet a novelist4 ,the romantic element is absent in ,oliver ,twist2 the hero is only a child4 ,it was in his fourth book1 ,nicholas ,nickleby1 that we find ,dickens definitely deciding to write romance4 ,accordingly he introduces an impossibly good ,st4 ,george1 throws in a ,princess and a ,dragon half-way through for his benefit1 and tries to make an orthodox novel4 ,he succeeds1 however1 in making only a very poor imitation of one4 ,nicholas himself is a hopelessly badly-drawn character2 and in fact nearly everywhere in the story that ,dickens tries to be definitely romantic and orthodox he sinks below the level of the ha'penny novelette4 ,in his next book1 ,the ,old ,curiosity ,shop 7#ahdj71 he almost abandons his good intentions formed with ,nicholas ,nickleby1 and we return to the realm of sketches and sketchiness4 ,he is progressing1 however1 in the use of forcible and restrained language4 ,barnaby ,rudge 7#ahda7 is splendid of its kind1 the best bit of actual writing ,dickens had yet done1 though it is rather a series of brilliant pictures than an orthodox novel4 ,the hero is an idiot1 but nevertheless not so idiotic as was ,nicholas ,nickleby4 ,in ,martin ,chuzzlewit 7#ahdd7 we get an attempt at romance4 ,martin is a hero a little more life-like than the much-abused ,nicholas4 ,in this book ,dickens's powers of satire come out at their best in his pictures of ,american society1 and his power of humorous characterization is also at its height in ,pecksniff1 ,sairey ,gamp1 and many of the minor characters4 ,the melodramatic side of ,dickens's art unfortunately comes out unpleasantly strong in the description of old ,chuzzlewit and his hopeful son1 ,jonas4 ,at this point all ,dickens's characteristic traits may be said to be fully developed4 ,from this time1 except in ,david ,copperfield1 which marks the culmination of his powers1 and in the ,tale of ,two ,cities1 there is a distinct decline4 ,dombey is in parts magnificent1 but a sort of gloom hangs over most of the book1 relieved only by such bright patches as ,mr4 ,toots1 ,bunsby1 and ,susan ,nipper4 ,major ,bagstock is the most unpleasant of ,dickens's humorous characters4 ,in this novel ,dickens trespassed on ,thackeray's preserves with disastrous results4 ,his attempted satire on fashionable society and fashionable marriages1 in the ,cleopatra-,edith-,carker episodes1 should be compared with ,thackeray's treatment of a similar subject in ,the ,newcomes4 ,still1 there is nothing crude about the style of ,dombey2 it has the strength and force of maturity4 ,after ,david ,copperfield1 which is known and loved by every one1 and which is the most purely natural and wholly lovable of ,dickens's books1 we get a series of what may be called splendid failures in ,bleak ,house1 ,little ,dorrit1 ,hard ,times1 ,our ,mutual ,friend1 and ,great ,expectations4 ,they all contain magnificent patches1 but they fail to impress one like the earlier books4 ,it is some time now since ,i read ,bleak ,house1 and ,i must say ,i have very faint recollections of the greater part of it1 whereas the earlier works are unforgettable4 ,proceeding now to a consideration of ,dickens and ,thackeray as humorists1 we may say1 in a general way1 that ,thackeray's humour is largely incidental to his style1 whereas the humour is the very root and groundwork of ,dickens's best and most characteristic writing4 ,it is difficult to define humour1 but it seems to me that it consists1 to a considerable extent1 in an unexpected overthrow of the strictly logical4 ,mr4 ,micawber1 the weak and foolish1 the obvious failure in life1 logically ought to be the most despairing and miserable of men4 ,the fact1 however1 that so far from harbouring self-contempt1 ,mr4 ,micawber has a self-confidence which nothing can destroy1 and that so far from retiring with disgust from a world which offers him nothing but kicks1 he has the most childlike faith in his ultimate acquirement of unlimited halfpence1 strikes us as being such a curious and blessed reversal of the logical order of things that we are pleased with ,mr4 ,micawber4 ,instead of despising him1 we love him4 ,micawber is undoubtedly a fool4 ,nearly all ,dickens's great characters are fools4 ,they are persons whom we should avoid in real life2 but the gospel of ,dickens1 as ,chesterton says1 is to suffer fools gladly4 ,every instant we neglect a great fool merely because he is foolish4 ,every day we neglect ,tootses and ,swivellers1 ,guppys and ,joblings4 ,every day we are missing a monster whom we might love1 and an imbecile whom we should certainly admire4 ,the humour of ,dickens took the failures of life and turned them into successes4 ,true humour is seldom far separated from pathos1 and with ,dickens1 even while we laugh1 we pity and we love4 ,with ,thackeray we laugh1 but as a rule we do not love nor pity1 we despise4 ,the element of pathos is in general absent from ,thackeray's humour2 hence it is not really true humour at all2 it is an inverted way of looking at things which strikes us as being funny4 ,but the critic is always with ,thackeray1 hidden beneath the humorist4 ,it is impossible for him to produce a lovable fool1 for it is impossible for him to conceal the fact that he knows his character is a fool1 and despises him accordingly4 ,take ,jos4 ,sedley in ,vanity ,fair4 ,the big ,anglo-,indian was just the stuff of which a good ,dickens's character is made4 ,he is just the right sort of fool4 ,but ,thackeray goes out of his way to make him as contemptible as he is laughable1 and in the end we are extremely glad to be rid of ,mr4 ,jos4 ,in other words1 with ,thackeray the humour is nearly always overweighed by the satire4 ,thackeray is always considered as a satirist par excellence4 ,but ,dickens also is a satirist of another and perhaps a more effective kind4 ,thackeray's satire is the keen1 cold1 pitiless dissection of a surgeon4 ,he lays bare every motive1 every contemptible little spring of action4 ,he tries1 indeed1 by his humorous manner to convince us that he is not all the time desperately in earnest1 but behind it all we feel the preacher warning us1 holding up examples for us1 imploring us not to be or do likewise4 ,in the character of ,mr4 ,osborne1 for example1 we have the city magnate1 self-made and able1 but the slave of money4 ,he is under the impression that money can make up for the vulgarity and coarseness of which he is vaguely conscious4 ,when poor ,sedley1 his old friend1 is broken1 he casts him off without pity2 along with ,sedley's money1 all his value in ,osborne's eyes had disappeared4 ,the latter lavished his wealth in trying to make his son a gentleman1 and the result is that miserable cad1 ,george ,osborne1 who despises his father1 disappoints his wishes out of obstinacy1 marries ,amelia out of bravado1 tires of her and proceeds to flirt with ,becky ,sharp1 and dies a hero's death at ,waterloo because he cannot help himself4 ,thackeray shows it all up without mercy1 and he is always showing up similar things in great profusion4 ,his satire depends largely for its effect on his manner4 ,he conceals from us his indignation and contempt for the vices he describes1 and writes of them carelessly1 almost flippantly1 as if they were the most natural things in the world4 ,this is another effect gained by the reversal of the logical4 ,but is such satire effective8 ,i doubt it4 ,i doubt that all ,thackeray's analysis of the vice and rottenness of fashionable society ever turned one sinner from the evil of his ways4 ,people do not mind being shown up1 although they hate to be made ridiculous4 ,now ,dickens's method of satirizing was