No More Learning

These people
bear out the words of Homer:

Th' impartial War-God slayeth him that slew.

Convinced that the prize is great, they elaborate their mutual
stratagems, among which slander is at once the speediest and the most
uncertain; high are the hopes with which this child of envy or hatred
is born; pitiful, gloomy and disastrous the end to which it comes.

Success is by no means the easy simple matter it may be supposed; it
demands much skill and tact, with the most concentrated attention.
Slander would never do the harm it does, if it were not made plausible;
it would never prevail against truth, that strongest of all things, if
it were not dressed up into really attractive bait.

The chief mark for it is the man who is in favour, and therefore
enviable in the eyes of his distanced competitors; they all regard
him as standing in their light, and let fly at him; every one thinks
he will be first if he can only dispose of this conspicuous person and
spoil him of his favour. You may see the same thing among runners at
the games. The good runner, from the moment the barrier falls, simply
makes the best of his way; his thoughts are on the winning-post,
his hopes of victory in his feet; he leaves his neighbour alone and
does not concern himself at all with his competitors. It is the ill
qualified, with no prospect of winning by his speed, who resorts to
foul play; his one pre-occupation is how he may stop, impede, curb
the real runner, because failing that his own victory is out of the
question. The persons we are concerned with race in like manner for the
favour of the great. The one who forges ahead is at once the object of
plots, is taken at a disadvantage by his enemies when his thoughts are
elsewhere, and got rid of, while they get credit for devotion by the
harm they do to others.

The credibility of the slander is by no means left to take care of
itself; it is the chief object of their solicitude; they are extremely
cautious against inconsistencies or contradictions. The usual method is
to seize upon real characteristics of a victim, and only paint these in
darker colours, which allows verisimilitude. A man is a doctor; they
make him out a poisoner; wealth figures as tyranny; the tyrant's ready
tool is a ready traitor too.

Sometimes, however, the hint is taken from the hearer's own nature;
the villains succeed by using a bait that will tempt _him_. They
know he is jealous, and they tell him: 'He beckoned to your wife at
dinner, and sighed as he gazed at her; and Stratonice--well, did not
seem offended. ' Or he writes poetry, and piques himself upon it; then,
'Philoxenus had great sport pulling your poem to pieces--said the metre
was faulty and the composition vile. ' A devout religious person is told
that his friend is an atheist and a blasphemer, rejects belief and
denies Providence. That is quite enough; the venom has entered at the
ear and inflamed the brain; the man does not wait for confirmation, but
abandons his friend.

In a word, they invent and say the kind of thing that they know will
be most irritating to their hearer, and having a full knowledge of his
vulnerable point, concentrate their fire upon it; he is to be too much
flustered by rage to have time for investigation; the very surprise of
what he is told is to be so convincing to him that he will not hear,
even if his friend is willing to plead.

That slander, indeed, is especially effective which is unwelcome;
Demetrius the Platonic was reported to Ptolemy Dionysus for a water
drinker, and for the only man who had declined to put on female attire
at the Dionysia. He was summoned next morning, and had to drink in
public, dress up in gauze, clash and dance to the cymbals, or he would
have been put to death for disapproving the King's life, and setting up
for a critic of his luxurious ways.

At Alexander's court there was no more fatal imputation than that of
refusing worship and adoration to Hephaestion. Alexander had been
so fond of him that to appoint him a God after his death was, for
such a worker of marvels, nothing out of the way. The various cities
at once built temples to him, holy ground was consecrated, altars,
offerings and festivals instituted to this new divinity; if a man
would be believed, he must swear by Hephaestion. For smiling at these
proceedings, or showing the slightest lack of reverence, the penalty
was death. The flatterers cherished, fanned, and put the bellows to
this childish fancy of Alexander's; they had visions and manifestations
of Hephaestion to relate; they invented cures and attributed oracles
to him; they did not stop short of doing sacrifice to this God of Help
and Protection. Alexander was delighted, and ended by believing in it
all; it gratified his vanity to think that he was now not only a God's
son, but a God-maker. It would be interesting to know how many of his
friends in those days found that what the new divinity did for them was
to supply a charge of irreverence on which they might be dismissed and
deprived of the King's favour.

Agathocles of Samos was a valued officer of his, who very narrowly
escaped being thrown into a lion's cage; the offence reported against
him was shedding tears as he passed Hephaestion's tomb. The tale
goes that he was saved by Perdiccas, who swore, by all the Gods and
Hephaestion, that the God had appeared plainly to him as he was
hunting, and charged him to bid Alexander spare Agathocles: his tears
had meant neither scepticism nor mourning, but been merely a tribute to
the friendship that was gone.

Flattery and slander had just then their opportunity in Alexander's
emotional condition. In a siege, the assailants do not attempt a part
of the defences that is high, precipitous, or solid; they direct all
their force at some rotten, low, or neglected point, expecting to get
in and effect the capture most easily so. Similarly the slanderer finds
out where the soul is weak or corrupt or accessible, there makes his
assault, there applies his engines, or effects an entry at a point
where there are no defenders to mark his approach. Once in, he soon has
all in flames; fire and sword and devastation clear out the previous
occupants; how else should it be when a soul is captured and enslaved?

His siege-train includes deceit, falsehood, perjury, insinuation,
effrontery, and a thousand other moral laxities. But the chief of them
all is Flattery, the blood relation, the sister indeed, of Slander. No
heart so high, so fenced with adamant, but Flattery will master it,
with the aid of Slander undermining and sapping its foundations.

That is what goes on outside. But within there are traitorous parties
working to the same end, stretching hands of help to the attack,
opening the gates, and doing their utmost to bring the capture about.
There are those ever-present human frailties, fickleness and satiety;
there is the appetite for the surprising. We all delight, I cannot tell
why, in whisperings and insinuations. I know people whose ears are as
agreeably titillated with slander as their skin with a feather.

Supported by all these allies, the attack prevails; victory is hardly
in doubt for a moment; there is no defence or resistance to the
assault; the hearer surrenders without reluctance, and the slandered
knows nothing of what is going on; as when a town is stormed by night,
he has his throat cut in his sleep.

