No More Learning

When the boy
was five years old, Mr. Purcell took his family to France. In Paris
they occupied the house in which Robespierre had once lived. The
following year Mrs. Purcell's father died, and her husband assumed
the name and arms of the Fitzgeralds. Edward frequently referred
to his Irish blood: he called himself "a scatter-brained Paddy! "
In 1821 he was sent to King Edward VI. 's
School at Bury St. Edmunds, where his two
brothers were. He was there five years, and
then went to Trinity College. Fitzgerald
obtained his degree somewhat to his own
surprise, for he had taken his course in a
characteristically comfortable manner; as Mr.
Wright says, amusing himself with music
and drawing and poetry. " After a brief visit
at Paris, he returned to England and began
to carry out the experiment of his semi-
misanthropic retreat from the world; he be-
came a vegetarian: "The great secret of it
all," he said, "is not eating meat! " He
wrote his friend Allen:-"I cannot stand see-
ing new faces in the polite circles. You must know I am going to
become a great bear, and have got all sorts of Utopian ideas into my
head about society. " As he lived, he grew shyer and shyer even with
his friends.
«<
EDWARD FITZGERALD

He went to live near Naseby, where his father had an estate
which included a large part of the celebrated battle-field. It was
there in 1831 that he wrote his earliest known poem; it was printed
in Hone's Year Book, and shortly afterwards in the Athenæum.
The dates of his letters to Frederic Tennyson and other friends
show the pleasant rounds of his residences: now at Southampton,
now in London, where his mother kept up great style, driving her
four horses; now at Geldestone, now at Wherstead Lodge near Ips-
wich, where his parents lived for ten years; then at Boulge Hall,
Woodbridge. At Boulge he lived in a one-story thatched cottage,


## p. 5798 (#382) ###########################################

5798
EDWARD FITZGERALD
just outside his father's park. The Rev. George Crabbe gives this
picture of him: :-
"He used to walk by himself, slowly, with a Skye terrier. I was rather
afraid of him. He seemed a proud and very punctilious man.
. He
seemed to me when I first saw him as he was when he died, only not stoop-
ing: always like a grave middle-aged man; never seemed very happy or
light-hearted, though his conversation was most amusing sometimes. »
In 1847 he contributed a number of notes and illustrations to
Singer's edition of Selden's Table Talk,' but refused to allow his
services to be acknowledged. He also wrote what he calls "a little
dapper memoir" as a preface to the posthumously published 'Poems
and Letters' of Bernard Barton the Quaker, whose daughter he mar-
ried. In 1851 he published anonymously a little volume of less than
a hundred pages, called 'Euphranor. ' Couched in exquisite English,
it appealed to a small but cultured audience. A second edition was
called for, and then the demand for it ceased.
Under the stimulating friendship of the learned Professor E. B.
Cowell, he took up the study of Spanish, and in 1863 published a
translation of Six Dramas from Calderon. ' This was the only book
to which he ever put his name. The same year he was amusing him-
self with poking out some Persian which E. Cowell would inaugurate
[inoculate? ] him with. " He did not agree with Cowell in regard to
the mystical interpretation of the wine-cup and cup-bearer. In 1855
he was "stilting into too Miltonic verse the ingenuous prattle of
Jámí. " "It is an amusement to me," he wrote, "to take what liber-
ties I like with these Persians; who (as I think) are not poets enough
to frighten one from such excursions, and who really do want a
little art to shape them. " Omar Khayyám he considered the best
and most satisfying of them all, but he called his version "very
one-sided;
what I do, comes up as a bubble to the surface
and breaks. "
In 1857 he took up the Agamemnon' of Eschylus and began
to make a very free translation of it, "not for scholars but for those
who are ignorant of Greek. " He had no scruple about adding splen-
did passages to the 'Agamemnon,' such as Eschylus might have
written had he lived in the nineteenth century. In the same way
he raised the poetic level of Omar, as can be seen by reading the
various versions of the 'Rubáiyát. '
Besides the works already mentioned, Fitzgerald made very free
translations or paraphrases of several others of Calderon's metrical
dramas; of the 'Edipus Tyrannus' and 'Edipus Coloneus' of Soph-
ocles; and of masterpieces of two Persian poets-Salámán and
Absál' of Jami, and The Bird-Parliament' or 'Bird-Confab' of Attar.
These, together with a few fragments of verse, original or translated,


## p. 5799 (#383) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5799
form the bulk of the life work of a man who cared nothing for fame;
who on the contrary avoided it with as much solicitude as most am-
bitious men seek to win it.
The critics, not understanding his views, attacked him so severely
for his versions of Calderon that he withdrew the volume from sale;
but he kept on for his own amusement. "He jotted down materials
for a vocabulary of rustic or rural English. " He also made for Notes
and Queries (1870) a similar vocabulary of East-Anglican sea terms.
These were collected with the aid of Captain West, his viking-captain
of a herring-lugger which he built as an experiment in altruism. His
edition of the Rubáiyát' of Omar Khayyám was published anony-
mously by Bernard Quaritch in 1859, after it had lain neglected for
two years in the office of Fraser's Magazine. It was equally neglected
by the public; and the publisher, to whom he made a gift of the
work, exposed the pamphlets for sale at a penny each. They were
gradually picked up, and the germs of the Omar Khayyám cult were
planted. It was almost ten years before a second edition was called
for; in this the number of quatrains was increased from seventy-five
to one hundred and ten. Professor Norton, in a private letter which
we are privileged to quote, says, "Fitzgerald's 'Omar' illustrates the
miracle of trans-substantiation of the bare elements into the very
blood and body of poetry. " Fitzgerald himself said, "A translation
must be a paraphrase to be readable. " In 1864 Fitzgerald bought a
small farm-house on the outskirts of Woodbridge, and enlarged it
into a mansion which he called "Little Grange. " Here this "peace-
able, affectionate, and ultra-modest man," as Carlyle called him, lived
his "innocent, far niente life. " In June 1883 he went to visit his old
friend Mr. Crabbe at Merton Rectory. In the morning he was found
"as if sleeping peacefully, but quite dead. " Mr. Crabbe wrote, "A
very noble character has passed away. " He was buried in the little
churchyard at Boulge, which has since become a shrine of pious pil-
grimage.
He left his friend William Aldis Wright a tin box, which was
found to contain such of his papers and books as he thought might
possibly bear to be published; and Mr. Wright issued them in two
volumes, together with another containing his letters.
Since then, Fitzgerald's fame has been continually growing, and
the world recognizes that he added at least one classic to universal
literature.
головы