to make the objects which he attacked ridiculous4 ,he took the weak points of a man or an institution1 carried them to extremes and showed their logical absurdity4 ,when people saw in the person of ,bumble what workhouse beadles were--not bad1 not vicious--but absurd institutions1 they desired to get rid of them4 ,dickens might have abused ,yorkshire schools till he was blue in the face1 have analysed and shown up their weak points1 and written to the papers1 and yet might have done little good4 ,instead1 he drew ,squeers1 and while people laughed consumedly1 they also made a mental note that such persons as ,squeers were an absurd blot on our social system and should forthwith be abolished4 ,when ,dickens wished to satirize ,america1 he did not make an exhaustive analysis of the ,american system4 ,he simply accepted its absurdities1 exaggerated them to the utmost limit1 embodied them in ,elijah ,pogram1 ,jefferson ,brick1 and their fellows1 and drew a crushing satirical picture of a state of society eaten up with self-conceit4 ,when a man beholds his natural face in a distorting mirror1 he is not quite so pleased with himself as before2 and when the ,americans beheld themselves in the mirror of ,martin ,chuzzlewit they were not pleased either4 ,if ,thackeray had taken on himself to analyse and expose their moral corruption1 they would probably have felt flattered4 ,dickens's method of satire was the reductio ad absurdum1 and appealed to the imagination4 ,further1 ,thackeray's satire was generally aimed at individuals and had for its object moral reform4 ,we must admit1 however1 in favour of ,thackeray's method that it produced brilliant1 consistent1 and life-like pictures of society such as ,dickens was wholly incapable of drawing4 ,if you want real life1 go to ,thackeray2 but if you wish to get out of this world for a while1 and take a short holiday in another and a more pleasant world1 go to ,dickens4 ,i hope no one will think that ,i am here belittling the genius of ,thackeray4 ,vanity ,fair will ever stand as one of the most brilliant works of fiction in the language4 ,it is more consistently good than anything ,dickens ever did4 ,as a humorous and1 at the same time1 dreadfully caustic picture of society it is incomparable4 ,in breadth of view and variety of incident it rivals ,tom ,jones2 in minute observation of detail it reminds one of ,jane ,austen4 ,it is as a creator of character that1 in my opinion1 ,dickens has his greatest advantage over ,thackeray4 ,the man who maintains that ,dickens is a genius of the first order must be finally driven to take his stand on ,dickens's characters4 ,thackeray's characters are photographic2 they are excellent copies of life4 ,yet1 admirable as many of them are1 we can never quite get away from the suspicion that they were made for a purpose4 ,thackeray takes them to pieces with such skill that we are half inclined to think that he also puts them together4 ,but ,dickens's characters are pure creatures of the imagination4 ,they are not studies of1 but splendid additions to1 the human race4 ,dickens does not analyse their motives1 and could not if he would4 ,he describes them1 and we feel that they are alive4 ,the very smallest of them is indelibly impressed on our imagination4 ,dickens conquered ,thackeray completely in his minor characters4 ,i have read ,the ,newcomes recently1 for example1 but ,i have no clear idea of the distinction between ,mrs4 ,brian ,newcome and ,mrs4 ,hobson ,newcome2 ,i have read ,chuzzlewit less recently1 but ,i am quite clear about ,mr4 ,chevy ,slime and ,mr4 ,tigg4 ,thackeray produced a tremendous variety of characters1 but the large majority of them1 ,i should say1 are unpleasant4 ,thackeray1 when all is said and done1 was first and last a moralist2 and it was his aim as a moralist to make his characters unpleasant4 ,there are few lovable characters in ,pendennis2 there are none in ,vanity ,fair4 ,the few respectable characters are all figure-heads1 and as for the remainder1 if it were not for the humour and dramatic force with which they are pictured to us1 the description of such people as ,becky ,sharp1 ,sir ,pitt ,crawley1 ,lord ,steyne1 and ,jos4 ,sedley could give little pleasure4 ,as it is1 one feels that outside the pages of ,thackeray one would give a good deal to avoid meeting them4 ,but who would not give his dearest possession for the privilege of beholding in the flesh ,sam ,weller1 ,mr4 ,micawber1 ,sairey ,gamp1 ,mr4 ,dick1 and even such unmitigated scoundrels as ,jingle and ,squeers4 ,there are in ,dickens many sorts of characters1 but only one sort is great--the characters whom ,dickens himself found amusing4 ,the characters he admired1 such as ,nicholas1 are wooden2 the characters he hated are too hateful2 but the characters1 whether pleasant or unpleasant1 in whom he found something amusing are all at least interesting4 ,those whom he found amusing and at the same time lovable are his greatest characters4 ,the persons in ,dickens's pages whom ,i call his great characters are frequently accused of being impossible4 ,you might as well say that a hippopotamus or a duck-billed platypus is impossible because it does not suit your ideas of what is right and proper4 ,the existence of the hippopotamus is its justification1 and it is so also with a ,dickens character4 ,it is obviously not copied1 nor is it a mere abstraction4 ,it is vividly alive4 ,you could not have created it1 and you know that nobody else but ,dickens could4 ,i think it quite possible that a very clever man might produce a ,colonel ,newcome1 or a ,blanche ,amory1 or even a ,becky ,sharp2 but ,i assert that no one but ,dickens could produce a ,sairey ,gamp or a ,mr4 ,toots1 and that nobody would be mad enough to try4 ,dickens's characters are improbable1 that ,i grant you4 ,but any man with a marked individuality is improbable4 ,it is all the people in the world to one against his being what he is4 ,dickens's characters are just a little more improbable1 that is all4 ,dickens's work is called by ,chesterton rather mythology than history or fiction1 the mythology of the lower middle class4 ,micawber and ,pecksniff1 like ,falstaff and ,lear1 ,hector and ,achilles1 are immortal realities1 an undying possession of humanity4 ,their alleged impossibility is1 in fact1 their passport to immortality4 ,thackeray's exact copies of life may grow faded and out of date2 but ,dickens's creations will never be any more impossible than when he created them4 ,they will never be too impossible for our acceptance4 ,the glories of a ,toots and a ,swiveller were veiled from the eyes of ,thackeray4 ,if he could have conceived such characters1 he would have exposed their weaknesses 7an easy task71 and covered them with ridicule and contempt4 ,but as depicted by the kindly hand of ,dickens1 who is not ready to own them as fellow creatures and admit that they are lovable8 ,the mention of ,pecksniff reminds me that ,dickens is sometimes accused of merely attaching a label to his characters1 of making them living embodiments of some trait or peculiarity2 in other words1 that ,dickens1 like ,ben ,jonson1 made his characters mere illustrations of some particular humour4 ,thus ,mark ,tapley may be designated by the word jolly1 ,micawber will always be hoping for something to turn up1 ,pecksniff will always be playing the hypocrite4 ,but though ,pecksniff is first and foremost a hypocrite1 and though ,dickens's purpose is undoubtedly to impress on us and exaggerate his hypocrisy1 he has all the other essentials of a human being4 ,he can1 for example1 get drunk4 ,let me read a few extracts from that