The most pitiful thing is when, all unconscious of how matters stand,
he comes to his friend with a cheerful countenance, having nothing to
be ashamed of, and talks and behaves as usual, just as if the toils
were not all round him. Then if the other has any nobility or generous
spirit of fair play in him, he gives vent to his anger and pours out
his soul; after which he allows him to answer, and so finds out how he
has been abused.

But if he is mean and ignoble, he receives him with a lip smile,
while he is gnashing his teeth in covert rage, wrathfully brooding in
the soul's dark depth, as the poet describes it. I know nothing so
characteristic of a warped slavish nature as to bite the lip while
you nurse your spite and cultivate your secret hatred, one thing in
your heart and another on your tongue, playing with the gay looks of
comedy a lamentable sinister tragedy. This is especially apt to occur,
when the slander comes from one who is known for an old friend of the
slandered. When that is the case, a man pays no attention to anything
the victim or his apologists may say; that old friendship affords a
sufficient presumption of truth; he forgets that estrangements, unknown
to outsiders, constantly part the greatest friends; and sometimes a man
will try to escape the consequences of his own faults by attributing
similar ones to his neighbour and getting his denunciation in first.
It may be taken, indeed, that no one will venture to slander an enemy;
that is too unconvincing; the motive is so obvious. It is the supposed
friend that is the most promising object, the idea being to give your
hearer absolute proof of your devotion to him by sacrificing your
dearest to his interests.

It must be added that there are persons who, if they subsequently learn
that they have condemned a friend in error, are too much ashamed of
that error to receive or look him in the face again; you might suppose
the discovery of his innocence was a personal injury to them.

It is not, then, too much to say that life is made miserable by these
lightly and incuriously credited slanders. Antea said to Proetus, after
she had solicited and been scorned by Bellerophon:

Die thou the death, if thou slay not the man
That so would have enforc'd my chastity!

By the machinations of this lascivious woman, the young man came near
perishing in his combat with the Chimera, as the penalty for continence
and loyalty to his host. And Phaedra, who made a similar charge against
her stepson, succeeded in bringing down upon Hippolytus a father's
curse, though God knows how innocent he was.

'Ah, yes,' I fancy some one objecting; 'but the traducer sometimes
deserves credit, being known for a just and a wise man; then he ought
to be listened to, as one incapable of villany. ' What? was there ever
a juster man than Aristides? yet he led the opposition to Themistocles
and incited the people against him, pricked by the same political
ambition as he. Aristides was a just man in all other relations; but he
was human, he had a gall, he was open to likes and dislikes.

And if the story of Palamedes is true, the wisest of the Greeks, a
great man in other respects too, stands convicted of hatching that
insidious plot[2]; the ties that bind kinsmen, friends, and comrades in
danger, had to yield to jealousy. To be a man is to be subject to this
temptation.

It is superfluous to refer to Socrates, misrepresented to the Athenians
as an impious plotter, to Themistocles or Miltiades, suspected after
all their victories of betraying Greece; such examples are innumerable,
and most of them familiar.

What, then, should a man of sense do, when he finds one friend's virtue
pitted against another's truth? Why, surely, learn from Homer's parable
of the Sirens; he advises sailing past these ear-charmers; we should
stuff up our ears; we should not open them freely to the prejudiced,
but station there a competent hall-porter in the shape of Judgement,
who shall inspect every vocal visitor, and take it on himself to
admit the worthy, but shut the door in the face of others. How absurd
to have such an official at our house door, and leave our ears and
understandings open to intrusion!

So, when any one comes to you with a tale, examine it on its merits,
regardless of the informant's age, general conduct, or skill in speech.
The more plausible he is, the greater need of care. Never trust
another's judgement--it may be in reality only his dislike--but reserve
the inquiry to yourself; let envy, if such it was, recoil upon the
backbiter, your trial of the two men's characters be an open one, and
your award of contempt and approval deliberate. To award them earlier,
carried away by the first word of slander--why, God bless me, how
puerile and mean and iniquitous it all is!

And the cause of it, as we started with saying, is ignorance, and the
mystery that conceals men's characters. Would some God unveil all lives
to us, Slander would retire discomfited to the bottomless pit; for the
illumination of truth would be over all.

H.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 'Cratinus was the first to limit the number of actors to three. . . .
There were no further innovations, and the number of the actors in
comedy was permanently fixed at three. ' Haigh's _Attic Theatre_.

[2] Odysseus.




THE HALL


As Alexander stood gazing at the transparent loveliness of the Cydnus,
the thought of a plunge into those generous depths, of the delicious
shock of ice-cold waters amid summer heat, was too much for him; and
could he have foreseen the illness that was to result from it, I
believe he would have had his bath just the same. With such an example
before him, can any one whose pursuits are literary miss a chance of
airing his eloquence amid the glories of this spacious hall, wherein
gold sheds all its lustre, whose walls are decked with the flowers of
art, whose light is as the light of the sun? Shall he who might cause
this roof to ring with applause, and contribute his humble share to
the splendours of the place,--shall such a one content himself with
examining and admiring its beauties without a word, and so depart, like
one that is dumb, or silent from envy? No man of taste or artistic
sensibility, none but a dull ignorant boor, would consent thus to
cut himself off from the highest of enjoyments, or could need to be
reminded of the difference between the ordinary spectator and the
educated man. The former, when he has carried his eyes around and
upwards in silent admiration, and clasped ecstatic hands, has done
all that can be expected of him; he ventures not on words, lest they
should prove inadequate to his subject. With the cultured observer,
it is otherwise: he, surely, will not rest content with feasting
his eyes on beauty; he will not stand speechless amid his splendid
surroundings, but will set his mind to work, and as far as in him lies
pay verbal tribute. Nor will his tribute consist in mere praise of the
building. It was well enough, no doubt, for the islander Telemachus to
express his boyish amazement in the palace of Menelaus, and to liken
that prince's gold and ivory to the glories of Heaven;--his limited
experience afforded him no earthly parallel: but here, the very use to
which the hall is put, and the distinguished quality of the audience,
are an essential part of the praise bestowed upon it.