## p. 5800 (#384) ###########################################

5800
EDWARD FITZGERALD
CHIVALRY
From Euphranor'
E SAT down in one of those little arbours cut into the Lilac
WⓇ bushes round the Bowling-green; and while Euphranor
and I were quaffing each a glass of Home-brew'd, Lycion
took up the volume of Digby which Euphranor had laid on the
table.
"Ah, Lycion," said Euphranor, putting down his glass, "there
is one would have put you up to a longer and stronger pull than
we have had to-day. "
"Chivalry," said Lycion, glancing carelessly over the leaves.
"Don't you remember "-addressing me- "what an absurd thing
that Eglinton Tournament was? What a complete failure! There
was the Queen of Beauty on her throne - Lady Seymour-
who alone of all the whole affair was not a sham-and the
Heralds, and the Knights in full Armour on their horses — they
had been practicing for months, I believe — but unluckily, at the
very moment of Onset the rain began, and the Knights threw
down their lances and put up their umbrellas. "
-
I laugh'd, and said I remembered something like it had oc-
curr'd, though not to that umbrella-point, which I thought was
a theatrical or Louis Philippe Burlesque on the affair. And I
asked Euphranor "what he had to say in defense of the Tourna
ment ? »
"Nothing at all," he replied. "It was a silly thing, and fit to
be laughed at for the very reason that it was a sham, as Lycion
says. As Digby himself tells us," he went on, taking the Book
and rapidly turning over the leaves-"Here it is" and he
read: -
"The error that leads men to doubt of this first propo-
sition'—that is, you know, that Chivalry is not a thing past,
but, like all things of Beauty, eternal-'the error that leads men
to doubt of this first proposition consists in their supposing that
Tournaments, and steel Panoply, and Coat arms, and Aristocratic
institutions, are essential to Chivalry; whereas these are in fact
only accidental attendants upon it, subject to the influence of
Time, which changes all such things. ""
-
"I suppose," said Lycion, "your man-whatever his name is
—would carry us back to the days of King Arthur and the
Seven Champions- whenever they were that one used to read
-


## p. 5801 (#385) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5801
about when a Child? I thought Don Quixote had put an end to
all that long ago. "
"Well, he at any rate," said Euphranor, "did not depend on
fine Accoutrement for his Chivalry. "
"Nay," said I; "but did he not believe in his rusty armour
perhaps even the pasteboard Visor he fitted to it-as impregnable
as the Cause
>>>
"And some old Barber's bason as the Helmet of Mambrino,"
interposed Lycion-
"And his poor Rocinante not to be surpass'd by the Bavieca
of the Cid-believed in all this, I say, as really as in the Wind-
mills and Wine-skins being the Giants and Sorcerers he was to
annihilate ? »
―――――
"To be sure he did," said Lycion; "but Euphranor's Round-
table men
- many of them great rascals, I believe-knew a real
Dragon or Giant-when they met him- better than Don Qui-
xote. "
"Perhaps, however," said I, who saw Euphranor's colour ris-
ing, "he and Digby would tell us that all such Giants and
Dragons may be taken for Symbols of certain Forms of Evil,
which his Knights went about to encounter and exterminate. ”
"Of course," said Euphranor with an indignant snort, "every
Child knows that: then as now to be met with and put down in
whatsoever shapes they appear as long as Tyranny and Oppres-
sion exist. "
"Till finally extinguisht, as they crop up, by Euphranor and
his Successors," said Lycion.
(
"Does not Carlyle somewhere talk to us of a Chivalry of
Labour'? " said I; "that henceforward not 'Arms and the Man,'
but 'Tools and the Man,' are to furnish the Epic of the world. "
"Oh well, said Lycion, "if the Table-Round' turn into a
Tailor's Board-'Charge, Chester, charge! ' say I-only not
exorbitantly for the Coat you provide for us-which indeed,
like true Knights, I believe you should provide for us gratis. "
"Yes, my dear fellow," said I laughing, "but then You must
not sit idle, smoking your cigar, in the midst of it; but as your
Ancestors led on mail'd troops at Agincourt, so must you put
yourself, shears in hand, at the head of this Host, and become
what Carlyle calls a Captain of Industry,' a Master-tailor,
leading on a host of Journeymen to fresh fields and conquests
new. "


## p. 5802 (#386) ###########################################

5802
EDWARD FITZGERALD
"Besides," said Euphranor, who did not like Carlyle, nor
relish this sudden descent of his hobby, "surely Chivalry will
never want a good Cause to maintain, whether private or public.
As Tennyson says, King Arthur, who was carried away wounded
to the island valley of Avilion, returns to us in the shape of a
'modern Gentleman' who may be challenged, even in these later
days, to no mock Tournament, Lycion, in his Country's defense,
and with something other than the Doctor's shears at his side. "
To this Lycion, however, only turn'd his cigar in his mouth
by way of reply, and look'd somewhat superciliously at his
Antagonist. And I, who had been looking into the leaves of the
Book that Euphranor had left open, said:—
"Here we are as usual, discussing without having yet agreed
on the terms we are using. Euphranor has told us on the word
of his Hero what Chivalry is not: let him read what it is that
we are talking about. "
I then handed him the Book to read to us, while Lycion,
lying down on the grass, with his hat over his eyes, composed
himself to inattention. And Euphranor read:
Here Lycion, who had endured the reading with an occasional
yawn, said he wish'd "those fellows up-stairs would finish their
pool. »
-
"And see again," continued I, taking the book from Euphra-
nor's hands" after telling us that Chivalry is mainly but another
name for Youth, Digby proceeds to define more particularly what
that is.
So that Lycion, you see," said I, looking up
from the book and tapping on the top of his hat, "is, in virtue
of his eighteen Summers only, a Knight of Nature's own dub-
bing-yes, and here we have a list of the very qualities which
constitute him one of the Order. And all the time he is pre-
tending to be careless, indolent, and worldly, he is really burst-
ing with suppressed Energy, Generosity, and Devotion. "
"I did not try to understand your English any more than
your Greek," said Lycion; "but if I can't help being the very
fine Fellow whom I think you were reading about, why, I want
to know what is the use of writing books about it for my edifi-
cation. "
"O yes, my dear fellow," said I; "it is like giving you an
Inventory of your goods, which else you lose, or even fling away,
in your march to Manhood-which you are so eager to reach.
Only to repent when gotten there; for I see Digby goes on-


