Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest; and then, after a short pause, continued;
“And yet, if you look closely at the causes of these calamities of authors, you will find, that many of them spring from false and exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic character; and from disdain of common sense, upon which all character, worth having, is founded. This comes from keeping aloof from the world, apart from our fellow-men; disdainful of society, as frivolous. By too much sitting still the body becomes unhealthy; and soon the mind. This is nature’s law. She will never see her children wronged. If the mind, which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample upon its slave, the slave is never generousenough to forgive the injury; but will rise and smite its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch mind been dethroned.”
“After all,” said the Baron, “we must pardon much to men of genius. A delicate organization renders them keenly susceptible to pain and pleasure. And then they idealize every thing; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even the deformity of vice seems beautiful.”
“And this you think should be forgiven?”
“At all events it is forgiven. The world loves a spice of wickedness. Talk as you will about principle, impulse is more attractive, even when it goes too far. The passions of youth, like unhooded hawks, fly high, with musical bells upon their jesses; and we forget the cruelty of the sport in the dauntless bearing of the gallant bird.”
“And thus doth the world and society corrupt the scholar!” exclaimed Flemming.
Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of Prince Metternich. He then very slowly filled his pipe, and began to smoke. Flemming was lost in a day-dream.
CHAPTER VIII. LITERARY FAME.
Time has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But, as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters, never to be effaced. These are the high nobility of Nature, — Lords of the Public Domain of Thought. Posterity shall never question their titles. But those, whose fame lives only in the indiscreet opinion of unwise men, must soon be as well forgotten, as if they had never been. To this great oblivion must most men come. It is better, therefore, that they should soon make up their minds to this; well knowing, that, as their bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their graves tell no tales of them; so musttheir names likewise be utterly forgotten, and their most cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions have no longer an individual being among men; but be resolved and incorporated into the universe of thought. If, then, the imagination can trace the noble dust of heroes, till we find it stopping a beer-barrel, and know that
“Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
May stop a hole to keep the wind away;”
not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used to stop men’s mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion. Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which are now resolved into the common mass of thought; their authors forgotten, and having no more an individual being among men.
It is better, therefore, that men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive, in what they do, than the approbation of men, which is Fame; namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in our imperfection; impossible perhaps to achieve it wholly. Yet the resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve much, — at times even this victory over himself; being persuaded, that fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in advance of their age; which is true. There is something equally true, yet not so common; namely, that, of these men of genius, the best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, but of every age. As the German prose-poet says, every possible future is behind them. We cannot suppose, that a period of time will ever come, when the world, or any considerable portion of it shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to comprehend them.
And oh! how majestically they walk in history; some like the sun, with all his travelling glories round him; others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent darkness of the past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an earthly Paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven listed colors, as from the trail of pencils!
And yet, on earth, these men were not happy, — not all happy, in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much; — and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death, — and the world talks of them, while they sleep!
It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun’s eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and forever!
This was Flemming’s reverie. It was broken by the voice of the Baron, suddenly exclaiming;
“An angel is flying over the house! — Here; in this goblet, fragrant as the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the wild flowers in the Angel’s Meadow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams.”
“This is all sunshine,” said Flemming, as he drank. “The wine of the Prince, and the Prince of wines. By the way, did you ever read that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi’s Bacchus in Tuscany? an ode which seems to have been poured out of the author’s soul, as from a golden pitcher,
`Filled with the wine
Of the vine
Benign,
That flames so red in Sansavine.’
He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines.”
“Prince Metternich,” said the Baron, “is greater than any king in Italy; and I wonder, that this precious wine has never inspired a German poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine. Many little songs we have on this theme, but none very extraordinary. The best are Max Schenkendorf’s Song of the Rhine, and the Song of Rhine Wine, by Claudius, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. We will drink for him a blessing on the Rhine.”
And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each other, with a musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage-time from the villages on the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder, that the Germanpoet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy schoolmaster Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from Germany to Mr. John Raven, of John’s College; `Tell Mr. Maden I will drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of Rhenish wine.’ Nor, in fine, do I wonder at the German Emperor of whom he speaks in another letter to the same John Raven, and says, `The Emperor drank the best that I ever saw; he had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine.’ These were scholars and gentlemen.
“But to resume our old theme of scholars and their whereabout,” said the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught no doubt from the golden sunshine,
imprisoned, like the student Anselmus, in the glass bottle; “where should the scholar live? In solitudeor in society? In the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of nature beat, or in the dark, gray city, where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in the dark, gray city. Oh, they do greatly err, who think, that the stars are all the poetry which cities have; and therefore that the poet’s only dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature, when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest, vast and shadowy, with all the sights and sounds of rural life. But after all, what are these but the decorations and painted scenery in the great theatre of human life? What are they but the coarse materials of the poet’s song? Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song; there lies the poet’s native land. The river of life, that flows through streets tumultuous, bearingalong so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks of humanity; — the many homes and households, each a little world in itself, revolving round its fireside, as a central sun; all forms of human joy and suffering, brought into that narrow compass; — and to be in this and be a part of this; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing, with his fellow-men; — such, such should be the poet’s life. If he would describe the world, he should live in the world. The mind of the scholar, also, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armour should be somewhat bruised even by rude encounters, than hang forever rusting on the wall. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because apparently shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely the decorations of street scenery. A ruined character is as picturesque as a ruined castle. There are dark abysses and yawning gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged the Savine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human thought; not green grass, and flowers, and moonshine. Besides, the mere external forms of Nature we make our own, and carry with us into the city, by the power of memory.”