marvellous scene from ,martin ,chuzzlewit when ,mr4 ,pecksniff gets tipsy at ,todgers' ,boarding ,house4 ,if any one1 after reading it1 can still assert that it is an abstraction or impossible1 ,i give him up in despair4 ,the gentlemen1 after the toasts have been drunk1 rejoin the ladies3 ,mr4 ,pecksniff had followed his younger friends up-stairs and taken a chair at the side of ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,he had also spilt a cup of coffee over his legs without appearing to be aware of the circumstance2 nor did he seem to know that there was muffin on his knee4 ,and how have they used you down-stairs1 sir8 asked the hostess4 ,their conduct has been such1 my dear madam1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 as ,i can never think of without emotion1 or remember without a tear4 ,oh1 ,mrs4 ,todgers6 ,my goodness6 exclaimed the lady4 ,how low you are in your spirits1 sir6 ,i am a man1 my dear madam1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 shedding tears1 and speaking with an imperfect articulation1 but ,i am also a father4 ,i am also a widower4 ,my feelings1 ,mrs4 ,todgers1 will not consent to be entirely smothered1 like the young children in the ,tower4 ,they are grown up1 and the more ,i press the bolster on them1 the more they look round the corner of it4 ,he suddenly became conscious of the bit of muffin1 and stared at it intently3 shaking his head the while1 in a forlorn and imbecile manner1 as if he regarded it as his evil genius1 and mildly reproached it4 ,she was beautiful1 ,mrs4 ,todgers1 he said1 turning his glazed eye again upon her1 without the least preliminary notice4 ,she had a small property4 ,so ,i have heard1 said ,mrs4 ,todgers with great sympathy4 ,those are her daughters1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 pointing out the young ladies1 with increased emotion4 ,mrs4 ,todgers had no doubt about it4 ,mercy and ,charity1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 ,charity and ,mercy4 ,not unholy names1 ,i hope8 ,mr4 ,pecksniff6 cried ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,what a ghastly smile6 ,are you ill1 sir8 ,he pressed his hand upon her arm1 and answered in a solemn manner1 and a faint voice1 ,chronic4 ,chronic8 cried the frightened ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,chron-ic1 he repeated with some difficulty4 ,chronic4 ,a chronic disorder4 ,i have been its victim from childhood4 ,it is carrying me to my grave4 ,heaven forbid6 cried ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,yes1 it is1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 reckless with despair4 ,i am rather glad of it1 upon the whole4 ,you are like her1 ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,don't squeeze me so tight1 pray1 ,mr4 ,pecksniff4 ,if any of the gentlemen should notice us4 ,for her sake1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff4 ,permit me4 ,in honour of her memory4 ,for the sake of a voice from the tomb4 ,you are very like her1 ,mrs4 ,todgers6 ,what a world this is6 ,ah6 ,indeed you may say that6 cried ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,i am afraid it is a vain and thoughtless world1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 overflowing with despondency4 ,these young people about us4 ,oh6 what sense have they of their responsibilities8 ,none4 ,give me your other hand1 ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,the lady hesitated1 and said she didn't like4 ,has a voice from the grave no influence8 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff with dismal tenderness4 ,this is irreligious6 ,my dear creature4 ,hush6 urged ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,really you mustn't4 ,it's not me1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff4 ,don't suppose it's me3 it's the voice2 it's her voice4 ,mrs4 ,pecksniff1 deceased1 must have had an unusually thick and husky voice for a lady1 and rather a stuttering voice1 and to say the truth somewhat of a drunken voice1 if it had ever borne much resemblance to that in which ,mr4 ,pecksniff spoke just then4 ,but perhaps this was delusion on his part4 ,it has been a day of enjoyment1 ,mrs4 ,todgers1 but still it has been a day of torture4 ,it has reminded me of my loneliness4 ,what am ,i in the world8 ,an excellent gentleman1 ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 said ,mrs4 ,todgers4 ,there is consolation in that too1 cried ,mr4 ,pecksniff4 ,am ,i8 ,there is no better man living1 said ,mrs4 ,todgers1 ,i am sure4 ,mr4 ,pecksniff smiled through his tears1 and slightly shook his head4444 ,chronic--chronic6 ,let's have a little drop of something to drink4 ,bless my life1 ,miss ,pecksniffs6 cried ,mrs4 ,todgers1 aloud1 your dear pa 's took very poorly6 ,mr4 ,pecksniff straightened himself by a surprising effort1 as every one turned hastily towards him2 and standing on his feet1 regarded the assembly with a look of ineffable wisdom4 ,gradually it gave place to a smile2 a feeble1 helpless1 melancholy smile2 bland almost to sickliness4 ,do not repine1 my friends1 said ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 tenderly4 ,do not weep for me4 ,it is chronic4 ,and with these words1 after making a futile attempt to pull off his shoes1 he fell into the fireplace4 ,in conclusion1 ,i am sorry that ,i have not time to discuss the actual style of our two writers4 ,i had hoped to dwell a little on ,dickens's descriptive power1 in which he far excels ,thackeray2 on that wonderful photographic imagination of his which impresses on our minds the scenery of his novels down to the smallest details as vividly as it was impressed on his own1 on his splendid handling of crowds and big stage effects4 ,i am afraid that in the foregoing remarks ,i have dwelt too much on ,dickens's strong points2 ,i have said nothing of his cheap melodrama1 his maudlin pathos1 his frequent bad taste2 but after all1 these are but comparatively small blots on a great genius1 and they nearly always occur where ,dickens is trying to impress us in a way that does not come naturally to him4 ,i am afraid1 also1 that ,i have emphasized mainly ,thackeray's weak points and neglected his strong ones4 ,i set off1 however1 avowedly as a champion of ,dickens1 and ,i should find it hard to pose as an impartial judge1 for while ,i only admire ,thackeray1 ,i love ,dickens4 ,,pessimism ,this poem and the poem entitled ,eternal ,silence were found among ,professor ,bateman's papers4 ,while there is some doubt as to their authorship1 there are indications that they are probably his workmanship4 ,,what ,,is ,,the ,,end ,,to ,,which ,,all ,,things ,,progress8 ,no man will ever know2 ,not though for countless years ,not though with toil and tears ,millions of human brains ,ever more strong and clear1 ,rise on this planet here2 ,and with more perfect skill1 ,with cunning greater still ,than any yet attains1 ,probe for the mystery4 ,why all these burning suns ,ringed with their planets ,driving through endless space8 ,by what strange accident ,rose there to consciousness ,on this poor ball of earth ,a being aware1 ,who can wonder and question8 ,a speck in the ,universe1 ,who looks up aghast ,at the glittering riddle ,that night ever brings him8 ,one speck that dissents ,from the law of the ,whole1 ,the one interruption ,to the balanced perfection1 ,the voiceless and passionless life ,of the meaningless ,whole8 ,and when1 in countless years1 ,at last comes the moment ,when this little system1 ,the sun and the moon and the stars that are seven1 ,shall crash to its doom ',gainst some on-coming sphere-world1 ,and with infinite roaring ,and hideous combustion1 ,burst all into atoms ,and seething abysses ,of nebulae1 fiery and whirling1 ,then1 with it shall perish ,the last fading traces ,of life and of love ,and of human endeavour ,that are left on this cold1 lifeless earth-star2 ,and so shall go on ,for ever and ever ,through infinite spaces1 ,world making and breaking1 ,and ,man's little moment1 ,his life on this planet1 ,a drop in the ages1 ,shall pass unlamented1 ,shall pass unrecurring1 ,a strange inexplicable chance ,in the meaningless ,whole4 ,,brains ,,and ,,intellect ,a fugitive production--occasion unknown ,accepting the well-known dictum of ,appius ,claudius that the government is the belly of the body-politic1 and the general mob of citizens the limbs and outward flourishes1 what section of the community1 shall we say1 constitutes the brains8 ,we might1 at first1 be inclined to assign the role of brains to those members of the community who are particularly occupied with the pursuit of learning1 such as1 for example 7to take a large and representative class71 ,university professors4 ,a little reflection1 however1 suffices to show that we should be mistaken4 ,the men who are usually spoken of as the brains of the community are of a very different type from ,university professors4 ,they are men who maintain fair round bellies and expansive watch chains1 who ride in automobiles and smoke imposing cigars4 ,clearly1 ,university professors are not in this class4 ,where1 then1 shall we place those members of the community who make the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake their chief occupation8 ,it may help us towards the solution of this weighty problem if we make a distinction between brains and intellect1 and call such people as professors1 philosophers1 and poets the intellect of the community4 ,we shall then have to define clearly what we mean by brains1 and what we mean by intellect4 ,brains are what a man uses when he has some practical end in view1 such as more money in his pocket1 better food to eat1 better clothes to wear2 intellect deals with problems 7usually classed as academic7 which have no immediate commercial value--such as whether the sun goes round the earth or the earth round the sun1 or why an apple falls to the ground4 ,brains are generally admired1 because everybody can see the results which they achieve2 intellect is usually treated with neglect or indifference because it works in a sphere which is far out of range of the common vision4 ,what1 then1 is the justification for the maintenance in a community of a purely intellectual class of people1 occupied with problems which have nothing to do with actual life1 and which apparently contribute nothing to the common stock of useful knowledge1 the kind of knowledge that can be turned into money4 ,why1 for example1 do we maintain at great expense in our universities professors of literature1 philosophy1 and pure science to devote their time to the study of merely academic problems1 and to teach our sons and daughters such a smattering of these things as is of no practical use to them whatever1 and which causes most of them a good deal of trouble and annoyance8 ,it is easy to understand why we should maintain professors of such subjects as engineering1 dentistry1 and agriculture1 for engines and teeth are both things that will not allow themselves to be neglected1 and it is undoubtedly a good thing to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before4 ,but why should a man be afraid to devote his time to making an appreciation of ,greek tragedy grow where none grew before1 or to try to arouse an interest in such a problem as the psychology of metre4 ,it may be argued1 of course1 that ,university professors provide a good deal of amusement for their students1 that their personal peculiarities1 carefully observed through four years of class-room work1 often furnish rich entertainment at convivial gatherings4 ,or1 again1 it may be urged that the study of professors 7in so far as professors can be regarded as human7 is the study of human nature1 and that students who observe their professors carefully are gaining an acquaintance with a practical branch of the science of anthropology4 ,but neither of these answers to our question can be regarded as wholly satisfactory4 ,let us consider briefly the function of intellect in the individual1 and see if it will throw any light on the function of the intellectual class in the community4 ,when intellect is developed at all in the average citizen1 its sole function seems to be to make him either uncomfortable or objectionable4 ,for suppose a small puny growth of intellect does appear in a man1 it generally has one of two effects2 either it makes him dissatisfied with himself1 troubled with vague yearnings after a higher life1 worried with misgivings on religious questions1 annoyed by the feeling that he ought to be able to enjoy books and pictures and music which afford him no real enjoyment2 or1 he becomes abnormally satisfied with himself1 propounds half-baked theories of the universe1 teems with criticisms of books which he has not read or does not understand1 or bubbles over with solutions of problems upon which he has never seriously pondered4 ,the one thing that such men can seldom be got to do is to set to work to develop that little growth of intellect1 to feed and nourish it by the study of literature and philosophy1 so that they may at last be enabled to think out problems for themselves1 or at least to appreciate intelligently the solutions of them which great thinkers have placed on record4 ,when1 oh when1 will men understand that intellectual things are not an amusement nor a hobby1 to be taken up as a side-line in one's spare time1 but that the appreciation of the things of the intellect is the reward of the most difficult and baffling of all kinds of labour2 that one will appreciate ,plato or ,sophocles1 ,shakespeare or ,milton1 ,descartes or ,newton1 precisely in proportion to the distance which one has climbed along the rugged path which leads to the intellectual peaks upon which those giants of thought sit eternally throned1 that the cultivation of the intellect is not the work of four years or forty years1 but of a lifetime1 nay1 of many lifetimes8 ,to spend uncounted years of pain1 ,again1 again1 and yet again1 ,in working out in heart and brain1 ,the problem of our being here1 ,to gather facts from far and near1 ,upon the mind to hold them clear ,and knowing more may yet appear1 ,unto one's latest breath to fear1 ,the premature result to draw-- ,is the object1 end and law1 ,and purpose of our being here8 asks ,clough1 and to this question all our greatest thinkers have answered--,yes4 ,it is the few who are convinced of the value and seriousness of intellectual things1 and who do not flinch from the self-sacrifice and apparently fruitless labour which the pursuit of such things involves1 that humanity as a whole owes its progress4 ,if it were not for these men1 whom ,bunyan would call the intellectual ,greathearts of the community1 we should still1 as a race1 be sunk in barbarism4 ,intellect in the average man is allowed to atrophy2 in the small percentage who strive after culture it accomplishes nothing of value1 but it is the latter people who form the rank and file of the intellectual army4 ,gradually1 little by little1 that army is advancing24 every now and then some great general appears--a ,plato1 a ,shakespeare1 a ,newton1 a ,kant1 a ,darwin--and under his leadership a victory is won2 now this outpost of the hosts of darkness is captured1 now that1 and the