## p. 5803 (#387) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5803
'What is termed Entering the World' which Manhood of course
must do'assuming its Principles and Maxims'—which usually
follows' is nothing else but departing into those regions to
which the souls of the Homeric Heroes went sorrowing. '»
"Ah, you remember," said Euphranor, "how Lamb's friend,
looking upon the Eton Boys in their Cricket-field, sighed to
think of so many fine Lads so soon turning into frivolous Mem-
bers of Parliament'! "
“But why 'frivolous'? " said Lycion.
"Ay, why 'frivolous'? " echoed I, "when entering on the
Field where, Euphranor tells us, their Knightly service may be
call'd into action. "
"Perhaps," said Euphranor, "entering before sufficiently
equipp'd for that part of their calling. "
"Well," said Lycion, "the Laws of England determine other-
wise, and that is enough for me, and I suppose for her, what-
ever your ancient or modern pedants say to the contrary. ”
"You mean," said I, "in settling Twenty-one as the Age of
'Discretion,' sufficient to manage not your own affairs only, but
those of the Nation also? »
The hat nodded.
"Not yet, perhaps, accepted for a Parliamentary Knight com-
plete," said I, "so much as Squire to some more experienced if
not more valiant Leader. Only providing that Neoptolemus do
not fall into the hands of a too politic Ulysses, and under him
lose that generous Moral, whose Inventory is otherwise apt to
get lost among the benches of St. Stephen's-in spite of pre-
liminary Prayer. "
"Aristotle's Master, I think," added Euphranor with some
mock gravity, "would not allow any to become Judges in his
Republic till near to middle life, lest acquaintance with Wrong
should harden them into a distrust of Humanity; and acquaint-
ance with Diplomacy is said to be little less dangerous. "
"Though, by the way," interposed I, "was not Plato's Master
accused of perplexing those simple Affections and Impulses of
Youth by his Dialectic, and making premature Sophists of the
Etonians of Athens ? "
"By Aristophanes, you mean," said Euphranor, with no mock
gravity now; "whose gross caricature help'd Anytus and Co. to
that Accusation which ended in the murder of the best and
wisest man of all Antiquity. "


## p. 5804 (#388) ###########################################

5804
EDWARD FITZGERALD
"Well, perhaps," said I, "he had been sufficiently punish'd by
that termagant Wife of his-whom, by the way, he may have
taught to argue with him instead of to obey. Just as that Son
of poor old Strepsiades, in what you call the Aristophanic Cari-
cature, is taught to rebel against parental authority, instead of
doing as he was bidden; as he would himself have the Horses to
do that he was spending so much of his Father's money upon:
and as we would have our own Horses, Dogs, and Children,— and
Young Knights. "
"You have got your Heroes into fine company, Euphranor,"
said Lycion, who, while seeming inattentive to all that went
against him, was quick enough to catch at any turn in his favour.
"Why, let me see," said I, taking up the book again, and
running my eye over the passage—"yes,—'Ardent of desire,' —
'Tractable,'-some of them
some of them at least-'Without comprehending
much'-'Ambitious' — 'Despisers of Riches'—'Warm friends and
hearty Companions' - really very characteristic of the better
breed of Dogs and Horses. And why not? The Horse, you
know, has given his very name to Chivalry, because of his asso-
ciation in the Heroic Enterprises of Men-El mas Hidalgo Bruto,
Calderon calls him. He was sometimes buried, I think, along
with our heroic Ancestors - just as some favourite wife was
buried along with her husband in the East. So the Muse sings
of those who believe their faithful Dog will accompany them to
the World of Spirits-as even some wise and good Christian men
have thought it not impossible he may, not only because of his
Moral, but - »
"Well," said Euphranor, "we need not trouble ourselves about
carrying the question quite so far. "
"Well," said I, "your great Schools might condescend to take
another hint from abroad where some one- Fellenberg again, I
think had a Riding-house in his much poorer School, where
you might learn not only to sit your horse if ever able to pro-
vide one for yourself, but also to saddle, bridle, rub him down,
with the ss'ss-ss'ss which I fancy was heard on the morning of
Agincourt-if, by the way, one horse was left in all the host. "
"Well, come," said Euphranor; "the Gladiator at any rate
is gone- and the Boxer after him—and the Hunter, I think,
going after both; perhaps the very Horse he rides gradually to
be put away by Steam into some Museum among the extinct
Species that Man has no longer room or business for. "
-


## p. 5805 (#389) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5805
"Nevertheless," said I, "war is not gone with the Gladiator,
and cannon and rifle yet leave room for hand-to-hand conflict, as
may one day- which God forbid! come to proof in our own
sea-girt Island. If safe from abroad, some Ruffian may still
assault you in some shady lane nay, in your own parlour — at
home, when you have nothing but your own strong arm, and
ready soul to direct it. Accidents will happen in the best-
regulated families. The House will take fire, the Coach will
break down, the Boat will upset; -is there no gentleman who
can swim, to save himself and others? no one do more to save
the Maid snoring in the garret, than helplessly looking on-or
turning away? Some one is taken ill at midnight; John is drunk
in bed; is there no gentleman can saddle Dobbin-much less
get a Collar over his Head, or the Crupper over his tail, without
such awkwardness as brings on his abdomen the kick he fears,
and spoils him for the journey. And I do maintain," I contin-
ued, "having now gotten the bit between my teeth'-maintain
against all Comers that, independent of any bodily action on their
part, these and the like Accomplishments, as you call them, do
carry with them, and I will say, with the Soul incorporate, that
habitual Instinct of Courage, Resolution, and Decision, which
together with the Good Humour which good animal Condition
goes far to ensure, do, I say, prepare and arm the Man not only
against the greater but against those minor Trials of Life, which
are so far harder to encounter because of perpetually cropping
up; and thus do cause him to radiate, if through a narrow circle,
yet through that imperceptibly to the whole world, a happier
atmosphere about him than could be inspired by Closet-loads of
Poetry, Metaphysic, and Divinity. No doubt there is danger, as
you say, of the Animal overpowering the Rational, as, I main-
tain, equally so of the reverse; no doubt the higher-mettled Colt
will be likeliest to run riot, as may my Lad, inflamed with Aris-
totle's 'Wine of Youth,' into excesses which even the virtuous
Berkeley says are the more curable as lying in the Passions;
whereas, says he, 'the dry Rogue who sets up for Judgment is
incorrigible. ' But, whatever be the result, VIGOUR of Body, as of
Spirit, one must have, subject like all good things to the worst
corruption - Strength itself, even of Evil, being a kind of Virtus
which Time, if not good Counsel, is pretty sure to moderate;
whereas Weakness is the one radical and incurable Evil, increas-
ing with every year of Life. "
―――
-