“I fear, however,” interrupted Flemming, “that in cities the soul of man grows proud. He needs at times to be sent forth, like the Assyrian monarch, into green fields, `a wonderous wretch and weedless,’ to eat green herbs, and be wakened and chastised by the rain-shower and winter’s bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there is danger of the soul’s becoming wed to pleasure, and forgetful of its high vocation. There have been souls dedicated to heaven from childhood and guarded by good angels as sweet seclusions for holy thoughts, and prayers, and all good purposes; wherein pious wishes dwelt like nuns, and every image was a saint; and yet in life’s vicissitudes, by the treachery of occasion, by the thronging passionsof great cities, have become soiled and sinful. They resemble those convents on the river Rhine, which have been changed to taverns; from whose chambers the pious inmates have long departed, and in whose cloisters the footsteps of travellers have effaced the images of buried saints, and whose walls are written over with ribaldry and the names of strangers, and resound no more with holy hymns, but with revelry and loud voices.”
“Both town and country have their dangers,” said the Baron; “and therefore, wherever the scholar lives, he must never forget his high vocation. Other artists give themselves up wholly to the study of their art. It becomes with them almost religion. For the most part, and in their youth, at least, they dwell in lands, where the whole atmosphere of the soul is beauty; laden with it as the air may be with vapor, till their very nature is saturated with the genius of their art. Such, for example, is the artist’s life in Italy.”
“I agree with you,” exclaimed Flemming; “and such should be the Poet’s everywhere; forhe has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world, — and the glories of a modern one, — his Apollo and Transfiguration. He must neither forget nor undervalue his vocation; but thank God that he is a poet; and everywhere be true to himself, and to `the vision and the faculty divine’ he feels within him.”
“But, at any rate, a city life is most eventful,” continued the Baron. “The men who make, or take, the lives of poets and scholars, always complain that these lives are barren of incidents. Hardly a literary biography begins without some such apology, unwisely made. I confess, however, that it is not made without some show of truth; if, by incidents, we mean only those startling events, which suddenly turn aside the stream of Time, and change the world’s history in an hour. There is certainly a uniformity, pleasing or unpleasing, in literary life, which for the most part makes to-day seem twin-born with yesterday. But if, byincidents, you mean events in the history of the human mind, (and why not?) noiseless events, that do not scar the forehead of the world as battles do, yet change it not the less, then surely the lives of literary men are most eventful. The complaint and the apology are both foolish. I do not see why a successful book is not as great an event as a successful campaign; only different in kind, and not easily compared.”
“Indeed,” interrupted Flemming, “in no sense is the complaint strictly true, though at times apparently so. Events enough there are, were they all set down. A life, that is worth writing at all, is worth writing minutely. Besides, all literary men have not lived in silence and solitude; — not all in stillness, not all in shadow. For many have lived in troubled times, in the rude and adverse fortunes of the state and age, and could say with Wallenstein,
`Our life was but a battle and a march;
And, like the wind’s blast, never-resting, homeless,
We stormed across the war convulsed earth.’
Of such examples history has recorded many; Dante, Cervantes, Byron, and others; men of iron; men who have dared to breast the strong breath of public opinion, and, like spectre-ships, come sailing right against the wind. Others have been puffed out by the first adverse wind that blew; disgraced and sorrowful, because they could not please others. Truly `the tears live in an onion, that should water such a sorrow.’ Had they been men, they would have made these disappointments their best friends, and learned from them the needful lesson of self-reliance.”
“To confess the truth,” added the Baron, “the lives of literary men, with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and calamities, present a melancholy picture of man’s strength and weakness. On that very account the scholar can make them profitable for encouragement, — consolation, — warning.”
“And after all,” continued Flemming, “perhaps the greatest lesson, which the lives of literary men teach us, is told in a single word; Wait! — Every man must patiently bide his time. He must wait. More particularly in lands, like my native land, where the pulse of life beats with such feverish and impatient throbs, is the lesson needful. Our national character wants the dignity of repose. We seem to live in the midst of a battle, — there is such a din, — such a hurrying to and fro. In the streets of a crowded city it is difficult to walk slowly. You feel the rushing of the crowd, and rush with it onward. In the press of our life it is difficult to be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all professions seem to drag their anchors, and are swept out into the main. The voices of the Present say, Come! But the voices of the Past say, Wait! With calm and solemn footsteps the rising tide bears against the rushing torrent up stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainly, does a great mind bear up against public opinion, and push back its hurrying stream. Therefore should every man wait; — should bide his time. Not in listless idleness, — not in uselesspastime, — not in querulous dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours, always willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when the occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never comes, what matte
rs it? What matters it to the world whether I, or you, or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a book, sobeit the deed and book were well done! It is the part of an indiscreet and troublesome ambition, to care too much about fame, — about what the world says of us. To be always looking into the faces of others for approval; — to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and say; to be always shouting to hear the echo of our own voices! If you look about you, you will see men, who are wearing life away in feverish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them will be the funeral bell, that tolls them to their early graves! Unhappy men, and unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to accomplish well their task, but to clutch the `trick and fantasy of fame’; and they go to their graveswith purposes unaccomplished and wishes unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world in their example, had they known how to wait! Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing well whatever you do, — without a thought of fame. If it come at all, it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after. And, moreover, there will be no misgivings, — no disappointment, — no hasty, feverish, exhausting excitement.”
Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I make no record of the winter. Paul Flemming buried himself in books; in old, dusty books. He studied diligently the ancient poetic lore of Germany, from Frankish Legends of Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, down through Nibelungen Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and Songs of the Minnesingers and Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and Reinecke Foxes, and Death-Dancesand Lamentations of Damned Souls, into the bright, sunny land of harvests, where, amid the golden grain and the blue corn-flowers, walk the modern bards, and sing.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 155