flag of the human intellect is raised upon its ramparts4 ,meanwhile1 the mass of mankind trudges on heavily1 often two or three centuries behind4 ,next arrive the inventors1 the reformers1 the men of constructive intellect1 who take the results of the great thinkers and plan their application to life2 and lastly come the men of brains in their fur coats and fair round bellies1 promote their companies1 organize their industries1 make their political speeches1 and finally gather in the shekels1 and also most of the honour and glory4 ,by this time the intellectual army is again far ahead1 attacking the next outpost of the kingdom of chaos and ,old ,night4 ,and so humanity moves onward and upward4 ,what1 then1 is the function of the academic class in the community8 ,simply to keep the flag of human intellect flying1 a work which1 in most cases1 involves some self-sacrifice in those who devote themselves to it4 ,a professor1 for example1 though a man of intellect1 is not necessarily devoid of brains1 and he might well turn those brains to advantage in some more lucrative profession4 ,as it is1 he is compelled to a large extent to sacrifice his individuality1 to degrade his intellect with drudgery which is beneath it1 to stand as a mere intermediary or conduit-pipe between the student and knowledge4 ,at the same time1 if1 out of the hundreds of students who pass through his hands in one academic year1 he succeeds in inspiring even a single individual with a true desire for culture1 his existence for that year is fully justified1 for has he not added one member to the band of intellectual pioneers who will finally1 we hope1 take possession1 in the name of humanity1 of the whole universe of thought8 ,come1 my friends1 ,push off1 and sitting well in order1 smite ,the sounding furrows1 for our purpose holds ,to sail beyond the sunset1 and the baths ,of all the western stars until we die4 ,it may be that the gulfs will wash us down2 ,it may be we shall touch the ,happy ,isles ,and see the great ,achilles1 whom we knew4 ,,the ,,eternal ,,silence ,around this rolling sphere of ,man ,there lies a vast ,unknown1 ,beyond the space that he can scan ,with tracts of starlight sown4 ,beneath the shadow of th' ,unknown ,from age to age he stands1 ,and to the ,void in wavering hope ,he stretches praying hands4 ,but in the ,void no signs appear1 ,it stands unbroken still1 ,and from the void no word of cheer1 ,but silence deep and chill4 ,and when the upstart race of men ,has ceased from all this earth1 ,when past is their brave strife with ,fate1 ,when past are ,death and ,birth2 ,when lifeless1 sightless1 blank and cold ,the home of man's poor breath2 ,still will this ball through space be rolled1 ,in ,silence deep as death4 ,,part ,,ii ,,reginald ,,bateman ,,soldier ,illustration3 ,reginald ,bateman ,,the ,,war ,this address1 which aroused much criticism in the press1 is compiled from a newspaper report and some notes found among ,professor ,bateman's papers4 ,it is probably incomplete1 but is included because of the interest attaching to it4 ,the address was delivered before the ,university ,y4,m4,c4,a4 on ,sunday1 #be ,october #aiad1 on the eve of the departure of ,professor ,bateman's battalion4 ,this was in the early days of the war1 before the magnitude of the struggle had been generally realized1 and there were those who had tried to persuade ,professor ,bateman that his higher duty lay at home4 ,his address was prompted in part by this circumstance1 and was a vindication of his enlisting4 ,it was also prompted by a colleague's address from the same platform contrasting ,samuel1 who hewed ,agag in pieces1 with ,christ1 ,who commanded ,peter to put up the sword--a plea for the peaceful settlement of personal and national disputes4 ,professor ,bateman had for several years declined to address the ,university ,y4,m4,c4,a41 because he had never before felt that he had a message for them4 ,so1 although there is here much of the young man glorying in his strength and rejoicing to run the race1 the address was not penned without thought and consideration4 ,we hear much1 perhaps too much1 at the present time of the horrors of war2 ,i wish to-day to speak to you of its blessings4 ,far be it from me to minimize the dark side of war4 ,only those who have actually experienced warfare can form an adequate idea of the horrors of campaigns and battlefields4 ,but ,i wish to impress on you to-day the fact that war has compensations1 and that it is by no means an unmitigated evil4 ,the ,power ,who manifests ,himself to us in the phenomena of this ,universe has apparently decreed that war should be the supreme test of both the nation and the individual4 ,biologically1 struggle and self-sacrifice by one generation on behalf of the next are the conditions of the perpetuation of a species4 ,a similar law of competition seems to hold for those aggregates of men which we call nations4 ,history teaches that once a nation ceases to struggle or to be prepared to struggle for its existence1 once it loses its military spirit and the willingness to fight to the death1 if need be1 for its national honour1 its greatness invariably declines1 and its growth ceases4 ,of course1 competition among nations may be carried on by other means than by war4 ,commercial rivalry1 diplomatic rivalry1 artistic rivalry1 are all important means of progress1 but war is the one supreme1 the only entirely adequate test of a nation's spiritual quality4 ,readiness for war is a token of national righteousness4 ,in the sense in which ,i use the words1 readiness for war does not mean a national spirit of militarism and aggressiveness1 the spirit which has so often proved the downfall of great military powers4 ,it is a readiness which is the result of a clean and vigorous national life during times of peace2 a readiness which springs not so much from direct military training as from a high national idea of physical and mental fitness4 ,the ideal soldier is not he who has been drilled into a military machine in times of peace1 but he who is physically and mentally fit to become an efficient soldier1 if need be1 on short notice in time of war4 ,self-sacrifice1 self-denial1 temperance1 hardihood1 discipline1 obedience1 order1 method1 organizing power1 intelligence1 purity of public life1 chastity1 industry1 resolution are some only of the national and individual attributes which go towards producing the efficiency of modern armaments4 ,the broad rule which one deduces from a general survey of the history of human progress--a rule to which1 no doubt1 some exceptions can be found--is that the failure of nations to meet the test of war has always been the result of the decay of national morality1 and that success in war has been an indication of national virtue4 ,right has not1 indeed1 always been might1 but right has always tended to create might4 ,rome conquered ,greece because her sons were hardier1 stronger1 and more imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice2 ,rome herself1 centuries later1 fell a victim to the inroads of the ,goths because of the corruption of her national virtue and the decay of her military spirit through self-indulgence and immorality4 ,the refined sensuality of the ,roman could not withstand the rude virtue of the barbarian4 ,and generally1 to quote ,harold ,wyatt1 history has repeatedly proved that efficiency in war1 or for war1 is ,god's test of a nation's soul4 ,by that test it stands1 or by that test it falls4 ,this is the ethical content of competition4 ,this is the determining factor of human history4 ,this is the justification of war4 ,the terrible