## p. 5806 (#390) ###########################################

5806
EDWARD FITZGERALD
FREELY TRANSLATED FROM THE
APOLOGUES
MANTIK-UT-TAIR,' OR THE BIRD-
PARLIAMENT,' OF FARÍD-UDDÍN ATTAR
Ο
[Mohammed Ibn Ibrahim Farid u'd Dín (Farid-uddín)— called "Attar," the
Druggist or Perfumer - was born at Kerken, a village of Khorassan near Nai-
shapur, in the year 1216, and died at the age of one hundred and fifteen in
the city of Shad'ach, where he lived for over eighty-five years. His industry
was equal to his longevity: he was an indefatigable collector of biographical
details, which employed in his wonderful series of lives of the Moslem
Saints - the Teskeret-al-Oulia (or (Ewha '). He wrote in prose many ascet-
ical and mystical works. Aside from his rhymed couplets he composed over
forty thousand distichs, including twelve thousand four-line strophes. His best
known work is the 'Mantik-ut-Tair) (Conversations of the Birds, or Bird-Par-
liament), an enormously long work which Edward Fitzgerald condensed into a
few pages; particularly selecting the Apologues or little stories with obvious
morals, such as are cited below. ]
THE FORTUNE OF THE GREAT
NE day Shah Mahmúd, riding with the Wind
A-hunting, left his Retinue behind,
And coming to a River, whose swift Course
Doubled back Game and Dog, and Man and Horse,
Beheld upon the Shore a little Lad
-
A-fishing, very poor, and Tatter-clad
He was, and weeping as his Heart would break.
So the Great Sultan, for good-humour's sake,
Pull'd in his Horse a moment, and drew nigh,
And after making his Salám, ask'd why
He wept
weeping, the Sultan said, so sore
As he had never seen one weep before.
The Boy look'd up, and "O Amír," he said,
"Sev'n of us are at home, and Father dead,
And Mother left with scarce a Bit of Bread:
And now since Sunrise have I fish'd- and see!
Caught nothing for our Supper-Woe is Me! "
The Sultan lighted from his Horse.
"Behold,"
Said he, "Good Fortune will not be controll'd:
And, since To-day yours seems to turn from you,
Suppose we try for once what mine will do,
And we will share alike in all I win. "
So the Shah took, and flung his Fortune in,


## p. 5807 (#391) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5807
The Net; which, cast by the Great Mahmúd's Hand,
A hundred glittering Fishes brought to Land.
The Lad look'd up in Wonder — Mahmúd smiled
And vaulted into Saddle. But the Child
Ran after "Nay, Amír, but half the Haul
Is yours by Bargain "-"Nay, To-day take all,"
The Sultan cried, and shook his Bridle free-
"But mind-To-morrow All belongs to Me-"
And so rode off. Next morning at Divan
The Sultan's Mind upon his Bargain ran,
And being somewhat in a mind for sport
Sent for the Lad: who, carried up to Court,
And marching into Royalty's full Blaze
With such a Catch of Fish as yesterday's,
The Sultan call'd and set him by his side,
And asking him, "What Luck? " The Boy replied,
"This is the Luck that follows every Cast,
Since o'er my Net the Sultan's Shadow pass’d. »
-
THE MISER
A FELLOW all his life lived hoarding Gold,
And, dying, hoarded left it. And behold,
One Night his Son saw peering through the House
A Man, with yet the semblance of a Mouse,
Watching a crevice in the Wall-and cried-
"My Father? "-"Yes," the Musulman replied,
>>
"Thy Father! "But why watching thus ? "- "For fear
Lest any smell my Treasure buried here. ”—
"But wherefore, Sir, so metamousified? ».
"Because, my Son, such is the true outside
Of the inner Soul by which I lived and died. "
THE DREAD
A CERTAIN Shah there was in Days foregone
Who had a lovely Slave he doated on,
And cherish'd as the Apple of his Eye,
Clad gloriously, fed sumptuously, set high,
And never was at Ease were He not by,
Who yet, for all this Sunshine, Day by Day
Was seen to wither like a Flower away.
Which, when observing, one without the Veil
Of Favour ask'd the Favourite . ་
"Why so pale
1


## p. 5808 (#392) ###########################################

5808
EDWARD FITZGERALD
And sad ? " Thus sadly answer'd the poor Thing-
"No Sun that rises sets until the King,
Whose Archery is famous among Men,
Aims at an Apple on my Head; and when
The stricken Apple splits, and those who stand
Around cry 'Lo! the Shah's unerring Hand! '
Then He too laughing asks me Why so pale
And sorrow-some? as could the Sultan fail,
Who such a master of the Bow confest,
And aiming by the Head that he loves best. '»
THE PROOF
A SHAH returning to his Capital,
His subjects drest it forth in Festival,
Thronging with Acclamation Square and Street,
And kneeling flung before his Horse's feet
Jewel and Gold. All which with scarce an Eye
The Sultan superciliously rode by:
Till coming to the public Prison, They
Who dwelt within those grisly Walls, by way
Of Welcome, having neither Pearl nor Gold,
Over the wall chopt Head and Carcase roll'd,
Some almost parcht to Mummy with the Sun,
Some wet with Execution that day done.
At which grim Compliment at last the Shah
Drew Bridle: and amid a wild Hurrah
Of savage Recognition, smiling threw
Silver and Gold among the wretched Crew,
And so rode forward. Whereat of his Train
One wondering that, while others sued in vain
With costly gifts, which carelessly he passed,
But smiled at ghastly Welcome like the last;
The Shah made answer-"All that Pearl and Gold
Of ostentatious Welcome only told:
A little with great Clamour from the Store
Of Hypocrites who kept at home much more.
But when those sever'd Heads and Trunks I saw-
Save by strict Execution of my Law
They had not parted company; not one
But told my Will not talk'd about, but done. »
-


## p. 5809 (#393) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5809
COMPULSORY REPENTANCE
JUST as another Holy Spirit fled,
The Skies above him burst into a Bed
Of Angels looking down and singing clear,
"Nightingale! Nightingale! thy Rose is here! »
And yet, the Door wide open to that Bliss,
As some hot Lover slights a scanty Kiss,
The Saint cried "All I sigh'd for come to this?
I who life-long have struggled, Lord, to be
Not thy Angels one, but one with Thee! "
Others were sure that all he said was true:
They were extremely wicked, that they knew:
And much they long'd to go at once-but some,
They said, so unexpectedly had come
Leaving their Nests half-built-in bad Repair -
With Children in-Themselves about to pair-
"Might he not choose a better Season-nay,
Better perhaps a Year or Two's Delay,
Till all was settled, and themselves more stout
And strong to carry their Repentance out —
And then »
-
"And then, the same or like Excuse,
With harden'd Heart and Resolution loose
With dallying and old Age itself engaged
Still to shirk that which shirking we have aged;
And so with Self-delusion, till, too late,
Death upon all Repentance shuts the Gate;
Or some fierce blow compels the Way to choose,
And forced Repentance half its Virtue lose. "
As of an aged Indian King they tell
Who, when his Empire with his Army fell
Under young Mahmúd's Sword of Wrath, was sent
At sunset to the Conqueror in his Tent;
But, ere the old King's silver head could reach
The Ground, was lifted up-with kindly Speech,
And with so holy Mercy re-assured,
That, after due Persuasion, he abjured
His Idols, sate upon Mahmúd's Divan,
And took the Name and Faith of Musulman.
But when the Night fell, in his Tent alone
The poor old King was heard to weep and groan
X-364