Nothing, surely, could be more delightful than to find this noble
building thrown open for the reception of eloquent praise, its
atmosphere laden with panegyric, its very walls reechoing, cavern-like,
to every syllable, prolonging each cadence, dwelling on each
period;--nay, they are themselves an audience, most appreciative
of audiences, that stores up the speaker's words in memory, and
recompenses his efforts with a meed of most harmonious flattery. Even
so do the rocks resound to the shepherd's flute; the notes come ringing
back again, and simple rustics think it is the voice of some maid, who
dwells among the crags, and from the depths of her rocky haunt makes
answer to their songs and their cries.

I feel as if a certain mental exaltation resulted from this
magnificence: it is suggestive; the imagination is stimulated. It
would scarcely be too much to say that through the medium of the eyes
Beauty is borne in upon the mind, and suffers no thought to find
utterance before it has received her impress. We hold it for true that
Achilles' wrath was whetted against the Phrygians by the sight of his
new armour, and that as he donned it for the first time his lust of
battle was uplifted on wings: and why should not a beautiful building
similarly be a whet to the zeal of the orator? Luxuriant grass, a
fine plane-tree and a clear spring, hard by Ilissus, were inspiration
enough for Socrates: in such a spot he could sit bantering Phaedrus,
refuting Lysias, and invoking the Muses; never doubting--indelicate old
person--but that those virgin Goddesses would grace his retirement with
their presence, and take part in his amorous discourse. But to such a
place as this we may surely hope that they will come uninvited. We can
offer them something better than the shade of a plane-tree, though
for that upon Ilissus' bank we should substitute the golden one of the
Persian King. His tree had one claim to admiration--it was expensive:
but for symmetry and proportion and beautiful workmanship, nothing of
that kind was thrown in; the gold was gold, an uncouth manifestation of
solid wealth, calculated to excite envy in the beholder, and to procure
congratulations for the possessor, but far from creditable to the
artist. The line of the Arsacidae cared nothing for beauty; they did
not appeal to men's taste; not _How may I win approval? _ but _How may
I dazzle? _ was the question they asked themselves. The barbarian has a
keen appreciation of gold: to the treasures of art he is blind.

But I see about me in this Hall beauties that were never designed to
please barbarians, nor to gratify the vulgar ostentation of Persian
monarchs. Poverty is not here the sole requirement of the critic:
taste is also necessary; nor will the eyes deliver judgement without
the assistance of Reason. The eastern aspect, procuring us, as in the
temples of old, that first welcome peep of the sun in his new-born
glory, and suffering his rays to pour in without stint through the
open doors, the adaptation of length to breadth and breadth to height,
the free admission of light at every stage of the Sun's course,--all
is charmingly contrived, and redounds to the credit of the architect.
What admirable judgement has been shown, too, in the structure and
decoration of the roof! nothing wanting, yet nothing superfluous; the
gilding is exactly what was required to achieve elegance without empty
display; it is precisely that little touch of adornment with which a
beautiful and modest woman sets off her loveliness; it is the slender
necklace about her neck, the light ring upon her finger, the earrings,
the brooch, the fillet that imprisons her luxuriant hair, and, like the
purple stripe upon a robe, enhances its beauty. Contrast with this
the artifices of courtesans, and particularly of the most unlovely
among them, whose robes are _all_ of purple, and their necks loaded
with golden chains, who hope to render themselves attractive by their
extravagance, and by external adornments to supply the deficiencies of
Nature; their arms, they think, will look more dazzlingly white if gold
glitters upon them, a clumsy foot pass unobserved if hidden in a golden
sandal, and the face be irresistible that appears beneath a halo of
gold. The modest house, far from resorting to such meretricious charms,
uses as little gold as may be; I think she knows that she would have no
cause to blush, though she should display her beauty stripped of all
adornment.

And so it is with this Hall. The roof--the head, as I may say,--comely
in itself, is not without its golden embellishments: yet they are but
as the stars, whose fires gleam here and there, pranked in the darkness
of the sky. Were that sky all fire, it would be beautiful to us no
longer, only terrible. Observe, too, that the gold is not otiose, not
merely an ornament among ornaments, put there to flatter the eye: it
diffuses soft radiance from end to end of the building, and the walls
are tinged with its warm glow. Striking upon the gilded beams, and
mingling its brightness with theirs, the daylight glances down upon us
with a clearness and a richness not all its own. Such are the glories
overhead, whose praises might best be sung by him who told of Helen's
high-vaulted chamber, and Olympus' dazzling peak.

And for the rest, the frescoed walls, with their exquisite colouring,
so clear, so highly finished, so true to nature, to what can I compare
them but to a flowery meadow in spring? Even so the comparison halts.
Those flowers wither and decay and shed their beauty: but here is one
eternal spring; this meadow fades not, its flowers are everlasting; for
no hand is put forth to pluck away their sweetness, only the eye feeds
thereon. And what eye would not delight to feed on joys so varied?
What orator would not feel that his credit was at stake, and be fired
with ambition to surpass himself, rather than be found wanting to his
theme?

The contemplation of beautiful objects is of all things the most
inspiring, and not to men only. I think even a horse must feel some
increase of pleasure in galloping over smooth, soft fields, that give
an easy footing, and ring back no defiance to his hoofs: it is then
that he goes his best; the beauty of his surroundings puts him on his
mettle; he will not be beaten, if pace counts for anything. And look
at the peacock. Spring has just begun; never are flowers a gladder
sight than now; it is as if they were really brighter, their hues more
fresh, than at other times. Watch the bird, as he struts forth into
some meadow: he spreads his feathers, and displays them to the Sun; up
goes his tail, a towered circle of flowery plumage; for with him too
it is spring, and the meadow challenges him to do his utmost. See how
he turns about, and shows forth his gorgeous beauty. As the sun's rays
strike upon him, the wonder grows: there is a subtle transmutation of
colours, one glory vanishing and giving place to another. The change is
nowhere more apparent than in those rainbow rings at the ends of his
feathers: here a slight movement turns bronze to gold, and (such is
the potency of light) purple becomes green, because sun is exchanged
for shadow. As for the sea, I need not remind you how inviting, how
attractive, is its appearance on a calm day: the veriest landlubber
must long to be upon it, and sail far away from the shore, as he marks
how the light breeze fills the sails and speeds the vessel on its
gentle gliding course over the crests of the waves.