punishment provided by war for national depravity has been1 perhaps1 the chief stimulus in the progress of mankind4 ,behind the horror and havoc of the field of battle1 therefore1 is working a ,power which makes for righteousness1 and which has ordained that the nation which1 from the righteousness of its cause and its fitness to defend that cause1 best deserves the victory1 shall win it4 ,such is apparently the law of human progress1 and we must accept it as we accept other seemingly unpleasant facts of our present existence2 as we accept1 for example1 the fact of death4 ,it is only by death that life is possible2 it is only by struggle and self-sacrifice that national progress is possible4 ,do not1 therefore1 be lulled into a sense of false security by the talk of universal peace1 or by assertions that the present war must be the last in human history2 but determine that1 should you have the opportunity1 you will do your part to make the nation to which you belong fit for its supreme test1 the test of war4 ,if you do not1 you are a traitor to the past generations who won by struggle and self-sacrifice the heritage which you now enjoy1 and to the future generations1 who demand that you shall pass on that heritage1 not diminished1 but increased4 ,but take care that you do not mistake a national spirit of greed and aggressiveness for virtue4 ,remember ,kipling's warning that military force should be used only for the defence or enforcement of just rights or for those which you truly and firmly believe to be just4 ,the tumult and the shouting dies2 ,the captains and the kings depart2 ,still stands ,thine ancient sacrifice1 ,an humble and a contrite heart4 ,lord ,god of ,hosts1 be with us yet1 ,lest we forget--lest we forget6 ,if1 drunk with sight of power1 we loose ,wild tongues that have not ,thee in awe1 ,such boastings as the ,gentiles use1 ,or lesser breeds without the ,law-- ,lord ,god of ,hosts1 be with us yet1 ,lest we forget--lest we forget6 ,for heathen heart that puts her trust ,in reeking tube and iron shard1 ,all valiant dust that builds on dust ,and1 guarding1 calls not ,thee to guard1 ,for frantic boast and foolish word-- ,thy ,mercy on ,thy ,people1 ,lord6 ,national greed and aggressiveness must1 sooner or later1 bring their own punishment4 ,now let us look at war from the standpoint of the individual4 ,the sacrifice of individual lives is for many men the most prominent fact of war4 ,they look upon a field of battle1 and are filled with dismay at the sight of heaped-up carnage and garments rolled in blood1 but fail to find there the radiance of high endeavour and the glow of great achievement4 ,like ,carlyle1 in his famous reductio ad absurdum of war in the ,sartor1 they see only the physical side of war1 and neglect its ethical and spiritual content4 ,of course1 this is a piece of perversity on ,carlyle's part4 ,what1 speaking in quite unofficial language1 is the net-purport and upshot of war8 ,to my own knowledge1 for example1 there dwell and toil1 in the ,british village of ,dumdrudge usually some five hundred souls4 ,from these1 by certain ,natural ,enemies of the ,french1 there are successively selected1 during the ,french war1 say thirty able-bodied men3 ,dumdrudge1 at her own expense1 has suckled and nursed them3 she has1 not without difficulty and sorrow1 fed them up to manhood1 and even trained them to crafts1 so that one can weave1 another build1 another hammer1 and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois4 ,nevertheless1 amid much weeping and swearing1 they are selected2 all dressed in red2 and shipped away1 at the public charges1 some two-thousand miles1 or say only to the south of ,spain2 and fed there till wanted4 ,and now to that same spot1 in the south of ,spain1 are thirty similar ,french artisans1 from a ,french ,dumdrudge1 in like manner wending3 till at length1 after infinite effort1 the two parties come into actual juxtaposition3 and ,thirty stands fronting ,thirty1 each with a gun in his hand4 ,straightway the word ,fire6 is given3 and they blow the souls out of one another2 and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen the world has sixty dead carcasses1 which it must bury1 and anew shed tears for4 ,had these men any quarrel8 ,busy as the ,devil is1 not the smallest6 ,they lived far enough apart2 were the entirest strangers2 nay1 in so wide a ,universe1 there was even1 unconsciously1 by ,commerce1 some mutual helpfulness between them4 ,how then8 ,simpleton6 their ,governors had fallen-out2 and instead of shooting one another1 had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot4 ,alas1 so it is in ,deutschland1 and hitherto in all other lands2 still as of old1 what devilry soever ,kings do1 the ,greeks must pay the piper6 ,in that fiction of the ,english ,smollett1 it is true1 the final ,cessation of ,war is perhaps prophetically shadowed forth2 where the two ,natural ,enemies1 in person1 take each a ,tobacco-pipe1 filled with ,brimstone2 light the same1 and smoke in one another's faces1 till the weaker gives in3 but from such predicted ,peace-,era1 what blood-filled trenches1 and contentious centuries1 may still divide us6 ,but what if these men of ,dumdrudge are not blockheads at all1 but high-souled1 clear-sighted men8 ,what if they do not go to the war because their rulers tell them to1 but because they believe in the justice of their cause1 and consider it not only a duty but a privilege to lay down their lives1 if necessary1 to maintain it8 ,tennyson gets a nearer view of the truth in ,maud1 when he represents war as the purifier which purges the corruption of a too-long-continued peace1 and which saves nation and individual alike from sloth and selfishness4 ,peace under a just and beneficent government is surely a blessing of the first magnitude4 ,but those who enjoy it1 and surely this applies to us1 must never forget at what price that blessing was bought and at what price it must be maintained4 ,they must not grow petty and self-indulgent1 and forget that they possess a heritage won for them by the sacrifice of others4 ,is it not far better that they should feel a thrill of patriotism at the rude touch of war1 and die striking a blow for freedom1 than that they should live to a dishonoured old age1 seeking beggarly gain8 ,let us have less talk of the horrors of war and more talk of its blessings4 ,most of those who speak of the horrors of war fail to recognize that it is those horrors which give war its great1 its inestimable value4 ,it would1 no doubt1 be very pleasant if war could be conducted in a polite and gentlemanly way1 if it could be arranged that nobody would get killed1 and that wounds and bloodshed would be reduced to a minimum4 ,if that were so1 we could all play at the game4 ,but where would be our heroes1 our hearts of triple steel8 ,where would be their victories over death and the fear of death1 and their leading of captivity captive8 ,we could then1 like ,falstaff1 fill up our armies with toasts-and-butter1 with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads1 and nobody would be a jot the worse4 ,but war robbed of its terror would be war without glory1 and one of the greatest and grandest of experiences which ,destiny allows to man would no longer be possible4 ,to endure gladly the most severe labour and hardship1 to grapple with a mortal foe in deadly strife1 a strife without mercy and without remorse1 to pass through ,hell unterrified1 to wrest one's life by main force from the very jaws of death1 and to do all this1 not for pay1 but for one's country1 this is1 perhaps1 the very climax of human endeavour4 ,and what of the many who do not win through1 but must leave their bodies upon the field of battle8 ,we may not agree with ,horace that such a death is sweet and becoming1 but surely it is sweeter and more becoming than the majority of deaths which men are called on to endure4 ,who would not rather die in the fullness of strength1 with the shout of battle upon his lips1 than succumb to the attacks of some disease which degrades the body and unhinges the mind1 and pass away at last from a fleshly house that is no longer fit for the soul to inhabit1 wringing the hearts of the bystanders with incoherent babblings8 ,the death roll of war1 still far from complete1 reaches back into the unfathomable past which lies far beyond the ken of man4 ,the immensity of that death roll is dreadful to contemplate4 ,but a past unstained by the blood of human strife would be more dreadful still4 ,no doubt there would be to-day more people living in the world1 but those high virtues which are realized to the full in war and war alone--courage and self-sacrifice--would be dead beyond all hope of resurrection4 ,it was war which gave birth to the ideals of chivalry and honour2 it is war which keeps those ideals alive in an age of sordid commercialism4 ,it is the possibility of war1 however remotely realized1 which makes our young men keep their bodies clean and strong1 and their souls free from that lowest form of selfishness1 the selfishness of ,parolles1 which puts life before honour1 which says3 ,let me live1 sir1 in a dungeon1 in the stocks1 or anywhere1 so ,i may live4 ,when the more dangerous of lower animals have been tamed or exterminated1 when locomotion by land1 air1 and sea has become safe and easy1 when--greatest blessing of all--war has ceased to exist1 then surely we shall see the return of the ,golden ,age4 ,perhaps so1 but it will be a ,golden ,age enjoyed by a spineless and emasculated race of beings1 who have forgotten the meaning of the words courage1 honour1 and self-sacrifice4 ,,in ,,the ,,trenches ,an address given in ,saskatoon to a number of returned men and colleagues on the first anniversary of the battle of ,st4 ,julien4 ,professor ,bateman had been recalled from ,france to take command of the ,saskatchewan ,company of the ,western ,universities' ,battalion4 ,twelve months ago1 on ,april #bbnd1 when day broke upon the battlefields of ,flanders1 the new ,canadian army1 which had wallowed all winter in the mud of ,salisbury1 had yet to prove their mettle as fighting men4 ,ere the sun set that day1 they had already won the title1 given them throughout the ,empire when the story of the fight was known1 of ,glorious ,canadians4 ,the reputation won at ,ypres and ,st4 ,julien was fully maintained at the battles of ,festubert and ,givenchy4 ,although we soldiers of the ,second ,contingent experienced fighting on a smaller scale than our comrades of the ,first1 we had quite enough to enable us to realize1 as one who has not been there never can1 a great deal of what the first lot went through4 ,i think it is no exaggeration to say that no soldiers of the ,second or succeeding contingents think it necessary to look anywhere but to the ,first ,canadians for their highest example of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty4 ,i have heard people at home complain that they find it hard to get any information from returned soldiers as to their experience1 or to get any real idea of what the fighting is like4 ,i think the reason is that we are afraid of giving people a false impression1 and that it is impossible to make people grasp the reality of conditions of warfare which have no parallel in history4 ,everybody at home expects a tale of glory and heroism1 but the days of pomp and circumstance of battle are over1 and it is only the ideals for which we are fighting that can dignify the mean and ugly reality of present-day war4 ,besides1 when ,i look back upon the one or two little affairs out of the common in which ,i have taken part1 my impressions are a curious mixture of distinctness and vagueness1 as of a dream or nightmare rather than of a real experience1 and such impressions are difficult to put into words4 ,i was in and out of the trenches for six months as an ,n4,c4,o41 and was in the front line every time but one1 so that as far as the ordinary routine of trench life goes1 ,i am qualified to speak4 ,the shortest phrase ,i know of which attempts to sum up life in the trenches is ,days of unendurable monotony and moments of indescribable fear4 ,that phrase1 as far as it goes1 is a good description1 but it leaves out two important aspects of trench life1 the humorous and the picturesque4 ,it is only a sense of humour that can make the monotony of trench life endurable4 ,any man who went up to the front line expecting to find the heroic defenders grimly defiant and serious over their task would probably be more shocked than amused to find men busy arguing over the division of a pot of jam while ,fritz was generously spraying our line with shrapnel2 or to discover that some fellow was more elated over having swiped someone else's brazier than if he had bayonetted a dozen ,fritzes2 or to discover that the breaking of a rum jar was considered a greater calamity by the whole company than if our trench had been blown to pieces4 ,i have often sat in my dug-out1 just a little way down the communication trench1 and listened to a ration party going up to the front line in the dark with their heavy loads1 wading through mud1 plunging into holes1 falling over broken trench mats1 and ,i have heard with great pleasure the flow of language2 it was immense1 nothing like it is to be heard from any other troops in the world's history4 ,and then there was the picturesque side4 ,my recollections of the trenches come back to me chiefly as a series of pictures4 ,i see the velvety blackness of the night1 cut by streaks of light as the flares go up continually along the front1 as far as the eye can see1 then shed their weird radiance over the mysterious region of ,no ,man's ,land1 while every moving thing beneath their light lies still as death till darkness comes again to hide them from the searching eyes that never cease to scan the space between the trenches4 ,i see the muffled sentries at their posts on the firing step2 ,i hear the irregular crack1 crack of rifle fire along the line as they shoot at a flash from the other trench1 or at some moving object dimly seen through the darkness2 then comes the sharp crackle of rifle fire or the rat-a-tat-tat of the machine-gun as we open upon one of ,fritz's working parties4 ,i see the flash and hear the bang of bursting shrapnel1 or the distant woosh and cr-r-rump of the high explosive2 or there is the dull pop from ,fritz's line1 and high in the air a tract of light makes its way towards our trench4 ,we hear the familiar whoo-oo-oo-oosh1 and we know that one of the dreaded aerial torpedoes is on its way2 we wait with horrible suspense for the sickening thud and roar of the explosion1 and wonder whether it has got anyone this time1 and whether the next is coming our way2 or we are roughly awakened from the deep sleep of exhaustion by someone excitedly pulling at our legs and shouting1 ,gas6 ,we crawl quickly out of the dug-out into the darkness to find our comrades standing to all along the trench in their weird gas helmets1 and presently discover with relief that a nervous listening post has mistaken the mist1 which is rolling up from ,fritz's trench1 for the dreaded chlorine4 ,or we turn from our posts as we hear the shuffle of the stretcher-bearers along the trench1 and we wish some