## p. 5810 (#394) ###########################################

5810
EDWARD FITZGERALD
And smite his Bosom; which when Mahmúd knew,
He went to him and said "Lo, if Thou rue
Thy lost Dominion, Thou shalt wear the Ring
Of thrice as large a Realm. " But the dark King
Still wept, and Ashes on his Forehead threw,
And cried, "Not for my Kingdom lost I rue;
But thinking how at the Last Day, will stand
The Prophet with The Volume in his Hand,
And ask of me 'How was't that, in thy Day
Of Glory, Thou didst turn from Me and slay
My People; but soon as thy Infidel
Before my True Believers' Army fell
Like Corn before the Reaper-thou didst own
His Sword who scoutedst Me? Of seed so sown
What profitable Harvest should be grown?
"
CLOGS TO THE SOUL
"BEHOLD, dropt through the Gate of Mortal Birth,
The Knightly Soul alights from Heav'n on Earth;
Begins his Race, but scarce the Saddle feels,
When a foul Imp up from the distance steals,
And, double as he will, about his Heels
Closer and ever closer circling creeps,
Then, half-invited, on the Saddle leaps,
Clings round the Rider, and, once there, in vain
The strongest strives to thrust him off again.
In Childhood just peeps up the Blade of Ill,
That youth to Lust rears, Fury, and Self-will:
And, as Man cools to sensual Desire,
Ambition catches with as fierce a Fire;
Until Old Age sends him with one last Lust
Of Gold, to keep it where he found-in Dust.
Life at both Ends so feeble and constrain'd,
How should that Imp of Sin be slain or chain'd?
"For should the Greyhound whom a Sultan fed,
And by a jewell'd String a-hunting led,
Turn by the Way to gnaw some nasty Thing
And snarl at Him who twitch'd the silken String,
Would not his Lord soon weary of Dispute,
And turn adrift the incorrigible Brute?
"Nay, would one follow, and without a Chain,
The only Master truly worth the Pain,


## p. 5811 (#395) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5811
One must beware lest, growing over-fond
Of even Life's more consecrated Bond,
We clog our Footsteps to the World beyond. "
MORTALITY
ONE day the Prophet on a River Bank,
Dipping his Lips into the Channel, drank
A Draught as sweet as Honey. Then there came
One who an earthen Pitcher from the same
Drew up, and drank: and after some short stay
Under the Shadow, rose and went his Way,
Leaving his earthen Bowl. In which, anew
Thirsting, the Prophet from the River drew,
And drank from: but the Water that came up
Sweet from the Stream, drank bitter from the Cup.
At which the Prophet in a still Surprise
For Answer turning up to Heav'n his Eyes,
The Vessel's Earthen Lips with Answer ran
"The Clay that I am made of once was Man,
Who dying, and resolved into the same
Obliterated Earth from which he came
Was for the Potter dug, and chased in turn
Through long Vicissitude of Bowl and Urn:
But howsoever moulded, still the Pain
-
Of that first mortal Anguish would retain,
And cast, and re-cast, for a Thousand years
Would turn the sweetest Water into Tears. "
THE WELCOME
ONE night Shah Mahmúd, who had been of late
Somewhat distempered with Affairs of State,
Stroll'd through the Streets disguised, as wont to do-
And coming to the Baths, there on the Flue
Saw the poor Fellow who the Furnace fed
Sitting beside his Water-jug and Bread.
Mahmud stept in-sat down-unask'd took up
And tasted of the untasted Loaf and Cup,
Saying within himself, "Grudge but a bit,
And, by the Lord, your Head shall pay for it! "
So having rested, warm'd and satisfied
Himself without a Word on either side,
-
1


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5812
EDWARD FITZGERALD
At last the wayward Sultan rose to go.
And then at last his Host broke silence - "So? —
Art satisfied? Well, Brother, any Day
Or Night, remember, when you come this Way
And want a bit of Provender- why, you
Are welcome, and if not-why, welcome too. ".
The Sultan was so tickled with the whim
Of this quaint Entertainment and of him
Who offer'd it, that many a Night again
Stoker and Shah forgather'd in that vein
Till, the poor Fellow having stood the Test
Of true Good-fellowship, Mahmúd confess'd
One Night the Sultan that had been his Guest:
And in requital of the scanty Dole
The Poor Man offer'd with so large a soul,
Bid him ask any Largess that he would-
A Throne - if he would have it, so he should.
The Poor Man kiss'd the Dust, and "All," said he,
"I ask is what and where I am to be;
If but the Shah from time to time will come
As now, and see me in the lowly Home
His presence makes a Palace, and my own
Poor Flue more royal than another's Throne. »
-
CHRONOMOROS
IN ALL the actions that a Man performs, some part of his life passeth.
We die with doing that, for which only our sliding life was granted. Nay,
though we do nothing, Time keeps his constant pace, and flies as fast in
idlenesse, as in employment. Whether we play, or labour, or sleep, or dance, or
study, The Sunne posteth, and the Sand runnes.
OWEN FELLTHAM.
WEAR
EARIED with hearing folks cry,
That Time would incessantly fly,
Said I to myself, "I don't see
Why Time should not wait upon me;
I will not be carried away,
Whether I like it, or nay:'
: »
-
But ere I go on with my strain,
Pray turn me that hour-glass again!
I said, "I will read, and will write,
And labour all day, and all night,
And Time will so heavily load,
That he cannot but wait on the road;"
-