The beauty of this Hall has a similar power over the orator,
encouraging him, stimulating him to fresh effort, enlarging his
ambition. The spell was irresistible: I have yielded to it, and come
hither to address you, as though drawn by wryneck's or by Siren's
charm; nor am I without hope that my words, bald though they be in
themselves, may yet borrow something from that atmosphere of beauty in
which they are here clothed as in a garment.

Scarcely have I pronounced these last words, when a certain Theory (and
a very sound one, too, if we can take its own word for it), which has
been interrupting me all along, and doing its best to break my speech
off, informs me that there is no truth in my statements, and expresses
its surprise at my assertion that gilding and mural decoration are
favourable to the display of rhetorical skill. The very contrary,
it maintains, is the case. On second thoughts, it may as well come
forward and plead its own cause; you, gentlemen, will kindly serve as
jury, and hear what it has to say in favour of the cheap and nasty in
architecture, considered as rhetorical conditions. My own sentiments
on this subject you have already heard, nor is there any occasion for
me to repeat them. The Theory is therefore at liberty to speak; I will
withdraw for a while, and hold my tongue.

'Gentlemen of the jury,' it begins, 'a splendid tribute has been paid
to this Hall by the last speaker; and I for my part am so far from
having any fault to find with the building, that I propose to supply
the deficiencies of his encomium; for by magnifying its glories, I am
so much the nearer to proving my point, which is, its unsuitableness
to the purposes of the orator. And first I shall ask your permission
to avail myself of his simile of feminine adornments. In my opinion,
it is not enough to say that lavish ornament adds nothing to feminine
beauty: it actually takes away from it. Dazzled by gold and costly
gems, how should the beholder do justice to the charms of a clear
complexion, to neck, and eye, and arm, and finger? Sards and emeralds,
bracelets and necklaces, claim all his attention, and the lady has the
mortification of finding herself eclipsed by her own jewels, whose
engrossed admirers can spare no words, and barely a casual glance for
herself. The same fate, it seems to me, awaits the orator who exhibits
his skill amid these wondrous works of art: his praises are obscured,
quite swallowed up, in the splendour of the things he praises. It is as
if a man should bring a wax light to feed a mighty conflagration, or
set up an ant for exhibition on a camel's or an elephant's back. That
is one pitfall for the orator. And there is another: the distracting
influence of that resonant music that echoes through the Hall, making
voluminous answer to his words, nay, drowning them in the utterance;
surely as trumpet quells flute, or the sea-roar the boatswain's pipe,
if he presume to contend with the crash of waves, so surely shall the
orator's puny voice be overmastered by this mighty music, and seem like
silence.

'Then again, my opponent spoke of the stimulating, the encouraging
effect produced on the speaker by architectural beauty. I should
have said that the effect was rather dispiriting than otherwise: the
speaker's thoughts are scattered, and his confidence shaken, as he
reflects on the disgrace that must attach to mean words uttered beneath
a noble roof. There could be no more crushing ignominy; he is precisely
in the position of a warrior in brilliant armour who sets the example
of flight, and whose cowardice is only emphasized by his splendid
equipment. To this principle I should refer the conduct of Homer's
model orator, who, so far from attaching any importance to externals,
affected the bearing of a man that was altogether witless; his design
was to bring his eloquence into stronger relief by the studied
ungracefulness of his attitude.

'The orator's mind, too, is so engrossed with what he sees, that it is
absolutely impossible for him to preserve the thread of his discourse;
he cannot think of what he is saying, so imperatively do the sights
around him claim his attention. It is not to be expected that he will
do himself justice: he is too full of his subject. And I might add that
his supposed hearers, when they come into such a building as this, are
no longer hearers of _his_ eloquence, but spectators of _its_ beauties;
he must be a Thamyris, an Amphion, an Orpheus among orators who could
gain their attention in such circumstances. Once let a man cross this
threshold, and a blaze of beauty envelops his senses; he is all eyes,
and to the orator is "as one that marketh not";--unless, indeed, he be
altogether blind, or take a hint from the court of Areopagus, and give
audience in the dark. Compare the story of the Sirens with that of the
Gorgons, if you would know how insignificant is the power of words in
comparison with that of visible objects. The enchantments of the former
were at the best a matter of time; they did but flatter the ear with
pleasing songs; if the mariner landed, he remained long on their hands,
and it has even happened to them to be disregarded altogether. But the
beauty of the Gorgons, irresistible in might, won its way to the inmost
soul, and wrought amazement and dumbness in the beholder; admiration
(so the legend goes) turned him to stone. All that my opponent has just
said about the peacock illustrates my point: that bird charms not the
ear, but the eye. Take a swan, take a nightingale, and set her singing:
now put a silent peacock at her side, and I will tell you which bird
has the attention of the company. The songstress may go hang now; so
invincible a thing is the pleasure of the eyes. Shall I call evidence?
A sage, then, shall be my witness, how far mightier are the things of
the eye than those of the ear. Usher, call me Herodotus, son of Lyxes,
of Halicarnassus. --Ah, since he has been so obliging as to hear the
summons, let him step into the box. You will excuse the Ionic dialect;
it is his way. '

_Gentlemen of the jury, the Theory hath spoken sooth. Give good heed
to that he saith, how sight is a better thing than hearing; for a man
shall sooner trust his eyes than his ears. _

'You hear him, gentlemen? He gives the preference to sight, and
rightly. For words have wings; they are no sooner out of the mouth than
they take flight and are lost: but the delight of the eyes is ever
present, ever draws the beholder to itself. Judge, then, the difficulty
the orator must experience in contending with such a rival as this
Hall, whose beauty attracts every eye.