unlucky 7or lucky7 comrade a safe passage to ,blighty4 ,then there are nights to look back upon around the battered old brazier in the dug-out1 when things were quiet1 and we smoked a pipe or sang a song1 and thought of what we should do when we got that leave that never seemed to come1 or the rest which had been promised us every time we came out of the trenches for the last three months4 ,and then there was the tramp back to billets through the shell-torn streets of a deserted ,flemish village1 and the blessed relief of flinging down the pack and rolling up in our blankets for the first straight sleep of many nights4 ,but best of all to look back upon are the good comrades we found in the trenches1 whom we knew we could trust to the death1 if need be4 ,however much we appreciate the comfort of home and the kindness of friends here1 the deepest thoughts of every returned soldier are now1 and will ever be while this war lasts1 with the boys they left behind them1 holding the line4 ,,on ,,the ,,death ,,of ,a ,,comrade ,written in ,england while impatiently waiting to get back to ,france4 ,professor ,bateman had been recalled from the trenches1 where he was sergeant1 to become major of the ,western ,universities' ,battalion1 and then was forced to wait in ,england after this unit was broken up1 while in ,france his former battalion was preparing for ,vimy4 ,this letter was written shortly after its capture4 ,april #bith1 #aiag4 ,dear ,j4 ,v41 ,letter received and contents noted4 ,i can understand how you feel about ,maunsell's death4 ,personally1 ,i have long ago given up theorizing about what may or may not be at the back of phenomena4 ,i confine myself to what ,i can see and know and reason about1 and ,i find that ,i have quite as much as ,i can handle even in that narrow sphere4 ,once one gets into the region of the supernatural1 one man's dream or speculation is just as good or as worthless as another's1 for neither has any foundation in experience1 and experience gives us our only possible basis for the construction of theories about life4 ,so1 though you may allow your thoughts at times to get out of hand and wander about gropingly in a nebulous unknown1 you ought not to allow any baseless theories that result to disturb your peace of mind4 ,if you attach any importance to such propositions about the unknown1 you can find plenty of comforting ones evolved by greater brains than yours1 which you would do better to accept than allow yourself to be worried and made less effective for the business of life by the pessimistic result of your own thinking4 ,constant brain work has a tendency to make a man morbid in his speculations4 ,a free1 open-air life1 practical problems and contact with men who do things rather than theorize about them is a great corrective4 ,no one yet has gone anywhere near solving the riddle of the unknown1 and it may fairly be supposed that the human brain is at present incapable of tackling the problem successfully4 ,it may be that the perpetual struggle after a solution may1 in ages to come1 result in the evolution of a brain which can find an answer to the riddle of life1 in the same way as the constant reaching of the giraffe after food resulted in the production of a neck sufficiently long to solve the giraffe's food problem4 ,meantime1 we must be content to get along with such knowledge as we have1 or else accept a supernatural revelation which is bound at the best to be a bit dim and unsatisfactory1 because it is communicated to us by means of the same imperfect brain4 ,personally1 ,i don't think it matters very much what you believe about the supernatural if you base your actions upon a sane view of what experience has shown to be best4 ,to get and give as much happiness as possible seems to be our plain duty1 and if abnormalities on a tremendous scale like this war crop up1 it is the duty of every one to get to work and sacrifice1 if necessary1 his own chance of happiness in order to restore a state of things where happiness is possible for others4 7,by happiness1 ,i mean contentment1 usually temporary1 with things as they are47 ,experience has given us ample proof of where happiness is to be found as far as it can be realized in this life1 and every one ought to be able to avoid those actions which would seem to bring happiness1 but which have been shown by experience to result in the long run in dissatisfaction4 ,of course1 very few are wise enough to accept the experience of others1 and most men have to get stung many times over before they learn the lessons which countless billions before them learned in precisely the same way4 ,curiously enough1 the highest happiness of which humans are capable seems to be found in the sacrifice of self4 ,maunsell's magnificent devotion to duty and splendid death are of far greater value to us than his continuing to live could have been1 and though he could not have fully realized that fact himself1 he certainly would not have been happy if he had declined the privilege of giving up his own happiness that general happiness might be secured for the world1 thereby paradoxically finding the greatest happiness of all4 ,if he still continues to live1 and can look back on earthly experiences1 he would probably not desire to change his own fate4 ,you can see from all this that my desire to get back to the front is1 in the main1 selfish4 ,i simply cannot be content to stay here handling a job which absorbs scarcely any of my ability or energy1 and which could be as well or better done by some one who is not fit to fight4 ,i went away from the front with the full intention of returning there with men whom ,i had trained to take their part in the scrap4 ,i have been prevented by circumstances from carrying out my scheme1 and ,i shall always regret that ,i did not consider that those who were actually at the front with me had a greater claim on me than any others4 ,if ,i had stayed on1 ,i should have got my commission and should have valued it much more than the one ,i actually did get4 ,i might have been killed1 but ,i was prepared for that1 and ,i think there is no better way a man can die4 ,it is comparatively seldom in the world's history that a man gets the chance to die splendidly4 ,most deaths are somewhat inglorious endings to not very glorious careers4 ,a war like the present gives a man a chance to cancel at one stroke all the pettiness of his life4 ,therefore ,i think it is up to me to do all ,i can to get back to ,france and finish what ,i began4 ,if ,i fail to get there1 it won't be my fault1 and ,i won't worry about it4 ,if ,i depended on the powers that be1 ,i should probably be here for the duration of the war1 and it is possible that ,i may be4 ,but ,i am determined that it is not going to be my fault if ,i am4 ,i did not intend1 when ,i sat down1 to write you more than a brief note4 ,i think my first sentence shows that4 ,all the rest came of itself1 and ,i hope you won't be bored stiff by reading it4 ,best of luck in the ,wall199 ,yours ever1 ,,reg4 ,if you are ever up against it for cash1 or if there is any other way that ,i can help you1 ,i shall be very sore with you if you don't let me know4 ,if you want some good light reading to take your mind off ,syriac and other ancient noises by which people communicated one with the other1 try some of ,o4 ,henry's books--,the ,four ,million1 ,options1 ,whirligigs 7very light reading and amusing71 ,hodder and ,stoughton4 99 ,wall ,biblical ,scholarship1 ,dublin ,university4 ,,london3 ,,charles ,,whittingham ,,and ,,griggs 7,,printers71 ,,ltd4 ,,chiswick ,,press1 ,,tooks ,,court1 ,,chancery ,,lane4