## p. 5813 (#397) ###########################################

EDWARD FITZGERALD
5813
But I found that, balloon-like in size,
The more fill'd, the faster he flies;
And I could not the trial maintain,
Without turning the hour-glass again!
Then said I, "If Time has so flown
When laden, I'll leave him alone;
And I think that he cannot but stay,
When he's nothing to carry away! "
So I sat, folding my hands,
Watching the mystical sands,
As they fell, grain after grain,
Till I turn'd up the hour-glass again!
Then I cried in a rage, «Time shall stand! »
The hour-glass I smash'd with my hand,
My watch into atoms I broke
And the sun-dial hid with a cloak!
"Now," I shouted aloud, "Time is done! "
When suddenly, down went the Sun;
And I found to my cost and my pain,
I might buy a new hour-glass again!
Whether we wake, or we sleep,
Whether we carol, or weep,
The Sun, with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time;
But Time, in a still better trim,
Marketh the going of him:
One link in an infinite chain,
Is this turning the hour-glass again!
The robes of the Day and the Night,
Are not wove of mere darkness and light;
We read that, at Joshua's will,
The Sun for a Time once stood still!
So that Time by his measure to try,
Is Petitio Principii!
Time's Scythe is going amain,
Though he turn not his hour-glass again!
And yet, after all, what is Time?
Renowned in Reason, and Rhyme,
A Phantom, a Name, a Notion,
That measures Duration or Motion?


## p. 5814 (#398) ###########################################

5814
EDWARD FITZGERALD
Or but an apt term in the lease
Of Beings, who know they must cease?
The hand utters more than the brain,
When turning the hour-glass again!
The King in a carriage may ride,
And the Beggar may crawl at his side;
But, in the general race,
They are travelling all the same pace,
And houses, and trees, and highway,
Are in the same gallop as they:
We mark our steps in the train,
When turning the hour-glass again!
People complain, with a sigh,
How terribly Chroniclers lie;
But there is one pretty right,
Heard in the dead of the night,
Calling aloud to the people,
Out of St. Dunstan's Steeple,
Telling them under the vane,
To turn their hour-glasses again!
MORAL
Masters! we live here for ever,
Like so many fish in a river;
We may mope, tumble, or glide,
And eat one another beside;
But whithersoever we go,
The River will flow, flow, flow!
And now, that I've ended my strain,
Pray turn me that hour-glass again!


## p. 5814 (#399) ###########################################



## p. 5814 (#400) ###########################################


GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
35


## p. 5814 (#401) ###########################################

1″
1


## p. 5814 (#402) ###########################################

A


## p. 5815 (#403) ###########################################

5815
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
(1821-1880)
BY PAUL BOURGET
FANCY that when 'Madame Bovary' appeared in 1856, even
the most alert of French critics, like Sainte-Beuve or J. J.
Weiss, would have been thoroughly astonished if some one
had said to him:-"Do not deceive yourself; this novel of passion,
which ever body is reading and which has suddenly made its author
the fashion; this picture of morals, so boldly brushed that it dis-
quiets the governing powers and summons the painter before the
censors of morals; this study of style, so brilliantly executed that
the most determined revolutionists marvel at it,-in forty years will
have become part of the classical tradition of France. Among all
the names of the century, that of Gustave Flaubert will be linked
with that of Courier alone, in the list of the prose writers of the
great Latin line after La Bruyère, Pascal, and Montesquieu. This
little book is not an accident. It is an event, and its author is the
master whom hundreds of other artists in France and abroad will
follow; the man, perhaps, whose ideas will modify most deeply the
æsthetics of the century. " Yes, I can see Sainte-Beuve smile at this
prophecy, although his valiant essay in the 'Lundis' shows how
deeply he was impressed by Flaubert's début. I see witty Weiss
shrug his shoulders, although his criticism written at that time shows
a stirring of extreme curiosity concerning the new-comer. It is not
given to any one to construct the orbit of contemporary works, or to
foresee their place with posterity. In certain books and in certain
kinds of genius there inheres a hidden force, a latent virtue, which
does not at once develop. In the case of Flaubert, for example, we
hardly yet see clearly all that he put in his novels, which in reality
he himself did not quite comprehend. For if an artist's contempo-
raries cannot measure him with exactness, neither can he measure
himself. Would it not have amazed Voltaire to learn that he would
live only through 'Candide,' and Diderot that his work would reduce
itself to the Neveu de Rameau,' two pamphlets scribbled in a few
days, the second not even published by its author?
-
I
In seeking to discover why a book or a writer grows greater as the
years pass, instead of dwindling away with the first successes, one
finds that this book and this writer strikingly disclose a moral unity.


## p. 5816 (#404) ###########################################

5816
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nothing that is not typical endures in human memory. The posthu-
mous fame and the influence of Flaubert confirm this great law of
literary history. Few writers have more deeply impressed this moral
unity upon more diverse works. From that youthful day when he
read to his friend Maxime Du Camp his great unpublished novel
'Novembre,' to the eve of his death, when he traced the last lines of
'Bouvard and Pécuchet,' he developed without pause or modification
one changeless system and expressed one changeless conclusion con-
cerning human life. One metaphysical conviction lightens the pages
of his youth and those of his approaching age, as the same sun irradi-
ates morning and evening of the same day with universal light. This
doctrine, born with Flaubert, as I shall try to show, is the old doc-
trine of pessimism, but of a verified, studied-out, hopeless pessimism,
as atomically established as that of Schopenhauer in Germany and of
old Heraclitus in Greece. From the point of view of the novelist, as
from that of the two philosophers, the evil of life does not arise from
circumstances, but is inherent in the very fact of humanity. Whether
barbarian or civilized, whether belonging to the antique world or to
modern society, to an age of faith or to an epoch of skepticism,
whether artist or artisan, simple or complex, the human being lives
to see the failure of his ambition, be it noble or base, narrow or
boundless. The mocking hand of Fate seems to have written a nega-
tive sign before the colossal sum of human efforts, and the total
always shows a loss; the greatness of these efforts augmenting the
greatness of the predetermined ruin. Such is the idea permeating
from end to end all the books composed by this admirable artist, the
thesis he struggled to demonstrate by examples not far-fetched and
abstract, but concrete and living, and of such extraordinary intensity
that the series of six volumes really constitutes the most absolute,
the most uncompromising manual of nihilism ever composed.
To comprehend the doctrine back of the accident and the theory
behind the fact, one must consider the chief characters of these books
successively. By a process quite opposed to that of authors who are
simply misanthropic, Flaubert does not make the final miseries of
his characters result from their faults, but from their qualities. At
the same time he is careful to select ordinary and not exceptional
types, and to surround them with ordinary circumstances.
Thus con-
stituted, they cease to be individual and become representative, and
their symbolic failure becomes the failure of their whole class. Take
as examples Madame Bovary in the novel of that name, and Frédé-
ric Moreau in 'L'Éducation Sentimentale. ' Both are results of the
legitimate and indeed very noble effort which pushes the lower
classes toward culture and refinement. Emma Bovary is the daugh-
ter of a farmer who wished her to become a "lady," and Frédéric is