'But my weightiest argument I have kept till now: you, gentlemen,
throughout the hearing of this case, have been gazing with admiration
on roof and wall, scanning each picture in its turn. I do not reproach
you: you have done what every man must do, when he beholds workmanship
so exquisite, subjects so varied. Here are works whose perfect
technique, applied as it is to the illustration of all that is useful
in history and mythology, holds out an irresistible challenge to the
judgement of the connoisseur. Now I would not have your eyes altogether
glued to those walls; I would fain have some share of your attention:
let me try, therefore, to give you word-pictures of these originals; I
think it may not be uninteresting to you to hear a description of those
very objects which your eyes view with such admiration. And you will
perhaps count it a point in my favour, that I, and not my antagonist,
have hit upon this means of doubling your pleasure. It is a hazardous
enterprise, I need not say,--without materials or models to put
together picture upon picture; this word-painting is but sketchy work.

'On our right as we enter, we have a story half Argive, half Ethiopian.
Perseus slays the sea-monster, and sets Andromeda free; it will not
be long ere he leads her away as his bride; an episode, this, in his
Gorgon expedition. The artist has given us much in a small space:
maiden modesty, girlish terror, are here portrayed in the countenance
of Andromeda, who from her high rock gazes down upon the strife, and
marks the devoted courage of her lover, the grim aspect of his bestial
antagonist. As that bristling horror approaches, with awful gaping
jaws, Perseus in his left hand displays the Gorgon's head, while his
right grasps the drawn sword. All of the monster that falls beneath
Medusa's eyes is stone already; and all of him that yet lives the
scimetar hews to pieces.

'In the next picture, a tale of retributive justice is dramatically
set forth. The painter seems to have taken his hint from Euripides or
Sophocles; each of them has portrayed this incident. The two young men
are friends: Pylades of Phocis, and Orestes, who is thought to be dead.
They have stolen into the palace unobserved, and together they slay
Aegisthus. Clytemnestra has already been dispatched: her body lies,
half-naked, upon a bed; all the household stand aghast at the deed;
some cry out, others look about for means of escape. A fine thought
of the painter's: the matricide is but slightly indicated, as a thing
achieved: with the slaying of the paramour, it is otherwise; there is
something deliberate in the manner in which the lads go about their
work.

'Next comes a more tender scene. We behold a comely God, and a
beautiful boy. The boy is Branchus: sitting on a rock, he holds out
a hare to tease his dog, who is shown in the act of jumping for it.
Apollo looks on, well pleased: half of his smile is for the dog's
eagerness, and half for the mischievous boy.

'Once more Perseus; an earlier adventure, this time. He is cutting off
Medusa's head, while Athene screens him from her sight. Although the
blow is struck, he has never seen his handiwork, only the reflection of
the head upon the shield; he knows the price of a single glance at the
reality.

'High upon the middle wall, facing the door, a shrine of Athene is
modelled. The statue of the Goddess is in white marble. She is not
shown in martial guise; it is the Goddess of War in time of peace.

'We have seen Athene in marble: next we see her in painting. She flies
from the pursuit of amorous Hephaestus; it was to this moment that
Erichthonius owed his origin.

'The next picture deals with the ancient story of Orion.
He is blind,
and on his shoulder carries Cedalion, who directs the sightless eyes
towards the East. The rising Sun heals his infirmity; and there stands
Hephaestus on Lemnos, watching the cure.

'Then we have Odysseus, seeking by feigned madness to avoid joining the
expedition of the Atridae, whose messengers have already appeared to
summon him. Nothing could be more convincing than his plough-chariot,
his ill-assorted team, and his apparent unconsciousness of all that
is going forward. But his paternal feeling betrays him. Palamedes,
penetrating his secret, seizes upon Telemachus, and threatens him
with drawn sword. If the other can act madness, _he_ can act anger.
The father in Odysseus is revealed: he is frightened into sanity, and
throws aside the mask.

'Last of all is Medea, burning with jealousy, glaring askance upon her
children, and thinking dreadful thoughts. See, the sword even now is in
her hand: and there sit the victims, smiling; they see the sword, yet
have no thought of what is to come.

'Need I say, gentlemen, how the sight of all these pictures draws away
the attention of the audience upon them, and leaves the orator without
a single hearer? If I have described them at length, it was not in
order to impress you with the headstrong audacity of my opponent, in
voluntarily thrusting himself upon an audience so ill-disposed. I seek
not to call down your condemnation nor your resentment upon him, nor
do I ask you to refuse him a hearing: rather I would have you assist
his endeavours, listen to him, if you can, with closed eyes, and
remember the difficulty of his undertaking; when you, his judges, have
become his fellow workers, he will still have much ado to escape the
imputation of bringing discredit upon this magnificent Hall. And if it
seem strange to you that I should plead thus on my antagonist's behalf,
you must attribute it to my fondness for this same Hall, which makes me
anxious that every man who speaks in it should come off creditably, be
he who he may. '

F.




PATRIOTISM


It is a truism with no pretensions to novelty that there is nothing
sweeter than one's country. Does that imply that, though there is
nothing pleasanter, there may be something grander or more divine? Why,
of all that men reckon grand and divine their country is the source and
teacher, originating, developing, inculcating. For great and brilliant
and splendidly equipped cities many men have admiration, but for their
own all men have love. No man--not the most enthusiastic sightseer that
ever was--is so dazzled by foreign wonders as to forget his own land.

He who boasts that he is a citizen of no mean city misses, it seems to
me, the true patriotism; he suggests that it would be a mortification
to him to belong to a State less distinguished. It is country in the
abstract that I delight rather to honour. It is well enough when you
are comparing States to investigate the questions of size or beauty
or markets; but when it is a matter of choosing a country, no one
would exchange his own for one more glorious; he may wish that his own
resembled those more highly blest, but he will choose it, defects and
all.

It is the same with loyal sons, or good fathers. A young man who has
the right stuff in him will honour no man above his father; nor will
a father set his affections on some other young man to the neglect
of his son. On the contrary, fathers are so convinced of their
children's being better than they really are, that they reckon them the
handsomest, the tallest, the most accomplished of their generation. Any
one who does not judge his offspring thus I cannot allow to have the
father's eye.

The fatherland! it is the first and the nearest of all names. It is
true there is nothing nearer than a father; but a man who duly honours
his father, according to the dictates of law and nature, will yet be
right to honour his fatherland in still higher degree; for that father
himself belongs to the fatherland; so does his father's father, and all
his house back and back, till the line ends with the Gods our fathers.

The Gods too love the lands of their nativity; though they may be
supposed to concern themselves with human affairs in general, claiming
the whole of earth and sea as theirs, yet each of them honours
above all other lands the one that gave him birth. That State is
more majestic which a God calls his country, that isle has an added
sanctity in which poesy affirms that one was born. Those are acceptable
offerings, which a man has come to their respective homes to make. And
if Gods are patriotic, shall not men be more so?

For it was from his own country that every man looked his first upon
the Sun; that God, though he be common to all men, yet each reckons
among his country Gods, because in that country he was revealed to
him. There speech came to him, the speech that belonged to that soil,
and there he got knowledge of the Gods. If his country be such that to
attain true culture he must seek another, yet even for that culture let
him thank his country; the word State he could never have known, had
not his country shown him that States existed.

And surely men gather culture and learning, that they may thereby
render themselves more serviceable to their country; they amass wealth
that they may outdo their neighbours in devoting it to their country's
good. And 'tis no more than reason; it is not for those who have
received the greatest of all benefits to prove thankless; if we are
grateful, as we doubtless should be, to the individual benefactor, much
more ought we to give our country her due; against neglect of parents
the various States have laws; we should account our country the common
mother of us all, and recompense her who bred us, and taught us that
there were laws.

The man was never known who so forgot his country as to be indifferent
to it when established in another State. All who fare ill abroad are
perpetually thinking how country is the best of all good things; and
those who fare well, whatever their general prosperity, are ever
conscious of the one thing lacking: they do not live at home, but
are exiles; and exile is a reproach. Those again whose sojourn has
brought them distinction by way of garnered wealth or honourable fame,
acknowledged culture or approved courage, all of them, you will find,
yearn for their native land, where are the spectators of their triumphs
that they would most desire. A man's longing for home is indeed in
direct proportion to his credit abroad.

Even the young have the patriotic sentiment; but in the old it is as
much more keen as their sense is greater. Every old man directs his
efforts and his prayers to ending his life in his own land; where he
began to live, there would he lay his bones, in the soil that formed
him, and join his fathers in the grave. It is a dread fate to be
condemned to exile even in death, and lie in alien earth.

But if you would know the true man's feeling for his country, it is in
the born citizen that you must study it. The merely naturalized are
a sort of bastards ever ready for another change; they know not nor
love the name of country, but think they may find what they need in one
place as well as another; their standard of happiness is the pleasures
of the belly. Those whose country is their true mother love the land
whereon they were born and bred, though it be narrow and rough and poor
of soil. If they cannot vaunt the goodness of the land, they are still
at no loss for praises of their country; if they see others making much
of bounteous plains and meadows variegated with all plants that grow,
they too can call up their country's praise; another may breed good
horses; what matter? theirs breeds good men.

A man is fain to be at home, though the home be but an islet; though he
might have fortune among strangers, he will not take immortality there;
to be buried in his own land is better. Brighter to him the smoke of
home than the fire of other lands.

In such honour everywhere is the name of country that you will find
legislators all the world over punishing the worst offences with exile,
as the heaviest penalty at their command. And it is just the same with
generals on service. When the men are taking their places for battle,
no such encouragement as to tell them they are fighting for their
country. No one will disgrace himself after that if he can help it; the
name of country turns even a coward into a brave man.

H.




DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE


The southern parts of Libya are all deep sand and parched soil, a
desert of wide extent that produces nothing, one vast plain destitute
of grass, herb, vegetation, and water; or if a remnant of the scanty
rain stands here and there in a hollow place, it is turbid and
evil-smelling, undrinkable even in the extremity of thirst. The land
is consequently uninhabited; savage, dried up, barren, droughty, how
should it support life? The mere temperature, an atmosphere that is
rather fire than air, and a haze of burning sand, make the district
quite inaccessible.

On its borders dwell the Garamantians, a lightly clad, agile tribe of
tent-dwellers subsisting mainly by the chase. These are the only people
who occasionally penetrate the desert, in pursuit of game. They wait
till rain falls, about the winter solstice, mitigating the excessive
heat, moistening the sand, and making it just passable. Their quarry
consists chiefly of wild asses, the giant ostrich that runs instead of
flying, and monkeys, to which the elephant is sometimes added; these
are the only creatures sufficiently proof against thirst and capable of
bearing that incessant fiery sunshine. But the Garamantians, as soon
as they have consumed the provisions they brought with them, instantly
hurry back, in fear of the sand's recovering its heat and becoming
difficult or impassable, in which case they would be trapped, and lose
their lives as well as their game. For if the sun draws up the vapour,
dries the ground rapidly, and has an access of heat, throwing into its
rays the fresh vigour derived from that moisture which is its aliment,
there is then no escape.

But all that I have yet mentioned, heat, thirst, desolation,
barrenness, you will count less formidable than what I now come to,
a sufficient reason in itself for avoiding that land. It is beset by
all sorts of reptiles, of huge size, in enormous numbers, hideous and
venomous beyond belief or cure. Some of them have burrows in the sand,
others live on the surface--toads, asps, vipers, horned snakes and
stinging beetles, lance-snakes, reversible snakes[3], dragons, and two
kinds of scorpion, one of great size and many joints that runs on the
ground, the other aerial, with gauzy wings like those of the locust,
grasshopper, or bat. With the multitude of flying things like these,
that part of Libya has no attraction for the traveller.