## p. 5817 (#405) ###########################################

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5817
He
the son of a middle-class father who has resolved that his boy shall
have a "liberal" profession. She has been sent to a convent.
has been put in school. In their class of society this is the accepted
educational process, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Both pupils
respond to the instruction they receive. Ah, well! if the first de-
scends, step by step, the ladder which leads to vice, to crime, to
suicide, it is simply because, played upon by the religious and poeti-
cal emotions of the convent which was so long her home, she has
formed too exquisite, too complex, too sequestered a dream of exist-
ence, and has felt too acutely the meagreness of her environment.
She is perverted by the noblest characteristics of her nature; and in
that experience she resembles the sentimental Frédéric, her brother
in delicacy as in weakness. If the man of society, young, rich, intel-
ligent, spoils his hours one by one, as a child who cannot draw,
uncleanly and foolishly spoils his sheets of fair white paper, he does
so because he has surrendered himself too freely to the charm of the
books and dreams which enchanted his youth, and has longed too
eagerly for higher emotions, for romantic affections, and glorious
adventures.
Again, if the two grotesque protagonists of 'Bouvard et Pécuchet'
make the most imbecile use of their late-coming independence, of
their will and energy, it is because the hearts of these bureau clerks
suddenly released from servitude beat with the noblest zeal for the
Ideal,-in that form, however, "which deceives the least; that is,
science" and do not say that singleness of heart is lacking in these
more than in the others.
Again, it is the romantic novelist who wrote the story of Un
Cœur Simple,' the pathetically foolish adventure of an old maid who
adores with religious fervor a stuffed paroquet. And again, do not
that the decadence of contemporary society is responsible for
these failures. Would it have been better for these men and women
to take root in the soil of a world still new, and to share the heroic
youth of civilization? The sinister brutality, staining red the land-
scapes of Salammbô,' answers the question. Matthô, like Frédéric,
like the daughter of Hamilcar, like the child of Farmer Ronault,
struggles painfully in the heavy nightmare of existence; the gloomy
frenzy of the savage has no more appreciable result than the shrink-
ing trepidation of the civilized man. Nor will it suffice to say that
these civilized folk and these barbarians were alike wanting in that
great supernatural strength, faith. St. Anthony the hermit of the
Thebaid, after years of maceration, cries, like Emma, like Frédéric,
"Of old I was not so wretched! "* The depth of his penitence has
but intensified his power to feel and suffer. A cataleptic, haunted
*The Temptation of St. Anthony. '


## p. 5818 (#406) ###########################################

5818
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
by visions, terrified at night by the howling of the jackal, by the
desert winds, by the shadow of a cross upon the sand, at last he
bows down like a slave before the stupid and inert Thing, shapeless
and multiform Matter. "I would," he sighs, "that I were Matter! ”
Supreme aspiration, containing the drama, at once tragic and farcical,
of our poor humanity! An appeal which recalls Goya's picture of a
skeleton straining to lift up the stone of his tomb to write upon it
the terrible word Nada,-"Nothing! " There is nothing! "Who
knows? " wrote Flaubert himself in one of his letters: "doubtless
death has nothing more to tell than life. "
* Lamennais of himself.
II
For the source and principle of this pessimism, one must search
through the four volumes of correspondence recently published. It is
easy to see that this way of feeling and of judging life is not with
the author of 'Madame Bovary,' as with so many others, an amuse-
ment of dilettantism. It is the deep and personal moral of these
frank letters that the convincing force of a work of art is always
proportionate to its sincerity. If to Flaubert's readers his creations
have this authenticity of authority, it is because they are struck out
of his own life and spirit. I mean that they express what was essen-
tial in his life, and most personal, least incidental, in his spirit.
The whole difference between objective artists, among whom Flau-
bert enrolled himself, and the subjective school, is that the first
exclude all anecdote, all petty individual and local circumstance,
from their written confessions. They can give expression to their
genius only when they reveal the inmost depths of their nature.
From the first, Flaubert's letters show that his heart, as another
great unquiet spirit declared, was "born with a wound. »* To-day
we know that his mental structure was sustained by an organism
prematurely touched at the very centre of life. Epilepsy was de-
stroying Flaubert. The Souvenirs' of Maxime Du Camp contain a
very touching account of the first attack of this fatal nervous mal-
ady. But long before that attack, a hypersensitiveness, strange
alternations of exaltation and repression, of enthusiasm and disgust,
indicated that a secret malady was preying upon this robust fellow.
From his twentieth year he contended with those humiliating fatali-
ties against which human energy, however ambitious, is doomed to
dash itself. Moreover, he was environed by contradictions.
His prose astonishes the reader by the lyric amplitude of his least
sentence. A poet quivers in the prose writer with all the passion, all
the ardor, of a Shakespeare or a Byron. Now, this poet was the son


## p. 5819 (#407) ###########################################

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5819
of a surgeon. His early life, from 1821 when he was born, to 1839
when he came to Paris to study law, was passed in a hospital. His
room overlooked a court where the invalids walked, and an amphi-
theatre where his father's pupils dissected bodies. The dreams of
his childhood and youth moved side by side with horrible impres-
sions of physical decay. He speaks somewhere of his nature as
"drolly bitter. " This sinister humor was doubtless born in that hos-
pital room where by turns he read his favorite authors,— Homer,
Eschylus, Virgil, Dante, Victor Hugo,- and saw the rollicking stu-
dents smoke and jest over the cadavers. The contrast was not less
sharp between his precocious taste for imaginative literature and the
employment his father wished him to undertake. He has drawn in
'Madame Bovary' under the name of Doctor Larivière a slight but
vigorous portrait of this father, whom he deeply admired. But it is
nevertheless true that the rough practitioner, with his grim profes-
sional aspect and his habit of working on living matter, could not
comprehend his second son's vocation for authorship. All the letters
of this period bear traces of this cruel misunderstanding. As a mere
lad, Flaubert lived in a state of constant rebellion against the pater-
nal ideas and discipline. Nor was he more in harmony with the
ideas and discipline of his time. When only fifteen he began to be
fascinated by romanticism and its poets, at the very moment when
public taste was ready to find fault with that school of 1830, which
should rather be called the school of 1820. Finally, as his correspond-
ence clearly shows, this romantic youth, whose ideal was incarnated
in the adorable figure of Madame Arnouse, an only love, never real-
ized, always dreamed,- suffered the precocious disenchantment of a
French school. What strange collisions of alien elements! How fate
delights to entangle us in those irresistible impulses which set us
forever in disharmony with life and with ourselves!
For Gustave Flaubert, played upon by such discordant influences,
life soon became one long suffering. Soon too he perceived that
this suffering was caused by no one mitigable chance, but that it
grew out of the very fact of existence. In the long correspondence
which extends from his precocious childhood to his premature old
age, which shows us his student's cell, his traveler's tent, his Parisian
abode of the famous author, he never varies his complaint. Whether
writing to Le Portevin, his schoolfellow; to Du Camp, the comrade of
his youth; to Louis Bouilhet, the associate of his maturity; to Lou-
ise Colet, the confidante of his critical days of apprenticeship; or to
George Sand, the glorious alter ego of his years of achievement, every-
where and always he proclaims the narrowness of human destiny;
the misery and sadness of existence; his distaste for his contempo-
rary world; his horror of the future; the weariness of enduring; the
•