But the direst of all the reptiles bred in the sand is the dipsas or
thirst-snake; it is of no great size, and resembles the viper; its bite
is sharp, and the venom acts at once, inducing agonies to which there
is no relief. The flesh is burnt up and mortified, the victims feel as
if on fire, and yell like men at the stake. But the most overpowering
of their torments is that indicated by the creature's name. They have
an intolerable thirst; and the remarkable thing is, the more they
drink, the more they want to drink, the appetite growing with what it
feeds on. You will never quench their thirst, though you give them all
the water in Nile or Danube; water will be fuel, as much as if you
tried to put out a fire with oil.

Doctors explain this by saying that the venom is originally thick, and
gains in activity when diluted with the drink, becoming naturally more
fluid and circulating more widely.

I have not seen a man in this condition, and I pray Heaven I never may
behold such human sufferings; I am happy to say I have not set foot
upon Libyan soil. But I have had an epitaph repeated to me, which a
friend assured me he had read on the grave of a victim. My friend,
going from Libya to Egypt, had taken the only practicable land route by
the Great Syrtis. He there found a tomb on the beach at the sea's very
edge, with a pillar setting forth the manner of death. On it a man was
carved in the attitude familiar in pictures of Tantalus, standing by a
lake's side scooping up water to drink; the dipsas was wound about his
foot, in which its fangs were fastened, while a number of women with
jars were pouring water over him. Hard by were lying eggs like those
of the ostrich hunted, as I mentioned, by the Garamantians. And then
there was the epitaph, which it may be worth while to give you:

See the envenom'd cravings Tantalus
Could find no thirst-assuaging charm to still,
The cask that daughter-brood of Danaus,
For ever filling, might not ever fill.

There are four more lines about the eggs, and how he was bitten while
taking them; but I forget how they go.

The neighbouring tribes, however, do collect and value these eggs, and
not only for food; they use the empty shells for vessels and make cups
of them; for, as there is nothing but sand for material, they have no
pottery. A particularly large egg is a find; bisected, it furnishes two
hats big enough for the human head.

Accordingly the dipsas conceals himself near the eggs, and when a man
comes, crawls out and bites the unfortunate, who then goes through the
experiences just described, drinking and increasing his thirst and
getting no relief.

Now, gentlemen, I have not told you all this to show you I could do as
well as the poet Nicander, nor yet by way of proof that I have taken
some trouble with the natural history of Libyan reptiles; that would
be more in the doctor's line, who must know about such things with a
view to treatment. No, it is only that I am conscious (and now pray do
not be offended by my going to the reptiles for my illustration)--I
am conscious of the same feelings towards you as a dipsas victim has
towards drink; the more I have of your company, the more of it I want;
my thirst for it rages uncontrollably; I shall never have enough
of this drink. And no wonder; where else could one find such clear
sparkling water? You must pardon me, then, if, bitten to the soul (most
agreeably and wholesomely bitten), I put my head under the fountain and
gulp the liquor down. My only prayer is that the stream that flows from
you may never fail; never may your willingness to listen run dry and
leave me thirstily gaping! On my side there is no reason why drinking
should not go on for ever; the wise Plato says that you cannot have too
much of a good thing.

H.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The amphisbaena, supposed to have a head at each end and move
either way.




A WORD WITH HESIOD


_Lycinus. Hesiod_

_Ly. _ As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that,
any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses,
together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the
noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there
is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity.
You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you
by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been,
and tell of that which is to come. Well, now, one half of your duties
you have admirably performed. You have traced back the genealogy of
the Gods to Chaos and Ge and Uranus and Eros; you have specified the
feminine virtues; and you have given advice to the farmer, adding
complete information with reference to the Pleiads, the seasons
suitable for ploughing, reaping, and sailing,--and I know not what
besides. But that far diviner gift, which would have been of so much
more practical utility to your readers, you do not exercise at all: the
soothsaying department is entirely overlooked. We find no parallel in
your poems to those prophetic utterances which Calchas, and Telemus,
and Polyidus, and Phineus--persons less favoured by the Muses than
yourself--were wont to dispense freely to all applicants. Now in
these circumstances, you must plead guilty to one of three charges.
Either the alleged promise of the Muses to disclose the future to you
_was_ never given, and you are--excuse the expression--a liar: or it
was given, and fulfilled, but you, niggard, have quietly pocketed
the information, and refuse to impart it to them that have need: or,
thirdly, you _have_ composed a number of prophetic works, but have not
yet given them to the world; they are reserved for some more suitable
occasion. I do not presume to suggest, as a fourth possibility, that
the Muses have only fulfilled half of their promise, and revoked
the other,--which, observe, is recorded first in your poem. Now, if
_you_ will not enlighten me on this subject, who can? As the Gods are
'givers of good,' so you, their friends and pupils, should impart your
knowledge frankly, and set our doubts at rest.

_Hes. _ My poor friend, there is one very simple answer to all your
questions: I might tell you that not one of my poems is my own work;
all is the Muses', and to them I might refer you for all that has
been said and left unsaid. For what came of my own knowledge, of
pasturage, of milking, of driving afield, and all that belongs to
the herdsman's art, I may fairly be held responsible: but for the
Goddesses,--they give whatso they will to whom they will. --Apart from
this, however, I have the usual poet's apology. The poet, I conceive,
is not to be called to account in this minute fashion, syllable by
syllable. If in the fervour of composition a word slip in unawares,
search not too narrowly; remember that with us metre and euphony have
much to answer for; and then there are certain amplifications--certain
elegances--that insinuate themselves into a verse, one scarce knows
how. Sir, you would rob us of our highest prerogative, our freedom,
our unfettered movement. Blind to the flowers of poetry, you are
intent upon its thorns, upon those little flaws that give a handle to
malicious criticism. But there! you are not the only offender, nor I
the only victim: in the trivial defects of Homer, my fellow craftsman,
many a carping spirit has found material for similar hair-splitting
disquisitions. --Come, now, I will meet my accuser on fair ground,
face to face. Read, fellow, in my _Works and Days_: mark the inspired
prophecies there set forth: the doom foretold to the negligent, the
success promised to him that labours aright and in due season.

One basket shall suffice to store thy grain,
And men shall not regard thee.

Could there be a more timely warning, balanced as it is by the
prospect of abundance held out to him that follows the true method of
agriculture?