## p. 5820 (#408) ###########################################

5820
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
woefulness of yielding; the falsehood of desire; and the vanity of
hope.
The persistence of these lamentations is the more striking in that
this pessimist is never disheartened. His fearless agnosticism has
nothing in common with the languid negations of a Werther or an
Obermann. No coward soul utters his accusation. His complaint.
almost from the beginning, is more intellectual than sentimental. All
the sweet poisonous melancholy on which he fed himself may be re-
ferred to the understanding rather than to the moral nature; and
therein appears the characteristic which distinguishes him absolutely
from authors who, like Byron, Châteaubriand, Musset, and Baudelaire,
have expressed under very different forms what has been called the
malady of the age.
In Flaubert, the contemporary of Taine, Renan, Berthelot, Pasteur,
there is a scientific turn of mind. He is like the physiologist who
from the symptoms of his own specific malady reasons to the general
disease, and who finds in his own personality the opportunity to verify
and to register a vaster hypothesis. Here we touch the explanation
of the typical character of the work and the man.
Because of this scientific turn of mind, united to a sensibility both
complex and passionately sad, Gustave Flaubert stands as one of the
newest of the psychological oddities of our age. There is no denying
the fact, however we dislike it, that in this nineteenth century science
has been the all-powerful controller of human activity. Not only has
it modified the material conditions under which this activity works,
but still more has it changed our point of view and altered our men-
tal methods. It has accustomed us to an idea which seems at first
sight simple, yet which involves an immense revolution, the con-
templation of everything as conditional, including even the most
spontaneous creations of the mind. Thus we come to acknowledge,
with Taine and Sainte-Beuve, that fixed laws control the production
of literary work, and that a tragedy, a novel, a poem, are born under
conditions as absolute as those which accompany the blooming of a
flower. Laws govern the production of political systems and religious
hypotheses, laws regulate the decadence and prosperity of races, of
countries, of families,-laws, finally, dominate our own intellect and
our own affections.
-
-
It must not be forgotten, however, that this conception leaves
room for personal responsibility. Our free will is simply set to
choose among these conditions those which will or which will not
produce certain effects. But whether the will choose freely or not,
these conditions always imply the same result. They share, and we
share with them, in that universal and immeasurable order which
science declares to exist. and which, fragment by fragment, detail by


## p. 5821 (#409) ###########################################

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
5821
detail, she aims to discover. Thus considered, our individuality both
diminishes and is increased. It diminishes because we see with too
implacable clearness the limitations of our power, thus hedged about
by laws which are independent of our volition. It increases, because
outside our puny selves we catch glimpses of, we grasp at, those
imperishable laws which were before we were, which will be when
we are not. Beyond our own lives we thus touch and outlive all
life; beyond our own joy, all joy; beyond our own suffering, all suf-
fering. Such amplitudes of feeling do we gain with this new atti-
tude of mind! As it was constant with Flaubert, many men of our
generation have loved in him that profound accent in which they
heard a magnificent echo of the inarticulate speech hidden in their
own hearts.
III
Pessimism, however original and however sincere, yet remains a
disease; and had Flaubert brought only this message of despair he
would not occupy his high place in our respect. Happily he brings
another doctrine, that of heroism, and I had almost said of religion.
Flaubert himself employs this word, when speaking in one of his let-
ters of Alfred de Musset: "He lacked religion," he says; "and reli-
gion is indispensable. " What he meant was that in this life, so
wretched in his eyes and so foredoomed to failure, a man perceives
nobility, finds comfort, only upon condition of devoting all his powers
to something apart from himself and his interests, from his passions
and his person. Perhaps this creed of the most exalted renunciation
following on the completest pessimism is less contradictory than it
appears; for the Christian faith, itself the most luminously hopeful
which has ever appeared upon earth, rests also upon a pessimistic
vision of man and of fate.
-
And if Flaubert were inconsistent in his beliefs, let us applaud the
lack of logic which produced his masterpieces. His personal religion
was that of literature. He loved it with the most unrestrained, the
most untiring love. I do not know in the intellectual order a more
pathetic drama than that which fills his letters to the friend of
his youth, her whom he called his "Muse. " Housed in his small
abode at Croisset near the gates of Rouen, and scarcely going out
except to pace his garden on the bank of the Seine, this man of
thirty undertook to write a book with which he should be,—not satis-
fied, for what author worthy the name is ever satisfied? but which
should come as near perfection as possible. That book is 'Madame
Bovary. ' The very ideal of the literary artist is here evoked before
our inward gaze: the absolute, the irremediable scorn of contempo-
rary success, the contempt for vanity, the complete absence of all
desire for gain, these elementary virtues of the great author are


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5822
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
naturally found there, as well as the scrupulous conscience which no
difficulty discourages, and the invincible patience which no beginning
over again wearies; and especially and everywhere the flame, the
sacred fever of creative intellect. In these pages usually scratched
off at morning after the nightly task was finished - there stirs a
sublime breath which draws tears. One seems to see, one sees, the
genius of one of those immortal works which, like Tartuffe,' like
the 'Pensées,' like the 'Caractères,' will endure as long as the
French language. Never was human brain possessed by more pas-
sionate frenzy for art; and in saying that all Flaubert's great works
were composed in the same way, with this prodigious care in detail,
this implacable search for truth and beauty, this zeal and tenacity, it
is plain why in thirty years of this exhausting work he composed so
few volumes, and these of such virile composition, of such sovereign
mastery of style, that all other modern works seem slight, cowardly,
and incomplete beside them.
-
It is difficult to explain in what Flaubert's style-his great title to
glory-exactly consists. No term is oftener employed, indeed, than
this term "style. " None more easily defies a definition.