_Ly. _ Admirable; and spoken like a true herdsman. There is no doubting
the divine afflatus after that: left to yourself, you cannot so much
as defend your own poems. At the same time, this is not quite the
sort of thing we expect of Hesiod and the Muses combined. You see, in
this particular branch of prophecy, you are quite outclassed by the
farmers: they are perfectly qualified to inform us that if the rain
comes there will be a heavy crop, and that a drought, on the other
hand, will inevitably be followed by scarcity; that midsummer is not a
good time to begin ploughing if you wish your seed to do anything, and
that you will find no grain in the ear if you reap it when it is green.
Nor do we want a prophet to tell us that the sower must be followed
by a labourer armed with a spade, to cover up the seed; otherwise,
the birds will come and consume his prospective harvest. Call these
useful suggestions, if you like: but they are very far from my idea of
prophecy. I expect a prophet to penetrate into secrets wholly hidden
from our eyes: the prophet informs Minos that he will find his son
drowned in a jar of honey; he explains to the Achaeans the cause of
Apollo's resentment; he specifies the precise year in which Troy will
be captured. That _is_ prophecy. But if the term is to be so extended,
then I shall be glad to have my own claims recognized without loss
of time. I undertake, without the assistance of Castalian waters,
laurel-branches, or Delphian tripods, to foretell and prognosticate:
_That if a man walk out on a cold morning with nothing on, he will
take a severe chill; and particularly if it happens to be raining or
hailing at the time_. And I further prophesy: _That his chill will be
accompanied by the usual fever_; together with other circumstances
which it would be superfluous to mention.

No, Hesiod: your defence will not do; nor will your prophecies. But I
dare say there is something in what you said at first--that you knew
not what you wrote, by reason of the divine afflatus versifying within
you. And that afflatus was no such great matter, either: afflatuses
should not promise more than they mean to perform.

F.




THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES


_Lycinus. Timolaus. Samippus. Adimantus_

_Ly. _ Said I not well? More easily shall a corpse lie mouldering in
the sun, and the vulture mark it not, than any strange sight escape
Timolaus, no matter though he must run all the way to Corinth at a
stretch for it. --Indefatigable sightseer!

_Ti. _ Well, Lycinus, what do you expect? One has nothing to do, and
just then one hears that a great monster of an Egyptian corn-ship has
put in to Piraeus. What is more, I believe you and Samippus came down
on precisely the same errand.

_Ly. _ So we did, so we did, and Adimantus with us; only he has got lost
somewhere in the crowd of spectators. We came all together to the ship;
and going on board you were in front, Samippus, if I remember, and
Adimantus next, and I was behind, hanging on to him for dear life; he
gave me a hand all up the gangway, because I had never taken my shoes
off, and he had; but I saw no more of him after that, either on board
or when we came ashore.

_Sa. _ You see when it was we lost him, Lycinus? It must have been
when that nice-looking boy came up from the hold, you know, with the
beautiful clean linen, and his hair parted in the middle and done up in
a knot behind. If I know anything of Adimantus, he no sooner saw that
charming sight, than he said good-bye to the Egyptian ship-wright who
was showing us round; and now stands urging his tearful suit. You know
his way; tears come natural to him in these affairs of the heart.

_Ly. _ Well, but, Samippus, this boy was nothing great, that he should
make such a conquest; Adimantus has the beauties of Athens at his
beck; nice gentlemanly boys, with good Greek on their tongues, and
the mark of the gymnasium on every muscle; a man may languish under
_their_ rigours with some credit. As for this fellow, to say nothing
of his dark skin, and protruding lips, and spindle shanks, his words
came tumbling out in a heap, one on the top of another; it was Greek,
of course, but the voice, the accent were Egyptian born. And then his
hair: no freeman ever had his hair tied up in a knot behind like that.

_Ti. _ Oh, but that is a sign of noble birth in Egypt, Lycinus. All
gentlemen's sons wear their hair done up till they reach manhood. It
was the other way with our ancestors: the topknot, and the golden
grasshopper to keep it together, were the proper thing for old men in
their time.

_Sa. _ Very much to the point, Timolaus; you allude to the remarks in
Thucydides's preface, about our old luxurious habits, as preserved in
the Asiatic colonies.

_Ly. _ Of course! I remember now where it was we lost Adimantus. It was
when we were standing all that time looking up at the mast, counting
the layers of hides, and watching that marvellous fellow going up the
shrouds, and running along the yards, perfectly comfortable, with just
a hand on the yard-tackling.

_Sa. _ So it was. Well, now what are we to do? Shall we wait for him
here, or do you think I had better go back on board?

_Ti. _ No, no, let us walk on; he has probably gone tearing off home,
not being able to find us. Anyhow, he knows the way; he will never get
lost for want of us to take care of him.

_Ly. _ It is rather a shame, perhaps, to go off and leave one's friend
to shift for himself. However, I agree, if Samippus does.

_Sa. _ Certainly I do. We may find the gymnasium open still. --I say,
though, what a size that ship was! 180 feet long, the man said, and
something over a quarter of that in width; and from deck to keel, the
maximum depth, through the hold, 44 feet. And then the height of the
mast, with its huge yard; and what a forestay it takes to hold it! And
the lofty stern with its gradual curve, and its gilded beak, balanced
at the other end by the long rising sweep of the prow, and the figures
of her name-goddess, Isis, on either side. As to the other ornamental
details, the paintings and the scarlet topsail, I was more struck by
the anchors, and the capstans and windlasses, and the stern cabins. The
crew was like a small army. And they were saying she carried as much
corn as would feed every soul in Attica for a year. And all depends for
its safety on one little old atomy of a man, who controls that great
rudder with a mere broomstick of a tiller! He was pointed out to me;
Heron was his name, I think; a woolly-pated fellow, half-bald.

_Ti. _ He is a wonderful hand at it, so the crew say; a very Proteus in
sea-cunning. Did they tell you how he brought them here, and all their
adventures? how they were saved by a star?

_Ly. _ No; you can tell us about that now.